I was forced to cut the stasis field before the ejection was complete, Tommy made a helpless gesture, aware of her feelings in the matter. He’s unresponsive.
I’ll bring him to a hospital for the time being if you can pull him out of the chamber, she announced. Meanwhile, we need to get everyone off that planet. I’ve been thinking that the best method would be to keep continental groups together. That way we should be able to avoid breaking up communities and families.
How long will it take to remove everyone from the surface?
They are already off the surface, she seemed surprised at Tommy’s question. As soon as I took control of the Firm Resolve, I initiated the transport.
If they’re already aboard, why are we discussing where to put them?
I haven’t materialized them yet. She spoke as though reminding Tommy of the obvious. I’m examining their current experience levels before assigning their positions and implanting the necessary knowledge. Once that is done, I will materialize them in their newly-assigned homes.
Huh! Tommy was impressed that Keeva had the ability to transport, analyse and educate fifty million people all in one shot. The computers that augmented her humanoid abilities must be far in advance of even the most sophisticated quantum cores yet produced on Earth. Then a new thought struck him. So, we’ll have neighbors.
Yes, most of the units will be filled in the building where you live.
Neighbors… He tried to imagine the ship, not the ghost vesse he had always known, but a living ship, teeming with people. He tried to conjure up images of pedestrians hurrying to work, groups at ease in the many parks, children running and playing – safe from volcanoes and starvation.
He was surprised to realize that he was actually smiling.
An Intelligent Raid
Dactari Logistics Station, Tauhentan Orbit
Harry was sweating and his stomach was trying to replicate the various knots he had learned in his early academy days. He knew the plan was a good one, but no plan ever lasted for more than a few minutes in the real world. He was following Ro’j off the ramp of the shuttle, boarding the Dactari logistics station. His hands were behind his back and a casual observer would assume they were bound there – not holding a pistol. His ‘guards’ were walking in close formation, concealing his weapon and keeping any inquisitive station staff from approaching.
As with any plan, this one was fraught with unanswered questions. Would the station guards be too inquisitive, leading to a firefight in which the Alliance team would be forced to fight their way in to the control room? Would the smuggler have some subtle way of signalling the ruse to his Dactari associates?
Would Harry end up captured for real? If so, then the Dactari wouldn’t make a second attempt at a showy death. They’d stand him in front of an airlock shield, put a bullet in his brain, and send the video to Oaxes.
“What’s this?” The Dactari guard frowned at Harry but, recognizing Ro’j, he left his weapon hanging from its shoulder sling.
“It’s called a prisoner,” Ro’j replied with a heavy helping of sarcasm. “How your people ever managed to conquer so many planets is beyond me.”
“If you Tauhentans are so smart, why aren’t you guarding a Tauhentan military installation in orbit around Dactar?” A triumphant sneer. “Oh, that’s right, there is no Tauhentan Republic!”
“True.” Ro’j nodded solemnly. “It has been my lifelong dream to guard a door. I would count my life fulfilled if I could stand by a magnificent door such as this one,” he spoke reverently as he waved at the ordinary airlock door behind the guard, “where I could furrow my brow in consternation at any new arrival and speak clever phrases such as ‘what’s this?’.”
The guard’s ears reddened as his right hand came to rest on the grip of his weapon. “You had better state your business, smuggler,” he spat, “or I’ll throw you in a cell for a few days. Maybe then you’ll learn to show proper respect.”
“My business is with the commander of this station,” Ro’j replied loftily. “It involves a high-priority captive,” he added, nodding toward Harry, flanked by fifteen guards in traditional Tauhentan garb, “and it would be very unfortunate for you if you knew anything about the matter.” He leaned a little closer to the Dactari. “I would not be the least bit surprised,” Ro’j breathed the words, “if you found yourself assigned to the next draft of troops for Earth – if, indeed, your people are still considering such a thing.”
He drew himself back up to tower over the guard. Tauhentans and Oaxians were almost the same average height as Humans, and Ro’j was taller than Harry by a good three inches. “They wouldn’t want you hanging around the Republic with this kind of knowledge. They know how you guards like to flap your lips.”
Harry saw the momentary flash of fear in the guard’s eyes. So the Republic hasn’t been able to completely whitewash their defeats in our solar system. Official proclamations must have lost some of their luster. When the first fleet went to Mars, they had simply never returned. The Republic would have been free to concoct any story they wanted, seeing as nobody would have been able to prove them wrong.
In the second invasion attempt, too many ships had managed to escape from the combined Human/Midgaard fleet. The return of thousands of defeated troops would have complicated matters. They would most likely have been prevented from returning to Dactar, but they had to end up somewhere. The simple fact that Humans had come to Weirfall in force had given the lie to Dactari invincibility. They might be able to hide it from citizens on Dactar, but the troops stationed on subject worlds would have to have at least some warning that Humans were loose in the Republic.
The fear in this guard’s eyes proved that Earth was not a popular word among the Dactari military.
Ro’j swept past the guard, who muttered feeble protests, but did nothing to stop him. Harry and his armed escort followed closely behind.
“What’s the meaning of this?” the station commander demanded as the small group walked into the control center. Five crewmen sat at a ring of terminals in the center of the room, arranging transport for weapon orders.
