Coming Home (Free Fleet Book 2) (44 page)

“You poor darling,” He crooned as his wrench touched the shield generators housing, pulling it apart down the layers of hardware, opening in levels as he got to work.

***

Resilient still rocked from hits as I realized we were past the Syndicate fleet, but I couldn't believe it.

“Give them our bow,” I said. Milra flipped the ship as Rick looked like a crazed man working his station.

A final hit got our side as sparks came from a panel, flames erupting from it.

“Contain that fire, Shreesht!” I barked.

“Get me ship reports as soon as possible, Rick.”

“Commander.” He didn't even look away from his work.

We had pounded the Syndicate ships, crippling most of their battle cruisers thrusters, forcing them to slow down. The dreadnought was also listing badly and without communications. Our formation and coordination had saved us crippling losses, but we were four corvettes, a cruiser, and a BC lighter, with my other two BC's heavily injured.  None of my ships were ready for another fight like the one we just had in the slightest.

The Syndicate had sixty-five ships still in fighting condition and then the planetary cannons, which had stopped for our passing, started again as the Syndicate had to continue to brake, their inertia making them follow us.

I kept on eye on the plot as Monk appeared on my main screen.
Just as I was about to contact you.

“Well, you've hurt them worse than I ever thought possible. Teach me to doubt you,”
he said, inclining his head as I grinned.

“But I'm not done yet.”

Monk let out a rare grin.

“Cut firing,” I continued as Monk yelled to his people and the cannons went silent.

“Always more surprises with you,” he said, clearly watching his own system plot.

Chapter To Quote a Good One: I Love It When a Plan Comes Together

“Take this, you bastards,” I said as a wire cone passed over the Syndicate forces. I activated my comm, connecting to Heston.

“Bring the pain, Commander.”

“With pleasure, sir,” he said and he cut the channel.

***

Heston activated his comm to every fighter commander.

“Get me some dreadnought's,” he said as fighters who had been drifting behind the fleet dropped off after the second wormhole transition lit their drives, right amongst the Syndicate fleet in disarray.

The fighters fired their missiles at point blank range, following them up with their external railguns and high-wattage lasers..

Now, the interesting thing about shields is they do great with direct energy, such as light energy and plasma. They don’t like kinetic energy, or nuclear as much, especially when that kinetic and nuclear energy is from multiple directions so shields have little time to compensate. Shield generators overloaded from the bombardment, letting the slower rounds in. Then the lasers were on the naked hulls of the ships. Now, what happens with shields and lasers, well, it’s not the same with lasers, especially at high enough wattage.

Lasers cut through like, well, lasers, bulkheads, armor, plasmid, living, the lasers didn’t care as they cut deeper.

 The initial slugs had been fired on a point and hit something, kind of like a shotgun in a space battle which could be over in seconds, like this one had. You shoot first and ask questions later.

The battle cruisers had taken the hit on the nose, their ships and crew rolling from the massive damage. They were stunned and massively damaged, taken out of the fight, bleeding atom, and with catastrophic power surges from the lasers catching power circuits. Power cores spat out of them, adding more into the fray. Cores exploded when they collided with the corvettes, vaporizing two of them. The destroyers and cruisers, missing their corvette cover around them, fought with their PD, trying to deal with the power cores as they ran into the later shots from the fighters and their lasers. But the corvettes were the ships that held all of the PDS.

They didn’t fare as well, ships being ripped apart due to colossal power failures.

***

Eddie was tempted to jump as his HUD cut to what Resilient deemed vital information.

“Commander Salchar, I take back everything I’ve ever said, you genius of a man!” Eddie whooped as he watched the end of the battle through his data pad and he and Shrift replace a shield heat sink.

Shrift grinned as he leaned against the wall, a tired smile on his face from having replaced heavy duty power relays.

“Maybe I should tell him that,” he said as he slowed his breathing down.

Eddie growled.

“You're becoming a slacker with your new jobs,” Eddie said as he tucked the data pad away, Shrift following him with a grin as the Syndicate forces moved to safer ground out of reach from the PRC's massive rounds.

***

“Alright now, lets get everyone sorted out. I want ships statuses as well as repairs needed as fast as possible. Don’t think of this as the end of this battle. We still have lots to do. Main priority is guns and shields. They can accelerate for us at any time,” I said as Resilient was, thankfully, corralling the information I needed first.

God, it's great having an AI,
I thought.

“Medical bay is at capacity and requesting more medics,” Vort said.

“Rick.”

“On it.”

I watched as my well drilled team barked orders. I watched the main screens, loaded with the two separate fleets. My own screen showed wounded being loaded and shipped out to Hachiro as well as preliminary reports from every ship’s chief engineer. Earth might call me some jumped up little shit with too much power, and hell, I kind of was, but I was also a man looking out for me and mine. I had changed from the gaming legend to a man that would make the hard choices, have sleepless nights with the regrets, and tell the universe into which black hole they could shove it.

Chapter Aftermath

Captain Kelu looked at his plot as his fleet retreated to safety. A bandage encircled his head and arm and his bridge was a sea of sparks and emergency lighting.

Who the hell is that?
he kept on thinking as he looked over the enemy fleets tactics, their timing and efficiency.
Their ability to follow damned orders.
He grumbled; he'd lost at least half of his ships because their captains were too damned stubborn.

“Someone, deal with those damned fires!” Kelu snapped, his hand alarmingly close to his pistol as someone rushed to do so.

