The Recruitment: Rise of the Free Fleet

by Michael Chatfield

  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 thought before pausing, actually looking at the force of people moving around the command centre 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 kilometres, 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 thought irritably, though thankfully I’d be getting mine back I thought solemnly compared to other men and women that 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 non-existent hand.

  Chapter 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 centre.

  “Yes commander!” It was like a switch had been flicked as the room turned into activity as 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 Mecha’s.

  Full of confidence the captains and most of their crews walked out of their ships arrogant swagger and 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 as Commandos swarmed out from the hallways now surrounding the pirates. Without saying anything they shot the pirates; the stun rounds putting them on the ground as half of them covered the incapacitated crew the rest swarming past them and to the docking tubes.

  “Opening tubes.” The docking controller said as they did so, on the screens and 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 that weren’t locked down.

  Finally they moved into the armouries and Mecha quarters. It was filled with squalor. All of the humans tried to attack the commandos as they opened quarters. They looked wild and half crazed. Only one of the corvettes commandos where 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 said smashing 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 as harm to 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 plan to bring them up to full readiness an hour afterwards. We need to get our defences 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 forming to my head and connecting 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 centre. 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 airlock 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 of 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 paintjob and refinished hull. I walked quickly across the new hangar deck to the third armouries 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 forearms exoskeleton 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 said throwing me a battle suit. I looked down at myself as I mentally groaned. I’d just co-ordinate a ship take over in a dressing gown.

  “So the rumour that you just co-ordinate 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 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 that 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.” Shrift said apprec
iatively.

  “So how’s the customized armour going?”

  “As I thought our armour wasn’t on par with that the syndicate members had.” Disgust in his voice.

  “Since we took their information though we’ve been able to find stronger and lighter armour as well as better synced servos and internal systems. I went ahead and made the suits so that they perform to a humans 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 excited as he rubbed his upper and lower hands together in glee.

  “How many have we got so far?” My throat dry in similar excitement, this would put us on par if not above that of the syndicate forces with more training and better suited weapons we could give the Syndicates and their forces a run for their money once we were hand to hand with them.

  “None so far it needs your approval, plus we’re currently making a manufacturing plant in the station along the lines of your assembly line.” My face fell.

  “How long will it take to get Mechas for everyone?”

  “A few months if we use the materials from the other Mechas.”

  “Alright do what you can to speed the process up I want to have them as quickly as possible. We’re also going to need units for the humans that will begin training as quickly as possible. We need everyone on the same page, including the Sarenmenti forces that have chosen to join us.”

  “What about the humans on the ships that just came in? Are you going to train them to be AMC’s?”

  “Yes. From what I’ve seen and read on reports still coming in, most of them are close to feral. Giving them training will allow them to have some kind of regular normality. Once they’re trained they will be given an option to wait on the station until they can return to Earth or they can join the Free Fleet. So tell me what you need to speed up this process.”

  “Our problem is raw materials. The station has very few. We’ve mostly taken what we’ve needed from decorations we’ve found throughout the ships and station.”

  “What about all of these asteroids floating around can’t we harvest some of them.”

  “Well yes we could.” He looked thoughtful. “Though we’ve never done it before. We’re ship engineers.” He said in way of response.

  “Well I think it’s about time people learned to diversify.” I accessed my communicator “Min Hae.” I said as it made a buzzing noise.

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s Salchar.”

  “Yes Commander?”

  “Can you run a search for an asteroid miner in the information caches we have?”

  “Yes commander I’m on it now. I already have over a hundred matches, what materials would we be looking to extract?”

  “Any and all with a processing facility to separate it all. Automated if possible.” It was a few minutes before Min Hae came back to me I was only sure he was still on the line by the fact the microphone had a blue light on which meant I was connected.

  “I have five different configurations of systems.”

  “Forward it to Felix and put in the engineering forum that we want to make one and ask for any ideas and input.”

  “I’ll get it done, anything else sir?”

  “Find me a nice damned asteroid heavy in the materials we need.”

  “On it.”

  “Preferable one within our defensive field of fire.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Salchar out.” I cut the connection and looked at Shrift.

  “Alright well hopefully I can see about mining some big juicy asteroids.”

