Free Fleet Box Set 1

by Michael Chatfield

  “It puts them out of combat for a half minute in most cases.”

  “Ah, indeed,” he said, not fully understanding my vision of troops dropping to the ground, combat ineffective because they’d cut their arm on some loose padding.

  “I think then that it should only be used if the person will die immediately or they’re in a situation where using it won’t be a possible factor in them dying because they’re so distracted.”

  “A valid point—I can see what you’re saying. I think, however, we should start getting a blueprint together.”

  “Of course.”

  Shrift and I worked. People came by the armories, nodding to me as they caught my eye. I don’t know how long it took for everyone to go through the armories and find out where their exact Mecha was, located down to rack and associated number. I felt as if someone had added to my instruction but, seeing the added effect of them knowing exactly where their Mecha was, I was fine with the additional order.

  However, it bore later thought as I’d need to find out who was adding to my orders and see what their angle was.

  Somehow, my brain turned to Rick as I remembered the thing he’d transferred to my pad. I pulled it out and opened its tab.

  Hello, Rick? I wrote. I put it back in my pouch, waiting for a reply. I got one a few minutes later.

  What’s up, boss? he asked.

  We need to come up with a way to organize all of these people.

  I had an idea for that. He paused before a download appeared.

  There was a table of organization with my name at the top without a title and then branching off boxes, which were empty. There was a side bar with forums, jobs, and training.

  I was wondering when you would ask.

  Walk me through it.

  So, everyone makes a profile, filling out these fields. Then those people who have been squad leaders, leaders of teams and such put that in here. Then you choose who is best for what positions.

  Why me?

  Because you are the boss, he replied.

  I shook my head at the pad, changing back to the page with the table of organization and pointed below my name.

  Remember when you said you wanted to be a Sub-commander?

  I grinned. I was hoping you’d forget. My grin grew as I continued on. Now—training?

  You’ll see there’s a tab. We can make a schedule so that no one starts degrading. Plus, we can start moving onto developing other skills, or more advanced stuff. Most don’t know how to handle a weapon or how to position themselves in a firefight. They know the overall tactics of fighting in space, and how to take an entrenched position. Yet there’s no focus on how to think for themselves. We’re small, which means we need to know everything.

  Makes sense to me. You figure out who gets what positions. I saw Henry getting on a shuttle bound for the Golden Refuge so I’ll rope him into doing training.

  Henry?

  The leader of the first group we fought.

  Ah yes, the Marine.

  Indeed. I’ll get someone to track him down. As for jobs, well, Shrift and I have a doozy. I wrote down a basic outline for someone to make an auto-injector battle suit.

  Now get that thing out to everyone. Enforce three days’ rest, however. Everyone needs some time to decompress. Could you make a forum where people could just talk? Maybe make clubs?

  Yeah, it’d take a bit of work.

  Well, you do have that jobs tab. Now go and get everyone registered on the thing. And enjoy walking around and looking out at space.

  Sounds like a plan to me.

  To the next few people who entered the armory, I explained the new data pad tabs and uploaded it to them. They passed it off to everyone, quickly connecting the ship as Rick organized them by teams into squads, platoons, and companies.

  Shrift and I spent a few days working. We dug into his stash of ration bars when we relaxed, napping ever so often. After everyone had become acquainted with their Mechas, a few started to come in randomly, seeing what Shrift and I were up to. During our building, Henry came by. I was going to wait another day before finding him and seeing what he thought about training; it seemed he had beaten me to it.

  “Sir,” he said in a gruff tone.

  I was behind a Mecha; I glanced from behind it. “Henry! One second.” I put the compressed synthetic oil back into its housing. Damned thing had felt like giving me a shower. I got out from behind the Mecha. “How are the others?”

  “They’re okay; most are trying to see if they can find anyone they know.” He looked as if he was not sure if he should be at attention or at ease.

