Free Fleet #03 No Rest for the Wicked (6 page)

“Always, commander,” Dreckt acknowledged.

“That's what I like to hear. By the numbers,” Bok Soo said as the syndicates turned the corner, entering the larger room the hallway directly across from the entrance from the airlocks slits like the ones they'd run into before. Though here there were three weapons systems pointing down the hallway and into the three entryways Bok Soo was in charge of. Six thousand Commandos waited at the third level, five thousand were held in reserve and the rest were staggered across the station, either waiting at their defensive lines or being moved to bolster others as commanders saw fit.

“Fire as targets present themselves. Beaders unless a large concentration, then rails,” Bok Soo said, his voice losing humour as he focused on his task of making the syndicate run an impossible gauntlet.

“Shield techs, hold off those grenades. Advise when the shield's will drop for pull back,” Shield techs had become a new appointment as Felix had shown Henry how he could create limited one way shields within Parnmal. Bok Soo had four of them up with the guns to balance out shields and to give his people enough time to run to the next position if they were over-run.

Salchar had made it clear in his briefings that this battle was going to be won by paying attention to the plan, as long as they could, and bleeding the Syndicate forces. If they got past the eighth defensive grid then it would be an all-out battle and there were no guarantees. Bok Soo watched as his gunners worked their weapons. With the training that had been ingrained into them, it was second nature and they could move with ease in the higher gravity environment.

“Bok Soo, Engaged Bravo,” he said simply to comms who would update Henry automatically.

Chapter Halls of Darkness

Kelu had finally gotten communications back online. Yet his mood had barely improved as his engineering officer was dead from a power blow out, and the rest of the engineering crew were trying to push the job onto someone else.

“Urlow, tell the engineers that they'll get two percent of my share,” he said, tapping his holster as he had no doubt that nearly all of them would now be clamoring for the position of engineer chief. He would
deal
with them after the battle.

His Dreadnought had taken some serious pounding but it had survived the landing on Parnmal. Now the Mecha corps were swarming across Parnmal, and whoever commanded it had changed it from a station into a death trap. As Syndicate soldiers moved forward they were met by multiple entrenched weapon systems. The newest he'd heard of was multiple weapon systems down a long wide hallway, working systematically to clear anything that appeared in their line of view. While grenades were bouncing off what appeared to be internal shields inside the station.

“Who the fuck are these people?” he asked himself. He'd already lost close to twenty thousand troops just getting this bare beachhead.

And I'm yet to know just who the hell I'm fighting, or come into contact with them.

“Urlow, I want a transmission for Parnmal,”

“Sir, ready when you are,” Urlow said as Kelu looked to the pickup.

“Whoever controls Parnmal, I will make this offer to you this one time. Surrender and I will guarantee your people will live as slaves instead of die painful deaths. Do not prolong their suffering. What do you say?”

The response was immediate.

“Surrender and we will likewise arrest you, to serve out your sentences assisting our pursuits,” the voice came. But there was no visual.

“Very well, then. We shall meet, and I shall personally escort you to the Lady Fairgate’s halls, where she will glean her answers from your pain,” Kelu said, cutting the transmission.

“Whoever gets me one of his people alive I'll give them a percent of mine,” Kelu said. As he slumped into his chair, his console beeped that an engineering officer had been selected finally and would have the ship back to fighting trim within twelve hours.

Kelu snarled at the report as he looked to the syndicate troops.

“Get Captain Shanuolr's troops moving, or I'll take his share from him. Tell the other captains that if they hold their troops back, or they don't have the
motivation,
to move forward, I'll take all of their shares,”

“Yes Captain!” Urlow said.
After this I'm going to get him his own ship, I need more competent people in my personal fleet,
Kelu thought before turning back to the bloody battle.

***

Grenades were the biggest problem for Henry right now. The Syndicates had gotten into the swing of using grenades to clear out obstructions such as is weapon systems littered across the station. They were also using them to great effect against the third line defences.

I'm going to have to use my Commandos sooner than I thought.

He needed to slow the Syndicate forces, and if his commanders timed the conflicts right then their people could rest and resupply in between battles, while the Syndicate had no time to recover.

