The Recruitment: Rise of the Free Fleet (39 page)

“What do you mean Jorsht?” Welick’s eye stalks moving wildly as he cradled his broken hand-fin nervously.

“There are thirty five ships docked in this station right now, all of which are locked down and if they move the weapons systems will fire on them. No pirate will be willing to undock in these conditions so they’re going to throw themselves at your Mechas. Which fortunately for us are quite effective?” He stomped forward to his screens.

“Let your wild Mecha’s kill the captains of the ships then when it seems that all is lost we’ll activate their kill switches, we’ll be in charge of thirty five ships instead of your ten; two of which the syndicate has kept on Chaleel.”

“What about the syndicate? They will hunt us.”

“We can’t help technical problems, they made the kill switches if it took some time to activate it wasn’t our fault.” Jorsht’s eyes dark with greed. Welick’s eyes mimicked Jorsht’s as they grinned darkly together.

“They’d want to cover that up; they’d kill us if we said the switches were faulty.” Welick proposed, his greed overcoming his fear. Jorsht guffawed at his accomplices’ proposed problems.

“Yes I’d like to see that, have them come and take the second most powerful syndicate base in the known galaxy with its own fleet. It would be a waste of money. If we say we won’t say the kill switches don’t work but it was because of the stations high concentrations of heavy metals they’ll happily let us keep the ships to stay quiet and take their cut of the money we make as they always do.”

“Are you sure they won’t try to punish us for this?”

“Punish the ones that stopped a native force we just started harvesting for troops from taking one of their biggest cash cows. I don’t think so.”

“What about crews then will we have enough?”

“Yes, just keep the Kuruvians alive and the Sarenmenti, you’ll notice none of those two are with these,
 
humans.
 
Also the private crews will thank us; we did after all save their lives.”

Jorsht could see Welick’s eye stalks now shining at the thought. “If we don’t activate the internal weaponry then we wouldn’t damage the station as much for later repairs.” He said moving past the battle and looking how to make a profit.

“Could say it was due to the lack of some Kuruvian engineers and space a bunch of the useless ones.”

“That does have a certain appeal.” Jorsht said moving to his seat and settling down.

“We could have a sale of all private belongings of the deceased. Pirates from all over this sector would come to trade and move past any issues they might have.” Welick’s eyestalks darkening further as he thought of the profit from this mishap.

“Yes and we should see about the acquisition of this Earth these are effective soldiers, if we remove this rebellious trait from them.” Jorsht said with a thin smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

***

“I thought we would’ve encountered internal weapon systems by now.” I said to Min Hae over a private channel.

“The domes in the walls are the internal weapon systems but it does seem that they haven’t activated them for some bizarre reason. Some of them we’ve hacked in to with the wireless transmitters, but it needs a direct connection to the weapon systems. Otherwise my people have been working on cutting power to them.

I turned the corner I was waiting behind running and firing before throwing myself at another piece of cover, my personal guard falling in with me as I looked over the side incinerating a pirate for their troubles.

“Take that you bastard.” I muttered changing out magazines

“Sorry sir?”

“Nothing Min Hae, so can we make sure they stay dead?”

“I’d talk to Eddie about that.”

“Okay, wish me luck.” “Eddie?”

“Yes Commander James cook, Salchar, Choi Joo Mi.” Eddie said in a jovial tone.

“Just one of those will do, and can we keep these internal weapon systems offline?”

Resilient came on the channel

“It’s all controlled by one system, there are different staggered generators. With your wireless hubs I am taking out the power and re-writing the IFF codes. Though I will need Min Hae and his people to let me have power if the turrets are needed.”

“Okay, but what if we can’t control them?”

“Cut the power, for the last hundred metres to the command centre the turrets are powered directly from the centre, those will need to be cut from the power, or destroyed.”

“How do we destroy one?”

“An anti-armour penetrator should do.”

“Damn.” The armour penetrator was designed to go through reactive and ablative armour of a tank, and would leave a ten centimetre pit against the hull of Resilient which was quite an undertaking with her armour.

“Once in the command centre we will control the station and I can provide assistance.”

“So we’re safe once we get in?”
 
