Free Fleet #03 No Rest for the Wicked (29 page)

“You bet sir,” one of my screens changed to a waiting screen.

It came alive after a few seconds, and Captain Lord Foshunti was looking at me.

“Looks like the AI's have been scheming,” I said as Foshunti nodded, both of us studying one another.

“It seems that way,” he said.

“You're going to make me do all the heavy lifting aren't you?” I said.

“Heavy
lifting
? We're talking.”

“It's an idiom from my home planet. It means that you're going to make me have to jump through all the hurdles to see if you're really with us,”

“Yes, pretty much,” he said as I clenched my fist, my anger growing.

“Too fucking bad. You want to save your planet and get out of the Syndicate you're going to have to show me something that shows me without a doubt you're on our side. You don't and I'm going to bring the full weight of the Free Fleet down on your ass,” I said.

“I could wipe you out with a sideways glance,” he said, and I could see his face moving in annoyance.

“You think so? You're not the first fleet that we've faced that has beat us in tonnage, guns, and ships. We defeated Captain Kelu and his fleet. You might see some of his ships in my fleet now,” I said, my eyes burning into Foshunti as I fought to hold my anger at bay.

“I control one of the five super-carrier's in existence. You expect to win against me?”

“No, I expect to decimate you,” I said as he pulled back a little.

“You have a fire in you commander,” he said, baring his teeth. “We're going to need it in the oncoming war. Alright I'll show you a token of my willingness to rebel against Lady Fairgate. Including Talhalla, I have twelve Dreadnoughts, twenty two Battle Cruisers, thirty three Destroyers, twenty nine Cruisers and forty seven Corvette's. I have them placed within the asteroid belt to hit your soft underside if you were to come and attack me,” he said.

“Good plan,” I said. He didn't know about the sensor missiles I'd sent to scour the asteroid rings. It'd be at least an hour and a half until he did.

“Now your turn,” he told me, looking smug.

“I have four Dreadnoughts, fifteen Battle Cruisers, seventeen Destroyers, thirty six Corvettes and two Cruisers for my fleet. I have two freighters as support,” I said, I wasn't about to tell him about the freighter or Battle-carrier conversions.

He nodded.

“So what is your plan for me to lure your fleet into another system?” I asked.

“Sit there,” he said.

“Sit here,” I said, not really understanding what the hell he was smoking.

“People in the Syndicate are rarely patient. I have built a persona of not being a very patient man. After a couple days of you sitting on the limit of the system I'll push my fleet forwards. I'll have my forces that aren't in the syndicate at the front. The forces loyal to Lady Fairgate, which are in the asteroid belts right now, will come in the second wave,”

“So we can get rid of the Syndicate forces, without them knowing that they're going into a trap.”

“Exactly. You just pound them as soon as they come out behind my fleet,” Foshunti said.

While what he was saying sounded simple enough it was going to be one hell of an undertaking. We had to make sure that we were set up with the right co-ordinates, and that our timing was impeccable. One mess up and the second fleet could get their shields up, find out what the hell we were doing and pound
us
. Plus if we followed through with this, then I was going to have to trust Foshunti on his word. The last time I had done that, Marhtu had tortured me and my people, and lied to me about my people being alive.

“I have nothing to prove that what you're saying is the truth,” I said.

“No, but while I have to give you my direct co-ordinates for this to work you will not. I'm willing to take a leap if you are,” Foshunti said.

I could wipe out the fourth most powerful organized fleet under Lady Fairgate. Unless I fought her and Lifendi no one else would be able to fight them in a coordinated manner. I needed to take the chance. I could fail, but if I won this was the best option for my people, not just my own reputation. After Daestramus I knew I needed to be colder. I had talked about how losing a few lives was better than losing many, but’ that was before my decision backfired so badly that I had gotten two of my closest friends killed and thirty nine others that had tried to rescue us, or had been killed by Marhtu.

“Be one hell of a move,” I said, hiding my inner thoughts.

“Yes, it would,” Foshunti replied, as if he could read my thoughts. I looked at his completely blue eyes.

“Send me over a plan and I'll look at it,” I said and he half closed his eyes, the Dovark's equivalent of agreement.

I waited for a second, taking in his thin completely blue, sticklike body and hairless head with brighter blue eyes. There was grey discoloration where he had cuts and his nose/mouth region was one piece of skin shaped in a U which rose and fluttered around the edges. I cut the channel, looking to Resilient's holographic body. She looked very similar, but without the nose/mouth, and was more proportionate to a human than a Dovark.

“Communications will have to proceed at normal speed from now on. The AI Council has picked up the increased traffic,” Resilient said.

“They're that quick to respond,”

“Of course. We're near their home sector,” she said, giving me yet another surprise of the day. I thought that they'd be far away from the Union and known space.

