From Furies Forged (Free Fleet Book 5) (29 page)

              Their battle suits were enough to get a few back slaps and grim nods.

              Smith looked around, he couldn’t help himself as he saw faces of those that had been claimed by the dark. They’d lost forty-three pilots. That number was hard on everyone. They were a small and very elite group. They knew nearly everyone who was a jump fighter pilot.

              There was no fanfare when they got into the cafeteria, those waiting in line moved out of their way to make sure that they got food.

              “Come grab a stool with me, if you’re not too much of a hotshot to have a meal with your commander,” Heston said, breaking Smith out of his thoughts. Heston’s grin was light and the look in his eyes caring.

              “Sure thing, hope you don’t mind me brining along a few buddies,” Smith said.

              “Ahh us fighter jocks have to stay together,” Heston said with a small laugh, understanding how one could get so close to their wing that it was hard to leave them behind.

              Smith tracked him to his table as he got a mug of coffee, while the navy could never get the stuff right, the Free Fleet cooks leant how to make decent coffee as their first lesson.

              He grabbed some snacks and wandered over to Heston’s table, he felt his people staying back, a little nod with his head got them shuffling around the table and filling up the empty spots.

              “Good work out there, wish I could have been shooting the Kalu in the ass with you,” Heston said, talking to Smith, but his words for the table.

              “With good wing mates anything is possible. Unless you messed up and someone stuck your ass to a desk,” Smith said lightly.

              “Har, har har,” Heston said, trying to not roll his eyes as he ate a small spoonful of some warm-oatmeal looking meal.

              “From where I was sitting it looked like the damned Kalu are a lot thinner after what commander Whorst and our own fleet have done,” Smith asked aggression sneaking into his words, Heston’s face tightened as he took a breath.

              “Look, I know you want to go back in there, kick the Kalu’s ass even more thoroughly so that not even one of the motherless bastards are left alive. Hell I would like to as well, but we have to make the smart play. There are still nearly two-hundred-thousand of those fuckers out there, that’s bigger than the fleet that went up against Rosho by a few magnitudes.” Heston must have seen the defiance in Smith’s eyes as he leaned forward a new fire in his own. “Commander Salchar doesn’t want to let the bastards through but he has to, this fleet is the biggest we have, we took out a thousand of those bastards and we haven’t even had one fleet warship come under contact. We need to keep doing that, just a thousand of those ships on a planets surface is going to be a monster to get rid of. If we die here, killing off this fleet, there are still two others of the same size pushing through the rest of known space,” Heston said.

              “But…” Smith said, anger and frustration welling up inside of him.

              “Look, the commander knows what he’s doing. Come and look for yourself,” Heston offered.

              “Come up to the bridge?” Smith confirmed more than one person turning in interest.

              “Yes, as long as you don’t pee on the carpet I think it’ll be fine,” Heston said, diffusing the animosity of earlier with his words and a light smile.

              “I’ll try not to,” Smith said, seeing the battle from the bridge was one hell of an honor. Especially the bridge of Hic Stamus with Commander Salchar in the ship commander’s seat.

              “Well eat up, sorry I can’t bring you all, but the observatories will be open. We’re not expecting to have heavy damage but keep that in mind if you do decide to watch,” Heston said to the others.

              Heston cleared his place, Smith following him as he waved bye to his wing mates that were giving him jealous looks.

              Smith had been loaned from War-station for the purpose of this battle, he and his wing mates would be off to support Cheerleader and Boot as soon as this battle was over. It was hard to think that far ahead.

              Heston led the way to the center of the ship and the armored U that made the bridge.

              The fully armored Commandos looked to them as they approached, two of them focusing on each. After the whole business with Earth, security had tightened up on everyone. A few sleepers had tried to get to a destroyer’s bridge with a bomb before Commandos cut them down.

              “He’s with me,” Heston said to one of them, a Sarenmenti by their powered armor.

              “Scan him,” they said to another which grabbed a wand from their leg and waved it over Smith.

              “Clean,” they said back, putting the wand back and their hand settling back on the large standard railgun.

              Back in his time in the United States Air Force, someone with rank would have had the commando’s ass, in the Free Fleet he was doing his job. Niceties came afterwards.

              The first blast doors opened, two more commandos in there. The first blast doors closed and the second opened, revealing the bridge. It wasn’t a hive of activity, but a place that big with people doing work of any kind has a kind of mesmerizing affect of motion.

              It took him a few moments to realize that Heston was moving to the other side of the blast-doors to his station as wing commander.

              Smith followed, to his right where the lowered deck of different stations included the helm, tactical and shields. The floor above was dominated by sensors and different personnel that relayed information from the fleet to the bridge. The next floor up had combined arms and engineering.

              Smith’s eyes moved to his left, on a raised platform Salchar and Rick sat in their chairs, Rick was flicking through information that created a holographic sphere around him. Smith had seen Commander Whorst do the same to keep on top of the information coming his way.

              Salchar sat in his seat working consoles, he somehow didn’t seem real, yet dominated the space with the way he went through reports, tapping out answers and continuing on.

              He, like everyone else was wearing powered armor. He had the control to hold his chin and use his screens without breaking them.

              His hair was pulled back, showing the mottled grey-black skin of his awakening.

