Free Fleet Box Set 2

by Michael Chatfield

  “Are we going to leave forces behind?” Bok Soo asked.

  “Either win this battle or Foshunti is going to roll over us and take everything we have. If we do win, I'm going to suggest we have a base that can operate autonomously of the Free Fleet,” Rick said.

  “You might not have to suggest anything sir. You might be the COFF,” Shrift said.

  A few looked to argue the point before dismissing it. All of them had seen Salchar.

  “So what are we going to tell the Fleet?” Rick asked

  “He's sick, he's getting looked after. We can't let them know how he really is,” Bok Soo said, the others giving signs of agreement.

  “Okay we'll keep it quiet for now,” Rick said, sighing. He just wanted the old Salchar back, the man that pushed the Fleet forward, not caring about the obstacles in his way.

  “What about Edwards?” Krom asked and Rick felt his anger rise.

  “As much as I hate the man we can't do anything with him. I should've sent him on Toupe back to controlled space. We'll keep him on the bridge until we get somewhere where he can stand trial and answer for betraying the trust of the Free Fleet,” Rick said.

  Bok Soo grunted, the others showing contempt and anger at the man that had used his position in a foolish attempt to gain favour with Marhtu and give control to the United States.

  I'm going to have to look into that as well. Or get Min Hae to see how much of a hold Earth has on the Free Fleet. How the hell did James deal with all this crap? Rick thought as he stood.

  “Alright. That's enough sitting around. I'm going to get the Resilient tuned for link-up with Cheerleader's forces. We'll gather at DU12287 and prepare to give this Foshunti bastard a right good ass kicking,” Rick said.

  The others stood as he nodded and left the room. He couldn't deal with the thought that he might end up in charge of the Free Fleet. He couldn't think of the Fleet without Salchar.

  “Ben, do you have the plot to link-up with Cheerleader?” Rick said as the other man exited the conference room.

  “Yes sir,”

  “Good. Milra, get us underway. Vort, coordinate with the other ships.” Rick took his seat, In Sook returning to her station.

  All those who had gathered for the meeting filed out of the bridge. Rick pulled up his inbox, finding a detailed report on Resilient's condition. As well as the condition of the other ships in the Fleet. He kicked himself for being too preoccupied to have asked Eddie in the meeting. He needed to get focused. Salchar was his friend and commander, but even he had told Rick to look to the Fleet before everything else.

  ***

  Bok Soo marched in past the doctors, nodding to a few people he knew as he stopped in front of Shreesht who wore his complete mecha, fully buttoned up. Shreesht nodded back as he took a breath and walked into the room. Calerd was curled up in his bed, despondent. Another person from the relations team sat silently, rocking himself.

  Salchar sat in his bed, looking at the view screen which seemed to look directly out onto Worshun, the planet that had been the jewel of the Union. Salchar looked up, a smile covering his face. It was tinted with the pain in the young man's eyes. He got up, and Bok Soo didn't miss the grimaces as the two of them embraced.

  “God, it's good to see you,” Bok Soo said, his eyes misty.

  “I didn't think I’d get to see your Iron hide again,” James said as they held one another for a moment, just happy that they were both alive.

  Bok Soo pulled away and James took a seat on his bed as Bok Soo sat on the visitor chair.

  “So what is this garbage with you not wanting to be the CFF anymore?” he said, his tone curious instead of harsh.

  “I'm done, Bok Soo, I don't have the confidence to be a commander anymore. It's useless,” James said, slumping.

  “Grit your teeth,” Bok Soo said and James looked confused. Bok Soo hit him in the face, causing him to tumble off of the bed.

  “The fuck was that for?” Salchar said as he got off of the floor.

  “Stop listening to your self-pity and whining. Listen to the people around you. You didn't listen to what I was saying. You only thought of how hard you have it and you got punched for it,”

  “Thanks,” James drawled.

  “Anytime, brother,” Bok Soo grinned. “You better get off your damned ass and get on that bridge. We're going into what's going to be our biggest battle yet. We're going up against the Captain Lord Foshunti,” Bok Soo said, seeing James shut down again.

