From the Black (Free Fleet Book 4)

by Michael Chatfield

  I laughed, being on a battlefield taught me to take the joys when I could.

  “Their forces are regrouping and coming in for another attack,” Carsickle said in my ear. Yasu and my eyes connected, our faces becoming hard. We might be husband and wife, but we were commandos first.

  “Keep yourself safe.” She gave me a quick kiss which burned, my lips thirsting for more.

  Emotions played through me, the pressure that had left my shoulders, descending back onto them as my visor clamped back down and sealed.

  “Later babe,” I said her hand finding mine, after a brief squeeze we parted. I sighed, getting into the HAPA.

  I stood upright checking my readouts. They grounded me as I moved from thinking about Yasu to the oncoming battle.

  “We're needed two hundred meters to the right,” Krom said into my ear. I located the position.

  “Let's get moving then,” I said, my voice dull as I took off on the loping jog.

  “Incoming!” Carsickle yelled as I planted my feet, the HAPA skidding, which was damned terrifying the first time I had done it. Now I raised my hands, my grips and cannons responding to my movements.

  The swarms were back in force, more of them were descending from the Star-destroyers every second. Fighters fired the new multi-warhead missiles into the centre of the swarms, the dispersal and the atmosphere blew Kalu formations into disarray. They would doggedly try to regroup into that same formation.

  Fighters used this to their advantage, picking off stragglers instead of getting into the middle of a Kalu swarm.

  The sky was a dull brownish black as the sun set behind the oncoming swarms, Kalu warriors had landed as well. Their Kaluian shapes now rushing towards the Free Fleet position.

  The explosive forces cracked and lit up the final light on Heija.

  Lasers and the PDS rail guns, and the weapons of the fighters and ships struck out at the swarms.

  The range finder went from red to green. I moved my grip slightly, the cannons moving with me as I followed an oncoming swarm.

  “Fire!” Carsickle said as the sky was lit up by thousands of rounds. My HAPA shook as I clamped down on my triggers. All of my rounds were in penetrator mode, driving into the Kalu's armor and exploding, sending them careening off, sometimes into one another, or turning them into fireballs.

  I shifted my fire, lasers sparked around me, cutting into the ground and dirt, a few hitting me or other commandos. Krom grunted, his HAPA showing that its ammunition line had been cut, He flicked it out, changing to a secondary line.

  I saw the HUD in the top part of my helmet, without stopping my shooting I checked the area that we were supposed to be protecting.

  It was getting hard because I had wanted to see Yasu myself.

  “We need to move,” I said to Krom and Shreesht, sending them a map with the area we were supposed to be in, highlighted.

  Both of them greened up as I started moving towards the area slowly, we worked in tangent, each covering one another as we made our way to where we were supposed to be.

  “Incoming warriors!” Someone yelled.

  “Krom,” I said on a private channel. The massive Avarian, only emphasized by the HAPA that he was wearing, turned his cannons onto the oncoming Warriors. The damned bastards were using their fighters as cover to get into close combat with us.

  Free Fleet forces split their concentration, the Kalu got more hits and the fighters were free to move faster, but the warrior's charges were slowed.

  Ammunition was still being hauled off of the shuttles that had come down with the reinforcements. While the PDS and the supporting weapon systems were firing occasionally, it was giving little relief to the forces on the ground. Some of the systems were out of ammunition, again not helping our situation.

  “How long until those supplies are in the mountains and to the destroyers?” I asked In Sook.

  “Forty five,” she said as I felt my stomach drop.

  “Do anything you can to speed that up,” I said, knowing that in ground combat, everything could change in five minutes.

  Krom blunted the charge of a group of Kalu warriors that were raking a trench with laser fire. The Commandos immediately stood up and began firing at the Kalu that had been thrown into disarray.

  That was all I could bear to look at them as fighters descended from the sky and rushed the HAPA's and destroyers.

