Fernix (Harmony War Book 4)

by Chatfield,Michael

  Combat Shuttles had been split between dropping Troopers off, providing support to the Carriers and hunting down Harmony fighters, loaded up with rail guns and missiles.

  There was little that Hall could do. The orders had been given and they were fighting their ships. Fearless had taken a page out of EMFC Reclaimer’s book; they had linked the computer, weapons systems, power, and sensors together. They ran independently, but found targets and fired on them faster than any human could react. There was a small chance that they could clip a Combat Shuttle and had done a few times, but there was a Neural Net that was learning from the ship’s mistakes and clearing up better firing solutions.

  The more the Carriers fought the fighters, the better they got at fighting them. The Neural Nets started anticipating their movements and understanding what the human pilots would do. They weren’t perfect, as not all humans were alike, but it was ironing it out.

  Hall looked to his sensors, the Harmony Cruisers were doing full combat burn for him. They had even been bold enough to squawk their identifications.

  He now knew all of the names of his enemy ships, but he had stopped his fellow captains from doing the same. He knew that they would use that to try and track down the Carriers that had been in combat before.

  He knew that dying was a possibility. He also knew that losing Fearless could see the EMF fleet going back to being a squabbling mess of slum dwellers and EMF politics.

  “We’ve lost the bridge,” Rasalov said as the Carrier shook again.

  “Well, that is a shame,” Hall said, dryly.

  While they had been moving from Osdal to Fernix, they had run all of the bridge’s communications lines to a storage closet deep in the heart of the Carrier. Now, the bastards would have to get through some twenty decks before they could hit the bridge.

  Hall had told the other captains to do the same. Some had, others had loafed. Many of them had been evaporated with a missile impact to their bridge.

  Secondary bridge staff had taken over, and they had listened to Hall. Seemed that they didn’t want to go the way of their predecessors.

  “Spin the fleet and point us towards the Harmony fleet. It’s time that we ended this,” Hall said.

  “Yes, captain,” Guy said. The communications officer was the heart of the fleet.

  “Yeltsin, how long until we intercept the Harmony fleet?” Hall asked.

  “Five hours.”

  “Good, I want Blue Moon as a backdrop. If they miss us, then they’ll hit their own people.”

  “Yes, sir!” Yeltsin had an understanding grin on his face as he altered the Carrier and fleet’s flight plan, and sent it to the other Carriers.

  Hall looked around the room; his bridge staff had changed since they had fled Masoul. They had lost friends and they had come close to losing their own lives more than once. They were one of only two ships that had ever fought ship to ship. The other was the late Reclaimer crew. Those that had survived had filled Fearless’s positions, and they were the most fighting capable ship in the EMF fleet.

  “Let’s show them what Fearless can do, for Reclaimer,” Hall said, broadcasting to the entire ship.

  The determined faces turned grim and Hall forced himself to stay seated instead of leaning forward as if he could make the Carrier move faster.

  He looked at the support fire that was raking marked enemy positions down on Blue Moon. They were a moving artillery battery, controlling the orbitals and putting them to work.

  They’d lost five Carriers; their shells were evacuated as they spun in space. Their weapons systems had been linked together and were still attacking anything that came close to them and didn’t have an EMF call sign.

  Their people were being pulled and sent to Blue Moon.

  Hall was down to thirty-seven Carriers. It would have to be enough to defeat the Harmony fleet.

  Chapter 27

  Free City

  Fernix Prime, Fernix System

  7/3294

  Omoti Akani looked at the skies as hundreds of meteors seemed to enter the atmosphere. It was debris from the fight above Fernix Prime. He could make out the nuclear explosions and the night sky was lit with angry tracer fire ripping between the Blue Moon and the EMF fleet.

  He had looked at the reports on his screens and tablets. Now that it was here, he felt something stir in his guts akin to panic and fear. He knew what those Troopers could do. He knew that they would have no mercy for him, the man who had helped Harmony come into existence. He could only hope that his Harmony fighters defeated the Troopers and their Carriers before they descended on his planet.

