Coming Home (Free Fleet Book 2) (41 page)

There was no one here—as Monk had ordered Felix to send all of his people to get rest. There were four more of the carrier ships in various stages of modification waiting in their cradles as fighters were stacked in their storage formations on another side.

Monk stopped his car as he studied the area more. There was another section of the massive space dedicated to experiments and projects. They had everything from side arms and Mecha weaponry to planetary weaponry and space drives in there. Whereas the people in the Free Fleet knew how to repair the systems and even make some of them, most of the Free Fleet didn’t understand the science behind it. The Kuruvians and their natural insatiable curiosity made them great researchers. They pulled apart everything Monk and Felix would let them so they could see how it worked. The people working in this massive space had progressed the Free Fleet and science of all the races by centuries in months.

There were newly built assembly lines that chugged away, drones continuing their work even as their creators were sleeping.

“We learn so much, yet it is in the hope to wage war more effectively,” Monk said sadly as a crate of rail gun canon rounds were picked up and taken by a drone to a magazine that would feed them through the massive weapons of destruction.

Monk arrived at the command tower which hung from the roof. He wandered through the halls to the break room, grabbing a tea as he sat at one of the couches and looked out on the hangar, finding the drones that worked on various projects throughout the area.

Monk had elected to have a divorce from his ‘battle wife’ as most people were calling their forced partners. She was a kind girl, and they elected to stay friends. Monk had found it weird—having a wife that was only ten—but she was someone he could talk to.

Maybe in a few years.
 He smiled sadly to himself. She was with Salchar and his fleet. He knew that Salchar would do everything in his power to keep his people alive, but lives were lost in war. Monk expected that his and the people of Parnmal might add to those lists.

He drank his tea, emotions such as fear and loss flooded though him, but slowly a smile grew across his face.

“Well, it’s been a good run, anyway” he muttered to himself, toasting the galaxy as he sat back, thinking about what he’d accomplished in his life, the people that followed him and the planets the Free Fleet now represented.

He knew Salchar would ravage the Syndicate fleet with whatever he came up with, but the Syndicate had more than four times the force of Salchar’s, and they were all second line ships or ships of the line and in much better repair.

Grim determination filled Monk as he felt resolve filling where there had been confusion. He finished off his tea and walked back to the rail car.

If they want this station, they’re going to have to get through me.
 Monk felt excitement within his body now. He’d already accepted his death, and a man without a care for living was a deadly man indeed.

****

Captain Kelu looked over the ships that the Lady herself had given him command over. His original fleet had increased with his reinforcements, minus the ones from Earth which would be there in two weeks. The Orvunut was as loyal as Kelu to the Lady; once he got a message from her he'd burn his ships up to be there.

Yet, his fleet stood at eight dreadnoughts, twenty one BC’s, forty-five destroyers, the same number of cruisers, and a hundred and sixty-two corvettes. It was the largest fleet assembled since the Syndicate had taken Union space, and Kelu hated it.

“Captain Zestur is again requesting that we stop crawling like Forvud in muck,” the comms officer said tiredly.

Kelu felt sorry for Urlow; he’d been handing all of the comms traffic from the unhappy pirate captains. With so many first line ships, there was a massive problem with chain of command. Sure, Kelu was in charge, and no one would go against the Lady, but that didn’t mean that they wouldn’t question everything he said, especially if it didn’t fit into their fighting tactics—which usually consisted of charging the enemy, and not caring for the casualties.

Captain Kelu would normally be endorsing these kinds of tactics, but that would be against a group of ships, not the biggest station in the sector with enough natural armor to take direct hits from planetary cannons for days. A few of those cannons littered around could take out a dreadnought's shields in a few hits.

So, nice and slow we go,
Kelu thought, the other ships captains filling up space with their annoyed transmissions.

Jorsht had shown smarts and cunning, but he wouldn’t fool Captain Kelu.

Urlow put down his headset, massaging his cranial receptors.

“Captain Eilo now,” he said as he ended his latest complaint.

“Weapons signature!” Sensors yelled.

“Give me-” Kelu didn’t finish uttering orders when Tactical yelled out.

“Weapons firing! Hit on first line ship 
The
 
Destroyer!”

“Direct hit,” Sensors yelled out.

Kelu watched as the first line ships side was cracked, a scar running across the left side and across the engines. Three were out and the ship was venting atmosphere.

They didn’t have their shields up,
 Kelu thought darkly as he realized he didn’t feel anything.

“Tactical, why am I not feeling us returning fire?”

“Captain.” Tactical looked to his station, his face greening like the Blurduz race did when they were embarrassed.

“Gunners, take down that platform!”

“Comms, get me the fleet.”

“You’re on,” Urlow said a second later. 
Damn good pirate,
 Kelu thought.

“Get your shields up! Otherwise, I’ll board you in the name of the Lady and replace you.” His voice filled with cold fury as he did a cutting motion, Urlow cutting the comm.

“We got the weapons platform. It was a short range rail cannon,” Tactical reported.

“Sensors, I need an early warning system for those things. Helm, reverse thrust and coordinate with the rest of the fleet to hold position relative to us.” It took a full ten minutes for the fleet to break and pull back.

Sloppy,
 Kelu thought as he looked at the five ships that belonged to his personal fleet which had braked and come into position within three minutes.

“Sensors.” Kelu drew out the word, making it a threat as sensors shivered.

“They have sensor shielding but there’s a leak for the power generators, we’re isolating momentarily.”

Kelu grunted as he waited another five minutes, feeling his trigger finger twitch with the need to reinstate his command. Sensors stopped their furious flurry of activity.

“Updating plot now,” they said with a relieved breath.

