“Battle brother Edvasho,” Ashota said, not as excited as Edvasho.
“Will you not come and join me to watch the conquering of this planet?” Edvasho asked.
“I will if you do not join in the battle but lead your people through command, these creatures are sly and good at battle. I do not wish that you fall, with that the fall of the united clans,” Ashota said.
Edvasho didn't want to sit on the sidelines, he wanted to roam with his clan and rush the defences of these creatures, destroying them with the might of his clans.
“I have stayed back as you have asked me, now I will go forward, the Kalu are united and I will survive,” Edvasho said. It was an honour to die in battle, but Edvasho would deny himself that honour at the request of this battle brother.
“Thank you battle brother, you do me great honour,” Ashota said, his voice humble.
“Now I will see to this battle. I will talk to you of what you have learned after the battle,” Edvasho said.
“Of course brother,” Ashota said, Edvasho cut the channel. His brother had been the first to charge into battle with him before the accident where he saved Edvasho's life. Instead of being given the honour of dying, he remained alive, he had a strong spirit, especially to come back from something like that and find new purpose.
Though maybe in his new state he was rotting in his brain, becoming less Kalu and becoming one of the outcasts that lived for peace instead of war. They had their own planet. It was not attacked for the simple reason that attacking such creatures was beneath a Warrior.
Even these other creatures had proven themselves enough to deserve being attacked.
Sub-leader's Xentar and Orshpa had both made comments on Ashota's manner and ways. They led the second and third fleets of Kalu's clans. They had proven themselves in battle and with their Warriors.
If Ashota continued acting as he was then Edvasho would have to lay him down with the silent clans.
He shook his head clearing it of such dark thoughts.
Growls and the sounds of hundreds of shifting armor plates against the noise of Star Warriors landing took Edvasho back to a time when he had landed on these planets so many generations ago.
Now it is time that we taught these fools the might of the Kalu. He pressed a button, putting him into every helmet.
“Today the second teaching war starts, we will show these creatures why the Union should have destroyed us. We will destroy them and all that follow them so that nothing but our own stories will show they existed. Are you with me my battle brothers?” Kalu let lose their war cries, shaking the Star Warriors. Edvasho felt battle hormones course through his veins, this is what he had lived for, all he had toiled for, bringing the clans together and forging them into an army of single purpose. To win against those that had thought them defeated.
“Send them to the silent clans!” Edvasho yelled, leaping forward, taking the front as every Kalu raced after him.
“Edvasho, Edvasho, Edvasho!” They cried.
The younger primes grouped around him, the rest of the army doing all they could to gain the privilege of being the first in combat.
Edvasho felt free of his body, joy racing through him as he moved faster and faster. The primes bayed, honoured to be around a clan leader as able as he. The remainder of the clan's raced faster than Edvasho had ever seen any Clan before. He felt the pounding of their feet, shivers of excitement running through his body as they took a rise, coming into site of the enemy.
Edvasho's hands flew under his chest, dual lasers rose above his shoulders. He fired, raking the front lines of the enemy. The lasers were weak at this distance, but soon that would change.
The whines, whizzes, clacks and thumps of rail guns, beader, plasma, and rail cannons started, the leading units catching the heaviest of the fire.
“Take the cover, use it to advance and take them with our jaws!” Edvasho barked, new bloodlust growls filled the air.
Star Warriors were still skirting the enemy position, the enemy raked them as they descended. Making it to the ground was like passing through an initiation rite. Star Warriors landed a few kilometres away from the enemy, the same forward areas that had opened into the Free Fleet's ships now released Kalu on to the surface of Heija.
Edvasho leapt sideways, skidding in the muck of the planet, a plasma bolt missing him as plasma that had split from the main bolt hit his armor, melting it.
The weapons fire increased as he took cover behind a hill. A cannon raking against others that tried to get to the hill.
“I will draw it off,” he said, running for another hill. Rounds hit his armor, making him more angry than scared.
The cannon stayed focused on the last hill, he found the hill he ran to had another cannon covering it. He ran faster, trying to beat the rounds, he caught one in his back right leg. He skidded his working legs pushing on the ground and somehow getting him into cover. His suit went to repairing itself and the wound.
“Come my brothers let us end these creatures! Bring more, we shall not stop until this planet is taken. This is indeed a great battle, bring down another Lord's worth!” Edvasho said, seeing that Clan lords were now vying for who would join the battle on the planet. A sneaky one dropped into the atmosphere before even his other people. Edvasho would reward them for their cunning and willingness to lead the charge.
The lord's Star Warriors chased after him, racing to join the great battle.
Warriors joined Edvasho, getting through the cannons fire, with a third of the original number.
It would be another few moments before Edvasho's leg was healed enough to continue, then he would again join the front in charging down these worthy Warriors.
***
“We need that support fire yesterday Etil!” Bok Soo yelled, the panic clear in his voice.
“You nattering in my ear is not going to help it any!” Etil hissed back as he pulled the rails from the bank of cannons, reconfiguring the systems for an arching trajectory instead of a straight one. He then linked it to the sensors on the front lines and tacked on a datapad that showed what the projectiles were doing.
