“We’ll have to try our luck elsewhere,” Harry channeled his amusement into a tone of regret. “A few worlds in this region have produced systems for Weirfall in the past. They might be persuaded to join us in return for exclusive market access.”
“You can’t leave,” Haldita blurted. He set his tea down on the arm of his throne, but it overbalanced on the edge and tumbled to the floor. He didn’t even seem to notice the crash as the fine porcelain struck the sandstone floor.
“Well, not without explaining ourselves to the people,” Harry gave the satrap a friendly smile. “Nobody will blame you, Haldita. Your hands are tied, as you’ve explained.”
If they weren’t tied, then they would be soon enough. When Oaxians learned that their warlord had been driven away by a greedy administrator, they would hang him by his feet in the arena and turn wild animals loose. They were committed, now that they had killed the security troops, and they would suffer horribly without Alliance military support.
And Harry was now something of a cultural icon, the living embodiment of Orontes.
“We might be able to allocate two percent of the planetary revenue to your forces.” Haldita had slid to the forward edge of his throne.
“See to the embarkation of our troops, Colonel,” Harry ordered, ignoring the satrap. “I’ll talk with the media-posters out front. We owe the citizens of this world an explanation.”
“Perhaps as much as five percent, if I can have a few moments to consult with the records.” Haldita had slid off the cushion. His buttocks were on the stony forward edge of the throne.
That gave Haldita half of the revenue that used to go to the Republic. It represented a sizeable profit for the satrap, but Harry was in no mood to enrich this fool. “Ten,” he replied.
Haldita darted a glance at Adams’ departing form. “Ten?” he hissed. “Are you insane?”
“Perhaps,” Harry shrugged. “I haven’t had an evaluation in the last six months.” He smiled. “I wish you and your people the best of luck.” He turned and walked toward the exit. Several popular social-media personalities had seen the two Humans enter. By now the foyer would be filled with Oaxians whose opinions were highly valued and they would be posting live video as he came out of the throne room.
He made it halfway to the huge stone door.
“Alright,” the satrap shrieked. “Ten.”
Harry turned to see Haldita standing at the bottom step of the dais. “I’ll wait here,” he promised, raising his arm to open an account window on his wrist pad. “If I see the revenue feed flowing into the account before I get bored, I’ll just smile for the cameras and get to work.”
Haldita nodded dumbly, his arms hanging limply at his sides.
Harry looked ostentatiously at the pad, then back at the satrap, who jerked into motion, scampering out a side door. He brought up Adams’ icon and opened a channel. “Hold off on the recall.”
“Recall?” Adams laughed. “And here I was already half done.” He put on a sober face. “Yes, sir. I’ll hold off on giving any orders unless I hear from you.” He had put the slightest stress on the word ‘unless’, the substitution for the word ‘until’ clearly indicating he expected no formal recall order.
Harry closed the channel. That went well, I think. The satrap had attempted to take the whip hand, but he had been over-playing a weak hand. He looked down to see funds flowing into the account balance. His finance officers would have to confirm the percentage.
But it was a damn good half hour’s work.
Moving Forward
Capitalizing
The Midway, Weirfall Orbit
“Thank you, Captain,” Towers’ tone managed to convey both gratitude and dismissal, and the officer gave him a quick nod before leaving the conference room. He would return to Admiral Gao, having delivered his report.
The admiral turned to Caul. “Well?”
The Midgaard leader gazed thoughtfully at the holographic system map that hovered above the table. It was a recent addition, scavenged from a crippled enemy ship. “It’s certainly different from how my people fight a war,” he allowed. “I can see the value in what Gao has done – forcing a defeat on the enemy while leaving enough of them alive to spread the news.” He looked at Towers. “I would have just killed them all. There’s always the danger in teaching the enemy a lesson – they might learn something other than humility.”
“It did look that way,” Towers’ eyes wandered to the holo display, where a grey icon showed a former enemy concentration. “They were sitting on a major choke point for more than fifteen hours.” He grimaced. “They had some clever mischief in mind. I was on the verge of sending a force to wipe them out, but then they simply jumped for home.”
“A mutiny, perhaps,” Caul theorized.
“Perhaps,” Towers conceded, “but I don’t think so. They were a well-trained force, carrying the boar’s head of the Krypteia on almost all of their ships.”
“Either way,” Caul offered, “they’ve headed for home with news of defeat, so it would seem that Hu Gao has made the right choice.”
“But what do we do about it?” Towers expanded the scale of the view with a drag of his hands, scrolling over to Dactar. He zoomed back in. “We have to make another move. We’ve sat on our asses for too long. Now that we have momentum, we need to keep up the pressure, keep the enemy on their heels.”
“We don’t have the strength to take many more worlds,” Caul said. “It’s a scramble just holding three planets.”
“So we go for the one target that makes the risk worthwhile.” Towers zoomed Dactar to fill the space above the conference table. “Hit them here where they feel most secure. Give them a couple of days to absorb whatever that Krypteia force has in mind and then wipe their forces out of the skies in full view of their people.”
“You would leave their population untouched?”
