The Recruitment: Rise of the Free Fleet (45 page)

They nodded their heads. “This is a gracious offer, how do we know you will keep your word and not kill the civilians.”

“Commander Turek, will I kill anyone because I feel like it?”

“No, you will try everything to stop the loss of life I have seen it with my own eyes and through the video feeds from the station during the attack. You arrest and even treat those that have attacked you.”

“Thank you, you have my word no harm will come to civilians, at the same time they will follow the rules of the Free Fleet. If they do not they will face a trail in which a randomly selected group of mixed races will be asked to weigh judgment upon them.”

“This is acceptable, we have learned we need rules or else we shall lose our Sarenmentity. Though we do not have codes such as assisting the enemy.” He said turning the statement into a question.

“It is again so we don’t lose ourselves; it raises us and our people to a higher level than those that we attack. Also we can gain information from those that have surrendered or are treated. If we act in a manner that we would want to be treated in it can only make the enemy look bad if they do not. As we’ve learned with the newest batch of humans we rescued they had no rules and were close to becoming savages. Humans have been fighting for thousands of years, we have found that combat is only honourable if following certain rules, otherwise it is just killing without a thought.”

“We will think on this.” Kareesh said nodding. “As with your humans we have seen it before. It will be hard to bring them back as they once were.”

“Oh they aren’t going to have a choice! All of them are going to go through training again, to get them on a base line, which is what a good portion of what I want you guys to be doing.” They looked at me with renewed interest.

“I want you guys training new recruits that include Sarenmenti that do not meet a standard test which is being devised.” I looked at the four squad commanders who had mixed expressions on their faces. The rest of the table’s faces seemed to pale at the thought.

“We are soldiers not trainers.”

“You have veteran experience which I need you to pass onto other troops, making them the deadliest bastards I can call on. Once enough are trained you will resume your positions as special ops with increased special ops soldiers.”

“I don’t think any of us like it, but we can see the logic behind it.” Dreckt said.

“I’ll have it rotated around so two of you will be deployed while the other two and their personnel will be training.” This brought some smiles to their faces.

“The rest of you are to submit rosters of your people and ranks to me by today. Tomorrow we will begin testing for joining the Commandos. Questions?” Turek raised his hand a human gesture learned by the Sarenmenti, as I gestured for him to go on.

“What if we don’t want to be a Mecha or a civilian are there any other options for us within the Fleet?”

“Look at the job opportunities board on your data pad. You can be anything you have the qualifications for. You choose what you want to do. Saying that your first training will be as a Mecha and then you will go from there to do as you wish or further your training as Mechas. I don’t want people to be defenceless; I want everyone to know how to patch their friend up in a firefight. How to use a Mecha, be able to fight hand to hand, with any type of weapon they can find.”

“That does make sense.” He accepted, nodding.

“Get working on the rosters also pass any information about past worlds you’ve visited we need information about this part of the galaxy if we’re to survive and fight back.”

I gave them one more look before standing and walking for the hatch.

I strode through the station getting a lift as the doors shut I turned to the two members of Mecha Tail that I hadn’t talked to for nearly a year. In Sook and Joon Ho did the same as I could finally see them.

“Damn I missed you guys.” I said as I embraced them both In Sook giggling as Monk smiled as our Mechas clanged together our massive shoulders knocking into one another as our heads touched. We stayed like that for a few seconds before moving apart.

“You’ve certainly achieved a lot Joo Mi.” Monk said his face showing his pride as I looked away embarrassed.

Psycho Cheerleader shook her head a happy smile on her face, her eyes teared up as she looked over to me and Joon Ho.

“As soon as we can we’re going back for Mi Young Ho.” I said definitively, the others nodding their heads seriously. Iron Bok Soo hated his actually name his father undoubtedly have a great amount of fun with it when he’d been born much to his son’s annoyance. He, like Monk whose real name was Joon Ho, preferred to use their gamer tags. Joon Ho because he felt he was unworthy of a name given to him in the presence of Buddha. Iron Bok So because of his hatred for his real name.

What a band of misfits we made I thought as the lift signalled we were close to our destination.

“They’re going to regret the day they thought to mess with Mecha Tail.” In Sook said her face hard my own face taking the same hard edge as Monk frowned—it was the closest thing he came to showing his full outrage.

“Indeed.” Was all Monk said as the lift doors opened and we walked out to the Command centre?

“Free Fleet Commander on deck!” Rick said snapping a salute I tossed him one as the room relaxed.

“Monk, Cheerleader, meet Rick Hastily the newest member of Mecha tail.” Monk and cheerleader beamed at Rick as they introduced themselves and made the blushing Rick smile with gratitude and thanks.

“Stop bugging the poor man you two.” I said with a good-natured grin as I sat in the massive chair in the command centre able to hold my armoured bulk.

