Free Fleet Box Set 2

by Michael Chatfield

  Now he was close to rendering judgement on those that had stopped him exacting his revenge on the Union.

  He whipped his Kalu into a frenzy, a frenzy that was now being passed on to Orshpa's fleet. He had allowed Kalu to fight to lead and to be among the first waves. The organization that Ashota, the peaceful had created, was dismissed. Kalu clan rules were law.

  Every ship used nuclear propulsion to send them flying across the systems.

  With Orshpa joining Edvasho's fleet, they were creating the biggest fleet of Kalu under one banner, ever recorded in the stories.

  Edvasho calmed himself enough before the transition into the home system of these Syndicate creatures.

  “Silent running, we will follow the way of old. I want them to die by our claws and teeth. Those that give the dishonour of fighting with their ships will be treated in kind by our own star Warriors and Destroyers. Fighters will be released as we enter missile range. I want them to destroy every weapon these cowards hide behind. Let it be shown what we do to those that deny us our rightful revenge and challenge. This will be our second teaching battle, a battle that will end with the destruction of the Syndicate,” Edvasho spat the last word. Legions of Star Warriors and Destroyers entered the wormhole, their Kalu crew roaring with battle lust.

  ***

  When they emerged the Kalu were silent, not one dared to do anything that might hinder this great battle. Their names would live forever, their enemy only known for their destruction. The fleet glided in towards Rosho.

  “What are those ships doing?” Edvasho asked as ships seemed to appear from nowhere, taking out platforms.

  “I believe they are taking out the enemies eyes,” a Seer said.

  Edvasho wanted to roar his agreement, instead he shook his head, his paw embedded in the deck.

  “Record how the honourable Free Fleet led us to our enemies, allowing us to fight a true battle instead of fight one of ships. We will yet close with the enemy,” Edvasho said, satiating his bloodlust with the knowledge that soon he would be amongst the enemies’ home.

  ***

  Lifendi sat in his chair sipping something that tasted like it was scraped from the underside of an Orvunut.

  He growled, putting it down. Food had become scarce. The Syndicate relied on taking their supplies from planets. Now that they were cut off from those planets there were no supplies coming in and there was no infrastructure set up for the Syndicate to make food.

  Thankfully the issues hadn't affected Lady Fairgate yet. While Lifendi had made sure that the Lady's needs were met, more than one person in the Syndicate was feeling a little bitter to the way she got the finest cuts of Kroval, while they were eating the gruel that they had fed their slaves.

  There had been five group executions of those that had planned to remove the Lady.

  Another thing that the Lady didn't need to know. Lifendi growled again as another sensor platform was knocked out of existence by a damned jump fighter. They would jump in close to the platforms, hit them with their rail guns and flit away to another target. Lifendi had kept forces on the nearest platforms, but it only gave him a one light-minute window to see what was coming at Rosho.

  No one said anything before Lady Fairgate appeared on the main screen, no one wanted to keep the lady waiting in her current manner. She spent her days with Marhtu, watching as his Kaaorvs inflicted terrible pain on their subjects.

  “Lifendi, would you please destroy those ships. They are annoying my concentration as I watch the Kaaorvs. The flashes are most perturbing.”

  “Certainly my lady,” Lifendi said, coming out of his chair and kneeling.

  “Good.” The channel ended, Lifendi kept the anger off of his face, releasing the forces to go chasing after the damned ships would be a waste of time. They could move at such speed and get away so quickly that the only way to get them would be if they were amongst a group of ships.

  “I want four corvettes on every sensor platform,” Lifendi said, a growl rumbling in his throat.

  Why you couldn't just keep your massive throne room screens to a pre-set instead of having to watch the outside is beyond me, he thought, wondering if executing all those that wished to change the structure of the Syndicate was a bad idea.

  Maybe it is time that I started putting my plans into action, Lifendi thought, knowing it wouldn't be hard to remove Lady Fairgate now that he knew most of her secrets. He would need the support of the other captains however. At least it would mean that he could free forces for raids to get supplies. Lady Fairgate's fear of the Kalu was paralyzing her. The Kalu were the monsters from Lifendi's stories. He had been scared at first, but now he wasn't going to be swayed by their destructive myth.

