Orphan's Alliance

by Robert Buettner

  A Firewitch could heal in hours after a jump, if it could ground on a planet that had a few basics like oxygen and liquid water. However, human-engineered ships still needed month-long overhauls, orbiting above massive ground-based shipyards, after every jump. And Outworlds like Tressel lay five jumps away.

  Each single jump took days or weeks getting to, then away from, the jump. Even at speeds close enough to light speed that onboard clocks lost a few ticks relative to Earth normal. In short, single-ship interstellar travel, also known as “the Local,” was slower than sailing Spanish galleons around Tierra del Fuego.

  But with coordination and at great cost, small volumes of high-priority cargo could travel faster. The pony process took its name from Pony Express postal riders of the American West, and it was pretty simple. At each layover, the high priority cargo—in this case, Howard, Ord, and me—switched from a fatigued ship to a fresh one, with just hours spent transferring between ships. As simple as changing horses.

  Simple, maybe, but hard on the high-priority cargo. A TFIP jump is basically diving a spaceship at an object the size of an invisible golf ball, into which is squeezed the mass of the Sun. The golf ball is invisible because its gravity is so strong that it sucks in even light. Gravity that strong also tacks together points that Cr pnviare light years apart in conventional space.

  Howard says those with limited aptitude for non- Newtonian physics, meaning pretty much everybody but the Slugs and Howard, can best visualize this by imagining the universe as a folded newspaper page. But “folded” means crumpled into a ball, then glued together at random points where the paper touches. The glue being the intense gravity of collapsed stars. Jumping across at a glued-together point could take you all the way from the page’s upper right corner all the way to its lower left corner. Or the jump could take you from the “5” in a sports page score only as far as to the “2” right alongside it.

  Whatever. If the dive is sufficiently precise and fast and dodgy, the ship pops out in new space, light years away, without traveling the long way across the newspaper page. Otherwise, everybody dies.

  The gravity cocoon woven by Slug technology insulates the ship’s interior, more or less, but even a single jump beats human passengers like veal hammered into schnitzel. Back-to-back-to-back jumps wear humans down like the old Pony Express wore down the kid messengers who rode it. Recruiting ads for Pony Express riders specified “orphans preferred.”

  On the voyage back from Tressel, we three left the Kodiaks behind after Jump One. We changed ponies three more grueling times. By our last pony switch point we were so Jump Thumped that even Howard had the presence of mind to schedule us for an overnight, which happened to be on Bren.

  The State Department profile about Bren highlights four things.

  One, Bren is the first-discovered Outworld. It is the place where modern man learned that, about the time our human ancestors learned to use stone tools, the Slugs had shipped Earth humans across the Milky Way, like Africans to the New World. Our species infested some planets that the Slugs visited, like rats that escaped down the conquistadors’ anchor hawsers.

  Two, Bren is the sole remaining source of propulsion-grade Cavorite known to mankind.

  Three, Bren resembles Earth at the end of the Cretaceous period, but with bigger dinosaurs.

  Four, the Expulsion of the Pseudocephalopod Hegemony from Bren sparked the formation of the Human Union.

  With Tressel in my memory, and explaining it all at the Pentagon looming in my future, all l wanted from my layover was to forget everything for a night.

  I had a minor role in kicking the Slugs off Bren. Therefore, I could have spent my overnight layover relaxing with old friends in high places. But I’m infantry enough that I relax better with old friends in low places.

  A GI can forget plenty during one night on the Marinus waterfront, for a price. Part of the price is the morning after.

  Therefore, after I changed and shaved, I was late for the upship. The ship squatted like a droop-winged manta ray out of water, in a cleared field next to a carriage depot.

  Carriages behind teams of duckbilled dinosaurs stood ranked alongside boarding platforms crowded with travelers. A dozen years before that morning, no human on Bren imagined ships that flew Chipide, much less ships that flew among the stars. Now, only the children on the platforms stared at the upship.

  I overtipped my cabbie, patted his team as I passed them, then jogged the hundred yards toward the upship.

  The upship’s pilot, in powder-blue Space Force Utilities, paced back and forth near the boarding ladder, glancing down at a wrist ’Puter, head shaking. Another head, on uniformed shoulders, poked out of the hatch at the top of the ladder.

  As I got close enough to identify the poking head as Howard’s, I realized that the pilot was a head shorter than me, with raven hair cut helmet-short, and she wore Rear Admiral’s shoulder boards.

  I slowed to a walk, and groaned.

  TEN

  THE PILOT DIDN’T turn around as I stopped at the foot of the ladder. She crossed her arms, then studied the upship’s belly tiles. “You’re late. We missed the docking window. You know the cost of turning a Metzger-class Cruiser for an extra orbit, Jason?”

  I stretched a smile. “Pleasure to see you again, too, Mimi.”

