Coming Home (Free Fleet Book 2) (17 page)

Henry knew the two of them had elected to keep their relationship, one that he found odd but worked. His own wife from training had died when they'd landed on Chaleel. They hadn't interacted much, acting more like acquaintances than a married couple. Sometimes he wished he had someone to confide in and hold when the times got rough.

Rick must've sensed the change in mood as he broke Henry's line of thought.

“So, food field trip?” He asked as Henry looked over his commanders, taking over an array of tables but leaving Rick, Marleen, and Henry to themselves.

“Those who eat together, work better together. The better the food, the better the working together,” Henry said and Rick grinned.

“So, you've been talking to Foodie McBook Soo,” He said. Henry nodded.

“He is quite the foodie, plus, he made a compelling argument.”

“I bet he did,” Rick said as he and Henry shared a look, Rick grinning wildly as the corner of Henry's mouth twitched.

“Now, if you excuse us, we've got a dinner planned already,” Marleen said, hitting Rick with her hip as he shook a little. Since training, the two had gotten on a level field with the amount they could throw around. While Marleen still looked like she could lift cars in her free time, Henry, like every Commando, was a wealth of muscle that made him look as if he walked through walls if the door was too far.
It's probably one of the reason Commandos old families think us so scary,
he thought as Rick picked himself up.

“See yah later, cattle herder,” he said as Henry stood to join the end of the food line.

“You can bet it, squid brain.” He grinned as Rick cocked his arm and brought it back as if he'd won something significant. Marleen made a faked annoyed face and pulled him away, Rick grinning all the time.

Henry didn't know how he could be so damned happy, but it was nice to have someone that could always look on the good side of things. He reflected as he ordered a burger and got a bill, his eyes widening.
No wonder Bok Soo wanted to bring us here,
he thought, passing his hand over the reader as credits flowed out of his account.

“So, you've got next time, Bok Soo,” he said as he took a seat, waiting for his food, Bok Soo looking up in alarm, his mouth full of food as others thanked Henry and Bok Soo for the next meal.

Bok Soo grinned as he cleared his throat. “But of course, Commander,” he said as they shared a look, both grinning.

Chapter Rebuilding

“So, how is the training going?” I asked Henry as we had our weekly meeting aboard the Resilient. The chambers on Hachiro weren't built yet after the redesigning of the station.

“Better than I hoped. I actually want to see if we can get some experts in from Earth. We've kind of cobbled a method to do things, but people trained in such things will be able to refine our skills immensely.”

I nodded as I felt tiredness wash over me. I grabbed the water in front of me as I took another Wake Up pill. I didn't miss the looks. Wake Up and I had become best friends since I had taken over as the commander of the Free Fleet.

“See that it's done. The countries leaders have agreed to allow their people to apply to the civilian job boards that we have. The countries that have agreed to put in the work to become the space faring front of Earth have finally finished their plan and are organizing a system that would work for anyone that joins their community.” I couldn't keep the exasperation out of my voice. I had spent most of the past month and a half going over the damned plan. The only reason I hadn't given up on it was the attempt to try and get the families of my Commandos, and the Commandos that had left the Free Fleet, into space.

There was already a community of old Commandos that had banded together, getting their credits into a pool to buy the supplies they needed to go and get a mining colony started in the Oort Cloud. They'd bought one shuttle a handful of drones, living quarters, supplies, strippers, and refiners. We'd let the stuff go rather cheap to help them out and to see at least something happening in space.

“I made clear the stipulations for claiming a planet, the same as it was with the Union. So I want us making a claim on the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars.”

“So, pretty much the entire Solar System?” Yasu asked and nearly everyone quirked they eyebrow.

“Moon, Mars for bases. We'll began terraforming Mars as soon as possible. Felix and Min Hae are already working on that. Jupiter and Saturn for Fuel.”

“So, we're taking them over?” Henry asked, not challenging but inquiring.

“No, we're going to own a part of them, much like we have places on Chaleel.”

“What if they don't agree to come under the Free Fleet's protection?” Rick asked.

“Then we still hold onto everything but Earth.” I looked at my data pad before looking up. “I'm wondering if we should keep the station here,” I said as everyone looked in on me.

“Why?” Rick said, he probably knew most of my reasoning, but it was his job to play devils advocate.

“The nations have already shown that with the technology they have, they can get to Hachiro easily. If one of them doesn't like us, then they can launch a missile up into us, and there's only a small space where we can take it out and not harm the station or the planet. I think we move the station to Mars.”

I looked around and didn't see many people disagreeing.

“Shrift, how long do you think it would take to get us there?”

“If we move the ships around some, brace a few sections, I'm going to have to run this by Eddie, but I think that we can do this easily. Maybe in a few days we can be ready to move.” I nodded.

“Make it so.”

“Won't Earth think we're leaving them behind?” Rick asked.

“We're pretty much pushing them into space whether they want it or not. To be honest, I'm caring less and less what they think at this point,” I said as I found I was still tired.

“Maybe I should go down there for the next week and talk to them before we make a decision?” Rick asked. I thought on it. It would allow me to catch up on my work and get into fighting trim. Also, to get the sleep I needed. I was going to meetings all day to only get hurtled into space and continue doing my work for the fleet.

“That might be an idea. I think that we're going to need a department to deal with planets, like an ambassador. I'm just getting swamped,” I admitted. They nodded around the table in agreement as I could feel their care for me.

“Alright, Rick, you take over tomorrow and sort out a department for it. I'll get back to running the damned fleet.” He nodded, no grins now as we had spent more than one meeting in this very room with me complaining about the world leaders and their petty antics.