  They hadn't seen the Kalu, meaning that the Free Fleet had stopped them, if the Free Fleet, a ragtag group of Slaves, weakened by Foshunti's battle could stop the Kalu, then Lifendi wasn't scared.

  “Contacts!” Someone yelled.

  “It's about time we had some action, dispatch Captain Sloax to capture them,” Lifendi said, standing and getting in his chair.

  “I think it's the Kalu,” someone said, fear in their voice. Lifendi looked up.

  The stories of the monsters were right.

  “Bring the station, the ships, everything online! Now!” He barked. The Kalu were a light minute and a half away, and accelerating with nuclear propulsion.

  The station and the ships were coming online in a state of panic. Lifendi fought down his fear as Lady Fairgate came onto the main screen.

  “What is going on?” She demanded, Lifendi would have been scared for his life if she had given him that look and tone at any other time. Now she was a secondary threat.

  “The Kalu are here,” he said, Lady Fairgate's face went apoplectic.

  “We must run, take your ship and follow me! There is no winning, the Union left my world to burn. We will leave these planets to burn. We will find new hunting grounds. Yes we can find others to pirate. I didn't run far enough the first time, now I will. I will run to another galaxy. They won't get to me,” Lady Fairgate raved. It seemed she had forgotten that she had given his ship away.

  Lifendi shut down the channel, he didn't have time for a madwoman now, he needed every second he could get trying to figure out how in the hell he was going to deal with the sea of Kalu ships racing towards the station.

  “Fire everything we have at them! I want everyone in mechas!” He barked.

  He looked to the star map of Rosho system, the small weak red dwarf star bathed three plutoids with light. The second plutoid was Rosho station.

  Due to the small size and mass of the star the jump limits weren't as far as they were in most systems. Rosho was built with the thought that the enemy would have to get through a fleet, then mobile platforms and then the station's guns to get close. The Kalu had nearly bypassed everything except the station. They had turned Rosho's defences against them.

  Missiles darted towards the Kalu, cannons started to come to life, shields came online as did engines.

  The Syndicate turned to flee en masse.

  “Tell them to get the hell back here!” Lifendi barked, wishing he still had his carrier to take the fight to these Kalu, he was not used to fighting with a station and hated its inability to move.

  The station came alive in a panic, it's massive cannons smashing into the Kalu, the smaller ships were washed away, the larger ones were deploying Fighters, taking a couple of hits from the Planetary grade cannons before crumpling.

  Gunners rushed to their stations, the mobile platforms came online. Weapons fire filled sensor readings as space came alight with the firepower of Rosho pressing down on the Kalu.

  A missile barrage ripped free from the Kalu, hammering Rosho's shields.

  “We're at seventeen percent!” Shield squeaked in fear. Rosho's shields were the strongest in known space.

  “Well get them back up!” Lifendi yelled, watching as Lady Fairgate's carrier powered away for all it was worth, the majority
of the Syndicate ships followed her.

  “Those jumping ships are back!” Sensors yelled out.

  Lifendi did not like what he was seeing.

  “Show me,” Lifendi said, the screen changed. Ten, fifteen, twenty thirty ships jumped into existence, nuclear explosions were recorded as their speeds increased to speeds that would take a normal ship hours.

  They're using the same acceleration as the Kalu.

  All of their plots lined up with the Syndicate fleet.

  “Tell the Syndicate to turn back for Rosho using our guns for cover,” Lifendi said, a feeling that he did not like filled his gut. He had been sure that those ships were from the Free Fleet, now he wasn't sure, and if the Free Fleet and Kalu were working together? He growled. He would make them regret coming for Rosho.

  The fleet fired at the oncoming ships, the ships replied with missiles. Only one of the small craft were destroyed, they were quick and small, damned hard to hit.