              Smith felt eyes on him and looked behind Rick and Salchar, their watch dogs waited there. Wruck, Shreesht and Krom were big bastards, as famed as their charges with their feats.

              Hearing about them and seeing them were two different things.

              They sat there like calm Rottweilers, watching and waiting for something to go wrong.

              Smith looked away with a shudder.

             
Wait did Salchar just look at me?
He wanted to look back to confirm if he had really seen Salchar’s red eyes flicker over him.

              “Shreesht!”

              “Salchar?” The big Avarian asked, sounding kind of bored.

              “Could you grab one of the spare sets of powered armor for Commander Smith?” Salchar asked, Smith turned, honored by Salchar knowing his name and about to offer his own aid.

              “Become the protection detail for Salchar, it will be a great honor they say. Did they tell you how much of it is spent being a nanny!” Shreesht complained, Smith looked around, shocked by the tone and talk.

              Salchar and a few of the others on the bridge chuckled as Shreesht moved to a locker.

              “Shreesht will get you sorted out,” Salchar said, a smile from earlier still on his face, his eyes crinkled in recent laughter, they had an almost parental look of praise.

              Salchar was twenty-three, nearly twenty-four. Smith was Twenty-seven, yet in that moment Smith saw the age that lay behind those eyes, the years that were earned rather than counted.

              He remembered the stories of Daestramus, he moved towards Shreesht, his emotions playing around in his stomach.

              Shreesht held out the opened powered armor set. It wasn’t configured so the padding hadn’t adjusted and it could be used to fit a variety of creatures.

              Smith got into it, focusing on remembering his training with the powered armor. His body flowed through the steps, knowing ones powered armor was a constant exercise.

              “Good to go,” Shreesht declared as Smith powered up and ran through start-up tests.

              “Thanks,” Smith said.

              “No problem, happy to help, I was just bugging Salchar before,” Shreesht said, his grin visible through his faceplate.

              “Is he always like that?” Smith asked.

              “Like what?” Shreesht asked, confused.

              “Easy going?” Smith said, unsure of how to term it.

              “When he can be,” Shreesht said, his voice catching as he moved back to his position behind Salchar. Smith went down from the raised platform, holding his helmet in one hand.

              He went to join Heston who had gotten into his powered armor that had been waiting in a rack at the rear of the wing command area.

              “You’re like me on my first day here,” Heston said, making Smith look to him.

              “What?” Smith asked.

              “He’s quite the man, not many could do what he’s done, but he does, and can actually smile at times.” Heston turned away holding the earbud in his ear to listen to an incoming message.

              “All stations report readiness across all ships,” the ships communications commander, Vort said.

              “Thirty-two-minutes to go, nicely done,” Salchar said, his face hardening.

              “Marleen let me know when you get a firing solution,”

              “Yes Commander, Resilient?” Marleen asked.

              “Ready and waiting,” the AI said, coming into existence to Salchar’s left, on the side of the Wing Command area.

              The commanders that usually worked the consoles in the alcove were watching the main screen. Heston and Smith leaned on the holographic table that was showing the battle in holographic three-dimensions.

              Smith looked around the room in a flurry, the heart of the entire fleet.

              “Firing solution ready,” Marleen said.

              “Let the bastards have it,” Salchar said, the paternal voice gone from praise to protective.

              Hic Stamus shuddered as missiles flowed from their tubes.

              “How are we looking on corrections?” Salchar asked, looking to various information as it cropped up. The room seemed to break into motion as those missiles spat free.

              “AI’s are looking to corrections, don’t have any issues,” Resilient informed him as if she was telling him how to bake a cake rather than the status of multi-warhead missiles numbering in the hundreds.

              “Barrage one complete,” Marleen said, the ship falling silent for a few seconds before another barrage ripped free.

              “The Kalu are taking us under long range laser fire, four seconds before impact,” Sensor commander Walf said.

              “Well Marleen it seems we should give them a response,” Salchar said, looking almost regal in his chair as power and confidence seemed to radiate from him.

              “With pleasure commander. Milra, pitch us down forty-five degrees to bring upper cannons into line,” Marleen said.

              “Tilting,” Milra said back from her position as helm commander.

              “Sloha is drifting, they will be back in formation momentarily,” Rick said.

              “See that they do,” Salchar said with steel in his voice.

              “Forty-five-degree slant,” Milra said.

              Hic Stamus’ laser cannons sounded like tank cannons even through the armor. Their bombs exploded, raw explosive energy funneled through various systems, focused into a deadly .0012-second-long beam.

              The missiles that rumbled out afterwards were like hail on the roof compared to that noise.

              Kalu laser fire hit the first and second barrage of missiles that Smith hadn’t even noticed as he’d been looking around.

              A few beams hit the shields, making them come to life.

              “Shields holding strong,” Krat, the shields commander in the pit of the bridge said. His swarm of techs tweaking various systems to get the most out of their shields.

              “Holy fuck,” Smith said, his voice pitched thankfully low as the laser cannons shots, all twenty-seven of them, reached out to the Kalu formation.

              Ten of them were Hic Stamus’.

              The cannons were firing again as Smith watched ships simply disintegrate. Others were spared but anything hit with a laser cannon straight on and in the focused beam acted like a soda can being hit with a sledgehammer.