Robert Buettner - Orphans Alliance

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-Two

Chapter Fifty-Three

Chapter Fifty-Four

Chapter Fifty-Five

Chapter Fifty-Six

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Chapter Sixty

Chapter Sixty-One

Chapter Sixty-Two

Chapter Sixty-Three

Chapter Sixty-Four

Chapter Sixty-Five

Chapter Sixty-Six

Chapter Sixty-Seven

Chapter Sixty-Eight

Chapter Sixty-Nine

Chapter Seventy

Meet the Author

A Preview of Orphans Triumph

The Firewitch bore down on me, so close now that I could see crusty lumpsin its array arms.

"4%">

I stared into the big purple eye, waited for the train wreck, and said, Crap!

The eye flashed yellow. Then it burst like a brittle balloon. Then the Firewitch exploded silently into pieces that tumbled in all directions, not least toward me. A metal triangle bigger than a piano pounded my gut, and I began to spin in another direction, twice as fast as I had been tumbling, so I couldnt distinguish what I saw, except alternating dark and blinding brightness.

I thought a voice said, Its over.

Shadowy, curved pearly wings appeared around me, then slowly enfolded me.

Then there was only darkness.

Praise for the Jason Wander Series:

Defines twenty-first [century] military science fiction...

Midwest Book Review

Strap yourself down for a seat-of-the-pants ride; this is a fast paced read that you will want to finish in one sitting.

monstersandcritics.com

BOOKS BYROBERTBUETTNER

Orphanage

Orphans Destiny

Orphans Journey

Orphans Alliance

Orphans Triumph

For Rob and Kim

Nearby Waterloo, I saw a Sergeant of Artillery seated upon his caisson, which the rains had mired in the road ditch. His eye had been shot out, and one of his men, whose leg was off, wept beside him. The Sergeant complained that Prussian cavalry had bypassed them. He said, with some heat, Our own allies abandoned us like orphans! I told him straight, In this hell, better an orphans alliance than no alliance at all.

Remarks at the annual Waterloo Dinner of 1821, attributed to the Duke of Wellington ONE

MOUSETRAPS VISIBLE NOW, GENERAL.My command sergeant major taps my armored shoulder, points through the Emerald River s forward observation blister, and my heart skips. The two of us float shoulder-to-shoulder in infantry Eternads, like unhelmeted frogs in a gravityless fish bowl. Ord has been a jump ahead of me since he was my drill sergeant in Basic.

With my gauntlets snot pad, I mop condensed breath off the observation blisters Synquartz, and cold stings through tdenad,he glove. Fifty thousand frigid miles away spins Mousetrap. In two hours, on my orders, a hundred thousand kids plucked from fourteen worlds will arrive down there, innocent. None will leave innocent. Too many wont leave at all.

The gray pebble Ord points to has just orbited out from a vast orange balls shadow. In the red sunlight that bathes the gas giant planet and its tiny moon, Mousetrap tumbles as small and as wrinkled as a peach pit.

Ord grunts. The real estate hardly looks worth the price, does it, sir?

Location, location, location, Sergeant Major. Mousetrap is the only habitable rock near the interstellar cross-road that linchpins the Human Unions fourteen planets.

Thats why the Union fortified Mousetrap. Thats why the Slugs took it away from us. And thats why we arrived here today to take Mousetrap back, or die trying. We are historys deadliest armada, carrying historys best army. My army.

Im Jason Wander, war orphan, high-school dropout, Lieutenant General, Commanding, Third Army of the Human Union. And infantryman until the day I die. That day is now thirty years closer than when I enlisted at the start of the Slug War, in 2037.

Ord and I push back from the observation blisters forward wall, to head aft to our troop transport. I glance at the Time-to-Drop Countdown winking off my wrist Puter. In two hours, Ord and I will be aboard a first-wave assault transport when compressed air thumps it out of one of Emerald River s thirty-six launch bays. Kids embarked aboard Emerald River , and aboard the fleets other ships, will go with us.

Ord sighs. A hundred thousand GIs dont buy what they used to, General.

Whump.

Emerald Rivers vast hull shudders, tumbling Ord and me against the observation blisters cold curve.

Hssss.

A thousand feet aft from our perch here at Emerald River s bow, thirty-six launch bay hatches reseal as one.

A tin voice from the Bridge crackles in my earpiece. All elements away.

I turn to Ord, wide eyed. What the hell, Sergeant Major?

Ord turns his palms up, shakes his head.

Through ebony space, thirty-six sparks flash past us, from the bays that ring Emerald River s midriff. In a blink, they disperse toward Mousetrap, leaving behind thirty-six silent, red streaks of drifting chemical flame.

For one heartbeat, Emerald River forms the hub that anchors those thirty-six fading, translucent wheel spokes. It is as though we spin at the center of a mute, exploding firework. To our port, starboard, dorsal and ventral, identical fireworks blossom, gold, green, blue, purple, as the Fleets other cruisers launch their own craft, each ship trailing its motherships tracer color.

I blink at the vanished silhouettes. The Army I command wasnt scheduled to launch for Mousetrap for twsizsetrap o hours. We expect that we will take lumps by landing with no aerial prep. And more lumps when we start digging the Slugs out of Mousetrap, one hole at a time. But landing without prep is the only way we can avoid killing the human POWs that the Slugs hold on Mousetrap.

But what I just saw fly by werent chunky troop transports. They were sleek Scorpions, their bomb racks packed with liquid fire. The ships that made that fireworks display werent just an aerial prep force.

The formations I just saw were powerful enough to incinerate every living thing on Mousetrap, Slug and human alike, three times over.

Before Ord and I paddled up to this observation blister for a final, weightless look at our objective, I inspected every launch bay myself. One of our troop transports filled every bay. But one order from the Bridge could rotate troop transports out of the bays in fifteen minutes, like cartridges in old-fashioned revolvers, and replace them with bombers.