  We had looked at logs from previous fights. The personnel crew gave orders at the last minute unless there was a big undertaking, which was rare. The rest of the time, the Mechas were on their own time. “Will you relax?” I admonished as I wiped my hand on my suit, grabbing my pad from my back as I got to the table.

  “Sir.”

  “You’re not going to stop that, are you?” I quirked an eyebrow.

  “No, sir.”

  I swear I could see a glimpse of a smile on his face as I saw his eyes dart to my Mecha in question.

  “An automated injector system for the Hellfire.”

  “Ouch.” Henry winced.

  “Yeah, but it’ll keep you alive. We wanted to put it in the battle suits, but for now that’s beyond us.”

  He nodded simply.

  I studied Henry closer. “I heard you were in the Marines?”

  He stiffened before he answered. “Yes?”

  “I was talking to Shrift and he says he can get us weapons with empty mags and no capacitors. I was thinking of starting some training. Fire arms training.”

  He glanced upward in thought. “Yeah, I agree. It bothers me how little we know about these weapons even when they’re so deadly. One wrong move and we’re going to have a blue on blue very easily,” Henry said.

  “Need more practice.” I sighed.

  “I couldn’t agree more.” He nodded as I made a change on my data pad.

  “How many years in the Marines?” I asked.

  “Three years.”

  “Position?”

  “Rifleman.”

  “What did you do?” I tilted my head to see him better.

  “Two tours, Iraq and Afghanistan.” He looked ahead, the words holding special weight to them in his eyes.

  “Why do you listen to what I say? I’m two years younger than you and a video game player.” I looked straight at him. “No bullshit.”

  “You did what no one else did—you stuck up for your squad even though they were strangers. You helped to keep us human and not become animals. I had no hope before I saw you. I had just got back from tour and now I’m being trained to go fight for the rest of my life for a group I don’t even care about. Then you stood up and all you wanted was a fair fight. I saw you standing there—small, skinny, and with people you didn’t trust behind you—and I saw your drive. Plus, what does age matter here anyway? I’m married to a twelve-year-old and there are nine-year-olds who could kick my ass! I saw that you were not a person to fight unless you had to. You didn’t throw your weight around; you acted in a calculated manner. I doubt you saw many of my squad as you were looking over your own. I’ve talked to Rick and Marleen. Both of them would follow you into the gates of hell. That takes a lot.” He looked at me.

  I could see him half-judging me. “Uh, well, thank you,” I said, feeling quite awkward. He said nothing as I cleared my throat. “What do you think would be best for us to learn now? Honest opinion—I need it.”

  “We need time with weapons. Myself included. We need training of how to test, use, and wear space suits before we can even try to do anything outside of a ship. We’ve been taught the bare basics—we need to learn how to not only act as soldiers but be them. We need discipline, not fear being what drives us. We’ve all been beaten down. Now it’s time to build troops. If we can do it right, we can build them into confident soldiers. Which mea
ns they’re going to need more than what their sleep training showed them.”

  “What would we teach them in this program?”

  “They need to understand they are part of a team: one fault is a fault on all of them. We need them to want to advance themselves. We make them want to improve themselves and their team. While your squad has that, not many others do to such a degree. Only when we get that groundwork laid can we go onto the really advanced stuff.”

  “Damn, I’m just realizing how much our training officers just left us in the wind. Sure, we know how to fight and use a Mecha, but we don’t even know how to use a data pad, provide first-aid...” I looked away, my face a mixture of anger and annoyance as I added something to the table of organization.

  “Get a plan together and we’ll start training everyone. For now, no one has the option to not train; if we’re going into battle, I want everyone ready for it. You’re now the training officer for the human Mechas. Get with Rick—he can help you locate other previous military members. I want a plan ready before tomorrow’s sleep cycle.”

  “Sir, I’m a Marine corporal. I’m not a sergeant or someone who should be in charge of something this big.”

