Forged by Battle (WarVerse Book 1) (10 page)

Chapter 22

Ele

Ele was unsure exactly how she had stumbled into the large room filled with little ships, nor could she figure out why all the orange-suited people were staring at her. She was wearing a uniform the same as theirs—the doctor had called it cammies—so she didn't think she should have stood out. It seemed a little tight, like a second skin, but still. Her memory was still patchy, though. She just wished she had some clue about what had happened.

"Ele?" a voice called out to her.

She turned and saw Vincent sitting on one of the many ships. Ele hurried to him.

"What are you doing here?" he asked her.

One of the men with him was smiling at her. Vincent grasped the side of his ship with one hand and hung down before dropping to the floor. He was a lot taller than she remembered.

"Ele, why isn't your hologram on?" He sounded concerned. She didn't know what he meant. He looked her up and down, then his face turned red. "Your AMI turns on the suit to hide your, uh… to show a uniform.”

“Humans are always so testy about modesty.” The tiny man—a grelkin? Ele couldn’t remember—said.

She looked down at the uniform. It was very tight, and looking at the other women working she could see that theirs were much baggier, distracting from their bodies. Ele wondered why the doctor hadn’t told her.

"Who's Amy?" The man beside Vincent threw back his head and laughed.

"Slag. Rover, help her out before Forge's head explodes."

The other man looked away. "I am not the only one who is seeing." He laughed.

There was a loud bark, and an animal, came trotting towards Ele. She knelt down to pet it. Halfway down she wondered where she had gotten that impulse, but the…dog didn't seem to mind. It's tongue rolled out of the side of its mouth as she reached for its head, and then her hand passed right through it.

She pulled back and landed on her backside with a yelp. Vincent slapped a hand to his face. "Hologram off, Rover."

The animal grew fuzzy, and then it was gone. A metal creature sat in its place.

"Sorry, Ele, this is just Rover, my droid. He won't hurt you. I promise."

The droid lifted one of his legs toward her, and a small wire poked out. She lifted her right arm tentatively, and when the wire touched her suit, it sparked slightly. She pulled back again, but only a little, and let the droid do whatever it was Vincent had told it to do. After a few seconds, the suit she wore became fuzzy like the droid, and then a blank, much bulkier uniform appeared in its place. It didn't feel any different, though. Ele felt her cheeks warm.

"How did you get in here?" Vincent asked again.

Ele shrugged, and the fake uniform moved with her. "I don't remember. The doctor told me I might have short-term memory loss from a concussion."

"Did you cut your hair?" He had a confused look on his face.

"No?" She reached up to touch it. It was hanging down to her shoulders, with tufts sticking up randomly.

"I could have sworn..."

"Smooth, sir," the grelkin said.

"Scoring detail," Vincent snapped, and then he touched his hand to his ear and looked down.

"Vape it all, I have to go to a briefing. Tesla, Forge, you two make sure she gets back to medical. Ele, I'll come check on you later, okay? Sorry to run off." And then he did just that.

Ele looked over at the other two, who were smiling at Vincent's retreating back.

"So, you're Ele, huh?” said Tesla. “How did you and Lieutenant... I mean Vincent, meet?"

Chapter 23

Rodrom

The sounds of battle echoed around Rodrom. The guard at the entrance was shouting out orders, though even in his distress, he sounded like he was singing. Lorelei fired off a reply before running out just as two more of the elves moved in. The two newcomers grabbed the wounded off the table, supporting him between them. The first guard roughly grabbed hold of Rodrom, and in the confusion, forgot the hood Rodrom had been forced to wear during every other move. Relieved to finally see beyond the root walls of his prison, Rodrom drank in the details.

The “camp” beyond the walls he had spent months staring at looked more like a forest park than a military compound. Massive trees with raised twisted roots stretched as far as he could see; they all had openings like the one he had just left.  Between the trees was a flurry of activity as the elves responded to whatever Joint Fleet force had broken through. Amber-skinned elves sprinted by in their humanoid forms, some helping the wounded, others moving toward the chaos with weapons and supplies. Perverse versions of Earth animals—the feral elves—moved across the camp as well. An impossibly large bear covered in what looked like natural bone armor thundered between trunks smaller than its legs; a porcupine with forearm-thick spines along its back scampered low to the ground; and a bull with midnight-black horns growing from both its shoulders as well as its head charged forward.

Rodrom knew the animals to be the same species as the alien he had just been working to save; their “magic” gave them the ability to shapeshift into immensely powerful analogs of once unremarkable creatures from his home planet. Of all the strange abilities he had witnessed, this type of transformation disturbed him the most. Being reminded of what happened to earth, seeing the animal’s he had grown up knowing twisted into weapons. Horrible.