Engineers were copying his method onto all of the ship's railguns that were able to bear on the battlefield.
He'd gained a bigger appreciation of human's ability to wage war since they'd told him about artillery used back on Earth.
He checked the data pad as it linked to the sensor information coming from the battlefield.
Dread filled him as he redoubled his efforts. Seeing that many Kalu was enough to make any creature go cold in fear.
“Etil,” Bok Soo said, dragging out his name in warning.
“You've got some support, not much. I'm working to get you more,” Etil said, hiding his panic as he checked over the PDS in the mountain and on the ships. Planner had been able to hack their software while he'd installed the necessary hardware they needed to keep running together.
He felt that smashing things back together as fast as possible was going to be his life.
Until the Kalu get through those lines, Etil chastised himself for those thoughts, hardening his reslove. Here we will hold, and here we will buy time for the rest of the fleet to figure out how to smash these bastards. He remembered his all-to-brief talks with his kids and brother.
He pushed those thoughts away, he had other things to deal with now.
***
Yasu looked around, the hills and ships PDS were firing into the sky, taking down Star Warriors at an impressive rate. Planner had changed their targeting to compensate for gravity and atmospheric changes.
Still the air was thick with them as they descended. A clump of them set down over the rise in front of what had become the Free Fleet's base.
“Move it Commandos!” She bellowed, using the trenches which had been dug from the airlocks to the front.
Commandos and personnel in powered armor moved everywhere, getting to their positions and weapon systems.
Star Warriors didn't se
em to slow their pace as Yasu got to her position and looked over the trench. There was nothing out there yet.
“Alright, check your gear again, soon we're going to be up to our heads in Kalu,” she said, checking the commander channel, nothing interesting was on there so she looked over the trench again.
“Here they come,” someone said as the Kalu raced over the small rise a few kilometres away. It was hard to not feel fear crawl up her spine as hundreds if not thousands of Kalu charged towards her position. It was one thing seeing them in corridors where they couldn't put down much speed, but on an open plain they were in their terrifying element.
Lasers fired from their backs, they could barely scratch armor but it still made people flinch.
“Going to use damned laser pointers are you?” Bok Soo yelled. “Ready yourselves,”
Yasu held her rifle up, nestling it in her shoulder and finding a comfortable place for her elbows. She checked her people along the line, all of them were looking at the enemy. She greened up, nestling back down behind her rifle while she concentrated on her breathing, the sounds of PDS firing and the explosions overhead falling away.
“Fire,” Bok Soo barked, the weapons of the Commando's responding to their Commander's words.
Yasu squeezed the trigger, seeing one go down as she fired again, another in its place. She kept her weapon at the same height, squeezing the trigger again and again.
The Kalu swarmed around the front, the group that had been leading now being overtaken by the slower group. The slower group took the damage and hits as the lead split up. The slower grouped around them as Yasu wondered if it was Kaluian reflex or tactic to use their weaker or unproven Warriors to protect the one's that had proved themselves.
Her counter blinked as her last bolt disappeared into a Kalu's face.
“Reloading!” She yelled as she dropped her old clip and slapped a new one in. Commandos in reserve picked up the discarded clips, giving them to others that loaded them.
Yasu pulled her charging handle, a round seated in the barrel. She fired as someone with a fresh clip slipped it into her now empty pouch.
She didn't even look at them, she just kept firing.
More cracks of Star Warrior's entering atmosphere made her look up to see a new group of ships drop, instead of the steady trickle.
“Why the hell do they keep trying to go over our anti-ship defences?” One of her people asked.
“Don't curse us now, I'm more than happy to have them throw themselves into our automated defences than full on attack us,” Connolly replied before Yasu could.
Star Warriors were now coming down in more and more numbers, some of them not even landing as they dropped their Warriors right into the fray.
Fighting the Kalu wasn't like fighting a traditional army, it was like fighting a tsunami, if they died or they lived they gained acclaim as long as they won. Which with their massive numbers was still a high possibility.
A cannon toting Kuruvian was hit in the visor, they screamed.
“Medics!” Yasu said hitting the Kuruvian's external button for hellfire. She stepped over them, removing their ammunition, slinging her own rifle and putting her shoulder into the plasma cannon.
She fired, her visor adjusting so she wasn't blinded. The cannon charged again, beeping when it was ready again. She squeezed the trigger as she found another group.
One looked to trip on something, plasma hitting its armor as a half dozen others were killed instantly. Yasu changed her aim before she could see the results of her hit.
The cannon beeped again as she fired.
The lasers were now getting considerably stronger.
She kept firing, Commandos across the line doing the same. It was one hell of a display of weapons fire.
“Come on then you Kalu! Welcome to Heija, your tomb!” Bok Soo yelled.Yasu felt a dark kind of humour bring a grin to her face. She was amongst her brothers and sisters, there was no retreat, no getting away. She might die, but then Salchar would destroy them down to the last genome.
