From Furies Forged (Free Fleet Book 5) (19 page)

              Weapons that had been stockpiled for ships were quickly getting put online.

              Hic Stamus had been built from the beginning to be a damned citadel against anything that ran into it and dished out pain with every movement.

              She was shaped like a hexagon that had its sides, top and bottom pushed in. Her rear was flat with engines, her front pushed out to a blunted snout.

              Hangar doors lined her sides, batteries were raised away from the bays but weren’t level with the larger surrounding armor.

              Planetary Rail Cannons ran along her spine and belly. Laser cannon positions dotted the armor being placed on the raised sections. Railguns and PDS were being put into place with the armor closing around them and growing outwards to cover the rest of the ship.

              Twelve massive reactors hummed beneath her armor, eighteen secondary reactors were coming online and thirty-six tertiaries would be online before she left the yard.

              She would hold a crew of Forty-thousand, she’d hold five wings of Jump fighters, Eight Multi-Environment Fighter wings and four bomber wings bringing her to eighty-five small craft. She had another three wings of shuttles. Her cannons and weapon systems would be hellish, but her single greatest advantage lay with the massive capacitors that ran down the length of the ship.

              The pilots took us on a long route around the slip, seeing the massive ship as it swelled to encompass our view. The super-carrier was nearly three times the size of Resilient.

              The laser cannons were bigger than planetary cannons but there were still five of them on every raised section of the hull, Dreadnought classed cannons littered the surface, hard to pick out against the open hull.

              The pilots aimed for a hangar bay.

              “Hello Commander,” Resilient said through the shuttle’s speakers.

              “Hey Resilient, you’re looking rather impressive if I might say.”

              “I’m feeling rather impressive. Eddie has been able to get me the newer processing centers and systems I’ve been wanting for a while. I’ll be able to do a lot more here on Hic Stamus than I was able to on Resilient,” she replied.

              “I have to ask, did you name the ship after yourself, or did you take on its moniker?” I asked.

              “I took it on as I got myself roped into Syndicate service. It was a promise to those that I knew before the fall of the Union. A promise that no matter what happened, I would hold on against the odds and I would find a way to bring honor to the memories of those lost.” Resilient didn’t like talking about the times before the collapse of the Union, she had lost a good number of people that she cared about. It showed in her voice that became faraway and sad as she talked.

              Some might argue that because she was an AI that she was just faking the emotion.

              The truth was that she could easily hide those emotions if she wanted to. Much better than someone of organics.

              Showing those emotions was a show of trust in those around her.

              “And so you have. The Union has come into existence once again. Ten systems are already part of the Union and more will join,” I said as the shuttle entered the hangar and I moved back to the cargo bay, pulling my helmet on.

              “Yes, though it seems that the good of the Union has come with the enemies that they had as well as new ones that do not believe in it as others do,” Resilient said.

              “Yes, there will always be forces at work which try and push us away from the path we choose. We must, as you have, remain Resilient against the temptation to give in.” The shuttle settled onto its landing pad. Lights indicated that people should be wearing their helmets and sealed up in their suits.

              The cargo master checked us over with a glance before pumping atmosphere out of the shuttle.

              “Yes, yes we must,” she said, sounding as if she gathered strength from the words that had made my eyes sharper and my face harder.

              Seeing as no one had passed out from the shuttle not having atmosphere the cargo master opened the ramps. Shreesht went first, I followed, Krom coming behind.

              Felix, Silly and Eddie waited at the bottom of the ramp.

              My thoughts of what was coming and the trials we had gone through fell away as I grinned at the three of them.

              I ignored Felix’s salute and brought him into a hug.

              “Good work their Felix,” I said as we came apart, holding him at arm’s length and looking into his eyes through our visors.

              “Thank your sir,” he said looking away, embarrassed by the praise and the memories still too fresh to not see those that weren’t with us anymore.

              I patted his shoulder, understanding at least some of what might be going through his mind in those moments.

              “Alright Eddie how are we looking?” I asked the Kuruvian. Nancy might have been under Silly’s control until recently, but it was clear that no matter who owned the yard. Eddie was clearly in charge of Hic Stamus’ headlong charge towards completion.

              “Most of her primary systems are completed, running them through tests. Secondary systems should be sorted in two weeks, closing up the armor and getting everything else sorted is going to take another month,” Eddie said firmly.

              “How soon can we get her out of dock and move her to Parnmal?” I asked.

              “Three weeks, we can get some stuff done while in flight but Silly, Felix, Shrift and I have a proposal for you,” Eddie said, turning to Silly.

              “We should retro fit more of the ships so that they are capable of multiple-jumps. The upgrade would allow you to hit with a larger force right where they don’t want you to be and it would only mean putting in more power plants and capacitors. Take out some ammunition capacity say, but the tactical advantage might be worth it,” Silly said.

              “What ships were you thinking of doing this to?” I asked, he had a point and I had just thought that it might not be possible to add the capability to ships already in service.

              While it had passed through my brain, it had stuck in my engineers and if they could get it to work, then I would be hard pressed to not try and give the capability to every ship that I commanded.

              “Well that was something that we want your and Rick’s input on,” Silly said.

