The Orphan Alliance (The Black Ships Book 3) (15 page)

“He was a good leader,” Harry intoned with mock solemnity.
“Tough but fair, though lacking a bit with the personal hygiene…”

Lothbrok roared with laughter. “I’ll have you know I bathed
just before leaving Midgaard… How many years ago was that?”

“Too many for my nose, my friend.” Harry grinned. “Good
hunting.” The screen went blank and he turned to Shelby. “Captain, lay us
alongside the
Salamis.”

It was time to take up command of the Oaxes Squadron.

Finally, the Alliance was making concrete progress.

Xo’Khov, Dactar

Y
our
projections are active.

Tommy opened his eyes. It was hard to believe that his real
body was still on the ship, somewhere inside the local sun’s corona. It was
child’s play for Keeva to hide the
Dark Defiance
from sensors but she
could still be
seen
by any low tech eyeball that might happen to glance
her way. Hiding in the corona of the local sun was the simplest way of
concealing the ship.

“I expected to feel a lot shorter,” Kale said with mild
surprise. They were standing on a sidewalk near the center of Xo’Khov, the
Dactari capital. Needless to say, they were all speaking in Dheema.

“Makes sense, though,” Tommy jumped in before Gelna could
form an angry retort. “She’s projecting us in Dactari bodies, but the entire
city was built for citizens of Dactari stature, so everything seems to be the
right size to us.”

It had been decided that appearing in their Human forms in
the middle of a Dactari city would be disruptive in the extreme. Keeva had used
Gelna as a template, layering on the personal characteristics of each
individual after the fact. Kale even had the slight angle to his nose from a
childhood softball accident.

“You look better as a Dactari,” Tommy said with a grin.

“Hah!” Gelna turned to look at Kale. “He does look better
but he’s still ugly as hells.”

“So this is the world that tried to subdue Earth,” Kale
mused, studiously ignoring his friends. “Why no streets?” There was no
pavement, only broad swathes of pale green grass running between the buildings,
with sidewalks on each side.

“There hasn’t been wheeled transportation on Dactar for
thousands of years,” the only real Dactari replied. “Even ground transport
never touches the surface, so why bother with paving?”

“I like these sidewalks.” Tommy was lifting and lowering his
feet on the light grey surface. “It has some give to it.”

“Ergonomics is taken very seriously here.” Gelna’s pride in
his capital was obvious. “The walking surfaces simulate natural turf. I used to
walk a beat near here, before I was drafted and turned into a doctor.”

“Why didn’t they just make you a military policeman?” Tommy
asked, looking over at Kale’s sudden laugh.

“You’re not really expecting their military to make any more
sense than ours, are you?” Kale shook his head. “I graduated top of my class at
culinary college and what happened when I joined the army?” He raised one
eyebrow, waiting in a rhetorical pause. “Infantry.”

“It really is a universal military truth,” Gelna agreed as
he took in his surroundings. “Learn a new skill, whether it makes sense or
not.” He pointed. “I’m pretty sure there were news readers just around that
corner.”

They rounded the corner and, sure enough, a ring of
transparent screens circled the intersection. They walked into the middle and
gazed at the various feeds.

“Let’s try this one,” Gelna suggested. “It runs a continuous
cycle of the top stories, so it should be a good place to find out if anything
is left of your forces.” He didn’t mention it very often, but he clearly
believed the Alliance was doomed. With Earth in ruins, he fully expected the
fleet to fall apart.

They walked into the green square before the screen and
Tommy suddenly started to hear the announcer’s voice.

“Fighting still rages on the outskirts of Moscow as one of
the last vestiges of Human resistance makes a desperate stand.” The announcer
was speaking over a video of Dactari troops amidst a pile of wreckage, each
soldier firing on an unseen enemy.

“I’m hearing it too,” Kale said in response to the quizzical
look from Tommy.

