Yet she was a leader of her people, she saw her people everyday, working living and pushing on. She knew that not all the people of Earth wanted to fight the Free Fleet and she knew not all of them deserved to be allowed to die by the Kalu.
She had mixed feelings about Kafam for these reasons. The one thing that stopped her from being angry with Salchar for not helping them out, was their inability to ask another for help.
This universe wasn’t nice and it wasn’t pretty, things seemed intent on pushing you into the dirt time and time again. Working together was the only way to move forward. Being to proud to ask for help, that wasn’t a strength. It was the worst type of weakness to have, and it had ended in the loss of an entire planet.
Her eyes started tracing down the corridor, looking to Chaleel and AIH. They were close traders with the Kuruvians and the Free Fleet. Empress had many dealings with both groups and found them to be rather accommodating. AIH was fighting a guerrilla styled battle across their planet. It was hard and bloody like any fight with the Kalu, but they were holding on.
Chaleel had Salchar watched over them. She’d seen the videos of the Free Fleet warships acting like deadly leviathans, dropping fire down onto the Kalu, actually pushing them back. Free Fleet fighters and their larger ship’s PDS were swarmed with Kalu fighters making it slow.
HAPA’s and the Chaleel’s tanks were aiding in the fight against the Kalu. They needed more small craft to deal with the Kalu fighters.
Though they have been targeting the Destroyers. I don’t think there’d be more than a handful of them left on Chaleel, she thought, hoping that the Kalu fighters would just expend all of their power plant fuel already.
Parnmal was looking after all of the refugees that hadn’t fled to the Kuruvian Empire. Billions of people had added to the Kuruvian worlds.
They were pumping out weapons of war as fast as possible. HAPA’s missiles, fuel, parts, ammunition, all of it was being shipped across the Union to those that needed it to stave off the Kalu’s claws and fangs.
The Union was burning, the Kalu were finally having their second teaching war. At times it was hard to not despair when looking at all of the conflict going on. The Kalu still outnumbered the Free Fleet fighting them. It wouldn’t be hard for the Free Fleet to fail and go the way of Kafam.
If supplies didn’t get to those planets then there would be less people on the lines, less ammunition when it was needed most. She wiped her face and looked away from the holographic display of the Union.
The war had entered a new stage. A stage that would be fought on planets, with Free Fleet plasmid blades, HAPA’s, and powered armor. Against the lasers, sharpened claws, and teeth of the Kalu.
In war there are no victors, just losers. I wonder whether we will lose a lot or a little. She thought, turning away from the hologram. She had a busy day ahead of her, the Free Fleet were going to have all the damned ammunition, guns and parts they could ever desire.
She had promised Salchar before this war started that the Kuruvian Empire would make sure that they were never without their necessary supplies. She wasn’t a lady to go back on her promises.
***
Thanks for reading ‘From Furies Forged’!
The Free Fleet Series will continue with ‘War’s Reward’. Read on for the first
Chapter from War’s Reward.
POSTSCRIPT
Thank you for reading! Being a self-published author I rely on your reviews to get my works out there. If you’ve enjoyed my work, please leave a review, reading reviews is one of my favourite things to do.
I wouldn’t have been able to complete this book without my beta readers; Alex, Paul and Shan.
Paul also made a map of the Free Fleet universe you can find here: http://michaelchatfield.com/books/free-fleet-series-map/
Thank you Neil for going through and bashing my work into order.
You can check out what I’m working on and upcoming releases through the following means:
Twitter: @chatfieldsbooks
Facebook: Michael Chatfield
Goodreads: Goodreads.com/michaelchatfield
Website: http://michaelchatfield.com/
Thanks again for reading!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Having spent the majority of his childhood jumping from country to country with his
Mother, Michael Chatfield now travels the world searching for inspiration. He calls
Canada home, for now, but regularly bounces across the pond to his true home, the UK.
Michael pays the bills as an Infanteer in the Canadian Military.
