From Furies Forged (Free Fleet Book 5) (16 page)

              “Set!” Commander Vazal who had been the frontline company commander said as he people got into position behind the second line.

              “Move it!” Commander Grorak said, Vazal’s opposite in the second line.

              They moved back three more times, remote sensors reported that the Earth forces were edging out of their positions slowly, obviously thinking that they were entering a trap.

              Ursht pulled up a screen on his HUD, showing him the Earth ships orbiting Mars.

              Pin point small wormholes appeared, the jump fighters had returned and the ones freed from Hachiro’s fighting had joined them.

              Five wings had grown to eight, and all of them were fully armed and fueled.

              They came in from three directions, jumping this close to a planet was one hell of a ballsy move, but with the AI’s of the fleet it had reduced a lot of the risk.

              Missiles erupted from the fighters, in six seconds they fired eight hundred missiles and moved in closer, their bomb-pumped acceleration minimizing the distance between the two forces.

              Eight hundred missiles became eight thousand, overpowering the defensive fired of the stunned Earth ships.

              Twenty-three were washed away in nuclear fire.

              The Fighters fired their following barrages by wings, covering their closure to the Earth ships and making sure they didn’t run out of missiles before they got into close-combat.

              Cohesion started to come apart as the three different ship groups in Mars orbit hadn’t figured out a new command system, all of the leaders from different militaries saying that they were in charge.

              Again these leaders told their forces to do different things and the forty-three that survived the initial barrage moved in wildly different directions. The jump fighters didn’t have issues with their chain of command.

              Another twelve fell to the barrages and then the wings operated independently, raking the Earth forces in groups.

              The Earth forces fired missiles but they were slower and weaker than Free Fleet standard missiles PDS tracers happily reached out and destroyed them.

              Three fighters were killed by them, another five were killed by weapons fired from cannons and PDS.

              The fighter’s started using their railguns and missiles, operating individually or with others seamlessly.

              Then they supercharged their railgun, firing twin bolts of plasma into their target. The impact caved in the side of the ship, plasma eating through metal and whatever was in its hungry path. Atmosphere streamed out of the opening.

              More bright plasma bolts kissed the Earth-ships. The fighters got so close that there was no way for the Earth ships to stop or avoid the bolts.

              Ursht’s face could have been carved from granite as he made it behind the defenses that he had his people start making as soon as they had enough room in which to operate without the Earth forces finding out what they were doing.

              His eyes flicked to the screen on his HUD again.

              Earth Forces ships started surrendering, one by one and then in mass, their guns going silent as they powered out of Mars’ orbit and then ejected their power plants.

              The AIH contingent of ships split into two, two-thirds of them heading to assist the jump-fighters. Fifteen Earth ships had made it out of that battle under their own power. Eighteen Jump-fighters followed them as if inviting them to test them once again.

              More Earth ships fought to keep their ships alive and out of Mars’ gravity well. Ten Jump-fighters watched them to make sure they did nothing more than try to get out of Mars’ gravity well.

             
I wish a battle with the Kalu would be as forgiving.

              “Alright, here we hold. Reinforcements from Chaleel will be here in a few hours, by that time Salchar will have shown the remaining Earth Forces just what happens to oath-breakers,” Ursht’s voice sounded like ground granite.

              The other reason Ursht had pulled his forces back was that he knew they would be watching the engagement between the Earth Forces caught between the Chaleel and the fleet that had come from Parnmal.

              A good commander knew how to lead their people, a great one understood what their people were going to do and accommodated for that when they could.

                                                                      ***

              The tension on Admiral Russel’s bridge was palpable. They were the only Earth Fleet remaining in Sol. Ships from tens of nations were piling towards the Chaleelian contingent as Salchar himself came charging at them like the devil’s hound.

              The acceleration of the ships in Salchar’s fleet was incredible. Russel had watched as those ships had pressed forward with incredible speed. Though it looked to him that they weren’t even trying to go as fast as possible.

              He had seen both attacks by the Jump fighters, they had hammered fleets bigger than them both times and had gone in with ruthless efficiency.

             
Yet they were only fighters, we’re facing their mother ships now.

              “Ten minutes until we’re within engagement distance,” Lieutenant Giles said.

              “Very well. Ship Commander Xiao, make sure everyone is ready at battle stations.”

              “Yes sir,” the Ship Commander said, bending her head while holding her earbud into her ear as she communicated with the ship’s Ship Commander and out to the other squadron commanders to make sure that they’re people were ready for the oncoming engagement.

              Russel had found it hard to get any rest, the tension had been too high and waiting wore on everyone’s nerves.

              His people hadn’t been able to sleep and it showed in their performance.

              Seven minutes to go and the Free Fleet’s shields snapped into existence. Perfectly timed between the forces of Chaleel and Parnmal.

              “Their shields are up and they’re rotating their broadsides,” Giles said as all eyes darted to the main screen.

              It was like some deadly synchronized ballet performed by those with a singular purpose.

              Every ship from Carrier to Corvette turned to bring their broadsides to bear.