“We must have finally landed troops on Earth.” Gelna didn’t
sound the least bit surprised. If anything, he sounded as though he had been
waiting to hear news of this sort, and now felt as though his faith had been
rewarded. “Your fleet must have disintegrated after hearing of the plague, or
it may have been infected itself.”

“Resistance is expected to fade in the coming year,” the
announcer continued, “much to the relief of Human forces who have maintained
their loyalty to the Republic through so many years of civil unrest.” The video
changed to show a line of Dactari in front of a counter where military
personnel were seated. “Remember, there is still a chance to serve the
Republic, but you have to act quickly. Those Humans won’t keep fighting
forever. Access the code now to find a recruiting center near you.”

“Oh, now that’s funny,” Kale grinned at Tommy. “They really
had me worried for a few minutes there – right up until they started talking
about
loyal Human forces
.”

Gelna was looking at them with an uncertain twitch to his
tail.

“Don’t you see?” Tommy paused.
He really doesn’t.
“This
is just propaganda. There’re no Dactari troops on Earth.” He looked back at
Kale, who was watching their Dactari companion intently.

“They covered up the whole thing,” Kale managed to keep any
amusement out of his voice. “I’d bet you anything that nobody here knows that
you and your boys were defeated at Mars.”

“Or that your second attempt was defeated as well,” Tommy
added.

“Probably explained the second attempt as reinforcements for
the occupation,” Kale jumped back in. “That way, they would be able to explain
combat losses. They conquered most of the planet, but there’s still some
fighting going on…”

“Our leaders wouldn’t lie about that,” Gelna flared, “and
our media wouldn’t broadcast lies either.”

“Think about it,” Kale countered, “your people believe they
have a divine right to rule the rest of us. You still think it’s just dumb luck
that we beat you – twice.”

If Gelna’s eyes were weapons, Kale would have been bleeding
to death on the ground.

“What would happen to your rulers if they admitted the truth?”
Tommy asked. “What would happen to the triumvirs who destroyed the myth of
Dactari invincibility? What would happen on worlds that already chafe under
Dactari rule?”

“You’d have three dead Triumvirs,” Kale stated flatly, “and
revolutionary wars breaking out on half a dozen worlds.”

“No,” Gelna insisted, “you’re reading far too much into one
vidcast. There has to be another reason.”

“And that right there,” Kale answered with a slow nod, “is
why it works. You want it to be true.” He waved his hand at the city that
surrounded them. “Nobody here would want to believe the truth – not when the
lie is so much more comfortable.”

“He’s right, Gelna,” Tommy added gently. “If that broadcast
were true, you’d be on Earth right now, patching up the troops around Moscow.
This,” he nodded toward the screen, “this is just the
Pax Potemkin
.”

“Huh?” Kale gave Tommy a blank look.

“Russian guy,” Tommy explained. “Built a fake village to
give Catherine the Great a false impression of prosperity. They called it
Potemkin’s Village.” He waved a hand at the vid display above them. “This is
Potemkin’s Peace.”

“Yeah, well, quit showing off and let’s try to find out
what’s
really
happening.” Kale turned to a slightly heavy-set citizen
who was wandering over from the adjacent sound zone. “Thinking of joining up,”
he said cheerfully. “Shoot some Humans before they all surrender…”

The approaching Dactari was not nearly so cheerful. “Waste
of time and money, all that fighting on Earth. We have enough problems right here
in the Republic and you know what I’m talking about.” He touched a finger to
his ear as he spoke, a gesture indicating a taboo subject.

Tommy figured it was an unspoken rule. Talking openly about
separatists and rebels meant a tacit admission of an imperfect system. “Can’t
we do both?”

“Maybe, but we’re not,” the other answered bluntly. “I
should be out at Ufanges by now with a load of produce, but my ship is still
sitting over at the loading yards. Her hold’s filled with conduits.” He looked
around to see who might be listening. “I’m already defaulting on three
contracts because they say I have a shielding problem in my lifters.” He
employed a rude gesture of disagreement with his right hand.