Rodrom looked away deliberately; he would be a fool not to take advantage of this chance to see the camp’s layout. He wasn’t just distracting himself He mentally alerted his AMI to store anything his organic memory didn't capture in the unit’s storage, and methodically looked around the camp to draw a mental map. It didn't look very impressive compared to the technology-heavy colonies or ships that human’s lived in post-contact. Even the more mundane human designed equipment was a far cry from the trunks and roots that filled the muddy clearing

Between the trees, smoke clouds billowed; Rodrom assumed this location was their version of a forge. They didn't use metals in their armor or weapons, but favored crystal, as well as what seemed to be impossibly dense wood. What sort of process went into repairing crystal swords? And how did they maintain any sort of forge fire inside a tree? Rodrom tore his eyes away from the smoke clouds. There was no time to contemplate these questions.

Another explosion buffeted the air above him and he staggered down into the mud. His guard kept on his feet, and dug sharp nails into Rodrom's bicep as he jerked Rodrom upright. The guard’s eyes had glazed over; the beast inside him was clawing its way out. From the color of the guard's downy fur, Rodrom knew his bestial side was a wolf—all speed and savagery. The wolf-guard pulled Rodrom harder, gesturing towards the rear of the camp, away from fighting. His fingernails were sharpening into black claws. Rodrom knew he was running out of time.

C
hapter 24

Vincent

Vincent jogged out of the bay. The message that had pulled him away from his ship was as follows: <
Priority transmission from Commander Belford; All squadron commanders are to report at their convenience to the briefing room for an operations order.
>

“At their convenience” usually meant “Drop whatever you are doing,” so Vincent hurried back to his room to strip away his coveralls. The same mechanism that deployed his nano-suit would scrub away the “space grease” and whatever other contaminates he had picked up during repairs, and recycle them back into use. The grease was expensive enough to warrant it.

Vincent pulled a set of holocammies from his footlocker. Normally when he attended briefings or the officers’ mess, he chose to wear a legitimate cotton and polyester uniform he had obtained for no small price. While there was no regulation against wearing actual fabric, most of the fleet chose to don the far more comfortable and practical holographic uniform, which could display any image the user chose. The uncomfortable collars and hours of measuring were a part of wearing the uniform though, one that Vincent refused to let go the way of earth.

Slipping on the holocammies, he keyed for one wall of the room to become a mirror while he projected his uniform in his mind’s eye. His AMI generated a perfect copy of the United North American Air Force dress uniform, with all the medals and flair. Wearing full dress uniforms onboard a ship had always been far too great a hassle, but the brass liked to show now that it was as simple as slipping on an image. But since the AMI generated the uniform precisely to the personnel file specs kept on the bionet, it was no longer up to Vincent which medals he displayed. His chest looked like a furball, all chaos and color. It felt wrong to display every medal he had been handed throughout the war. Medal meant less than the hologram they were made of if the man wearing them didn’t truly earn them.

Vincent stepped out of his room to a shared latrine down the corridor, where he quickly relieved himself; he wouldn't have a chance once the briefing started. He washed the small smear of grease off his forehead and chin, then examined himself in the mirror. He gave a satisfied grunt.
Good enough for government work
.

He exited the head and made his way toward the elevators. The briefing room was toward the front of the main ship; the only connection between it and the flight deck sphere was two decks above him. The sphere that encased the five docking rings only connected to the main ship across four decks. It was designed to be detached from the main prow of the ship, allowing the carrier portion to deploy and recover fighters as a stationary base, while the forward portion of the ship maneuvered. In practice, the feature had never been implemented; the naval officers continued to treat the ship like a carrier from the days of the wet Navy.

Inside the lift, Vincent keyed in his officer override code. The other officers would arrive as they normally did, in dribs and drabs. But Vincent and Flight Commander Belford had had one too many arguments for Vincent to arrive anything but early.

As he moved down the length of the super carrier, Vincent allowed his AMI to download and unpack the critical mission brief document he would need to have read before the briefing. The entire conference could have been done telepathically, but tradition was tradition, and Belford struggled to prove he was in charge without lording it over the pilots.

Vincent's lift stopped halfway through its journey to admit two Vapefalcon pilots. Both wore the uniforms of the Britannic Union. They nodded politely to Vincent, then resumed their heated conversation.

"How in the bloody hell could you think we're diverting to anything but combat?" the blonde-haired lieutenant said. "We've been taking on ground troops, ‘aven't we?"

