“We should retro fit more of the ships so that they are capable of multiple-jumps. The upgrade would allow you to hit with a larger force right where they don’t want you to be and it would only mean putting in more power plants and capacitors. Take out some ammunition capacity say, but the tactical advantage might be worth it,” Silly said.
“What ships were you thinking of doing this to?” I asked, he had a point and I had just thought that it might not be possible to add the capability to ships already in service.
While it had passed through my brain, it had stuck in my engineers and if they could get it to work, then I would be hard pressed to not try and give the capability to every ship that I commanded.
“Well that was something that we want your and Rick’s input on,” Silly said.
“Seeing as he has just reached Earth a tour might be a better idea for right now,” Eddie said, he might act like an ornery old bastard, but he had a heart in there somewhere, it was probably one of the reasons that he had ordered my ass over to the ship.
No mere Commander of the Free Fleet should ever think about denying his ships engineer his time!
“Very well, Rick has everything in hand. We can work on thinning down what ships might be best for the upgrade. That way he’s not just wading through heaps of information when we do drop this surprise on his desk,” I said with a weak smile.
“Well that’s what subordinates are for!” Silly said with an attempt at humor, getting a smile more in thanks at the attempt rather than the words from Felix and myself.
“I also want to know about that laser cannon. I’ve been looking over your reports, but they didn’t tell me that you were in the zetawatt range! Or just what the hell a zetawatt could do. Would it be possible to expand the beam over a larger area or get one cannon to disperse the shot more?”
“Come on, we’ll walk and talk. It takes a few minutes to get to the forward batteries even with the turbo-lifts,” Eddie said, moving ahead and forcing us to follow.
“It could be possible to disperse the shot more. It would make it weaker over a larger area of course, and the weapon would need less time to cool down as the system used to focus the beam wouldn’t be taxed to such a degree,” Felix started as we walked.
“It might actually make more sense when going up against say a swarm of Kalu fighters,” Silly put in.
“It’ll make the job of gunner a bit harder as they will have to adjust their aperture on the fly, but it is completely possible,” Felix surmised.
“I think our gunners will be fine in handling a little more difficulty,” I said with a grin, knowing that my Gunnery chiefs Zor and Brusk who were already having rabbits over their new tech would be delighted with having the ability to change their cone of fire for maximum effect.
“Sally!” Eddie said a boot going flying and hitting a girl talking to a Commando in the rump. “Do that chit-chat in the mess and get yer butt back to putting those secondary power relays in place missy!” Eddie said, his boot coming flying back to his hand.
“Yes Chief!” The chastised Engineer said, running off while Eddie waved his boot at any of the engineers that were looking at the latest boot-victim. Eyes quickly looked back to their work with Eddie’s implied threat. Satisfied he’s made his point he put the boot back on and continued walking.
“Having many issues with the build?” I asked generally.
“A few, but we’ll have them sorted out before she leaves my… Nancy’s slip,” Silly said. He was still taking in the fact that he would be moving to the Destroyer base shortly.
He had been on Nancy since he’d finished his basic training. He’d seen her in Syndicate control. Then he’d been allowed to do whatever he wanted to do. Instead of leaving Nancy behind he’d poured all of his efforts into growing her, improving her practices and making her one of the most productive shipyards in all of recorded history.
He had also become a very rich man as the Free Merchant Fleet had traded off his practices to other yards, gathering royalties for their use.
“I expect nothing less from you and your people. I’m sure I’m going to be surprised with the things that you come up with for the Destroyer yard,” I said with a smile.
Silly’s manipulators showed his embarrassment as we walked through Hic Stamus’ corridors.
“Well these are bigger than I expected,” I said, admiring the size of the corridors.
“They’re made to comfortably fit Dovarks and awakened Avarians running in full power armor,” Felix said.
“Had enough damned repairs from one or another of them putting their head through the damned ceiling,” Eddie said darkly.
The image that conjured made me chuckle.
***
Bok Soo watched as shuttles headed down towards Earth. Entire wings headed to various locations across the planet. Some of the fleet had split off to go to the Moon.
They weren’t just making sure that their people were okay and seeing if they and their families wanted to be given a ride to Parnmal or one of the other Union systems. They were taking back the technology they had given to different nations to try and accelerate their growth.
Armed Commandos dropped onto campuses, marching through universities and collecting their tech which was being studied or part of an experiment. Scientists decried them as brutes and yelled obscenities. Bok Soo’s people tuned them out and continued with their mission.
Four hundred thousand Commandos had dropped to Earth. The units already on Earth, another three hundred thousand were activated, working to assist their fellow Free Fleet personnel.
“Sir we have a prison that is unwilling to release our people,” Ronda one of Bok Soo’s brigade commanders said.
“Very well,” Bok Soo said, gaining time for him to look over the information that Ronda had sent to him. “I’m coming down.”
“Yes sir.”
It didn’t take him more than ten minutes to get to his shuttle and headed down towards Earth with a wing of MEF’s flying around his transport.
The ride down to China where the free fleet personnel were being held was quick.
