The Orphan Alliance (The Black Ships Book 3) by A.G. Claymore Page A

economy if we open up
Oaxes and Tauhento to them.” He shook his head in mock disappointment. “I see I
shall have to give you some lessons before we take you back to Oaxes.” His face
darkened suddenly, an unwelcome thought re-asserting itself.
    “And I have to find a way to survive the next Althing.”

Outpost
    Petite Tortue Island, Caribbean
    T ommy
and Kale stood in the office, waiting for its occupant to return from the
coffee pot outside. Gelna had seen more than enough of Earth as a prisoner of
war and so he had decided not to join his comrades.
    “This time wait till he sees us before flapping your gums,”
Kale suggested.
    “I assume you’re talking about me,” a man stood in the
doorway, a steaming mug in his hand. He tilted his head slightly as he frowned
at them. “I’m pretty sure you didn’t just sneak past me, so how long have you
been hiding above the ceiling tiles?”
    “Well,” Tommy began, “we’re actually being projected from
orbit. No offense, but we’d rather not take the chance of getting infected…”
    “Understandable,” the big man set his coffee on a stained
desk blotter before dropping into his chair. “The last part, I mean. That first
bit didn’t make a lick of sense.” He opened a drawer to his right and began
rooting through its contents.
    “Well, it’s true.” Tommy was a little disconcerted by the
man’s apparent nonchalance. “We’re being projected by a ship that we…” He
stopped as he found himself looking down the barrel of a handgun.
    “If you don’t start making some sense,” the man said with
the air of someone who was merely offering friendly advice, “I’m gonna project
you through that door.”
     “We’re not really here,” Tommy insisted. “Look.” he
waved a hand toward Kale who recoiled.
    “Watch it, would you? I’m standing right next to you on the
bridge. Nearly took an eye out.”
    “Sorry, mate,” Tommy replied, then laughed. “Here, have a
look at his legs,” he said to their host. Kale’s legs were in the middle of a
chair.
    “Huh!” The man dropped his pistol back in the drawer and
shoved it closed. “Won’t be any use, will it?”
    “Not without a magazine in it,” Kale muttered.
    “Yeah, well, it makes it too heavy,” the big man replied
with an easy grin. “I mostly just use it when we pretend I’m a private
detective and the wife… Umm…” He scratched the side of his head. “Maybe we
should get back to why two ghosts are standing here?”
    “Wait a minute.” Kale looked over at Tommy. “D’you know who
this is?” His voice was incredulous. “This is Frank Bender; the guy who built
the first response fleet.”
    “One of the guys,” Frank corrected. “Pretty sure there was
an entire army of workers involved.”
    “Yeah, but you were running the show and you started putting
ships into orbit months ahead of schedule.” Kale looked back at Tommy. “You
wouldn’t have been more than ten back then, so you might not remember, but we
got to Mars just weeks before the Dactari were going to launch their ‘shake
& bake’ invasion.”
    The Dactari had decided against the risk of sending a full
fleet to subdue Earth. All of their existing military forces were already in
use on internal security operations. Stripping away units would have left them
vulnerable to the separatists that had plagued the Republic as well as the
empire it had replaced.
    They had decided to send a smaller force to seize Mars. Once
established there, they would clone their invasion troops and manufacture the
weapons needed. Their intelligence estimates had lodged a firm belief in
Dactari thinking – the Humans had only a handful of crude intra-solar vessels
powered by rockets. They could never hope to pose a threat to the operation on
Mars.
    Designs for advanced vessels had existed for years at DARPA
but the economic reality of building such ships was beyond any one country. The
presence of a hostile force in the solar system had