The Vanguard Emerges (Maraukian War Book 2)

by Michael Chatfield

  Chapter 28

  SLS Moby

  Indalia, Otarvi System

  8/3555

  “Mother fuckers!” Liang pounded on his desk as he cursed out loud. Realizing what he had done, he winced.

  “Care to share the issue?” Captain Chen asked his communications officer.

  “Sorry for my outburst, sir!” Liang straightened in his chair. “I was talking to the different supply ships that are in-system. I was given a request from engineering that they need all the resources I can scrounge together to create supplies for our people on the ground.”

  “What happened?” Chen had a feeling he knew where this was going.

  “None of the ships are willing to give us their ammunition or supplies. As we are officially seconded to the Tenth Legion that is outside the Ninth Legion’s command, they’re looking up the protocol.”

  Chen could understand his communication officer’s anger.

  Chen knew the mergers on the ground were desperate for ammunition and he had seen the crazy plan Charles had created to keep them supplied. He didn’t care as long as it worked.

  “Understood.” Chen didn’t reprimand Liang further. The man wanted to keep the mergers supplied and in the fight; it was a good reason to be angry. “Were we able to get anything from them?”

  “No, and I was asking for raw resources. Charles said that we can make it all in-house. Right now he’s burning through the extra materials we have onboard, cannibalizing spare parts and products we don’t use to make ammunition blocks. He’s even thinking of tearing up tables and bulkheads that aren’t wanted to meet material needs.”

  Chen didn’t know it had got to this stage; he’d thought they had more than enough materials.

  With the expansion and changes to the Moby, he thought there must be plenty of materials on hand. It looked like he was wrong.

  His eyes looked over the different screens, trying to think of a solution.

  “Wait. Francis—enlarge sensor information,” Chen ordered the sensors officer.

  “Sir.”

  Chen reviewed the screen. They needed resources. His first thoughts moved to asteroids. Seeing there were none nearby, he needed anything else.

  “Get me Charles,” Chen said.

  “Chen, I’m busy right now,” Charles said as their NIAIs connected them.

  “I don’t have any materials coming from the support ships,” Chen started.

  “Those damn resource holding idiots! They’ve got ammunition and factories on the ground for that kind of thing—they’re just sitting there! I even looked into their internal cameras and sensors. Their forges aren’t even ramped up!”

  “Charles! We might not have them, though I’m looking at a rather large amount of space debris from the Maraukians’ entry into the planet. What if we cannibalized the stations, satellites, and the leftovers from the Maraukian insertion barge?”

  The line was silent for some time.

  “Charles, you there?”

  “I’m running diagnostics!” Charles shot back.

  Chen wisely shut up. He might be the captain of this ship—many called the captain god aboard his own ship—but this god knew when to shut up and let the crazy Uncle Charles do his thing.

  “Yes! There is enough! We’ll need drones to make this faster. Acceleration is too hard for humans to stand long.” Charles made some more noises, not shutting his NIAI channel.

  “Just got a new plot and objective from Charles,” Francis called out.

  On screen, a piece of spinning hull from a Maraukian barge was seen, showing an exterior panel and the interior decks open to space.

  “If we can reel this in, I can move the fabbers to the docks. From there, we cut the Maraukian panels, feed them into the fabbers and grab some more materials,” Charles finally came back to Chen.

  “Got it.” Chen closed the channel.

  “Taelyon, hook us that panel! Francis, I want you to look for other panels like it that we could cannibalize. If those supply ships don’t want to give us supplies, we’ll just have to find our own! Liang, send a message down. Anyone who has people free are to send them to support Charles.” Chen paused for a moment. “Best to send them to Maxine, actually.”

  Chen could feel the engines of the Moby start up while Travestki and Taelyon talked to each other.

  Francis got his sensor pit organized as they each took sectors. Their NIAIs linked to the sensors, picking up different debris left behind, while they plotted out least-time routes and picked out which panels would be the easiest to grab due to their rotation in the xyz directional plot.

  Liang’s voice started to echo through the ship as boots pounded and the internal ship decks were cleared.

  The Moby came alive with her captain’s orders as people checked their armored space suits and moved fabbers into place. Plasma torches were checked as repair kits were pulled from storage.

  “We’ll be entering the debris trail of the Maraukians in seven minutes,” Taelyon said.

  The debris trail showed the Maraukians’ path of entry into Indalia’s atmosphere.

  “Ready on clamps!” Travestki said.

  Thankfully, the Moby was an old ship and still had dock clamps that ran down her spine, belly, starboard and port sides. Also, she still had internal docks for the different types of ships that called her home.

  Most modern ships fired out their different craft through acceleration tubes as they were smaller gaps in one’s armor and they could impart a greater speed onto the craft instead of the smaller mag-lines of a hangar-based carrier.

  “We are getting a request from Admiral Hesra,” Liang reported.

  “To my NIAI,” Chen said.

  “Captain Chen?” Admiral Hesra’s voice was clear in Chen’s mind.

  “Admiral Hesra, what can I help you with?”

  “I see that the Moby is moving position and heading for the debris field created by the Maraukian insertion barge.”

