Read Online Orphan's Alliance (Jason Wander) by Robert Buettner - Free Book Online Page A

Earth to every Outworld within a single Jump.”
    I whistled again, even as I fought the impulse to leap across the table and wring Howard’s scrawny, mendacious neck. I wouldn’t have told me, either. The Mousetrap’s importance, and the need to keep its location secret, was as obvious as the derivation of its name. The Mousetrap had been a high-traffic freeway junction in Old Denver, east of the Mount Evans observatory. It had also been Ground Zero for the Denver Projectile. If the Slugs ever found this cer eanew Mousetrap, they could plaster it, too. The State Department guy said, “So, that’s why we have fresher news than you have, General. We can transmit high-priority data to a drone outside the Mousetrap, the drone jumps, travels across the Mousetrap, jumps again, then retransmits as it falls apart. We can communicate in weeks, not months.”
    Howard nodded. “In days, between some worlds.”
    I said to Howard, “But the real jackpot would be a layover planet.”
    Howard shook his head. “There’s one planetary system within useful range. But the system consists of one gas giant planet. We can no more establish a layover base on that planet than we could on the surface of Jupiter.”
    The chairman said to me, “But there is a workable layover base within the Mousetrap crossroads. Not a planet. A small, airless moon orbiting the gas giant that Colonel Hibble just mentioned. We call the moon Mousetrap, too.”
    Howard said, “As a commercial and military waypoint, that moon’s Gibraltar, Pearl Harbor, Hong Kong, and the Port of New York all in one place.”
    The chairman frowned. “There are problems. Developing Mousetrap will be the most massive civil engineering project in human history. The shipping required to build and utilize it, and the fleet to defend it, are beyond the industrial and military capacities of all the nations on Earth, combined.”
    I nodded. The slow kid was coming up to speed. “But there are nations off Earth, too, now. Tressel at peace can afford to contribute.”
    The State Department guy leaned forward. “And the military phase—your part—went brilliantly. But since the Armistice, the situation is deteriorating.”
    “Now there’s a surprise!” I bit my tongue too late, and the chairman frowned. But the fact was that U.S. nation-building historically resembled Halloween. Military phase, treat. Reconstruction, trick. Howard said, “There’s an additional complication.”
    I sighed. “With you, there always is.”
    Howard said, “Cavorite.”
    I turned up one palm. “Bren exports more than we can use.”
    “Not anymore.” The State Department guy said, “The Marini, Tassini, and Casuni kept Cavorite flowing to the Pseudocephalopod Hegemony for thirty thousand years. When they, as you say, kicked the Slugs off Bren, we became the Unified Clans’ new buyer. Tidy.”
    “Sure.”
    “Until three months ago. While you were tidying things up on Tressel, the Casuni and Tassini started intercepting the Stone Hills caravans. We’re going to need a ten-fold production increase to supply Mousetrap’s construction, commercial, and defense traffic. But what we have today is disunified Clans at war again, and zero exports.”
    I sighed. “The Clans hated each other for centuries. Can we broker a peace?”
    “We can’t wait for that. Marin’s receptive to assistance.”
    I narrowed my eyes. “That’s why the Kodiaks aren’t coming home? They’re going to Bren, to rig another war? You’re going to give them to the Marini, to flog the Casuni and the Tassini.”
    “Not us, General. You.”
    I shook my head. “I rode with Tassini scouts. I lit the funeral pyres of Casuni sergeants. Fight against troops I led in combat? Against allies? Is that what you expect me to do?”
    “Advise against, not fight against. Alliances change. Policies change. What we expect you to do is follow lawful orders, General.”
    I would never vote for that policy. But this wasn’t a democracy.