“I'm going to need you and your commandos to engage the Syndicate forces sooner than we originally thought,” Henry said over the command channel. “I want you to prepare to engage them on fourth line defences.” There was a commotion as commandos moved out of the way for a distinct mecha.

Commanders under Henry greened up as Salchar checked his hair wouldn't fly free from its leather tie, chewing his gum, his face hard. Without looking Krom gave him his helmet and he sealed it, the face plate open.

“What are you doing here?” Henry demanded, looking to James' security detail.

“More use fighting then sitting up there,” he said as someone behind him calmly swung a staff with rounded ornaments on either end.

“Akatski has everything in hand,” Monk said as he rested on his staff. Monk's mecha was heavily armoured, but with an exoskeleton that would fit an Avar, and gave him more power. Salchar's was similarly massive due to the exoskeleton, but it had less armour in areas to provide greater mobility.

“You two are essential to the Fleet,” he said.

“Every person in the Free Fleet is essential to it,” Salchar said. “We found that other people could do our jobs up there, freeing us from those responsibilities. Now, use us. We're pretty good at taking orders still.”

Henry was distinctly unhappy with the entire thing, but he knew there was no deterring Salchar once he had made up his mind.

Plus if the Syndicates overrun us it won't matter who someone is, or what their rank is; they'll die all the same.

“Alright, you stubborn bastards. You'll be under Shminkt,” Henry said, knowing it was a bad idea as soon as the words had left his mouth, but also knowing that they'd take no less.

“Thank you, Henry,” Salchar said grinning, turning to go find Shminkt and his company.

Indicators started appearing on Henry's screen as Commandos started pulling back to fourth line. He pressed icons on his data pad connecting him to different units.

“Pull back to fourth line,” he said. As he cut the channel, units that had been waiting now met up with their fellow Commando's, waiting for the Syndicate's troops.

***

Falesh was altogether done with running around and finding booby traps in the rooms, hallways and waiting at every corner. He now had only thirty people doing as he said, his turnover rate had grown to almost four hundred percent.

The weight of the extra gravities made him sluggish, tired and pissed off as he gasped for air. Fighting these bastards was like fighting an invisible enemy. They'd gotten to a corridor that ran through a large open area and finally met their enemy. They'd had shield generators
inside
the station, which was something that Falesh had never seen or heard of before, and three weapon systems firing continuously. There was always one firing and at least one ready.

“General, from what I've seen these guys are at home with the higher gravity hell they've turned the station into,” he communicated to higher command. Captain Kelu wanted to know everything and anything about these mysterious defenders, making sure Falesh's information went to the highest levels.

“Why do you think that, Sergeant?” the nameless general asked, sounding skeptical.
I don't have time to give you a dark-cursed written report you pencil pushing shit, h
e thought, forcing himself to breathe.

“The speed with which they switched barrels and reloaded their weapons makes me believe that,” Falesh panted, talking had become much more difficult.

“Sarge, they're leaving,” one of Falesh's grenade throwers said. Thankfully grenades were one thing that was not in short supply.

“Keep the pressure up then!”

One of his men charged the hallway, a burst of beads taking out his face plate. His cries ending in their throat as he dropped to the floor.

“No one fucking moves until I say so!” Falesh yelled. He didn't care if they lived or died, but to get his share he needed to take this station. For that he needed troops.

“The shields are spotting!” the grenade thrower from before yelled as they doubled their throwing speed.

The rail gun fired as Falesh's smirk at the enemy wasting ammo turned to horror. The rounds exploded as soon as they passed the protecting walls, killing troops on either side with the blast and shards.

As soon as we change to their tactics, they change them again.

Falesh wanted to beat the crap out of something, anything. He hit the wall a few times but found himself exhausted as the heavier gravity weighed on him.

It's not fucking fair!

“Get more grenades on those damn things!” he yelled as he saw that the majority of his grenade throwers had been ripped apart by the Rail gun.

Replacement's crept up, only to get washed away with more rounds.

“Stack the dead, use them as cover,” Falesh said as troops started to create protective walls with dead or dying troops.

