Free Fleet Box Set 1

by Michael Chatfield

  Well, shit, not the most wonderful victory celebration, I thought as darkness took me.

  It wasn’t the slow coming to that I hoped for as fire laced through my body. I arched in pain from Hellfire running through my body.

  My drug-addled mind, however, forgot that Hellfire existed and thought someone was using my pain implants to kill me.

  I saw Yasu and the Sato sisters next to the doctor, who was holding my drug bag.

  I trusted you. I looked at Yasu, and the pain diminished. What? I pulled the needles out of my arm and saw the stump that looked back at me. I forgot the people in the room as I looked at it, touching it and cradling it.

  Henry burst in to the room.

  “Sir, we have five Syndicate ships that have entered the system,” he said without pause as he gave me a data pad. I looked at it, questioning as my brain started to actually work.

  They weren’t trying to kill you; they were trying to get you up to lead them. Dolt. Some wounds still stung from the Hellfire.

  Wished they hadn’t used that crap, though. I scrolled through the data with one arm.

  “Get me my Mecha.” I started to walk out. The Sato sisters sidestepped, blocking my way. I only noticed it as I walked into them.

  “What?” I said, displeasure clear in my voice as I looked up.

  “Our mistress desires a word,” one of them said, touching her blade and looking up at me. A wicked smile played across her lips as my eyes became harder.

  Going to have to try harder to impress me after the shit I’ve been through.

  “Well, that is all fine and fucking dandy, but if you don’t mind, I have a station to save and nearly three thousand human lives! SO GET OUT OF MY WAY!” Rage radiated off me as I bodily pushed her aside and marched out of the med bay.

  Henry paused for a second, thinking I was out of earshot. “You threaten Salchar again and I will personally rip your head off,” he said with such silent fury I felt a warm shiver go up my spine as he quickly caught up with me. I didn’t have time to deal with my wife’s minions’ games.

  “Henry, Mecha,” I said as he joined me. “I honestly have no idea where I’m going,” I muttered under my breath.

  “Follow me, sir.”

  “Thanks.” I continued checking the data pad, not only getting information on the Syndicate ships, but also the station and what had happened while I was out. Only to hear someone run up from behind me.

  “The Hellfire I just gave is nowhere near enough!” the doctor said as I flashed them a look, making sure it wasn’t the Sato sisters coming up on me.

  “Well, Doc, it’s going to be necessary. I need your headset.”

  He gave it to me before he turned and went back to his med bay. He clearly knew when his time would be wasted.

  “Henry, communication codes, please.”

  Henry touched his palm to mine as we walked. He transferred the codes.

  “Rick?” I asked, using the communications headset.

  “Salchar?”

  “Yeah. I want everyone in their Mechas, everything locked down and find me berths to fit those ships, and get the guns around them up and running.” There was no denying the command in my tone.

  “Yes, Commander.”

  “Keep me updated.” I ended the channel.

  “Your Mecha’s being fixed. Shrift is displeased, to say the least. He says he’s debating on just re-issuing you one,” Henry said as we walked.

  “Damn it! I just got the padding how I liked it!” I said, looking at the hospital gown I was still wearing and shrugged. After months of people seeing me in the nude, I didn’t much care.

  Three protection commandos fell in around me as we walked.

  “I guess Shrift wasn’t the only one you talked to.”

  He shrugged. “You get into more shit than my most idiotic team members. Especially with your constant leading from the front mindset,” he said as I snorted.

  “All right, well, you better go make sure they don’t mess up. Go get into your Mecha. I’ll run this one from the command center.”

  “Sir.” He took off at a run.

  I continued to garner more information, making it to a transport car and taking it within a hundred meters of the command center.

  “Commander of the Free Fleet on deck!” Rick bolted up from the command chair and snapped a two-finger salute so suddenly it made me think that he hadn’t been awake when he’d first seen me. Mechas on either side of the door slapped their rifles in salute. I nodded to Rick as I leaned against the station commander’s chair; with my ass in the breeze, I did not want to be sitting on uncomfortable and cold seating. “Update.”