Epilogue
Chapter There are no victors in war
Hic Stamus rumbled with fire, it was a constant and tiring noise. We had been in the planet’s atmosphere for a few days, much to the displeasure of the Kalu.
With every rumble my super-carrier destroyed a new section of Chaleel’s planet. I tried to not think about the cleanup that would happen after the battle. Chaleel supplied many planets with food from the farms that ran around the entire planet. Farms now under the Free Fleet’s fire our would be soon enough as we walked fire across the planet.
Heavily Armored Powered Armor, or HAPA’s that marched beneath us and the Chaleelian tanks followed in our wake, clearing up the Kalu that had somehow made it through our ship’s fire.
We weren’t killing the Kalu, we were eradicating them. They were the new crops of Chaleel and harvest had come in the shape of the Free Fleet.
“Something on your mind?” Rick asked me. It reminded me of the first time I’d met him, when he’d patched my shoulder up. I’d been Salchar a world-class gaming celebrity. He had been a recent new addition to the American Air force. Five years later I was Salchar the Commander of the Free Fleet, he was the Chief of Staff.
We had fought the Syndicate, Kalu, every kind of race and even our own. We had somehow survived battles that all too many hadn’t. I was twenty-two and damn if I didn’t feel old.
“Just thinking about the first couple of times that we were here,” I said, my eyes no longer seeing the screens that processed information from my personal fleet, and the other actions of the Free Fleet at large.
“Times be changing,” Rick said, I could hear the similar stirrings of emotions in his voice.
The first time we had come to Chaleel it had been in a baptism of fire. We had finished training at Hachiro, it hadn’t been named that yet, and we were told to take and hold Chaleel’s power plants.
We’d taken the positions and terrorized the people of Chaleel under the instructions of the Syndicate. Half of our number were left here and the rest had continued on towards Parnmal. We didn’t have a choice in the matter, not doing as we were told meant that we were tortured, or killed.
My jaw clamped in anger, thinking of those months that had turned us from kids and teenagers into soldiers. It had also led to the creation of the Free Fleet.
With our return to Chaleel, we rescued our people and took on the Syndicate forces in the system. This also led to us freeing Chaleel. They’d been apprehensive of our actions at the beginning, it took them time to warm up to us. We promised to do our best in looking out for their best interest and had set out towards Earth.
Chaleel was under attack again, and again the Free Fleet was protecting them. They weren’t the only system that the Free Fleet was defending. We were spread across nine systems fighting the Kalu.
Sol had Orshpa and the remainder of his fleet rushing towards Mars with Hachiro and Nancy in orbit as well as Earth.
Daestramus had started their ground campaign against Orshpa’s prime Falhu that had finally taken out the planet’s cities which had been converted into laser-canoes. Calling them Laser cannons was a weak comparison to the fire that they had hurled into the Kalu forces.
For the record, Laser-Canoes sounds so much better.
“How long until Bregend’s Henry-Classed Destroyers in Daestramus reach Earth and Cheerleader?” I asked.
“
A day for Earth, they’re going to do three jumps. Five days for the other half to get to Cheerleader,” Rick said.
I nodded, they would be joining what looked to be the last two star-battles against the Kalu. Hopefully withering down Orshpa’s fleet down to something that wouldn’t immediately overwhelm the Free Fleet infastructure and Earth.
I looked at the swelling information across the deck, while I wouldn’t be back to Earth for a few days, Whorst and all of the ships I was capable of releasing from Chaleel were on their way.
I stood from my seat, striding forth in my powered armor, my feet clanked on the floor as I wrapped my hands over the railing. I looked at the main screen that watched the ground beneath us.
Machines of war followed in our path, weapons fire lashing out from our turrets. I watched as we burned away Chaleel and the Kalu infection that had touched it.
