“All right, I’ll go first then you,” I said, knowing that he wouldn’t accept himself sleeping first. Plus, I wanted him to have as much time with Marleen in peace as possible. And they say chivalry is dead. I walked into my empty quarters. I got under the sheets, missing Yasu as I took a detox to remove any Wake-Up or anything that could cloud my judgment.
I wonder when was the last time I slept without using detox. Darkness took over.
***
Rick was still on the bridge when I came back, wearing my Mecha.
“Git.” I pointed to the door with my thumb as he grinned tiredly.
“Yes, Commander,” he said with a rolling flourish of his hand, as if bowing to nobility. I snorted in response while I looked around the bridge. He and Marleen wandered out, hand in hand. The bridge had rotated to the second crew, which was keeping everything running.
I sat in my chair, it coming alive with screens and information. My right armrest showed the formation of the Free Fleet and the timer that slowly crawled to wormhole generator start-up.
I turned to the minutiae of the fleet, burying myself in the work that the whole damned thing needed. Getting lost in the familiar thrums of paperwork and obscure schematics.
“Initiating wormhole generator power-up,” Helm said, breaking me out of my concentration. A hum started through the ship as power was fed to the wormhole generators. With the noise and feeling, it was as if the Resilient was just waiting to strike.
I checked it on my armrest screen. Everything was going according to plan, so I went back to my work.
It was a few hours until first watch came back, more than one looking as if they were unable to get any sleep. Second went to go to their other stations. With our manpower issues, they reversed roles, becoming Commandos, engineers, and shuttle pilots and were ready to take over from the first shift in an emergency. All of the old Free Fleet personnel were able and doing multiple jobs.
Everyone wore their Mechas now as I looked at the timer. There was an hour to go.
“Run your checks and hammer it into everyone that we will have bare minutes when we initiate wormhole to Parnmal.” The bridge rose in volume as everyone communicated to their counterparts and the fleet readied itself.
Reactors went through tests as weapons were extended, checked, and stored again. Twenty minutes to wormhole creation, another alarm went off as the fleet dropped into condition red.
“Applying thrust,” Milra said as the Resilient’s engines fired up.
I checked my armrest as the rest of the fleet in position began accelerating with the Resilient.
It’s about time we started moving. Dread and excitement filled me. War was a terrifying thing, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, but it was a drug. In war, you never feel as alive as you are scared. You can’t trust, love, hate as you do when you’re not fighting for your life. All the small shit just floats away.
Yet the payment for feeling that alive is the regret, of second-guessing and questioning why you’re alive when others are not. It’s why I would fight from the front; leaders lead and commanders would deal with the shit just as any team member would.
“Vort, record a message for Commander Monk.”
“You’re on.”
“Monk, show them what happens when they come into our backyard when we’re ready.”
Comms cut it with a look.
“Send it.”
Then Comes the Bright Lights and Fireworks
The command center of Parnmal was silent when Salchar’s message ended.
Monk was calm, but he felt a fire inside him. They’d been waiting days to be given the go ahead. Monk knew James liked to play it close, but this was last minute.
If James waited till now, then there was a reason, he thought with a smile.
“Overlay of ships and weapons on screen.” The main display changed from a distance plot to overlapping fields of fire. It had been refined further with the Syndicate’s firing of their ordinance.
“Tactical, are you ready?”
“Yes, Commander.” There was a hunger in Wendy’s voice.
“Comms, get me the gunners.”
On Monk’s armrest, he saw he was live. “The enemy wishes to take this station. One which they used to sow pain and fear throughout this area of space. We have made it our home and a place of hope. I ask you to make sure you’re with me, so that they’re never allowed to use this station to enslave others ever again. We will show them what the people of the Free Fleet can do. Now, get me those first-liners, gunners! Give them both barrels.” Monk’s serene face turned into a wolfish grin.
“Tactical, you are free to fire.” Monk sat back in his chair. Calm returned as the crew of Parnmal was wrapped up in the heart-thumping reality of the moment.
The feed was cut as Tactical’s cold voice cut through the command center. “Get those first-liners.” The tone that would’ve made a normal person shiver raised wolfish grins on the command center’s operators.
***
The captains had given up badgering Kelu, but he wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or not. They were now playing cat-and-mouse, it seemed, with the weapons stations. A few had powered up and Kelu could swear that they were about to shoot when the captains destroyed them.
They didn’t listen to him as often as they should, but they never crossed over to directly disobeying him—as that would be disobeying the lady, whose feelings on the matter were quite clear. It was better to die than let her catch you disobeying her.
“Contact! Shit!”
Kelu, who was reclined in his chair while studying a piece of the bridge in tired contemplation, barely moved as Sensors became a hive of activity.
“We have weapons systems powering up!”
“Makes them easier to detect.” Kelu continued to study the wall.
“These aren’t the systems we’ve encountered!”
“Shots fired!” Tactical yelled as stations started coming alive. “It’s a miss.”
Kelu pulled up the information on his armrest lazily before he snapped to attention. “The hell are those?” he asked, the tiredness gone from his voice as weapon systems activated throughout the asteroid belt.
