From the Black (Free Fleet Book 4)

by Michael Chatfield

  Evelyn Sparks was no junior reporter anymore.

  She had fought for armies to pull back from fights, to show the terrible things that were being committed by either side, she had reported on how the Free Fleet was monopolizing the trade, how it was making itself the only power in existence.

  All of it run by a single man.

  Now those thoughts left her as fear and panic turned into resolution, no matter the fact that the Free Fleet was becoming a power that made governments, planets and entire inhabited system answer to it. It was a force that had taken on the Kalu, had sacrificed half of its numbers so that the other might gather forces enough to defeat the threat that was the Kalu.

  She had been in rooms with soldiers that conversed with terrorists, or opposing factions and militaries. While fear had gripped her then, she guessed that a part of her was secure in the fact that her country and world would survive. She never thought that she would be faced with a time when her country, her planet, her entire system was threatened so completely, and she knew that the Kalu could possibly win.

  The Free Fleet was what the left over races of the Union and the new races under its protection needed.

  She looked at her article, titled 'The Free Fleet need's you, or the Kalu win'. It was one hell of an article and it was going to be pulled apart and ridiculed, but if even a small percentage understood what she had tried to write, then hopefully they could help the Free Fleet and the sentient races stay alive. The wormhole generators reached their peak and a wormhole formed, stabilizing as the Fleet headed straight for it.

  The bridge was silent, all eyes on the other fleet as Salchar exited his conference room. He watched it silently for a minute, before going to his chair and opening a channel manually.

  “Hold out, we will be back my brothers and sisters, the Free Fleet will never abandon you,” he said, his mask slipping as his voice was colored with true emotion.

  Evelyn had met enough politicians that she couldn’t tell it was brilliant acting or if it was real, that is until he looked away and their eyes met.

  Her own eyes wet at the pain in his. He looked away, ashamed, back to the main screen.

  He might be a monopolizing tyrant in creation, but he was also a man loyal to his people.

  Resilient crossed the wormhole's event horizon, the rest of the fleet, the Kalu star-warriors and the army of shuttles that were burning for the second fleet disappeared behind them.

  Chapter And the Universe keeps spinning

  Yasu had at least someone half-decent with the systems of the Bridge in each position. Her Commandos reported that the ship was clear, but they were damned tired. She had ordered them all to get some food and water in themselves before helping out with the incoming shuttles.

  Connolly was a good second commander. As she was checking over the status of her Commandos, he had built a report of every ship that was following her to Heija.

  “Four minutes until the shuttles arrive,” Sensors said.

  “Good,” Yasu said, her heart was being pulled apart as she saw James and his fleet enter their wormhole and disappear.

  Look to your own survival now. He will come back no matter what. She would've called her feelings a weakness when she had first been recruited, now she knew them for the power they held. Caring for someone was hard, having them leave was harder, but knowing they would be back gave her hope and strength.

  “Shuttles are docking,” Sensors said, Yasu pushed herself out of the captain's chair, the holographic bubble had been compromised by something, and the images were grainy or jumped. She went to the wing commander's table, accessing the information she wanted.

  “Get them stored and secured as fast as possible, we have thirty minutes before we enter atmosphere,” Yasu said. “Get me a channel to Foshunti,”

  Minutes later the Ship Commander was on the main screen.

  “Commander Yasu?” He said, turning his greetings into a question.

  “Foshunti as we both know I am no ship commander, as such could you take over the planning for our entry into Heija's atmosphere,” Yasu asked.

  “Certainly Yasu, I will have it sorted out in ten minutes,” he said.

  “Thank you, could you connect me to Bok Soo,” she asked, she could feel fatigue fighting with adrenaline as she stood there.

  “Certainly,” Foshunti disappeared, Bok Soo's voice coming over the bridge a few moments later.

  “Yasu?”

  “Hey Bok Soo, did you get my report,”

  “Yes,” his voice cold, obviously he had looked at the casualties, but right now he had to look to the living. “I'm looking at the scans of the planet. I think I've found where we will mount our defence. Meeting with every Commando Commander Platoon or higher in five minutes, conference room,” he said.

  “Of course,” Yasu said, typing a text message to her commanders and firing it off.

  “Talk then,” Bok Soo ended the channel.

  “Connolly make sure we're still in one piece when I get out of this meeting,” Yasu said.

  “Commander,” he said, occupied with something but still registering what she said.

  Commanders came onto the Bridge in a rush, she looked up, and nodding to those she knew. Turning back to her work for a few minutes before sighing and joining the group of commanders waiting in the conference room.

  Bok Soo took longer than the five minutes, the room seemed to expand into an auditorium. Each section was filled with the commando commanders of each ship.

  “We will be the rear guard of the fleet, it's going to be hard, but this meeting is to look at our options and see if we have any ideas on how we can improve our fighting abilities, if you have an ideas, speak up,” Bok Soo made sure that stuck in as he looked at everyone from his podium at the front of the auditorium.

  “These are the proposed landing areas,” he said, two areas appearing.

  “Vote on which one is best, you have three minutes,” he said, sitting back as the auditorium faded.

