From the Black (Free Fleet Book 4) Read online

  Eddie pushed up the brim of his cowboy hat, holding his boot in one hand, his manipulators others showing that he was not in the mood to be pissing about.

  The big engineering bastard looked to his fellows for support. He must have been shocked by the looks that told him he must have been doing something wrong.

  Eddie only used that boot when he had to, which had become a lot less since Salchar had created the Free Fleet.

  Edmund looked on.

  “Aren't you going to do something to break it up Chief? That Kuruvian's going to get his old ass kicked,” an engineer asked him.

  “Nah, my brother's been in worse scrapes,” Edmund said, he was one of the newest Free Fleet personnel. He had survived execution by the grace of Captain Lord Foshunti's because of their mutual desire to destroy Lady Fairgate and the Syndicate. He had somehow remained the chief engineer of Talhalla, one of the three carriers that had survived the fall of the Union and the Syndicate's dismantlement for spare parts.

  Well that wasn't exactly all true, Talhalla, was pulled together around the AI Planner, an AI that had fought in the Kalu-Union wars. When it ended he had seen the scourge of the Syndicate pulling apart the jewel that had been the Union. He had put his own plans into motion to turn the Syndicate's control around.

  Yet even with an impossible ship under his wrench, and a commanding officer he could believe in and a crew he could trust, Edmund never thought he would see his brother or his sons again.

  He didn't try to hide his excitement at seeing that familiar fire in Eddie's eyes as he marched up to the larger engineer.

  “All that huh? Well we put ships together with too little bolts and not enough people. Now we're the ones putting your sorry ships together in stolen Syndicate docks,” Eddie said with pride.

  The other Engineer swung for Eddie's manipulators.

  Eddie turned, the blow hitting his carapace. The impact made the larger engineer shriek in pain as his paw turned to mush.

  Eddie didn't give them time to recover as he turned and brought the brim of his ridiculous hard hat on the offending engineer's optical nerves.

  The larger engineer dropped, knocked out from optical overload.

  Eddie shook his head and grabbed one arm of the unconscious engineer.

  “Well yah gunna gimme' a hand, or do I gotta drag him out of the way myself!” Eddie said, clearly talking to Edmund.

  “I guess,” Edmund answered as he walked over to his brother and helped him drag the engineer to a nearby panel.

  Dogre, I should have known. Edmund thought, this little sack had been thrown to him after he'd bungled three damned guns by running them well past their limits. The chief had hoped some time with people that knew how machines worked would teach him better.

  It would have, if he wasn’t a stubborn know-it-all. Edmund had wanted to get him on cleaning detail or something until he got over his attitude issues.

  The Free Fleet demanded that everyone get to work, and get every ship they could, online. Talhalla was due for replacement parts and machinery. When Edmund had requested them, the oddest thing happened, they actually showed up. No captain, commander, chief, or leader had pinched his parts or asked for a bribe. The Free Fleet was a massive war machine now, with two point three million men and women within its ranks. That wasn't that much deployable fighting power, but thankfully the Fleet had their priorities straight. Yards, factories, and miners were a massive portion of those personnel.

  “What did he do wrong?” Edmund asked to give himself a few seconds break, his shell hot with exertion.

  “Didn't even check if the line was live or not!”

  “Ah..,” Edmund said understandingly. If there was power going to the relays, then Dogre would have been fried because you had to bypass the safety lockouts to pull out a power relay.

  Edmund shook his head in defeat.

  You can only do so much before they put their eye-stalk in plasma because it looks cool.

  One should always have a safety net before they took a plunge into something as powerful as a spaceships power grids. They were powered by small stars, technically.

  “'How's it goin on yer end?” Eddie asked, leading through the engineering department of Talhalla, as if he had been there a million times before. Edmund's brother was a lot of things, but he was an engineer first. He could understand any system simply by staring it.

  “We've got the new reactors online and stabilized, now just connecting them into the main relays and backing down secondary reactors. Those were replaced some time ago,” Edmund said, tapping and then shifting his manipulators in thought.

  “Well well, I see some things haven't changed,” Eddie indicated to Edmund's manipulators. Edmund looked on, unrepentant. “You was sayin?”

  “Before I was interrupted,” Edmund said, Eddie scoffing but staying quiet.

  “We've been able to fully repair the flight decks, our hull armor is half completed and we don't have enough new cannons,”

  “You leave that to your good ole brother Eddie,” Edmund expressed his thanks with his manipulators, already writing off the issue. Eddie never made half promises.

  “'How yer new syndicate people doing?” Eddie asked, looking to Edmund.