A young woman stood beside him, a look of mild disinterest on her face. Her brown eyes were slightly larger than normal and sat above a narrowed chin. She was roughly five and a half feet tall though her tumbling black hair added another couple of inches.
“Ah, you see!” Ro’j commented to his group. “A similar question but he asks for the meaning. That is why he’s in command of a whole station rather than just a door.”
The commander’s face showed fury for just an instant. That look transformed to complete disbelief as Ro’j’s guards drew their weapons, and the prisoner pulled his hands out from behind his back. He was no prisoner at all. He was armed with one of those efficient Human pistols.
The invading guards, some of Lothbrok’s men, leapt over the ring of terminals, kicking the operators away from their keyboards. They were forced, face-down, onto the deck where their hands were bound behind their backs.
“Get them down to the loading bay,” Harry ordered Fenris. He turned back to the commander who was edging toward the wall consoles. “You keep moving around, and I’ll blow your damn head off.” He raised his sidearm. “Get over there.” He waved his weapon toward the middle of the open space.
He was alone now with the commander and the woman. It had been an officer in this exact position that had put him through the horror of past Oaxian lives. “Tell me how to remove the logistics module.”
“Do you really think I would betray my people?” The commander raised one eyebrow.
“No,” Harry replied calmly. “That’s why I’ll make this quick.” He pulled the trigger and the enemy officer pitched backward, his face a red ruin. Harry heard footsteps behind him and turned, expecting to see Mickey, the foremost Alliance expert on Dactari systems.
“That was definitely unfriendly,” Benedict drawled. He strolled casually to the center consoles where he leaned against a bank of k
eyboards. “He wouldn’t betray his people, but he would have stood by quietly, if you’d have let him.”
“Benedict!” Harry stared at his nemesis in shock. “How the hell did you know we’d come here?”
“Maybe it’s not all about you,” Benedict grinned. “Or, then again, maybe it’s no great feat to figure out where you’d go next.” He looked around the room and shrugged. “If you take Oaxes and Tauhento, you can build and arm new ships, and your host planets will enjoy an economic boom. All you need is for this station to blow after you take the logistics module, so the Dactari won’t realize you have it.”
“Why would you betray your own people?” Harry shook his head, ever so slightly. “What kind of a man are you?”
Benedict stood up. “The kind who does what has to be done.” He waved his hand at the console. A red light was blinking next to a round palm button. “You need the station to self-destruct. I’m just helping you out.”
“Get away from that console!” Benedict complied with Harry’s demand, sliding toward an exit corridor. Harry aimed the pistol at Benedict’s head as he moved to take his place. “That’s far enough. How do I disarm this?”
Benedict smiled.
Harry turned at the sound of footsteps, seeing Mickey Willsen. Thank God. She can work on taking the module while I try to stop this. He turned back to Benedict, but he was already gone. “Dammit. Mickey, the module is over there.” He pointed to the back wall. “Same slot we talked about. Get it out of here, the self-destruct is already counting down. I’m trying to reset it but I doubt I’ll have any luck.”
She didn’t say a word. Filled with the sudden sense of urgency, she raced over to the back wall of the command center and counted two columns in from the left followed by four rows down. She typed a combination of keys on one of the touch screens at the front of the module and the lights faded.
Harry looked up at the main display. Seeing that the hundreds of ships had faded from the display, he nodded. “That’s the one. What kind of process do we need to use before you can disconnect the…”
Mickey ran past him with the module in her hands. “Move your ass, Harry. There’s no way in hell you’re gonna hack the self-destruct in the next few minutes.”
Harry’s wave indicated the woman should follow Mickey. He fell in behind the dark haired female, jumping over the consoles to follow her down the corridor.
He couldn’t help but laugh. Willsen’s cousin Mike had been one of his science officers on the Völund and he’d been just as pragmatic – right up until the moment he was killed by a Midgaard.
If simply yanking the damn thing out had ruined it, then it was still better than being blown to hell along with the station.
They rounded the last corner and passed through the door, finding the captured crew lined up on their knees with their hands restrained behind their backs. “Get aboard,” Harry yelled to Mickey.
She ran onto the boarding ramp of the Weiran shuttle and turned to look at Harry. “You’re not just going to leave them here to die, are you?” Her eyes shifted to the mystery woman who had joined them in the back of the shuttle.
Harry set his sidearm to full auto as he joined her on the ramp. “Nope.” He aimed at the left hand prisoner and started firing. He ignored her inarticulate protest as he sprayed the small group of Dactari. It felt surprisingly, revoltingly, good. Two of them threw themselves to the decking behind the bodies of their dead comrades before Harry could shoot them.
“You try to help a guy…” Harry chuckled. “Fenris,” he yelled, “get us out of here, the station is going to blow any second.”
The ramp closed under them as the small craft lifted off the deck and headed for the atmospheric shielding. They had gone no more than twenty kilometers before the explosion heralded the end of the logistics outpost and its few remaining occupants. After a few seconds, they felt the slight tremor of the shock wave.
