Free Fleet Box Set 2

by Michael Chatfield

  ***

  “Incoming!” The Commando in front of Bok Soo said as plasma scorched where they had been.

  Bok Soo twirled his plasma shotguns, racking a round with their lever action. He was on one of the second Fleet’s Dreadnoughts and moving was hell. He had a full blueprint of the corridors, but he had no idea what was in the walls before he ordered some techies to open them up. They had run into environmental systems, optical wire bundles and a plasma conduit. Thankfully, safety systems had come online. Unfortunately, three Commandos had died as a result. His people were hacking stations to get Intel, but it was slow going and they were still largely bogged down.

  He shifted next to the wall from which the Syndicate forces were firing, putting his gun around the side, putting rounds into his enemy at point-blank range.

  His gun clicked empty, he reloaded by reflex and ran for the other side of the corridor.

  “You two!” He pointed to a beader crew. “You hold it, you fire and help them,” Bok Soo said as the team got close to the wall he had come from. They braced and fired the beader. They could only fire in short bursts or be pushed backwards.

  “Now, move it, Commandos!” Bok Soo said as his people used the covering fire to cross the corridor.

  Taking a ship meant taking vital positions faster than the enemy could reinforce them. He checked his plasma shot guns. They were his favorite damn toy. He had got them from a Commando turned weapon smith on Parnmal. He tapped the battle axe that rested across his back.

  “You better be sending some good ole fashioned luck this way Henry,” he said to himself, hearing shooting as the Commandos smashed into another enemy group.

  Nearly at the friggin engineering, he sighed, chewing on his gum as he looked at his display. The Syndicate jammers were crap, but there was still enough of the damned things that they were making communicating through the ship an issue. Outside the ships was impossible. A Commando got winged as they turned a corner, but his buddy jumped to the other side, grabbing him and hauling him out of the line of fire. A Chaleelian by his armor, mostly the elongated helmet for their snout, fired at where the rounds had come from.

  “Grenades?” he asked over the close area radio.

  “Fuck it, it's a Dreadnought. She can take it. None in engineering, though. And no one tells Resilient or Eddie I said a god damn thing!” he warned, sure that got a few unseen grins. Plasma grenades went off and as the Chaleelian swung the corner, a Sarenmenti and Kuruvian followed to assist.

  “Clear to the door. We're at engineering, need a techie,” the Chaleelian said.

  One scampered from the rear.

  “How you doing, Commando?” Bok Soo asked the trooper that had been winged.

  “Been better,” a female Sarenmenti grunted.

  “Rest up and get some hell fire into you. You stay here and keep a watch, follow us as we clear,” Bok Soo said, the last for her buddy that had saved her.

  “Shotgun or charge,” the techie announced.

  No one appeared to have a shotgun.

  “Alright, I'll blast the bloody thing down. You four, continue around and link up with Commander Banelish's squad,” Bok Soo said, indicating the four at the rear he wanted to go.

  He moved up to the group that were covering the techie.

  “Ready boys and girls?”

  He held his shotguns out at the pair of bolts on the double doors. He shot the top ones, cycling the shotguns around as he lowered his hands and stuck two more balls of plasma into the lower bolts. He cycled his guns again as he kicked the doors with all of his might. They went flying, hitting and killing the gun crew that had set up too close to the door. Bok Soo charged in. His left leg still on full power launched him up and into the rafters of the cavernous engineering hub. He put one shotgun in its holster as he grabbed something sturdy looking.

  He looked down on the amazed gun crews, which were doing their best to face in three different directions. He fired at the closest, the Plasma burning into the unarmored Syndicates. It seemed that Salchar and Foshunti's surprise hadn't given them enough time to even get their mechas on. He cycled the shotgun, his ammo counter going down until he hit empty. He dropped toward the floor, grabbing his other one as he released the mag on the shotgun and smacked it into the waiting mag on his leg. With one flick of his wrist it was reloaded, he continued around a corner towards the gun team that was still standing. He heard the reports of rail guns as indicators in his mecha halted his progress. He pulled back, covering outwards. Moments later a barrel was pointed at his visor.

