The Orphan Alliance (The Black Ships Book 3) (19 page)

The
Salamis
, Oaxian
Space

H
arry stopped just inside the door to his quarters. The black-haired
Bolshari was standing at the wall of glazing that formed the port side of his
rooms, watching the drifting debris of the Dactari troop ship.

Perhaps
because his mind would rather do anything other than dwell on recent events, he
let his gaze wander. From behind, she could easily pass for a Human. Her height
was unremarkable, but that was hardly a fitting word for her other attributes.

It’s
mostly the eyes that give them away as being different,
Harry mused. He looked up and
started guiltily. Those large green eyes were looking at him in the reflection,
catching him like he was some hormone-riddled teenager.

“Why?” she
asked simply.

It took a
moment of mental stumbling for Harry to realize she wasn’t referring to his
current boorishness, though he almost wished she was. “What are they to you?”
he asked as he joined her at the window.

“My people
feel a responsibility for the Dactari,” she said softly. “Though their history
has been less than exemplary, we wouldn’t condone something like this.”

“Your
people were the administrators of the old Empire.” Harry glanced over at her,
seeing the moisture welling up at the edge of her lower eyelids, trickling out
to hang from long lashes. “That ended thousands of years ago, along with any
responsibility you might have had for your military.”

“My people
were
the Empire,” she replied, barely above a whisper. “More than seven hundred
emperors, all Bolshari. When travel by space tunneling was forbidden, the
economy collapsed and our Empire became one world.” She sighed, turning to face
Harry. “When the Dactari announced the discovery of distortion travel, we
thought the Empire could be resurrected, but we soon found ourselves evicted
from our own world.”

“By the
Dactari?”

She nodded.
“They’d decided their time had come and it made them uneasy to have us looking
over their shoulders. “They ‘retired’ us to a new home world, where they mostly
leave us alone.”

“They
forced you from your own world,” Harry said. “Why the hell would you still
assume responsibility for them?”

“Because
they
are
what we made them.” Her gaze turned to meet his. “We created them
from the indigenous species of our world. They had gone extinct, but we used
their DNA as the basis of the Dactari. Every trait was carefully selected to
optimize combat efficiency.”

“So they
really kicked you off of their
own
world.” Harry raised his eyebrows.
“You said
indigenous
– where did your kind originate?”

“That
knowledge was lost ages ago. We have only legends of legends. Ancestors that
lived for much longer than we do now.” She looked back out as the debris moved
out of view. The ship was turning. “Just as there have been new legends, word
of people who live for centuries. Stories that they’re breaking the Republic’s
grip on fringe worlds.”

“And your
current home is one of those fringe worlds?”

She nodded.
“I was one of the most ‘disposable’ members of our ruling family. I went to
Tauhento to look for your people, but you had already left. I was recognized by
a patrol and taken up to the station
for my own safety
.

“The simple
truth is that they didn’t want me causing
mischeif
on
one of their worlds. The Dactari find us hard to control because they have
engineered instincts compelling them to obey our kind.”

“No wonder
they wanted you off Dactar,” Harry interjected in a wry tone. He suddenly
frowned and turned to face her. “Hold on – you said the ruling family, does
that mean…”

“I’m
directly descended from the ancient emperors.” She kept her gaze on the view
outside. “Though, as I’ve said, I’m expendable, so they sent me to learn about
you.”

It’s
like I’m back in high school all over again, getting caught ogling the
‘royalty’,
Harry
thought. “My name is Harrison Young.”

“Eiboekna
of the Faescoii,” she replied after a short pause. “Why?” She gestured out the
window, returning to her original question.

“Because we
couldn’t keep so many prisoners,” Harry answered. “Because they wouldn’t have
surrendered until after we’d lost thousands of our own men.” He knew these were
just arguments, not reasons.

“Because I
hate them,” he said in a rush of emotion.

“But those
Dactari were just warriors, like you, following their orders,” she said with a
tremor. “Do they crave life less keenly than you?”

Harry
closed his eyes. “Very much the opposite, I think,” he replied quietly,
drifting into silence for a few moments. “With the centuries stretched out
before you, the precious moments of life begin to lose their luster. I think
the day may come when I decide that my body is nothing more than a prison for
my soul.”

He opened
his eyes to find her staring at him, her face deeply troubled.

