Free Fleet Box Set 2

by Michael Chatfield

  “Wish they hadn't,” Bok Soo grunted.

  The conditions on those ships must've sucked but they knew they'd need an overwhelming force to take Parnmal. If they'd landed with their entire force...

  Henry stroked the beard he'd been growing with feeling. His inner Irish had come to the fore because his beard was distinctly red. The regs on facial hair had become lax, Henry let his beard grow out, finally. He was one of the few that could. Facial hair was still one thing that reflected a person’s real age, despite the drugs and supplements the syndicate had filled them with.

  “Alright, red beard. I'm off to make sure my boys and girls are in position,” Bok Soo said tapping Henry's shoulder. Henry's beard twitched in amusement as his eyes sparkling.

  “Alright there, Fu Man Chu,” he said, referring to Bok Soo's wispy attempt at facial hair.

  “Takes time, damnit!” Bok Soo said defensively as they both laughed.

  Henry clapped Bok Soo on the shoulder.

  “See you after,” he said as Bok Soo nodded.

  “I'll buy the first round,” he grinned as Henry looked skeptical.

  “Oh really now?” Henry smiled as they walked out of the armory closest to the largest concentration of Syndicate troops.

  “What? Is it so strange that I'd be offering to get drinks?”

  “I know how hard it is to get food from you!” Henry said as Bok Soo grinned.

  “Well, that's a different story.”

  Henry shook his head in response.

  “I'm going to hold you to that beer Bok Soo,”

  “Wouldn't doubt it. You Irish were always a bit obsessed with it!”

  Henry laughed as he and Bok Soo separated. He was still chuckling as he swung his helmet shut and sealed it. It was a short walk to his people and he checked that his weapons were ready as he got to Santos who was waiting for him.

  “Henry,” the man said by way of greeting.

  “Santos.”

  “We have an axe around here somewhere,” he said, his face completely straight as Henry grinned, pulling his newly made weapon from his back.

  “I was only joking,” Santos laughed as he looked at the plasmid battle axe Henry had had made.

  “Always wanted one,” Henry said as he offered it to Santos who looked it over.

  “Ah, just channeling your inner lumber jack,”

  Henry growled good-naturedly as Santos handed the battle axe back.

  “How are you looking?”

  “We're sealed up tight. I made sure everyone knows their fall back positions and such. It might be our first real defensive action but we'll make them pay for every step,”

  “Good,” Henry said, now serious. They were going to need to inflict some serious casualties. There were twenty-five thousand commandos on Parnmal and five thousand personnel of varying responsibilities, not including the syndicate prisoners of course. Ten to one. God.

  “I'm going to-”

  “Breech!” Amarr, one of Bok Soo's two company commanders said. The alert automatically cutting into Henry’s HUD as his map updated.

  “Looks like it's just begun,” he said to Santos, who conversed with his two company commanders before looking to Henry. His eyes seeming to say, I hate not being on the front lines.

  “Don't worry. The front lines will come to us soon enough,” Henry said mordantly as another real airlock was opened and Mecha's started flooding into Parnmal.

  ***

  I wonder if this is what Jorsht felt like when we rushed into Parnmal, I thought as I sat in my command chair. Everyone had changed over to their secondary roles.

  “We have break-ins across section Blue,” Wast reported as the plot changed to the internal map of Parnmal. Our people were greeted with booby traps, bottle necks and fixed cannons and machine guns. I looked over with a cool gaze as bodies were stacked like proverbial cordwood as rounds smashed into the oncoming Syndicate forces.

  Grenades went off as the incoming forces tried to hit the cannons. Other removed their helmets so they could finally talk. Yet it did little to assert authority as the gunners quickly picked out leaders. Grenades hit cannons as members of the syndicate Mecha force got their beachhead and moved into the station.

  “Section blue, four one, prepare to vent atmo and drop gravity,” I said.