  “Best to lower that,” Bok Soo said, sounding slightly amused as the Chaleelian did so.

  “Sorry, sir,”

  “No problem. At least you assessed the situation before shooting. Otherwise I'd be having quite a few issues.” He pointed to the Kuruvian. “Go help the wounded Commando out there would ya? The rest of you, let's secure this position. There will be a squad here in two. You lot will be staying here as they advance through you and on to the next objective.” These people had been going hard since entry. It wasn't far, but close quarters fighting was damned tiring. He was the CAMC, so being tired was an impossibility. He opened his visor, spitting his now flavorless gum and putting in another piece. God that smells like shit, he thought, closing his visor as the air recycler went to work getting rid of the smell of burnt metals, plastics—and charred flesh.

  ***

  “Captain Lord Foshunti, what should we do?” a panicked captain on one of the second fleet said.

  “Fight them you useless bastard. I'm fighting my own attackers. Their fleet will be upon us in minutes. If you are not ready I will hold you personally to blame for all of this and make you dance for my own delight,” Foshunti said, a sadistic smile coming across his face as his eyes fluttered in excitement.

  “Yes, my Captain Lord, we will repel them!” the Captain said, now eager not to talk to his Captain Lord as he had been before.

  “Looks like your boarding my ships has actually lent credence to me being attacked,” Foshunti said, studying his screens. Santos stood to the side of him, just out of view of the visual pick up. Santos didn't say much to Foshunti. Though from his signal emissions he was quite connected to his troops. Who were as every bit as terrifying and good as Foshunti had been told. They were real troops. They might have a few flairs and extras, but they used them to great effect.

  “Thank you, sir,” Santos said, his tone showing that he clearly didn't care for Foshunti's praise. The man wanted clearly to be in the fight. A thought that Syndicates would find ridiculous.

  “We have missile launch,” a sensor tech said as Foshunti watched missiles raining down on the already softened second fleet.

  The ships that hadn't been boarded were now getting pummeled by Salchar's fleet. Cannons fired, concentrating on one area, then another, not moving on until they had destroyed their target. The second fleet tried to fight back, but they were failing. Cruisers were the first to go. Foshunti couldn't keep a hint of a grin off of his face as they cracked open into massive fireballs, their missile armament adding to the inferno.

  Corvettes used their superior maneuvering to twist and dive, trying to shake the incoming fire and throw off the gunner’s aim from the devastating cannons. But the batteries adjusted, firing in the general area, bracketing the ships. Their weakened or non-existent shields gave them little protection and many missiles made it through the attempts to take them down.

  Destroyers and the Dreadnought that hadn't been boarded fared the best. All of the Cruisers had fired their missiles, sending the majority right into the throats of the Dreadnought. The Dreadnought put up a fight, but mutual PDS support was forgotten as ship’s captain’s tried to save their own ships instead of fighting beside their comrades.

  Two hundred missiles hit the weakened shields, they turned black, trying to blunt the incoming energy, holding for only a few seconds before power relays were overpowered and it collapsed.

  The missiles were like tigers
on a weakened prey. They smashed in from every direction, ripping apart the Dreadnought. It absorbed three hits, speaking to the strength of its armor and then the fourth piled into a hole created by the previous missiles. The Dreadnought seemed to be picked up as if by the hand of God as plating and openings in the armor, such as weapon mounts, sprouted fire and the ship split open. Fires raged in its hull as things inside burned on the remaining oxygen or blew up as their containment was broken. It hadn't been completely powerless in its death. It had fired as many missiles as it could. The Second Fleet were also adding in their missiles as well.

  The Free Fleet had co-ordination in their PDS.

  “The hell is that?” Foshunti asked as the six hundred missiles that were rising were being hammered into nothing.

  “A new PDS system. Its drastically more effective,” Shova in Sensors said as his people coaxed information from their arrays.

