Orphans of War

by Cory Travis

  Chapter Five

   

  As it turned out, the course Wes had input took them to Orion, an outpost in the middle of the desert of an outer rim planet known for its mining regions, plentiful in gold, silver, and a new element discovered a mere fifty years before known as rubiniam – a popular mineral with the wives of wealthy men, rubiniam is an easily pliably mineral, brilliant in color and easy to work with.

  However, the crew’s trip to Orion had absolutely nothing to do with minerals. Orion was home to one Jeremiah Osweiler, whom everyone called Ozzy, and his daughter Kaylee Osweiler. Finn had a long standing deal with Ozzy that whenever he was in the neighborhood Ozzy would provide shelter, service to his ship, and prototype upgrades in exchange for data on the whereabouts of Alliance ships and the occasional delivery. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement for both parties since the data that Finn provided helped Ozzy develop new and innovative ways to help others like himself stay one step ahead of the Alliance enforcers.

  Finn had contacted Ozzy from orbit and now as they broke through the atmosphere for the first time Matt could clearly see the planet below – a vast expanse of sand in every direction. The only sign of inhabitants that he could even spot was what he could only assume to be Orion and consisted of perhaps two dozen one-story buildings and another two dozen tents on the outskirts of the town.

  The trip to get here had taken them nearly two days. In that time Matt had gotten to know the other member of Finn’s crew, even if Finn himself had pretty much avoided the boy the whole time.

  Wes was the quirky, young navigation and computer systems specialist who proved he could stay calm under pressure during their escape from Arrowhead. As it turned out, he was also one mean cook and had the connections to get them into any space port in the galaxy – another mystery Matt hoped to solve.

  But as it turned out the Curse was full of mysteries – including why his uncle Finn disliked Duncan so much. Matt had heard a portion of their one, and as far as Matt could tell, only conversation.

  Finn had started it off as bluntly as ever – “Let’s get this out in the air here and now,” he said to Duncan. “I don’t much like you; but between the two of us we’re pretty much all Matt’s got left. So the way I see it you don’t plan on leaving any time soon?”

  “Correct,” Duncan answered.

  “Well, you seem like a good fighter and I could use you on my crew – you’d get an equal share of profits, which ain’t much, but it’s better than nothing, and a place to rest your head.”

  “Quite generous of you,” Duncan replied dryly.

  “I’m not done yet, smart guy,” Finn’s temper started to rise. “This is my ship and I’m the Captain. You take orders from me. We fly where I say, when I say. Any issues with that and we can part ways now.”

  Duncan spent nearly a full minute appraising Finn as he considered his offer. “No issues,” he finally stated, apparently deciding that Finn’s offer was probably the best he could hope for in their current situation.

  “Good.”

  “But let me also make one condition clear,” Duncan added as Finn was just about to walk away. “If you do anything to endanger Matthew, I’ll shoot you down. Is that clear?”

  It was now Finn’s turn to appraise Duncan and his terms for staying on the ship; but Finn could respect a man who was straight forward and firm in his beliefs and duty as Duncan was. “We’re clear,” he stated as he turned and headed for the bridge.

   

  Finn guided the Curse’s wide hull down onto a landing pad in between two other freighters with the smooth touch he was known for. They were on the outskirts of town on a landing pad right behind Ozzy’s shop.

  A brown haired man with a salt-and-peppered beard in a lab coat waited for them as they emerged from the ship.

  “I figured you all would be showing up eventually,” Ozzy told Finn as they shook hands, “considering the Alliance’s activities of late.”

  “I take it you heard about Arrowhead?” Finn asked with a note of sorrow that surprised Matt.

  “I did. That where you picked up your passengers?”

  “My nephew and a new crew member,” Finn answered with reservation. While he did agree that Matt should be with what remained of his family, he didn’t agree that a space ship was the proper place to raise a rug-rat. He also wasn’t very fond of Duncan or his insistence of staying to watch over the boy. He knew some of Duncan’s past, so he knew the potential benefit of bringing him along – he also knew the dangers associated with such a decision. Finn only hoped that the benefits would outweigh the dangers.

   

  Ozzy’s shop was indistinguishable from the other clay buildings that made up Orion – single story, brown shingle roof, surrounded by dirt. But that was just the outside; inside it was a completely different story. For starters, Ozzy had done pretty much everything in his power to hide the stucco walls, covering them with designs for his next inventions, flat screens attached to the local feed, computers, and other various information inputs that baffled Matt.

  But the thing that really distinguished Ozzy’s shop was the underground levels. Ozzy’s daughter, Kaylee, a girl about Matt’s age, with blonde hair and freckled cheeks offered to take Matt and Duncan on a tour of the underground levels. They weren’t the stucco and clay of the upper level, but instead very sturdy metal structures, making it look very similar to the inside of a space ship. The walls and rooms were lined with row after row of shelves, electronics, and other various tools and equipment for Ozzy’s work.

  “I helped my Pop design this,” Kaylee beamed with pride as she held up what looked like a black coffee can.

  “What does it do?” Matt inquired.

  “It’s a portable jammer,” she smiled even wider than before. “This baby will jam all communication within two-hundred meters.”

  “That’s amazing!” Duncan said, taking the jammer to examine it more closely. “I’ve never heard of a jammer this small before.”