  Being inside a swarm is what I would imagine being the eye of a tornado would be like. There was the main force that seemed to stream around you, then there was the random ones that seemed to dart out from that mass heading for you, then getting absorbed back into the mass of fighters.

  It was a dance of twisting and tilting to bring the massive cannons to bear, changing from target to target at the next attacking fighter, spraying the mass around you as you waiting for another fighter to dart in to face you head on.

  Then the swarm was gone. It was as a sudden as the swarm that had passed over the shuttle formation.

  It took minutes, sometimes seconds to have a fighter swarm pass over you. In that mess the world disappeared. You never let go of your dual triggers as you fought to stat alive in that storm of armor, engines and laser cannons.

  “Going to need an ammo refill,” I said to a controller. Krom, Shreesht, and I were down to fifty percent already.

  “We'll have it to your position in five,” They said, marking where we were supposed to be.

  “Understood,” I said, continuing my moving, raining rounds down on Kalu warriors, none of the Swarms in range yet.

  We got to our position shortly after the ammunition resupply had got there. They smacked loaders to our reservoirs, our counters rolled upwards as we kept firing into the Kalu wherever we could find them.

  Lasers reached out, scarring the harness my body was in. Shreesht made sure the offender would never fire lasers again.

  “Two up, one down rotation, unless there's swarms,” I said.

  “You should take a break and relay with the commander of the area,” Krom said, clearly I was not going to be spending much time on the front if he and Shreesht had their way. It was their job.

  “Alright, thirty minute rotations,” I said, knowing arguing would be useless.

  I turned, dropping into the trench. It took me a few minutes to locate the commander of the area.

  “Commander, here's our link-up if you're in any trouble along the line we can sort them out,” I said.

  “Very well, though you're going to catch some flak using Salchar as your call sign,” he said, his voice making it seem that he would be one of those people.

  “Good thing I'm not using it Commander,” I said, iron filling my voice.

  An alert went up from Shreesht, Incoming swarm.

  I pushed power into the HAPA'S legs, clearing the trench and bringing my cannons online. I stayed still so as to not run into anyone's line of fire.

  There were three swarms incoming. Other HAPA's along the line were hammering them, but true to their fashion, the Kalu fighters kept coming. Tens fell from the sky, like a snake shedding water as it came to land.

  I fired at the first one I could see, scanning my different readouts. I kept firing with my left as I moved my right so it was pointed into another swarm.

  MEF's from the fleet in orbit descended, launching missiles into the swarms, causing nuclear light to dance across the exterior of the swarms.

  “We've got ground forces moving in!” The commander I had just been talking to said,

  “Got it,” Shreesht said, his cannons adding to the firepower of the Commandos on the ground.

  “Those fighters are looking mighty low,” I said, wondering what new tactic the bastards were thinking of. Ashota made it clear that the Kalu fighters were the best, they did nothing but fight the enemy and work with their fellow fighters to engage the enemy.

  The Warriors, comparatively, were akin to an old militia unit.

  I switched targets again, only one was headed towards us on th
e right flank.

  “Shit,” I said as a hundred meters from the trenches, the fighters opened their bays, the Kalu pilots dropped from the reverse comet like machines.

  The now pilotless machines, tilted downwards.

  “Shit,” My guns were hosing every falling fighter I could see, while the commandos in the trenches were now dealing with an enemy a hundred meters away, instead of three hundred.

  They were overwhelming us with husks and themselves.

  Lasers raked the HAPA's as we started shifting, not staying still in one spot long enough for the lasers to pierce, while trying to stop the fighters from crashing into us and the Commandos around us.

  One laser took out a hydraulic line in my right leg, secondary systems kicked in as alerts signalled the Kalu on the ground were now twenty meters away. I lowered my

  guns, switching to fletchette. Some of the rounds penetrated, mostly it stopped the lasers, and blinded the Kalu, giving the Commandos the ability to pick their shots and not duck in cover as much.

  I kept my left on fletchette as I spewed penetrators with my right.