  Shields fluttered and failed, scars appeared in armor, holes were punched through ships as the missiles exploded still thousands of kilometers away.

  The small ships used the cover, their main weapons shooting a solid slug of plasma at their victims.

  Plasma cannons ripped into shields, those without had holes burned through them.

  “What the hell was that?” Lifendi asked as a Destroyer buckled and went dead. Seven corvettes and two battle cruisers followed.

  Shields were failing in droves, plasma burned into the hulls of the Syndicate ships. The jumps ships now amongst the gaggle of ships were mostly safe. Some tried to hit them. Most hit other Syndicate ships instead. It was chaos, the small ships using it to their full advantage.

  “They're missiles, but lasers,” someone said, sounding confused. Lasers were unstable, with the massive amounts of energies it took to make a deadly laser, a laser based weapon was morelikely to explode than hit the target. Turning them into missiles took the threat of that explosions away from the ship and into the middle of vaccum, right next to the enemy.

  “The lasers are coming out at five hundred gigawatts.” Lifendi could do nothing but watch as more missiles fired their one-time lasers, destroying themselves in a released of deadly energy.

  Two more Destroyers were clipped by these missile-lasers. Four battle cruisers were smacked. Yet the carrier was left untouched.

  Fairgate continued her escape, not caring for her people in the slightest.

  “Tell the fleet to turn back, they only want Lady Fairgate and I think it was time that we were rid of her,” Lifendi said, she had turned her back on him too many times. She was out of her mind, he had seen the look in her eyes on the main screen. Her sanity was coming apart, the stories of the Kalu taking her planet must have been true.

  Now it looked like the Free Fleet wanted to keep her alive and take her. Lifendi wasn't going to fight that.

  A wormhole appeared in the path of the Jumpships, they used a combination of their nuclear propulsion systems and the gravity of the wormhole's event horizon to slow and turn themselves, racing back for the Syndicate fleet.

  Their either insane or the best damned pilots I have ever seen, Lifendi thought, the fleet was now partially turning for Rosho. The Jumpships crossed the fleet, only the ships that were still trying to escape were targeted. Three Destroyers were ripped apart by the missile-lasers, eighteen corvettes were left lifeless from plasma cannon blasts. The worst was the two Dreadnoughts that went dead as they ejected their power cores. The big ships had been taxing their power plants heavily, the added energy of the laser had been the last straw.

  As more of the fleet turned for Rosho, less ships were attacked. The jump Fighters changed course, leaving the fleet's formation and slowing themselves. They took a wormhole, disappearing. A few appeared in front of the Syndicate fleet.

  Fairgate and a collection of twenty or thirty ships kept going, right into what had to be one of the worst mine fields Lifendi had ever seen.

  The mines seemed to be based off the same technology as the missiles. Lasers measuring in the hundreds of gigawatts smashed into shields, more and more added their short lived power, ripping through shields and the toughest armor as if it was a plasma torch to a battle suit.

  The forward momentum of the ships helped a littl, spreading the damage across the ships outer layers, or would’ve if the lasers weren’t powerful enough to make the armor turn to liquid after just a few seconds of exposure.

  Five Jumpships joined the two waiting ahead of the fleet.

  Four Destroyers, a Battlecruiser, a Dreadnought and twenty-two corvettes had been destroyed. Now only one damaged battle cruiser and corvette remained. Both of them were surrendering to the Free Fleet.

  Lady Fairgate's carrier continued to power for the nearest jump point.

  Lifendi looked away from her departing carrier, she had taken his own, giving it to a creature used to sitting back and counting their resources, not enforcing her rule across known space.

  Three hundred ships were around Rosho, or coming back to it.

  “Have all ships fire all they have into the Kalu. I want all the damned people we have in powered armor onboard Rosho,” he said, it felt good to defy Fairgate's inane rules. Her fear, her cancer was gone, now he could be the damned Syndicate Captain Lord he wanted to be.

  “Have the fleet in movement, those Kalu will try to land on them. No matter what they're to keep firing at the Kalu formations. I want those big ships gone.”