“There’s nothing wrong with those lifters, is there?” Kale spoke
his question as a statement of fact as he leaned in, employing a conspiratorial
tone. “But it’s believable enough to anyone you might complain to.”

“It would be,” the angry Dactari answered, “if the yards
weren’t doing half their normal business.” He looked around quickly. “That
quarantine at Weirfall was supposed to end years ago and it’s still off limits,
and I mean
way
off limits. The last run I made out to O’aro’que, I had
to go almost twice as far, just to stay out of the exclusion zone for Weirfall.”

“They’re just making sure they take no chances with the
infection,” Tommy said on sudden inspiration.
Where there’s quarantine…
He
was playing naïve cop to Kale’s jaded cop.

“Oh, don’t be such a grazer!” The Dactari glared at him.
“They’re feeding us a load of failed circuits and no doubt. I tell you,
something is going on out there and they don’t want us finding out. I know
someone who had a contract to carry minerals out to Oaxes and it went on
administrative hold just this morning.”

“Administrative hold?” Tommy tried to sound dismissive.

“Can you even tell me what that means?” The angry captain
spread his hands, his tail twitching in frustration. “I checked the allocator
file and every load for Oaxes and Tauhento are now under ‘administrative hold’.”

“All of them?” Kale stroked his chin as he nodded. “That’s
sure as hells no coincidence.”

“Exactly,” he replied. “It’s no coincidence that Tauhento
was originally an Oaxian colony either. I think it’s a few bad eggs from one of
those worlds engaging in terrorist acts. Mass destruction kind of stuff. All
those troops rotating back from Earth are being sent in to crack down on those
worlds.”

“Pah.” Tommy managed to wave his tail in disgust. Years of
travelling with Gelna was paying off now, and he was rather proud of his
success in pulling off the gesture. “Next you’ll be telling us the Humans have
invaded.”

“I’m being serious.” An angry twitch of his tail. “If you’re
just going to spout nonsense, I see no reason to carry on with this.” True to
his word, he spun on his heel and stalked off.

Tommy kept his look of disdain trained at the captain’s back
until he was lost in a distant crowd. He turned to Gelna. “You see? Even a
fellow like that, who makes his living by travelling between the worlds of the
Republic, would never guess at the truth. If he doesn’t buy into the official
lie, he concocts a new one that still goes down easier than the truth.”

“And what do you think the truth is?” Gelna demanded, his
tail twitching angrily against the side of his torso.

“That our forces have taken Weirfall, probably years ago,”
Tommy replied. “Now they’re up to something on Oaxes and …”

“Tauhento,” Gelna supplied sullenly. “Don’t you think that
maybe
you’re
the one concocting a comforting fiction?”

Tommy shrugged. “Maybe,” he said reasonably, “but I do know
one thing.”

“Yes?”

“There were no Dactari troops fighting outside of Moscow
when we were there a few weeks ago.

The tail stopped twitching.

The
Salamis
,
En
Route to Oaxes

H
arry
lay on one of the couches in his quarters. It was the same layout as Admiral
Towers’ rooms on the
Midway
, right down to the furniture. The two-room
suite had lain empty since leaving Earth. Every carrier in the fleet had
command quarters like this one, sitting empty until the day when a flag officer
would need them.

He was having a hard time shaking the feeling that his
accommodations were only temporary. He had left the Navy years ago under a
cloud. It had been a cover-up at his expense and Towers knew that, but it had
been a black mark, all the same.

At the start of this war, he had been captain of the
Völund
,
a commercial freighter, and now he was a commodore whose flag captain had five
years seniority over him. It hardly made for a comfortable working
relationship, but Harry was determined not to yield an inch of ground with his
subordinates. If he gave Captain Prouse too free a hand, Harry would quickly
lose his control of the squadron.

And he still had the Midgaard situation nagging at the back
of his mind. His own forces might well grow due to the three Midgaard vessels
under his command. If they were to seize any enemy vessels, then those ships
would be a welcome addition to the Oaxes Squadron.