Bok Soo was wrapped up in looking over the various streams of information that populated his HUD and his data pad when the shuttle came to rest on its struts.
“CAMC?” The cargo master asked as Bok Soo didn’t move for a few minutes.
“Ah yes, looks like we’ve arrived,” Bok Soo said after a moment, realizing they weren’t moving.
He opened his harness, two sections provided his security detail as he walked out into a large open area around what looked like drab apartment buildings with bars across their windows and a fence surrounding them.
Brigade Commander Ronda walked over to Bok Soo, the protection detail moving out of her way.
“It looks like the prison governor has received orders to not let any of the prisoners go,” Ronda said.
“Yea, I saw that much from your messages,” Bok Soo said in a thoughtful tone, looking over the apartment building. “If they’re not willing to give them up, then we’re going to have to go in there, form up your people and cut our way in. We only take our people. Secure the other prisoners if they try to escape.”
“Yes CAMC,” Ronda said, turning and changing channels to talk with her people.
Twenty minutes later and Armored Marine Commandos were walking in an extended line with their plasmid weaponry drawn. They cut through the fence with ease and kept on going.
A few guards fired on the Commandos but their rounds simply bounced off.
They gave up after a Commando put penetrator round through an empty watch tower. The round exploded inside it, turning it into raining debris.
Commandos cut through the prisons doors gathering their people before moving back to Bok Soo. Shuttles raced them up to the fleet waiting in orbit or the Moon which was operating as the Free Fleet’s forward base.
Bok Soo’s eyes turned towards the Moon.
Interesting bunch those Moon colonists.
Bok Soo had met with their leader Damon Xi; he had made it clear that the Moon was currently debating whether they wanted to keep ties to Earth or not. They were essentially self-sustainable. Yet they abhorred what the Earth Forces had done against the people that had helped them to even populate the Moon.
Bok Soo was interested as to how that would turn out.
“Commander, it looks like there are a number of items that were moved to military sites for testing, or recreated and moved. Shall I update that information to your Commanders?” Intelligence Commander of Sol-system Pixwul asked from her place on Hachiro. Her boss had been killed in the fighting and she had taken over his responsibilities.
“If you could that would be great, all tech given to nations that attacked Free Fleet is subject to removal,” Bok Soo said, feeling that this wasn’t going to be a simple smash and grab. Especially when most of those nations had taken the power plants the Free Fleet supplied and slapped them into their power grids.
They made their bed, now they have no choice but to sleep in it. He thought with gruff certainty.
“I’m getting reports on Edwards’ location,” Pixwul said before the channel could close.
“Good, I’ll have my people collect him, we wouldn’t want anything to happen to him before he got his time in front of the courts,” Bok Soo said, his face pulling into a grin as hungry as his eyes.
Chapter Creating Bastions
While the fighting in Sol had gone on, the rest of the universe hadn’t slowed. Monk was dealing with the grassroots of the Union and trade was booming in more ways than one. More ships than ever were plying their trade across the stars. Each system was building up their defenses as best as possible and preparing for the Kalu.
The Kuruvian manufacturing abilities had quadrupled as factories and new techniques had been shared or sold to various merchants.
With the Kuruvians joining the Union, the Free Fleet had also given them contracts to make various weapon systems. AIH was still the largest arming system out of everyone, they built more railguns, rail cannons and were already working to make laser cannons. They also produced the most rounds out of any other system.
Yet there was a massive demand for weapons and AIH couldn’t fill all the orders. The Kuruvians jumped on these contracts and were helping to relieve some of the pressure on AIH. They were also making small ship factories that were pumping out MEF’s bombers and jump fighters.
There were twenty-one systems total, all but two were making defenses—Inkal and Earth.
While Earth technically wasn’t Hachiro, Mars and Nancy were. The Moon colonists were requesting permission so as to not piss of the nearly two-hundred Free Fleet ships swarming Sol.
Salchar had turned the occupying forces into building forces, applying their numbers to Nancy’s projects, fixing the Free Fleet infrastructure in the system and readying them to take on weapons systems, either remote or built into the shipyard or Hachiro. Planetary cannons were being placed on Mars and shield generators put into place.
That kind of buildup was going on with all the other planets. The Kuruvian stations were being changed into fortresses, the inhabited stations of Quarst were having the same done to them. Those that were living on Dovark, the home of the old Union had emplaced cannons across the planet.
Other planets were rigging up as many orbitals and ground cannons as possible. The Free Fleet were selling weapons to everyone and training up Commandos on every planet. HAPA’s were starting to be built in the Kuruvian Empire. It would be two weeks until they were ready to produce, and another two before they started shipping out HAPA’s.
The industrial efforts of World War Two were child’s play to the armament and training programs that were bringing trillions to battle-ready status, arming them and preparing their worlds. The Union had looked to pouring money into their fleet. The Free Fleet was a third the size of the PDF and they knew the Kalu would target the civilized planets they protected.
While the Free Fleet couldn’t be everywhere, their defenses could be.
