“By God,” Russel was an atheist through and through, but his call fit his feelings. Rail-cannons fired as one.
“They’re firing!” Giles announced.
“Shields, missiles, clear our skies and fire back at them!” Russel yelled, like a man who didn’t know how to swim, trying to claw their way to the surface.
“Sir,” Ship Commander Duschene said, the bridge was in motion, but those railguns fired again. It would take them but eight minutes to reach his ships.
“We have an incoming transmission from Resilient,” Ship Commander Xiao’s voice cut through the sounds of people preparing for Armageddon.
“On screen,” Russel said, checking himself over and settling into his seat more.
Admiral Russel tried to keep his emotions off of his face but it was hard.
He looked directly onto Resilient’s bridge. Every single person wore powered armor. They talked in hushed but calm tones, moving with professional strides, in opposition to the rushed panic of his own command center.
Hard eyes looked at the main screen before turning to their work. Salchar’s didn’t, he sat in his command chair, staring right ahead. His visor was open and his scarred power armor showed the damage received on Heija.
His chief of staff sat to his side, his eyes returning Russel’s gaze with cool indifference.
Three Avarians sat to the rear of Salchar and Rick, their protectors, Wruck, Krom and Shreesht. Anger radiated off of them, their eyes filled with silent curses.
Russel’s eyes darted to Salchar’s. He might look like a short Avarian and a young twenty year-old. But his eyes showed a man aged well beyond his years by the events he had seen.
Admiral Russel had stared down some of the most powerful people on Earth, none of them had looked at him with the kind of indifference that Salchar looked at him now.
“Admiral Adam Russel I will give you this one chance to surrender. I have real enemies that need attention. I do not wish to deal with the whims of your political masters.”
Russel saw as the next wave of rounds headed towards his formation that were flushing their magazines of anything and everything they had.
The Free Fleet forces rotated, bringing new rail-cannons to bear.
“I need an answer Admiral,” Salchar said, Russel’s eyes flickered to him.
“Yes we surrender damnit,” he said, noticing the cold sweat that now made his clothes stick to it.
“Marleen,” Salchar said, holding Russel’s eye.
“Understood Commander,” she talked in hushed tones.
“Hold your shields up, our rounds will break apart. Though my engineer doubts that your ships and armor will be able to stop the shrapnel. We will send a signal when the rounds are done and you will power down weapons and shields. My Commandos will board you, placing you on transports back to Earth,” Salchar stood and stepped forward.
“I do not want to see you facing me again Admiral. I did not want to destroy these ships and kill people from the planet I was born on. Your leaders made me do this. This Fleet is all that stands in the way of a threat you could not even comprehend. I will visit Earth once more with my decrees from the Union. Vort,” the channel cut and Russel let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
His anxiousness turned to anger, the kind that made his face bunch into hard lines, his teeth grind and his hands turn to fists.
You know what he said was true, and you knew, you warned them against doing this. Yet you would not leave your duty. What an idiot I was. He had been thinking in terms of nations, in terms of power over other humans. That was the way it had always been.
The game had changed and it had taken him too long to figure it out. He held Salchar in no great esteem, hell he thought he was a damned terrible commanding officer playing things by the seat of his pants. It was going to be hard for him to get past that. Yet the enemy commander had been a worthy opponent.
He revised to make his own judgements of Salchar instead of listening to little twats like Edwards to give him that information.
Earth was going to need to build up their space force with the kind of production Earth hadn’t seen since the world wars. They’d just lost their greatest benefactor and the Kalu would come for their planet.
That’s what he showed you, they’re fighting to keep sentient life, not for people stuck in fighting amongst themselves.
He disagreed with a group that called themselves simple ‘traders’ having the sort of power that they had, yet he recognized their need and use now. Maybe they had built up their fleet to show their strength, but they needed their numbers and their ships to cover the reaches of inhabited space. Their drive for weapons like Elshurvum were built out of need, like the nuclear bombs of World War Two. They needed that strength to fight the Kalu. Even with those advantages they’d lost a battle, won another only after the destruction of the biggest weaponized station in known existence and lost close to one point one million lives in their engagements and through the battle of Heija.
These thoughts ran through his mind, part of it registering the railgun rounds used the charges inside them to explode, turning into shards with a fraction of the power of the round.
“We have shards hitting our shields from both sides. Our shields are falling, some might collapse,” Giles said, “Admiral?” Admiral Russel was staring at some point on the wall without really seeing it.
“Send the recording to Earth, bring all people into the inner decks of our ships. Follow the Commander’s instructions to the letter,” Russel’s voice was curt and hard, his eyebrows shadowing his eyes, serving to only emphasize his look of anger.
“Yes Admiral,” Giles said, quickly turning back to his station.
Chapter Ready for war
Commander Boot sat in his new Carrier Pretak his manipulators tapping together slowly in anger. He watched as the battle ended before it truly began.
He closed the FTL relay link and looked over the information more useful to him. The system Konsal waited outside the armor of his new carrier. She was the sister to Cheerleader’s own Mondal. The reason she had taken so long to be completed was because the AI Ipis had to be installed into the ship. The old AI kept to himself mostly, talking to shields and the gunnery more than anyone else. Boot had only seen him twice, ‘seen’ being a relative word as Ipis liked to be viewed as a single ball of yellow light.