But they would be under the command of Midgaard captains.

He sat up
as the tablet on his coffee table began to chime, announcing that someone was
waiting outside his door. He touched a command to open the large hatch and
looked up to see Captain Prouse standing outside with Colonel Adams. “Come in,
gentlemen.” He waved them to the other couch.

“Another
two days till Oaxes, sir,” Prouse commented as he dropped onto the proffered
seat. It was a useless comment as the schedule was already well known. It was
also known that an enemy force was expected to arrive in orbit a few hours ahead
of them, thanks to a carefully-delayed departure from Tauhento.

How that
was known, however, was a closely-guarded secret and neither Prouse nor Adams
had any idea of the real source of Harry’s information. Only a small group of
officers aboard the
Leetayo
had any
idea why the bridge
had suddenly been partitioned to keep the sensor coordinator’s station
enclosed. Of that small group, only Mickey Willsen was allowed to enter.

Prouse is nervous around me,
Harry realized suddenly.
The captain’s stating of the obvious certainly seemed to indicate an unease in
dealing with a new superior.
I’ll take nervous over open disrespect.
“You’ve both seen the analysis of
Oaxes and its people?”

Both men
nodded.

“It looks
like they enjoy a good fight, sir,” Adams offered. “There may not be many
security troops left for us to hunt down. I have a feeling my boys will end up
on crowd control, backing up the local police. The fringe worlds are lightly
garrisoned.” It was an understatement. The fringe planets had been stripped of
more than three quarters of their troops in order to send the second invasion
force to Earth. Few of those soldiers had ever come back.

“My
thoughts as well, Colonel.” Harry propped his elbows on his knees and stared
absently at the tablet in front of him. “Still, they’ll get some fresh air in
the bargain, and a change from being stuck in the same ship, day in and day…”
He stopped suddenly and stared at the two officers who sat to his right.

Prouse
leaned forward in alarm. “Sir?”

“Captain, have you ever found that the solution to your
problem was right in front of you the whole time?” Harry grinned ruefully at
how the simplest solutions often take the longest to find. He held up a hand to
indicate that an answer wasn’t needed.

“When we first met the Midgaard,” he explained, “they were
packed to the gunnels with troops because they would land the whole ship on a
planet, shoot the place up and then steal anything that wasn’t smashed in the
process.” It wouldn’t hurt to remind these men that he had been dealing with
the Midgaard longer than most.

“They didn’t care for boarding actions because they use
linear acceleration in their assault weapons.” He treated them to an ironic
grin. “Shoot someone on a ship and the round goes through them, then through some
bulkheads, then out the side of the hull, making a hole big enough to climb out
through.

“When we gave them our own, lower-velocity weapons, they
started boarding ships and putting their own crews in control.” He mimicked an
expanding sphere with his hands. “They’re getting stronger while we get
weaker.”

“I thought I was the only one worried about that,” Prouse
admitted. “Sir,” he hastily amended.

“And what’s the solution, sir?” Adams asked.

“You are, Adams. You and your men are the solution,” Harry
said. “Marines have a long and distinguished tradition of boarding enemy ships.
We just need to train them to operate those ships and we have our answer.” He
looked back to Prouse. “How many training units do you have aboard?”

Prouse nodded his obvious approval. “We have an even
hundred, sir. The
Salamis
was one of the more recent carriers so she has
the reverse-engineered version of the training equipment. We can train a fair
number of prize crews by the time we reach Oaxes, assuming, of course, Colonel
Adams here can give us the men.”

I’m part of that ‘us’,
Harry realized with a glow of
relief. Prouse seemed to be settling to the idea of having a jumped-up junior
as his commanding officer.
Is Adams part of that ‘us’ or will I need to note
his objections in the log?
“Colonel?”