“Modified planetary rail cannons and laser batteries.” Fear was clear in the sensor officer’s voice.
“Update the plot. Shoot those damned things down!” Kelu yelled as he saw his disorganized fleet falling apart at the seams. “Comms, tell those bastards to get back into formation!”
Kelu looked at his plot as he saw the weapon systems coming online and felt his ridges go cold. We should’ve expected them to do better. “Tactical, get the rail cannons onto them!” Kelu had to yell over the tactical officer. “Tell all ships to fire rail cannon rounds at the targets!”
“Shields are to eighty-five percent!” Shields added.
“Tell them I will let the lady know if they do not obey.”
Hopefully, the captains’ fear of the lady would be more than the immediate threat of the weapons systems.
Icons changed from purple to magenta rapidly.
One changed to white.
“First-liner Daskl has been destroyed,” Sensors reported. “They’re targeting ships of the first line.”
“Allow the second-line ships to advance.”
He watched as the second-line ships raced outward at maximum thrust. At least they know how to chase, Kelu thought grudgingly. Hopefully, it’ll buy me the few minutes I’ll need to get the first-liners ready.
The guns shifted fire almost immediately as the first-liners returned to position, firing everything they had at the powerful guns that threw dustbin-sized projectiles at 0. 018c. They took nearly a minute at farthest range to hit the ships, yet there were thousands of projectiles, and they packed one hell of a punch. If it was just those weapons, Kelu would’ve taken a lot of damage, but he would’ve gotten to Parnmal. The heavy-hitting rail gun cannons were the least of Kelu’s problems—the laser batteries were.
&nbs
p; The lasers were cumbersome and took a lot of time to fire. Their power requirements were monumental and most ships that had them only fired two or three at a time and were damn dangerous. Most of the Syndicate had switched over to the rail cannons because they were easier to use and cheaper on reactor fuel.
With Syndicate maintenance, lasers were more prone to overload and destroy your own ship rather than hit the enemy’s and the energy they hit with wasn’t all that much.
Jorsht’s batteries were slow, yes, but there were a lot of them, and their shots landed at the speed of light and hit with nearly the power of a medium rail cannon’s rounds.
Add in the fact that these weapon systems had dedicated PDS, it made them as hard as a third-line ship to take down, but with the hitting power of a single second-line ship. Kelu read fifty on his view screen.
They were forcing his hand, and he knew it. He growled as another laser beam hit his shield, and rail cannon rounds he couldn’t miss started making his shields flare.
“Shields to seventy-five.”
“Order all ships to attack Parnmal,” Kelu ground out.
“Captain?”
“You heard me!” He was angry at how he’d been played by Jorsht. He’d seen the reports of laser batteries but dismissed them out of hand for their unreliability. “I want those laser batteries taken out! The first captain to land on the station gets their share and a half.” He saw his own helmsman begin yelling at navigation for the quickest route at this announcement.
“Lubts has been destroyed. Aeriph has ejected their reactor.”
Both second-liners. “Keep the second-liners attacking along the route; those with ten kills will get their share and a quarter.”
The incentives seemed to work as the entire fleet began accelerating and clawing their way toward Parnmal. It would take time to build up velocity, and at maximum thrust, braking would take six hours to reach Parnmal.
“I have a hole jump confirmation in the outer system. Sdigk’s engines are out, and her shields are going down.”
Shit, first-liner. “Tell me only the stuff I need to know. The jump limit is twenty-one hours away if we were at full thrust!” I need a new sensor officer.
Kelu watched as a further three second-liners went down.
“Inner system jump!”
Kelu whipped around to the sensor pit. No one does inner system jumps! It was suicide and the math was too hard for an inorganic to compute! What idiot would throw away their force like that!
“We have unidentified objects four million kilometers away!”
“Send them to my armrest,” Kelu said and the scans were passed to him. The hell are those? Asteroids?
The objects were asteroids, yet they were reading as having power and thrust, and they had just completed a wormhole transition.
“They’re above our acceleration already and gaining speed; they’ll be on us in an hour.”
“What are these asteroid ships’ weapon capabilities?”
“Seems there are no weapons on their exterior.”
“Re-scan and prepare for missile barrage.” Kelu felt anger as his plot changed once again. Shit.
Then Come the Surprises
“How is our extra plating holding up?” I checked the formation and status of every ship. Battle cruiser Forsut had hit an asteroid when clearing the wormhole horizon, cracking her structural spine. Yet the addition of the asteroid armor was helping the ship to maintain some integrity as she flew out of the line of battle and around to Parnmal. I glanced at the casualty list of fifty dead and twenty-three wounded. With the lack of personnel in the Free Fleet, it meant we lost less people, but it also meant we knew one another a lot better than a larger military.
Though, I didn’t have time to worry about that now.
My face was stone as Krat reported, “All plating fleet-wide is holding.”
“They’re turning to cross our T,” Walf commented.
“Good,” I answered. “Ben, Vort—have thrust plans and times to everyone in the fleet. Remind them to be around an acceleration couch.”