Monk’s second position as the commander of Parnmal was to be the Free Merchant Fleet’s Manager and liaison to the Free Fleet. A division was setup to record and process all of the trades and interactions of the Free Merchant Fleet. The Free Merchant Fleet were the only ones that were allowed to transport Free Fleet military hardware or supplies. Yet they transported so much more. Making up fifty-five percent of the merchants going through the civilized planets they moved anything and everything.
They had commissioned the Kuruvian yards to create purpose-built super-freighters like the one they had refurbished from Inkal and were taking supplies to the Star-destroyer yard.
A hundred and thirty Star-destroyers that had their decks pulled out to make room for freight were on their way back to friendly lines. Bringing Monk much needed transport to hurl supplies around civilized space.
Urshval and Oolta had joined the Union, Jakram and Rashdahl were going through the motions. Inkal had made all of their freighters and merchants Free Fleet bonded. Meaning they were afforded protection by the Free Fleet wherever they were, for a fee.
“Are the numbers agreeable?” Finance Chief Ding of the Kuruvian Empire asked, pulling Monk out of his thoughts.
“Yes they are,” Monk said, remembering how they’d been talking about the weapon systems production numbers.
“Something on your mind Monk?” Ding asked.
They had meetings nearly every other day and become something of friends as they tried to meet their leader’s wants and needs.
“Wondering how much longer we have to build all of this,” Monk said simply, holding his chin with his hand.
“Not long enough,” Ding said, his manipulators moving in annoyance, but Monk more sensed than saw the fear behind that annoyance.
“It’s never long enough, there’s always something that we could have done better. Yet we’ll make sure it’s the best that we could have done. Now moving on to those MEFs, jumps and bombers, Quarst is going to need a bunch of them to arm their reserve squadrons that they want to put in their stations. With them so close to the front and a clearly visible target for the Kalu, I think it would only make sense if we looked to getting them as many small craft as possible,” Monk said.
“I agree; the issue is transport,” Ding said.
Monk paused toying with how much he could let Ding know.
“I have a hundred and thirty Star-Destroyer converts coming back in the next week. I’m moving eighty to help with moving items through the Kuruvian Empire and beyond. They’re also going to have all of the extra ships that Devastahli has been pumping out with the small-craft factory buried inside him,” Monk said.
“Damn, I forgot about Devastahli and that factory,” Ding admitted.
“They’re being kept back just in case, in that time Shrift has being doing everything to get the War Station even more weapons. Devastahli has been pretty happy, he’s the most heavily armed maneuverable object in existence so far. Shrift’s finally got secondary systems online and is working on tertiaries. That kind of work on something the size of war station is immense,” Monk said.
“Makes an engineer proud seeing how well he’s done with that vessel,” Ding said as if finding it hard to name just what Devastahli and the War Station he inhabited was.
“It’s still hard to think that a station that size can move,” Monk said with a laugh, shaking his head in wonder as he sat back in his chair.
“What about the supply dumps? How are we looking on their supplies? Once they’re stocked then we can look to moving other equipment,” Ding said.
The supply dumps were basically asteroids with an FTL transmitter stuck in the dark of space, they were filled and covered with inventoried materials and supplies that a fleet, or group of merchants might use to survive or to resupply between battles. They served two main purposes. When the shit hit the fan and the Kalu advanced, merchants and ships that weren’t able to fight were to get themselves to those p
oints. They would load up on supplies and wait. If a nearby system was cleared and the Free Fleet needed supplies then the merchants would jump in and cross-load supplies, bringing the Free Fleet ships up to battle readiness as soon as possible. The merchants could survive off of the supplies at that point while they waited to be of use. The Free Fleet could use them as rally points to jump on the Kalu without them knowing and also again load up on supplies if there were no merchants in the area.
Monk was hoping to move merchants around, getting them around systems that were being contested and moving materials in the dark of space so that the supply points always had something for warships.
“They’re getting close to full, I just want to make sure that we have everything possible ready,” Monk said with a sigh, knowing how impossible his request was.
“I know, I know,” Ding said, his manipulators moving in idleness as Ding’s eyes saw the preparations he had laid in for his own people.
“How are your own defenses coming along?” Ding asked after a long moment.
“Rosho will be like a walk through a Chaleelian growing tower compared to Parnmal,” Monk’s eyes found Dings with quiet confidence. “I bet my life on it.”
***
Min Hae looked over the area around the Destroyer-yard. The latest shipment of supplies had just reached them from the Kuruvian Empire through Heija and Cheerleader.
Min Hae and Ashota were overseeing the running of the station, watching the independents work their star-destroyers and fighters, acting as liaison between the independents and the Union and Free Fleet, seeing what information they could glean from the Independents spies within the Kalu ranks. Ashota had been the one to tell Min Hae to give command of the Earth investigation to those that were in the area.
“Well it looks like our time is quickly running out,” Ashota said as they reviewed the priority message they’d received just a few minutes ago.
Ashota’s body had been repaired and was back to his full size. He was about chest height and without the built-in armor of Orshpa and his Kalu. Instead he wore a Free Fleet battle suit.
From Furies Forged (Free Fleet Book 5) Page 14