Adams was already nodding. “I’ll have my staff draw up a new
organization, taking into account the loss of the prize crews.” He looked at
Harry. “The ships with Marine crews…”

“Will be under my command,” Harry insisted, “which means
that Captain Prouse will command them if I’m on the surface.” He could see it
wasn’t the answer that Adams was hoping for.  “I can’t afford to have a
fractured command structure for my combat vessels and you’re going to be far
too busy to worry about ships,” he added. “I’m going to need you in command of
the ground forces. I need someone with a level head to keep trouble from
brewing up with the Oaxians.”

It was a responsible duty – pain in the ass though it may be
– and Adams nodded solemnly. “I’m addressing my men at shift change this
afternoon,” he said. “They need to understand exactly what the mission is. We
only have two expeditionary forces with us, so we can only remain on Oaxes if
we have the goodwill of its people.” He paused for a moment, glancing over at
Harry. “Sir, I’d like to have some local currency signed over for public
relations purposes.”

Not for the first time, Harry felt the restrictions of
command. He could authorize funds, but money was in short supply after three
years with no home economy to rely on. There would have to be a good reason for
every single credit spent. “What exactly do you have in mind, Colonel?”

“Dactari security troops ‘live off the land’ for lack of a
better phrase,” the colonel explained. “They eat at whatever restaurant happens
to be nearby, but they carry no funds for payment. Proprietors are expected to
indent to the republic exchequer for payment. The process is so byzantine that
nobody ever indents.” Adams shrugged. “It usually costs more than the price of
a meal to get your payment, so the owners simply eat the loss.”

“So if we put credit on every Marine’s implant…” Harry
began.

Adams held up a hand. “Actually, sir, I was just thinking of
a few hundred reliable individuals who could make up the core of a hearts-and-minds
campaign. You know, visit the coffee shops and restaurants, get to know the
locals…”

“I’m with you, Colonel,” Harry grinned, “but let’s broaden
the scope a bit.” The plan was still coalescing for Harry as he spoke, but he
knew, even as the last details were forming, that it was a good one. “Your
troops need to eat. We can either bring in food and set up base kitchens, hire
local catering operations to cook for them, or turn them loose to eat at local
establishments for every meal.”

“I have almost forty thousand Marines on this ship.” Adams
was so surprised that he forgot the ‘sir’ that, while not necessary in every
sentence, still found its way into almost everything he said to Harry. “The
locals might get annoyed if we start clogging up local businesses with Human
troops.”

“They seem like a lot when they’re crammed into the
Salamis
.”
Harry took a sip of coffee, giving himself time to refresh the numbers in his
mind. “But the capital city, Presh, has over twenty-eight million citizens
alone.” He set his mug down and ran a quick calculation on his tablet. “That’s
just over a tenth of a percent, assuming we put all your troops in Presh.

“There’s eight other cities to garrison,” Harry continued.
“Eight cities left over from the eight nations that existed before the old
empire invaded. They cleared out the countryside so the rebels wouldn’t have
anywhere to hide but the cities.”

“A rebellion that’s lasted for more than three thousand
years,” Captain Prouse remarked with indecent cheer. “I like these folks; they
don’t give up easily.”

“The Dactari patrol stations will be half empty, even with
all of your troops deployed,” Harry went on. “Getting them out to eat with the
locals three times a day will help our cause on Oaxes better than another
ten
divisions of troops.”

“It’ll cost a little more to feed them this way,” Adams
shrugged. “But it’s well worth it.”

“And it helps justify the share of tax revenue that we’ll be
taking from their economy,” Harry added. “The average citizen will never see our
ships in orbit, but if they see our soldiers and get to know them, they might
just feel like their money is being put to better use. Come to think of it…” He
looked at Prouse. “You can train two hundred in an eight hour shift with your
equipment – let’s make sure that each squad we send down to the surface has at
least one man with military police patterns and Oaxian language implanted. No
Dactari ever bothered to learn the local language.”

“The training room’s going to be busy.” Prouse took a deep
breath. “Implanting ship operations and police work at the same time – we don’t
have a moment to waste, sir.”

Harry nodded. “Let’s get to it gentlemen.”