The Orphan Alliance (The Black Ships Book 3) (3 page)

Presh, Oaxes

H
arry
stared at the corroded framework of the seat in front of him, lurching as the
shuttle banked to begin its descent into the massive stadium that jutted out
from the upper side of the Oaxian capital. The seats of the small craft were
suspended from two oval shaped tracks that ran along the underside of the
fuselage. Below him and to his left, there was nothing but open air until the
dome of the arena slid into view.

The city of Presh had been built out from the sides of two
adjacent mountains. It spanned above the fast flowing river below in a
graceful, six kilometer arch. The stadium was on the upriver side of the
massive arch so as not to obscure views of the sea, just five kilometers
down-stream. The huge arena was more spherical than its Earth counterparts and
the seats continued up the under-side of the dome, all the way to the two
hundred meter opening at its top, known as the
oculus
. Focused gravity
plating allowed spectators to sit comfortably while looking almost straight
down on the action.

They reached the rim of the oculus and the sound of several
hundred thousand cheers hit him with sudden force. He scanned a dull gaze
across the throng of Oaxians in their seats below. As they dropped through the
opening, he was surprised to be hit on the cheek by a small rock. The seats
near the oculus were close enough for a well aimed projectile to hit prisoners
on the shuttle and the locals were eagerly shouting bets and hurling insults
along with their missiles.

His memories now included dozens of Oaxians and he understood
that this antiquated craft had been used for centuries to bring condemned
prisoners to their public deaths. They would be dropped, two by two, to fight
over a knife. The victors of those skirmishes would hunt each other until only
one remained. That victor’s life was then left to the crowd’s mercy. Those who
stood were voting for a pardon while those who sat were voting for death.

How you conducted yourself in the arena made the difference.

They were bathed in the roar of
the
crowd now and a sudden cheer sounded
just as the seats slid toward the rear of the craft, the two rearmost seats
rotating inward and folding into a housing where they would ride back to the
front. The shuttle banked to head for the next drop point and Harry could see
two men struggling on the sand. One of them stiffened and rolled off the other,
who then jumped up and began to race after the shuttle, the crowd cheering him
on.

The seats moved aft again. It would be a three-way fight for
the knife this time. The sound of the crowd diminished as all eyes focused on
the struggle, now out of Harry’s sight. A collective sigh signified something,
but he had no idea what.

The seats moved aft and now Harry was at the rear, feet
dangling in open air. Facing him from the tail of the shuttle was a small
platform attached to the bottom of a ladder leading to the centerline of the
fuselage. He looked to his right and saw a killer looking back at him. His
opponent looked like a man who had opened more than a few throats in his time.
Harry was surprised at his own lack of fear.

At the sound of a heavy thump he turned back to the
platform. A human stood there, grinning at him. Harry knew without a doubt who
this was. “You’re Benedict.” He stated flatly.

The man shrugged negligently. “As good a name as any.”

“Why do you help them?”

“It’s in my nature, Harry.” He held the ladder in his left
hand, leaning toward the condemned prisoner. “There’s something in
your
nature, Harry. Something you’ll find useful in the next few minutes.” He held his
right hand out to the screaming crowds on the far side of the stadium.
“Recognize the place?”

“This is where Orontes fought before he joined the
resistance.”

A knife ejected from a panel behind the ladder, and tumbled
towards the sand.

“That’s right, and he understood the problems of fighting
with a short blade.” Benedict leaned back out of the way as the chairs began to
move, their seats folding down. “Remember, Harry,” he called as the two
prisoners dropped six feet to the sand.

No such thing as a professional knife fighter,
Harry
thought as he rolled to his feet. He knew the thought had come from Orontes’
memories.
Win or lose, this will be ugly.
He threw himself backward to
avoid his opponent’s strike, so close he could smell the stink of the man’s breath
as it misted the cold air. His enemy must have landed right on the knife
because his left arm was already bleeding. He didn’t carry on with his attack.
He’s
no stranger to killing, but he doesn’t know what he’s doing when his victim
sees him coming.

As the other man began to circle, Harry suddenly felt
something flow over him. A calm resolve suddenly took hold. It was unlike
anything he had ever felt before and he knew he would have to kill his opponent
quickly or die. He was ready to survive this.
Wait for the moment.

The other prisoner suddenly lunged.
Commit.
Harry
moved to the side so fast that he thought he might have bruised his brain
against his own skull. He latched onto his opponent’s arm and threw him
brutally to the ground, driving his right knee down onto the Oaxian’s head as
he fell over him to snatch up the dropped knife. He rolled back driving the
knife into his enemy’s neck.

The crowd was cheering, possibly for
him
but he
wasn’t sure and didn’t care. He looked around and saw three opponents closing
on him. The two survivors from the first two fights had come his way as well as
one of the prisoners from a subsequent drop.
I’ll bet they’ve been offered a
pardon to make sure I’m dead.