  “Multi!” I said to Krom and Shreesht, we had made a few modification to the HAPA's one being a missile pack on our shoulders, filled with the same missiles as those on the MEF's and Jump fighter's. The missiles shot from our pack's hitting the fighters and the pilots that had jumped from the lowest ones.

  Kalu were flung back with the explosive power of the missiles, but they were back a few hundred meters, the ones I was raking weren't so slow.

  A fighter husk came at me. I fired my left cannon at it, realizing it was fletchette as many of the rounds sparked off and didn't penetrate.

  I hit a command on my left hand, the cannon flipped back and a plasmid blade sheathed in the upper arm swung forward. I braced, raising the blade and my right cannon, shooting the fighter as it smashed into my sword, cutting itself apart through momentum.

  the sound of metal being mangled reached my ears even through my helmet. As I got balled over.

  I disentangled myself from the fighter, switching my left blade back to cannon. I fired with abandon, finding myself amongst the Kalu. The fighter had stopped them from getting to me. Now I was free and open to them.

  Few jumped at me, my cannons smacking them away as I hosed those still charging the lines. The fletchette at this range was deadly.

  I was anything but elegant, bashing the Kalu, shooting any I could as my cannons were free.

  I stomped one that got too close to my feet.

  I shot a Kalu as it was exiting its fighter, changing that cannon to a blade and stopping another Kalu's attempt to eat the harness I lay under. It squirmed on my blade earning it a few shots with my other cannon before I threw the lifeless husk and changed the blade back to a cannon, the other cannon on penetrator.

  Somehow Shreesht, Krom and I found one another, dictating arcs or dangers by looking and hitting our finger-balls.

  ***

  Rick watched the battle rage on Heija, the planet was small enough that the battle was visible from space.

  Sensors were dialed in so that Rick could see the battlefield in infinitely deadly detail. The Commando lines were a sea of armored beings rushing from one position to another. Projectiles of all forms spat from trenches, the mountains and even the ships that had landed on Heija.

  That fire flattened Kalu, ripping through their lines, leaving rents in their oncoming formations. Heija was dark, but the constant explosions and the light of rail gun rounds kept the battlefield alight.

  Salchar had been clear in his orders, no ships were to attack the Kalu in orbit. The ships were there to provide the forces on the ground with support by way of ammunition and fresh Commandos.

  Already shuttles filled with wounded, and those ineffective on the battlefield had been lifted from the ground and slotted into medical bays.

  Foshunti's fighter commander, Rav and Heston were coordinating getting the MEF's that had been on the planet, changed out with those stored on the ships in orbit.

  The newly arrived MEF's were on standby or in the atmosphere giving the fighters on the ground a chance to leave their posts and get their MEF'S sorted out. They were also piling shot after shot of anything and everything they had at the Kalu swarms from every direction that they could come from.

  The Kalu were descending like a wave, their reinforcements never stopping. The Star-destroyers didn't descend like the Star-warriors and the fighters the destroyers released.

  Also with them all being around the planet, Rick had been able to get solid readings on the ship numbers, there was two thousand ships in orbit, fifty of them were Destroyers with no fighters, another four hundred were filled destroyers. Three hundred Star Warriors had descended onto Heija, leaving 520 Star-warriors.

  The fighters and the warriors didn't descend according to any battle plan, other than when enough Kalu died, they rushed in to replace them.

  “The ammunition has reached all of the weapon systems,” In Sook said, the weapon systems went from only firing bursts, to firing on full automatic. They ripped into three Star Warriors as they came down, turning them to hulks, smashing into their fellow Star Warriors that had been landed at the edge of the battlefield.

  Explosions bashed the Star Warriors, sending them careening away, like candy out of a broken piñata.

  More warriors were already headed to Heija as destroyers opened up, and PDS turned to the fighters. Hosing them down with hundreds of thousands of rounds.

  “Damn,” Marleen said, shooting a look to Rick.

  Maybe married couples don't read one another's minds, but we have very similar thoughts. Rick smiled slightly at the odd thought.

