From the Black (Free Fleet Book 4)

by Michael Chatfield

  “They'll be coming,” Shrift said, indicating to the Commandos, then turning and walking out of the shuttle-bay.

  The man Shrift had called commander departed with his group of armored people. The other Commandos relaxed and watched the craft that had brought her. Two HAPA's and four commandos followed her and Chief as Shrift waited on a lift, clearly thinking he had better things to do with his time.

  Getting through War-station was time consuming.

  “Thank the light for lifts,” Empress said.

  “Quite right, when we started War-station's make over, there was only four lift runs. We had to cut out kilometers worth of lift runs so we could get all over the station,” Shrift said, his manipulators showing that he had not enjoyed having to go through that ordeal.

  Lifts passed one another with meters to spare. Supplies, people, shuttles, fighters War station was very active.

  The one they were on had barely stopped when Shrift was walking off, he pulled his data pad out, making annoyed noises as someone rushed up.

  “We're almost ready on reactor Twelve,” The Chaleelian said.

  “Good, how are we looking for the heat up?” Shrift said briskly, his pace picking up as he seemed to forget about Empress and Chief.

  “In the range, Devastahli is flushing more heat in through plasma cycling. We're about ready for pressure build up and spark insertion,” The Chaleelian said.

  “Alright, now let's get this puppy started. I want to have enough power for that secondary factory,” Shrift said, shooting a glance to Empress, then back to the Chaleelian.

  “I'll make sure everything's up tight,” The Chaleelian said, giving a slight nod to Shrift before running away.

  The Free Fleet wanted to keep their secrets, Empress could understand, they used weapons of war, those things weren't to be given out lightly.

  They reached a command area, on the view screen there was a reactor. It looked like any other, until someone walked around it, doing final checks. It was two stories tall and nearly as wide as it was tall.

  “What we're doing right now is a reverse flush, we're cycling super-heated plasma through the coolant pipes. It's raising the bottle's temperature to create an environment that nuclear fusion could occur in,” Shrift said, bending over the control console.

  “Alright Devastahli, you ready to kick this thing off?” Shrift said.

  “Of course, the threat of blowing something up always entertains me,” The one called Devastahli said. It was obvious that the two were friends. Empress wondered why the two weren't in the same control area, she put it down to the Free Fleet's paranoia with security.

  “Cycling plasma almost complete,” Shrift said.

  “Pulling spark from portable reactor,” Devastahli said.

  “We take a piece of already reacting substance from another reactor, use coolant tubes and a series of magnets, electrical and gravitational systems to contain it and move it through to the new reactor. This donor reactor has also been the one that we were using plasma from. Once this process is complete we will pull the portable reactor and use it on the next reactor,” Shrift said.

  “Spark extracted and moving,” Devastahli said, sounding almost mechanical. He must have done it so many times that he felt like a robot now.

  “Removing plasma, priming reactor, and readying coolant,” Shrift said, using his manipulators and his arms to manage the systems. His eyes never left the screen, his concentration complete.

  “Spark ready for entry,” Devastahli said.

  “Environment primed,” Shrift replied.

  “Inserting,” Devastahli said.

  Shrift's appendages moved, swiping pushing and barely touching controls. It was hectic for a few minutes as Empress held her breath, it had been happening so quickly and she'd been taken away by the calm way in which Shrift had been acting. Now she realized that these two creatures were starting a miniature star while she was on board. She stayed rock-still hoping that she didn't distract him in anyway.

  “Spark is seated, feeding reactive matter,” Shrift said.

  “Spark is stable, taking on matter nicely. I'm going to have to have some downtime soon. I would suggest that you do too,” Devastahli suggested.

  “I still have a bunch of systems to work on. Plus we have two more reactors to prep and fire up,” Shrift said, not at all reacting how Empress thought someone would when starting a reactor. Even when they did it in the yard, there was no talking of anything but what was essential to making sure the reactor didn't go critical.

  “It looks good on my side, the spark is spreading. I think we can turn this over to the reactor watchers,” Shrift said.

  “Agreed,” Devastahli said.

  “How were the two of you able to do that?” Empress asked, looking over the readings coming from the reactor. It was stable, the reactive core held in place with powerful forces holding it away from the walls of the new reactor. Coolant was released in small amounts to keep the burn at a slow rate and stop the reactor from going into meltdown.

  “Well it helps that he's an AI, without him it would be damned hard,” Shrift said.

  “An AI? They're really in your fleet. I have heard about it, but I thought it was propaganda,” Empress said.

  “Do I look like propaganda?” A dominating figure appeared in the room, it stood, a cloak covering its features without hiding the statue of the creature underneath.

  Empress studied the holographic projection in front of her.

  “What is the processing power of a Loundo Four five yourvek nine tower?”

  “The fin cooled system, or centrally linked nitro system?” Devastahli asked without pause.

  “Fin cooled,” she said.

  “Reduced from the nitro system, but using human measurements, it can do twenty quadrillion calculations per minute, Nitro twenty four. Those are quite old systems though,” Devastahli said.