  Actually, Mimi Ozawa in a pilot’s unitard was a pleasure to see. The view even improved when she faced me. Women of a certain age just get more attractive, at least to men of a certain age. Mimi still had porcelain skin and brown eyes I could fall into.

  “Since when does a Cruiser Commander fly shuttle milk runs?” My question was rhetorical. Mimi was a fighter jock who got kicked upstairs to command a capital ship that was steered by committee. She never missed a chance to grasp the yoke of anything she could fly by herself.

  “You’re always late,” she said.

  “You always wait.”

  “I haven’t had a choice, yet.”

  I scuffed the ground with my boot toe. “I’m sorry. It’s been a tough few months. So last night I had a few.”

  She sniffed. “A few what?”

  The Marinus waterfront resembles Gomorrah, with tighter alleys and looser women.

  “Meads,” I said. Bren’s Highland Casunis export three commodities; Cavorite, fortified wine, and mayhem. All three give me headaches.

  Mimi and I had never shared a hug, much less a bed. But I swear her posture softened. “Oh.” She nodded toward the ladder. “Get aboard.”

  “I’d be just as happy to follow you.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Move. Pretend you’ve outgrown puberty.”

  I wormed into the seat alongside Howard, and strapped in.

  He said, “Did you notice that was Mimi Ozawa?”

  “I noticed.”

  “She’s commanding the Emerald River now.” Howard wrinkled his nose. “What did you do last night? You smell like grain alcohol.”

  “She noticed. What did you do last night?”

  “Worked on my draft report.” Radio waves could no more transit a Temporal Fabric Insertion Point than light could. They moved through normal space at the speed of light. Therefore, phoning home from an Outworld a hundred light years from Earth would take exactly one hundred years. Once a ship made its last Jump, it could send data ahead of it that would beat the ship to its destination by a little bit. But, for practical purposes, Howard and I would be bringing our commanders the first report of our mission to Tressel, like human carrier pigeons.

  Howard shook his head. “Before we know it, we’ll be trying to make sense of this to the Washington people.”

  I stared at the flatscreen on the bulkhead forward of us, which showed the cockpit view over Mimi’s shoulder, as her fingers flew over changing touchscreen panels.

  Hydraulics whined behind us, as the transport levered onto its tail.

  I closed my eyes against the cabin lights and belched up the taste of stale wine. “All of whom know so little about what we do out
here that they think the Easter Bunny brings Cavorite. Why do you think I got drunk?”

  ELEVEN

  “PULL OFF HERE.” I pointed as the Staff Pool four-door sped toward the Potomac Tunnel, three feet behind the sedan in the Guidelane in front of us. The car said, “Last exit before Virginia. Manual Guidance required one half mile after exit.”

  The private on my left cocked his head, and pointed down the Guideway as it descended beneath the river. “But sir, the Pentagon’s straight—”

  “I need to make a stop.”

  “Yes, sir.” He punched us off, then held his hands above the wheel while the Happi slid itself across three lanes of buzzing traffic and into the off-ramp.

  The kid had been puzzled enough at a two-star who was young enough to be his brother, didn’t ride in the back, and didn’t make him hold the door open. He was more puzzled when we pulled up in front of a cluster of wooden buildings, which had been “temporary” since World War II.

  I hopped out before he could dash around to open my door, then turned back to him. “I’ll be an hour. Grab a coffee or a nap.”

  He smiled. “Yes, sir.”

  I didn’t need a nap. I had spent my first night back on Earth sleeping off five jumps in as many weeks, and I had two hours before I reported to my boss at the Pentagon, just across the Potomac from this place, which was the Army Officers Personnel Directorate.

  AOPD didn’t take walk-ins, to discourage officers from dropping in to wheedle and lobby for better assignments. But stopping by to greet an old friend was just GI courtesy.

  Nd lI hadn’t seen Lieutenant Colonel Druwan Parker since he and I bunked together in Basic, during the Blitz. He set a half-eaten doughnut back on a paper plate, then lifted a cane from the chair alongside his desk. He motioned me to sit in the chair, while he laid the cane, which had forced him behind desks throughout his career, alongside it. Tall metal drawered boxes, the kind that held paper files, lined the walls. The place even smelled of real paper.

  I pointed at his leg. “They can fix that now.”

  “Soldiers with low IQs and two good legs get dangerous jobs. Look at you.” He grinned, teeth white against his skin.

  I leaned forward. “That’s what I dropped by here to talk about.”

  “What a surprise. Most officers just drop by here for the doughnuts.” He punched up my file on a manual keyboard that looked as old as the building, and stared into the pages as the images flickered in the air between us. “You’re up for rotation next month.”

  I nodded. “I was thinking, you know, something close to home.”

  Parker wrinkled his nose. “The Pentagon? You hate paper pushing.”

  “Not a staff job.”

  He punched through pages. “Your Officer Efficiency Reports say you’re suited for unconventional ops. Why do you want to stay home all of a sudden?”

  “Family matters.”

  “You’re an unmarried orphan.”