  “I don't care,”

  “Grit!”

  James got out of the way of the incoming fist this time.

  “Ahh, now you’re listening. Now sit!” Bok Soo said, James doing so sullenly.

  “Foshunti is the only know Dovark that isn't on his home planet. He is ruthless, and twisted. He see's battle as a joke, a way to put one over on the other. He loves sadistic displays. Many think he's insane. He commands the Talhalla, a Detara super carrier and the fourth fleet. Lifendi commands the third, Fairgate the first and second,”

  “Why are you telling me this?” James said, clearly annoyed.

  “Because you're James goddamn Cook, Salchar the gamer that took Mecha Tail to the MAO and MAT championships. You're the man that got this whole damn thing going, and you're the man that's going to see that it continues going,” Bok Soo yelled, actually coming up out of his seat a little.

  “I'm not him anymore,” James muttered, his eyes cast down.

  “Oh stop this crap. Yes you were tortured, yes you saw people die. We all have! You're going to have to suck it up and expect more of the same. We aren't glamorous or good looking, but we're what this damned galaxy needs to set it right,”

  “You're at least human! Look at me, I'm a beast,” James waved at himself.

  “You’re alive aren't you!? That means you either get with the goddamn program or fuck off! This is a team, not a group of individuals—sound familiar?”

  Bok Soo saw the recognition in Salchar's eyes, even if he didn't admit it.

  “That's right, you said that to me after our third game. You know what I did. I packed, hell I even left and then not even a kilometre from the house I turned my sorry ass around and rolled back to Mecha Tail. You know why I did that? Because I wanted to be part of something that I could be proud of. I didn't know it, but I wanted to be part of a team. I wanted to be a part of Mecha Tail. Now it's your time to find out if you want to be in the Free Fleet. Till then I'm going to fill your twisted little head with all the information you're going to need to win this battle against Foshunti.”

  Bok Soo smacked his hands together, making James jump.

  “Now, to begin at the start is best, as you said. Cheerleader was doing her scouting as per normal when a Battle Cruiser jumped into the system sending her this transmission. Bok Soo went through all of the information.”

  James was forced to listen carefully for when he would say 'grit.’ Otherwise he knew he would end up on the floor again.

  Bok Soo knew that James was hurting. He had been through immeasurable pain. He'd seen the people he'd ordered to the surface die. He took all of the blame on himself. He felt weak and useless. Bok Soo knew that those two traits were what had gotten a lot of teams into trouble when Mecha Tail had come onto the gaming stage. James wasn't that strong alone, maybe an average player. But when he had people to draw on he only seemed to get stronger, and he was far from useless. His mind was his greatest asset, not his body.

  Bok Soo completed the most in-depth briefing he could, going on not only to describe the forces they believed were coming with Foshunti, but also the strength of the Fleet and reports from Parnmal that Cheerleader had passed on.

  “So we need to win against him before he gets to Parnmal. That gives us three systems. Our projected link-up date with our forces is three days behind when Foshunti wishes to face us in DU122349,” Bok Soo finished, outlining the data of the alpha-numeric system, which had nothing but a weak red star and some barely formed planets. It had a Jovian a
nd a massive iceball of a planet, the gravitational pull of the two massive planets had stopped other planets forming inbetween them, creating a massive asteroid belt around the sun.

  “Grit!”

  Salchar smacked the fist away with ease.

  “Good. At least you know what we're up against.”

  “What you're up against, I'm not part of this fleet anymore.”

  “Oh, I think you'll find you are,” Bok Soo told him. Not saying anything else as he left.

  Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, you misery-guts, Bok Soo thought, a grin on his face. He'd seen Salchar under that veneer of self-pity. The man was in there. He just needed time to come to terms with the deaths of those that he had sent to Daestramus.