Keep them apart.
Harry started toward the one who
approached from his right. He moved at a steady jog, conserving his energy.

Air him out.
Harry had several centuries of
accumulated Oaxian memories crammed into his head and he understood the
reference immediately. Prisoners usually attacked each other in the exercise
yard where the guards ‘aired them out’. The term had become synonymous with the
aggressive, unstructured attack common among inmates.

He aimed his first cut at his opponent’s knife hand and the
Oaxian pulled his hand back. Harry was already bringing his blade back and
drove it into the man’s right shoulder. Wasting no time he pulled his hand back
only far enough to stab again, repeatedly jabbing into any target of
opportunity.

He’s out of it. Get on to the next one.
He spun to
see the next man slowing from a dead run, only twenty feet away. He must have
been hoping to catch Harry while he was still busy stabbing, but now he slowed
to a walk as he held his knife out.

Throw the dice again.
Harry launched at his third
opponent at full speed, causing him to stop in alarm. His mouth worked as
though trying to speak, but nothing coherent came out as he started to step
back.

Harry used the same move, slicing first at his opponent’s
weapon hand, and then bulling his way in with a flurry of cuts. The roar of the
crowd was undoubtedly for him. They were chanting ‘Harry’ as his latest victim
fell. He fought a wave of revulsion at what he was doing, reminding himself
that half measures would only get him killed.

Harry?
He scanned the arena. Three more were left but
they were gathering together. They would rush him as a group and then turn on
each other once he was dead.
I identified myself as Harrison. They have my
memories, up on the station, but why would somebody bother to spread the
diminutive version of my name?

Another name began to grow in counterpoint to his own, until
they were being alternated by the crowd as they screamed themselves hoarse.

And suddenly it made sense.

Lothbrok.

Harry grinned. He looked around, seeing a fourth figure
approaching from behind. He wore the same cold weather cloak favored by the
locals but he dropped it to reveal the articulated plate armor of a Midgaard
EVA suit. He was an Alliance officer, and not just any officer. He had fought
by Harry’s side before, in a fight that had restored the noble status of the
Midgaard’s house in the process.

“You’re supposed to be working,” the Lord of Beringsburg
called to him in Dheema. “And here I find you, enjoying the high life.”

Harry laughed as he embraced his friend. The laugh echoed
through the stadium. The crowd would be curious at this new development and one
of the sound engineers had managed to pick up their conversation. The chanting
was still strong.

He was struck by a sudden inspiration, a memory of a famous
fighter’s last words in this very arena. It was a speech that had been kept
alive through centuries of simmering insurgency. He spared a glance at the
three remaining convicts. The odds were too close to even now and they had
stopped their advance.

“Oaxians,” he boomed, his voice amplified with no processing
delay at all. “You were free once, and proud.” He gazed around at the stands as
the cheering faded to near total silence. Then a buzz started to build as they
recognized the quote from Orontes’ last moments. He drew a deep breath and
shouted. “And you will be again!”

There was the briefest of pauses, and then a half million
voices began to scream their approval. The sound sent tingles down Harry’s
spine.

Lothbrok touched his wrist pad. “Now would be a perfect
time.” He said quietly, his voice not audible to the crowds who drowned out
even the amplified systems of the arena.

Before Harry had a chance to wonder what Lothbrok was
talking about, a series of brilliant flashes drew his eyes upwards. The Dactari
station was a massive thing, visible in the evening sun and it was clearly
visible now, through the oculus, as it broke apart in fire and chaos. All
around it, the funeral pyres of the local security fleet marked the end of the
enemy presence. The stadium’s exterior cameras picked up the spectacle and
replayed it on the interior screens. Already whipped into a frenzy, the crowd
descended into complete chaos.

Dactari guards around the perimeter of the sandy killing
grounds began backing away from the walls as Oaxians began to spill over the
barrier. The dividing line between spectator and fighter had been erased in the
anonymity of the mob, the spur of spectacle, the goad of ancient pride.

A Midgaard shuttle dropped through the oculus like a
thunderbolt, coming to land ten feet away, its ramp already open. “This is your
moment,” Harry roared at the crowd and they loved him for it. He joined
Lothbrok on the ramp and they lifted off as it closed.

“Gods, Harry! That was a brilliant bit of theater.” Lothbrok
clapped him on the shoulder. “I had a whole speech worked out but I don’t think
it would have had half the effect that you got with twelve words. Where did you
come up with it?”

“One of their rebel leaders,” Harry said quietly. He looked
over at his friend. “You started them chanting our names?”

