From Furies Forged (Free Fleet Book 5) (49 page)

              “Running out weapons,” Marleen said, the cannons extended from their berths to make sure that they hadn’t been sealed shut with the warm atmospheric entry.

              “Looking good,” Marleen said, her face stuck to her screens as she went through various data readouts.

              “Kalu on the horizon,” Qurv reported,”

              “Marleen, I’ve always wondered what a laser cannon looks like in atmosphere,” I said.

              “I have to say the same,” she said with a smile that made her look like one scary damned woman. I couldn’t help but reciprocate as she turned and passed orders.

              Laser cannons lanced out, their beams weren’t invisible punches but rather a few seconds’ long blasts of both coherent and incoherent light. Mostly it looked like a light bulb that couldn’t be turned off had been shot out of a, cannon... Laser, light, cannon, kind of makes sense.

              The destruction against Kalu ships had been bad, against Kalu that were running across a field. It was chilling.

              Weapon impacts left glass craters and threw dirt, rocks and Kalu through the air.

              “Milra, might you be able to rotate us so that your spine is facing in the direction of the Kalu?” I asked, tapping my chin in thought.

              “Yeah,” she said.

              “Oh, this is going to be fun. Resilient, could you get a fire algorithm for the side facing away from the Kalu, one that would turn their guns into long range artillery so that they can join in the fun? Link them to the ships above for telemetry,” I asked.

              “Working on it,” she said with a special sparkle in her eyes that made my day just seem that much better.

              “Milra, turn this ship. Vort could you get me Zor and Brusk?”

              “Sir,” Vort said, confused.

              “Sir?” Zor asked.

              “Commander?” Brusk added.

              “Alright gents, I’ve been wondering lately which side of the ship is getting the most kills. Who ever gets the most, will get a round on me the next time we’re in Parnmal,” I said, the challenge clear.

              “Oh damn sir, we could do that any day of the week and twice on Sunday,” Zor said, spitting.

              “You wouldn’t know how to hit a damn Kalu from an asteroid!” Brusk yelled back.

              “So I take that as a yes,” I answered.

              “Of course commander,” Brusk said.

              “Wouldn’t ever let a wager go,” Zor said, I could hear the amusement in their voices.

              “Good, get me some damn Kalu,” I said, my voice dropping from light and cheerful to cold and dark.

              “Aye,” Brusk and Zor said together, cutting the channel. Milra finished her rotation and Resilient’s fired program worked a gem, cannons blared across Hic Stamus’ exterior. Not one Kalu was making it past our line.

              Here we stood, we would do no less and no more. Any that challenged us would taste our mettle.

              I looked to the other ships in the fleet, they too had made the trip down to Chaleel. We made broken circles around the cities, facing out towards the Kalu.

              Few if any made it past our lines. Any that did were met by the Commandos in their HAPA’s.

                                                                      ***

              Delahil looked at the destruction being brought down on the heads of the Kalu.

              Even with her sound cancelling helmet she could hear and feel the blasts of cannons as they smashed into the beasts.

              The light from the lasers cannons seemed to be seared into the back of her mind, her visor had been fully polarized, but even it wasn’t enough to stop the brutal light.

              Kalu lasers rose up to try and kill the massive ships. But that was their issue, these were ships that were meant to protect against nuclear blasts and the firepower of many lasers that were magnitudes more powerful than the ones that they carried in their personal armor.

              They barely left a mark in the reinforced armor of the Free Fleet ships. It was a pitiful fight, the outcome already predicted.

              The Kalu had no where to go but try to get to the cities. The Free Fleet ships were like brutal angels, they let nothing come close to even threatening the Chaleel cities.

              Delahil watched as the day turned to night. It didn’t matter to ships that operated in the dark of space, the Kalu still died in droves. On the second day the Free Fleet ships started to move away from the cities.

              She was woken by her comms unit demanding her attention, she was awake in moments.

              “Go,” she said, her adrenaline making her aware of everything going on around her in a matter of seconds. She checked who the caller was, seeing that the ID showed it as being Hic Stamus.

              “Commander, we will be advancing away from the cities and hopefully pushing the Kalu back into packets to be totally obliterated,” Salchar said. “I was wondering if your tank and HAPA’s would be able to support my ships in their march forward, we will be covering more area in most circumstances and I would like to not have any Kalu bleeding through our fire.”

              “Understandable, let me know how they can assist,” she said.

              “Commander in Sook has a better idea of these things than me, I’ll pass you over. Also, good morning Commander,” Salchar said, sounding all too chipper for Delahil’s peace of mind.

              “Hello Commander Delahil, this is Commander In Sook, these are the planned routes of the Free Fleet ships. These are the areas where we will have weak coverage,” In Sook said, maps appearing on Delahil’s main screen in the command center, updating with the information.

              “I see what you’re saying,” Delahil said a few minutes later. She had made sure that her tank commanders were awake and ready to go. The HAPA pilots were getting into their machines while they discussed plans.

              “I should have my people ready to move in,” she glanced to a screen on her command chair. “About five minutes, getting them into position might take a few hours.”

              “Very well, I will inform the commander. I will have a line open for you no matter what,” In Sook said.