“Demons run when a good man goes to war. Night will fall and drown the sun. When a good man goes to war Friendship dies and family is made, night will fall and the dark will rise. When the Free Fleet goes to war, the Demons are no more,” Yasu said, realizing that her channel was open to everyone.
Yasu didn't know where it came from, it seemed to come from multiple directions at once. The light started to dwindle, the sky being lit by weapons fire, Star Warriors falling from the sky, controlled or destroyed by the Free Fleet. Plasma set unnatural fires, burning rocks and armor, setting the battlefield alight with the tools of death.
“We will be there. We will be there. We will be there,” the chant started, quiet and growing in volume until they were screaming it.
It died down. “Who will be there?” Bok Soo yelled.
“We will!” Came the reply.
“And who are we!” Bok Soo Screamed.
“The Free Fleet!” Yasu didn't realize her voice had joined them until she felt the scratching feeling of yelling.
At that moment the guns of the Destroyers opened up. Rounds cracked overhead, wind pulling the Commandos and their gear forward, created by the pressures of the rounds.
“Commandos reload, work in shifts,” Bok Soo said as the gunners earned their pay, millions of rounds spat from the Destroyers small and medium ship-based rail-cannon's. If they hit a Kalu they disappeared. For the gunners it might as well have been day time to them, they were used to fighting with their sensors in the dark of space.
Star Warriors now started firing on the ships with their lasers.
“Shields going up in five,” Foshunti said, Planner showing where those shields would be and danger areas.
The shields snapped to brilliance as Battle-Carrier's took on the incoming Star Warriors while the Destroyers kept on firing at the oncoming Kalu.
The Kalu had been pushed back about a kilometre and a half, but there was still some creeping closer.
The cannons mounted in the mountains could only hit so much around the hills and areas they were assigned.
Yasu sighted more targets and fired her plasma cannon, trying to hit the tip of the hill so that the plasma would fall down the opposite side and kill any hiding Kalu.
“Reserves move up, those on the line switch off,” Bok Soo ordered. Yasu looked at the time, they'd been fighting for five hours already, and it didn't look like the Kalu were giving up any time soon.
Someone tapped Yasu, she moved out of the way as they checked the weapon, flipped off the safety and illuminated the line with plasma.
Yasu's sound cancelling was at full but it still wasn't enough to cut out the supersonic cracks of the millions of rounds rushing through the air.
She looked over the battlefield again, the Kalu were still rushing, their lasers now close enough to do damage after only a moments notice. They targeted the heavy weapon systems and raked the line, firing in atmosphere meant that they're lasers painted their own positions. Earning a slew of incoming rounds from the Commandos.
Yasu moved to the second line, her body more tired than she expected it to be. Being switched on for that long took its toll.
She got in a covered hole, checking her supplies and seeing she had a few hours of down time. The lines had to change on and off to keep people fresh, five hours on the front, five of pure rest and rearm, then two and a half hours ready as reserve, two and a half hours forced sleep
The ground shook suddenly. Thoughts of sleeping were banished.
Yasu rushed back outside, her rifle ready as she looked at her map of the battlefield.
The Battle Carrier's and Destroyers were using their spinal cannons as artillery. They were at a fraction of their original speed but it still got them a few kilometres into the sky before they came crashing down.
Good damned work Etil, She thought. Looking at the massive rounds that rose into the sky only to come right back down onto the Kalu. They exploded on their timed
setting, ripping apart anything below them.
The engineer's had worked since they landed on the planet to get the reactive armor plating buried into the hills to create massive mines. They set up PDS to work without being plugged into a ship and turned their ship's cannons into artillery. Gunners had thrown their weight into the latter pursuits and were now raining pure destruction down on the Kalu. Giving the Commandos and volunteers a pause for the first time since they had come under contact.
After the first barrage the fire slowed considerably. The rate of Star Warriors picked up again. Yasu felt her adrenaline receding as she looked to her hole again. Tiredness seeped back in as she trudged to her hole.
They only had a limited amount of ammunition for those cannons. The Kalu seemed to have an unending supply of Star Warriors and Star Destroyers.
Chapter Time to plan
Bregend looked at his sensor readings, less than a half of the fleet that had passed him a few weeks ago was left and all of them needing major repairs. Most still had Kalu ships attached to them.
Reports and information flashed between the two fleets as building priorities by the factories were changed. It seemed that Salchar wasn't going any further behind the line.
It was a few hours before Salchar opened up a channel to Bregend, finally in range of a FTL relay.
“We will be staying here to rebuild our ships, re-arm and help your people to fix these ships as reinforcements are called up from the remainder of the Free Fleet,” Salchar said, sounding distracted.
“Certainly commander, my people are ready to assist yours in getting your ships into working order,” Bregend said officially.
“Good I will be having a conference with all of the Command staff in a few minutes. It's time we planned out this war,” Salchar sounded tired, but also sure that the war with the Kalu was going to be a long affair.
“Yes Commander,” Bregend said. They had finally broken free of the Syndicate somewhat, yet while the Fleet had returned from battles in the state Salchar's was, and worse, they hadn't been defeated.
Free Fleet Box Set 2 Page 47