I sighed, feeling that weight lift from my shoulders.

“Okay, Shrift, how are we doing on ships?” I asked as I sat back, looking into equally tired eyes.

“The corvettes are good, we've cannibalized one of the Syndicate battle cruisers, and I feel that we should pull apart Destroyer Dark Palace. It's close to being useless, and the parts will allow us to get our weapon systems on the station to something like thirty percent coverage, or the ships could have a gun online for every destroyer class and down.”

“Can the destroyer run on the small power plants we're pumping out?” I asked.

“Yes, though it wouldn't be that effective if it only ran on them. There's slots for three.” I looked to Rick.

“There's an incentive if I've ever heard one. Strip the destroyer of every piece of weaponry and mil tech. We'll wait to see if Earth is willing to speed a few things up for the ship, if not, we give it to the Chaleelians. They need traders, and badly, if they want to connect with their old contacts. Or if we want to trade with them for food stuffs.”

“There is also that patrol leaving to check the surrounding systems in two days,” Rick said.

I pulled open the file as I drank more water. My brain was having a hard time remembering it.

The patrol would be one newly acquired battle cruiser under Commander Boot, a Kuruvian who I had given command to after Parnmal. He had done little of note, which surprised me for a Kuruvuian, but he knew his ship the best, got it into the best standard he could, and his people likened him to a statue instead of the sugar-rush-like Kuruvian engineers, other than my own sultry Eddie and overworked Shrift.

I marked in a meeting with the ship commander as I checked the remaining forces of the patrol. They'd have one destroyer and three corvettes, all of the best nick possible. Their mission was to simply jump from system to system and report back. It was a time arduous task, but it helped to know what was in the neighborhood.

With the loss of our best repaired ships, it left me with an array of ships that Shrift wasn't giving hope on just yet—the cracked-armored shell of a battle cruiser, eight serviceable corvettes and four damnable cruisers—I’d hated their design ever since I looked at their statistics. While they try to have the speed of a corvette, they're usually a third slower and much bigger, to hold the missiles they use, and lack in the cannons that the corvette or any ship bigger than a cruiser had. Plus, it was damned confusing to have cruisers and battle cruisers. Like, what bone head thought of having the same name for two different classes? It wasn't as if the cruiser wasn't ever in battle, even though it had damned near little use. Lastly, there were two destroyers, the Resilient, and the two carriers.

I was hoping to get the one close battle cruiser online, but it had suffered major EMP damage, meaning most of it's systems had to be pulled out and put back in. That took a lot of time. Plus, Eddie said he had an idea for the ship, as well as the broken shell of the other cruiser.

“Well, unless Shrift pulls anything out anytime soon, that's all they're getting. I'm feeling pretty damned thin as it is, plus, all of our ships are in bad condition,” I said and Kim nodded.

I tried to not look at the further eight ships listed as awaiting work.

“Henry, how are those care packages?” I looked to him as he pulled up a map on the holographic projector, showing a changed world from the one we had left.

“As soon as we got the go-ahead, we've been dropping aid as we can. Now we're dropping a squad of Commandos with them after recent issues with people stealing supplies, hoarding, and such. We got that issue dealt with quickly. Food, clean water, and habitation is being created en masse, quickly. I believe in a week they will be able to support themselves. Policing will become an issue of course, though that is something for Earth to sort out.” He looked to Rick, who nodded. Rick and I had spoken on the issue before, I had got some tentative agreements, but hopefully he could gain guarantees.

“What about the Commandos group heading for the Oort Cloud?” I asked the room.

“We have an agreement with them to repay some of their purchases with materials of certain element groups. We also have and overriding agreement that if we ask for more, they will supply with us everything they can, up to capacity, for market price,” Rick supplied

“In system or fleet wide pricing?”

“Fleet wide, they're going to be happy miners!” he said as I nodded.

“I hope so. Now, to get others to follow them will be your job.” I looked pointedly to Rick.

“Just taking all the fun outta da job!” he said in a fake Italian accent and I couldn't help but grin at the cult fiction flick's line.

“Now, marriage annulments and such, how's that going?”

“As of a week ago, when we announced it, we haven't had any major issues. Most have been sorted at the lowest commander level,” Kim said and I nodded my head.

“Very well then, anything else?”

“Any idea on when we'll be able to allow leave passes to Earth for more than Humans?” Henry asked.

“You know I've been working on it, but the people of Earth are still scared of aliens. Do you just wanna get your people together and get them to call up places they know?”

“Could work.” Henry shrugged as he sat back.

“Reporters,” Rick said. Both I and Henry winced at the word, I was pretty sure Krom would've just walked through a wall to stop hearing the word if he was inside the meeting.

“Yes?” I asked.

“Are we still not going to have any of them aboard the station or ships?”

“I don't want them near any weapon platforms or the like.”

“Though with the new personal quarters, which is acting as a entertainment complex, we could keep them in there. Have them based in Commando quarters that aren't used, and only let them see the ships from a distance, maybe even show them a shuttle if they behave,” Rick said, as if he was giving the reporters a cookie instead of showing them a transport system generations ahead of what Earth had been able to do at the beginning of all this.

“I really don't....”

“I know you don't like them, heck, I'm not a fan of them myself. Though, if we want to humanize ourselves and get people out to Earth, we need to show them just what the hecks going on. Some people are even saying that we're the Syndicate, that the PDF was really the PDF,” he said in a tone that made it clear what he thought of such people's mental capacities.

“Guarantees for the refugee policing situation and I'll allow reporters on board, under your watch.” Rick let out some air, shaking his head for a few seconds.