“Order Guresh to take our new arrivals,” Falhu said. He would not leave this battle without at least one victory. Twenty thousand Kalu ships started moving off from their acceleration line, subjecting themselves to massive velocities in order to change their heading and cut their trajectory.
The Free Fleet read their movements and piled fire into them. The new formation of larger ships was arraying in a rotating pyramid of rail and laser cannon barrages.
They could pile more destruction into the Kalu, but their rounds were taking longer to reach the target and could be avoided.
In forty-five minutes the two formations would crash together, physics and its laws of inertia were already deeming it an eventuality.
The Free Fleet ships used their own bomb-pumped acceleration to increase their speed.
They fired everything they could muster up into the oncoming Kalu fleet. Guresh pushed his people on, not one of them turning away as walls of rounds came down on them. Leaving no room for the ships to escape or evade the slower rounds.
The Kalu’s lasers took on the Free Fleet shields, taking them from calm serene colors to the angered hues of beleaguered juggernauts.
They failed as the Kalu got within three hundred thousand kilometers.
“Come on you fuckers, bring your fucking lasers and meet my fucking gunners, they’ve been waiting to give you some personal lessons. For the Free Fleet!” A creature with its Skeleton on its outside yelled, the video showing them gripping the bannister in front of their seat, their manipulators moving in calm but swift manners. Falhu couldn’t understand them. Yet he could understand the effect of the Free Fleet’s fire.
The Free Fleet had just recently acquired the laser cannons which gave them the ability to hit the enemy faster without them knowing what was coming at longer ranges.
They had long ago mastered the rail cannons, missiles, PDS and reactive armor that lined their hulls.
Avenging gods turned and watched as the armored citadels of the Free Fleet were bathed in tracers and plasma, rail cannons bellowed and PDS streamed across Drvntrni system.
***
“Come on you bastards, my mother could do better than you and she’s a damned toy maker! Get those cannons singing!” Boot yelled, he was no longer a person, he was no longer detached from this fight. He was part of Pretak, the man wielding the sword that was this fleet. His people were the blade, the Smiths that had formed it and the edge that cut into the Kalu.
They forgot who they were, what their hopes and dreams would be to answer his call. They were the ship, the blood that ran down the sides, the sinews that supplied the ammunition for the hands, the gunners to delivered their blows.
Now come on you Kalu, bring us your warriors, your destroyers and fighters, we will show you the fire that hides in the Free Fleet.
“Missiles!” Welick barked, “I can’t get them!”
“All hands brace!” Boot barked over his ship-wide channel.
There were five, one was caught in time, the second and third got close enough to activate the reactive armor. The fourth and fifth played tag with one another. The fourth detonated out of the reactive armors range, stripping it clean and opening a hole in the side of the ship.
The fifth detonated, the hull and the ship’s structure screaming in agony as Boot went sideways, he felt pain in his side and then nothing.
He came to, not knowing where he was. His powered armor showed a gash in the side of it. He looked around the bridge, delirious from the drugs and wake-up that kept him mobile.
It was a sort of surreal moment.
People fought their stations, lights blinked and flickered, red seemed to cover the main screen. Sparks shorted out of somewhere and someone fell back. People rushed around and there was a movement to the door. He turned, seeing the door had a growing red line on it.
Something in his brain told him that was bad. He used his manipulators to move himself to his chair.
Dlai was slumped over, half of her side missing as well as the chair.
He felt a moment of sadness and pride. His people were doing their duty without instruction and doing it damned well.
They definitely don’t need my messy cock-eyed input right now, He thought a mix of sad and happy, as if a father watching his kids going off to live their own lives.
He grabbed his railgun, checking it by impulse. He leaned against his chair, aiming it at the door. His side hurt and his lower limbs weren’t working. Probably because his carapace was fucked up in ways he didn’t even want to know.
The door opened and Kalu came flooding in.
Boot was waiting, several railguns fired into the opening. Not one of them had forgot their mandatory Commando training.
The first went down with a laser blast from the Kalu bastards. Then another and another, the Kalu got inside. Boot continued firing, his gun clicked empty just as a Kalu eyed him up, he dropped it, grabbing his pistol instead. The Kalu seemed to understand and ran at him. Boot punched it right in the nose, making it back up. He fired three times, the light going out of the Kalu’s eyes. His manipulators had reloaded his rifle as he killed the Kalu. Now one of his upper arms fired the railgun and his manipulators fired his pistol. It was hard keeping track of both of his arms, but Kuruvians were wiley bastards.
Never play poker with a Kuruvian, Boot laughed so hard it hurt.
His manipulators moved in excitement, sorrow, and happiness. He had lived a damned interesting life, and he knew he’d have good company on the other side. A Kalu came around his chair a claw digging into his shoulder and making Boot scream.
He was dragged backwards, another claw finding his stomach and vital organs. He grabbed his four plasmid blades and buried it in the Kalu.
He took the restrictions off of his pain medications, he was now next to his chair, he pulled himself into it and looked at the bridge.
His people were dead, the Kalu picking through them. One of them appeared to be talking on the main screen, he cranked his powered armor’s speakers up.