 
I said, firing at the syndicate forces.

“Mostly, there are areas that there are isolated sentry systems and areas with no systems.”

“Great.” I looked over the barricade I was hiding behind letting a stream of plasma coat the far wall. Making the pirates that held a z-turn in the corridor jump back behind cover…

I changed to the local channel. “Grab your swords people, we’re taking a detour.” I pulled up a schematic and changed back to Eddie’s channel.

“Keep me updated if anything is needed.”

“Certainly, I will try to assist however I can.” Resilient said.

“I have Kuruvians moving supplies up to you as we speak so your guys don’t have to do all of the lifting.”

“Thanks Eddie, we appreciate it. Have your people take back the wounded. We need them up and moving as soon as possible. I would make the hangars medical rooms. Pull out all of the medical chairs in the shuttles to get people patched up.”

“Agreed Commander.”

I mag-clamped my rifle and drew my sword stabbing it through the wall closest to me and dragging it around in a circle. Snatching my pistol from my drop leg holster I kicked the wall and followed the slab into what looked like someone’s quarters—my people following as I continued into a new hallway.

“Eddie is not going to like this.” Not realizing I hadn’t cut the channel.

“Won’t like what?” He asked suspiciously as I pointed to the next wall. The Commandos getting the idea as they cut through the wall into a store room. One of them whistled as they stepped into the massive space I followed them into the room.

“Eddie what did you say those maintenance bots look like, you know the ones that our captain sold?”

He flashed me a picture as I whistled.

“Well I think we just hit the goldmine of them.” I sent him a picture of the room. As I learnt the Kuruvian dictionary dedicated to swear words.

“They have all of these in storage and they still don’t get any to perform maintenance! Wait what is that in the corner.” He highlighted the offending corner in the same picture sending it back to me as I moved to go and look at it. Sending him a picture.

His voice was dead anger and hatred behind it “It’s a dismantler.” I heard metal hitting metal over the open channel.

“Those useless frisking pirates! Who in their right fracking mind would disable perfectly good repair droids when they don’t even know how to wire a ship righ! Kill the lot of the useless slackers I say! Don’t know what a day’s work is! Dismantle the robots then get engineers you demand miracles from to do their jobs! Idiotic, pure and damned simple!” I jacked into the control panel of the dismantler shutting it down before pointing to another wall my team stabbing through it again.

“I’ve shut it down and after this we can get these working to fix the station.”

“Damn the station, you know what I could do with them if I had four months and materials! I could fix up the Resilient! Give me a six months and I could fully refurbish her if I had the drones and a dock!”

“Salchar if you put a wireless hub into this console I can turn the drones to help and begin searching for others.” Resilient said over Eddie’s tirade.

I pulled the hub from my leg; the stick was shaped at one end like my universal port and was two inches long. I inserted it into the control panel as it booted up. A row of drones came online in a nearby rack.

“I will need to charge them, but I can give them to the Kuruvians to move supplies and wounded as well as inserting me into control systems across the ship where we aren’t already.” Small bots about the size of a football started picking up and entering air ducts and maintenance hatches, my HUD updating with a more detailed map.

“Resilient you beauty!” I yelled pumping my hand in the air as I noticed the Commandos looking at me and the drones, their weapons raised and ready to take out the drones. I changed to the general channel putting a text message through everyone’s HUD’s so as to not disrupt orders.

Don’t kill the drones, they work for us.
 
That done I followed my group of Commandos, my shadows encircling me still.

I walked through the next walk and pointed to the last wall checking my schematic.

The thought of a near new Imperial Dreadnought did have its allure especially after having seen the outside of it and hearing about the conditions of the shields and engines. When Eddie had gone through the issues of the ship I’d learned how much it was stuck together with space tape and elbow grease.

“I’ll see what we can do, for now we have to take this station.”

“Yes Commander. I’ll see what I can do from this end.”

“Thanks Eddie.” I said shutting the channel as the last hole was cut and the Commando behind it kicked it with all of their force. As soon as it was clear another flowed through the gap. Swords raised we charged I ran in keeping my shoulders down as I ran over two unarmoured pirates their screams in my ears as I brought my sword up in a savage blow that cleaved a surprised pirate in two.

