From Furies Forged (Free Fleet Book 5) (3 page)

              "The Fleet's growing faster than ever,” Boot said, as if reading her thoughts as they looked out on the holographically projected wall, seeing their combined fleets. 

              "Yes, but still not fast enough,” Cheerleader said, turning to face her friend.

              "The Kalu have had time and numbers on their side,” Boot said.

              "While we've had never ending battles,” Cheerleader growled.

              Boot gave an emphatic sigh.

              "Well we're stronger than we've ever been before,” he said, pointedly looking at the part of the screen that showed the tactical overlay of the system. They both commanded nearly a hundred ships a piece. Not including the shuttles, MEF's, bombers and Jump ships which were busy moving between ships or doing training exercises.

              "That is true. It’s hard to think that we had less than twenty ships when this whole thing started off,” Cheerleader remarked.

              "Yeah and all of them were barely damned well working after their time with the Syndicate,” Boot growled. He'd done more time in engineering than most commanders. When you have a ship that’s running like crap, having the Ship Commander down in the guts of the ship instead of looking pretty on the bridge was the way it should be. 

              "Though that's not even an advantage.” Cheerleader took a sip from her water tube, frustrated with the whole thing. 

              "Our people our are advantage,” Boot said, looking to her.

              "I'm happy that Salchar made sure people wouldn’t be cutting corners just to get more bodies in the Fleet,” she said by way of agreement.

              Training varied from four months up to a full year. Thankfully the tiered process of joining the Free Fleet meant that people already trained with using a space suit didn't need to go through it again. If someone was proficient with something, then they jumped through courses. It cut down on overall training and got to working on the things they really needed to know. When they got to their ships their own commanders and leaders would only add to the solid base the trainers had established. There were old and veteran hands throughout the fleet. With every battle those veterans grew in number and understood how vital their lessons had been.

              "I heard that the first of the Fleet's kids are going to be completing training soon,” Cheerleader said, she had been managing the integration of fourteen ships, into the fleet. While getting her command staff sorted out on the Mondal and getting to know the ship as well as she had her last command.

              “Yeah, there's about five regiments finishing their training down The Corridor,” he said referring to the region from Parnmal through AIH and Chaleel to Earth. “It’s going to be one hell of a learning curve for them,” Boot's voice sober, his eyes distant.

             
Makes sense, they're going to be replacing the dead and wounded of Heija.
Cheerleader's eyes saw the images and videos that had come back from Heija, the ones that the Fleet hadn't revealed to news outlets.

              Hell looked like a paradise compared to what that rear-guard had gone through to gain Salchar the time to come up with a plan, and move reinforcements to the planet. It had been only possible to carry out his plan by tricking Edvasho into confronting Lifendi and Lady Fairgate at Rosho station.

             
If Min Hae hadn't come up with that plan with Ashota's help. The war would be looking a hell of a lot different.
A shiver ran down her back.

              Salchar and the ships that were already on their way back to Parnmal were battered and torn apart. A number of them would need time in Parnmal's docks before they were able to rejoin the fight.

              Cheerleader wished that those repairs would take some time, giving those veterans the time they needed to recover from their losses and inner pain.

              Salchar had recruited a ton of psychologists from Earth and their equivalent from every race under his command. They were going to have their hands full.

Chapter Safe

              “Vort, tell Commander Zrit to cut her engines and drift. I don't like the reports coming from her, contact the tugs to bring her to the dock and shuttles to transfer her crew,” I said.

              “Commander,” Vort said, getting to work.

              I looked over the main screen, looking at the thousands of lights which came from Parnmal, the massive freighter traffic that plied the trade routes along the corridor to Worshun, stopping at the Kuruvian Empire.

              We had entered the system a day ago, our ships showed the signs of heavy fighting. Armor was blackened and scarred where Kalu lasers had carved into them. Missiles had ripped sections of ships apart. Ejected power plants showed in our engine signatures as we were traveling as fast as the freighters in the system.

              I shifted in my armor, the odd nothingness still pervading my lower body. I had been hit while leaving Heija, instead of staying in my bed and waiting for my turn in a medical chair I had donned my powered armor and gone back to work.

              I wasn't the only one. None of the Commandos that had gone down to Heija hadn't been injured in some way. There were a number of people moving around with phantom limbs inside their powered armor. The neural ports in our central nervous system, or whatever passed for one, meant that while we didn't have limbs, or nerve connections to certain areas. Our powered armor still read our nerves impulses and moved our limbs accordingly.

              I had been a gamer before all of this, I had plotted out games, gone through hours of video to work out the weaknesses of my opponents and capitalize on them. The games had turned real a long time ago. I made a choice to do my damndest to get out from under the clutches of the Syndicate. We had fought them for years, rushing from one monumental battle to another.

              I had been betrayed, nearly killed, well multiple times and somehow remained in command of the Free Fleet. At first I had been hesitant to take command, scared that I would get more people killed than someone else in my position.

              The pain of those losses kept me in the seat that I found my ass firmly planted in. I couldn't leave the fleet to someone else that might not care as much as me, or someone that thought in terms of planetary militaries.

              Memories tugged at the corners of my brain. I gently pushed them down.

             
Soon, soon.
I thought, as if bartering with those that had gone into the light.