“I had
begun to hope you were nothing but simple savages,” she whispered, looking away
again. “I could have excused you, for your ignorance.”

The Kinzell, Lychensee

D
wight leaned on the wet graphene of the pedway railing. The carbon matrix
was a good insulator and grew warm more quickly than concrete would have.
Though massive, Lychensee was far lighter than it looked. The bones of
the  new city were all made from exotic carbon composites and weighed a
fraction of the crude materials favored back home.

It was
remarkably easy to ignore the constant stream of pedestrians behind him. From
his current vantage point, sunsets appeared full blown as the systems star
appeared beneath the suspended foundations of the new city. Sunrise, noon and
sunset were the brightest times in the down-below. In between those times, the
light levels were highly dynamic as the sunlight bounced off hundreds of
mirrored buildings on their way down.

A light
patter of rain began to fall from one of the many clouds of vapor that built up
beneath the underside of the new city. An errant bolt of lightning jumped to
the undulating carbon vines that supported the outer edges of the Kinzell,
flowing into capacitors.

Dwight
turned his wrist over and pulled back the bandage. It would be hidden from view
by his watch, but first it would have to heal.

“What does
‘CL-13’ stand for?”

The voice
startled Dwight and he quickly smoothed the breathable pad back over his
tattoo. He turned to see a young woman in the mottled blue camouflage favored
by the US Navy. Her brown hair was tied in a loose ponytail and she wore a
bright yellow t-shirt under her tunic, a flexible panel near the neck of the
t-shirt displaying a video feed of his own face.

Definitely
not hardcore military,
he thought. “It’s just a reminder of why I’m here,” he said, nodding at
the shirt. “What’s the deal with the shirt?”

“Stopped
your eyes from going any lower, didn’t it?”

He couldn’t
resist a chuckle. “True enough, but it’s still in that danger zone where I
wonder if you might think I
was
looking lower, not that I wouldn’t...”
After a pause, he smiled and shook his head. “I’m gonna stop digging myself any
deeper and just abandon that sentence. I don’t suppose you’d throw me a rope?”

She smiled.
“Will an introduction do?” She held out her hand. “Captain Emily Colt.”

“Dr. Dwight
Young.” He shook her hand.
My hands must feel like ice,
he thought as he
let go.

“Yes, I
remember who you are,” she gave him an odd look. “You were surprised that
nobody from my group had turned. I’ll never forget the look on your face.” She
leaned back against the water-slicked carbon, looking at him. “I take it you’re
done with the inoculations?”

“Yeah, we
finished up a couple of days ago and wrapped up a… study, yesterday. I came
down here to, umm…” He looked back out at the sunset. “Clear my head, I
suppose.”

“The last
few weeks were hard on all of us.” She turned to look out at the city below. “I
think it might have been hardest on you, given the role you had to play.”

If you
only knew half the story,
Dwight thought. What would she do if she knew his role in creating the
plague?

She nodded
to herself. “You could do with a drink, Doctor.”

He
certainly didn’t disagree. “You know a good place?”

“Best place
in the Kinzell,” she breezed as she pushed away from the low wall. “I was
heading there when I spotted your blues. We Humans stand out because we all
dress the same. Any relation to Harry Young, the new warlord of Tauhento?”

Dwight
shook his head. “As far as I know, I have no living relatives. Never even knew
my own parents.”

She led him
up several steep flights of stairs and through a twisting network of tunnels
with the occasional, spectacular view from brief stretches of open air. Every
foot of wall space was occupied by store fronts or brightly-colored, animated
glass signs. She walked across a long grey bridge with a low wall on only one
side, oblivious to the fatal drop from the unprotected side.

A series of
ledges ran out from the un-walled side, half of them containing dead bodies. A
flock of avians were pecking at the corpses.
Must be their idea of a
mortuary?

She looked
back, grinning at how closely Dwight kept to the wall. “Half the bridges up
here only have walls because they add structural strength. They don’t waste materials
on two walls for a low-traffic residential pedway.” She ducked into another
enclosed walkway, surrounded by large graphene modules.

Dwight
almost passed her in the dark, but he heard the warbling tone of a door
proximity chip reader and turned to squint at the sudden wash of light from the
opening. He followed her in and stood, blinking, as his eyes adjusted.
Where
did she disappear to?