  The swarms were shedding fighters at an alarming rate, the weight of HAPA's the Destroyers, MEF's and PDS were taking their toll, actually stopping them from advancing because of their casualties.

  HAPA's transferred their fire onto the Kalu warriors.

  Rick checked the main incoming feeds. Planner had taken over the PDS and firing algorithms.

  “Resilient, I think your friend could use some help,” Rick said.

  “I am already assisting,” she said, her voice metallic. Reminding Rick of someone in the gym, lifting and trying to talk at the same time.

  He felt so damned useless, but he knew he was needed where he was. Salchar needed to see Yasu, he needed to be on that battlefield. That was who he was.

  “What's the time estimate on the completion of the FTL relay?” Rick asked.

  “Fifteen hours,” Vort replied.

  “Thank you Vort,” Rick said, leaning into his chair. He knew that light years away the cogs of the Free Fleet were moving in ways that they had never churned, Bregend was getting engineers from Worshun and the Kuruvian empire he would soon have a yard built, meanwhile Silly was building his first Super-carrier.

  The yards now had the people they need and were pushing out three ships a day altogether. With the new testing system that Rick had implemented people were being sped through the training process, there was no use in training people on stuff they already knew.

  Freighters were coming in daily with supplies, materials and personnel to keep the Free Fleet working. They had become a real military, an institution pitting themselves against the bastards that wanted to screw over the innocent and weak.

  Rick sat straighter in his chair, he was a part of that machine, he had seen it grow, turn into the creature that it was. It had gone from a force of twenty thousand humans, to one point five million trained and training free fleet personnel, from seventeen different races.

  You might beat us, you might trample on us, but if there is but one of us left alive we will have vengeance. Rick promised the screens which showed the Kaluian fleet that was transitioning deeper into inhabited space and that which was orbiting Heija.

  Chapter The Reinforcements

  Shrift looked over the kilometres of cabling that brought war-station and Devastahli to life. A grin spread across his
face.

  “Twelve level five reactors, five level fours and multiple lower level reactors, kilometers of wiring, thousands of relays and too many damned engineering hours to count,”

  “Not to mention the thirty nine Planetary Rail cannons, hundred and forty two large rail guns and hundreds of smaller, thousands of PDS and two hundred missile tubes,” Devastahli said.

  “Always about the weapons aren't you?” Shrift said, unable to not move his manipulators in pride and excitement, maybe being around Salchar and in an armory had an effect on him.

  “Well there's also the multiple wings of MEF's two wings of Jump fighter's a small ship factory in my gut and shielding that can handle a hundred and fifty Star Warriors firing all at once, for nearly two minutes,” Devastahli said, Shrift sensing excitement in the massive AI.

  “Now we just have to wait for everyone else to be ready, then we can find out where the hell we're going,” Shrift said.

  “Where do you think?” Devastahli asked, the two had become friends as Shrift had fixed him up, even working on Devastahli's mainframe, something that took a hell of a lot of trust on the part of an AI.

  “I'm thinking Rosho, finally get those Syndicate bastards whipped. Though it's not going to be a short battle,” Shrift said in unhappy tones.

  “Nothing that is easy is worth it,” Devastahli said.

  “It sounds like you've been talking to my Uncle,” Shrift said, waving a wrench in the direction of Devastahli's speaker.

  Devastahli made an amused noise.

  “In the meantime I am clearing War-station for active duty,” Shrift said.

  “Its past time I got into this war,” Devastahli grumbled.

  “Yes, and now you actually fight, instead of just being a lump to suck up damage,” Shrift said, his manipulators moving in amusement.

  ***

  Orshpa looked at the orders from War Leader Edvasho. His paw tapped the ground, digging them in after a few minutes as he made an angered noise.

  “Do as the leader says,” Orshpa said, purposefully dropping his title as war leader. Something that would bring on a battle for honour immediately if Edvasho had heard it personally. Orshpa was convinced that Edvasho and his creature Ashota had use trickery to win Edvasho the position of leader over Orshpa.