              “Thank you Commander.”

              “No worries commander, I’m rather looking forward to getting these bastards off of Chaleel,” In Sook said.

              “I think you’ll find yourself in good company with that opinion,” Delahil agreed.

Chapter Laser-canoes!

              “We’re getting an energy buildup in the large looking cities facing us,” one of the aide’s said. They had been chased across the star system by the converted Destroyers. They had tried to escape their withering fire as much as possible. Falhu had thought of the right words to use in order to slave his people’s pride, but he was running out of phrases and patience.

              “Soon it will not matter as we will have the surface beneath our…”

              “They’re firing!” The aide interrupted Falhu.

              Falhu’s stomach hit the ground as he looked to his main screen, ships simply disappeared.

             
Maybe the third teaching war will come to retrieve our honor. Hopefully they will be more prepared than us,
Falhu thought.

                                                                      ***

              “Holy fucking laser-canoes!” Domal said from his position at tactical.

             
Seems pretty damn accurate,
Bregend thought as Daestramus’ cities opened fire on the Kalu fleet.

              The tops of the cities illuminated the planet below as a straight funnel of laser three hundred meters wide was projected through the thin upper atmosphere of the planet and right into the Kalu formations.

              Five cities were in range of the Kalu fleet, they all fired as one.

              Thankfully the Kalu hadn’t revised their tactics of hiding behind one another as they went into battle. Where a laser cannon usually used all of it’s charge in a single shot and killed just a ship or two, these ‘laser-canoes’’ were many times more powerful with a larger beam. They cut through twenty to thirty ships before their energy was spent.

              Waves of atmosphere pooled around the laser-canoes, ripples of air spread across the planet. Then they fired again. Thankfully Daestramus was nice and cold, quite nice for bleeding off all the heat they’d just created.

              They had a nearly constant rate of fire and used it to their advantage, boring through the Kalu fleet.

              Sixty-three thousand Kalu had reached the laser-canoes’ range.

              The Kalu spread out to try and get out of the range of the cities turned weapons. They found out that all the cities had been converted to fire their lasers into atmosphere.

              If there were less Kalu in the sights of a city, then they didn’t go with the eruption of fire from the first barrage. They husbanded their power, turning their single shots into cutting beams. Reducing power output meant they needed less time to recharge, which meant they could fire continuously, or set the cities to fire rapid pulses.

              Daestramus had bought a number of Personal Defense Systems from the Free Fleet. They’d hacked the telemetry program from these systems to the cities and now they let them rip.

              PDS normally fired around four hundred thousand rounds per minute all more accurate than any human sniper, at ranges that people needed the complex targeting computers held in a gunnery section just to see them.

              Have the range at a few hundred thousand kilometers and reduce the rate of fire to around a thousand pulses per minute. If those PDS were even close to sentient it would be like using a power-washer to clean the outside of a house instead of a sponge. Sure the sponge does the job, but damn if a power washer isn’t more fun.

              The light coming from the cities looked to be constant but that was because Bregend’s eyes couldn’t pick up the pauses in all of that mess.

              What he could see was the Kalu getting thrashed.

              “Bring units into range and begin firing,” Bregend said. They had stayed a million or so kilometers out of the Kalu’s range. They had tried to hit them with the odd pot-shot but they had at least three seconds to react, fusion acceleration allowed them to get out of the way in a quick fashion.

              Laser cannons opened fire across the fleet. They hadn’t wasted their shots before as the Kalu had a good chance of getting out of the way as well.

              Now they had their claws filled with other things.

              The Free Fleet surged ahead, six pyramids of Free Fleet ships, coming in to close the door on the Kalu.

              Some of the Kalu to their credit turned to fight the Free Fleet, they didn’t have missiles, shields or really anything but their laser weapons and they didn’t have any damned coordination at all.

              They fought to the end but it was in vain. The Free Fleet did have shields, they knew how to work together, concentrate their fire, or move out of the way if they were heavily damaged.

              Free Fleet ships took hit after hit, poking a bear would have probably hurt less by the Free Fleet’s reaction.

              “Domal, rolling barrages through all formations. Wilma turn the ship to bring more weapons to bear, plan for deceleration to keep the Kalu in our sights. Zoka, flush our small craft, let’s show these bastards what the Free Fleet price is,” Bregend’s eyes slid around the room. They had all lost Friends and family in this campaign, they had all stood by him throughout it all. Now they were getting their own back. The Kalu had it all on their side at the beginning of this fight. Their numbers had chilled them to the bone. Now the Free Fleet had leveled the playing field, figured out their tactics and they were ready to take payment for those that they had lost.

              Free Fleet ships rotated in and out of battle, their weapons firing as ships fled their carriers in order to make their own mark.

              The Free Fleet spread out, slowing their progress to pile their fire into the Kalu, boxing them in like a hand trying to grab Daestramus with them in the middle.

              “This one is for you my brothers and sisters,” Bregend muttered to himself, seeing the faces of those that hadn’t made it this far.

              His eyes itched as he worked his jaw. He would not cry today, he had work to do and Kalu to kill.

                                                                      ***