  The Syndicate personnel they had picked to serve out their terms with the Free Fleet, were getting quickly integrated into their jobs. At least the ones that had the skills and training to be slotted in so quickly.

  Foshunti had been sentenced to a number of years of service, he'd taken the option to serve the Free Fleet and Rick had pushed him back into the position of commander of the Talhalla. The crew couldn’t quite believe it, Edmund didn't think Foshunti himself did either.

  From the private conversations that Foshunti had spoken about with Edmund; he, Salchar, and Rick were dealing in pretty simple terms. He'd shown that he wasn't part of the Syndicate, the people hadn't charged him of anything especially bad, at least no worse than the other Syndicates serving in the Free Fleet. Plus he had experience as a carrier commander, which no one else did. If Foshunti kept his place then his people would see that the Free Fleet were looking to fight the damned enemy instead of let their prejudices push potential allies away.

  That said, Salchar's promise had been clear, if Foshunti did the damned best job he was capable of, then Salchar would let him be. If he failed to do so, then Salchar would personally kick his ass out of an airlock.

  Some might say that was pretty extreme, but Edmund knew that Foshunti would have done the same in his boots.

  Even with Foshunti pushing his people to work with the Free Fleet, Rick mixing the crews and Salchar keeping a weathered eye on things in case they went sideways.

  There had been some issues, especially in engineering. There had been a lot of retraining. Some had accepted it and grown, others had stuck to their old ways and were now currently being pushed to other jobs.

  Though the overall affect was good, more bodies meant more things got done faster. There was animosity, there was anger, but there was also the knowing that if they didn't work together, then they would die by the Kalu. A very sobering thought.

  It was something that Salchar had pushed home, and probably why he had made Foshunti a ship commander as well as Commander Kelu of a newly minted battle cruiser. It had ruffled some feathers, but it had shown the ones on terms that it was possible to rise. Once those that received accommodations doubled their efforts, the grumbling seemed to fall away.

  Many people had some gripes with Salchar, like working the crew too hard. They disliked how secretive he could be, or when he was too soft on people. Yet under that, the personnel of the Free Fleet trusted and respected him. He always seemed to have a plan, he always put his people first and if they were working twice as hard he was working four times as hard.

  He was quiet about it, but those around him made sure that the fleet knew what their commander was up to.

  Edmund had met him once when he went to Nancy to be reunited with Silly, his other s
on.

  Silly had been having a meeting with the commander, both of them just sort of hanging out as they sketched things out on a work table, LaRe was there in holographic form.

  Salchar had a presence about him, maybe it was the blood red eyes, or the Avarian tough skin. He was intelligent, but he was also not a man to be crossed.

  He had introduced himself and quickly left, even though he was the commander of the free fleet, he was not going to get in the way of a family reunion.

  He had walked away with his two juggernaut body guards as Edmund had been left with a question.

  “Is Salchar a lonely man?” Edmund asked Eddie. This gave his brother pause as he checked they were not in earshot of anyone.

  “Think if you were a man leading a force, races of all types, followed by planets that rest solely on your carapace and knew that you were going towards a war that could take all that away. While he has friends and people he talks to, he is probably the loneliest man in the universe. At least Yasu is there to keep 'im in check!” Eddie said, something softer in his voice, despite the volume.

  Edmund nodded, feeling Eddie's eyes weigh him in a way he didn't expect. While Eddie was something of a free spirit, he was loyal to Salchar right out to his exoskeleton. The man had given him freedom, saved countless Kuruvians, and sent scouting fleets to find the Kuruvian home system. He actually listened to Eddie instead of shoving him away. Edmund recognized something, --Paternal-- about Eddie's look before his brother continued walking.

  “So what do you think about the new inertial system?” Eddie asked.

  “Damned impressive, I heard a rumour that you cooked it up from some records on the Kalu,” Edmund said, turning the statement into a question.

  “Some of it, the rest came from studyin' gravity plates in Hachiro and sum water critters,” Eddie said simply. “With the nuclear acceleration system Felix is playing with. Well it became apparent that we were goin to break past the abilities of our inertia systems,” Eddie's manipulators went from casual acknowledgement to excitement.

  “I'll say one thing, those humans do know how to light a fire under an old engineer’s backside!” Eddie's manipulators made Edmund unsure if he should be scared, or feel sorry for whoever got in the way of whatever his brother and Felix were cooking up.

  The future will be interesting no matter what, Edmund thought, with his manipulators in an amused position.

  Chapter Saying Hi to the neighbours

  Bregend walked into his bridge, the heat of his shower still fresh on his skin. Nothing could take his mind off of his anxiety like pumping out some weights in the gym.