“Of course. I started them on your name when you made your
first kill. By the second, it had spread to a quarter of the stadium, so I
yelled out that ‘Lothbrok would not let such a brave man die alone’ and I jumped
in.” He waved Harry to a seat. “Always get the crowd on your side if you plan
to make a public spectacle of yourself.”

“I’m surprised they let you come after me.”

“They didn’t,” he answered simply. “Towers gave me some
sympathetic goat’s droppings about risking thousands to save one good officer
and Caul just stood there and nodded. We came anyway.”

“We?”

“Carol brought the
Völund
. She took out the garrison
ships with those nasty little Mosquitoes of yours while my boys hit the
stations.”

“Your boys didn’t happen to ransack that main station before
they blew it, did they?”

“No time for that,” the big Midgaard grinned. “This was just
a quick smash-and-grab, and you’re the grab. Reinforcements are probably
already on their way here to stop us.”

There are other stations like that one,
Harry
thought. “I may not have gotten the parts that I came here for, but I did
manage to stumble onto something far more important while I was here.” He
grinned at Lothbrok, finally accepting that he was going to live. Every sense
was hyperactive. Even the air of the shuttle, tainted with metal and hydraulic
fluid, had never smelled so sweet.

And he had gathered information that completely justified
the risk his friends had taken on his behalf. “I’ve got an idea you can help me
with.”

The Old Man & Faust

The Midway, Weirfall Orbit

D
wight
almost bumped into the guide who had stopped at the hatch to Towers ready room
and he shook his head to clear the cobwebs.
Time to focus, you’ll only get
one chance to get them on side.

“You’re on your own, folks.” The 2
^nd
lieutenant
punched a button to open the hatch and waved them on.

Dwight followed Shelby through and the heavy panel slid shut
behind him. The floor in here was the same steel decking as in the hallway, but
a large Persian rug covered much of the open space. A low table sat in the
middle of the rug, surrounded by three leather couches. The wall on the inboard
side of the room was decorated with a row of portraits, pride of place given to
a preserved copy of an antique magazine that depicted a naval officer and a
model aircraft carrier.

The outboard side was half wardrobe and half windows and
Dwight wandered over to look out at a magnificent view of Weirfall. A chime
sounded and he looked down to see a coffee maker, its light blinking. A jury
rigged transformer was wired to its top and several copper lines snaked out
from the bottom to disappear into the upper left side. Shelby remained by the
hatch, not moving a muscle.

“It was a gift from my sister.” The voice sounded inside his
helmet, the internal speakers reproducing the direction of the sound.

Dwight spun in surprise at the unexpected interruption.
Towers was standing at the door of a small side room, drying his hands on a
towel. A headset hung from his right ear. He wasn’t a very large man but he
seemed to be, nonetheless.

“A gift, sir?”

“The coffee pot,” he explained as he hung the towel neatly
on a ring inside the small washroom. He walked over to the couches and dropped
onto the one that faced the windows, indicating with a wave that Dwight and
Shelby should also take a seat. “I can’t bring myself to let it go. Engineering
found me a new heating element down on Weirfall and rigged it up so it would
still work. Not that we have much coffee left…”

“We have quite a lot on the
Pandora
, sir,” Shelby
offered, joining Dwight on the couch opposite the admiral. “Figured you might
be glad to get a taste of fresh stuff for a change.”  

“Don’t toy with me, Captain. I’m almost ready to take my
chances on infected coffee.”

That sounds like an opportunity to bring up our purpose
in coming here,
Dwight realized but, in the time it took him to think it,
Towers had already moved on.

“Intriguing name,
Pandora
,” he mused. “Since evil has
already been unleashed, am I to assume that your ship’s name indicates hope?”

Before Dwight could answer, the hatch slid open and a
middle-aged officer entered, a tablet in one hand and a steel travel mug in the
other.

“Dr. Young, Captain Shelby, this is Dr. Strauss, our chief
medical officer.” Towers grinned and waved the new arrival over to the coffee
pot. “You can see why my personal stock is almost gone: damn freeloaders always
show up with an empty mug in hand. I’d offer you some, but I’m not sure how
we’d get it into your helmets.”

Dr. Strauss helped himself to a mug of black coffee before
moving to one of the couches, reaching up to activate his headset before
sitting. “Did I miss anything?” He took a sip and then set the mug on the low
table with an appreciative sigh.

“Not really,” Towers answered. “They were just about to tell
me whether there was any hope in the bottom of Pandora’s Box.”

“It was a jar, actually,” Dwight corrected nervously, trying
to frame his thoughts.

“What now?” Towers demanded.

“Um, Erasmus got the translation wrong,” Dwight wanted
to squirm under the admiral’s stern gaze. “The uh, original Greek word was
‘pithos’ which means…”

“Look, son,” Towers cut him off. “She could have been throwing
a damned flatware party for all I care. Skip the history lesson and just tell
us why the hell you’re here.”

