The Orphan Alliance (The Black Ships Book 3)

by A. G. Claymore

  “It’s true, I didn’t believe the stories myself until I actually went there.” There was a series of rapid, shallow breaths.

  Graadt nodded at his cronies. Waited till they pulled him up. “Near the pinch?” He asked.

  A relieved nod.

  “What was the name of the place?”

  A fearful glance darted at the railing. “Gods, I don’t remember. I just walked into some stores until I found that bracelet.”

  Graadt wanted more information, but he’d caught a scent and he wanted to start the hunt. He grabbed the Eesari’s wrist, holding it up for Nid to scan with an arm mounted unit.

  “Nish Ainashu,” Nid grunted.

  Graadt stepped closer, his face inches from Nish. He cupped the back of the Eesari’s head with his right hand. “If I decide later that I’m angry with you, Nish, I’ll come looking for you. You don’t want that to happen, do you?”

  A terrified shake of the head.

  “Good.” Graadt patted the back of Nish’s head roughly. “You enjoy your meal.”

  He pushed Nish back in his seat. Graadt had suddenly forgotten he was hungry. He hadn’t given much thought to the profusion of spicewood because he’d come back to the fifth planet of his home system to hunt a Human agent, not to trade in luxury goods. Still, something seemed out of place and he couldn’t just ignore it any longer.

  He led his two comrades out of the diner and over to a loading portal.

  There were two lines waiting at the portal. One regular line where eight ordinary nobodies waited for their vehicles to be brought up and one priority line where a single Dactari company man waited for his driver.

  The nobodies watched the approaching hunters with mixed alarm. Graadt approved. They were attuned to their environment. They had the brains to sense the potential danger that he represented.

  The Dactari was completely oblivious. He obviously saw himself as the king of this little corner of the dung heap and he had no idea that trouble was approaching.

  And that trouble was heading right for him. Graadt and his friends needed a vehicle and the Dactari’s runabout was large, it was comfortable and it was the only vehicle currently docked.

  The company man was just stepping into the back of his open top ride when Nid shoved him from behind, sending him sprawling onto the floor. He rolled onto his back, holding a hand to his nose. Shock and anger fought each other for control of his features. The anger won as Graadt leaned over him.

  “Hello, little cousin,” Graadt showed him a smile that did little to reassure. “We need to use your ride for a few minutes, just keep calm.”

  Behind him, Kaans was throwing the driver up onto the loading platform. Nid hurled the driver’s crown-shaped dash ornament at the back of his head, whooping with delight as it connected.

  “You’re those gods damned ‘stoners’,” the Dactari spluttered.

  Graadt nodded agreeably. Most full blooded Dactari used the name as a pejorative derivative of ‘Oudtstoner’ but Graadt liked the sound of it. The moniker actually made him seem a little more frightening – a little more like someone who was outside the rules of orderly civilization.

  “I know what I am, little mouse.” Unlike the Dactari choice in nickname, the Oudstoner’s handle for their pureblood cousins was clearly an insult. “Why do you think saying it will improve your morning?”

  “We turn a blind eye to your activities,” the mouse protested, “even though your kind are persona non grata in the Republic, but don’t start thinking you can take liberties with senior planetary officials.”

  The Oudstoners were descended from the renegade force led by Flota Reis Mas of the Krypteia. They fought the Alliance, and they did so more effectively than Dactari regulars. As a result, the official Republic approach was to ignore them. Stoners could travel freely within the Republic and their operators were largely ignored by local military and law enforcement.

  They were able to carry out attacks against the Human/Midgaard Alliance without risking the shaky détente that had existed for the last fifteen decades. They were unofficial, so blame never came back to the Triumvirs on Dactar.

  It was possible for a stoner to go too far and run afoul of the local authorities, but Graadt knew he was far from red-lining the current situation. He noticed a small cooling unit in the back seat bolster and helped himself to a bottle of water. Despite the city’s location beneath millions of cubic meters of water, it was still a very expensive product.