  His implants beeped with new information. He ignored it, they had been beeping all day. He turned off all the alerts except the ones from Peter Quinn.

  Akani wondered for the first time if his plan had been worth it. He didn’t care about those who died, but about the industry that was being destroyed. The possibility that he could die. He tried to push that last thought from his mind, but he couldn't. The Troopers were here for him and his creation. He had helped make Harmony. It was a way to accelerate his and Peter’s positions. They wanted to be the leaders of the EHC and to do that they needed to defeat the EMF.

  So what was the best way to incite people to rebellion? Tell them that they can get out from under the companies. Tell them that they can have a future under their own government, make it look like you are building a real government. Start to give them more power and get them motivated to defend their homes, and then sit back and watch it happen.

  Of course, they had assured their victory, Harmony was just the distraction to keep Earth occupied.

  Soon they would have victory.

  Akani turned and walked through his ultra-modern house to get something to eat.

  He found his throat was itchy. He grabbed water and took a drink, but now the itch was in his eyes, in his nose, in his throat and armpits.

  His implants beeped frantically.

  He opened them up and they indicated that he’d been exposed to a toxin. He fell on the floor, his eyes bugging out as his nervous system rebelled against him.

  He had never got physical augments, he thought they were ghastly things. People thinking that they were going to get hurt; they weren’t even proper Company officers if they thought that.

  Akani had kept his body clean of them, like many other Company officers. He kept a real doctor on retainer to appear higher class, instead of using the robo-docs or having the augments heal him.

  Now he wished that he had allowed himself to become a partial cyborg. Slightly less than human.

  He was burning up from the inside out, and the toxin was turning his saliva and water into acid. His nervous system had shut down, and now he was choking on his own blood as his throat and mouth dissolved.

  Chapter 28

  HC Bulwark

  Fernix Prime’s Orbit, Fernix System

  7/3294

  Admiral Zeichner did not like the reports that she was getting from Fernix Prime. It looked like the EMF had deployed toxin weapons like the ones on Osdal. People were dying across the planet.

  It also seemed that someone with half a brain was running the fleet. The Carriers were linked together, covering one another’s weaknesses, and they were using the Blue Moon as a backdrop to the advance. She would get one pass, but if she missed then she would be hitting the Harmony forces fighting on the planet. Hopefully she would get the Troopers, but it was a force of twenty to one. No matter what, she would be hitting Harmony Chosen or their dependents that were hiding on the moon.

  The command center was unusually silent as they pushed their engines to maximum speed to hit the Carriers. Everyone knew what was happening to the people on Fernix Prime, no matter if they were combatants or civilians.

  They wanted blood, it was easy to see. She had trained with them for two decades, and she could tell what they were thinking with just a glance.

  “Prepare the fighters, we have an hour until we close contact. I want to go
with a full spread of missiles, flush all of them. When we get up and close, hit them with railgun rounds. Make sure those damn computers are accurate; I don’t want to hit our own people on Blue Moon.” She passed the word on, knowing that they were going to get hammered for holding their rail fire until the last possible moment, so that they didn’t hit their people. The captains and the crews needed to know the plan before they went into battle. There was a high chance that she would get destroyed before they closed. Taking that much punishment from those Carriers was going to be a real fucking pain in her ass.

  You didn’t take this job because it was easy, she thought, letting out her breath through her nose. Once they were past the EMF fleet then they could hammer the absolute crap out of them. They just needed to get past them.

  “Battle stations,” she announced, and the lighting changed as the fighters flew out of the Cruisers, hiding behind them.

  “Incoming fire,” Fernandez said from sensors.

  “There’s a time to dance and a time to weather the storm,” Zeichner replied. Today they would either win their freedom from the EHC, or they would once again be folded into it.

  If she died, it was a small price to pay for her people’s freedom.