Boot had gotten to his position a month and a half ago, sending his corvettes and jump-fighters out as his long-ranged scouts to make sure that no Kalu were advancing across the lines. He had seeded sensors between systems to hopefully detect if they tried to jump through the dark between systems.
Merchants arrived every two weeks to drop off supplies from the forward system, Lady Fairgate’s old home system Inkal. The merchants in the system had only been too happy to add a few credits to their account. It seemed like all of the people on the planet were buying or building their own freighters as fast as possible.
An alert came over the FTL network, the forces behind Kalu lines wanted to have a meeting with Cheerleader and Boot. They were supposed to have the meeting yesterday, but they had agreed to wait until after the fight in Sol was over, or if some kind of emergency occurred.
Boot sent his recognition of the message and stood.
“Dlai, you have command,” he said to his second-in-command.
“Yes sir,” Dlai answered.
Boot went to his conference room to the rear of the massive bridge that covered four decks.
He input her information and didn’t have to wait long until the holographic form of Cheerleader appeared in one of the chairs.
“Hey Boot,” she said, tossing her hand in greeting.
“How’s it going in Heija?” He asked.
“Probably as interesting as Konsal seeing as I haven’t heard anything from you since last week,” she drawled, an eyebrow asking if anything had changed.
He grunted and moved his manipulators in boredom.
&n
bsp; “Thought as much,” she said with a snort.
Bregend and Commander Whorst appeared but Min Hae was absent.
“Min Hae is currently dealing with sorting out who the hell thought of turning on the Free Fleet and getting that information to Salchar,” Bregend said, answering the question they were all thinking. “He’s not too happy that something has yet again slipped through his fingers. Though it looks like the governments of Earth took great pains to not only hide what was going on from us, but to their own people.”
“What a mess,” Commander Whorst said with feeling, he had been the commander of the Free Fleet forces and resources in Sol up until he took his place on War-station’s bridge.
“That I think we can all agree on,” Cheerleader said, her jaw tightening as her eyes became sharp with anger.
“Before we get too off topic I suggest that we talk about what has been going on with our respective operations, then we talk about the shit show that Earth just became,” Boot said.
“Very well, if I may start. I’ll be talking for myself and Min Hae,” Bregend said, looking to the others that waved for him to go on.
“We’ve hammered all of their yards in our area, not one is left standing, or capable of repairs. We’ve turned to Jump-fighter raids and hitting any that try to clump together with asteroids. They got smart after this so we’ve been doing raids with our ships in close combat. Jump in, hit them with overwhelming force, and then jump back out again. Some are staying spread apart, others are close together and we’re hitting them as much as we can.
“Min Hae and Ashota agree with the reports that Orshpa is losing ground, the Kalu want to go to war but he wants to keep his supply route clear of us before he starts, or he knows that he’ll be fighting with what he has. About two-hundred star-destroyers have been turned over to the independents who are training with them and should be ready to join us within the month. The Kalu are looking to modify the fighters within the carriers so that they can be armed with our weapons instead of the weaker lasers. Silly and Felix’s people were helping out but in light of recent events they have been doing it on their own. It seems that they have made some good progress and will convert a wing over within the week to see if the modifications they made will work,” Bregend looked to them.
“I’ll go next,” Whorst said, raising his opened hand. “We’re at much the same stage as Bregend, we’ve hammered their shipyards and refineries and we’re doing hit and run on their remaining forces. I’m keeping War-station back as per orders. Situation is good, but it’s getting more annoying to deal with all the Kalu scattered all over the place. Eventually we’re going to be drawn into an engagement or found out. If that will be before Orshpa gets his forces on the move or not. I don’t know,” he shrugged, worry on his face, but also the understanding that whatever the situation he would deal with it.
Cheerleader and Boot looked at one another, him signalling for her to go on first.
“I’ve got my forces deployed, our reinforcements have arrived and we haven’t had any supply issues, either getting supplies to us, or onto you, so far. Having the Kalu between us has meant there have been a few run-ins. My people have hit them or run for it. I’ve passed the order for single jumps, so they’re slower, but at least they have the option to dump capacitors and get the hell out of a tight spot,” she looked to Boot.
“Much the same situation, I haven’t passed the same orders as you but I think I will just in case,” Boot said, looking to Cheerleader before the others in the room. “Now that is done, what do you think Salchar will do with Earth?”
“Nothing good,” Cheerleader said, her face sober as she looked at something that only she could see. She was also probably the most qualified out of any of them to make a judgement. She had fought alongside Salchar in Mecha Tail before all of this and was seen as his little sister in a way.
“Well he’ll keep the recruiting centers there, we need personnel badly,” Bregend said.
“Maybe not,” Cheerleader said, she saw all their looks and shrugged. “He sees the fleet as his home now. He will do anything to defend it. The people that he held in a high regard and that he trusted to back him and us just stabbed him in the back. He’s a lot closer to an Avarian when it comes to things like betrayal.”