  “AI's,” Empress said, still a bit in shock that they were real, and that she was talking to one.

  “My Uncle Eddie coined the idea when he needed a reactor online, the power plants could only give enough power to either the engines or weapons. Salchar needed both, so he jump started another reactor,” Shrift said, looking to Empress and Chief.

  “Your Uncle is Eddie?” The Chief asked.

  “Yup, sure is, the crazy boot throwing nut,” Shrift made his amusement clear. “Family of Engineers me,”

  “It's hard to compare to the first generation survivor of Eddie,” Empress said.

  “Yeah, try having the fourth for a father and a brother that runs Nancy,” Shrift growled.

  And now it doesn't seems so crazy that he's kick starting a reactor.

  “It seems that I underestimated your abilities, both of yours. I am sorry,” Empress said, to Devastahli and Shrift.

  “Just doing my job, and I have to go deal with fighter rotation and gunnery fours simulation,” Devastahli disappeared.

  “See yah Dev!” Shrift said cheerfully

  “You know I hate that nickname,” Dev replied, sounding equal parts annoyed and amused.

  “Well seeing as you've come all the way out here, we might as well show you something cool,” Shrift looked to the Commandos.

  “You think it'd be okay to show them the small ship factory before they leave,”

  “We're cleared for it, Whorst sent a list of what they can see and not,” One of the Commandos said, Empress couldn't tell which one of the armored creatures was speaking.

  “Well follow me,” Shrift said, walking on, everyone picking up the pace to follow after the rushing engineer.

  His pad beeped, he made a displeased noise at the offending object, pulling it out and submersing himself in it.

  He walked, typing without looking up it was clear that he knew the mobile station as if he had lived on it his entire life.

  “Sub-station five I want you to check your power relay levels. You were doing secondary relay installment right?” Shrift said to someone over his co
mmunications device.

  “Okay, it looks like they are interfering with the primary somehow. I'd check that they haven't been flipped in some area, cycling from primary to secondary,”

  “Good to hear,” Shrift said, checking his data pad and getting on a lift.

  “It seems that there are always more things to do than things completed,” He complained.

  The Free Fleet had brought many things with them, they were economical in a way that only a force with limited people and resources had to be.

  Their trend to be as economical as possible with their efforts was embedded in everything. It was these traits which had made Empress' own yards expand faster than ever before, while also building and repairing more ships faster than she had believed possible.

  She had heard of the factory process that the humans had thought of on their planet and the implementation of it throughout the Fleet.

  Though she didn't expect the sheer speed at which a factory could create something.

  “This is the small ship factory,” Shrift said proudly.

  She watched as the frame of the craft was rolled into the first section, engines, electronics and the substructure was added, the next section there was the control runs and relays, then the wings fuselage, the cockpit, the remaining substructure was bolted together, welds were performed, then armored plating, flaps, thrusters and all that appeared on the exterior of the multiple environment fighter sealed it together, was welded, bolted and moved onward.

  By the time the first was one was complete, five other fighters were getting put together and five had been completed, the process took forty minutes to complete a fighter, without installing it's weapon systems.

  “An entire fighter in forty minutes,” Empress said, looking at the unending process.

  “As long as we have parts we can make crafts. Shuttles are slower to make. They take about an hour and a half,” Shrift said.

  “This truly is a war-station,” she said.

  “Oh but give us time, you haven't seen nothing yet,” Shrift said, a darkness to his manipulators movements. They might call him peace-station after this, he'd probably scare more than one group into suing for peace instead of going up against him!

  ***

  “You want to what?” Silly asked Felix. Felix had contacted him three hours ago, just as he was waking up. So far his day had been rather interesting, thankfully he had LaRe to crunch the numbers and show him that Felix wasn't pulling a fast one.

  “I want to turn the Elshurvum from a normal carrier, to one that is able to jump as much as the Jump fighter and has a full complement of MEF's bombers and Jump fighter,” Felix said.

  “Not that, the part where you want to have its main weapons to be bomb-pumped lasers!” Silly said wondering how Felix could be so calm when proposing ideas so damned completely ridiculous. It wasn't that he didn't like the ideas or thought that they were insane, they were, it was how he was now going to be spending the next coming weeks figuring out how they could make Felix's ideas into reality.

  “Okay so the primary reason that lasers suck is because it takes a lot of energy to make a laser beam that's even kind of effective. We're now able to produce a laser beam that hits with five hundred gigawatts of energy. We've already made plating that is able to stand up to nuclear bombs blowing up next to them for acceleration. Now we use that combined with bigger bombs, better focusing equipment than the remote mines and missiles-and we have ourselves a damned effective laser built into a ship,” Felix said.

  “So we're going to blow up bombs, inside our own ships! Then we focus it, hopefully and turn it on the enemy! Great, what's your next idea going to be!?” Silly said, slumping in his seat.

  Nothing is impossible, it just hasn't been done by someone smart enough or dumb enough. Wait he was talking about bombers!

  “The bombers got the go ahead?” Silly asked.

  “Well naturally,” Felix said.

  “Is the war station getting them?”