  The company owned the only desalination plants and their computer algorithms automatically kept the prices just below the point where riots would have broken out.

  He grabbed two more bottles and threw them to Kaans as Nid pulled them out from the platform. “Senior official…” He let the words hang there like rotten fruit for a moment. “Why would a senior official be dressed like five kilos of dung in a ten kilo bag? Hmmm?”

  The Dactari refused to answer. His clothing was better than most Tsekoh citizens but he certainly wasn’t dressed like anyone important.

  “And why would he be here in a fleet runabout rather than a personal vehicle?” Graadt took in the view as they ascended. “No, little mouse, you’re a petty company functionary who’s going to keep his lips glued until we don’t need him anymore.”

  The mouse squeaked as Nid banked to take them around the pinch at a more or less suicidal speed.

  They eased to a halt next to the railing on the commercial side of twenty three. “Hold him here, lads.” Graadt jumped from the side of the runabout, landing with one foot on the edge of the pedway and both hands on the railing. He swung his other foot over the rail and dropped into the space that had opened up in the wary pedestrian flow.

  “What’s our play?” Kaans called out as he moved back to sit near the Dactari.

  Graadt turned back, sorting out what had, until that moment, been a collection of hazy thoughts. The instinct of the hunt. “This spicewood thing is too juicy for our quarry to ignore.” He nodded to himself. “Follow the spicewood and we’ll cross trails with the Alliance agent, soon enough.” He turned to head into the first store.

  Finding that agent would go a long way toward squaring the three of them with their own people. Being a stoner meant being outside of Republic society. Being an outcast from the stoners meant you were completely alone.

  Dropping By

  Tsekoh, Capital of Chaco Benthic

  The warehouse was nicer than Cal had expected. The entire front was a glazed office space, opening on three different levels. The window mullions hadn’t developed the smutty patina common to Tsekoh, marking the façade as a new addition, probably during the last year.

  “The son’s name?” he asked over his shoulder as he crossed toward the main doors, jamming a Tauhentan buck-herder’s hat on his head.

  “G’Mal.” The Ufangian gazed at the ridiculously out of place hat for a split second before trotting after Cal.

  They pulled the doors open, striding confidently into the comfortably dry and warm atrium. A catwalk led across the three story open space and Cal headed across without breaking stride, acting as if he knew where he was going. He completely ignored passing office employees and they repaid the favor, glancing at his hat, but not thinking to wonder where the confident stranger was headed.

  Momentum was key in a situation like this. If you stopped and took in your surroundings, then you didn’t belong. If you acted as though you knew what you were doing, chances were good you’d avoid entanglements with territorial staff. Just pick a point and start walking.

  They reached the end of the catwalk and Cal swerved left to pass a reception desk, aiming for the heavy spicewood doors at the back of a small seating area. The heady scent was nice for a few moments, but he couldn’t imagine spending entire days next to those doors.

  “Excuse me,” the young Tauhentan man at the desk got up, speaking in an authoritative tone. “Can I help you?”

  Cal supressed a grin. Most people had a chronic aversion to saying wh
at they really meant. This receptionist was a prime example. What he really wanted to say was Stop, you can’t just walk in there. It would have worked a hell of a lot better in this case. Instead, his choice of words gave the impression that he was just offering help.

  Taking him up on his offer was the best way to keep the momentum alive. “Three algae floaters, and see that we’re not disturbed – G’Mal’s on a tight schedule today.”

  The flustered receptionist frowned in confusion as the two interlopers pushed the heavy doors open and disappeared inside.

  The office stank of spicewood. The desk in the center of the room was made of the stuff and it was probably the reason the ventilation system was running full tilt. The twenty-something Tauhentan behind it looked at the closed doors for a second then back to his unexpected visitors. His eyes slid up to Cal’s ostentatious hat, then darted away diplomatically.

