Coming Home (Free Fleet Book 2)

by Michael Chatfield

  While none of his Commandos Mechas were uniform in appearance, it only seemed to add to their deadly looks. The Mechas hissed and groaned as they moved, their boots hammering into the deck in a rhythm which would scare the most experienced fighter.

  They sounded like death come a knocking and looked like completely covered footballers with massive bodies, looking as if nothing could stop them.

  “I'm surprised with how quickly they've learned.” Dave Smith, the man called himself. He was one of the close quarters experts Henry had accepted. Dave didn't want anyone knowing his real name and Rick accepted that. His resume was impressive, with his tours as a Green Beret. Christopher Giles was the other expert. He was from the SAS. Between them, they had taken the mostly trained Commandos and polished their skills. Henry wished he could test them against the professionals of Earth.

  “We have to learn everything on the fly. Anything they learn from you guys mean that they can survive longer. Space is a cold bitch, as you've learned. There isn't room for idiots out there,” Henry said, his tone hard. Many people didn't deserve to learn those lessons first hand.

  “Yeah, space is really the Darwin eliminator,” Rick said.

  Henry nodded. “Now, I know you both have part time employment with the Free Fleet as contractors, but how would you like to take on the position as trainers? We need people with your knowledge passing it onto our Commandos.”

  “What would that entail?” Smith asked.

  “We train you up on our systems, get you to proper Commando standard, then you teach our trainees how to be the best they can be.”

  “Though, you don't have that many recruits coming in from Earth,” Giles said, “and they won't be done for another five months.”

  Henry looked to them, a grin on his face. “Trust me, you'll be working a lot quicker than five months. Also, you won't be in Sol System necessarily. We have another group of special forces trainers at work in a different system I would like you to get with and go over your stuff and come up with a better training plan than the one we ripped from the Syndicate.”

  Both Giles and Smith looked interested as Henry looked away. “Just think about it. Oh, and you would, of course, get anti-aging treatments so you would be at peak performance.” Just try and say no, he thought, hiding his grin as he concentrated on his HUD feeds again. Wish I was in there instead of watching it, Henry grumbled as Commandos entered the stripped engineering department of the destroyer from four different locations. The Commandos inside gave a good fight, but they were swarmed quickly.

  Need to work on defending, Henry thought.

  “Exercise done,” Henry announced as the objectives of the destroyer was taken and the Commandos had moved into defensive positions.

  “You know the deal. Run maintenance on your Mechas. Shower and food. Meet me in mess four,” Henry said. He made for the nearest airlock, using the newly added thrusters to get himself inside as Giles and Smith followed.

  They went over a few points as they walked back to a secondary armory. With the Resilient inhabited with VIP's, Salchar didn't want to have Mechas running around making them nervous. Rick was about to exit his Mecha when the alarms sounded.

  Chapter Perfect Timing

  I was taking delegates from Earth onto the bridge, whole stations covered to protect their secrets, when I saw a reporter try to sneak away.

  “Verlu, corridor D34,” I said. The commander accepted the order, a light of recognition turning on inside the HUD, it was called greening up. Another modification that came from the Commandos, making communications easier.

  The tour had gone on without a hitch. I'd guided the VIP's through the station, giving plenty of good photo opportunities for the VIP's and introduced them to people from different races as reporters interviewed the Free Fleet personnel, who really sold the Free Fleet.

  Two birds with one stone, I thought as I wondered about the trouble it had been to clear the path we were taking of anything that could be of military value.

  I toured them through the ship, showing them the shuttle bays then a few corridors to the bridge, taking a circuitous route to confuse the reporters and VIP's.

  Many of them were awed by the sheer size of the bridge. Most of them were probably still comparing it to the size of a super carrier, not something that could fit ten or so of them inside its hull.

  Rick, who was in the command chair, gave a few greetings but was focused on his work, giving a few smiles out as world leaders seemed to keep wanting to bug him.

  We made our way on another circuitous route to the shuttle bay where food and drinks were waiting as well as the paper and digital copies that would hold the signatures of Earth as it joined the Free Fleet's protection.

  “Battle stations! Emergence of Syndicate forces. All personnel are to move to battle stations and await further orders.” My smile disappeared and the nation leaders and reporters looked around in confusion as Rick came over the system-wide emergency band.

  “Send them and their people back to Earth with a warning of what's happening,” I said to Calerd, who waved that he'd got his orders and went to corralling the world leaders.

  I ran to the nearest transport, pulling out my data pad as it whisked me off to the deck my room was on.

  It had barely stopped when I was already running for my room and my Mecha.

  In a few minutes I was in my room, and in another few I was in my Mecha. My helmet clamped shut as I got onto the command channel.

  “REPORT!” I yelled. I cranked my servos up to the upper limits of their power, my protection detail falling in around me as we raced through the Resilient, personnel being warned of our approach as our boots hammered the deck.

  “Fleet emerging from the Eridani jump point. Resilient's additional reactor is online and Eddie is initiating the fourth. He doesn’t believe the first and second will hold out. Three and five are out completely. The Kuruvians are already sending transmissions via tight beam laser to the incoming laser to try and inform the Sarenmenti and Kuruvians aboard,” Rick said.