              “Seeing as he has just reached Earth a tour might be a better idea for right now,” Eddie said, he might act like an ornery old bastard, but he had a heart in there somewhere, it was probably one of the reasons that he had ordered my ass over to the ship.

             
No mere Commander of the Free Fleet should ever think about denying his ships engineer his time!

              “Very well, Rick has everything in hand. We can work on thinning down what ships might be best for the upgrade. That way he’s not just wading through heaps of information when we do drop this surprise on his desk,” I said with a weak smile.

              “Well that’s what subordinates are for!” Silly said with an attempt at humor, getting a smile more in thanks at the attempt rather than the words from Felix and myself.

              “I also want to know about that laser cannon. I’ve been looking over your reports, but they didn’t tell me that you were in the zetawatt range! Or just what the hell a zetawatt could do. Would it be possible to expand the beam over a larger area or get one cannon to disperse the shot more?”

              “Come on, we’ll walk and talk. It takes a few minutes to get to the forward batteries even with the turbo-lifts,” Eddie said, moving ahead and forcing us to follow.

              “It could be possible to disperse the shot more. It would make it weaker over a larger area of course, and the weapon would need less time to cool down as the system used to focus the beam wouldn’t be taxed to such a degree,” Felix started as we walked.

              “It might actually make more sense when going up against say a swarm of Kalu fighters,” Silly put in.

              “It’ll make the job of gunner a bit harder as they will have to adjust their aperture on the fly, but it is completely possible,” Felix surmised.

              “I think our gunners will be fine in handling a little more difficulty,” I said with a grin, knowing that my Gunnery chiefs Zor and Brusk who were already having rabbits over their new tech would be delighted with having the ability to change their cone of fire for maximum effect.

              “Sally!” Eddie said a boot going flying and hitting a girl talking to a Commando in the rump. “Do that chit-chat in the mess and get yer butt back to putting those secondary power relays in place missy!” Eddie said, his boot coming flying back to his hand.

              “Yes Chief!” The chastised Engineer said, running off while Eddie waved his boot at any of the engineers that were looking at the latest boot-victim. Eyes quickly looked back to their work with Eddie’s implied threat. Satisfied he’s made his point he put the boot back on and continued walking.

              “Having many issues with the build?” I asked generally.

              “A few, but we’ll have them sorted out before she leaves my… Nancy’s slip,” Silly said. He was still taking in the fact that he would be moving to the Destroyer base shortly.

              He had been on Nancy since he’d finished his basic training. He’d seen her in Syndicate control. Then he’d been allowed to do whatever he wanted to do. Instead of leaving Nancy behind he’d poured all of his efforts into growing her, improving her practices and making her one of the most productive shipyards in all of recorded history.

              He had also become a very rich man as the Free Merchant Fleet had traded off his practices to other yards, gathering royalties for their use.

              “I expect nothing less from you and your people. I’m sure I’m going to be surprised with the things that you come up with for the Destroyer yard,” I said with a smile.

              Silly’s manipulators showed his embarrassment as we walked through Hic Stamus’ corridors.

              “Well these are bigger than I expected,” I said, admiring the size of the corridors.

              “They’re made to comfortably fit Dovarks and awakened Avarians running in full power armor,” Felix said.

              “Had enough damned repairs from one or another of them putting their head through the damned ceiling,” Eddie said darkly.

              The image that conjured made me chuckle.

                                                                      ***

              Bok Soo watched as shuttles headed down towards Earth. Entire wings headed to various locations across the planet. Some of the fleet had split off to go to the Moon.

              They weren’t just making sure that their people were okay and seeing if they and their families wanted to be given a ride to Parnmal or one of the other Union systems. They were taking back the technology they had given to different nations to try and accelerate their growth.

              Armed Commandos dropped onto campuses, marching through universities and collecting their tech which was being studied or part of an experiment. Scientists decried them as brutes and yelled obscenities. Bok Soo’s people tuned them out and continued with their mission.

              Four hundred thousand Commandos had dropped to Earth. The units already on Earth, another three hundred thousand were activated, working to assist their fellow Free Fleet personnel.

              “Sir we have a prison that is unwilling to release our people,” Ronda one of Bok Soo’s brigade commanders said.

              “Very well,” Bok Soo said, gaining time for him to look over the information that Ronda had sent to him. “I’m coming down.”

              “Yes sir.”

              It didn’t take him more than ten minutes to get to his shuttle and headed down towards Earth with a wing of MEF’s flying around his transport.

              The ride down to China where the free fleet personnel were being held was quick.

              Bok Soo was wrapped up in looking over the various streams of information that populated his HUD and his data pad when the shuttle came to rest on its struts.

              “CAMC?” The cargo master asked as Bok Soo didn’t move for a few minutes.

              “Ah yes, looks like we’ve arrived,” Bok Soo said after a moment, realizing they weren’t moving.

              He opened his harness, two sections provided his security detail as he walked out into a large open area around what looked like drab apartment buildings with bars across their windows and a fence surrounding them.

              Brigade Commander Ronda walked over to Bok Soo, the protection detail moving out of her way.

              “It looks like the prison governor has received orders to not let any of the prisoners go,” Ronda said.