“Yes commander. We’ll hammer the bastards,” Boot promised.
“I’ll let you get back to your people and your plan,” I cut the channel knowing that we both had more important things to do other than pass pleasantries.
“Bregend and Cheerleader,” I said.
“Opening a channel,” Resilient said.
It was only a few moments later when the two commanders were online.
“Have you got the latest information from Whorst and Boot?”
“Yup,” Cheerleader said.
“Yes,” Bregend confirmed.
“I want you to move your ships. Cheerleader you’re to go to Inkal. Bregend, get to Quarst. I am forwarding the information on the forces in the area. You can take them under your command and split them up as needed. I would suggest the larger force go with Cheerleader to greet Falhu. I will dispatch the jump-fighters in the area to support. If Falhu is kind enough to bring his ships in scores at a time instead of in a single wave…”
“Hammer them like Whorst’s fighters did,” Cheerleader said, confirming that she understood what I was talking about and had thought on it already.
“Exactly. Bregend, Quarst has the largest grouping of fighters outside of Parnmal, put them to use if you can and talk to governor Elisati, she has returned to the planet to oversee her people at this time,” I couldn’t hide the frustration in my voice.
She should be back on Parnmal making sure that we can collaborate our efforts.
“Sounds like a Certain Commander I know,” Cheerleader said, getting an irritated sigh out from me.
Can’t really deny that one can I?
“We’ll see to your orders sir,” Bregend said, he had relaxed a lot on the formalities as we had come to know one another more and more. I took the comfort in his acknowledgement of his orders. Confirming that he thought that they were the best for what he and his people could do.
“Husband your strength, we’ll need it shortly,” I said, not trying to hide my inner anguish.
“We will,” Cheerleader assured me in softer tones.
“Can’t let the grand Salchar down now can we?” Bregend said playfully, lifting my mood some. It was going to be hard to get much more out of me, especially with the deaths of so many so recent, and the knowledge that they were far from the last to be affected by Orshpa and his people.
***
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Commander Boot said, looking at the Kalu. The missiles had been dropped off, heading straight towards the Kalu without any signatures that would make them visible until it was too late.
The Kalu were happily charging forward with their bomb-pumped drives. It was hard, even seeing that many ships, to truly comprehend the forces massed against them.
The mines had been dropped off, they too drifted towards the Kalu but at a slower rate than the missiles.
A wormhole appeared, and the fleet disappeared through it. Not one of his ships had been so much as fired on. It felt odd, as if he was fleeing. His fleet emerged in the dark between systems. The ships changed their heading and powered for the rally point where they would meet with Whorst’s ships.
Boot watched his screen as time wound down. The AI’s that could and were connected to the FTL relays took control of them.
Drives lit up less than a million kilometers from the Kalu ships.
Lasers took seconds to come online. The missiles were accelerating hard, the Kalu’s own acceleration hadn’t decreased and they closed quickly.
A rough sixty-five hundred missiles from ship-missiles to fighter missiles bloomed into deadly dandelions. Over a hundred thousand missiles descended on the forward Kalu. Missiles rode behind nuclear blasts which blinded Kalu sensors. It was like a roller coaster, missiles rising over the blasts to hammer into the Kalu behind, coming down again and again.
The AI’s used only a few missiles against the Kalu, hoping to wound rather than kill. Their mechanical abilities were limited, fixing their Star-warrior was harder than getting a new one. Yet they did have those kinds of supplies to call on now. Either the Kalu would help their brethren, or leave them behind, either way made them weaker. The Free Fleet needed to know how the Kalu would react. That kind of information would be valuable to everyone.
The mines erupted, again the AI’s guided their deadly beams onto targets.
Seventeen thousand ships were destroyed outright, another twenty-eight thousand were wounded in some manner or another.
Boot had killed more than Whorst simply because he had hit an entire Kalu fleet, there was little room for them to get out of the way of missiles when their own ships hampered their sensors. Leaders were yelling at one another to do different things and pandemonium took over. Orshpa had solved this issue by sending just Isal, there was one leader, everyone knew their place in his fleet and it was only a relatively small number of the fleet. Isal had been able to get his Kalu fighters out. Falhu recalled them as soon as the Free Fleet disappeared.
Chapter They Come
The fighting was furious and deadly. Takahashi and his platoon were taking a break between fights. Forty Kalu Star-Warriors had got themselves stuck to War-Station’s hull. It had taken them time to try and find an entrance, by the time they did the Commandos were in-place and the fleet was heading away from Eltar through a wormhole.
Commandos from War-station had been sent to the other ships in the fleet to bolster their numbers.
The fighting had gone on for five hours when the other ships declared themselves clear. The Kalu on War-station were still running around. There were just so many of them.
That was eight hours ago. Takahashi’s people were just clearing up the last of the Kalu packs that were running around.
A priority message pinged on his HUD. He opened it, seeing the message was actually a data packet, he watched as he saw Commander Boot’s force emerge from a wormhole, heading to render aid to the fleet.