  “Ready commander,” Monk said, running the internal weapons systems.

  I waited as the syndicate forces reached an overlaid line.

  “Now. Blue three eight, two one and one five,” I said, moving past the first one as the other halls were filling quickly.

  The corridor labelled blue one four was mayhem as gravity disappeared, a bulkhead dropped from the roof and atmosphere was drained in a matter of seconds. Anyone that had pulled their visor up to issue orders, or to understand what was going on was killed except for a quick few.

  “Now,” I said moments later as the remaining corridors with Syndicate mechas in were given the same treatment.

  “Begin increasing gravity in our areas. Ramp up in the areas already breached immediately,”

  You trained us in high gravity, let’s see if you trained your own troops that way.

  “I will be joining the Commandos in battle. Call either me or Commander Monk if you need assistance. Until then, Brova you're in charge,” I nodded to Monk's second-in-command.

  I checked my rifle and walked towards the doors.

  “Commander,” Krom hissed, a glance to my protection detail showed that they all disapproved of my actions.

  “I am the commander of the Free Fleet. I will not wait on the damned Bridge watching the fate of my people. I started this damned thing in a mecha. I'll be damned if I don't fight in it alongside the men and women that follow me,” I growled, checking the rest of my kit as I went to the last position I saw Henry.

  ***

  Sergeant Falesh had tried two more airlocks before he'd found one that actually led into Parnmal. Cannons killed the squad he was with as they rushed headlong down the corridor. He stayed in the airlock, throwing grenades as the internal doors closed, filling once again from the outside.

  “Get out! There's cannons in the corridor!” he yelled as those that didn't have their communications online pushed against those that did and could hear, or see the cannon bearing down on them.

  It fired, shredding those in it's sights.

  “Get grenades ready,” he said prepping his own. The inner airlock doors opened as he whipped his grenade down the corridor. A few others did the same as other people charged the cannons panic, fear or a sense of idiotic duty pushing them.

  The Cannon's fire cut them down before there was a muted Thurcrank as a grenade found it's mark.

  Falesh checked the corridor again before getting out of the airlock.

  “Clear here, moving up,” he said as another squad came in, filling the room quickly. Falesh saw people popping their helmets.

  Idiots.

  He activated his speakers, cutting through the incomprehensible chatter.

  “Hard reset your comms,” he barked as he continued on with the half squad down the corridor. He got to a T-intersection where the beader cannon that had cut down his men smoked behind an armored slit.

  “Assholes,” he spat, seeing the beader was set up to be operated remotely.

  He continued down the right side searching for threats as he heard more troopers piling in behind him, shouting at the top of their lungs as they opened their helmets.

  There was a loud noise behind him and he whipped around to find a bulkhead locking his people into the corridor they'd just gotten through. He had just three people with him. He turned, seeing a cannon turning towards him and his men.

  “Move it!” He yelled, diving for a room to his right side.

  He was lucky he had, a charge went off, catching his leg but missing what would have been his chest if he'd walked through the door.

  Whoever these people are, they know how to kill and make us pay for ever thinking of digging them
out of here.

  The beader opened up. None of Falesh's people were with him.

  There was a whistling sound as it felt as if all the air was being pulled back the way Falesh had just come from. That new cannon never stopped firing as Falesh looked to see where that air was going.

  The massing troops behind him were in a state of shock, people, mostly leadership that had opened their helmets to yell commands and get people moving. All of them now showed signs of violent decompression.

  They sucked us in, waited till we had our helmets off, then vented the atmosphere. That cannon was now hosing those that had pushed on. The Syndicates were using their own fallen as cover as they pushed up.

  Falesh grabbed people, pulling them out of the fire. He got five people that weren't too screwed up as he turned for the door he had seen when he entered the room.

  He moved to it, his weapon up as his systems were already containing his wounds and making sure his armor was operational.

  The Syndicate troops got their act together somewhat, grenades exploded as they used that cover to move up, a few of them piling into Falesh's room.