“Don’t listen to him; he’s always a sour puss.” Cheerleader said sticking her tongue out at me as she sat on one of my armrests.

“Where is your wife Rick?”

“She’s onboard the Resilient meeting and greeting and setting up a training schedule for tactical, and gunnery co-ordination.”

“Sounds like a great time.” I said dryly.

“She’s enjoying it from what I can tell. While you’ve been out we’ve been affecting repairs as best as possible and trying to get the station sorted out. It was hectic without you in the driver’s seat.”

“I’m sure you had it under control.” I saw more than a few backs stiffen with pride as I continued.

“Is there anything else?”

“Yes commander, Eddie, Felix, Min Hae and Shrift are waiting you in the ready room with plans.”

“Why me.” I grumbled as the egg heads had obviously come up with
 
something.
 
I just didn’t think it would be this fast.

“Also there is a message for you from a man called Bregend.” I pulled up the message.

“Why not throw Bregend in with the other prisoners?” Rick asked as I finished reading the message.

“Bregend’s not my enemy he was just doing what he could to keep his own people safe. The reason he fought me was because he didn’t know what kind of person I was. He didn’t know if I’d use kill switches or pain treatment on his people. He figured it was better for him to find out afterwards than make his people suffer through it.” I shut down my station and stood.

“Can you see about connecting the Sarenmenti’s and the newly arrived humans to the forum? Watch the traffic and make sure it’s not connected to any systems but it would be good for them if they were able to connect with one another. Who knows some of them might find people they used to know.” I said as I walked to the conference room.

“Woo! More announcements!” Rick said as he worked on his view screen.

I opened the conference room door to a cacophony of noise.

“James!”

“Commander!”

“Sir!”

“Wait, one at a time.” I said waving my hands down as all four of them where jumping with excitement. “Eddie you first.”

“We’ve found an extractor and a processing system that will work as well as the first asteroid to use it on.”

“At the same time I’ve fixed the problem we had with the lack of a full dock.” Shrift added both of the Kuruvians practically jumping out of their seats.

“How will you make a dock and also get the materials at the same time.”

“We don’t make it, we hollow out an asteroid in the shape of the dock that we need, add in reinforcement and then add more parts from more broken down asteroids as we need it.”

An Array of holograms came from the centre table of a sped up simulation of an asteroid being eaten creating a massive structure of scaffolding. Another identical structure appeared, connecting to the first like Lego bricks.

“Is this really possible?”

“Yes.” Felix said in complete seriousness.

“Okay, what about the extractor and refiner?”

“They will be paired units. One refiner can be linked to multiple extractors and pump out the materials to waiting transports that can also be automated. Felix told us about automated systems and Min Hae showed us how they worked, so we combined our information together. Everything can be automated with a handful of people overseeing. Which with our current manpower issues is needed.”

“Well it looks like you’ve got everything covered.” I said appreciatively.

“You have my approval. You may begin work immediately. We need these systems up.” I said to their shocked faces that told me they weren’t expecting to have it cleared so quickly. “Felix you will be in charge of this project, you have the most expertise with turning information and ideas into reality. With this use what we know and have, we need something reliable, at first, and then make something more complicated.”

“Sir wouldn’t Eddie be better suited for this or Shrift?” Felix said looking uncomfortable; the kid was only seventeen I granted.

“As they are both good in their own areas of engineering they haven’t dealt with something on this scale before.’

“Neither have I!”

“You are better acquainted with factory production and haven’t been working on just Mechas or ships.” I turned to Eddie and Shrift who looked a little down trodden.

“While you are both amazing in these fields it also limits your thinking. With Felix he hasn’t focused on one thing so he’s open to new ideas. I expect he’ll make a few mistakes but he’ll have all of you and his team to fall back on if he needs help.” I turned back to Felix and Min Hae.

“Plus I’m going to need Eddie and Shrift to put back my ships and mechas while we’re out in the black. Min Hae I want you to stay here and create an intelligence gathering service. We need to know as much as possible about this galaxy we’ve come out into and this looks as good of a base as any. You should think about making agents on every ship whose job it is, is to report to you and their captain gathering and passing on information as we have it.”

“Yes sir I was thinking along the same lines. I also have people disseminating information we’ve pulled from the station, ships and prisoners.”

“I like the initiative. Now you all have a lot to do.” They took this as their cue as they stood.

“I need to talk to Felix for a moment.”

“Certainly Salchar.” The others gave their two finger lazy salutes as they left. As the door sealed I put something on the hologram from my personal storage.

“You’ll have two months to make this.” I pushed a group of items into the hologram as Felix pulled them apart.

“How long have you been thinking about this sir?”

“For a while.” I want the Epsilon done first.” I threw more objects into the holographic field.