“We've taken out the planetary cannons,” Pleuck, a replacement for the previous tactical commander, said. His predecessor had been thrown into a piece of debris, piercing his liquid cleansing organ, making his death painful and offensive to every odor sensing organ on the bridge.

Kelu shifted his eyes to the casualty lists, his fist trembling slightly as it wished to use his holstered pistol. The bridge was quiet, nursing their own wounds, in shock or angry and, above all, not wanting to piss off their infamous commander and his quick draw.

The enemy had whittled Kelu down to three dreadnought's, nine battle cruisers, sixteen destroyers, fourteen cruisers and thirty-one corvettes.
Nearly a fifth of our original strength,
he thought as he saw the footage of the fighters replay.

He snarled, causing more than one person to double their efforts to look busy.

Kelu had seen the Lady's carriers used exactly twice and their crews had made him respect the smallest of ships.

Yet, while the Lady's fighters had been vicious with their attacks on those that had crossed her, these were like a cold instrument. They never fought as one. They always fought in groups, giving one another cover and making it so that they hit in barrages, not allowing shields to have time to recharge before their next hit.

The lay's fighters had only done that because there had been so many of them.

“Urlow.” His quiet voice belayed the dark feelings the man that spoke the words was having.

“Open a channel to that dreadnought.” He highlighted the dreadnaught in question as Urlow worked on it.

It was a few minutes later when Welick appeared. Captain Kelu had memorized every ship commander of a ship that could do some actual damage. A creature in charge of a Man 'o War Dreadnought was someone that definitely warranted his attention.

Something's not right though,
he thought as he looked at the scans of the dreadnought against those in his database.

I thought so,
he thought. The Golden Refuge showed that it had been fixed up, and not in a minor way either, it had new armor plating as well as weapons.

“Come to accept terms of trade? As you can see, Jorsht is not without support.” Welick said as Kelu studied him intently.

“Who are you?”

Welick raised himself up in anger, his breathing flaps fluttering. “You dare ask who I am!” he said before relaxing. “It makes sense that the Lady Fairgate's dogs would not know anything of us.” Welick snorted.

Kelu studied the creature in front of him.
These are not the actions of a few disgruntled captains; it's by an organized force. Plus, Welick would never add weapons to his ship, due to their cost.

“You're not Welick,” Kelu said with growing confidence.

“I'm done with this slander,” Welick said with an imperious wave, the channel ending.

“I want to know who the heck is in charge over there,” Kelu said as he stared at his screen.

“Urlow, have a corvette return to the Lady, request reinforcements,” he said as the bridge crew looked to Kelu.

No one requested more reinforcements when the Lady had given them forces. It was paramount to signing one's own death warrant.

“Sensors, match the second dreadnought,” Kelu said, feeling more confident with his request. The sensor officer came back a few minutes later.

“It's Orvunut's dreadnought,” she said, sounding stunned.

“Urlow, also inform the corvette crew that Orvunut and his fleet have been defeated.” Kelu sat in his chair as he rested his odor sensing cavities on his hands, his hooded eyes looking at the fleet around Parnmal.

I'll find out who you are and crush you,
he thought. Embarrassment and shame fueled his anger as Captain Kelu retreated for the first time ever.

***

I tried not to sigh as the enemy fleet didn't make to follow us. My people were beat from having to travel all the way from Earth at full speed and then fight what was one of the most nerve wracking battles I'd been in yet. Making a wormhole in-system was idiotic in the extreme, but it had given the Free Fleet the advantage they'd needed to smash into the Syndicate forces. We were now nearly out of ammunition on all weapons systems.

Parnmal could've covered us if the Syndicate decided to follow us, but the ships would've been largely useless.

“Lining up main airlocks,” Milra said, her voice tense as she used the manual controls at their station instead of the array of dials, switches, and buttons usually used.

“Airlocks are magnetizing... and we have a solid connection.” Milra hid her sigh as secondary airlocks extended from Parnmal and Resilient.

Ammunition, stores, and fuel began transferring from the station, the rest of the fleet in different states of docking. Forsut was still a day out from Parnmal with its circuitous route.

Mentr had made it to the station and was about to begin it's docking. There were three ships and their crew who would never make it to Parnmal, however.

I reflected on that as I stood, my Mecha seeming heavier as I walked through the ship without seeing it.

When does it end?
I asked myself the same question after every battle as I looked up to find myself leaving Resilient, so lost in grief I'd blocked out my walk.

I stopped my grieving for now as I knew that to keep my people alive I had to focus on other things. It wasn't fair to those that had given their everything, but it was what I had to do.

Monk met me as I came off of Resilient.

“Brother,” he said as I nodded to him.

“Now the siege of Parnmal begins,” I said grimly.

“Indeed.” I don't know how one would explain the perfect calm he portrayed, yet the fury that waited, ready to be used only when necessary. He was a man truly at peace and truly deadly.

“Rick, prepare the fleet to leave,” I said into my comms as I thumped into the heart of Parnmal.

Resources that had been taken from Earth's miners funneled into Parnmal. We'd need the supplies.

“On it already, James.” His voice was like stone. I'd finally laid my plans out in AIH and none of the ship commanders had liked it, but they had all accepted it, a few saying “Salchar's rules.” which was met with knowing nods.

That's right I'll meet the bastards on my terms, not theirs. Then I'll exact a Free Fleet price for those lost.