We killed thousands of the Kalu in minutes, I had seen the feeds from Jakram, I had fought the Kalu on Heija, some might call this fight a genocide, I wasn’t sure that I’d disagree with them. I was sure that I wasn’t going to give the Kalu an honorable fight.
I watched and waited, I dared not look away, bartering my soul for the victory that would come. This was an extermination.
A part of me wished the fights had been this easy on the other planets. Another part of me wished that war was never as easy as this.
When the dust settles and the people finally look out to see their lands are clear of Kalu, will they look to the sky in fear? That thought pervaded my mind as Hic Stamus and the rest of my fleet continued their unrelenting push forward. Kalu fighters still tried to attack us, wings of our own Multiple Environment Fighters, or MEF’s smashing into them with the assistance of the Personal Defense Systems of our warships.
Hic Stamus rolled, we’d taken a number of hits on our presented side. Bots moved across the side not shown to the Kalu fighters and started their repairs.
“Not long until the Kalu fighters start running out of fuel,” Rick observed.
“Couldn’t come fast enough,” I said, standing away from the railing and rolling the shoulders of my powered armor.
I walked back to my chair, pulling up information on Commander Whorst and Foshunti’s fleet.
***
“Let’s be about it,” Commander Whorst said, looking to his command center, calling it a bridge would be pushing it. He was the Commander of War-station the biggest mobile platform in known existence.
A hologram appeared of a creature wearing a dark cloak with Dovarkian numbers in grey running over it.
“Devastahli, good of you to join us,” Commander Whorst said, the apparition looking to him with glowing red eyes. Commander Whorst had never seen the form underneath the cloak, but the way it lay across Devastahli’s body spoke to the holographically animated muscles that bunched with every movement.
“Seeing as you are the one’s piloting my habitat I have little ability to be anywhere else,” he said, his voice was harsh and deep.
Whereas Devastahli was large with a deep voice, Whorst was average height with dirty blonde hair and a muscular build. No one in the Free Fleet got through training without muscle.
“Such is the way of the Free Fleet, we go where we’re told,” Whorst said, his eyes on the holographic sphere around him. It took the information from those around him and allowed him to manipulate it with ease.
Right now he was looking at a representation of Sol. Orshpa and his forces had entered the system along a path that took them towards Mars. While it was a good path to mars, it wasn’t a good path to Earth. Earth was about Twenty degrees off of Mars and a hell of a lot farther.
“Wormhole generators are good to go, shifting power to the projectors” Peck said from his position at Helm.
What looked to be a spinning sphere appeared before War-station and the rest of the Fleet.
“Let’s get a move on then,” Whorst said, the station’s engines increased power, passing hrough the wormhole’s event horizon, and other ships also opening and passing through their wormholes.
The screens changed for a few moments and then flashed to life with the Faster-Than-Light relays recognizing them and shunting all of the sensor data of the system into their own.
“We are clear of hostiles,” Zal said, studying sensors.
“Clearing wormhole and setting course for Mars,” Peck said.
“Richter, take us off of alert.” Whorst looked to the blonde haired, blue eyed poster boy that was his second-in-command.
“Sir,” Richter acknowledged, his eyes on his screens as lights changed colors and people took their powered armor’s helmets off.
“Arfo, get me a channel to Commander Foshunti,” Whorst said.
“One moment,” Arfo said.
A ping on Whorst’s holographic sphere told him that Foshunti was available.
“Letting us go Commander?” Foshunti asked. Whorst could hear the hunger in Foshunti’s voice, undoubtedly being stuck to go the pace of War-station had played on the other commanders’ nerves.
You’d be lying if you said it didn’t play on yours too. Whorst thought to himself.
“Yes, you and your squadron are free to go, good hunting commander,” Whorst said.
“And you too Commander,” Foshunti cut off the channel.
“Commander Foshunti’s squadron is moving away,” Zal said a few moments later.
Twenty-seven ships angled their headings towards the Kalu pushing for Earth.