“So, what might he excommunicate them?” Whorst asked.
“We should assume that much, in the eyes of Salchar they will not exist anymore. Someone that he can’t trust isn’t someone he acknowledges. The only reason he let Takahashi stay in the Free Fleet was because he attacked Salchar in the hopes of keeping his people safe, much like Bregend did,” Cheerleader said, giving a nod in Bregend’s direction.
“We did it to protect our people, Earth did it to gain power,” Bregend said, as if realizing what she was getting at.
“Exactly,” Cheerleader said as if rewarding a star pupil.
“How will Earth react?” Boot asked, the only one that wasn’t human in the conference room.
“Hopefully we’ll learn, more likely they’ll see us as the bad guys. Psychologically, everyone is the bad guy except us,” Bregend said.
***
Orshpa listened to the new battle reports coming from his sub-clan leaders. They weren’t pleased and it made sense, they had lost their shipyards and had lost nearly a million ships altogether. It didn’t matter to them that combined they had close to one-point-eight-million, star-ships. The refiners were now getting hit and soon they wouldn’t have the fuel to even fill those ships.
The time had come to make a decision.
“Load the star-ships with our best warriors, hold fights on every planet and Kalu land for those spots. I want all the supplies we can carry loaded onto our ships. If any Kalu has an issue with that then they will answer to me personally. Send the call out to my clan leaders. Prepare for the second teaching war. We march in seven rotations of Daskil,” Orshpa said to his controllers. He saw the heads shake in honor as war-growls came from their throats. They had waited for this day since coming under Edvasho. Now they would be part of the stories passed through the clans.
Orshpa let his worries leave him and shook himself. He was about to take the center of those stories, he would be the leader of all clans that brought the races of the Union to an end.
***
Empress shook her head at the information coming from Sol. Evelyn Sparks her favorite reporter was there personally, coming all the way from Parnmal to give people up-to-date information on events as they unrolled. She hadn’t been there in person for the battles but she was reporting on the goings on with the Free Fleet.
The Earth Forces on Mars and Hachiro had surrendered and were being held aboard their own ships which had been stripped of anything that looked faintly military.
Earth’s nations were reaching out with every kind of communication they had. They’d even sent a courier to Hachiro. It was surrounded by Jump Fighters and told to leave in terse and pissed off tones.
The Free Fleet and specifically Salchar weren’t saying a damned thing so far. No one, not even Evelyn had been allowed to come near Mars, Hachiro, Nancy or the refineries in Jupiter and Uranus’ atmospheres.
Empress had a better idea of what was going on, but she wasn’t saying anything, neither were the other representatives of the Union.
She remembered Salchar’s message and the look in his eyes.
“Today we shall need to reach a decision. A decision onto the fate of Earth,” his eyes had lanced through every person in that conference and none of them were left untouched. “I am too close to the matter for me to make a decision. I shall need you, as the leaders of the new Union to decide what we shall do.” Responsibility, the kind of which she had hid from in her work for so long firmly rested on her shoulders. “Earth has killed men and women from your planets, from the inhabited planets under the Free Fleet’s protection and have betrayed our trust. Tell me what happens now, I wash my hands of them and their actions. I will see to the return of my personnel and tak
e action if any stand in my way. I also say that the prisoners be allowed to return to their planet, let them spread the word so that they think twice about stabbing us in the back,” Salchar’s voice and eyes hard, as if he let his emotions free rage and anger would consume him.
“And if they attack us again?” Elisati asked, the only one to talk in the conference room.
“Then there will be no one to tell the stories,” Salchar let out just a glimmer of the anger formed from frustration and loss. He was a man caught between the betrayal of his home planet and the enemies that wanted to wipe out all sentient life.
“We will let you get back to your people and we will discuss the situation,” Empress said.
Salchar tilted his head in thanks his finger stabbing onto his table, cutting him out of the channel.
“Well this is a fucking mess,” Narvu said, a man that had been a customs officer for Daestramus when Marhtu had ruled the planet and was the current head of foreign affairs for the newly established government of Daestramus.
“Yes it is, especially because the Avarians withdrew from this conference at the request of Salchar,” Pidali the first minister of Chaleel said.
“I could see this being rather unpleasant with their honor code coming into effect,” Elisati said.
“So us four must figure out what the sentence will be to a planet that just attacked the very people which are looking to the defense of our nations as we start thinking about rebuilding the PDF,” Empress said. “I have noticed that the Free Merchant Fleet have submitted a request to remove all of their technology and supplies from the system at need. The only reason they asked our permission is due to the fact it will most definitely destabilize the system and planet. I for one agree with them. Their deal has been broken.”
“I agree with Empress,” Narvu said. The others added their agreement and they sent an affirmative to the request.
“Then we should go on to the request about this Mr. Edwards. He passed on vital information to Marhtu and looked to have the fleet killed. He went back to Earth with a binding agreement that said he would not talk about the systems the Free Fleet used. He seems to have told every nation on Earth about them and they are all building weapons. He used that power to gain the attention of a President and broker a deal with other nations to attack the Free Fleet.”
From Furies Forged (Free Fleet Book 5) Page 12