A wounded woman was yelling for aid and Falesh absently shot her, stopping her annoying screams.

“Shields are down,” a gruffer sounding grenade thrower said. Falesh saw the new one was using a dead trooper as a shield.

“Good. Now silence those fucking guns!” Falesh barked as he checked his weapon.

Rail guns ripped into the hastily erected barricades of mechas as beaders fired against the walls trying to catch anything that stepped out. Grenade throwers arms were shredded but others quickly moved into their place. Stopping now would mean giving the shields enough time to recharge and make all the work that they'd done worth nothing.

Finally, one beader went down, then the other. The rail gun took time but it fell eventually.

“Go!” Falesh yelled as he forced those in front of him into the corridor.

They walked quickly, as doing anything more was almost impossible. As the first man made it past the corner, a plasmid blade flashed and the trooper fell backwards.

“Get 'em! They're right there!” Falesh yelled as more people moved past the corner. A few fell back here and there, but the majority of them continued on. Falesh turned to look into chaos, and at his enemy.

Their mechas were essentially the same as the ones the syndicate troops were wearing. They changed them up as they needed to. Whereas syndicate troops always went for more armour, as that was a symbol of status, these fighters had different amounts of armour across their mechas. The mechas were also well used. They looked grungy compared to the polished and cleaned mechas the syndicates troops had forced their slaves to polish to perfection. These mechas wore their scars with pride as, and that made Falesh pause. These people had been in vicious battles, and yet they had somehow survived.

“G-General, there's not one group. There's five of them at least.” He steadied himself at the sight as he pulled behind the corner.

“They come from a high g planet, they move as if they were born in this..,” Falesh felt the gravity increase even more and he gasped as he strained to look around the corner.

“What was that, Sergeant?” The General sounded not pleased in the slightest.

“They're definitely not syndicate. They fight together and they have no trouble doing it in a high gravity environment,”

“We shall have a harvest of many!” one of the enemy soldiers said as they cut through two attackers, then dropped back as their comrade killed another that slashed at him.

Without a word the general cut the channel and Falesh returned to his ragtag group of troops, which were dying in the droves.

“Get up there you!” Falesh said as more reinforcements funnelled through the already cleared areas to the rear.

Who the hell are these demons?

***

I grinned as I saw who was in charge of my squad as I jogged right up behind him. I tapped him on the shoulder, grinning as he turned.

“
Look, I don't have ti - Salchar!”

“George,” I couldn't help smiling as the kids face lit up. He made to salute as I clapped him on the shoulder, stopping that nonsense.

“I'm now under you, as well as my pals here.” I indicated my security detail who varied from annoyed for having to protect me in a war zone, (Dave and Janice) to outright grinning (Krom and Shreesht). Calerd looked as non-committal as anyone could be. Monk and his security detail had gone to another squad under Shminkt's command. George nodded to them all. They'd met when I'd taken George home and the few times I'd gathered my friends together for a meal wherever I'd been. George was still stationed on Resilient and hadn't taken a promotion to platoon sub commander so he could stay onboard. The kid was driven.

“I'll leave you to what you were doing and fall in,” I said.

“Ah... I'm all set, just waiting to be told where reinforcements are needed,”

“MOVE! MEDIC!” Someone bellowed and a hole was made through the waiting platoon as medics and commandos carried or pulled their comrades back to one of the med bays.

“So did you hear Marco changed to be a shipyard worker with his sister?” George said as the hole closed up. George wasn't trying to disregard the wounded, I knew he'd be doing everything he could if he thought it could help, but they were already in the best care and keeping our minds clear of distractions would help them more, if we joined them or not.

“Really? I thought he was going to stay Commando,” I said, actually surprised.

“Nah. He was going to tell you, but with Parnmal and everything he knew you'd be too busy,”

“Well, we best bug him out for a drink if Silly hasn't got him clearing room for our new front line ships,”

“When will he be laying down the new ships?” George asked.

“Silly says that he thinks he can get most of the ships we have in six months, so maybe seven,” I said as an alert sounded on my armband.