“Well come on then you motherless excuses for sentients! Let’s see how many of you want to go to the black. My fellows are waiting for me in the light and I’m not about to let them go without their commander!” The shock was replaced with aggression as the Kalu charged Boot.
He stabbed and slashed them, throwing two blades and catching two jumping Kalu. A final claw got him in his chest. He cut it off and the Kalu seemed to back up. The one without a claw writhing on the floor as the others looked at him.
Boot didn’t see them anymore; he saw the faces of the people that had stood around the consoles they now prowled around.
He let out a rattling sigh, his eyes becoming misty as his hands moved in the final farewell.
“I’ll be seeing you shortly,” he said, coughing a rattling cough.
“For the Fleet,” he said with the pride of a Commander leading his people on one last journey.
***
Bregend could do nothing but watch as the Kalu excursion met Boot’s force head on. His people were firing as fast as possible, the small craft exacting their own toll. He watched as Free Fleet shields flared and blossomed with hundreds of impacts, Kalu ships disintegrated. Those following them coming on like some kind of unstoppable wave. They soaked up damage, using the forward elements as cover to get closer.
Shields failed on the Free Fleet side and ships died by a million laser hits. Free Fleet ships tried to save one another, shifting in their formation. Yet it didn’t matter, ship after ship fell as Kalu and Free Fleet ships waged war in a small pocket of the universe. Their cannons acting as fists, their ships their bodies.
The formations crossed and the Kalu could no longer use those in front of them as cover. Now it was just their unprotected sides against the Free Fleet’s guns. Few of the Kalu turned to bring their guns on target. There weren’t many, but there were enough.
The Free Fleet took a heavy price from the Kalu, but their own ships sagged under the massed Ka
lu fire.
He saw the missiles strike Pretak, the ship was hit close to its engines. Two power-plants were ejected and the ship stopped firing, the Kalu stopped firing on them and warriors at the tail end of the Kalu fleet that had slowed down enough, grabbed onto the super-carrier. She wasn’t the only ship to come out with Star-warriors breaching through her hull.
Forty-seven ships had gone up against twenty-thousand Kalu Destroyers and Warriors. Fighters had jumped on them like rabid dogs. Their shields had failed. Warriors had boarded them.
Twelve were still intact. Nine thousand Kalu ships couldn’t say the same.
Three of them drifted listlessly, including Pretak.
They had the Commandos on them. Bregend could do little to help them but keep up his fire on the Kalu.
“Mills get working with the Commandos, I want a list of all available personnel to assist Boot’s fleet,” Bregend said, his voice harsh for those he had lost.
“Sir,” Mills said, bending his head to his work.
“We continue with the plan. Let’s send these Kalu bastards to the black where they belong,” Bregend said with dark hunger that would have scared some people, but only resonated with his. They had lost friends too, and they weren’t about to let the Kalu get away with that.
Small craft returned to their hangars aboard the HCD’s and the larger Free Fleet vessels. Pyramids that had all their people and their small craft refueled and rearmed. They made a linked Wormhole, entering it and exiting from it just ahead of Falhu’s fleet, firing everything they had and dumping the small craft right into the Kalu’s formations.
***
Bregend watched as the Kalu tried to escape from the pyramid’s constant fire, opening wormholes to escape Drvntrni and head towards Urshval.
The Free Fleet ships waited until all of their shields were at maximum strength and their laser cannons had cooled before they wormholed in front of the Kalu again, they came out shooting and changing positions within their formation, rotating fresh guns and shields in and out.
The Kalu only had their weak lasers, the laser cannons dished out twenty times the pain at the same speed.
Some Free Fleet ships fell, but the Kalu lost a lot more.
As the Kalu left in their wormholes, HCD’s jumped to their emergence point. Their extra capacitors and power plants were built specifically to charge constantly and allowed them to wormhole nearly continuously.
Six pyramid formations hammered them as they left the wormholes. The remaining nine fired into the departing Kalu. It was an unmitigated massacre.
One pyramid formation hung around Boot’s fleet, shipping their power armor trained personnel and Commandos to help secure the ships.
Bregend watched the fighting happening in Urshval, the pyramids were rotating out to a supply point now. Even they had limits.
He wouldn’t leave his people behind until he knew they were safe.
The Kalu had two hundred and forty-five thousand ships when Bregend and Boot had ambushed them.
One-hundred and ninety-seven thousand had made it to Urshval. The hunters had well and truly become the hunted.
“Commander,” Kyle said, actually coming to Bregend’s seat.
Bregend was surprised to see his red rimmed eyes and hear the shakiness of his voice.
“The ships have been secured, I think you’re going to want to see Pretak’s bridge video. It’s of bridge’s last moments,” Kyle’s voice shook again and tears were hastily rubbed away.
“Show me,” Bregend said, his own voice gruff.
Kyle nodded and tapped a command into his data pad, he slumped into his seat as all eyes were on Pretak’s familiar bridge. It had only been a matter of hours since they had last seen it. In this video it was a mass of consoles blowing out, parts coming free from their positions and people trying to regain some sort of control.
Bregend saw Boot get up and shift around, he was badly wounded, unable to stand. He ambled to his railgun, grabbing it and facing the armored doors that were being cut through.