Emily
popped up from behind a graphene kitchen island with a bottle in her hand.
“This is pretty close to whiskey.” She slid past him. “Grab a couple of glasses
from the cabinet behind you.”

Dwight
turned and pulled out two tumblers that were nearly invisible.
Whatever
these are made of,
the scientist in him thought,
the index of refraction
is almost the same as air.
He turned to follow her and stopped as the guy
in him asked another question.
Did I just stumble into what the non-nerds
call a hook-up?

 With
a shrug, he followed her out onto a rain-glazed, grey platform, ten feet by
fifteen. Another module above sheltered the first ten feet of its length, a
line of dripping water marking where the cover ended. Dwight tried to suppress
a shiver. The view was magnificent. The last rays of sunset were casting haloes
around the communities that clung to other support columns and he could see the
original structures of the old city, far below.

There were
no railings at all.

“The deck
is actually the roof of the unit below.” Emily was lighting an eclectic
collection of lanterns by waving her hand near each one.

“What is
this place?” Dwight had the sudden need to take his mind off his surroundings.
He had come to the Kinzell in the hopes of finding new things to distract
himself, but this was overload.

“I live
here.” She touched two knee-high cubes on the concrete deck and they unfolded
themselves into dark mesh lounge chairs. “I’m a supply chain officer,
specializing in procurement.” She dropped down into one of the chairs with a
sigh.

Dwight sat
sideways in the other chair and held out the tumblers while she filled them.
“So you look for things the fleet can use, here in the Kinzell?” He handed one
of the glasses to her and eased back in his seat.
Can’t fall over the edge
as long as I’m in this chair.

“Here and
elsewhere,” she waved her drink to indicate their surroundings. “I just love
living up here. The locals consider this to be a slum district, but it’s the
coolest place I’ve ever seen. Just look at the view! To a girl from small town
Connecticut, this is like living in a science fiction movie.”

“Connecticut?”
Dwight looked over at her. “Any relation to Samuel Colt?”

“Who
knows,” her tone indicated that she had been asked that question many times.
Being in the military and having the same name as the inventor of the first
viable revolver was a recipe for constant pestering. “If you ask my dad, you’d
think we should’ve inherited the company.” She suddenly fell silent. After a
moment, she pulled her knees up, wrapping herself in her own arms.

There were
a few seconds of silence while his mind sifted through the conversation and
came up with a probable reason for her sudden change.
Never thought I’d feel
lucky to be an orphan. She probably works very hard to forget what might be
happening back home.
Dwight thought.
Why’d you have to ask her about
family?
“What town are you from?”
Shut up! You’re just making it worse!

“Cromwell.”
She sniffed.

You
might be able to give her some hope.
“I was with a vaccination team that went into
Hartford,” he offered. “We had a couple hundred ‘O-
negs
’
that were going to spread out and pass the vaccine by blood to the surrounding
areas. How far is Cromwell from Hartford?”

“Maybe ten
miles,” she said, meeting his gaze.

I’ll bet
this is the first time she’s heard any news from back home since the outbreak.
“Someone’s bound to have gone to
your hometown then.” He wished he could give her certainty, but it was
impossible. “There’s hope, at least.”
Though it’s thin hope that probably
just picks off an old scab.

“Part of me
would gladly toss the hope as long as I could just know.” Her eyes closed again
as she curled up in her chair. She pulled in a deep shuddering breath. “Does
that make me a bad person?”

“No,”
Dwight said softly, at a complete loss. “No,” he repeated dumbly, sitting up.
This had gone bad so quickly and he felt a desperate need to comfort her, but
his experience with social settings, and women in particular, was decidedly
thin. He reached out a hand, daring to rest it on her shoulder, but pulled it
back in alarm when she twisted in her seat.

Emily got
out of her chair and quietly but firmly pushed him back into his own seat
before crawling into  his lap and curling up against his chest, her drink
still in her hand.

Dwight
placed his drink on the deck before taking hers and setting it down as well.
Small tremors told him that she was quietly crying into his chest.

He
remembered nights as a little boy in the group home, desperately trying to hide
his tears from the others. Without a thought, he folded his arms around her,
giving her what
he
had so often longed for.

And they
both hid their tears from each other.