  “Good, I want all weapons brought online, including those just installed. I want the station to concentrate on laser arrays for PD. Have Heston have his forces ready to disperse to cover Earth's targeted side and take out missiles. Send all of our defensive platforms to him; they will be the last line of defense for Earth.”

  I opened the channel to all of my ship commanders. “I want detailed reports on your readiness within ten minutes.” They greened up on my HUD, acknowledgement they’d gotten the message as I entered the blast doors.

  Everyone was focused on their work as I strode to my seat, my eyes focused on the plotted Syndicate forces. We only had a basic reading from their emergence profile, their gravitational background noise they created as they entered the system showed me not only where they had emerged, but also that the skill level of the oncoming ships was not the best, and that they'd used their capacitors instead of their wormhole generators.

  I took my seat, its comfortable, formfitting cushions hiding the weight that rested on my shoulders as I began reading reports and plotting the fleets movements till it would come into contact with the new arrivals.

  ***

  Min Hae tried to not think of the information that Monk was reading as he worked on the side project he and Felix had going on, trying to see which technologies worked together. The new PDS systems had been a great success, but Min Hae and his people were pulling information out at an extraordinary rate. Plus, it seemed that everything they found, Felix could adapt to something.

  I swear, he's going to fill up that yard he's got. Min Hae thought about the semi-secret development yard that had been holed out of Parnmal. It was the birthplace of both eclipse freighters, upgrades across the fleet, and whatever crazy things Felix could make.

  Felix and Min Hae had settled into their positions on Parnmal station with ease. Min Hae and his people went through every piece of information that the Free Fleet had, compiling it and trying to
glean secrets, ideas, or something from it to give to the right departments.

  Usually, that department was Felix's research, developmental, and production kibosh.

  The information that Resilient had supplied had made Felix lend Min Hae most of his big thinkers, so Felix was having a hard time getting through the main part of his job—gathering intelligence.

  That was, until forty-five minutes ago, when one of his analysts cracked the cipher that the Syndicate was using for orders given by its leadership.

  “Damn.” Monk sighed calmly. Min Hae had called the commander of Parnmal to come into his quiet office and read the report they'd been given from Hachiro's memory cores.

  “Quite. It looks like Commander Salchar's forces will be outnumbered close to three to one, not including the station and with Commander Boots forces included,” Min Hae said. He had changed in his time on Parnmal, becoming much more confident of himself and more guarded, especially with the information he knew and who he told it to.

  “Yes, but there is that if they survive,” Monk said, pointing to a listed on the manifest.

  “Which by itself is more tonnage than the entire fleet and a good portion of the station in Sol System.”

  Monk looked at the two lists of forces, nodding to himself.

  “He'll do it,” he said, giving the data pad back to Min Hae.

  “Sir?”

  “Salchar will win, though at what cost, I do not know.”

  “Should we send him reinforcements?”

  “Cheerleader’s not expected back for another few days. The situation is similar in AIH and Chaleel systems. For now, we consolidate and be prepared if Salchar calls for us. Otherwise, they're on their own. We also need to figure out a way to use the cipher to decode the Syndicate's communications while not letting them catch on that we've done so.”

  Min Hae nodded. “Bletchley Park,” he said and Monk looked at him with an odd expression.

  “World War Two people in Bletchley Park figured out the German code and cracked the German's messages. Now we've done the same, we must make sure that it doesn't get out that we know the code.”

  “Indeed, pass all information up to me as soon as you get it, and keep working on that package that Resilient pulled together, with our lack of people we need to use every advantage we can find.”

  Min Hae nodded.

  “Yes, commander.” Hopefully it'll take my mind off of the fact that Salchar and half of the fleet is fighting for their lives, Min Hae thought.

  “Salchar will win,” Monk said, if to Min Hae or to himself Min Hae didn't know. Monk placed a hand on his shoulder in reassurance before heading back to the command center.

  “Alright, we've got a lot of work to do and time is only running out,” Min Hae said and his squad worth of people that made up his intelligence department turned to their work.

  He wished that he was Felix, putting together machines and weapons that would give the Free Fleet an edge, like the planetary cannons and shield generators for Parnmal he was making.

  Salchar gave you a job, now it's time to do it, he thought as he turned back the intercepted messages and began decoding them.

  Chapter Time is Never On One's Side

  “Have we got clearer readings on the incoming fleet from the remote sensor buoys?” I asked the sensor commander of the Resilient.

  “Getting rough images now, putting on the screen. From the signature it looks like they used their capacitors to make the jump.”

  “Idiots,” I snarled under my breath but ,hopefully, their stupidity would mean they didn’t realize what was going on until they were too far into the system and hadn’t recharged their capacitors or jump generators to jump out of the system.

  “Combined Arms, have you got those reports yet?”

  “Yes, sending them to your station now,” Sook said.

  “Sending to you now, sir.” My staff had come a long way from the bunch of strangers trying to grasp just what in the hell they were doing. Now we were one team, trained with precision and speed, working to move the massive force that was the Free Fleet.