  Democracy is paid for in the blood of patriots. She shook her head at the old quote, but it made sense.

  A wall of rounds reached out towards the Harmony fleet.

  “Fire missiles to clear a path, flush out magazines, a straight line so they clear these damned rounds out of our way,” Zeichner said.

  “Understood.” Baike passed on the orders to the fleet. Missiles thumped out of their tubes and rushed forward to meet the wall of rounds. It took a few minutes for the first ones to reach the rail gun rounds, then they exploded, leaving holes in the rail round’s screen.

  The others followed through, hitting other screens and pushing through towards the Carriers. Missiles continued to fire in rote repetition. By the time the last missile had left the fleet, the first was reaching the EMF Carriers. Their close-in weapons systems sent out frantic lines of tracers, hitting the incoming missiles.

  Shit, Zeichner thought as the CIWS ripped through her missiles. A few got close enough to make the Carriers buck a bit, but they weren’t getting close enough to crack the bastards apart or open up their armor.

  Her Cruisers were racing in now. They were just minutes from engagement range. The EMFC’s main guns fired, four or five Carriers working together to make a screen of the heavier rounds.

  “Cruiser Demask is hit!” Baike called out. The Carrier was hit with tens of rounds. It shook them off, cutting its engines and rotating to present its armored belly to weather the storm.

  The Carriers didn’t stop. They continued to fire and the Demask continued to shake with hit after hit.

  “Cruiser Liberty is also... fuck, she’s gone,” Fernandez said, helping Baike out.

  Just a little bit more, Zeichner thought, listening to the frantic reports coming in, the sounds of her fleet getting ripped apart. It was almost too much but she listened, looking to the main plot and watching as they closed with the Carriers.

  “Fire everything!” she cried as they reached eighty percent hit possibility. The EMF Carriers were now hitting Bulwark, causing the ship to shake and armor to buckle. She could hear the incoming rounds smashing into armor and then through it. She could feel it through her armrests.

  The Harmony fleet was down to six Cruisers. They opened fire on the Carriers and the fighters that had been hiding behind in their wake moved out and rushed in to engage the Carriers.

  Combat Shuttles that had been hiding behind their Carriers rose up, firing hundreds of missiles at the fighters and the Cruisers.

  Rail rounds ripped through space, smashing into armor and into ships. Missiles rushed to close with their targets and CIWS blazed, trying to cut down the missiles.

  It was chaos, with touches of what looked like order and a plan thrown in.

  They were seconds from crossing the EMF fleet, practically over them.

  “Missile launch!” Fernandez screamed as missile pods along the sides of the Carriers opened their hatches, ripple-firing missiles. They rushed out to meet the Harmony fleet.

  “For Harmony, for freedom!” Zeichner yelled, watching her Cruiser crews give everything they had, pushing themselves beyond their limits to fight the EMF.

  One Carrier went dead, its engines stopping but its weapons still fired. These bastards had listened to someone and followed the Reclaimer’s tactics.

  Even dead in space the Carriers fought on. They were a valid opponent, they were people trying to escape Earth and the slums.

  Zeichner could understand that, she was also trying to escape Earth and its choking companies. She wanted to see her children go on and have freedom from the companies.

  Rounds broke through Bulwark’s belly armor, and people were ripped apart or disappeared into the mangled metal of the ship.

  More rounds slammed in, turning the protective armor into shrapnel shards.

  Zeichner was thrown out of her seat and onto the floor. She picked herself up, steadying herself on the railing that she’d hit. Blood was coming from a cut in her forehead and alarms were going off all over the place. Then she saw the tactical plot. The Cruiser was fighting the oncoming missiles, but there were too many. Fighters tried to help but the EMF were throwing everything at Bulwark; somehow they knew that she was here. They wanted to cut her off and throw the Cruisers into chaos.

  The missiles started shaking the ship.

  One made it in, and Zeichner didn’t even feel the end.