  “This one has good killing grounds for when the Kalu charge us,” someone said as Yasu's commanders analyzed the different terrains.

  “Yet it has no water source, or real rear defences like this mountain range,” another rebutted.

  “I agree with the mountains, they provide us better rear support and we will need water. We can use the heights to mount PDS giving us cover from the air and support on the ground. There are rises that I don't like here, here, here and there,” Yasu pointed to the areas in the holographic display.

  “We could put shuttles there, or bury charges in the hill, maybe use some reactive armor if we have it, turn their cover into our weapon,” one said, Yasu nodded appreciatively, it was a good idea.

  “Alright, vote as you want,” Yasu said as the timer ran out and the conference room became an auditorium again. Commanders pulled out their data pads, voting.

  “We are going to the mountains. Now what can we do to improve the position?” Bok Soo asked.

  Fifteen minutes later and the defences, while looking like a mess of material strewn across the ground, would be formidable if half of it could be set up.

  “Five minutes till atmospheric entry,” Connolly said over the ships speakers.

  “See to your people, as soon as we get down I want us to start reinforcing those positions and setting up the protective layout. Get the ships tethered to the ground, and have those shuttles prepped and ready,” Yasu said.

  “Yes Commander!” Came back from her Commanders.

  “Dismissed,” she said while following them out. Her commanders jogging and making the deck rumble and shake with their weight as they raced for their positions.

  Yasu got in the ship commander's chair, locking herself in with a harness.

  “Everyone is secured, including those in medical bay,” Connolly said. Yasu noticed that the formation had changed, with Corvette's were leading the way, Talhalla following and the rest of the ships behind like a tail of a comet.

  There
hadn't been any time to transfer the wounded from the rear-guard to the ships that left the system. Any shuttles would have been instant targets for the Kalu.

  Thankfully all of the ships had fully working medical bays, making them as good as any hospital or medical bay in the rest of the Fleet.

  Yasu still wished they could have somehow gotten them cross-loaded onto other ships. Many of them were wounded from the space battle. The medical chairs were getting them back into action as fast as possible. Then they’d be slapped into power armor as fast as possible to bolster the Commandos numbers on the ground.

  She closed her eyes at the unfairness of it all. It was only for a moment, she needed to focus on how in the hell they were going to survive fighting the Kalu on the ground.

  Surviving doesn't look like it's going to be so easy. She clenched her jaw as she watched the screens.

  The corvettes lit up like stars as they hit atmosphere. Talhalla hit it next, then ship after ship followed the path that their fellow ships had carved out for them.

  Floater shook as noise seemed to fill Yasu's existence. Still the Battle-Carrier and the formation held as the first corvettes pulled out of their dive, their armor smoking in places while Talhalla was using her thrusters for all they were worth, slowing its own descent. The ship was not supposed to be on a planet's surface, but Foshunti's crew showed their true skill as they handled the carrier and guided it like a plane back on Earth.

  The noises and shaking abated and Yasu felt numb from it. She unclenched her jaw that she hadn't known she'd closed. The Star Warriors that had been stuck to the ships like limpets and pushed off before entering Heija's atmosphere now tumbled into it, creating meteors. The fleet now fully in the planet's atmosphere flew to the mountain range that they had picked out.

  Corvettes perched out in what would become a battlefield. After a few moments Commandos flooded from them and started creating defences. Talhalla brought itself down near the base of the tallest part of the mountain range. Dust and debris was washed away from the ground as Talhalla slowly touched down.

  “Nice and easy helm,” Yasu said, her voice calm and confident as the Commando turned step-in helms person adjusted their flight plan and descent rates with the kind of precision Yasu would expect a doctor would carry out an operation.

  Floater went in front of it by a half kilometre.

  It touched down, sinking into the ground before it found ragged rocks underneath, the noise of scraping thankfully being cut off by the powered armor. Tethering lines which were used to pull things in space, sprung from launchers, burying themselves into the ground.

  The planet’s red sand drifted away from Floater as the rest of the ships landed in formation. Talhalla was closest to the mountains which protected their rear, the battle carrier and battle cruisers made a u-shape around that. The corvettes and Destroyers made a final encirclement around them.

  Fighters were launched from Talhalla, checking the area.

  “Alright, well seeing as we weren’t flying anywhere, shut down your systems, link the sensors to Planner, as well as the comms. We'll help with placing PDS in the mountains,” Yasu said, scared to let herself stop, lest she might let her feelings overtake her. She would need some time later, dealing with grief.

  Some would think it cold how she planned out when to allow herself to grieve, those that have been in battle and lost loved ones knew the fear of keeping it in, or letting it out and consuming them.

  She passed through an armory, exchanging her clips, reloading what she had and adding any additional ammunition she could find space for.

  There was a mess of people with smaller powered suits getting into powered armor.

  She exited the armory, getting to one of the flight decks, personnel from all over the ship were on the deck, and there was limited need for more than a few people in engineering. Most systems had been shut down or put on standby. Those that could be freed from their jobs were reverting to their basic training on the powered armor and weaponry, others were using their skills with fighters and shuttles.