              I needed time to decompress, time to think and let the weight of control peel from my shoulders if just for a week.

              My world had changed, and it hadn't. Yasu was pregnant, making me an expectant father, as well as the commander of the Free Fleet. I didn't know which was scarier at this point.

             
Having Yasu in a damned Combat Ready Commando unit probably.
I thought, biting back my anger. I knew that Yasu would carry out her job as commander of her ship Floater. Ship Commander Frex was supposed to replace her, returning her to her position as commander of Floater's commando detail.

              While it always scared me when she went into combat, it scared me when any of my people went into combat. I knew that they were doing what they had to do, just as I was bartering their possible lives against the lives of those we protected.

              Now my illogical human brain was making me an idiot, I understood her position and her responsibilities, but another part of me wanted to push her as far from the front lines as possible.

              A fond smile grew on my face.

             
If there's anyone that can tell you were to shove it with a look and a few cold words, it’s Yasu.
I shook my head, clinging to that moment of levity. Those moments were rare. At one time I would have thought it impossible to have those thoughts. I had been James Cook nickname Salchar of Mecha Tail and she had been Yasu Ono Blade Mistress of Samurai's Revenge, and my nemesis.

              “The new personnel are ready to begin boarding as soon as we get into dock,” Rick said from his seat beside me. We had been in the same squad since we were abducted from Earth. He had always been a steady hand to keep me on task, and knock some sense back into me at times.

              “Good, I want them situated as soon as possible. Rotating watches so that everyone gets time off. They've damned well-earned it,” my voice daring anyone to try and cut my people's down time.

              “Sorted,” Rick say's, his eyes telling me that anyone that did wouldn't make it past him, let alone me.

              “We're getting a number of freighters moving towards us,” Walf says sounding almost bored in his position as sensors commander.

              Its sometimes odd hearing the command staff's voices when we aren't in combat. When the shit really hits the fan the bridge turns into a hive of informative shouts from different commanders as controllers work their stations, fight the ship and act as a pipeline from Resilient to the rest of the Fleet.

              “Vort, check that Monk keeps them off of us,” I said, my tone relaxed even as I feel my tension rising. I didn't like having ships other than Free Fleet warships around me. If it came to action, it would be hell to defend them
and
fight a battle.

              Vort raises a thumb, talking into his headset. I nod in understanding. No one even bats an eyelid at the exchange, a military on Earth and the Admiral, general or whoever would probably have ripped Vort a new one. Here pompous rhetoric was replaced with action. Do it right and do it fast, damn if it hurts someone’s feelings when it could keep them alive.

              I looked to the blast doors and see Marleen, Rick's wife and one of six people left alive from my initial squad, including Yasu and Rick.

              She tapped two fingers to her head as she strolled for her station. I repeated the gesture back to her.

              “How we looking?” I ask.

              “We're going to need to pull at least fifteen cannons, the others can be replaced. The armor is better than I thought it would be. That ablative shell did its work. Going to need to replace that as well. Got fifteen missile tubes blocked. The yard can pull the armor plates and have them swapped out in short order. The rest is in Eddie's domain,” she said, taking her seat at Tactical and facing me.

              “He's still finishing his report, but we're looking pretty good,” Rick said from beside me, something in his voice making me turn to him. “The other ships are going to need more work and you know how Eddie is about slackers,” he said with a brief smile.

              “If you and Eddie can work out a schedule,” I shrugged, leaving it under his purview.

              “I'll see what I can do,” Rick nodded.

              I turned back to the main screen, seeing that we had another four hours until we made it to Parnmal's docks.

              “I'm going to go for a walk,” I stood, Shreesht rising with me. He was one of my two-Avarian protection detail.

              Krom, the second half of that detail was getting his wounds seen to. He'd have his two arms and legs back before we made it to Parnmal.

              It had taken a direct order from me to see that he got the treatment done.

              Even then he looked like he was going to go against it, until Yasu had a very pointed and quiet conversation with him.

              While I was a decent fighter, Yasu was one of the best in the fleet. She had put more Avarians down than any other. Something that my particular 'clan' back on AIH seemed to brag about quite a bit.

              “Have fun,” Rick said, waving me goodbye, not looking up from his work as I headed for the blast doors.

              “I hear that the mess has some Kimchi rolls and ice cream today,” Shreesht said in a contemplating sort of voice.

              “You are really bad at hints,” I murmured back, seeing the entertained giant behind me.

              Avarians were genetically enhanced creatures from the planet Avar Interim Hermanti, or AIH. Planner an AI had played with their DNA to give them a chance to do something more than just hide in their caves, he provided teachings so that they wouldn’t turn into another Kalu-like race.

              Shreesht was one of the bigger specimens standing at around nine-foot-tall with vertically slit eyes and mottled black skin which made him all but invisible on AIH's ground.

              I'd helped AIH out, and been given command of the city-state Asul. Avarians were damned capable warriors and a large number of them had joined the ranks of the Commandos, and other stations throughout the fleet.

              Oh, and Krom, the one protecting my life, had been the closest to killing me outright. In a fight we had gone toe to toe and he'd nearly scrambled my brains. I went through a process called awakening, making me have the same odd eyes and a lighter color of the Avarian mottled skin. Thankfully, my long flowing locks hadn't disappeared. Unlike the bald Avarians.