“Maybe,” Towers stared at the projection, watching the constellation of protective warships as they randomly shifted their positions. “If we destroy the planet, the remaining forces will have nothing to lose. The reprisals would make anything we’ve seen so far look like child’s play in comparison. We need to scare them, not kill them.”
“If you kill ‘em,” Caul approximated a hillbilly accent, “they won’t learn nuthin’.”
Towers stared at the Midgaard. “That’s just wrong. Whoever set up the language program has a really strange sense of humor.” He waved a hand. “Anyway, let’s get Dr. Young in here. We need to gather our forces and strike while our own territory is relatively clear.”
Unwelcome Guest
The Salamis, Oaxian Orbit
Harry looked up from a report as Eiboekna entered his quarters. Major Liam Kennedy, acting as her security escort (a member of a royal family rated more than an NCO for a guard, after all), stopped just outside the doors. “You wanted to get us together with the Dactari leadership.” He waved her to the other couch. “Looks like you’ll get your wish. We’re ordered to join an attack on Dactar.”
“And will you commit the same crimes that you accuse them of?” she asked as she took her seat. “You saw horrible atrocities through those memories.” She looked down at the table. “It’s a legacy my family isn’t very proud of. Would you have that stain on your hands as well?”
“We didn’t start this war.”
“That won’t excuse you. There are billions of civilians on that world. There are millions of children who love their parents.”
“And billions of potential recruits,” Harry reminded her. “That world is the beating heart of all that has plagued my people for more than ten years. The mass drivers, sent to eliminate my entire species, came from Dactari orbit, carrying Dactari crews.”
“Perhaps you’re willing to contemplate their destruction because they’re a different species,” she suggested. “If you met some of them, got to know them…”
“I do know one of them.” Harry leaned back against the couch. “A captured medical
officer named Gelna Tai. He shipped with us on the Völund as a consultant and back-up translator.” A sigh. “Jumped ship at Khola, but I did like the little guy. He has a good sense of humor.”
“It doesn’t bother you that you might wipe out his family?”
An uncomfortable frown. “I hate them for what they’ve done, and I don’t hate them because of Gelna. You might say I’m of two minds.”
Eiboekna stared at Harry. “Where I come from, that condition is cause for concern. Under stress, the mind can split off a part of your personality in an attempt to preserve the rest. A dumping ground for the traits you want no part of, but desperately need in order to survive.”
“You’re reading a lot into a simple slip of the tongue.” He stood, waiting for her to follow his lead. “We’re going to fight them because we have no other option.” She followed him to the corridor entrance. “We need to shake the Dactari people out of their mindset, show them that they weren’t meant to rule us.”
He stopped at the door and she turned to face him.
“If there are any of them left,” he added with a grin, “maybe you can broker a peace between us.”
She looked at him for a long moment. Long enough to make him fidget. “Who is Benedict?” she asked, the sudden non-sequitur taking Harry by surprise.
“I should ask you that,” he replied with a tilt of his head. “He was with you on the station when we came into the control room.”
She shook her head slowly. “When you killed the commander, I thought you were talking to his body. I assumed Benedict was some derogatory term used by your people in reference to the enemy, but found no records of it in your database.”
“You’ve been given access to our systems?” Harry sought refuge in the mundane. “What the hell was Prouse…”
“I did find a reference in your own nation’s history files,” she went on, ignoring his bluster. “A general in your revolution against a country called England. He abandoned your cause to fight for the enemy.”
Harry could feel the heat in his ears. His eardrums throbbed in concert with his pulse. He walked away from the door, heading for the windows.
“After you shot the commander, we were alone in that room until that young woman came in and took a system module.” She followed him. “You kept talking. You started yelling after you activated the destruct sequence. I thought you were yelling at me but, now, I’m not so sure.”
“After I activated…” Harry turned from the window to look at her, not wanting to believe her, but knowing she made sense.
“The Dactari forced their way into your mind,” she reminded him gently. “It’s not uncommon for a personality to fragment under a deep incursion.” She reached out to rest a hand against his arm. “Everyone breaks, sooner or later. I think in your case, a small part of you fragmented off and broke, leaving the rest of you untouched.”
“You think I created Benedict?” He shivered. If she’s right, am I even fit to command anymore? The standards were certainly lower, now that they were cut off from home. Still, this was asking fleet medical to overlook a hell of a lot.
“Created him,” she said, “and killed him.”
“What?” Harry looked at her with surprise – and hope.
“He was on the station when it blew,” she smiled. “You made absolutely certain nothing escaped; you even executed the crew in the landing bay. Nothing got away before the detonation.”
“Can it really be that simple?” Somehow, I’ve always known that Benedict was my own creation. I’ve always seen it – out of the corner of my mind.
She shrugged. “Does it have to be more complicated? You’ve thought he was dead since the raid.” She released his arm and headed for the door. “Leave him that way,” she said over her shoulder as she passed through the portal.
Counter Revolution
Gaemhaeg resupply depot
Reis let out an explosion of breath as he watched the station come into view. For two days now, he had sat in his quarters, staring out at the black. The fleet had reported in at Gaemhaeg as originally planned. His second obviously had the sense to maintain a semblance of normalcy despite his insane plan. Had the fleet bypassed the station on their way to Dactar, they would have attracted unwanted attention.
