“The Free Fleet should be able to put him through their courts,” Narvu suggested, the others agreed and that sentence was passed on again.
“So how do these leaders become so?” Empress asked, she was much more interested in ion containment chambers than different governing systems.
“The majority are elected; others use fear to intimidate others. There are a variety of ways,” Pidali said. She sounded like she had done her research on the matter. It only made sense being so close to Sol.
“It seems that a number of groups didn’t participate in the attacks,” Elisati said, looking to the others to see if they refuted her statement or had information to the contrary, no one did. “What are we going to do with them? We can’t pass something on the entire planet, we’d be hurting the ones that kept their word.”
“We allow them to continue on with their activities, though if we find out that a group we are punishing are using their activities then we apply a ban to them,” Narvu said.
“That works, I also say that we actively try to get them to Mars. Best if we have all of the aggressors in one spot instead of having to mess around with different groups,” Elisati said.
“Now, the aggressor nations,” Pidali said, no one was in a hurry to go first as they looked over the information they had on the aggressor nations, and it was a lot.
“I think that it might be best if we have some time to think on the information we’ve been given, maybe a day?” Elisati asked.
Everyone agreed, it was a momentous decision, one that would affect billions of people.
That had been a day ago, now Empress, and the three other Union signatory members had to choose the fate of a people.
She watched the plot of Sol. Salchar wasn’t going with the Fleet. Rick went in his stead on the Dreadnought Ashkoon. The Chaleelian fleet went as well. Half of the Chaleelian Commandos had been dropped onto Mars to assist with sorting things out there.
Nancy was already coming back online; the Free Fleet people didn’t wait around. Hachiro’s damage was still being assessed and repairs being affected where they could be.
It would be a day until Rick arrived in Earth’s orbit.
Earth’s messages had become more frantic as time had gone on, now as the fleet approached every message coming from Earth seemed to ask what they were going to do and trying to make amends.
The Free Fleet remained silent, their ships moving on without any sign of backing away. The Earth ships carrying their forces lay in front of them. If anyone was dumb enough to try and turn on the Free Fleet, then they’d hammer the unshielded ships into tombstones.
The conference room dimmed as Narvu flickered into existence. He nodded to Empress in greeting, he looked anxious, it was understandable, this was one hell of a decision. None of it made easier by the reading of the information they’d been supplied.
The reading seemed to raise more questions than it answered.
Elisati and Pidali appeared in their holographic form. None of them looked like they had much sleep in the past twenty-seven hours.
“Alright, well I guess we should be about it then,” Empress said.
***
Rick looked over the message Salchar had transmitter directly to him, from the council of the Union.
So this is their decision. He thought as he read through the document, it was shorter than he had expected but the words no less powerful.
He transmitted part of the orders to the Intelligence department and let out a breath before turning to Ship Commander Drux.
“The Commander has sent me the Union’s decision. I need to present them with a message,” Rick said.
“Yule, prep a channel for the Chief of Staff. Sir would you like to take my seat?” He asked, standing up from his position. Drux had tried to get Rick to take his seat since he had come aboard. He felt that it was bad manners to have him in the most powerful seat on the bridge when the second-in-command of the fleet was aboard.
“Just this once,” Rick said, a small grin passing over his lips. It faded as quickly as it arose, serious matters were afoot and it gave him little pleasure to deal with them.
They switched places and Rick brought the information over the command screens.
“Yule?” Rick asked.
“Good to go when you are sir,” Yule reported.
“Then I guess we should start,” Rick said, facing the camera at the front of the carrier’s bridge. “To the inhabitants of Earth, the Union has reached a decision on your crimes. The nations that did not contribute to the forces that attacked the Free Fleet and citizens of the Union and protected persons of the Free Fleet will be allowed to continue as they did before. Nations that did, you will pay an increased tax for the equipment you have destroyed and a blood price for the people that you killed.” His face was hard as he took a moment before continuing. “The Free Merchant fleet will reclaim their goods and any loans that they gave to various parties that betrayed their trust. Education and medical aid will remain free, by the grace of the Union. Recruiting centers will close and all trainees and personnel will be collected by ship. Anyone that tries to stop this will be prosecuted as thieves trying to hold onto Free Merchant personnel and property.” He looked to his screen, seeing the words that burned in his mind.
“The Union and the Free Fleet hoped that Earth and the human race could move past their prejudices and come to think of others as their friends and comrades. We have been proven wrong. Through Earth’s actions you have proved that you do not wish to work with others, but rather exercise power over them. When Earth shows that they are ready to be a part of the Union through participating as friends and neighbors, working together to help the people, then hopefully an agreement can be reached. A planet is judged by their actions and their people. People of Earth, you have allowed fear and war mongers lead you, you, no one else can look to take control of your fates and your direction. Together you are powerful, take that strength and decide what you want to do. If you decide you want to join the Union and the other inhabited worlds in creating a better future then show it,” Rick implored the people of Earth with a reaching hand towards the screen as if to invite them to join the other planets. “We will not standby another attack on our people, our friends and loved ones.” The pleading and open hand disappeared behind the steel in Rick’s voice and the promise in his eyes.