"Oh, shove off. What sort of fight would the JFC jump a super carrier to without her escorts?" the second junior-grade lieutenant, this one a brunette, countered. "Besides, they never send us anywhere important anyway. We're basically an R&D ship at this point." Both pilots glanced at Vincent; they knew which squadron he commanded.

Vincent couldn't help but agree. Despite his pilots’ victories, the Joint Fleet Command was reluctant to send an experimental super carrier with mixed crew armed with prototype fighters anywhere critical. Vincent made no move to comment, however, and before the awkward moment stretched on too long, the lift stopped and opened onto a corridor. Both pilots were quick to exit, Vincent a few steps behind. The lift exit was only a few meters from the chamber where they were congregating.

As with any starship, space was at a premium, and the designers of any military vessel would have a lot of people to answer to if they designed an amphitheater-style room for the sole purpose of briefing. As such, they now gathered in a multipurpose room that could be reconfigured for use as a zero-gravity training room, gym, storage, and for other purposes. Today, the weight sets and equipment had been moved aside, and several benches had been arranged in a ring around a holographic projector.

Vincent took one of the seats closest to the projector. He might not have been well liked by the commander, but that didn't mean he had to hide. He glanced around the room. All of the other squadron leaders were human, though they wore different uniforms. Despite Joint Fleet's success at combining the nationalities on warships, Vincent’s was the only squadron on the
Inferno
with a mixed-species crew. Eventually the Fleet would need to adopt a standardized dress uniform, but everyone was reluctant to accept that the fleet was anything but temporary.

Vincent turned back toward the projector and tried to focus on the mission at hand. It was only a few minutes before Belford himself entered the chamber, and all the pilots rose immediately to the cry of “Attention!”

Belford didn't just enter—he sauntered. A grin was plastered across his sagging face as he stepped up to the podium.

He remained silent for a few moments, the grin stretching wider as he looked around at the men standing rigid before him. Finally, he said, "At ease," in a tone dripping with arrogance.

"I can't help but notice how well our Falcon pilots did during the last battle,” he began. “I was one of the first to pilot that craft, you know." He slurred a little at the end of each sentence, like he was chewing on the words instead of speaking them. "So I take it as a personal, ah, accomplishment when my pilots do so well."

Eight Falcons had been lost in the last battle. The after-action report had shown that Belford was forcing them to use only the tactics he outlined. Vincent was sure that more would have survived without his intervention. He bit the inside of his cheek.

"This carrier has some of the best pilots in the fleet, so we need to keep following the protocols that keep us flying." He shot Vincent a look. Vincent felt a strong urge to punch the smirk off the commander’s face but kept his own face passive.

Belford pulled a bench over and lifted up his foot on top of it in an awkward position. He leaned into it anyway. "Any pilot who goes out there, okay, and starts showboating, is going to find himself grounded." He started to sound angry, like he was building himself up. The brief was going nowhere. "This fleet isn't looking for flyboys, alright? They are looking for pilots. When I was a lieutenant, they taught us to follow orders, not fly by the seat of our pants. I know things might be different with your, uh, training and whatnot nowadays, but that doesn't mean you can just do whatever you please out there, mmkay?" Vincent clenched his jaw; any moment, the marbles the commander must have been holding in his mouth would fall out.

"The enemy bombers got killed because they didn't listen to orders, okay? They probably flew too close together, and uh, didn't follow the flight path, probably—no, definitely. Shot each other out of the sky."

Vincent gritted his teeth. His squadron had brought home more enemy kills than any of the others combined. Belford had neglected to mention a single one in his reports.

"When I was uh, growing up, my dad used to tell me this story…"

"Commander Belford." A voice like thunder rolled through the room. The pilots all looked up to see the old man himself standing in the entrance. If Vincent’s chest of medals were a furball, then Admiral Johnston’s was a supernova. Vincent had never seen anyone with more medals. He nearly had to double over to come through the door, and though his dark features were blank, Vincent could tell he was not pleased.

"Uh, yes, sir?" Belford stumbled out of his tirade. "I was just about to, er, start the oporder."

"You are needed on the hangar deck to ensure our fighters have adequate supplies for their stay."

Belford pulled his leg off the bench, and rubbed at it absently while he spoke. "Sir, I was just going to, er, start the brief. I can send one of the others to..."

Finally, the blank slate cracked and the old man's eyebrows slid down. "I told you this needed to be done yesterday. See to it, Commander."

The air seemed to deflate right out of Belford, making the folds in his skin all the more noticeable. "Aye, sir," he slurred, and moved out of the room. Once he was gone, a collective sigh passed through the room.