I waited as the timer went down. The asteroids strapped to my hulls wore away, yet they were still solid metal and rock and no less than a hundred meters thick.
Twenty minutes to go. I had Vort open a channel to Monk.
“James?” he asked, his voice calming as ever.
“We’re going to put on a show. When we do, you are weapons free.”
“Understood.” Others might have asked what he meant, but Monk and Salchar trusted each other completely.
“Why are they holding their missiles back?” Milra asked through clenched teeth. Piloting the Resilient had improved with the new power plants and the fixes to the old engines, but the added plating mass was a big issue. It also covered most of the positioning thrusters.
“They want to use them to crack Parnmal,” Marleen supplied.
“They’re firing in barrages,” Walf said as the Syndicate’s fire became routine. “Fifteen minutes,” he continued.
I tapped my fingers on my armrest twice before pressing a button on the rest, connecting me to the rest of the fleet. “Everyone to their acceleration couches.”
In minutes, everyone was ready.
“Release plating. Reverse thrust,” I said as Vort communicated this to the other ships. The cabling that had bound the asteroids to the Resilient was released; thrusters fired across the ship and pushed the asteroid away. Every other ship was doing the same: turning to apply braking thrust; battle suits across the fleet injected drugs to make our bodies able to handle the stress as we grunted and groaned at the weight. Yet our training did us well. We had all been subjected to gravities of up to two-point-five of Earth’s. We were at seven of Earth’s gravities and quickly going down, since our bodies couldn’t maintain the weight for more than a few seconds.
I watched as the plating fell away, still at the speeds that the ships had been traveling, which was a fair speed even with only thirty minutes of acceleration.
Thrusters fired on the plating from our side; missiles embedded in the asteroid accelerated the asteroids even more.
Missile pods, also hidden underneath the asteroids, released their loads, which cleared the asteroid and began accelerating for the Syndicate fleet.
“Fire two barrages of missiles,” I said as Marleen relayed to her gunners. Vort communicated to the other ships. “I want those two minutes behind the asteroids.”
I felt the ship belch as missiles launched.
The asteroids were five minutes from the Syndicate fleet. That time shortened as energy blooms populated Parnmal, adding to the plots already marked as weapon positions.
Planetary cannons took shields apart as the Syndicate fleet panicked. Shields failed on many ships as smaller ships became fireballs.
Then the asteroids’ missiles reached them.
Blooms formed as PDS systems labored to clear the sky. The Syndicate ships fired in disarray, only a few working to protect one another; the rest looked after themselves as they launched everything at the incoming garbage.
Sensors labored over trying to get information as the asteroids cracked from strategic explosives placed in them.
Fifty pieces of asteroid turned into tens of thousands, each speeding as fast as a spaceship and all larger than a car.
It was like using a shotgun against a pile of ants.
The Syndicate was clumped together so they wouldn’t get caught out by Parnmal’s weapons. Now they turned to face my incoming fleet. Some kept facing planetary cannons; others stayed where they were, firing from both gunnery decks.
Asteroids took out whole ships. Then the now exhausted missiles exploded like miniature shotguns, destroying anything in the immediate area and throwing more debris into the Syndicate fleet.
This is what happens when you mess with the Free Fleet. I looked at the chaos. “Turn our weapons on them. Wait to fire on my command.”
My orders were carried out quickly.
“We’re taking hits,” Krat said.
“Shields holding.”
“Walf, I need a better picture of what’s going on in there,” I called out.
“Trying to, Commander, but with the nuclear interference, it’s hard.”
“Very well.” I nodded to him.
The second barrage of missiles cleared their launch tubes, accelerating for the fleet that was finally becoming clear of sensor-blocking radioactive explosions.
The first barrage of missiles hit the Syndicate fleet, stopping them as they plunged farther into the Syndicate’s formation.
The second, at full burn, hit them a few seconds later even deeper in their formation.
“Fire all weapons,” I said as the second barrage hit.
I felt the Resilient rumble as her gunners fired into the heart of the Syndicate graveyard I’d made.
“Resilient, can you do anything to clear up these sensor readings?” I asked.
“I’m mapping which ships would have been caught in the waves you sent at them with possible flight paths. It will take me a minute,” she said, her voice harried for once. She was undoubtedly helping others throughout the fleet as well.
It took a few moments before a line sketch of where the ships were proposed to be filled the plot.
The force of two hundred and eighty-one ships had been hit, losing a supposed two-thirds of their force, leaving them at still a rough one hundred ships, still seven times my own forces number.
“Super charge starboard shields.” It gave us more shields but weakened us in other areas, and we were prone to overloading shield circuits.
“Commander,” Krat said, making it so.
The planetary cannons stopped firing as we crossed into the area where our waves had hit the Syndicate. No one broke formation as we went in like a bowl with our sides presented.
The nuclear waste dissipated as gunners got clear targets, sensors updating at a rapid rate.
“Dear God,” someone said as we sped through a graveyard of cracked ships.
“Taking hits. Down to ninety-two percent,” Krat informed me.
Free Fleet Box Set 1 Page 81
