The Recruitment: Rise of the Free Fleet

by Michael Chatfield

  She got out of her Mecha and lay on the bed, annoyance filling her as she thought of the impudent man that was her husband. The fleet commander, sleeping in a crew woman’s quarters gallivanting from berth to berth every night. She doubted the drugs were for just staying awake for a week and a half, they made it easier for him to have his way with a crewwoman and then move on making it look like he was working constantly.

  He had better come to her and soon explaining himself or there would be a toll for his indiscretion she swore or her name wasn’t Yasu Masami Ono.

  ***

  Chapter Final preparations

  I walked into the stores a busy woman working on her data pad as she hurried around pulling kit from the racks behind her, others doing the same further in the racks.

  “Be with you in a minute, we’re quite busy.” She said with a note of irritation.

  “That’s fine I can wait.”

  I was working on my data pad when she’d finished with her order about an hour later and came up to me.

  “So what is it that you want?” Annoyance ringing through her voice.

  I looked to her with a smile as I watched her eyes go wide with surprise. The scar definitely gets some attention I thought as I leaned on her desk.

  “Hello I need a new battle suit.”

  “Yes Fleet Commander Sir, I didn’t know that was you! I am so sorry! I thought you were just another crewman trying to pushing your weight around to get new tabs for your uniform…” She realized what she had said all too late as her face flushed. “Ah yes new battle suit.” She squeaked rushing back to the safety of the racks. I grinned letting a laugh go for the first time in a while.

  “I’ve just the thing for you.” She reappeared a few minutes later with three heavy looking battle suits, her face beet red.

  “I am so sorry Commander Salchar!”

  “It’s no worries.” I said with a grin causing her to smile timidly as I studied the battle suits which felt different. “This looks a bit different from my regular battle suit.”

  “This is the battle suit two-point-oh.” Her demeanor changed as she pulled one onto the table between us and laid it out.

  “It’s now armoured to take indirect fire and to help blunt the effect of plasmid weapons, it has built in tourniquets, hell fire injection system and it is also rated for vacuum. If the suit senses vacuum a clear hood will encapsulate your face and internal oxygen reserves and carbon dioxide scrubbers will provide you with breathable air for four days. It will keep you warm with an integrated temperature balancing system, or colder if you’re in a warm environment just like the previous one but this time with more severe temperature ranges. It also connects with your nerve ports and with a miniaturized embedded exoskeleton, allowing you to move even if your Mecha is disabled. It is compatible with your Mecha still, and has added inflatable adjustable padding.” She looked up seeing she had my full attention she continued.

  “It has its own communication relay within it as backup for your Mecha, or for primary use.” She pressed a tab on the neck as a clear covering enveloped the neck of the battle suit.

  “The hood has a minimal HUD in it; it will also darken if say, you look at the sun while working outside.” She pointed to what looked like small puckers along the back and chest

  “There are propulsion jets around the body in case you need to manoeuvr.’ She said with a smile as she handed over the battle suit. The material was now tougher and heavier but still felt comfortable. I could feel the tiny machinery that made up the exoskeleton weaved in as well as the armoured and insulating areas.

  “I’d heard that there was finally a hell fire embedded battle suit, I didn’t think it would be this advanced.”

  “We had a few more ideas.” She shrugged as I grinned.

  “Good work.” I said as she nodded, her face tinging red. I took off my old battle suit and put on my new one, no new blush rising on her cheeks. The battle suit moved over me adjusting to put everything in the right place. A moment of panic over came me as the clear hood came up from the collar sealing over my head. I brought my hands up to rip it off; it formed to my head and then retracted before I could do so.

  Feeling a little embarrassed I lowered my hands as I moved in the battle suit. There were a few moments of cold and then hot as the suit adjusted to my normal temperature and then settled down finally.

  The added strength of the exoskeleton wasn’t anything like that in my Mecha but it was still there. I could feel armoured plates moving it wasn’t clunky as I had expected but wholly fluid.

  “How many of these do you have?”

  “These are the prototypes, we’re still finding out more information from Min Hae and then adapting it as we go. With the restrictions on materials we’re waiting for clearance to make more.” Her face twisting in annoyance.

  I pulled up my data pad whisking through a few things before applying my thumb to the surface.

  “You now do. These will save lives immediately. Take a week or so to collect all of your ideas before making another. I’ll test this one out and make notes on it; I’ll send back messages with the FTL buoys we drop so you can make improvements as you go.”

  “Really sir?” Her eyes alight. “You’ll test it for us?”

  “Yes, though I want you to make the best damned battle suit you can come up with. Also do the armourers know about this suit?”