  The training for Free Fleet personnel was long, but now it meant that Yasu's commando strength had doubled and she had enough fighter pilots to fill three wings instead of one.

  Yasu jumped aboard a shuttle that was loading spare PDS. She helped the cargo master, providing the muscle as her other Commandos joined in and got the systems loaded as quickly as possible.

  The ramps sealed and the Commandos harnessed themselves in.

  The Shuttle exited Floater and took a flight path Planner had created. Yasu stepped into the gunner’s seat of the shuttle, she used the screens, finding the holographically painted point for the PDS. She used penetrator rounds to make a quick and dirty ledge in the mountain. The Shuttle's rear ramp lowered and stuck out as the craft came into holding across from the ledge.

  Commandos pushed the PDS packet onto the ledge and activated it. It moved, looking for incoming fire or targets.

  “Next,” Planner said in his voice metallic, he was working overtime trying to keep everyone from running into each other and helping people to set up defences in the optimal positions, while changing the coding on different systems so they would assist the Free Fleet defenders.

  Yasu, the shuttle and her commandos repeated the process thirty one more times before returning for more supplies.

  Bok Soo had made a rest schedule. Yasu and the people on her shuttle were up for a check-up by the medics, food break, and then sleep if they could get some.

  Yasu was cleared out by the medic in no time. The medic looked like death, the Sarenmenti's jaws tight as it’s eyes looked haunted by all the sights it had seen over the past day.

  Yasu looked at the crying, yelling, unconscious and lifeless personnel that lay across the beds in the med bay. Hellfire and the beds could only do so much.

  She and her commandos said few words as they sat down and mechanically forced food in their mouths. They made their way to their squad pod. Yasu collapsed into her bed. Through the walls she could hear crying from some of the strongest and deadliest creatures she had ever known.

  The walls she set up cracked and she begun to see their faces as they came to her unbidden. She saw those she had trained, those she had served with, their smiling faces, how they had helped one another, their determination. She sat on her bed, her body shaking from her silent tears.

  The Sato sisters had been defending a group of engineers when they had been pincered between two groups of Kalu. The Kalu had paid heavily, but the sisters weren't enough. Yasu had done everything she could to get to them, but the tide of Kalu was unending.

  “Thank you for giving us a life, not just a purpose,” they said, a mixture of both their voices as they overloaded their armor, and destroyed the corridor they were in, taking three star-warriors worth of Kalu with them.

  She didn't know how long she cried, thinking of the girls she had come to think of as her daughters. She wished James was there, to hold her, for them to cry together, rocking one another as they mourned their lost friends, the men and women that made up the Free Fleet and had followed them to their end.

  She thought about not being able to see James, and the kids on Parnmal. The pain became too much as her sobs became audible.

  Her commandos let her cry, as each of them dealt with their pain.

  A beep went off on Yasu's data pad, her body still shook as she pulled it out. She and her people were on shift again.

  “Get some wake up, we're digging,” Yasu said softly. They had all shared their pain, but now they had work to do. They were Commandos after all.

  Yasu felt the clarity of wake up take her as she led her people out of the squad pod. They had five days until the Kalu came, but they still needed to be prepared for them to come down at any minute, in case they got impatient. At least the Kalu hadn't chased after the rest of the fleet that had escaped.

  ***

  Commander Boot looked at the newest scans, there was no sign of life on the Sa
renmenti home world, or any of the planets or regions of space in the Sarenmenti's home system. Instead there was a nuclear wasteland created by someone dropping ship to ship powerful nuclear warheads onto the planet.

  The fleet had taken on a sombre attitude after coming into the system. Boot had pushed for everything to be checked, just to make sure. It was to no avail, the Sarenmenti home world was gone.

  “Prepare the fleet to leave, we are going back to Parnmal at best speed, I want a course plotted around the Rosho system,” Commander Boot said, hoping that his Corvette crew had been able to reach a Free Fleet relay and tell them the location of Rosho station. It looked like one hell of a nut to crack. He sure wasn't going to try it with the forces he had.

  ***

  Lady Fairgate looked over the Free Fleet creatures. Marhtu's skilled KaaOrv's did some of their finest work as she watched.

  Lifendi had reached Rosho, finding the system populated with the biggest grouping of Syndicate in history. Lady Fairgate had grown bored of the pleasure planet and shifted it to Rosho. Though along her way her fleet had stumbled across the corvette that had held the creatures screaming in their own way in front of her. Her fighter's had quickly brought her home the prize. The corvette was part of what was being called the Free Fleet, the organization that had taken away her redoubt in the system Sol. The humans there had worked with their Kuruvians and Sarenmenti to rebel. They had taken her ships and were now hunting her down.

  She looked at the creature, barely a flicker of emotion on her face as she watched their suffering, much like someone might watch a particularly uninteresting holovid.

  Now she sat in Rosho's orbit, Lifendi controlled the station and Station Captain Drvja had been made a Captain Lord and assigned to be the Captain of the second carrier in Fairgate's fleet. It was good to have Lifendi in charge of the powerful station. Drvja was wise enough to not complain, he was effectively third in control and he got one of the near godly carriers.