The Recruitment: Rise of the Free Fleet (50 page)

“Helm cut your speed so we allow them to catch up with us.”

“Aye, aye COS.” It stood for Chief of Staff. Both Rick and I had taken on the hats of captain and first officer as well as commander of the free fleet and the chief of staff. It wouldn’t pass if it was on Earth, but hell it was my fleet, my ship and by damn if anyone had a problem with it they could come to me and I’d tell them where to shove it.

“Sensor pit, can you throw up a real time map on the main screen of our position and that of the other members of the fleet.”

“Navigator have you completed your calculations for the jump?”

“Yes COS. I’ve reviewed it three times. Our navigation computers are slaved with the other members of the fleet which have also completed their navigational calculations.” Ben, my Navigator said as his lower hands moved in what I’d come to know as slight nervousness.

“How long till we begin charging the wormhole generators?”

“Six hours, the Resilient’s bigger than the other ships in the fleet and she has only two fusion generators online so she needs a longer time to charge and direct that energy towards the hyper deflectors. Which will take a further four hours; we cannot cancel the jump once it goes beyond the final two hours as we will have built up too much power to bleed out of the deflector dishes without ripping the ship apart as the only way would be to make an unsafe miniature jump.”

“Thank you navigation for the highpoints of jumping.” Rick had things well in hand. I wished that I knew what half of the stuff he was talking about was. Looks like I still had plenty to learn, joy.

“Commander the rest of the fleet is coming alongside us.” On the main screen I could see six corvettes, three cruisers two destroyers and Bregend’s Battle cruiser grouped around the Resilient.

“We’re going to have to work on formation drills.”

“Agreed sir.” Rick said writing it down on his data pad

Our ragged formation continued on towards the hyper limit.

“This is engineering; charging the deflector dishes.” Eddie said as a thrum built steadily through the ship.

“Thank you engineering.” The thrum reached its peak being heard throughout the ship, we had three hours to go before we were past the point of no return.

The ship shuddered, jerked and buckled roughly like a bull, people being ejected from their seats as we made our first entry into another system.

“Modulating shield for gravitational changes and anomalies.” Tactical said as there was a hive of activity in the tactical pit.

The ship shuddered as my Mecha kept me in place stopping me from being thrown. Others that had gotten to their feet where thrown again and a few more left their seats.

Then the ship lurched forward.

“We’re free of the wormhole.” Helm reported.

“Well we have some things we still need to work on.” I said to the crew in general.

“Talk to me sensors.” Rick said sporting a gash on his forehead.

“We’re in system 49364e the asteroid belt is absolutely loaded with precious resources. It’s making sensor scanning difficult. We’re clear out to ten thousand kilometres.” The sensor officer said her voice a quiver, obviously shaken by the re-entry into real-space and the pressure of her job.

“Good work.” I could see Marleen was talking to her gunnery deck, their guns roving the area as they looked for signs of ships waiting in ambush.

“Yes commander.” She said blushing before she looked at her readouts. “Clear to a hundred thousand kilometres. Nothing detected so…”

“Picking up communication emissions coming from the fourth planet.” One of the sensor array operators said as the commander of the sensor pit forgot what she was saying and threw the information on the main screen.

“Someone else double check that reading!” She demanded.
 
That training’s coming in use.

“I confirm communications emissions. I also detect what appears to be a volcano erupting on the planet, from these readings it looks like it will destroy the planet.”

“Nav plot us a course, Helm take us in. I want that message people.” I said sitting forward in my seat.

“I’m getting a faint signal from the planet.” The communications officer said as they held their ear bud to their ear as if they could hear the person on the other side better.

“I’ve got it!” They pushed the incoming communications to the speakers in the room it came out garbled as the translator labored to work with the guttural sounding language.

“I am Ursht I submit to the space gods that saved us, to once again help us. We have again failed you. We ask if you wish for us to survive to please save us and walk us up the path to the stars. We are unable to walk the path alone. If you do not wish this then we will accept our fate.”

The message continued with Ursht asking for help that his race that might deserve to die wished for a third and final chance from these space gods.

“Comms connect me to them.”
 
 
 
 

“You’re connected sir.”

“This is commander Salchar of the Free Fleet we are inbound to your planet to render aid, please tell us how we can be of assistance?”

“The space gods do exist! Our sacred barrier given to us by the other space gods has failed and the world killer Tremeel has awoken spitting its rage into the sky to kill us.”

“What is this sacred barrier like, what powers it?”

“It feeds off of our rivers and streams, but to remain safe these rivers and streams have been depleted. Our people that toil in the mines of our planet traded with others from the skies for the materials we needed to keep the barrier running. It has been many moons since traders have come to our planet.”

“So you need water like that from your rivers to keep the barrier running?”

“Yes.”

“Still not detecting any life forms on the planet.” The sensor commander said.

“Ursht is there a reason we can’t see anyone on the planet?”

“I am unsure though I have heard that we are hard to see with your electronic eyes and with most of your normal eyes.”

They were hard to see with my own eyes as they were hard to see with the highly advanced sensor arrays over the ship. This bared something thinking upon. “Helm how long until we reach the planet?”

“It will take us two hours.”

“Did you hear that Ursht?”

“Yes, we will await your arrival.” He said cutting the channel.

“Get me Eddie.”

“Fleet commander?”

“Pool the reactor fuel we’d need for a planetary shield.”

“How big of a shield?”

“Sensor commander do you have readings on the shield and a possible generator?”

“Yes sir! Sending to your terminal, the generator is the only structure we can see with sensors we believe.”