  Time that we don't have, Bok Soo thought, nodding to Krom who had replaced Shreesht and taking a transport off to the shuttles he needed to look to his own people. He had looked to the dead, taking time for them yesterday. Now he needed a stiff drink to deal with a day without them. He knew he'd be able to rouse a few for a good old toast to those that had ventured into the Black to find the Light.

  Chapter - Off To a Jokester's Game

  “There's a message you'll want to see,” Chrys said through Min Hae's implants. He'd been pouring over the information that he and his crew had pulled from Daestramus.

  “Send it,” Min Hae told her, and the message hit his implants. It was a simple text message.

  Engaging Captain Lord Foshunti in system DU122349. All ships that are combat ready are to meet the Free Fleet before or during combat.

  There was a list of systems that the Fleet could be in at a given time. Min Hae nodded to himself, adjusting his plans. The Free Fleet could very well be destroyed by Foshunti and his goons if they weren’t extraordinarily fast and lucky. It was his job to keep the Fleet going by any means. He sent of a number of messages to the Q-ships and intelligence departments. He would have every Q-ship under his command out and working the people under the control of the Syndicate. He was not going to let the Fleet die.

  “At the next jump point I want us to change headings towards the Sarenmenti home system,” he said to Chrys.

  He was advancing his plans by months, if not years, but he didn't have the time to play around. If Lady Fairgate was sending Foshunti, she saw the Free Fleet as more than an irritant. Either she saw them as a threat, or something was going on that he knew nothing about.

  He filed that away as he remembered a piece of information he'd stumbled across. He flipped through his reports before landing on a scribbled note saying that it was rumoured that Captain Lord Lifendi, Lady Fairgate's second in command and most loyal follower, had not been seen for some time. Many thought that he was dead. Min Hae doubted Lady Fairgate would kill anyone that could have a potential use for her, and he filed that tidbit under interesting as he checked the ships stores, coming up with a story for why he would be going towards the Sarenmenti worlds.

  ***

  Yasu was teaching a class on Mecha control, helping her recruits toward being able to adjust the power output of their mecha as easily as they walked. When her implants pinged.

  She had been given orders to report to the newly finished Battle Carrier Floater. She was to be the AMC commander of the ship. She kept studying her orders. Every ship was being pulled up. Thirty nine from Sol system, a further eight between Sol and Avar Interi Hermanti. Parnmal was holding onto its meagre ships to throw up some kind of defense. The station was battered, but hopefully it would have enough shields and weapons to deal with the Captain Lord.

  Takahashi was to take over training. She was going to make sure that Whorst kept an eye on the man. She checked the time for her departure.

  “Go to your quarters and await further instructions,” she said to the class she was teaching. They moved off as she began jogging to her own quarters, the Sato sisters following her.

  “What's going on?” one of the sisters asked, something that would've stunned Yasu a few weeks ago. Being around the kids had brought her and her sister out of their shells.

  “We're going to help the Fleet defeat the...” she began as a private message came in from Rick.

  It was brief and brutal. She felt herself choke up as she read the medical reports and psychiatric evaluations. If they were to be believed, this Marhtu had broken her husband. She gritted her teeth as she took a transport to her room. Hachiro was a hive of activity. Yasu balled her fist as she watched the stops fly past the transport as it crossed three kilometers in a matter of seconds.

  What am I going to tell the kids? She thought, getting strapped into her mecha. The Sato sisters helping her, before getting themselves into their own. Yasu grabbed their bags, her eyes stopping the Sato sister’s complaints as they rushed to the shuttle that would take them to Floater. As the shuttles went through the shimmering electro-static shielding, she remembered the state that Hachiro had been in when she finally got to it after fighting on the fleeing Syndicate ships.

  They had come so far and done so much. Yet still they were being thrown curve balls by the Universe. She got onto the Floater, taking her mind off of James by writing letters to the kids in lieu of saying goodbye. She wouldn't be there for the first series second birthdays. All of them had been pulled from their artificial wombs on the same day, making them all the same age.