  “Henry, you are a man who has my confidence and with the abilities I need. I know you need to figure out what is going on yourself, but I have the confidence in you that you will be able to complete the tasks I give to you.” I let my tone soften. “Henry, these people need to have a fighting chance, and you’re it.”

  “Sir, there are people more qualified than me!”

  “I bet there are, but so far I haven’t seen one in this fleet, and when you do find someone you think who could do your position better than you, come to me and I will take the responsibility from you.” My tone was level, not harsh or soft as he nodded.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But until then, I’m going to need some sort of plan. Stop that sir-ing business, would you? I’m covered in grease and Mecha innards,” I said as he grinned slightly.

  “Habit, sir, and until you get me out of this position, you can expect it from me and all those I train. Grease is nothing, sir,” he said, looking like a statue.

  “Not getting out of it that easy, Henry. Also, I don’t want one-man, one-weapon people—I want one person-any job kind of people.”

  “Sir.”

  “I’ll let you get to it then,” I said as he gave a quick two-finger tap to his forehead before he left.

  I grinned. That was at least one position filled. What is with this two-finger thing? I thought it was much more than just an offhanded gesture now I’d seen it so frequently.

  Officers didn’t care to make their troops do anything as they would have to do something. Which was why no one cared that we were training; most of them put it down to some weird human trait.

  Wormholes and Chiefs

  Shrift and I were looking at our work as sirens blared and the intercom across the ship came to life.

  “Prepare for worm jump!”

  “I wasn’t sure if that was them charging the wormhole generators. I’ve been off ship for too long. I would have thought they were using the capacitors,” Shrift growled.

  “Hmm?” I half asked/hummed as I fitted the last panel on my Mecha.

  Shrift looked as if he were about to explain something before he backed up.

  “Since you don’t know much about wormholes, I’ll start from the beginning. So the navigator has to do calculations to figure out how we get from the point we’re currently at to the destined point. The generators charge the wormhole drives, which use massive amounts of power to create a wormhole from our point to the point the navigator has calculated. Then the helmsman pilots us through. In a few seconds, we transfer to the emergence point and the helm and shields crew have to work together to accommodate for the new area of space we enter and the gravitational pulls on the ship or we can be pulled apart.”

  “Lovely. Where do the capacitors come into it?”

  “They’re only on military vessels, really. They’re used if we jump into an area where it’s not too nice, shall we say, and allow us to jump out to another point without having to charge our wormhole generators again.”

  “So you can peek inside another system; if you don’t like it, you can jump out again.”

  “Exactly.”

  “You sound like you know a lot about the ship.”

  “Of course I do. I was an engineer before I became an armorer. My teacher forced me to,” Shrift said in an annoyed tone. Obviously there was some history there.

  “Wormhole drive engaged.”

  I felt a moment of weightlessness and then nothing. “So are we in a wormhole?” I felt as if I weighed three times as much.

  The ship groaned. “Transiting into real-space again.” Shrift grunted as the ship bucked and turned before it shot forward.

  “Damn, must be someone new at the helm and shield stations,” Shrift said, releasing the wall gingerly. “We’re now three solar systems away from your own.” He grinned. “Welcome to wormhole traveling!” He spread his arms out before bringing them back.

  I’m not in Sol system anymore. I thought I would feel different, but I didn’t. My situation had only changed in the fact Earth was just a bit farther away now.

  “Oh, and more than a few seconds of being in a wormhole would rip any ship apart,” he said, following his previous line of thought.

  “Wormhole jumps are limited by their distance because of the period of time that the ship can sustain not being in reality, which is less than a few seconds. Also, they’re less rough once outside of the jump limit.”

  I looked at him, askance.

  “Debris float in an encapsulating sphere around solar systems; encountering them makes massive gravitational fields that affect the wormholes the ships travel through.” Shrift cocked his head to the side, waiting for a few seconds. “Now they’re turning us toward the hyper limit in the direction we want to go.” He flicked a finger. “And that would be the main engines firing,” he said, listening to a sound I couldn’t differentiate from the rest of the ship.