  “Yes, Admiral, that is correct.”

  “For what reason are you going into an area filled with debris?” Hesra said, starting to get annoyed.

  “Admiral Hesra, my communications officer has made requests to the supply ships of your fleet for resources to manufacture more ammunition for our forces on the ground. Those requests were denied so we are looking to cannibalize the Maraukians’ debris to create those supplies.”

  “Captain Chen, I can understand that you are invested in the forces you have placed on the ground, but you are putting your ship and your crew into danger when the forces on the ground can get a resupply if they make a request to the quartermaster on the ground,” Hesra said.

  Chen paused, wondering what the admiral was thinking.

  The mergers’ ammunition types were not the same as the rest of the legionnaires. They could use the ammunition blocks from the M19A but there weren’t M19As yet out on the battlefield. They burned through ammunition faster than an artillery park. They were also well into the Maraukian lines. With them approaching on all sides, having a ship get in and drop them supplies was a suicide mission.

  “Admiral Hesra, the Tenth legionnaires use a different ammunition type from regular legionnaires.”

  “Look, Captain, the Moby showed that it was indeed useful in fighting against the Maraukians and I overlooked the kinetic strike you dropped as it was okayed by the legionnaire commander on the ground. There is a chain of command and a supply line created for a reason. It is not your place to override it.” Hesra’s voice climbed as Chen could only grit his teeth. “Move your ship back into formation or I will have you court-martialed.”

  Chen took some deep breaths before calming his mind. If he was court-martialed, so what? If it saved some of the people on the ground, that was his job and duty. Fuck it.

  If we’re in the debris field then he’s not going to send anyone to try to get me.

  “In that case, Admiral, I will see you at the hearing. Right now, I have some people to keep alive.” Chen cut the chann
el.

  “Taelyon, get a move on,” Chen said.

  “Sir.” Taelyon increased their speed as they entered the debris field.

  “Clamp if you’ve got a target. Don’t get the lines tangled or I swear to God I’ll come down there and boot fuck you myself,” Travestki said to his gunners.

  Clamps fired away into the darkness, snatching out small debris from around the ship and reeling it back in.

  “We are getting communications from Admiral Hesra for you, sir,” Liang said.

  “Deny him,” Captain Chen said.

  Liang nodded and blocked the admiral.

  The first recovered panel was pulled to the ship. Volunteers who had been waiting for it exited an air lock and removed the panel.

  They guided the large section down the ship. As they reached the dock, the large bay doors opened to allow them inside.

  They passed off the panel to those inside.

  Things were still being set up but crews clamped the panel to the ground, and fighter and ship maintainers set to work with their plasma torches. Cutting the panels up, they dumped them into refining vats. The metal started to dissolve, being broken down and processed.

  Charles and the engineering team were split between making the supplies and making the supply delivery drop system.

  Additional debris was retrieved and guided down to the bay.

  Sensors were looking for new targets and also advising the groups on the hull of any incoming debris.

  The gunners were talking to one another and listening to Travestki’s orders as they went for the debris that sensors had okayed.

  Taelyon had a concentrated look on her face as they moved through the debris field. “I’m going to need you to clear that spinney block off the port bow.”

  “Clear to fire, sir?” Travestki looked at Chen.

  “Cleared to fire if needed,” Chen confirmed.

  “Missiles are ready. Firing,” Travestki said.

  The missiles hit the debris. Without atmosphere, the clump of debris was turned into fine particles shooting toward Indalia’s atmosphere.

  On the main screen, a tanned man with striking green eyes and a powerful bearing, wearing a uniform adorned with different medals, sat in the middle of a command center.

  “Crew of the Moby, this is Admiral Hesra, in charge of the space legion forces over Indalia. Captain Chen has gone rogue and has ignored orders, making him a traitor. You are ordered to arrest Captain Chen for court-martial and move outside of the debris field.”

  Captain Chen didn’t expect that Admiral Hesra would push to override their communication systems and shove a video in their faces.

  A few people looked over to Captain Chen, who sat there resolutely. The more time he spent in the debris field, the more resources Charles could get.

  The more they had, the more supply drops they could create.

  “What are you looking at? Eyes on screens,” Carla growled.

  Everyone snapped their eyes back to their screens. Not one of them would go against their captain.

  “Sorry, sir,” Liang said. The video connection closed. “My finger slipped.” With that, Liang continued to look at his station.

  Chen’s eyes fell on Taelyon, who hadn’t stopped flying, and Travestki, who kept issuing orders to his people.

  “I do remember something about us being part of the Auxiliary Tenth fleet. Which doesn’t technically put us under Admiral Hersht’s command,” Carla mused aloud.

  Chen laughed. “I don’t think that will help me much, but as long as we get the supplies our people need, I don’t care much.”

  Chen’s smile was a little easier. The crew of the Moby had been thrown together in just a few short months, and here they were, going into the middle of a dense debris field, a starship’s worst enemy. An admiral had given an order to arrest him, but all of his command staff ignored the order. Instead, they continued on and made him very proud.