  “Sealing,” the pilot said, the ramps coming up as the shuttle jostled. Yasu moved with the familiar movement. She looked through the simulated view-ports, seeing the shuttle-bay fall behind as she looked at the exterior of Hachiro. She knew it had come a long way since it had been taken, and now it was nearly complete. It was even rumoured that there were plans for expanding the station.

  Using what she knew from her astrogation classes, she found the rough direction of where Nancy and the swarm of broken ships and the one's awaiting crew orbited. It was a while before anything was visible. Nancy shone, as a sea of ships ran around the docks. Tugs brought in raw materials from miners that lined the belt. Most of them were automated, it took just about a day for the furthest miners to get materials to Nancy. The mining station that was stuck out in the Oort cloud took three days. Though it was owned by the Free Fleet, and the tugs were actually converted haulers, they could pack in enough materials to keep a factory ship running for two days.

  The constant movement of resources, prefabricated materials, people, drones, ships, even the docks themselves were a mess. All of it being controlled by Lare. Under his watch, accidents had sharply declined and productivity increased.

  It took some time before she saw Floater. Its wing pods were a strange sight to see. The shuttle went into one PDS and shield generators covered the entrance as electrostatic shields sparkled from shuttles and fighters moving in and out of the ship. Yasu took her bags, waiting by the ramp as the shuttle finally landed and the hatches opened. The noises of an operational flight deck hit her as she walked out. Fighters waited, ready to go onto the flight deck and be launched from what looked like the launch system from a human sea based super-carrier. An advanced catapult system to get the birds up to speed.

  There were two actual hangars, but they still had to be cut from the Battle Carriers double armor. Yasu looked over the stats of the Carrier. It was one hell of an impressive build. It had taken months just to prepare to build it, but once ready it had taken bare weeks to come together. The second Battle-Carrier had just come out of dock. It was in better shape than Floater, as they had devoted a massive surplus of people to get her online. She had been named Fruit Cup. Yasu was going to have a talk with whichever Kuruvian was making the names for these ships when she got back.

  The next unnamed Battle Carrier was expected to be finished in a week and a half, with the ones after that being finished faster and faster. There were also the new Battle Cruisers, which were going to start coming out after the fourth Battle Carrier. By then, the fifth dock should be operational and Silly could look to making true Carriers.

  If we get through this shit storm, Yasu
thought. Turning towards the reality she faced, she moved into Commando territory. People were streaming into their billets. She looked them over as she got to her own private room.

  “Go find your racks and then find me. I'm going to see what we've got to work with.” Yasu pulled out her data pad, putting in her codes and looking at her roster. A small smile appeared on her face as she saw a familiar name.

  “Well, George, it's been a while,” she said under her breath. She ran a quick check and found the man hadn't yet made it onboard.

  ***

  “Floater, this is code name Mefti Diver two one eight, permission to land,” Smith in toned as he played with the fighters controls. The new MEF (Multi-Environmental Fighter) was one hell of a craft. She could suck atmosphere as well as she could blast her ion drive. Her manoeuvrability was damned insane. She packed eight missiles, not including external racks of four, tripling her in that account. Her primary weapons were a pair of alternating twenty five calibre rail guns, with Felix's rounds making them multi-purpose beauties.

  Her wings were curved around and down instead of being straight. She was rounded, curved and deadly as all hell.

  “Mefti Diver, you are cleared for landing,” Control said, a flight path growing on Smith's plot. He followed it in his wing and fell into formation behind him.

  The Battle Carrier could launch eight wings of fighters, each wing consisting of four fighters. It meant that the Carrier was able to carry thirty two fighters. Twelve on the Floater would be the new MEF model. Smith was interested to see how the new ships, and their trained crew, would do against the Syndicate forces. That didn't mean he wanted to join them in battle. Just a minor curiosity. Though he knew his curiosity would be put to the test before he knew it.

  He brought his fighter onto land. After a few minutes on the flight deck, a magnetic clamp pulled him into the ship and settled him into a cradle that connected to his varying ports. His ship would be checked, refuelled and re-armed in minutes. Though he looked as if he'd just taken a bite of something rotting.