  “It’s good to be back on a ship,” Shrift said with a pleased smile. His pad lit up with a new message and he grabbed it. “Could you help me with some parts? They’re in storage still.”

  “Slave driver.” I groaned half-heartedly as Shrift chittered to himself, the Kuruvian equivalent of a chuckle as he went through an opening between the racks, which appeared to be a door. It opened to a secondary hallway just big enough for a Mecha.

  “Shrift, do you have any frozen nitrogen?” I asked as I followed him.

  “He asks me if I have any liquid nitrogen! This human! Of course I do! What do you think this is? A Sarenmenti-run armory?” He admonished me for the very thought of his armory being understocked.

  “I was just wondering if the previous Kuruvian left it understocked.”

  “What a terrible thought. As you will see, the real Kuruvian engineers would never let such a catastrophe ever happen!”

  “So where are we going?”

  “I’m taking you to my mentor, though he is a little—” He paused, as if trying to search for the right word. “Strange.”

  He finished as we walked into a maintenance bay, a door shutting and sealing behind me as I felt my guard come up. Another Kuruvian with a darker carapace and a large grin on his face came forward, grabbing my hand and pumping it. I felt like a rag doll.

  “Howdy, James,” he said with a Southern drawl. I felt my eyes go wide as I looked up at him.

  “You’ve been listening to the Earth Country Western music again, haven’t you?” Shrift shook his head in his hand.

  “So what if I have? It’s damned fine music!”

  I looked at the new Kuruvian, noticing that he wore reinforced cowboy boots.

  “We’re not here to talk about your music tastes, Eddie.”

  “Your work in the armory has made you snippy!”

  “Well, whose fault is it that I’m
in there!” the other one grumbled before he looked back to me.

  I couldn’t help but grin.

  “What?” Eddie demanded.

  “You look exactly like father and son,” I said.

  Eddie threw up his six arms, two main arms and four maipulators in exasperation. “I’ve got enough problems dealing with him as my protégé to think of him as my son!”

  I could clearly see that Eddie, as much as he tried to hide it, was actually proud of Shrift, probably thinking of him as a son.

  “Now that’s done,” he squinted at me and Shrift as if we were small boys to be stopped from our nefarious doings. “My name is Eddie, Chief Engineer of the Imperial Dreadnought Resilient. I know who you are already, Salchar.” He grinned.

  I felt a little uncomfortable.

  “You might be how we can be free of the Syndicate,” he continued.

  “Huh?” Wow, really inspiring words there, James. Great way to make an impression. “What is the Resilient or the Syndicate?” I followed up.

  “Remember, he doesn’t know anything.” Shrift sat down on a chair and looked to Eddie, whose features clouded.

  “Dang, undereducated, unknowing—” He sounded as if he was going to continue with the insults as I crossed my arms and spoke up.

  “Are you gonna complain or tell me? I just need an explanation.” I saw a gleam in Eddie’s eyes as he smiled.

  “I have a feeling he’s the one.” His voice was devoid of any accent now as he studied me.

  I quirked my eyebrow in question as sirens went off.

  An announcement followed. “Prepare for worm jump.”

  “Those goddamn pirates! Keep running the capacitors instead of charging just because they’re impatient,” Eddie growled as I remembered my crash course on wormhole jumping.

  If they use the capacitors, we can’t generate a wormhole until we charge the generators.

  “Do you want me to check on the systems?” Shrift asked, breaking me out of my thoughts. Eddie looked ready to strangle someone. Something that I had never seen on a Kuruvian.

  “Yes, see that my engineering department hasn’t gone to sleep.” Eddie waved Shrift out.

  “Wish I could be there. Been a chief for forty years, first generation, which is a rare thing and I’ve only told this secret to Shrift, and now you.” He seemed to gather himself before he looked straight at me.