  “The Army’s my family. Can you get me a division?”

  Parker snorted. “Dream on. Every two-star in the Army wants his own division.”

  “Every two-star in the Army didn’t bunk with you, Druwan.”

  Parker sighed, leaned back in his chair, then swiveled it and squinted into his back screen. “Jason, if you wanted your own division, you should’ve got your ticket punched right. You’ve ridden dinosaurs. But you’ve never overseen a staff preparing for an annual three six-three dash five.”

  “What’s a three six-three dash five?”

  “I rest my case. Compare that to Stump Peavey. He angled for the right jobs. He got commanders to write him fat OERs, for ten years. All so he could get the Third Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, when that slot opens up next month. Last posting before he retires down there, close to home.”

  “Stump’s earned it. He’s a good officer.”

  “Was. He had a mild stroke two days ago. This morning he elected early retirement. Nobody knows it yet, but Third I.D.’s unexpectedly looking for a two-star to command it.”

  I rocked back and frowned. Stump, like every other general in my class at the War College, was old enough to be my uncle. His wife sent me cookies every Christmas, like a favorite aunt, and I sent them a fifth of Jack Daniel’s. “I didn’t know. How is he?”

  “Hund Ssiz Jared percent recovery projected. But somebody’s gonna have to fill that slot right away.”

  I stared into my hands. Waiting wouldn’t help Stump. “So I’m first on the list to request it.”

  “You know it isn’t that simple.”

  “Do what you can.”

  Parker nodded, then screwed up his face as he punched in data. “Family matters, huh?”

  “It does.”

  Fifty minutes later, I sat down across a Pentagon desk from my boss. Behind him on standards hung the streamered colors of the units he had commanded, and the place smelled of coffee and old leather.

  Lieutenant General Nathan M. Cobb had been my boss off and on since I was a Specialist Fourth Class and he commanded the Ganymede Expeditionary Force.

  He said, “You look good, Jason.” He always told visitors they looked good, to put them at ease. Even the ones like me who already knew he could see better with Virtulenses than naturally sighted people with glasses. Then he adjusted the humming Virtulenses on his spare cheekbones. He waved at his desk reader. “Got your report this morning.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Tell me more about this General Planck.”

  “His troops love him. Tactically and strategically brilliant. Even the Iridians respect him.”

  Nat Cobb nodded, waved his hand. “You’ll get to elaborate later.”

  “Sir? I can go into detail now if—”

  “Jason, why do you want to command the Third Infantry Division?”

  I rocked back in my chair. “Sir? How did you—”

  He waved a hand as thin as a rooster claw. “A blind man survives in Washington by seeing more than other people. Well?”

  “I dunno.” That didn’t sound like the response of a leader who deserved to command ten thousand soldiers and a military reservation as big as Liechtenstein. “My career portfolio has to be broadened to maximize my value to the Army. And—”

  General Cobb covered his ears with his palms. “Save the moose shit. Jason, commanding a Division in garrison is mostly lunch speeches to the local Lions Club. And persuading troops that a five-percent increase in mechanized equipment upchecks is important.”

  “Those things are important!”

  “Knowing things are important doesn’t make an officer good at doing them. Commanders like Stump Peavey actually find assignments like that fun. Tell me you do and you’re a liar.”

  I stared down at the floor. “If I wanted fun, I wouldn’t have stayed in the infantry. I commanded a half million troops and saved a planet. But I can’t handle the Lions Club?”

  “Jason, when things go wrong, there’s no soldier I’ve ever commanded Svert="that I trust more than you to make them right. But if you don’t like the window you’re looking into, your eyes wander.” General Cobb slapped his palms on his knees and sighed. “Alright. Assuming, which you shouldn’t for one minute, that I might let you break your pick attempting a job that fits you like garters fit a goat, tell me why you want to try.”

  I squirmed in my chair. “You know Sharia Munshara Metzger and I served together.”

  He turned his face to the ceiling. “The Munchkin. Shorter than her machine gun, but that gal could shoot the ass off a flea at six hundred yards.”

  I smiled. Nat Cobb was a GI’s general, who remembered every soldier he ever commanded, or so the story went. Of course, it was easier for a general to remember a soldier who now held a seat on the House Armed Services Committee.

  “Munchkin’s son is my godson. His father was my best friend.”

  Nat Cobb nodded. “Jude’s had his problems. Most ex-POWs do.”

  “I’m getting too old to call the Army my only family
. I’ve spent most of my career overseas or Extra-T. I’d like to spend some time around my godson.”

  “Separation from family comes with this job, Jason.” He walked around his desk, then rested a hand on my shoulder. He stood still for ten heartbeats, then nodded. “But maybe we can squash two toads with the same rock. When we get to the Tank this afternoon—”

  “The Tank?” Hair stood on my neck. The Tank was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s Conference Room. In two prior Pentagon tours, I’d spent nine whole minutes in the Tank.