He twitched his right hand in a cutting gesture.
Yule read the gesture right and the feed cut.
“What now sir?” Drux asked.
“Now we get our people back, and the intelligence department gets us the names of those that came up with this idea,” Rick looked to Drux. “And we take them back to Parnmal to face Free Fleet courts.”
“Yes sir,” savage agreement in his voice.
Chapter Change of Scenery
Yasu walked through Nancy, Commander Connolly followed with Commandos Tully and Moft moving ahead.
Commandos and personnel moved to the walls, nodding to Yasu or tapping their fingers to their heads in recognition. She returned the respectful gestures as she walked, her powered armor adding to the noises of her protection detail. They were something that Krom and Shreesht had almost demanded, Salchar threw his weight behind it so Tully and Moft were at her door the next day. Tully was a Kuruvian that had found his calling with the Commandos. Moft was an awakened Avarian and seen as something like Krom’s cousin. Both were quite capable; she’d fought them a few times before she entered her current state. Word of her pregnancy had spread like wild-fire and it seemed like the entire fleet was seeing that she was cared for. She’d talked to other personnel that had been pregnant within the fleet. They all said the same thing. It could be a bit overwhelming, but at the end of the day it felt good to have all those people behind her no matter what.
They reached another larger group, they parted for her, her own protection detail splitting as she strode right through the group.
Salchar looked up, a look of interest and questioni
ng on his face as he looked to Yasu.
“Yes?” He asked as if he was walking some tight-rope wondering if he had done something wrong or forgotten something.
She cocked an eyebrow and crossed her arms.
He looked down to her stomach and back up. “Imaging,” he said in understanding, looking to Krom. Why didn’t you remind me? He seemed to say with that gaze.
“Are you coming to see your kid or not?” She asked, pursing her lips.
“Of course I am,” he said pulling his helmet off, there was a gleam in his eye as he pulled her close, kissing her.
She pushed off.
“We’re in public,” Yasu said.
“And if others are staring they better enjoy the damned show. I am,” Salchar winked. There was still the sadness behind his eyes at all that occurred in Sol. The Funerals were planned to be done in two-day time.
She brought him in for another kiss, they both needed to think about something else for a time.
“Come on,” she said, pulling his arm and heading towards the medical area.
***
I’d spent all of yesterday talking to Yasu after we got the imaging of the baby done. I was going to have a son; he was going to have some Avarian traits like I did but everything looked good. The kinds of emotions that run through you when you see a baby moving on a screen. It doesn’t feel real, it feels as if you’re watching this happen to someone else, but your mind works on that thought, and the facts come rolling in. It wasn’t until we were at Ms. Li’s shop drinking tea that it hit me.
Yasu was talking about different reports and information she’d got and I’d reached my hand across the table, taking her hand in mine. She’d looked at me confused, my only reply was a smile. Her face smoothed into a smile as we looked at one another and then at the holographic walls of the tea shop. It had escaped a lot of the damage, the counter was messed up, as was a wall, but there were enough chairs and tables still left for Ms. Li to go about her business and she did.
“So I guess we should start looking at baby names,” she said. I tightened my grip on her hand for a moment.
“Yes I guess we should,” I said, and we’d talked about the baby, making fun of how the others would react with the kid. She’d kept my mind mostly off of the events happening around us and got me to go to bed at a reasonable time. A pregnant woman always wins.
That was yesterday, today, today we deal with Earth and my new super-carrier Hic Stamus.
I walked to the front of the shuttle, looking over the shoulder of the pilots to see their massive view screen which showed the berth that held the massive carrier. Silly had not wasted any time on the super-carrier. She was the first of her kind, a purpose-built Free Fleet vessel with all of tricks that we could figure out packed inside her. She was no peacekeeping ship. She was built for war. Resilient rested in the dock beside her, her armor had been peeled back, sections donated to Hic Stamus.
Felix and his engineers had passed on their pointers and information, throwing themselves into their work instead of reflecting on what had happened to them and their friends when they entered the system.
Elshurvum wasn’t docked but her supplies, crew and systems were being put into place. It would be another three days before they were leaving for the destroyer yard. LaRe had been fitted into his place aboard Elshurvum and Resilient had been transferred over to Hic Stamus.
Even with all of the engineers swarming over the ship, Eddie was clearly the master of his own ship. He’d driven his people harder than ever and they’d done him proud.
Hic Stamus was two-weeks ahead of schedule and she was going to be the second most powerful ship after War-station.
The damage to Nancy had been bad, but the shipyard was made from standardized units. It was a matter of pulling out the worst damaged sections, then replacing them with new sections.