  Fatal mistake, Foshunti thought as the Battle Cruisers which had been modified into carriers were in the center of the Free Fleet formation. The Fleet was organized in a pyramid formation as it had been before. PDS fire was split up between everyone, the weapons and the tactics made the protective fire damned impressive. It took out hundreds before they even got close to the fleet, but there wasn't enough room to give them time to take out all of them. Resilient, the other Dreadnought's and the Battle-Carriers took the missiles that made it through the fire.

  The Dreadnought's shrugged off the barrage, their shields fully charged and much stronger than anything the second fleet had available. The Battle-Carrier's shields held for longer that Foshunti guessed but they fell eventually. Then panels of the Carriers started exploding as missiles blew up as well. Foshunti watched as the Battle-carriers were consumed in a halo of missiles exploding away from them. The missiles stayed at bay long enough for the Carrier to bring its shields back online, stopping the last few dead in their tracks. Foshunti tried to hide his amazement. Whatever systems those Battle-Carriers had was damned impressive and tactically a godsend. Having Carriers that were able to be on the front lines meant shorter time for fighters to get refueled and armed, it meant that less ships had to worry about protecting it.

  The Carriers turned, presenting their heavily armored spine to the second fleet as more ships started firing at them. Those ships were quickly set upon by the group surrounding the Battle-Carriers. The Free Fleet turned, powering away on an angle. The ships that hadn't been landed on, were destroyed, or heavily damaged The second fleet seemed to have run out of missiles, their Cruisers had been of little assistance as they turned into nothing but useless fireballs.

  “Still think you would've beaten them wholesale?” Planner asked through Foshunti's implants.

  “It would have been an interesting fight,” Foshunti said, as Planner left the channel.

  He looked to his screens. There were Commandos at every power plant and major console that controlled something vital to the ship. It was up to these people's friends and compatriots to take the rest of the second Fleet.

  He just hoped it was soon.

  ***

  Connolly was in one of the Battle Cruisers, and he had finally reached the gunnery decks. The door kicker took the door as his people filed in. The deck was alive with people working their cannon mounts and the internals of the cannon moving as they fired. Someone noticed the Commandos as Connolly used his speakers.

  “Step away from the weapons mounts and lie down and you won't be harmed,” He bellowed as the deck seemed to turn to him as one.

  Shots rang out against the bulkhead behind Connolly, a few rounds hitting his armor and bouncing off as he dove for cover. The Commando's portable cannons bellowed as Connolly got up behind a stack of heat sinks. The entire deck seemed to be charging his people, none of them wearing anything like conventional armor as they fired a host of different weapons. It looked like a riot with fireworks more than anything else.

  Cannons shifted fire, raking the forward lines as people disappeared. Connolly saw a Syndicate prepping a grenade, and his rounds found the man, the grenade rolling from his hand and exploding in a similar pile of used heat sinks to the ones Connolly had sheltered behind, but these ones were used and fragile. The superheated coolant and debris ripped through the charging Syndicates. The coolant was heated to the point that it acted more like plasma. The rest didn't know they were already dead as the cannons finished them off. Connolly looked at the destruction, his stomach churning at the sight.

  “Seal the doors and we'll move to assist Commander Yasu,” Connolly said. A few Commandos not having Connolly's self-control were discarding their meals. The lucky ones got their visors open in time, only to smell the gunnery deck. Connolly had them removed as the more veteran units that had seen the massacred bodies in Parnmal and other battlefields quickly sealed the doors and hurried back out of the deck. Connolly reached Yasu as she turned around from reaming out her people.

  “I told you to keep your damned heads in!” Yasu barked, the person that had poked their head out having the misfortune of not pulling it back quick enough.

  They advanced to the bridge and found that it was secured with multiple gunner teams and plating that stopped any grenades from getting to them.

  “Connolly!” she barked.

  “Ma'am?” he said, slightly nervous as he came face to face with the woman that had been in charge of training him and thousands of other Commandos. She was a damn force of nature like Salchar himself.

  “I've got an entry point in through this here air-intake. I want you to get in there and take the enemy from behind.”