“Right, uhhh…” He clenched a fist, trying to force himself
to concentrate, to choose his words carefully. “OK, the disease, in a slightly
different form,” he said slowly, “actually gives immunity, once it fully
infects all of the body’s tissues.”

Strauss was leaning forward to grab his cup, but stopped and
rested his elbow on his right knee as he looked over at Dwight. “Doctor, are
you saying that it’s like using an inert form of a disease to educate the
immune system?”

“Almost,” Dwight was starting to relax as he realized he had
someone in the room who could understand what he was saying.
Just be careful
how much you say.
He didn’t think it would help anything for them to know
of the role he played in this plague. “In this case, it’s actually a live, but
modified, version of the disease.”

“Why use a live version of the pathogen?” Strauss was
looking at Dwight as one might regard a seriously ill relative. “What possible
reason could you have?”

“Two reasons,” Dwight answered. “The live version becomes an
organelle that produces, among other things, an antibody that recognizes an
antigen on the deadly version of the disease.”

Strauss looked off into the middle distance as he absorbed
this. Finally he gave an almost imperceptible shrug. “OK, that’s pretty much
all you need, but what’s the second reason?”

“My current life expectancy, now that I’ve had the shot, is
just over two thousand years.” He watched as the two officers frowned and then,
predictably, looked at each other.

Strauss was the first to respond. “You mind explaining
that?”

“The organelle’s main function is to maintain your genome,
to prevent deterioration of the chromosomes.” Dwight waved at Shelby, next to
him on the couch. “Captain Shelby here is much younger, so her genes were in
better condition than mine. She has over three thousand years on her clock.”

“Shelby, is this true?” Towers still had a look of disbelief
on his face.

“Yes, sir,” she answered. “Humans are only surviving this by
becoming what is essentially a new species. One that looks the same, but lives
for as long as seven thousand years.”

“Like the Midgaard,” Towers said quietly.

Strauss held up a finger, staring down at his mug for a
moment before looking over at Dwight. “That’s it, isn’t it?” He demanded. “Some
son of a bitch figured out why the Midgaard live so long and tried to adapt it
for Human use.”

Dwight fought back a feeling of alarm. “That’s pretty much
it,” he said. “Now that it’s loose, we have no choice but to start
vaccinating.”

“Why the reluctance?” Towers’ voice had a dangerous
undercurrent to it. “It sounds like this is viewed as a last resort. What’s the
hidden cost you aren’t telling us about?”

“Roughly one in sixty of the patients mutate the retroviral
component of the vaccination and turn into plague victims,” Dwight
admitted. “And that means you can’t do this on a voluntary basis. Either
everybody gets the shot or we pack up and head home.”

“And if we don’t inoculate the fleet, we can never go home,
can we?” Towers got up from his seat and walked over to the window. “We end up
living out our days on a planet that’s becoming increasingly unhappy with our
presence as it is.”

“Sir?” Shelby came over to the window to look down at the
planet. “They don’t want us here anymore?”

“Every planet in the Republic relies on the products of
other planets, Captain.” Towers nodded at the sphere beyond the window.
“Weirfall produces the best hulls for warships and freighters, but they don’t
make the systems that those hulls need in order to be called ships. Economic
independence has been illegal for thousands of years.” He looked over at
Shelby. “When we carved this world out of the Republic, they lost the ability
to produce their chief product. If we can’t get their citizens back to work
soon, we’re done for.”

“Well, at least we could start receiving shipments from home
again,” Strauss offered. “And frankly, we knew it would only be a matter of
time before someone escaped Earth and showed up here with the infection.
Vaccination would protect against that.”

“For some,” Towers said sadly as he turned to face his chief
medical officer. “One in sixty? Hell, that means I’d be killing close to a thousand
people on the
Midway
alone. I’ve got nine thousand crew and two Marine
Expeditionary Forces on this ship. Fleet wide, we’re talking tens of
thousands.”

“How many will die when a patrol runs into a load of
refugees from home?” Strauss asked reasonably. “I know no amount of talk will
ever convince you that you aren’t responsible for the deaths to come, but I
don’t see how we have a choice in the matter.”

“It’ll sure make a difference in our age attrition,” the
admiral sighed as he turned to Dwight. “What would you need from us?”

“We have eighty thousand doses, more than enough to cover
the crew on the
Midway
while we set up a production facility to
vaccinate the rest of the fleet.” Dwight dreaded the months to come. He knew he
would rot in hell one day. “I can start today, if you want.”

“Dr. Strauss will see that you have whatever you need for
vaccine production, here on the
Midway
.” He turned to the tray by his
coffee pot and turned over two mugs.

“You might as well take off your helmets and have a cup.”