  “Ro’j,” Cal boomed. “Ro’j Yoyeco’s the name.” He jammed a thumb over his shoulder at his Ufangian companion. “This here’s McFreely – Elmer Fudd McFreely.”

  The young man nodded absently, trying to work out what was happening to his quiet morning. He looked back up at Cal. “Wasn’t there a Ro’j Yoyeco that betrayed Tauhento to the Alliance long time ago?”

  Most Tauhentans revered Yoyeco as part of the liberation effort, but the expats had to make a point of seeing it the other way. If you lived in the Republic and your home world was under Alliance dominion, you didn’t have much choice about things like that.

  “No relation,” Cal breezed. “Speaking of relations, when’s the old man getting back? I’m anxious to finalize the details.”

  “The, Um…” His eyes darted from side to side. “What?”

  One of the doors opened and the receptionist backed in with a tray in his hands. He slowly walked to the desk and set out the three drinks that Cal had ordered. He looked up to G’Mal, who looked pointedly down at the drinks before directing an incredulous look at him. The poor fellow shrugged helplessly, nodded at the two invaders and then scuttled out, closing the door quietly.

  “The investment, sonny!” Cal exclaimed in perfect Oaxian. Though Dheema had been the official language on Oaxes and their colony, Tauhento, for over a thousand years, the smugglers of both worlds still used the old language to help obscure their activities.

  “Investment?”

  “I’ll just take another look at the stockpile.” Cal headed for the side door, hoping it wasn’t just a closet or washroom.

  The young man jumped out of his seat in alarm. “Wait, you can’t just walk in there! You might be dealing with my father, but I have no clue who you are.” He caught Cal by the arm, just as he reached the door.

  He was so focused on Cal, that he failed to notice ‘McFreely’ slipping behind his desk. The ‘sticky’ was a short range data chip with a cloning program. If you could get close enough to your target’s data node, you could make a copy of everything he had.

  If you could get close enough.

  The Ufangian was leaning right up against it. The closer you got, the faster the data transferred.

  “Hey!” G’Mal turned Cal from the door. “McFreely, what are you doing?”

  “Nice picture,” Cal’s accomplice muttered, pretending to stare at the details of the image on the wall behind the desk. “Not the first Foxlight is it?”

  “Yes, it is the first,” he waved the Ufangian back out to the middle of the office. “Look, gentlemen, if you have a deal, it’s with my father. I don’t know anything about it so we’re not going to accomplish anything here today. Why don’t you come back in a few days, when the old man returns.” He held out his hand, offering the old imperial version of a handshake.

  Cal was impressed with the young Tauhentan. He didn’t hide behind polite phrasing, he came right to the point, once he managed to regain his footing. ‘Roj’ looked at ‘McFreely’ who gave a barely perceptible nod. “Fair enough, lad.” He waved his hand over G’Mal’s. “We’ll be seeing you.”

  Outside, Cal took the sticky and they split up. Cal headed for one of the connectors that linked the two sides of the city, tossing his hat over the railing as he activated his implant. There were literally thousands of convenient locations where he could view the files on the sticky, but all of them were watched by a bank of quantum core computers that sat, brooding over all intra-city messages and data access.

  His implant, however, was completely independent of the city systems and it was shielded from scans. Using it for short range links, such as the sticky, was more or less safe, but a long range message could be picked up by the random scanners.

  He powered up the Hothmoen discriminator, developed by the Yo’Thage brothers on Weirfall a century and a half ago. The discriminator allowed perception at the quantum level. Linking it to a Midgaard implant allowed faster than light communication by tunneling a path through countless micro-wormholes.

  Cal focused his attention on the device in his tunic pocket, picking up the ready signal almost immediately. He came to a stop at a semicircular rest area that jutted out into the main atrium of the city.

  Leaning on the damp railing, he began to work his way through the files. The manifests for the Foxlight II were particularly illuminating. Each voyage resulted in a cargo transfer, straight through the orbital counterweight platform and onto another freighter. There was always a sub note indicating a large quantity of water coming down on the elevator each time the ship visited orbit.