The other slips were quickly coming back online but most of the engineers weren’t looking to their ships, they were looking to the new armament program.
After the attacks I had realized how minimal the defenses of our stations and infrastructure was. Every ship yard was gaining a number of Planetary Rail Cannons and laser cannons when they were available. Remote platforms were getting drafted up, slapped onto asteroids and floating them around the stations and positions.
Weapons that had been stockpiled for ships were quickly getting put online.
Hic Stamus had been built from the beginning to be a damned citadel against anything that ran into it and dished out pain with every movement.
She was shaped like a hexagon that had its sides, top and bottom pushed in. Her rear was flat with engines, her front pushed out to a blunted snout.
Hangar doors lined her sides, batteries were raised away from the bays but weren’t level with the larger surrounding armor.
Planetary Rail Cannons ran along her spine and belly. Laser cannon positions dotted the armor being placed on the raised sections. Railguns and PDS were being put into place with the armor closing around them and growing outwards to cover the rest of the ship.
Twelve massive reactors hummed beneath her armor, eighteen secondary reactors were coming online and thirty-six tertiaries would be online before she left the yard.
She would hold a crew of Forty-thousand, she’d hold five wings of Jump fighters, Eight Multi-Environment Fighter wings and four bomber wings bringing her to eighty-five small craft. She had another three wings of shuttles. Her cannons and weapon systems would be hellish, but her single greatest advantage lay with the massive capacitors that ran down the length of the ship.
The pilots took us on a long route around the slip, seeing the massive ship as it swelled to encompass our view. The super-carrier was nearly three times the size of Resilient.
The laser cannons were bigger than planetary cannons but there were still five of them on every raised section of the hull, Dreadnought classed cannons littered the surface, hard to pick out against the open hull.
The pilots aimed for a hangar bay.
“Hello Commander,” Resilient said through the shuttle’s speakers.
“Hey Resilient, you’re looking rather impressive if I might say.”
“I’m feeling rather impressive. Eddie has been able to get me the newer processing centers and systems I’ve been wanting for a while. I’ll be able to do a lot more here on Hic Stamus than I was able to on Resilient,” she replied.
“I have to ask, did you name the ship after yourself, or did you take on its moniker?” I asked.
“I took it on as I got myself roped into Syndicate service. It was a promise to those that I knew before the fall of the Union. A promise that no matter what happened, I would hold on against the odds and I would find a way to bring honor to the memories of those lost.” Resilient didn’t like talking about the times before the collapse of the Union, she had lost a good number of people that she cared about. It showed in her voice that became faraway and sad as she talked.
Some might argue that because she was an AI that she was just faking the emotion.
The truth was that she could easily hide those emotions if she wanted to. Much better than someone of organics.
Showing those emotions was a show of trust in those around her.
“And so you have. The Union has come into existence once again. Ten systems are already part of the Union and more will join,” I said as the shuttle entered the hangar and I moved back to the cargo bay, pulling my helmet on.
“Yes, though it seems that the good of the Union has come with the enemies that they had as well as new ones that do not believe in it as others do,” Resilient said.
“Yes, there will always be forces at work which try and push us away from the path we choose. We must, as you have, remain Resilient against the temptation to give in.” The shuttle settled onto its landing pad. Lights indicated that people should be wearing their helmets and sealed up in their suits.
The cargo master checked us over with a glance before pumping atmosphere ou
t of the shuttle.
“Yes, yes we must,” she said, sounding as if she gathered strength from the words that had made my eyes sharper and my face harder.
Seeing as no one had passed out from the shuttle not having atmosphere the cargo master opened the ramps. Shreesht went first, I followed, Krom coming behind.
Felix, Silly and Eddie waited at the bottom of the ramp.
My thoughts of what was coming and the trials we had gone through fell away as I grinned at the three of them.
I ignored Felix’s salute and brought him into a hug.
“Good work their Felix,” I said as we came apart, holding him at arm’s length and looking into his eyes through our visors.
“Thank your sir,” he said looking away, embarrassed by the praise and the memories still too fresh to not see those that weren’t with us anymore.
I patted his shoulder, understanding at least some of what might be going through his mind in those moments.
“Alright Eddie how are we looking?” I asked the Kuruvian. Nancy might have been under Silly’s control until recently, but it was clear that no matter who owned the yard. Eddie was clearly in charge of Hic Stamus’ headlong charge towards completion.
“Most of her primary systems are completed, running them through tests. Secondary systems should be sorted in two weeks, closing up the armor and getting everything else sorted is going to take another month,” Eddie said firmly.
“How soon can we get her out of dock and move her to Parnmal?” I asked.
“Three weeks, we can get some stuff done while in flight but Silly, Felix, Shrift and I have a proposal for you,” Eddie said, turning to Silly.
From Furies Forged (Free Fleet Book 5) Page 13