Whorst and nineteen other ships were powering on their heading towards Mars. According to the laws of physics and Peck’s calculations, the Free Fleet would be there in a day with eight hours to spare before the Kalu arrived.
Whorst changed his view of the system, looking to the fleet that was headed towards Earth, since it was going along a path with less planets and gravitational objects on it, the Henry-Classed Destroyers or HCD’s were jumping around the Kalu fleet, hitting them with their laser cannons.
Whorst had watched their attacks after the Kalu across the systems between Chaleel and Sol and now the final leg towards Sol. Kalu fighters raced around the Kalu fleet and tried to bring the HCD formations under fire, but they were too far away and their lasers too weak to do too much damage. They had got lucky and the HCD’s had grouped together more tightly and spread away from the Kalu formation.
The hope was that the Kalu fighters would burn a hell of a lot of fuel, plus with their lack of bombs to accelerate themselves like the rest of the Kalu fleet, the Kalu had to travel at slower speeds.
It wouldn't be long until they got too far in-system for them to keep jumping ahead of the Kalu without severe risks of the wormhole not opening in the right place or the wormhole’s being unstable and destroying any ships that traversed them.
Not long ago Whorst had been the system commander of Earth. In the short time that he had been away from his post it had changed. Mars was creating its own cities, Hachiro was now twice the size and there were three other asteroids that had been moved into orbit to become stations. Nancy was nearly as big as she had been before she donated Nelly and Nate to Chaleel and AIH.
Markers of haulers, freighters and shuttles moved between all of the different structures. Earth by contrast had only a few ships moving around the entire planet. After they had tried to take over the Free Fleet they had been ostracized by the space-going community at large. Most of the ships that were moving around were either private company owned, or built by the governments of Earth. Each of them represented a good chunk of Earth’s resources and credits.
The Kalu ships, even with all that the HCD’s had done outnumbered all of the ships in-system by a hefty margin. That wasn’t even including their fighters.
“Let’s have a look at those weapon emplacements around Mars again,” Whorst said. He had one task, keep Mars safe. It was Foshunti’s job to look after Earth.
Gun emplacements appeared on the map infront of him, detailing what their range and their cones of fire were.<
br />
He had a battle to plan for and if there was a saint Murphy, and he knew if there was, there would be last minute alterations and decisions that he would have to make.
***
Commander Wesom looked over what had been the purple’s yellows and blues of Jakram. Now there were just scars, fires, and the bodies of Free Fleet and Kalu alike.
Five hundred thousand Commandos had been waiting on the planet when the battle had started, four hundred thousand more of the population had volunteered for combat, two hundred and thirteen thousand were left of either force, but the civilians were safe.
Wesom wanted to fall in the dirt and cry, he had lost so many friends, so many people had died and yet he had survived to see this terrible sight.
There was a booming noise from above, the first Free Fleet ships were finally descending towards the planet. Following them were the Free Merchant ships that would drop off what aid they could while gathering up Wesom and his forces. They were needed on Ershue, Jakram might be safe, but the Free Fleet and the Kalu were far from finished in their war.
“Check to see if all of our people are ready to go,” Wesom said, he turned towards the space port. The view didn’t change much, signs of death and loss were everywhere. He stood in what had been the capital of Jakram. Now it was falling buildings, burnt parks, and bodies. Kalu lay across defenses, civilians that hadn’t run lay in the street. Wesom had opened his mask when he exited the bunkers and promptly evacuated the purple soup the Free Fleet lived on.
The planet smelt like death a few months old in a humid atmosphere.
Civilians walked through the cities, looking in wonder and shock. Volunteers walked around, making sure there were no surprises. Some had found a comfortable place to sit and were crying, sleeping or looking at what had become of their planet.
Wesom moved through defensive positions that he had manned just months or weeks ago, they felt like years.
He trudged through the mess, his second, Jar sent him an alert. The first Commandos were boarding their shuttles and other crafts.
From Furies Forged (Free Fleet Book 5) Page 36