  “That’s because it’s the only one in existence,” Kaylee beamed.

   

  When they got back upstairs to the main level Karina, Finn, and Wes were enthralled with Ozzy’s presentation of recent Alliance activity. As it turned out, Arrowhead and Hekla weren’t the only two places hit over the last couple of weeks – Ozzy brought up a large three-dimensional map with red marks on over a dozen planets. Alliance was in the process of squashing a potential rebellion.

  “They can’t afford to lose the stiff hold they have on all the other planets,” Ozzy explained, “that’s why they struck when and where they did.”

  “The declaration Trent announced,” Finn thought aloud as he put two and two together to come to an obvious conclusion. “He wasn’t just declaring independence for Hekla, he was about to start a revolution for the independence of all the outer planets.”

  “You mean my dad started all of this?” Matt asked disbelievingly as he reached the same horrifying conclusion as he stared at a dozen different worlds in flames on the screens surrounding Ozzy.

  Finn looked at the young man with a newfound respect – he was a bright one for his age – and still maintained a childlike innocence that Finn knew would be gone all too soon.

  “No,” Ozzy answered reassuringly, before anyone else had the opportunity. “You see this was going to happen regardless. The galaxy is poised for rebellion against the tyranny of the Alliance. As it happened, Hekla was just the first to act and unfortunately, was also hit first. The Alliance accelerated their plans some, but their plans to squash the rebellion before it could start were already in motion – even as the missile was launched at the President of Hekla full squadrons of Alliance attack forces were spread out around the galaxy striking out at the targets they perceived to be the greatest threat. Hekla was just the start of a larger movement. Or at least it was supposed to be.”

  “So it wouldn’t have mattered if my dad had signed that declaration or not – they still would have kil
led him.”

  The sorrow in Ozzy’s face for a man he’d never met was very sincere as he saw the tears welling up in Matt’s eyes even as he forced them away. “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

  Matt nodded, as if making up his mind about something, making some unknown promise to himself. Ozzy didn’t know the promise, but he saw vengeance in those young blue eyes.

  “You said they hit the targets they perceived to be the greatest threat for rebellion,” Karina began, attempting to move the conversation in a less painful direction, “so why hit Arrowhead? We had no notions of rebellion or even choosing a side in this.”

  “Oh it wasn’t just Arrowhead that was hit,” Ozzy stated, pushing a few buttons on the keyboard under the largest display on the wall, changing the images one by one to a different site of destruction and carnage as the three-dimensional map lit up new locations across the galaxy in green. “The Alliance took out all the major criminal activities that they knew about.”

  “But why? That doesn’t make any sense. “Why go after the criminals flying under the radar if you’re trying to squash a rebellion?” Karina demanded.

  “Because you had the means to organize,” Duncan spoke for the first time. “Suppose they were only partially successful in ending the threat of planets seceding from the Alliance, they would have only strengthened the resolve of the remaining planets; those planets would need weapons to fight back. Where do you think they would turn for those weapons? If you had chosen to fall in with the rebellion it would have been a significant blow against the Alliance. It wasn’t a chance they were willing to take.”

  Karina shook her head in understanding and fury at the unneeded destruction and loss of life. Arrowhead had died on her watch. All of her people were dead. All because the Alliance feared them. “How could they have organized a galaxy wide strike like that without anyone catching wind of it – not the planets they hit, not the criminal organizations, not even me?”

  “It would have had to happen fast, fast enough that word couldn’t leak out,” Finn stated thoughtfully.

  “A military action of that magnitude and in that time frame could come from only one person,” Ozzy paused as he waited for everyone in the room to reach the same conclusion he had, “Chancellor Wolfe.”

  Matt had learned about the Chancellor, Owen Wolfe, in school. A man who was noble and honorable – one of the good guys, they had said. He was one of the founding members of the Interplanetary Treaty for Alliance and Prosperity. The treaty had helped him advance at lightning speeds through the upper echelons of the newly formed Alliance government, eventually culminating in his appointment as Chancellor. He was quite literally the most powerful man in the galaxy.

  Karina was already making mental notes of who she could contact to put her still evolving plan into motion. First, she needed to find out who remained of her people from Arrowhead. Then she had to figure out where to go from here.

  “The thing is there’s something else going on here,” Ozzy broke in, “something much bigger at the Capital. I think there’s a coupe in progress.”

  “A coupe in the Capital?” Finn let out a hearty laugh.

  “That’s what it looks like,” Ozzy replied in all seriousness. “It’s the only way to explain the diverse intelligence reports I’ve been picking up – some of it says the Chancellor ordered the strike, others say it was another party that’s disguising it to look like the Chancellor as part of some scheme.”

  “That sounds a little thin,” Karina stated skeptically. “Are you sure you haven’t been standing too close to some of this equipment?”

  “I’m telling you, someone is making a play for power, the Chancellor’s power. You all just got caught in the crossfire.”

  Matt stared at the screens behind Ozzy showing the destruction raining down on the galaxy and before he even realized it he was speaking the words on everyone else’s minds – or at least the obvious conclusion they would soon get to. “All those lives wasted, just because someone else wanted to be king of the hill.” Matt shook his head in disgust. “Someone needs to blow up their sad little hill.”