A sense of relief went through Takahashi. It was short relieved as another message, this one from Dev showed him a group of Kalu that were getting too close to the laser cannon’s command center for his liking.
He pushed himself to his feet, his people checking their gear at his movements.
“Alright, that’s enough rest. We’ve got a pack of Kalu moving towards the cannons command center I think it’s about time that we went to go and greet them.”
Hungry noises, movements and actions showed him that his people agreed with his assessment.
***
“We have wormholes appearing,” Jorvut called out.
“Tag them for the jump-fighters,” Cheerleader said with a calm she didn’t feel. She rested in the outer-reaches of Inkal, the planet had evacuated, and every Inkalian was loaded on one of their freighters and headed away from the Kalu and towards the nearest jump-point. They would wait out the invasion at a resupply point or keep running.
They were going somewhere, that’s all she really needed to know. It was her job to see that they got out of the system and on their way to safety.
Her second job was to make sure she killed as many Kalu as possible to weaken their forces going forward.
The problem was, that unlike Commander Whorst, she only had a single wing of jump-fighters. So if Falhu exited as Orshpa had when he entered Eltar, she was going to bring in her entire fleet behind him and hammer the ever-living shit out of him.
Well it looks like he’s going to give a lady a gift.
“Jump fighters are transitioning,” Orvut reported as wormholes appeared in two-points of the system right outside her fleet and right behind the Kalu fleet.
Jump fighters appeared behind the Kalu, firing their missiles as fast as possible, hammering ships as they came out of their wormholes.
“Warm up the wormhole generators, right on the points of our jump ships. If Falhu doesn’t change his tactics, then we might as well help our Jump fighters.”
The fighter resupplied four times before the fleet transitioned in behind the sti
ll emerging Kalu fleet.
“Simiah,” she said to her friend who had taken the position of her tactical commander. Understanding passed between them as he turned to his console. The Free Fleet were behind the jump-point that the Kalu were transitioning in from.
Meaning that as the Kalu came through a wormhole the Free Fleet were looking down, right into their engines.
That would be merciful compared to what Cheerleader had in mind for the Kalu.
Simiah knew his orders, taking a few moments to pass the word that the second phase of the battle had started.
Onur relayed the message to the rest of the fleet.
They rotated their hulls to bring their broadsides to bear. Cannons bellowed in terrible rolling broadsides, announcing that they were on target. Multi-warhead missiles released from their ships, hunted the Kalu ships that were heading into the system like hell hounds. The Kalu’s armaments were on the front of their ships. They were defenseless as missiles crashed into their engines.
The Kalu that were still emerging from the wormholes were hit with enough force to throw their wormhole generators and projectors off, physics imposing its will on whatever was still inside the wormhole. Sections that had made the transition into real-space survived. The rest was left to the mysteries of wormholes.
“Jasoom, fighters?” Cheerleader asked.
“They’re on their way commander,” her wing commander informed her as bombers and fighters poured from her ships.
Gunners had a field day as ships quivered, their shots finding their mark.
Their targets were wormhole projectors and stabilizers, delicate machinery that was usually stored behind armored plates. Now they were out for everyone to see.
Wormholes collapsed on ships, silent explosions lighting the dark of space.
The Kalu started firing their missiles, trying to catch the Free Fleet as they turned.
The star-destroyers were getting special love from the gunners.
Fighters were pouring out of them, but it would take them time to brake and then build up momentum to come back at the Free Fleet.
“Jasoom, make sure that they keep an eye on the clock,” Cheerleader said.
“Yes commander,” Jasoom answered.
Cheerleader watched over her ships, feeling as Mondal’s gunnery released their anger in the shape of hundreds of rounds.
“Flip ship!” Simiah called out, his guns getting close to being out of action.
The ship flipped, there was a little feeling of sideways movement as the ship now hung upside down. Their gunners were used to seeing targets in all kinds of rotations, hitting them upside didn’t matter.
The gunners fired as they came into view of the enemy. Batteries unleashed their fury filling the darkness of space with metal composites.
Fighters and bombers fell amongst the Kalu ships, releasing their payloads into the ships that were farther away.
They were trusting their bigger warships implicitly. They had to kill all of the ships coming out through the wormholes to make sure that none of them came right up their own asses.
They raked the rear groups of Kalu with rail-cannon fire and missiles.
The destruction was hard to believe as scores of Kalu ships were struck from existence or put out of commission.
Jump-fighters were amongst the Kalu as well; their targets were only the Star-Destroyers. They used their super-charged rail-cannons to send their plasma rounds into their targets.
PDS were increasing and more missiles were hitting the Free Fleet’s shields. It felt like it had been hours and only seconds. Time was something the screens told Cheerleader and her people. It wasn’t something that had any bearing on how long battle felt. Flights of fighters stormed in, their pilots getting their craft back out to face the Kalu as fast as possible.
They drove themselves harder than Cheerleader ever could.
“The Kalu are actively turning to face us,” Orvut said.
“Jasoom!” Cheerleader’s voice rising in warning.
“I’m sending word to the fighters as we speak commander, they’re returning to their carriers.”