  “About time we had more material Resilient’s already out of all her stores and there’s only so much pulling out melting down and putting back into place we can do. It’s all a very slow process if you’re only doing a few metres instead of half a deck of plasma conduits in one go!” Eddie said entering the armoury having heard our conversation.

  “Hello Eddie, how are the repairs going on her?” He linked his fingers behind his tool belt as he struck a pose I would expect to see in a western movie, even his cowboy hat tilted perfectly.

  “She’s in much better shape than before, most of her critical systems are going through an overhaul. I’m leaving the weapon systems in place, as outdated as they are. Resources are going to quickly become an issue.” He growled in annoyance, looking as if he wanted to spit.

  “The armour is weak in some places, but that’s been our first thing to fix before weapons as per your orders. Though at the same time I’m having secondary systems repaired in case there are blow outs or malfunctions.” He looked at me with the hint of smirk, his eyebrow titled slightly.

  Agreed, we don’t want to have systems completely cut out completely without some way to regain control. I trust in your judgment Eddie. I’m not going to say I know nearly as much as you for engineering.”

  “Your finally learning somthin’.” He said with a pleased twitch of his arms.

  “My crew and I have also come up with a few upgrades to be instituted across the fleet. With enough time and materials we’ll have all of these birds back in space and better than they were when they left their shipyards!” He said with a grin.

  “Give me just four months with Resilient in a full dock and all the raw materials I’ll need and I’ll be able to fix her hull, overhaul her fusion power plants and install the four that we’re missing. Give me eight months I’ll be able to get the engines fixed and her superstructure, which has been bugging me lately.” He continued on as I tried to stop him.

  “A year and I’ll be able to have her up to full fighting trim and upgrade her, new weapons, reactive nanite layered armour, secondary power fusion plants…” His eyes practically started to sparkle as he looked around the armoury. “First we need a full dock and materials, plus the Resilient is the heaviest ship we have. We’re not going to be able to take her out of action for a full year.” He looked down cast before a spark entered his eye after a few seconds.

  “We’re making a full ship yard?”

  “Yes, and we’ll have a full blown mining and refining operation.”

  “We could, well…” He looked off in wonder.

  “Don’t think about it, you’re my chief engineer. I’m not leaving you to make a dock.”

  “I wouldn’t think about it commander.” Eddie admonished. “The Resilient has been too much for me to leave her alone. I wouldn’t trust her with anyone else, other than you of course commander. I will still be there keeping her running.” He said firmly.

  “Good, in the meantime I have an idea for the dock and mining facilities which Felix is working on. In the meantime we still need to melt down and refine all of this material, and later the material from mining. I want you to organize a group to run that project.”

  “We need to get the Resilient back to her true form.” He said.

  “We need materials and the only way we’re going to be able to do that is to mine an asteroid.”

  “If we took a ship…”

  “I will NOT melt down another ship so that we can fix up the Resilient faster. We can’t make ships yet and we’ve just started a war with what I’m finding is the biggest crime syndicate in known history and space. That ship you want to melt down might be beside the Resilient in a battle and save her from dying. If we take that ship away we take away that support and firepower. Something I am not willing to do. Melt down broken machinery, Mechas, weapons and those damned useless decorations. Everything else is off limits. Do you understand Eddie?” I said. Staring into his eyes before he looked away.

  “I understand.” The aged Kuruvian said to the floor nudging it with his cowboy boots like a small child that had just been told off.

  “Good now, I would suggest talking with Felix as he’s the one that’s working on getting an extractor and processor made to create the supplies
you need. The faster he can get his plans ready the faster we can get the materials pumping out.” This put some wind back in his sails.

  “Yes Commander, I’ll have the processor up in no time and kick that Felix’s ass into gear with the extractor.” He said with a happy smile before taking off towards the armoury door yelling at the nearest engineer. “Stop looking like you’re trying to work George. We’ve got an asteroid eater to make!”

  That crisis averted I turned back to Shrift.

  “You have plans for a space dock? I thought we were only making the extractor and processor.” He asked.

  “We’ll get into that when the time comes, now in the meantime, I need you to get that down.” I said pointing to my Mecha. Shrift grunted, shaking his head as he turned to it.