  She gave him a minute to study the plans. The air-intake had been taken from a civilian ship and used for the bridge. It was wider than the original and didn't have the shut off that a military grade replacement would have.

  “It's too small for a mecha,” he said, his knowledge from the yard coming in use.

  “I know, you'll have to get creative,” she replied.

  “Yes ma'am,” he said, cutting the channel and gathering his people before heading out.

  It took three ladders and a service hatch to get to the air-intake.

  “Alright. Pop 'em, Commando's. Looks like we're doing this old school,” he said, opening his mecha and freeing himself from it. He grabbed his railgun and a bandoleer of grenades, magazines, and a plasmid blade.

  He took the blade and cut into the air vent his squad helped him with their plasmid weaponry. The air-intake was small for Connolly, the Sarenmenti's tails rubbed the roof, resulting in a bunch of complaining from them. The Kuruvians used their manipulators to scurry along quite easily. If any of the Avarians had claustrophobia Connolly felt sorry for them, their chests and backs hit the roof and floor, they could only move with their toes and fingers.

  Connolly got to the opening that led into the bridge first.

  “Alright, it narrows up ahead. If you won't fit, stop and get ready to make an entry hole and drop into the bridge,” Connolly said, using his implants as he could hear the noises they were all making. Too loud of a noise and the enemy would know they had more than rats in their vents.

  Connolly pushed on, pulling out his plasmid blade which illuminated the vent. Better he didn't get far before it was too small for him to continue.

  “Tell him I don't care if he doesn't have enough people! I need support here, we have those goddamn bastards at our doors!” someone was yelling.

  “Do it,” Connolly said as he stabbed downwards into the air-vent metal. He dragged it down the sides to his shoulder on both sides. He cut ahead of him, the lip dangled down as he sheathed his blade and grabbed his railgun. He made sure it was on scatter shot.

  “Well, here goes nothing,” he thought. As he shifted forward, his weight pushed the vent down.

  “What was that?” the same voice from before said.

  Come on! Connolly thought as he kept moving onto the cut vent, but still nothing happened.

  He kept going, and all of a sudden it swung down. C
onnolly had no time to stop as the cut open vent acted like a slide and he slid out of the vent and fell several feet, right onto the Captain. He was a slimy gelatinous creature, which nicely stopped Connolly's fall, Connolly's elbow connecting with something and knocking him unconscious.

  “Connolly rolled and raised his rifle as his squad fell from the ceiling.

  “Fuck!” One Avarian said, the creature under him squeaking as he landed on it

  “Surrender and..,” Connolly said.

  “Sweet lord of.. unnfrgh,”

  “...you won't..,”

  “Fuck!” Connolly couldn't help but wince as a Damien landed on his plums.

  “...be hurt,” Connolly finished, one Kuruvian tumbled down from the roof, crashing into the floor yelling obscenities.

  The bridge crew looked at the Commandos.

  “Put your manipulating limbs on your head, or in the air if you understand,” Connolly said.

  The air vent broke as Dofo, the biggest Avarian in Connolly's squad fell straight to the ground. Connolly couldn't help but sigh. The entire bridge had their 'hands' up.

  “Alright, round them up. Then we'll clear the doorway,” Connolly said. His squad moved to obey. Damien was dry heaving on the floor still.

  It took a few minutes before the bridge crew was secured. Connolly lifted the jamming from the ship.

  “This is Connolly. We've cleared the bridge,” he reported to Yasu.

  “Good. I left two squads outside to hold the gun teams there. Here's the Commanders channel.” With that she cut their channel.

  Connolly sent the commander a message to not fire as his people stacked on the bulkhead that led out of the bridge. It cycled open, revealing the backs of twenty or so fighters. Those closest to the door turned to it, expressions of shock on their faces as they were face to face with Commandos, not their comrades.

  One cannon loader got past the shock and swung at Connolly.

  Connolly dropped his rifle his hands finding his blade as the creature was too close for him to use his rifle.

  Connolly moved to the side, the attacker hacking the doorway past Connolly.