  With this kind of willingness to follow him down the path to potential court-martial, Chen promised to do all in his power to see that he was the only person called in for the court-martial.

  He looked over what was happening across the ship and on the ground.

  The legionnaires at Edani were already on the other side of the city and running for Ducharev. Their sensor data was degrading as the Moby was moving away. They’d get periodic updates from the satellites that were being thrown out and the fleet above.

  The satellites were concentrated over the cities with the largest populations. The mergers held an important location; the civilians had been evacuated already and fortifications were being erected at Ducharev.

  Dodger and Ava’s forces were moving through the different passes, blowing them up and making it harder for the Maraukians to get through. Mark and Chyna were hauling ass to Edani with any of the earth moving equipment they had.

  From the latest information they got, the next full wave of Maraukians would be on Edani’s doorstep in eight or so hours.

  Chen recalled information on the support force that had arrived. It would be two, nearly three days until they reached Indalia and then they could drop forces on the ground.

  At the soonest, it would be ninety-six hours until the support fleet could fight back.

  It would take fourteen hours to get all of the civilians who were hiking to Ducharev inside the city, as well as the legionnaires.

  Only then could the Tenth start to pull back to Ducharev. They would need to pull back along the road or move through the forests and cliffs.

  Retreating under fire was never good. Even the Tenth wasn’t as fast as the Maraukians when running.

  Supplies were a massive issue. If the mergers didn’t have ammunition, then they could only rely on their weapons, armor, and bodies to fight off the Maraukians.

  They simply didn’t have the numbers to create a wall that would hold the enemy.

  Chen’s fists curled. As soon as the Tenth came under fire, it was unlikely that they would ever leave Edani.

  There were too many Maraukians. If they weren’t killed off by the Tenth, then they would charge past them toward Ducharev. Then, if the Tenth retreated, they’d be running right into the Maraukians that had already made it past.

  Their only hope was if the legion pushed forward to Edani, or if they had enough fire support raining down on them.

  They could run through that fire support and make it back.

  Chen could only support them from afar and watch their stand.

  ***

  Ray Sina had been a maintenance engineer for most of his life. His frequent run-ins with the higher-ups meant that he rarely got promoted. At first, he’d been angry. As he’d gotten used to the position, he started to delve into the shadier side of dealings that went on in a warship.

  He’d run gambling halls, made different kinds of booze, and could get most people what they wanted and needed.

  When everyone was getting ready for the Maraukians with their Alcubierre drive capabilities, he had looked for a new posting. Working on one of the massive carriers was good as it allowed someone to hide, though they were the nerve center of a fleet.

  Sina didn’t want to be in a ship that was going up against Maraukians. So he went looking for other ships that were in the space legion. There were always a few that were squirreled away in some unknown quadrant filled with people from Roma, the sons and daughters of powerful people who needed to show they served to bring their family honor, though they didn’t want to be in actual danger.

  He had come across how the Moby was being redone and it was on an ambassador mission. He thought that it was because people on the Moby were getting out of the fighting. If he was on an ambassador ship, then there was no way it would be going to war, right?

  He’d used his contacts and got his position shifted.

  When he got aboard the Moby, he knew there was something wrong. First of all, the ship wasn’t simply being fixed—it was being upgraded with the kind of weapons and machines t
hat made Sina have to take sleep classes on how it all operated.

  Then there were the ghostly pale weirdos who walked around in their armor all the time. They were called mergers. Through his information network, Sina found out that they were some kind of cyborg human freaks who could fight the Maraukians hand-to-hand. He saw one of them fighting off Maraukians with nothing but regular legionnaire armor and a sword.

  A fucking sword!

  He thought he’d get off the ship after Earth, take his time and request to be put on another ship. He didn’t know that the ship would go straight from Sol system to the Otarvi system to fight off the Maraukians.

  He’d heard Admiral Hesra’s words. The crew didn’t seem to react that much. Most actually seemed as if they were pissed with the admiral more than Captain Chen, who was leading them into a fucking asteroid field.

  Sina had snuck away from the work crews and went to one of his holdouts. He reached under the decking and grabbed the pistol underneath. He put it into his coveralls. Checking no one saw him, he put the decking back in place and headed toward the bridge.

  Who would have thought that I would be some hero, taking in a mutineering captain?

  Sina laughed to himself, thinking what reward he would take, not wanting to be mentioned in the press. Okay, maybe a little bit? It could be good to look like a hero with some of the working girls he frequented at different supply ports.

  Take a posting on a nice simple ship scouting for Maraukians.

  Chapter 29

  Edani

  Indalia, Otarvi System

  8/3555

  Once Quina and her legionnaires had cleared Edani, Mark sent Ava and Dodger off to go and blow any remaining paths they could find into Edani and hold back the roaming Maraukian groups.

  He’d moved with Chyna and the remaining mergers to Edani. The city was deserted, giving it an eerie feel.

  They set to work digging into the roads. They tore through pipes and electrical systems, creating corridors into the city.

  They piled up the dirt on either side of these trenches. The Maraukians, although they were fast running in a straight line, were top heavy. If they went up too much of an incline, they’d flip over and fall backward.