“Are they within occupied space?” I asked.

“I can't tell you that Salchar,” she said, her tone taking a hard edge. I nodded. It was the first time she had rebuffed me. If she wanted to keep some personal secrets I understood. I unfortunately had none anymore.

“Rick, have one of the cruisers send a message back to Parnmal. I want freighters to pick up the missiles and ammunition from all of our factories. If we fall back I want it to be with ammunition waiting for us,” I said.

“Alright, I'll pass it on,”

“Vort, send a message to all AMC Commanders. Have their people ready for boarding exercises. Ben, I want you to plot a jump from here back to the dead system we came from. Work with In Sook to figure out how long we would need to jump, stabilize and then send shuttles to ambush those following us. In Sook, ask him all the questions the Commandos are going to have and build me a plan for having the Commandos deployed in that manner,” I said.

It was going to be a slug fest fighting just the half of Foshunti's fleet that was loyal to Lady Fairgate. So I was going to use my ace, my Commandos. To assure that Foshunti was telling the truth I was also going to have a smaller force land on the ships loyal to him and in his first Fleet.
Trust, but verify.
I wasn't going to let myself be blindsided again if I could help it.

“We've got a solid read on the enemy ships. The missiles will take time till they pass through the asteroid field completely,” Walf said.

“Nicely done,” I told him, watching ships and the tentative readings of their classes start scrolling down my screen as their position was solidified on the main plot.

***

We waited, the Commandos went through training, people cycled through watches, trying to catch some kind of sleep and people fixed whatever needed it. On the fourth day Foshunti moved.

“We have movement,” Walf reported. The information was a few hours old but the plot changed as Walf, his people in the sensor pit, and the other sensor operators across the Fleet watched Foshunti's forces moving.

“He's coming straight on towards us,” Walf said, just as Foshunti had outlined in the plan he had sent. It was rather complex.

He would come at me, and I would avoid contact before jumping back to the dead system we had come from. Then forty minutes later Foshunti would jump to pre-assigned co-ordinates. I was supposed to have my people in position as the first fleet which was loyal to Foshunti came through and passed unmolested. I would descend on the second fleet as their shields were down, or too weak to stop even a shuttle. It was going to take some damned fine co-ordination, but I knew my people could pull it off.

I had issues with just trusting Foshunti. Marhtu had taught me to be careful. So I kept my fighters a secret and was going to drop forces on both fleets. I also wasn't going to be in front of the Fleet as Foshunti had suggested, I was going to come from behind, right up their engines and launch my shuttles and fighters into their fleet. If a shuttle couldn't land, well, my gunners always liked target practice.

Due to our smaller ship sizes and having only three quarters of my supposed Commandos—which was rather impressive compared to ship crews, where he only had half the needed personnel—I was going to concentrate on the Dreadnought's, Battle Cruisers and Destroyers.

While Foshunti had the majority of his ships loyal to him, most of them were smaller ships, which made for less of a possibility that something could be leaked. The second fleet had two thirds of Foshunti’s Dreadnought's, Destroyers, a third of his Battle Cruisers and Corvette's, and all of the cruisers. It seemed that I wasn't the only person that hated the moving bombs.

“The Fleet in the asteroid belt is moving,” Walf said. “We picked them up with sensor missiles. The entire force is accelerating for us,”

“Alright, now we just have to wait,” I said, hoping I sounded calm as I took the biggest gamble of my life.

Chapter - Shifting Tides

Lady Fairgate stood at her viewscreen, watching as KEWs descended into Worshun's atmosphere. The blue clouds rolled away, showing as the massive rocks hit the ground. Foshunti had moved beyond the edge of the FTL relay but her support fleet would be catching up with him quickly. They would be in the system within hours of Foshunti. That had little to do with her ordering her captain to fire onto Worshun. She did it because it would play with the planet's atmosphere, making it even harder for the Dovark's that survived.

Her chair beeped, she turned to it, her gaze going from bored to alarm. There was only one reason that her station would make a noise. She walked over to it, her thin clothes fluttering around her as she accepted the message. It was a simple text message, but it took a few infuriating minutes for her security codes to be analyzed before she was allowed to see it.

It is as we feared. The Kalu have returned. What are your orders my Lady?

She looked up, memories passing through her mind. She saw the purple, yellow and green vistas of her world, the buildings that grew with nature rather than overpowering it. She saw the Kinetic Energy Weapons as they hit, the rumbling and the fires. The super fires, that raged across the planet, a targeting mistake by the Kalu.The Kalu had missed the small picket force that the PDF had put in place.

Then the Kalu landed in their shining ships. They were fearsome creatures, in their carved armour.