Commandos made a firing line across from the door. The Kalu gained entry and were met with a mass of fire. The Kalu had numbers and all they needed were a few lucky shots, and they got them. The bridge crew still fought at their stations even as the Kalu got inside. Some were killed at their stations. The majority added their own efforts to the fight. Bregend saw Kalu charge Boot who was up against the back of his chair for support.
The Kalu moved through the bridge, checking everyone was dead. One opened a channel and was addressing someone. There was movement. Boot levered himself up into his chair, his armor was in tatters, his internal liquids came from multiple holes.
“Well come on then you motherless excuses for sentients! Let’s see how many of you want to go to the black. My fellows are waiting for me in the light and I’m not about to let them go without their commander!” Boot bellowed.
Bregend pressed his lips together, hoping to stop the tears from falling, he raised a hand to find that they had already fallen long before. The Kalu charged Boot.
He stabbed and slashed them, throwing two blades and catching two jumping Kalu. A final claw got him in his chest. He cut it off and the Kalu seemed to back up. The one without a claw writhing on the floor as the others looked at him.
Boot let out a rattling sigh, his eyes becoming misty as his hands moved in the final farewell.
“I’ll be seeing you shortly,” he said, coughing a rattling cough.
“For the Fleet,” he said, his manipulators in a position of happiness and pride. They fell to his side.
There wasn’t a single dry eye or equivalent on the bridge, the sounds of people trying to hide their bodies’ reactions to the emotions that piled out of them was punctuated with the sounds of various items requiring their attention.
Those noises only served to highlight the fact that the command crew of Pretak was gone, rather than actually call them back to reality.
Bregend leaned forward, pulling his helmet off and burying his face in his armored gloves.
My friend, my friend is gone, so many of them are gone. His body wracked with sobs, the floodgates opened.
How many will the Kalu claim before this is all done? Memories piled in like a wave, they comforted him, but drove him deeper into his emotions, deeper into the losses he had endured of the brilliant and amazing people that had died just so the Kalu could wage their war.
He let out a rattling breath, his eyes closed as he sniffed.
“Get yourself together Bregend, you’ve now got the tools to stop the Kalu once and for all,” he whispered to himself. Later he would look to those he had lost, he had a war to fight and people to avenge.
He sat up in a rush, finding his command staff looking to him for guidance.
“I want reports on all ships within the hour, any that can’t supply them or are combat ineffective are to cross-load Commandos to our formation and head to the nearest supply depot. Those that are combat capable are to be assimilated into our formation,” Bregend said, his voice strong as he pushed his emotions to the back.
“Let’s be about it, I want to see if we can’t make Urshval the last place the Kalu ever visit,” he said, letting some of those emotions bleed into anger.
***
Falhu wasn’t dumb, he was loyal. Loyal to his clan leader Orshpa. Which was why he had a hard decision to make. He needed to meet up with Orshpa and he knew where he was going generally. He also knew that if the converted Destroyers continued at the rate they were going at, he wouldn’t make it out of Urshval with any ships if he wanted to take the planet as well.
“Make best speed to the next system we will regroup with Orshpa and he will command us,” Falhu said.
His aide’s saw that his words were passed on. The fleet changed directions, still the pyramids showed up in his path, their laser cannons taking ships away from his mass. The Kalu lasers could take down their shields, but they didn’t work together to focus all of their weapons on one
target, letting them get back into cover behind their fellows.
It was infuriating.
He remembered the video of the ship leader that had had been yelling for the death of the Kalu. How he had climbed up into his command chair, killing four Kalu even heavily wounded.
He’d yelled out for the Free Fleet, confident in his own voice before slumping over.
The Free Fleet were fighters, fighters born from desperation. He was only just finding out what desperation felt like. He had never thought that such a mighty host might fall to the Free Fleet, he hadn’t thought it possible for it to fall to anyone.
Yet he was seeing it coming apart.
He needed Orshpa’s guidance, they needed to end the Free Fleet.
Chapter Farmers know how to shoot too
“Kalu fleet coming into range,” Yuvel said, looking to the Commander of Chaleel’s defenses, Delahil.
“Open fire,” Delahil said, her voice removed of all emotion. AIH and Chaleel were close in not only distance but relations.
So when Chaleel joined the Union with them and were allowed to purchase weapons systems from the Free Fleet subsidiaries, AIH had rushed to help their closest allies. Chaleel had the largest population of any system in the Union. They needed guns, lots of guns to keep their people who were primarily farmers safe. The Avarians had fought for generations and knew how to protect themselves. Other systems had done the same. Yet Chaleel was only getting roughed over by the Syndicate when the Free Fleet found them. They were peaceful and not used to war.
Commandos bolstered their ranks and their military had grown with the insistence of governments that could see that violence wasn’t going away.
They’d turned their space elevators into miniature Parnmals, covered in armor, planetary shields, weapons, and with a thick covering of space mines around the entire planet.
None of them had powered up or poked their weapons out as the Kalu fleet of twenty-nine-thousand headed towards Chaleel.
From Furies Forged (Free Fleet Book 5) Page 32