  It made sense. If G’Maj had found a new source of spicewood, he’d want to bring enough down here to generate local pocket currency, and he’d want to keep folks from finding out. What better way than to declare it as water.

  Technically, water was in permanent shortage, but it was an artificial shortage – the city was sitting under several kilometers of it, after all. Still, if it was declared as water, that meant official involvement.

  Cal reckoned that direct involvement went no farther up the chain than a customs official or two. A lot of ‘water’ got imported into the city every day, but the company turned a blind eye, as long as the bribes flowed. G’Maj was paying an inspector, who then gave his own supervisor a share. That supervisor, in turn, paid a percent of his take to his manager and so, up the chain it went.

  The unofficial system was so old, it wasn’t even considered illegal. It also had the benefit of allowing certain, archaic laws to be circumvented without engaging the infamously costly re-legislation process. The old saying went that money flowed into Xo’Khov and fed the Consul’s pet black-hole.

  “Give an Ufangian a credit and he’ll make two more by days end,” Cal muttered the old adage as he mentally scrolled the data. “Give a credit to a Dactari and he’ll melt it down to sell for scrap, then ask you for another credit so he can ship it to a recycler.”

  Since the first Consul had replaced the Triumvirs, fifteen decades ago, accountability had gone to the scuttlers. The Triumvirs had at least kept each other in check to some degree. The Consuls ruled without interference and so the great gears of Republic administration had grown increasingly dirty.

  Small wonder there was so much undeclared cargo shifting around between the worlds.

  Cal frowned. He closed the current file and went back to the expense account. G’Maj always bought the same amount of reactant every time he returned to Chaco Benthic. It was always the same amount, right down the the last tenth of a grain.

  It was a simple matter for Cal to have his cranial processor crunch the numbers. He had everything he needed to calculate the radius represented by the reactant purchases. The specs on the Foxlight II were right there in the files and their engine performance was clearly stated in the sales brochure G’Maj had received from off world.

  Cal projected a three dimensional chart on his retinas and overlaid a sphere with the calculated radius. Only three worlds came anywhere close to the surface of the sphere. One was a carbon giant and he removed it from the projection. The next two seemed like good candidates
. Both were G class worlds.

  The G class, or Goldilocks class of worlds were the ones that orbited their stars at just the right distance for liquid water to exist. Of the two G class worlds, one sat just inside the sphere, and the other just beyond it.

  Cal figured the smuggler wouldn’t take any risks on running out of fuel so the closer world was the most likely candidate. Both were outside of Republic control, but he figured he could wait for G’Maj to return before attempting to contact the Alliance.

  He toyed with the idea of sneaking aboard the Foxlight II when it returned, but the crew would almost certainly purge the nav computer before the customs officials came aboard.

  He figured the best course of action would be a chance meeting with G’Maj at one of the smugglers regular watering holes. Just two Tauhentan expats, reminiscing about a world that neither had set foot on. Once Cal got him talking, he should be able to pick up enough data to confirm his analysis.

  He was hoping it would turn out to be planet 3428. If the Alliance decided to garrison that world, it would give them a strong position on the Dactari flank and it meant a greater enemy force would have to be stationed here, drawing off enemy troops from the core worlds. If they timed it right, he could start an insurrection here while Alliance forces took 3428.

  The Dactari Consul ruling the Republic was also the titular head of the military but, no Consul since the first one had any actual military experience. Chances were good he’d overreact, sending a massive force to keep this insignificant ball of water in his domain.

  Cal close the data and shut off his implants, finally hearing the growl of his stomach. He started walking. He could wait for a few more days, before calling Flemming with the news.

  Counterweight will release in the first quarter of 2014. If you would like to be notified of the release date, just send me a quick request at AGClaymore@gmail.com. Your privacy will be protected and your email will not be used for any other purposes.