The roaring was the worst. Fairgate remembered them running after those that had taken refuge in the caves. They had been so stunned. Fairgate knew only one thing, to find her mother. So she ran towards the destroyed remains of her home, hearing the Kalu battle-roars mingled with the helpless screams of the refugees. She had thought the Kalu were coming for her, she couldn't get the noise out of her mind. Those same sounds coursed through her mind, as clear as the day her planet fell. She now knew her mother was dead, but she had also learnt how to run from her problems better than she had before.

Her fingers started typing out a message.

Return to Quarst, use the Syndicate to slow them. Once we are grouped together we will go to Earth
.

She pressed a button on her command screens, giving her a direct line to her Captain.

“Selise, prepare the fleet to move,” Fairgate said, terminating the channel.

She looked at Worshun. The KEW bombardment had stopped. Killing them all would be too merciful. She would leave them for the Kalu.

***

Bok Soo wondered what Rick had been thinking when he was doing these kinds of missions for James. He and every single shuttle of the assembled fleet waiting at the co-ordinates Salchar had given them. Bok Soo knew very few leaders that could have had every single person not only follow their orders but believe in them.

He had been in the meetings with Salchar once he had resumed command. He was clearly back in command, but there was a darkness to him. He hid it from the others but there was an anger that lurked behind his calm facade. He was going to need to learn to keep that under control, not just off of his face. Otherwise, there was going to come a time when that anger boiled over and he lost it at the wrong moment.

“Event horizon forming!” someone said over the commanders net.

An event horizon looked like a sphere of molten glass. One could see the stars on the other side of it but they looked to be distorted from their position. The ships came through and the first and smaller wave of assault shuttles raced to get to them before their shields came online.

How's it looking, Santos?” Bok Soo asked. Santos was leading the group that was to take the first grouping of ships.

“No shields and no guns so far. We'll be on them in two minutes,”

Cutting it close,
Bok Soo thought. It took five minutes for a good crew to get their shields online. Changing to the gravitational constants of the system one was coming into took roughly two minutes. Depending on how good one's shield generators and how much energy they could create, powering up fully took close to three minutes. The Free Fleet had trained to do it all in two. They had better power plants and shield generators, but the main thing was getting the adjustments right the first time and everything else flowed after.

Bok Soo waited a tense few minutes.

“Last man down,” Santos said four minutes later, cutting the channel. Bok Soo didn't try to reconnect. He had other things to do, like take the ships he was assigned to and make sure that they were actually on the Free Fleet's side.

It was ten tense minutes before the next part of the fleet came through. Bok Soo's shuttle bucked as it plowed forward. Now the first fleet would be able to see them and shoot them. Bok Soo didn't see any weapons fire as the first ship of the second fleet emerged. Fighters powered their drives, the wire plot of their believed positions changing as their engines shot them forwards like darts.

“Sweet lords of light and dark,” Bok Soo muttered as, for one of the rare times, he was close enough to see the fighters as they raked the incoming ships shield generators.

It would buy the Commandos precious minutes and was ballsy as all hell. Bok Soo had thought he and his Commandos were swinging brass between their legs, but these fighter jocks must have had platinum.

***

Wing Commander Smith's music choice had become very familiar to all of those that had graduated fighter school with him, and now those that called Floater their home berth. So it wasn't strange to hear one of his 'classics' come thumping out from his cockpit, him
hmm
-ing and
bump
-ing right along with it.

“Oh! Let's go!” He sang along, putting more power into his fighter's engines as he was pushed back into his seat.

“Steve walks warily down the street, with the brim pulled way down low. Ain't no sound but the sound of his feet, Machine guns ready to go.”

He checked his weapons, cycling his railgun, opening his internal racks and priming his external ones.

“Are you ready, hey, Are you ready for this? Are you hanging on the edge of your seat? Out of the doorway the bullets rip, To the sound of the bea.”

The targeting computer lit up the Dreadnought he was closing on. He eased up on the throttle, lining up his holographic aimer with the shield generators. He couldn't help but grin.
Sometimes the timing is just perfect
, he thought.

“Another one bites the dust!”

He hit the first shield generator, swinging and shooting the next, he turned backwards, firing his engines to cut his forward thrust.

              “Another one bites the dust.”

Another shield generator fell prey to him as he fired a series of short sprint missiles.
              “And another one gone, and another one gone.”

His thrust had caught up with his forward momentum powering him back in the direction he'd come from and on to the next target.

“Another one bites the dust Hey, I'm gonna get you, too. Another one bites the dust,”

“Smith will you shut the hell up?” Heston himself said over the radio.

“But it's a classic!” Smith said, the song still continuing in the background.

“That it might be, but keep it off my channels. Listen to it in your own brain box,” Heston said.

“Alright CAG,” Smith said, sounding rather put out.