  “We’ve taken the station fully and put certain Syndicate members to work fixing areas of the station damaged,” Rick reported. “Eddie has the Kuruvians and the army of drones working on the ships and watching the Syndicate members to make sure they aren’t doing anything fishy. We’ve assigned squads to them for each company worth of workers. The Sarenmenti have, for the most part, come on board. A few of them committed suicide for their crimes. They’ve sworn fealty to us and wish to free their home planet. Every ship has been taken and its status listed. The crews of Kuruvians on them are at half strength to fix them; the other half are working on the station. We still haven’t released the Sarenmenti due to tensions.”

  He had to pause for a moment and then took a deep breath. “We have two and a half thousand humans remaining from the attack.”

  It felt as if he’d punched me in the gut. I knew it was not going to be a lot, but the number was astounding. Eight thousand humans had died doing what I asked. I thought of the people who, like Steven Robertson, wouldn’t see Earth again or would be like Hitomi Robertson, grieving the loss of their trusted partner, maybe thrust together by criminal aliens but partners still. It stuck in my heart like an icy spike. I never wanted it but I’ll have to live with it. I mentally shouldered the weight of their losses as I took a shaky breath.

  “The incoming ships?”

  “They entered the system thirty minutes ago. We thought it a good idea to rouse you.”

  I nodded. It explained why I was awake at least. “How long was I out?”

  “Four days.”

  “Why wasn’t I awakened earlier?”

  “The strain on your system was immense. They were hoping to regrow your arm before you awoke, but it will still take another four days.”

  “Next time, wake me up. I will not be getting my beauty rest while my people are doing the heavy lifting.”

  “Yes, boss, noted.” Rick looked away.

  Don’t bite his head off. He was just trying to do what he thought was best for you. This made me angrier at myself. I looked at a piece of decking before I spoke. “What kind of ships are we facing?”

  Taking it as his signal to continue, Rick launched in as information scrolled over the main screens. “There are three corvettes, a cruiser, and a destroyer. They’ve broadcasted they have human Mechas to sell.” His tone was cold as he finished.

  “What’ve we got in ships and firepower?”

  “The station’s a mess. Eddie, Felix, and Min Hae all had a fit when they looked at how the station’s holding up. We have limited weaponry so far. Eddie’s focusing on the ships and getting their weapons online and keeping the station running. It seems that it’s more of a death trap than anything. Out of the now forty-three ships attached to the station, the Resilient is the only one that is, in Eddie’s opinion, serviceable. The rest, well, it isn’t a pretty picture.”

  “Have you sent anything in reply?”

  “Not yet, boss.”

  “Can we make a message with the ex-commander of this station’s face?”

  “Communications?” Rick asked the officer who had broadcasted Jorsht’s message through the station.

  “Yes, Commander, it’s possible though we’ll need some time.”

  “Do so. Brag to them how we already have human Mechas in dock but are interested in seeing if their s
upplies are on par with those we have. See also what their prices are and give them a docking bay. Try to get it so that we have them in the same area. Move ships if need be but only smaller ones—we don’t want to make it seem irregular.” I turned, coughing.

  Rick grabbed water at his station and gave it to me.

  “Thanks, Rick.” I took a sip. “And for before—sorry.”

  “I can understand your frustration. You want to be helping out, but you’re stuck back and unable to control your circumstance.”

  “Yeah.” I nodded.

  “Just next time, don’t get so beat up.”

  “I’ll try.” I grinned.

  He grinned too as he moved back to his seat, talking into his communicator headset, cutting orders as ships started to warm up their engines.

  Henry rushed into the room with my weapons.

  I quickly put them on, disregarding my hospital gown as I touched the familiar and battle tested weapons, checking them over as I spoke. “Put the Syndicate members into lockdown and prepare for a boarding action. Battle suit?” I said to Henry.