  “I've just finished sending the training information out, I've sent plans to the small ship builders. I am currently prepping for the Elshurvum so I can't help with production, though you've got what, two small craft factories in Sol now?”

  “That is correct, with five in total across the corridor,” LaRe said.

  “Then it might be time to change some of those factories over to bomber production, maybe one or two to creating ship sub-systems. I think it's about time we started making our fleet,” Felix said.

  “It does make sense, the factories we have been building out in your area, have now reached the stage where it is not unfeasible to do so. Super Carriers would be the most economical, making smaller classed ships wouldn't make sense with the facilities available,” LaRe said.

  “More economical to build something massive than something small,” Silly recited as he'd heard it a number of times from LaRe and Felix. Personally he thought that they just wanted to make a massive damned ship, something that he argued against, even as he agreed. With ships, bigger was better and way cooler-though someone had to play devil’s advocate.

  “Okay, then I guess we're going to have to sacrifice your second dock,” Silly said to Felix.

  “It will be a great loss, but I think well worth it,” Felix said, tapping his desk in excitement, he'd clearly already anticipated building this behemoth.

  “I was wondering why you were so darned set on making it so big,” Silly grumbled.

  “Well I really do want a Super Carrier,” Felix shrugged.

  “If you begin production it will take eighteen months to complete. With the assistance of the corridor we can produce it in twelve,” LaRe said.

  “So it comes to a question of letting people know that we have a secret research and development station here, or saving our time and having the carrier appear in some other system,” Silly said.

  “We do it, that ship can save lives. LaRe you didn't include that pulling the tech we need from Elshurvum will save us another two weeks,” Felix said. “Now I wonder if anyone has so totally turned a weapon against those that sought to wield it on them,”

  “Or made something as damned crazy and ambitious as this,” Silly said.

  “We have also come to the problem that we will now be able to make ships that are of a higher quality than the ones we are upgrading. What will we do with those?” LaRe asked.

  There was still a hundred and twenty nine ships around Lady Fairgate's home world. The people there were working on the freighter they'd got as fast as possible. They didn't want any help from anyone else.

  “Well the merchant fleet needs a big influx of ships, we're getting bogged down with moving parts, people, and actual commerce,” Silly said.

  “We could sell off their de-militarized hulls to the Kuruvians,” Felix said.

  “Yet we could be giving them something to hit us with when this war is over,” LaRe said.

  “Thinking ahead are we?” Silly said.

  “Looking out for the interests of myself and by extension, the fleet,” LaRe said.

  “We could strip them, pull the engines, the generators, shields life support and such, sell off the parts, or use them, then melt down the hulls,” Silly thought aloud.

  “Might be of use to actually keep a lot of those parts,” Felix said.

  “Ship engines are not that easy to build, and are easily upgraded to our standards,” LaRe added.

  “Alright well whatever we don't want, we sell off. We will still need some hulls. Plus we're going to need to build up our component factories,” Silly said, tapping the desk he sat at.

  “We could pull engineers from the yards and those that have been building the small craft factories,” LaRe said, a roster appearing in front of Felix and Silly.

  “Well now we just have to see how we can get your damned ideas to work,” Silly said, looking to Felix.

  “Shall we then?” Felix said, standing, his camera panning and following as he walked to a whiteboard.

&
nbsp; “Little eager?” Silly asked, his manipulators moving in exasperation.

  “To coin a human term, it is good to strike when the iron is hot,” LaRe said.

  “You too! Surrounded by a bunch of prototyping, sidestepping maniacs!” Silly tried to sound defeated, but he couldn't hide the glimmer of excitement that pervaded his voice.

  “Well I'd best help you out, else you might forget to put secondary working systems instead of all prototypes!” He said, standing.

  “Well we're going to build a prototype of course, a smaller one, remote controlled of course,” Felix tried to make it sound as if it had been his plan all along.

  “Of course,” Silly said, making it clear that he knew Felix had added that at the last moment.

  ***

  Min Hae looked at the information coming back from the passive sensors. The sensors were getting readings weeks and days old. It would take twice that for the Kalu to pick up the same readings.

  “Get me Ashota,” he said, his anger clear. Bregend looked to Kyle, giving him a look as the comms officer spoke to the brig security.

  Thankfully Bregend’s Battle Cruiser wasn't big as Ashota was pulled into the bridge, Min Hae's eyes blazing with fury. Something that spoke tones of what they were seeing. Min Hae had long ago mastered controlling his features.

  “This is not what you told us,” Min Hae said, Ashota looked to the board. Min Hae saw the shock travel through him as his eyes flickered across the map.

  “Orshpa is going to start a revolution,” he said. “My spies always had issues with getting in to Orshpa's controlled systems. I also haven't had contact with them since I left Kalu controlled space to go in search of the Union and then search out information. We must go to the planet of the peaceful,” he looked to Min Hae. “Orshpa always knew that myself and Edvasho tricked him into losing his fight. Orshpa was too strong, though now it seems that he was not such a brute. This is one of his minor systems. If he is producing this many Star Warriors and Destroyer's then he has probably created another fleet as big as his current, if not bigger,”