No sooner had the tremor passed than the small shuttle began to distort. Made before Oaxes had been forced to stop deliveries to Weirfall, the shuttle boasted a small distortion drive capable of short-duration jumps. It was a new invention, most likely not replicated anywhere else in the Republic – yet.
“Why’d you kill those guys, just now?” Mickey was busy checking out the connections on the back of the stolen module, but her restless mind was capable of following several threads at the same time. It took a little getting used to.
“No witnesses,” Harry feigned a tone of tolerant surprise.
“They were going to blow up anyway,” she was still staring at the back of the module, running her fingers over the array of ports. “What I saw looked like a personal thing.”
“Can’t a man enjoy his work?” Harry answered darkly.
She shot him a grimace before turning back to her work. That one glance was more eloquent than a thousand words.
“Look,” he began, “those bastards put me in one of their implant chambers and made me live through dozens of lives. Each one was an Oaxian resistance fighter and each one had to watch his family die in the arena. I’m not gonna lose any sleep over killing a Dactari.”
“Hmmm,” she said, in a non-committal fashion. “I’m pretty sure this will work. It’ll take me and Ed a couple of days to knock together an interface, but it’s pretty ordinary equipment. The module itself is the same standard case that goes into all Dactari warships.” She stopped talking for a moment and stared up at Harry in surprise.
“Their modules are the epitome of plug-and-play,” she said, her eyes shining with excitement. “I bet if we plug it into one of the spare slots on the bridge of the Leetayo, we might be able to bring up the output with no need to build an interface at all! I’m such an idiot for not thinking of that right away!”
“Oh, yeah,” Harry muttered. “I had that figured out seconds ago…” It was rare for a captain to get a chance to use sarcasm. Usually, it was bad for morale. “We can start testing this in less than an hour, thanks to your sudden inspiration.” The Leetayo, one of several captured Dactari ships, was waiting at the rendezvous point on the off chance they might need to return to Tauhento disguised as Dactari.
“You’ve probably saved a lot of Tauhentan lives,” he told her. “They would have launched a full-scale uprising as soon as they saw the station blow up. If we can confirm the unit works when we get to the RV point, we can turn around and go straight back to Tauhento and wipe out every Dactari station and ship in orbit.”
“And what happens if this thing is fried?”
“The official plan is to return to the fleet and find a new target.” Harry leaned back against his seat. “As soon as you plug that thing into the Leetayo, we’re going back to Tauhento. I’d prefer to go with an idea of where the enemy ships are, but I’m going whether that thing is working or not. It’s long past time we switched from defense to offense, and we’ll never get another world to trust us if we incite the Tauhentans to rebellion and then fail to back them up.”
Across the shuttle bay, the dark haired woman closed her eyes, bowing her head.
“Who is she?” Mickey spared a glance from her new toy.
“We’ll have to find out later,” Harry answered. “She was in the control center when we arrived.”
“Tauhentan?”
“No.” Harry’s tone revealed mild curiosity. “She’s Bolshari, the ruling class of the old Empire.”
The wide eyelids fluttered open.
Precipice
The Midway, Weirfall Orbit
“Is it my imagination, Doctor, or are they more aggressive than their Human counterpart?” Towers’ sudden question shook Dwight out of his trance. He had been standing in front of an isolation cell in the temporary infection lab. The ‘patient’ inside was throwing himself repeatedly at the Plexiglas panel, leaving smears of degenerated tissue with each lunge.
“No, it’s not imagined.” He kept looking at the infected Dactari prisoner. “They have faster metabolisms than us. If you turned this guy l
oose, he’d go tearing around the ship, attacking the crew until his limbs failed.” The prisoner had been given the vaccination. Tissue tests had shown a slightly higher incidence of mutation than in Humans, but none of the samples had actually taken up the organelle.
The Dactari were susceptible to the plague, but the inoculation failed to immunize them. It also failed to extend their lives. Dwight suspected that Dactari genes lacked coding for one of the proteins that the organelle needed to thrive in their tissues, a protein that Humans produced naturally.
The plague didn’t discriminate, but the cure did.
Tissue samples from the Weiran population had the same results, but it was decided to test the full infection on live subjects in the case of the Dactari. That was where Dwight had drawn the line. Even after injecting thousands of Humans with a fatal dose of barbiturates, he couldn’t bring himself to give the vaccine to these prisoners, knowing it held none of the benefits conferred on Humans.
One of the medical staff on the carrier had shown a willingness. Now the fleet had a new stain on its record.
He felt a growing unease, knowing that testing had been done on prisoners in the Second World War. The vaccine represented a major military advantage over the enemy, and fleet command wanted to know whether the Dactari might be able to adapt it for their own use.
Is this just the beginning? Dwight wondered. How much will we try to justify on the grounds of desperation?
“How far has it spread?” Towers looked down the row of transparent cells.
“All of the subjects you’ve exposed have begun to show signs of infection.” Dwight sighed. “It’s at least as virulent as it is in our own population. We should put ‘em down and open the hatch.” The back wall of the temporary cells was nothing more than the huge portside hangar door. In the event of an emergency, the entire lab could be ejected by opening the door and simply shoving the whole mess out into space.
The Orphan Alliance Page 13