On the main screen, the asteroid field added five more markers, each a red dot with a faint red circle around it.

“Set our range sphere too.” Blue circles overlapped for Kelu’s fleet as he could see his range was more than twice the weapons systems.

“Comms, relay this to the rest of the fleet. Nav, correct our course to bring those weapon systems under fire before we get to them. Correct as needed.” Kelu sighed; their approach was going to take a hell of a lot longer now. They’d need to play cat and mouse with the weapons platforms, and move around asteroids to get a clear line of fire, or waste their fire into a useless rock. All of which would mean using ordinance Kelu hoped to use to crack Parnmal and having shields up all the time which, with the power plants on some of the ships, would be an interesting game of roulette.

And it’s up to me to make sure I don’t have anyone charging in. Patience is a virtue, but I don’t think I’ll be able to hold onto it by the time we get to Parnmal,
 Kelu thought as the fleet continued on at a quarter of the speed that they’d been traveling at.

Chapter It Always Starts Off Slowly

I read the latest reports from Monk. the Syndicate fleet was still at a crawl, still two days from bringing their weapons into range of Parnmal.

In the room, I had all of my staff. Shrift had even dragged Eddie out of his hiding spot. Which he didn’t looked pleased about as he reclined in his seat with his arms crossed, his cowboy hat tilted forward as he chewed on a piece of something that looked like a toothpick.

Rick, In Sook, Ben, Milra, Walf, and Krat were in the room with me and Ship Commanders, Rick, Bok Soo, and Dreckt were holograms.

“Rick, are we ready?”

“We’re mostly there, Eddie?”

“All asteroids are attached and fighters are in place. Though, the ridiculousness of it is beyond anything I’ve ever seen.” He tried to look glum but I could see his eyes sparkle. He was probably just jealous that I had come up with the idea.

“Alright, are we ready on your side?” I gestured with my head to Ben, Milra, Krat, and Walf

They looked grave before Milra spoke. “We’re ready. We’ll be mostly running off Resilient and without her help, we wouldn’t be able to do the translation so quickly. We’ve been running drills for as long as we’ve been able, too. We can jump in our sleep now. We’re as ready as we’re going to get before people start to tire themselves out,” she said. I noticed that she didn't say anything about our likelihood of survival.

“Good work. If we pull this off, it’ll be in a large part due to our wormhole emergence crews across the fleet,” I said soberly, looking in their eyes as they visibly straightened, pride returning some of the energy they’d lost over the two weeks of drills.

“Commander Heston, are your people ready?”

Heston looked to Xing who nodded, his face sour as his lower lip jutted out in a perpetual pout, his tired eyes doing nothing to make him look like a fighter commander.

“As much as they can be. They know that there’s only a slight possibility that they’ll be used in the battle. They’re annoyed that they’ll be sitting back as we watch the battle.” 
As their friends die.
His eyes told me.

“But if we have an opportunity, we’ll take it and smash the bastards.”

“Good.” I looked to them all as I took a breath.

“Forced rest for eight hours. We’ll begin charging our wormhole generators in five. Two hours before, we’ll go to yellow, red at thirty to jump. Questions?” There were none left; they’d all been answered as we’d prepared.

“Alright, dismissed, I’ll see you in twelve hours.” With that, holograms disappeared as Eddie practically rushed out of the room, giving his two finger salute. The rest gave their salutes and I returned them.

“Make sure you get some sleep, as well as your people, you’re going to need it,” I said, seeing each of them agree before I waved them from the room.

Rick and I reclined in our chairs, doing nothing as we looked to the ceiling.

“The things I’d do for a beer,” I said to the ceiling.

“You don’t even drink,” Rick said with a crooked eyebrow.

“It’s the premise,” I scowled.

“Isn’t if you’ve never done it.” My scowl deepened as he grinned.

“Just trying to kill a man’s hopes, eh?”

“Not at all. If you want, I could get Druv to grab us some,” Rick said with a grin as my scowl became a grimace.

Druv and the gunner’s still was infamous throughout the fleet, due to the fact it tasted like gasoline and got you stinking drunk in record time.

“I think I’ll pass. I thought someone would’ve gotten some good tasting alcohol from Earth at least.”

“Well...”

“Rick?” I drew out his name as if he’d better tell me what was on his mind.

“Ah, it’s nothing. You should get some sleep,” he said, a sparkle in his eye and a grin on his face that made me think it wasn't nothing.

“Alright, I’ll go first then you,” I said, knowing that he wouldn't accept himself sleeping first, plus, I wanted him to have as much time with Marleen in peace as possible.
And they say chivalry is dead,
I thought as I walked into my empty quarters. I got under the sheets, missing Yasu as I took a detox to remove any Wake Up or anything that could cloud my judgment.

I wonder when the last time was I slept when I didn’t just detox,
 I thought as darkness took over.

***

 Rick was still on the bridge when I came back, wearing my Mecha.

“Git.” I pointed to the door with my thumb as he grinned tiredly.

“Yes, Commander,” he said with a rolling flourish of his hand as if bowing to nobility. I snorted in response as I looked around the bridge and he and Marleen wandered out, hand in hand. The bridge had rotated to the second crew, which was keeping everything running.

I sat in my chair, which came alive with screens and information. My right armrest showed the formation of the Free Fleet and the timer which slowly crawled to wormhole generator start up.

I turned to the minutiae of the fleet, burying myself in the work that the whole damned thing needed.

“Initiating wormhole generator power up,” Helm said, breaking me out of my work. A hum started through the ship as power was fed to the wormhole generators. With the noise and feeling, it was as if Resilient was just waiting to strike.