  “Get up you three, we're going to push down this hall here and see if we can't get behind that damned beader,” Falesh indicated the other doorway leading from the room. “Good?”

  He got nods and signs of agreement, he headed down the corridor, the second man. His weapon ready for anything. The corridor shook, he looked back, the fifteen or so people that had been in the room had been smashed into nothing as hidden charges around the room had exploded.

  This place is a death trap, he thought as he reached the end of the corridor, a cannon cutting down the leading trooper.

  “You stay here and try and get a grenade on that damned gun.” He yelled over the local channel, the man behind him grabbing a grenade and moving past him. He jogged back to the room that had become a bloodbath. He heard a new noise, it sounded like a high pitched cutter.

  By the black. He saw out the door which was alight with rounds flying past it.

  That cutter sound went faster and slowed down again.

  It's firing in bursts and it's putting hundreds of those heavy rounds down the corridor.

  An unfortunate trooper stood, trying to run for the doorway, five rounds hit him, exploding, his armor dropping to the ground in ruin.

  He ran back to the group he'd led up to the new weapon system.

  “We need to get our rear clear, otherwise we'll get cut off and smashed.” Falesh barked, blank stares looking back at him.

  “Follow me.” Falesh ground out. Thankfully they did as he said.

  “Alright, you, get some damned grenades into that cannon.” Falesh pointed to one, his finger moving to his partner. “You make sure that nothing comes down that corridor, the rest of your help me find grenades and ammunition from this lot.” He waved his hands at the dead in the room.

  Suddenly everything got much heavier and everyone sunk to the ground.

  “Shit, they upped the gravity,” someone said and Falesh found his entire body fighting him as he struggled to stand.

  Why would any syndicate force want to fight in heavier gravity? He thought as he remembered one of the commandos on Kelu's ship saying how the Captain didn't think that they were syndicate forces. He forced himself vertical with a few concentrated breaths.

  “The further we get the less gravity we'll feel,” he said as those in the room with him also got to their feet. For now Flaesh just had to make sure he survived; his role as company sergeant could wait. Right now just walking was a royal pain in the ass.

  ***

  “This is what I'm talking about!” Bok Soo said, thumping Amarr on the arm. Not seeing Amarr's flinty eyes and smile. He was one of the few Avarians that had been allowed to take supplementary training. He had lived and breathed with the people that had taken Parnmal, and he had been in every action since.

  While some might argue about the honor of the traps and trickery that the Free Fleet was using against their opponents. Salchar had pointed out that only the best would get past all of those traps and trickery. Giving the commandos only the best opponents.

  More likely it would be the unlucky ones. The Commandos weren't the ragtag group that had taken Parnmal. They had learned in a hard school and taken every lesson they could get from species that had been at war for millenniums.

  “Someone might think that you like the extra gravity,” Amarr said as Bok Soo calmed down.

  “I love it as much as those Syndicate wimps must hate it,” Bok Soo said. His eyes moved to the datapad built into the armband of his suit.

  “They're getting to line three. It's time we ended this. Dreckt, you ready?” Bok Soo was no longer the excited jumpy commander of minutes ago. His voice sounded as if it was cut from the mines of Avar Interi Hermanti.

  The spec ops commander, who Bok Soo had made his other company commander in light of Rosa's venture into the dark, making him Amarr's opposite answered.

  “Always, commander,” Dreckt acknowledged.

  With the influx of the newly minted commandos, he was also a reassuring older hand. His other trainer spec ops brothers made up the reserve, along with veterans and the best of the trainees.

  Amarr liked the Sarenmenti, he was a solid Commando. He checked his own arm mounted data pad, looking over the third line.

  The third line were larger rooms that interconnected in multiple ways to one another. They usually had transport cars to move materials across the station, but the rails they ran on had been blocked off and removed.