  “We will sir! We won’t let you down! Yes they do! They helped with the exoskeleton and we took the injector information from them for the hell fire.” She said excitedly before pausing screwing her face up before facing me.

  “Good”, I said with a smile as she looked distracted.

  “What is it?”

  “Are you going to take the fleet and leave us here?” Her tone now guarded as she looked at me with something like apprehension in her eyes.

  “I have to free those that we left on Chaleel. They’ve been there for almost three months, I wished we could go sooner, but we weren’t ready. Now we are we have a promise to keep to them. Once they’re freed we can move to re-take Earth and then look to freeing more planets from the Syndicate pirates.”

  “Can’t you do that all from the station though?”

  “I could, but what would it show, that I’m too scared to leave the safety of the station, to risk my life like those under my command? A leader doesn’t lead from the rear, but from the front with the grunts helping to pull everyone forward.”

  “What about Commander Monk then? Why is he staying? He’s a fighter.”

  “Yes he is, and one of the best that I know. Though we need somewhere safe for us to come back to and to meet others at. I want to turn Parnmal into a massive station not used only for the Free Fleet but also to have trade between planets and be a major hub in the galaxy. For that I need someone who is firm, yet just and can also make judgments that could mean life or death. Monk in my opinion fits that bill perfectly.” I could see I’d gathered an audience as people in the racks listened to my every word.

  “Monk is a warrior but he is also fair, he won’t abuse his power. He’ll be dealing with people of every race, he’ll have to be accommodating to them, at the same time he will have a population of military, civilian and prisoners. All of which he needs to look over, treat differently and work with. Before all of this he was actually training to become a monk of Buddha, he has the most patience I have ever seen in a person, and I know he’ll use his patience and his skill with being able to see things from others point of view without being judgmental.”

  “You’re in good hands with Monk.” I said with a smile I grabbed my other battle suits and left the stores, my protection detail clumping behind me.

  It never seemed to be slow in the station, people ran with grav carts bringing newly refined materials to the workshops which cranked out parts to be put on ships. Last minute supplies raced around others were yelling unintelligible things that were background noise to me as I walked and looked around appreciatively.<
br />
  Prisoner work details under the careful watch of their warden Commandos put the station back together. They wore no jewelry anymore except for orange battle suits. A few of them looked angry but resigned to their fate, others looked—well, happy.

  There were a few trouble makers as with any group but the majority were happy to not worry if those around them would kill to get a larger share of the prize, or on a whim.

  It was much the same with the humans that were serving terms, the humans usually stuck together still feeling the ire of their previous captors that they served alongside with. Though for the most part they were putting their differences aside as they saw much of the same in one another—they all had work to do and the less problems the better.

  Monk had begun mixed work parties to try and bring around this cooperation and stop the infighting. That didn’t mean that the wardens who were special forces Sarenmenti didn’t feel the need to break up the fights with prejudice which was actually helping the cohesion giving both sides something to despise.

  I walked down to the docking tubes the four Mecha teams on duty coming to attention as I walked passed giving them the accepted two finger salute as I entered the hangar. On the wall there was a gold oval with the Resilient’s side profile, the Free Fleets symbol, a mecha with an olive branch, beside it.

  I walked through the Resilient’s halls. There was a major lack of skilled personnel; it was by far our greatest weakness. For every skilled person we lost there was no way of getting them back or replacing them, not unless we wanted to start using the syndicate crews to fill our ships—which was not an option.

  This lack of highly skilled personnel meant that areas such as engineering, tactical, gunnery, sensor operators, helmsmen and navigators had people running double or triple shifts. Plus with the creation of the shipyards and the need to get other ships fixed up it meant it was pulling our already limited manpower away from the ships that were ready to actually patrol. Well not really if Eddie was to be believed.

  The Free Fleet personnel had become Renaissance people or jack of all trades. Commandos were fusion plant engineers, a damage control crewmate might also be trained in navigation. Everyone was trained in multiple areas, as well as all of them being qualified commandos first.

  Kuruvians were happy to do anything engineering and a large amount of them had found interest in being navigators, they enjoyed the complex mathematics which only made my head spin. They had also taken a liking to working with sensor arrays as they were used to looking at thousands of lines of data to find an issue.

  The Humans and Sarenmenti were spread across the ship in nearly every department. All of them doubled as commandos to swell our numbers which where woefully low. It was strange as a Commando could now be a navigator, but because of the need to have an assaulting force they were stuck clunking around in armour. If they died then we would lose a valuable resource worth months of training that we couldn’t get back.

  We had less than a quarter of the necessary bodies per ship and that was with only twenty seven ships in space.