“As soon as they’re back I want us the hell out of here,” Cheerleader said, the bridge passing word and preparing for the upcoming wormhole transition.
Cheerleader looked at the drifting hulls and the Kalu ships that were still struggling to get into Inkal. The Kalu didn’t have faster-than-light communications so they couldn’t get word to those that were behind them to stop coming. There was no stopping them as they ran right into Cheerleaders guns.
She stopped herself from biting her lip, instead biting the inside of her cheek raw as fighters and bombers ripped free from their contact, they let loose every missiles and weapon they had before turning away. They had friends that they still owed the Kalu for.
The fighters and bombers fired their engines pushing for their homes with all the thrust they could muster.
Cheerleader didn’t need to say anything as her fleet worked like a well-oiled machine. Fighters and bombers were recalled into their hangars, her people doing a damned impressive job under the circumstances.
“Fighters are clear of the envelope,” Jasoom said, Cheerleader could still feel the guns of Pretak pounding away at anything that looked like a threat.
She looked to Simiah, her eyes like cold rolled steel.
“All tubes, flush magazines,” she said, looking to Orvut.
He nodded, talking into his microphone already.
Missiles ripple-fired from the rear of the ship’s tubes to the bow launchers, all of them, across all ships.
Hundreds of missiles filled the air as they proceeded to fire another barrage.
The surviving lead-elements of the Kalu had turned and were now peppering the Free Fleet.
Shields sparkled with light, thirty-five ships stood up against over five hundred.
Though we’ve whittled that number down a bit. Cheerleader thought savagely, looking to her readouts.
“Zinha, plot us a jump out of here before they get close enough to piss us off,” Cheerleader said.
“Yes Commander! Solution is ready,” she’d clearly been updating and working on a wormhole navigation, instead of getting wrapped up in the massive battle happening on the main screen.
“Very well. Simiah, Zinha coordinate barrages and wormhole transition,” Cheerleader said, her voice light, trying to not let the panic of what might happen if they didn’t get out of the system in time.
Missile tubes went silent, seventy-nine percent of their missiles had been expended.
Cheerleader looked at the sorry looking Kalu formation. Thousands of missiles had turned to tens of thousands of missiles, ships that had escaped their wormholes—it was hard to think of them doing anything less than that at his point—hadn’t made it out unscathed.
“Pretak, report since Kalu turned,” Cheerleader said, her ship’s AI was one of the few that wanted to be named the same as the ship it resided in.
“They proceeded to aim their fire towards our ships instead of against missiles. Lost ten percent of our missiles anyway, another twenty-seven were diverted to hit enemy missiles. Updated PDS took strain away from shields and made it so that only four ships have lost shields.
The Kalu took losses of seventeen percent of their in-system strength,” Pretak sounded proud. So he should be, that’s around two-hundred-thousand ships!
“Very good,” Cheerleader said as the familiar noise of capacitors shunting energies that could power cities for a number of years, was diverted into wormhole generators and projectors.
The entire fleet transitioned as one, those with the stronger shields to the rear.
Her ship commanders had done her proud.
She waited until they were through the wormhole’s event horizon before she continued talking.
She wasn’t superstitious or anything but she didn’t want to congratulate her people before they were safely away from Inkal.
“Now let’s g
o get some damned ammunition, good work everyone,” she said, seeing the silent tallies and names on her screens showing those that hadn’t survived the day.
She looked through the names as they transitioned out at a supply depot.
“Rearm, refuel,” she looked to Werv sitting in her second-in-command chair. “I want to talk to all ship commanders at their earliest convenience, pass on my condolences and also my praise for a job well done.”
“Yes Commander,” Werv said a mixture of relief and sadness in his eyes. She tapped his arm knowingly, he tilted his head in understanding of the pain they shared.
***
Falhu looked at the Free Fleet as they disappeared from Inkal.
He grabbed the head of a Kalu pulling their shoulder and paw back, his jaws cutting through the Kalu’s neck. The whole movement was over in a few seconds, the dark purple blood covering his black and silver scarred armor.
The ferocity of his attack and the uncaring look in his eye for the Kalu he had killed made more than one other Kalu back away. His eyes were only for the main screen which was now clear of all Free Fleet markers.
The Kalu fleet was still coming through their jump point, they pushed through the debris of those that had come through before.
The noise that came from Falhu’s throat was pure anger filled with unaltered promise.
I will destroy the Free Fleet, I will cleanse them and every planet that might make a race other than Kalu. I will burn their planets and dens as they have burned my fleet.
“We move on, we will split off towards Kafam and Nexus.” Falhu said, the other Kalu looking away and tending to their stations. No one wanted to be the next to have their throat bit open.
Orshpa has given me a great honor to lead the biggest Kalu fleet in history in his name. I will not let him down. They might have destroyed nearly a fifth of my fleet but we are many. Still nine-hundred-thousand follow. Even if we take those losses in every system we will make it to our targets. We will carry out grand leader Orshpa’s orders.
From Furies Forged (Free Fleet Book 5) Page 18