  It had happened in seconds; space was filled with chaos. The Cruisers were still pushing onward, while the Harmony fighters and Combat Shuttles were dog-fighting in space. The Combat Shuttles had numbers and more weapons, the Harmony fighters had maneuverability.

  One fighter started it, the others following. They rammed the Carrier Guardian and, with their built up speed and their missiles, they opened a hole in the Carrier.

  The EMF fought back with everything they had but twelve more Harmony fighters smashed into different Carriers.

  Three Cruisers were left intact. Only one still had operational weapons.

  The damaged Carriers and their secondary Carriers that had acted like their opposite sides stayed where they were, helping one another. Those with operational pairs headed after the three Cruisers. All of them were firing on the three, there was no escaping the EMF’s fire.

  The Cruisers’ inertia pushed them on, despite rocking with more hits. The EMF now controlled the Blue Moon, Fernix Prime’s Orbitals and Fernix System’s space.

  Chapter 29

  Factory Complex Three

  Blue Moon, Fernix System

  8/3294

  They’d been fighting for a month and it had been hell. They were low on supplies, and low on power - problems that Harmony didn’t seem to have.

  “Ah shit, I’ve got what looks like a whole friggin’ Regiment moving up on us,” Tyler said. The Reclaimer Regiment had grouped up and were advancing through the factories. Scouts had run up and seeded the area in front of them with sensor sticks, making the mass of red no more intimidating.

  “Why is it that you always find trouble?” Mark asked Tyler.

  “Trouble just has a way of finding me...”

  “Move into defensive positions,” Tyler said to Ali and Dashtund. Che was in command of Iliev’s Section, he had been hit and was getting patched back together by the medics. His armor was also messed up and the armorers put him at ten hours before he was back in the fight. It had taken a direct order from Tyler to get him to not grab an AMR and run up to join them.

  Tyler looked at the AMR wielding Troopers that were moving through the rafters of the factories. The catwalks couldn’t support powered armor, but they could hold a Trooper in normal armor.

  Tyler looked at his AMR where his screamer should be.

  “More like, you run headfirst into trouble while screamin
g ‘Geronimo, Fuckers!’” Jerome said.

  “Geronimo? I’d never say Geronimo,” Tyler objected. Techs came around and sprayed the defenses that the Troopers were hiding behind; having them around was damn useful. Others topped up ammunition packs, and threw mines over the Troopers’ fronts. Little blue dots showed the explosives.

  “Probably just swear… wait, what did he say on Gas Planet?” Alexis asked.

  “Crap, ummm, swore and then I think he said ‘Shit, I bruised my tailbone,’” Mark said.

  “Well it friggin’ hurt!” Tyler growled.

  Screamers ripped through the thin atmosphere and smashed into the leading PAC forces. All across Tyler’s line they opened up. Alpha Company held the left and Charlie to the right.

  These PACs understood tactics a little too well for Tyler’s tastes, and they scrambled for cover instead of charging ahead like the PACs on Osdal had.

  “Alright, I want to bait these bastards in. Our tech boys and girls were nice enough to lay down a mat of mines, so I say that we put their hard work to the test. Pull back and make it look like a hasty retreat. I’m getting the techs to make up a secondary position,” Haas said, marking a new position. “I want a Platoon from each Company to the secondary position. Have a Section from the Platoons stay on the line at the secondary position, they can mark out fire positions for the rest. I want this smooth and fast. Twenty minutes.”

  “Well then, Che, your Platoon is going back. Ali, Dash, pick a Section you want to send back there,” Tyler said.

  Three green lights came back. Tyler knew that Che probably wanted to stay on the front line, but she had the most experience leading people other than him, and she would make sure that everything was set before the rest of the Company moved back.

  The Platoon and other Sections got situated, and techs ran around with their spray-ite. Tyler started sending back other Sections until there were just two left, all of them firing at the Chosen in powered armor.