  “There are no extras.”

  “Damn. Very well, continue.”

  “Yes, Commander.” He turned and ran, his Mecha shaking the decking as he called out orders on his helmet’s communication unit.

  “Run a countdown to when they’ll get here,” I said.

  Someone put it on the main screen overtop the main plot of the system and the incoming ships as well as a side panel that showed the fleet captain talking to our made-up Jorsht, cutting them berths and asking about their Mechas supplies and their willingness to trade.

  I had to give it to the communications officer; they’d done well with their work. I sat down in the uncomfortably cold chair, shifting around to get a comfortable spot. As I looked at the systems, I knew what they did even as I hadn’t seen them before in my life. With all of my sleeping for a week, the calendar on my personal screen, my sleep training had continued. Weapons and hand-to-hand as well as system control and operation were all advanced. I added military history and tactics to my training schedule. Joy, more work. I paused, actually looking at the force of people moving around the command center and the commandos waiting by the replaced blast doors.

  I was in command—well, at least for the foreseeable day and a half the counter said until the ships made it to dock—of thirty-five semi-operable ships, one space station with more amassed firepower than all of those ships combined and roughly fifty square kilometers, a grouping of hundreds of thousands of Kuruvians and one AI. I had done it; I had gone from training a group of preteens and teenagers to taking the biggest station in the sector and having a fleet. It was more raw power than any other human had ever commanded, yet I still didn’t feel any different and there was a lot to do still.

  I shrugged as I sat on the command chair, going over the information. Damn, it sucks to have one hand. I was irritated. Though, thankfully, I’d be getting mine back, I thought solemnly, compared to other men and women who had gone before me in other military services and lost their limbs permanently. Be thankful for what you’ve got while you’ve got it.

  For the next day, we continued to relay information to the oncoming pirates, keeping our weapons cold as they came in closer. It was almost painful—the watching—but in the meantime, I got myself re-acquainted with the reports of Parnmal, the battle, and everything that had happened, trying to not look at my nonexistent hand.

  Easy Prizes and Scary Revelations

  “Docking tubes extended, seal made.”

  “Eddie.”

  “Transmitting,” he said as Resilient hacked into the docked ships’ systems.

  “Get the information packets we have ready for the Mechas,” I snapped to the command center.

  “Yes, Commander!”

  It was like a switch had been flicked as the room turned into activity. Progress on the programs upload increased, a bar showing that they had been sent to the new ships. I pulled up the cameras that showed the docking tubes as the pirates came out of their ship, talking about the entertainment they’d get at the various establishments around the station as well as how much money they were going to get for their human Mechas.

  Full of confidence, the captains and most of their crews walked out of their ships with arrogant swagger, weapons everywhere as they passed the docking control and then in the main corridors.

  They didn’t even notice there was no one at the docking control. As soon as they were in the main corridor, blast doors closed; commandos swarmed out from the hallways and now surrounded the pirates. Without saying anything, they shot the pirates; the stun rounds put them on the ground as half of them covered the incapacitated crew. The rest swarmed past them and to the docking tubes.

  “Opening tubes,” the docking controller said as they did so. On the screens, the commandos rushed through quickly, making their way onto the ships’ bridges and inserting their universal jacks, taking away the kill switch ability and letting us run our programs through the ships. Commandos moved through the ships methodically, knocking out crew members as fast as possible, moving through the Syndicates and then onto officers who weren’t locked down.

  Finally, they moved into the armories and Mecha quarters. It was filled with squalor. All of the humans tried to attack the commandos as they opened the quarters. They looked wild and half crazed. Only one of the corvette’s commandos were met with little resistance. The rest were like savages, attacking on sight. Something was truly and utterly wrong.

  My hand was white as commandos reported crying and screams for help. “Fuck!” I smashed my hand into the armrest as I opened up a general broadcast to the commandos.