We smashed into the pirates like a wave. They’d been so concentrated on our people down the hall they didn’t notice our plasmid swords cutting behind their corner and right into the middle of them. Plasmid swords and servo assisted fists ripped apart the pirates who turned their weapons on us.

I spun away from a toppling armoured pirate my sword at head height as it bit into the shoulder of another pirate. It caught for a half a second my servos keeping up with my momentum as it continued through the shoulder and then helmet. I kicked his headless Mecha over yelling wordlessly as I saw a pirate moving their crew serviced plasma cannon to face the breach in the wall my AMC’s were swarming out of.

Without a thought my free hand snapped down as I drew my rail pistol, lining up the carat as I held the pistol at hip height. I snapped two shots through the gunner’s face, another two in loaders armour as they scrambled away from the gun.

I advanced cutting down a pirate with my plasmid sword and turning to kill another that headed for the cannon. I kept moving and shooting until I ran out of rounds. I threw my plasmid sword next to the cannon as I dove for the cannon, slick with the past owners blood as I tried to hold onto it as my inertia kept my moving.

I twisted as I slid across the floor to let my shoulder take most of the impact still denting my helmet with my movements. My now spider webbed HUD displayed a targeting reticule as it connected with the plasma cannon, its tripod being ripped off by my actions.

I had slid past the corner and now faced the reinforcements for the pirates. I looked at a mass of weapons and horrifying looking armour. Rounds sparked around me and plasma raised my Mechas temperature. I hefted the cannon up so it was braced against my shoulder as I dug my feet into the ground and felt the wall against my back.

I thumbed the activator which made the gun whine as I pulled the trigger.

The hallways turned into a blinding cyan haze, my spider webbed visor’s light protection having little effect as the light burned through my closed eyes.

I fired from one wall to another as warnings went off in my suit and my arm cradling the plasma cannon started to burn, the smell of insulation, hair, muscle and other parts of my arm mixed with my Mecha as I knew that if I stopped me and my AMC’s would die.

Tourniquets strapped down on my arm stopping blood loss as my nerve ports did their work allowing me to shift the cannons fire even without an arm.

I kept firing only able to tell when I was hitting the wall by the strange way the plasma hit it before coating the hallway again and hitting the other wall.

The pain was immense but I could still hear someone screaming. I finally stopped firing realizing it was me screaming and Yasu was yelling through our channel to stop firing. I did so letting the deadly weapon fall from my hand and melted arm.

I felt myself going into shock. The hell fire system fired as I went stiff in immediate pain.

“Alright can anyone damned well tell me if there’s anything down there because I can’t see shit.” I said after a few seconds of fumbling around to grab my weapons. Thankfully the nerve ports were doing their job, with my arm being all but nonexistent and the exoskeleton on one side it meant that I should have no ability to move my arm, let alone grab things with my still unburned but cut off hand. I really did have a phantom limb at that point, well half a forearm and a hand in a gauntlet.

“OOH RAH!” I heard and felt as the Commandos rushed forwards. Someone pressed my sword into my hand and my pistol into the other. I reloaded the pistol by feel as I put the sword on my back. I held onto the walls like a drunkard as I tried to blink away the cyan imprints on my retinas. I tried moving my head to look away from the corridor trying to get my eyes focused better which were still tearing up but better than they had been a few seconds before. Only to find out joy of joys my helmet had become pinched at the neck servos by hitting the bulkhead.

“I don’t think cockroaches could live through that. ” A commander said.

Swearing at all things Mechanical I ripped the helmet off with my good hand tossing it into a nearby corner.

“Commander let us get you to an aid station.” The same voice said as I tried to get to my feet.

“Just get me back in the storage room. I’m fine!” I growled, pain and fear at having lost my sight clouding my mind.

“Sir.” I felt two Commandos help me through the breach into the storage room, sitting me down as someone put a wet rag to my eyes.

“Thank you.” I said in genuine relief my eyes rehydrated. I took the cloth off after a few minutes finding that I could see a little bit. I grabbed my data pad from my lower back. The thing seemed to be indestructible as it started up.