  Clearing these thoughts and the frown on my face I walked up to the closed blast doors that lead to the bridge. The commandos waiting there snapped to attention as one of them thumbed the opening button. I walked past them coming to a second blast door. I grinned as the second commando team did the same as those at the first door, my implants linked to the computer could tell me they had already scanned me a few dozen times.

  I walked in as Rick was already waiting, probably having been told by the outer blast door commandos.

  “Free Fleet commander on deck!” He said snapping me a salute as everyone coming to attention in their seats. We’d come a long way from being Mecha fighters training in a hangar bay I thought with a smile.

  “At ease.” I said returning the salute moving past my chair, the responsibility that came with it clear in my mind as I didn’t pause. I had made a silent promise to my people and those under the thumb of the syndicate, it was time I accepted that.

  “Better get this on with then.” I said, tapping the chair in passing. The conference room which had been built in the back of the bridge opening before me.

  “At ease.” I said before they could salute as I looked at the view screen wall which held every ship commander, platoon and higher commander, Monk, Min Hae and Felix and their leadership teams, as well as my own department heads aboard the Resilient, including Henry who’d taken control of my fleets commandos, and Yasu who’d snuck her way in somehow.

  Eddie and Shrift looked nervous as everyone else looked confused.

  “Now, I know you are all wondering why I’ve asked to conference you all. To be honest I should have held this conference earlier.” I took a breath as I looked at them all.

  “There was a silent partner in our revolt. She is the one that created the solution that allowed the pain implant and internal kill switches be removed.” There was no missing Yasu’s withering gaze as I said she.

  “She was instrumental in taking Parnmal, and without her help I doubt we would have been able to take the station. She was the one that helped me to open our eyes to who the planetary defence force truly were. I ask for me that you look at her with open eyes, she is a sworn member of the Free Fleet like you all and she has sworn to serve to the codes and regulations of the Free Fleet.” I looked at all of them, as they looked, somewhat understanding.

  “Resilient.” The holographic projector in the room came to life as Resilient appeared beside me.

  There was a moment of confusion, probably more than one person on the screens and in the room with me wondering if I’d been smelling plasma exhaust.

  “Thank you Commander Salchar. Hello Commanders, Captains, Leaders and Chiefs of the Free Fleet, it is good to finally meet you. My name is Resilient and I am the AI of the Dreadnought Resilient.” As predicted everything just went insane. Some accepted it, others were confused, more believed it wasn’t true and the races that weren’t human looked as if they were going to faint.

  “Quiet!” I barked as quickly the screens became silent.

  “As to people’s first question if she is real, Eddie?”

  “I have known her personally for five years out of my twenty three on her. She’s as real as this chair I’m sitting in.”

  “Shrift?”

  “I’ve only known her for two years, but yes she’s real. When I first found out I was terrified because of all the sorties I’ve heard about rogue Ai’s. Though once I calmed down and thought about it, there were so many times which she could have killed all of the crew and just gone and done what she wanted yet she didn’t.” Giving you lot a chance. Shrift’s gaze seemed to add.

  “By now you have all seen the documentary of how the Union suddenly turned the tables and defeated the Kalu. That was due to AI intervention. Resilient do you want to tell them?” I asked.

  “Indeed. The Union and AI’s had a, hostile relationship at the best of times. It’s due to the creation of an AI, if an AI Is created, it like the majority of sentient creatures needs to learn. How a Kuruvian eats their first molting, or a Sarenmenti eats liquid food, or a human grabs everything. When this happens they exercise themselves, as a human must learn how to walk the AI must learn how to control their body, which can be whatever they’re in. From stations, dockyards and ships to planetary information nets. This is catastrophic. If an AI is in a planetary information net then they can and do see how changing the power input to one apartment works, or lessening it. Or what will happen if they cut off communications. They don’t know good and bad, they’re still learning what they can do at this point.” Her tone was serious, like the one’s I’d heard talking about drugs in school.

  “An emergence as this is called among AI’s can last from an hour, to months. Every AI develops differently, and has access to more or less resources to gain reasoning from. This chaos can be averted if another AI can introduce their own code to the growing AI. The AI gains from the donor and learn higher f
unctions and how they work. AI’s can also birth other AI’s by combining two or more AI’s code together to a fertile grid and then expand the grid as the AI grows.” Her tone lightened as the screen showed an image of systems with an outward growing green force chasing blues.

  “The Union was split between trying to hunt us all down and destroying us or offering us a seat within the Union. If they had offered us one we could have gone through a revolution, much as what Parnmal will experience soon and then spread to the habited systems. Instead AI’s remained as a neutral party. We moved far away from the Union, only worm holing in to retrieve a newly created AI. Though some AI’s would visit biological friends they had, that was how they were able to ask for out help in the Kalu war.” She said as someone raise their hand.