For two days now, they had been going through the motions of a resupply stop while waiting for their launch slot to Dactar. When the ship had pushed back from the docking port, he’d thought they were finally released, but they were simply moving to a new wing of the station to take on food.
He snatched up his deodorant cube and hurled it at the windows. Two days sitting here and no way for me to signal the station crew! He watched it bounce off the heavy pane and tumble back to his feet. He looked at the mark on the window, then past it to the windows of the station’s crew quarters.
With a grim smile, he picked up the cube and marched over to the windows.
‘Crew has mutinied. Send boarding team to this vessel,’ he wrote in pasty white, backward glyphs. Tossing the cube aside, he raced over to his gear locker. He pulled out his EVA suit and boots, tossing them on the floor so he could reach the shelving behind. He grabbed a powerful illuminator and raced over to his door, entering a personal lock code that should give him at least ten minutes of guaranteed privacy.
Racing back to the windows, he turned on the illuminator and shone it across at the station windows. He was working his way from left to right, top to bottom, shining the light into each crew apartment until he caught movement. Swinging the light back, he saw a crew member desperately pulling her towel down from her wet hair to cover herself.
He couldn’t hear, with the vacuum between them, but he was reasonably certain that profanity played a major role in her angry tirade. He tried to point to the message on the window, but she must have thought he was indicating his quarters because her anger level visibly increased.
“Unbelievable,” he muttered, moving his light on to the next set of windows. He looked back to see her waving a communicator at him before putting it to her ear. She was reporting him as an ogler.
“Hells,” he cursed. If she reported him, the station’s guards would come to the ship, but they would come lightly armed and searching for a pervert. They would be disposed of by his mutinous crew and the force would jump for Dactar immediately, authorized or not. He needed them to arrive armed to the ears and expecting a hard fight.
He ran to his locker and pulled out his cover kit, cursing himself for not thinking of it sooner. He unfolded the thin thermal blanket and placed the non reflective black side against the window, behind the message. The contrast should help her to notice what he had written.
The woman in the station frowned at this new development, but she leaned forward toward the window. She’s trying to read the message, thank the Ancestors! She suddenly stood straight, staring silently at Reis. Her head turned slightly and she nodded before speaking into her communicator, gesturing at Reis’ ship.
He didn’t have long to wait – ten minutes at most. Stations like Gaemhaeg maintained a fast-action team at all times. After losing several stations to Alliance attack, the security protocols had been redesigned. The muted sounds of boarding weapons made it very clear that Reis’ message had been received.
His men were experienced counter-insurgency operators, but they were taken unawares, thinking their ruse undiscovered. The few who carried weapons were quickly cut down and the remainder had the good sense to know a losing fight when they saw one.
When he opened the door, he found himself facing two of the compressed-gas weapons of the boarding party. A single, sudden move and the weapons would spit out a hail of deadly flechettes.
“Hands up!” the one on the left, a secondary sub-squadra, barked. “Stand and identify!”
Reis raised his hands. “Flota Reis Mas of the Krypteia.” He waited while the soldier on the right activated the scanner on his weapon and read the glyphs on his hand. “My commissar led a mutiny,” he explained.
“A mutiny… in a Krypteia force?” The security officer shared a look with his trooper. “What in the hells is going on?” He leaned in, lowering his voice. “Sir, does this have anything to do with the large force that just went pelting past here for Dactar?”
“What large force?”
A shrug. “No idea, sir. It was big, though, as if every ship we have was pulled together and sent to home world together. They didn’t drop out when they got here; they just kept on going. We picked up enough anomalies to indicate hundreds of ships.”
Reis’ blood ran cold, his tail pressed against his chest. If we wanted the ships at home world for some emergency, we wouldn’t mess around with gathering them at some other location. We’d just tell them to get there at best possible speed. He shivered. The Alliance would arrive at Dactar as a single force. A coherent fleet heading for home world could only mean one thing.
“It’s an Alliance attack.” He looked at the junior officer. “Show me the prisoners.”
Though he had been a prisoner of his own men only minutes before, he recovered his air of command quickly enough. There was no time for second-guessing. The security officer accepted Reis’ authority easily and led him out into the middle of the bridge.
His second was there on his knees, and he looked up beseechingly at his flota. Reis felt like kicking his teeth in but he had too much work to do. He turned back to the security officer. “Are there any other officers in your boarding team?”
A negative shake of the tail.
Reis looked around the bridge, pointing to one of his own junior officers. “You, Rus! Stand up and come over here.”
The young officer warily walked over to his flota.
“Give me your communicator,” Reis held out a hand, taking the unit from Rus and inserting it into his right ear. “Fleet wide,” he ordered. “All vessels, this is Flota Reis Mas. I have removed the commissar from his post, and now I must decide what to do with the rest of you.” Despite his own preferences, he could ill afford to lose half his men with a hostile force heading for Dactar.
The Orphan Alliance Page 25