  “Once the Syndicate are secured, all commandos are to assist with the separation of the humans on the incoming ships. They are unstable.” I saw one of the feeds of a room. “I believe murder, rape, and beatings to be occurring between the humans on the ship. Extreme care should be taken.”

  I changed to Henry. “Find me the leaders of these humans and start interviews.”

  “If the humans resist?”

  “Stun them; I don’t want them to harm our people.”

  “Sir.” He cut the channel as I watched, dismayed by my race. As soon as we had no rules, we fell apart.

  “External weapon arrays, I want reports on your battle readiness within the hour, as well as a plan to bring them up to full readiness an hour afterward. We need to get our defenses back online. Those won’t be the last Syndicate ships in the area and they won’t all wander into our trap like unknowing idiots either.” I got out of the chair.

  “Someone get me a communicator; I need something other than my implanted one.” Promptly, one of the nearby operators took their own off and handed it to me.

  “Thank you.” I accepted the headset, striding out of the room. The communicator formed to my head and connected with my internal implants, increasing the range at which I could communicate. “Rick, you’re in command. Contact me as needed.”

  With purposeful strides, I walked through the station, actually getting lost a few times as I’d mostly hacked my way through the station the first time I’d made it to the control center. I shook hands, saluted, smiled, and chatted with my people, who were still in shock and tired; they were battered physically and mentally by the battle. But they seemed in a better mood as I left. Still lost as hell, I had my protection detail guide me to the Golden Refuge.

  When I finally found it and walked through the docking tube, the ship had been moved so the air lock opened into a supply corridor and not the command deck. A group of drones were working on the far wall, cleaning the grime and rust off everything and fixing what they could.

  I strode quickly to the hangar bay. Where there had been rust, tears, and skid marks, there was now spots of new burnished metal, flattened and looking new. There were crews with assisting drones working on the shuttles, which were also getting a new paint job and refinished hull. I walked quickly across the new hanga
r deck to the third armory’s door. Shrift was inside with a mixed group of Kuruvians and humans with masses of drones.

  I saw my suit clamped to a wall with a sign above it. “It still works!”

  It had been cleaned up but the slagged joints were still visible, my gauntlet attached to the front with space tape. My left forearm’s exoskeleton was a mess of melted metal. My helmet was perched above it, dented in so far it looked as if it should’ve crushed my head.

  I shook myself as I saw the holes of rounds or fragments that had gotten through the suit: the divots, scratches, and gouges left by blades that had come too close. I felt the wounds on my body as they matched up with the Mecha.

  “Well, aren’t you a sight.” Shrift threw me a battle suit. I looked down at myself as I mentally groaned. I’d just coordinated a ship take-over in a dressing gown.

  “So, the rumor that you just coordinated a battle while not fully dressed and fresh from medical is true then,” Shrift said with a pleased grin on his face.

  I quickly took off my weapons and gown, putting the familiar suit on, which compressed to my body, and then put my weapons back on.

  “Oh, shut up,” I grumbled.

  “So, how long have you been planning that a Syndicate ship might attack this station once we took it?”

  I wanted to scream. I’d never planned for it. I’d been flying by the seat of my pants—well, dressing gown.

  Instead, my mouth was moving before I could deny it. “Since I knew we were coming here.”

  Shrift looked at me, nodding. “Wheels within wheels, as you humans say,” he said appreciatively.

  “So, how’s the customized armor going?”

  “As I thought, our armor wasn’t on par with what the Syndicate members had.” Disgust was in his voice.

  “Since we took their information, though, we’ve been able to find stronger and lighter armor as well as better synced servos and internal systems. I went ahead and made the suits so that they perform to a human’s range of motion, not like the general suits you were using before, which had power going to everything in case you had, say, two knees, no elbows and such. This means that your servos will have a higher output of force and thus increase your strength by an estimated fifty percent!” His tone was excited as he rubbed his upper and lower hands together in glee.