“Eddie the data’s on the way.”

“I just got it. We’ve only got the area, not the strength or the actual intake of the generator.”

“Well then it’s going to be a good exercise for engineering to figure out how much would be needed. Think of it as an exercise.”

“It’ll be good to give the slackers something they’re already going soft and we haven’t even been out of port for a day! Yes commander now you say it, it is a good idea. They would’ve just put down that amount from stores without a thought. Probably without even checking what it was! I’ll get my slackers working out how much reactor fuel well need, we’ll have it ready by planet fall or my name is Eddie Randall Christopher!” With that he cut the channel as I was left wondering why Kuruvians had what humans would consider first names with no real last names.

Resilient requested a private channel over my implants as I accepted. “I am detecting facilities that are of AI construction on the planet.”

“What does that mean for us?”

“I do not know but I thought I should let you know.”

“Pass on any information to Tactical, Sensors and Eddie.”

“Certainly Commander.” She cut the channel as I waited. The fourth planet was the furthest planet in the system and luckily close to the point that we’d jumped into the system. Even then it would take us just under a day to reach the planet.

***

It was an hour before planet fall and I was as nervous as a drunk teenager before prom. Well they do say alcohol gives you liquid courage, but anyway I was damned nervous.

So far each of the ships was pulling reactor mass from their own stores. It was a good idea to pull the mass from all of the ships so that no one was less than the others. On the flip side it meant that we had to somehow get that reactor mass together before shipping it to the planet, with time we didn’t have.

“Commander it’s estimated from the readings we’re getting from the shield generator and its fusion plant that it will shut down an hour after we make planet fall.” That was enough time to put together a flight plan for shuttles to grab the fuel but not enough to do so
 
and
 
get the shuttles to the planet.

“What if we have each of the shuttles loaded with their own payload of reactor mass and then rush the planet with the largest quantities in the front of the formation?”

“At this stage we’re braking for the shuttles to make re-entry. If we don’t stop braking then it will be increasingly harder for them to make it through the atmosphere.” Rick said as I hide my annoyance.
 
I’m supposed to know this stuff!
 
I continued to look at the main view screen hoping it would give me a miracle.

“Ah commander?” Eddie said in my ear.

“Go ahead Eddie.”

“I thought that I might not be the only chief with a few slackers underneath me so I parsed out the reaction mass supply needed to the entire fleet.”

“I know.” I said grinding my teeth.

“Then we got with the shuttle commanders as we needed to gather all of the mass before transporting it to the planet.”

“Okay?” Hope rising.

“We have a flight plan but it will need your confirmation to put it into motion.”

I felt like running down to engineering and kissing the old Kuruvians bastard, instead I acted as if I’d expected his intervention.

“Good work Eddie, I was hoping you would catch on and use your initiative to complete a task while I was busy. You’ve excelled. Please pass on my praise to those who contributed and you have permission on the flight plan.”

“Thank you sir, yes sir.” He said, embarrassment in his voice before cutting the channel. Shuttles from the big ships added the smaller ships contributions to their own before dropping it off to Rebirth.

“This is Captain Bregend of the battle cruiser Rebirth, breaking formation for quicker insertion into planet.”

I hid my shock at this sudden move as I pulled up the flight plan details that Eddie had sent me. Confirming it was going to plan I returned my gaze to the main view screen as Bregend reclaimed all of his shuttles as he continued his slow deceleration.

“Inserting into atmosphere.” Bregend said, he was a full half hour before the rest of us already. The shields of the battle cruiser flared as they interacted with atmosphere. I changed to the optical feed a blur of black, red, grey and white as the Battle cruiser skimmed atmosphere.

“Activating shuttle deployment rails.” Bregend ground out, the effect the gravities were having on his body audible in his voice—as shuttles fired out the back of the battle cruiser using the acceleration rails to counteract the inertia placed on them by the ship. The shuttle pilots went full burn as soon as they were off of the rails to brake themselves further and stop them from continuing out into space again.

“Exiting atmosphere.” The four hundred metre long ship angled it as its inertia carried it back out of the atmosphere. Finally turning to interpose its engines and slow itself down, its hull glowing from the entry and exit

The shuttles that had shot out of Rebirth had nearly come out of the atmosphere again their engines well past their maximum thrust as they clawed their way back to the planet. Once back under control they glided to the fusion power plant that was connected to the massive planetary shield generator.

“Rick you have command.”

“Sir.” He replied, still engrossed in his screens, we didn’t have any of that saluting for changing posts malarkey on my ships. I was already moving to armoury three. Jeremiah and my reduced protection detail were waiting outside the bridge’s blast doors. I nodded to them they knew the game by now, a few grinned at me others shook their heads or rolled their eyes. Jeremiah’s face was a mask of
 
well shit he’s going to try and get himself killed again, I wonder how many times I’m going to have to jump in the way.

They guided me down to the armoury with Shrift there to greet me.

“Thought you might be looking for a new one, I rushed the production on this one. It’s not a brand new suit but it’s better than the general ones we have. Plus we added in some creative touches.” He guided me to a work rack putting in a number as the rack cycled my Mecha to the fore.

“This one’s yours.” It had blue lines crossing it artistically around the breastplate and down the arms and legs turning from thick to thin. Ammunition lay around its waist; the armour was thicker than the original models.

I ran my hand over it feeling the cold of the armour. I popped the catches and opening it I took off my weapons belt and holster putting them to the side as Shrift helped me put the Mecha on. My nerve ports connected with the suit’s connectors and power seemed to flood me.