              Time seemed to pause, consoles made noises and the air circulation systems humming only served to grow that silence rather than penetrate it.

              “By God,” Russel was an atheist through and through, but his call fit his feelings. Rail-cannons fired as one.

              “They’re firing!” Giles announced.

              “Shields, missiles, clear our skies and fire back at them!” Russel yelled, like a man who didn’t know how to swim, trying to claw their way to the surface.

              “Sir,” Ship Commander Duschene said, the bridge was in motion, but those railguns fired again. It would take them but eight minutes to reach his ships.

              “We have an incoming transmission from Resilient,” Ship Commander Xiao’s voice cut through the sounds of people preparing for Armageddon.

              “On screen,” Russel said, checking himself over and settling into his seat more.

              Admiral Russel tried to keep his emotions off of his face but it was hard.

              He looked directly onto Resilient’s bridge. Every single person wore powered armor. They talked in hushed but calm tones, moving with professional strides, in opposition to the rushed panic of his own command center.

              Hard eyes looked at the main screen before turning to their work. Salchar’s didn’t, he sat in his command chair, staring right ahead. His visor was open and his scarred power armor showed the damage received on Heija.

              His chief of staff sat to his side, his eyes returning Russel’s gaze with cool indifference.

              Three Avarians sat to the rear of Salchar and Rick, their protectors, Wruck, Krom and Shreesht. Anger radiated off of them, their eyes filled with silent curses.

              Russel’s eyes darted to Salchar’s. He might look like a short Avarian and a young twenty year-old. But his eyes showed a man aged well beyond his years by the events he had seen.

              Admiral Russel had stared down some of the most powerful people on Earth, none of them had looked at him with the kind of indifference that Salchar looked at him now.

              “Admiral Adam Russel I will give you this one chance to surrender. I have real enemies that need attention. I do not wish to deal with the whims of your political masters.”

              Russel saw as the next wave of rounds headed towards his formation that were flushing their magazines of anything and everything they had.

              The Free Fleet forces rotated, bringing new rail-cannons to bear.

              “I need an answer Admiral,” Salchar said, Russel’s eyes flickered to him.

              “Yes we surrender damnit,” he said, noticing the cold sweat that now made his clothes stick to it.

              “Marleen,” Salchar said, holding Russel’s eye.

              “Understood Commander,” she talked in hushed tones.

              “Hold your shields up, our rounds will break apart. Though my engineer doubts that your ships and armor will be able to stop the shrapnel. We will send a signal when the rounds are done and you will power down weapons and shields. My Commandos will board you, placing you on transports back to Earth,” Salchar stood and stepped forward.

              “I do not want to see you facing me again Admiral. I did not want to destroy these ships and kill people from the planet I was born on.
Your
leaders made me do this. This Fleet is all that stands in the way of a threat you could not even comprehend. I will visit Earth once more with my decrees from the Union. Vort,” the channel cut and Russel let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

              His anxiousness turned to anger, the kind that made his face bunch into hard lines, his teeth grind and his hands turn to fists.

             
You know what he said was true, and you knew, you warned them against doing this. Yet you would not leave your duty. What an idiot I was.
He had been thinking in terms of nations, in terms of power over other humans. That was the way it had always been.

              The game had changed and it had taken him too long to figure it out. He held Salchar in no great esteem, hell he thought he was a damned terrible commanding officer playing things by the seat of his pants. It was going to be hard for him to get past that. Yet the enemy commander had been a worthy opponent.

              He revised to make his own judgements of Salchar instead of listening to little twats like Edwards to give him that information.

              Earth was going to need to build up their space force with the kind of production Earth hadn’t seen since the world wars. They’d just lost their greatest benefactor and the Kalu would come for their planet.

             
That’s what he showed you, they’re fighting to keep sentient life, not for people stuck in fighting amongst themselves.

              He disagreed with a group that called themselves simple ‘traders’ having the sort of power that they had, yet he recognized their need and use now. Maybe they had built up their fleet to show their strength, but they needed their numbers and their ships to cover the reaches of inhabited space. Their drive for weapons like Elshurvum were built out of need, like the nuclear bombs of World War Two. They needed that strength to fight the Kalu. Even with those advantages they’d lost a battle, won another only after the destruction of the biggest weaponized station in known existence and lost close to one point one million lives in their engagements and through the battle of Heija.

              These thoughts ran through his mind, part of it registering the railgun rounds used the charges inside them to explode, turning into shards with a fraction of the power of the round.

              “We have shards hitting our shields from both sides. Our shields are falling, some might collapse,” Giles said, “Admiral?” Admiral Russel was staring at some point on the wall without really seeing it.

              “Send the recording to Earth, bring all people into the inner decks of our ships. Follow the Commander’s instructions to the letter,” Russel’s voice was curt and hard, his eyebrows shadowing his eyes, serving to only emphasize his look of anger.

              “Yes Admiral,” Giles said, quickly turning back to his station.

Chapter Ready for war

              Commander Boot sat in his new Carrier Pretak his manipulators tapping together slowly in anger. He watched as the battle ended before it truly began.