He cut the music to external channels and kept singing to himself as his next target came into range. Missiles spewed from his internal and external blossoming int nuclear clouds. The enemy’s PDS came online, the lumbering lasers couldn't depress very well. Something that Smith was going to use to his advantage. Though it meant he had to be low. Very low, less than ten meters off of the armour of the ship. Shuttles came in, thumping against the ships, harpoons and mag clamps pulling them to the surface.

“Good luck, Commandos,” he said, opening a channel to Connolly.

“What?” Connolly said, not sounding all that pleased with Smith's call.

“Good luck there, grumpy,”

“Thanks,” Connolly grunted, his shuttle probably hitting a ship. Smith turned his MEF. The thing could turn on a pinhead, momentum wise. Well...Newton was kind of a dick in that area.

Thrusters and main engines fired as Smith shifted targets, accelerating for a Battle Cruiser.

“Got to go!”

“Ughh, but it's so boring out here.”

Smith got a warning. It seemed that some ships had anti-fighter missiles. He swerved and flickered his engines. Firing decoys and spinning, with a flick of his thumb he went from piercing rounds to explosive buckshot rounds. The scatter hit the remaining missiles on his trail. With flick of his wrist and foot pedal adjustments he was facing the right direction.

“Sure doesn't sound like it. Keep yourself alive, flyboy,” Connolly said, cutting the channel.

Smith glanced to his squad's readouts.

“Alright, Devil Dogs! Let’s go get that nice juicy Battle Cruiser,” he said, marking his intended target by looking at it and giving a combination of clicks with his mecha’s finger balls.

Green lights cascaded down the left side of his visor and he reversed his fighter, his thrusters fighting his inertia. A wing carrying onto another ship racked the Battle Carrier ahead of Smith. He turned his speed down. One could only gauge speed by the counters in space. Going a hundred thousand kilometers an hour and ten an hour could look the same. Carats came together, shield generators being marked in different colors as the fighters in Smith's squad designated the targets for their pilots. Short sprints flew from his external racks. A blinking light telling him that he was dry as he expelled the remaining weaponry in his internal racks. He raked the hull with his rail guns hitting anything that looked like a threat.

“Alright, let's get back to the barn. I'm out,” Smith said, humming along with a new song as he really put his foot down, heading to the Free Fleet which was just coming over the second enemy fleet.

              Smith cast an eye to his plot as shuttles were coming down like angry bees on a bear. He kept out of their paths as he saw missiles launch for a shuttle. He threw off all his decoys, getting all but one missile that glanced the side of the shuttle. It tumbled, correcting itself sluggishly and bringing itself down on the Battle Carrier Smith had just raked with fire. More small defensive missiles were rising from the second fleet. It seemed that they didn't trust Foshunti either. There was no other reason to have those missiles other than to hit fighters and small space craft. PDS systems fired, a few getting lucky. Missiles piled into shuttles leaving a muted fireball as lasers crossed, catching anything unlucky enough to be in their path. Fighters that flew too far off the enemy ships deck were being hit now the enemy was recovering. Smith looked away, he was powerless to do anything.

“Floater deck chief, this is wing one two, coming in for R and R,” he said, his voice duller than normal.

“Come in on pod three, transmit fighter data,” the controller told him.

Smith did so, taking his flight to his assigned pod. The catapult system had been changed around to catch the fighters, slowing them, instead of shooting them out the other side. The fighters would be pulled on a conveyor into Floater, as they moved to pod one they would be hooked up to fuel and ammunition tubes. Weapons techs would take their old external racks at one point, down the line another group would add them. It was like a pit crew turned into an assembly line. It would have interested Smith usually, but now even with only two and a half minutes full reload and refuel time, he was wishing to be back out in the black making a difference.

***

“They've betrayed us!” Wasta said, getting out of his seat and snarling. The Dashuna was a natural predator, and he and his people kept to a strict code of honor which had stopped them from committing atrocities on one another. A low birth rate had made them come together against any and all intruders. They had been some of the best allies to Foshunti. Wasta was their Prime.

He was all red and purple scales, he had three lower limbs for incredible speed, and two upper arms that unlike the Kuruvians were not only strong, but able to do delicate work.

He looked like an Earth snake, his neck opening slightly in outrage and the implied challenge to his honor. His eyes which could look forwards and sideways firmly forwards.

“Sit,” Foshunti said. Wasta looked at him in askance, getting riled up.

“Maloti, tell all ships that they are to follow the orders of the Commandos. Also, get me a channel to Salchar,” Foshunti said, probably looking a lot calmer than he felt. He looked to Wasta who was still in pissed-off mode.

“He trusted us, now we have to trust him,” Foshunti said.

“We have a channel.”

Salchar's bridge was a hive of organized activity. People were talking into their implants, moving to stations their fingers and variety of limbs moving to feed their commander the information he needed, as well as keep the ship operational. Foshunti could see the level training that these people had undergone. It showed in the way that they conduct themselves.