  “That's what I like to hear. By the numbers,” Bok Soo said as the hallways leading to the larger room filled with Syndicate troopers. Armored and reinforced weapon systems sat at the end of those corridors. They opened up, their crews walking their fire across the frontage of Syndicate personnel who could only throw grenades and die. There was no cover for them anywhere in those halls.

  Grenades bounced off of internal shields as the armor glinted in the hallway's harsh white light.

  The armor around those guns were super-reflective, meaning that it would take hundreds of plasma grenades to get through them. When they got through the shields that was.

  Grenade sumps lay behind the guns incase any grenades got through the slit.

  Reinforcements waited to be put in, or move ammunition to the guns. Two more lines of guns waited behind the ones at the hall way's mouths.

  “Stack them like cordwood.” Bok Soo said, his voice guttural and harsh.

  “Shield techs, hold off those grenades. Advise when the shield's will drop for pull back,” Shield techs had become a new appointment as Felix had shown Henry how he could create limited one way shields within Parnmal. Bok Soo had four of them up with the guns to balance out shields and to give his people enough time to run to the next position if they were over-run.

  Salchar had made it clear in his briefings that this battle was going to be won by paying attention to the plan, as long as they could, and bleeding the Syndicate forces. If they got past the eighth defensive grid then it would be an all-out battle and there were no guarantees. Bok Soo watched as his gunners worked their weapons. With the training that had been ingrained into them, it was second nature and they could move with ease in the higher gravity environment.

  Dreckt had everything under control.

  “Looks like we'll be engaged soon enough.” Bok Soo said, looking to Amarr

  Amarr grunted as he looked at the sensor readouts of the enemy moving towards his own position identical to Dreckt's.

  “Then they will learn just how mad your human gatling gun is.” Amarr said, walking forward.

  “Alright Commandos, it's time to make them pay the black's own toll.” Amarr's deep voice rolled over his companies channel.

  Commandos moved into position like harvesters would move into a field with their scythes.

  Hydraulics moved, electric motors whined and pneumatics hissed as powered armor moved with their users who checked over
their position and supplies yet again.

  A Gatling gun opened up, announcing the arrival of the Syndicate's troopers.

  Casings spat onto the deck as that massive weapon colored Parnmal's walls.

  Chapter Halls of Darkness

  Kelu had finally gotten communications back online. Yet his mood had barely improved.

  His Dreadnought had taken some serious pounding but it had survived the landing on Parnmal. Now the Mecha corps were swarming across Parnmal, and whoever commanded it had changed it from a station into a death trap. As Syndicate soldiers moved forward they were met by multiple entrenched weapon systems, booby traps and even dead ends. The newest he'd heard of was multiple weapon systems down a long wide hallway, working systematically to clear anything that appeared in their line of view. While grenades were bouncing off what appeared to be internal shields inside the station.

  “Who the fuck are these people?” he hissed under his breath. He'd already lost close to twenty thousand troops just getting them inside, he'd lost another fifty-thousand to get this far.

  “Urlow, I want a transmission for Parnmal,”

  “Sir, ready when you are,” Urlow said as Kelu looked to the pickup.

  “Whoever controls Parnmal, I will make this offer to you this one time. Surrender and I will guarantee your people will live as slaves instead of die painful deaths. Do not prolong their suffering. What do you say?”

  The response was immediate.

  “Already been your slaves once, don't much care for it,” Any jovial tone in that voice disappeared as hardend steel filled their voice. “So come on, try to get us, try to see what you can do. The only price we will take from your kind is surrender, or sending you to the black.”

  “Very well, then. We shall meet, and I shall personally escort you to the Lady Fairgate’s halls, where she will glean her answers from your pain,” Kelu said, cutting the transmission. Hiding the shiver that went down his spine at that voice. It wasn't the voice of someone making promises they didn't believe in, no that was the voice of someone that had been through the crucible of battle and now, like some kind of angel from the black, they would walk through that crucible again.