  “Those swarm like things are hitting our shields.”

  The swarm hit the shields with their lasers, it took down the shields a decent percent, but not too much.

  “What in the dark are they doing?” Lifendi asked, answering his question seconds later as the Fighters hit the shields themselves.

  Shields started falling as missiles, cannons and PDS fired into the swarms and incoming Kalu.

  “Shields at twenty four percent and falling,” Shields said.

  “Tactical, I want missiles right into their formations!” Lifendi said, Missiles followed moments later, tens of them were shot down, but a few made it to the formations. They wiped tens if not hundreds out of existence. The swarms rebuilt themselves and continued on. They were like some great big beast repairing itself, no matter the damage visited on it.

  “The Kalu are moving to attack the Fleet. They're firing missiles at us.”

  “Get those shields up!” Lifendi barked, the missiles went off, Fighters that had been close to the shields getting washed away as alarms never heard before, signalled the shields were below ten percent.

  As the Kalu moved around the station, more weapon systems were able to hit them.

  Kalu ships had little that could stop the firepower of Rosho, but there was nearly three hundred weapon systems, spread across all of Rosho, there was thousands of Kalu ships, tens of thousands including the Fighters.

  Lifendi didn't feel the cannons as they fired for the first time since being installed. He didn't hear the screaming alarms as power relays melted. Rosho had been built by the Syndicate, as with most things the Syndicate did it was made to work, or look good. Not be used and abused again and again.

  Weapons went down as engineers scrambled to keep them online somehow. Everything that could supply power was getting hooked up. Personal power plants to shuttles and ships that were in Rosho's bays were hooked into the grid.

  “Those guns are to go silent only when their gunners are dead! They stop firing they're asking for the Kalu to come in!” Lifendi said. Tactical and comms relayed his words to every person in or around Rosho.

  “Lady Fairgate is four hours away from jump, it looks like she has cleared the mines.”

  “Leave her for the Free Fleet. It seems that they want her. We will look after ourselves,” Lifendi said, the jump Fighters had redeployed while he was watching the battle with the Kalu. Five remained, around Rosho, waiting. Ten or so were around the ships that had surrendered to the Free Fleet, they had powered down their weapo
ns and engines, drifting aimlessly.

  “New jump emergence,” someone said as a fleet of forty ships exited a wormhole.

  They were just a light minute from the Syndicate fleet. Without pause they accelerated for the group that had surrendered.

  The Free Fleet had grown a lot. They weren't just a group of ex-slaves piloting ships they'd salvaged from the Syndicate, they were a fighting force. One to be reckoned with, shown by how they were transiting into a system past its jump point with such ease while still in formation. Their communications and trust in one another was incredible. Thousands had just risked their lives on the information given by the Jump fighter.

  Rosho might be engaged in the biggest battle that Lifendi had ever seen, yet he found himself watching the Free Fleet release Fighters and shuttles, all of them bearing down on the Syndicate ships.

  It wasn't long before shuttles were turning to brake.

  The infamous Commandos would no doubt storm the ships, clearing and taking them.

  “The fleet is transmitting a message on all frequencies,” communications said.

  “I am Ship Commander Boot of the Free Fleet. Salchar sends his regards, we will make sure that none escape our wrath. Those that try we will turn back, surrender or be destroyed.” A Kuruvian said from his chair, nodding its head a little before the channel ended.

  The Kalu and the Free Fleet were working together somehow.

  “Northern shields are at twelve percent, Eastern and Western are at a balanced forty-two, South is at seventy,” Shields said.

  “Then balance them damn it!” Lifendi said, watching as north dipped to eight percent.

  Lifendi stormed over to the shields, pushing the controller out of the way as he looked over power levels, heat warnings and area coverage.

  His fingers played over the console, North rose to thirty two, South dropped to seventy, East and West got to thirty eight.

  Finally given something to do he managed the numbers and charts that governed the shields. It flashed with the power of incoming attacks. Acting like some damned beast trying to spot and collapse.