  In a corner of my HUD in the helmet of my Mecha I could see as forces from ships crew, fighters, and Armoured Marine Commandos that where supposed to be on ships and those actually on ships. Second by second the numbers increased, my people were well trained and our time in Sol System had only improved their skills.

  I plotted rough vectors into the view screen connected to my seat as I talked.

  “Rick, we have all of these trainees, it's about time we saw if they were any good. If a ship needs personnel they are to pull from the trainees. I do not believe that we will be having an engagement where we will be needing the Commandos to land,” I said as Rick greened up on my screen. I could see out of the corner of my eye that he was already passing on my orders as well as getting recruits funneled onto the Resilient. He truly was an extension of myself at this point.

  “Nav, I have a rough course, sending to you now. Refine and pass onto the rest of the fleet.”

  “Combined Arms, what do you think about the cruiser Star Thrasher?”

  “Commander Sung wants to prove himself, and I think his crew can get him to green status, but I think it’d be best if they stayed behind with the rearguard.”

  “I concur, cut orders to the affect. They are to assist with PD of the Hachiro. If the station is badly damaged, they are to be an escape vessel. Nav, do you have a course?”

  “I have the preliminary, doing the numbers, sir!”

  “Comms, Eddie.”

  “Commander?” Eddie said, his southern drawl at a minimum.

  “Is that generator online? If not, I’ll be leave Resilient behind.”

  “Working on it, need ten,” he said in a gruff manner.

  “We're connecting directly to the Hachiro generators to kick start the fourth. There might be a momentary loss of power.” Eddie rolled over my lapse before he ended the channel; he had other things to do, so did I.

  “Signatures recognized by sensors, we have approximately thirty ships incoming, three are factories attached to an unidentified structure. One dreadnought, a class below the Resilient, seven battles cruisers, three destroyers, seven cruisers, and fourteen corvettes. Thirty two ships in total,” the sensor commander relayed to the entire fleet and station.

  “Shit,” I said as I pulled up the table of my forces.

  I knew my forces by heart, but I was hoping that I could pull something together; they doubled us in ships, and quadrupled us in tonnage. Other than Resilient, my next heaviest were two destroyers.

  The bridge was quieter as people digested the news but continued on, nonetheless.

  Well, we're just going to have to hit them as hard as possible. Trickery might be the best option. That way they just think we're being stubborn bastards, instead of the enemy. It would give us the best chance, I knew, as I opened a channel.

  “Eddie?”

  “Not now,” he said, cutting off my channel. I pulled up a diagnostic of the ships power plants. I could see it directly linked into the station as a highly concentrated burst of energy was passed from the station to the ship, routed through plasma lines into the warmed reactor. The magnetic bottle strained to contain the miniature sun created by the massive power outflow. The bottle looked like it was going to destabilize as the engineers fought to contain the power of the reactor while increasing the inflow of hydrogen to stop the reaction from dying. They didn't do anything as they left it up to Resilient to control her own furious heart, which seemed intent on ripping her open. Finally, she balanced the bottle, containing the miniature sun that had come into creation as the reactor stabilized.

  Systems across the ship came online. Data banks that had been dead came alive. Weapons relays surged as gunners powered up and down while propulsion did the same, checking that we could out run them at the same time. Tactical went through their checklist as the Resilient hummed. I rubbed my armrest.

  “Good to have you back w
ith us you, tough biddy.” I smiled, hoping that one day I might be able to get her up to full fighting trim, and what a sight she would be!

  'Why, thank you, that was rather rough going, balancing that bottle. Next time I hope we can do it properly. The thought of blowing up from my own power plant is more than a little nerve wracking.”

  “I bet.” I grinned as Eddie opened up the channel to me.

  “What?” he said, his voice strained, the work with the reactor showing it's pressure in his voice. I didn't have the time to give him to relax.

  “Eddie, I want you fixing any problems that came with that power surge. Reroute if possible or shut off, we don’t have time for repairs.”

  “Understood.”

  “Good job, let your crew know that, I haven’t seen a better group of engineers in my lifetime and that I'm proud to call each and everyone of them mine.”

  Yes, sir!” I could hear even through the raggedly tired voice the pride of the chief engineer.

  “Now, get my ship working and we’ll show these bastards what she can do.”

  “They’ll know when they’ve been kissed by the Resilient, you can be sure of that, commander!”

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  “Resilient, Shrift,” I said, Comms was busy routing a massive overload of other communications.

  “Shrift, have we got extra sets of Mechas?”

  “Yes, sir, a lot more than we’re going to need. Why?”

  “I'm putting the trainees to work early,” I said, my voice reflecting my un-surety of the plan, but also the necessity.

  “Gotcha.” A chime sounded in my ear. I checked my HUD.

  “Got to go. Henry’s calling me.” I switched channels. “Henry?”

  “Sir, I don’t have enough men.” He sighed, not sounding pleased, but he knew I needed the facts.

  “I know. I'm pulling the trainees onto the ships. Though, they need to be trained up,” I said.

  “We’ll have three days.” His voice made it sound like I was crazy while also trying to figure out how to make it work.