  He clunked into his seat, everyone was wearing their powered armor. As they always did with every transition they made. There was no sense risking their lives if he didn't know what was on the other side.

  “Generators projecting wormhole,” Wilma said from her position at the helm.

  Bregend made to look to Mills, the man reading his mind before he’d even put eyes on him.

  “We're green across the board, all ships,” Mills said.

  “Good,” Bregend nodded, his captain’s chair harness locked to his powered armor as his fleet angled around the wormhole and entered it. He didn't want to slow down too much before entering it, it would mean less momentum on the other side.

  A wormhole didn't just act as a gateway, once it was created it became a gravitational anomaly. One could use it like a planet to slingshot, or use it to slowly sink into its event horizon, coming out through the opposing wormhole in a straight line. If you were a damned skilled navigator and had the aid of an AI you could turn your ship coming out of a wormhole's event horizon. The calculations could only be performed by an AI of damned impressive abilities. No creature discovered yet could handle that kind of knowledge and thought processing at that speed.

  “Emergence!” Wilma said as the sensation of passing through a wormhole disappeared.

  “Regulating shields,” Afnar said.

  “Populating map,” Qurv said as he was connected to every other ship, pulling and sending information as the sensor operators checked their scans and relayed them back to command.

  There was five planets, one habitable, it was a binary star system. There also seemed to be a collection of metallic objects between the third and fifth planets.

  “Wilma, plot course to those metallic objects. All stations are to remain at full readiness until we're cleared for five light minutes,” Bregend said, that should give him enough time to think some before reacting to threats.

  “Clear out to one minute,” Qurv said seconds later. “Pulling information from metallic cluster, eight hours old.”

  The main screen zoomed in on the objects and Bregend was jolted with shock, then excitement, and finally anxiety before he bit his lip in thought.

  “It seems that we've found the graveyard of a Union fleet. Kyle, have Di Di stay behind and ready to wormhole out of her at a moment’s notice. Relay all information to her, Salchar will want to know about this as soon as possible,” Bregend gave Kyle a look at his comms station. The young but excitable man contained himself somehow, nodding in reply.

  “Got it Commander,” he confirmed as he fired up his station.

  He might be excitable at times, but there's no doubt there's a veteran under that veneer. Bregend thought, remembering all the things he, and his crew, had been through the last couple of years. Every time he had asked for more than any Captain should have to, they answered. They had taken their last ship and ripped it apart transiting through these same systems to get to Cheerleader.

  “Picking up signals on the surface of the habitable planet,” Kyle said making Bregend focus on the present.

  “Good out to five minutes,” Qurv added, riveted to his sensors like Domal, the new tactical commander, her hand ready to hit the transmit button on her panel if anything showed up.

  Bregend gave Mills his second in command a look, the man set to lowering the readiness level as Bregend leaned towards Kyle.

  “What kind of signals?”

  “The kind I'd expect from Earth before the Syndicate came,” Kyle said.

  “We'll have a sortie go off and check that out once we know the system is clear,” Bregend nodded to Kyle.

  “Qurv, how are those factory ships looking?”

  “Flying straight,” Qurv said.

  “That's what you think,” Wilma muttered, Bregend couldn’t help but crack a smile in amusement, tension lessening as they had at least something of a safety net around them.

  Unless there's Kalu out there. Bregend thought.

  He bit his lip as he looked at the main plot.

  “Domal, launch sensor missiles if you please. We'll be staying a while, might as well make sure it's completely clean,” Bregend's voice gruff.

  The young Slevaran changed a slight shade of anxiety her eye-stalks roving around the command deck as she went to work on her station. She was good at her job as thirty six missiles spread out from the fleet after a few moments. Seems that she was anticipating that little command. Bregend thought impressed by the brand new Commander. Seems they're being taught the right stuff. Bregend had been pleasantly surprised with the quality of the newly-trained personnel. Instead of decreasing in abilities as he had feared, they were quickly acclimatizing to their positions and his department commanders were pleased with their work.

  Sol, Chaleel, AIH and Parnmal had hundreds of thousands of trainees going through them. Even with those numbers, the need for as many people in Free Fleet fatigues as possible, the trainers had somehow pushed out personnel worthy of those fatigues.

  There was something to be said about the hardened veterans that made up a good number of the Free Fleet. Though even those veterans were learning that time didn't always mean they were the best at their jobs. Some of the trainees were actually showing veterans how to do things better than before. Battle after battle had taught them that knowledge was life on the battlefield. Instead of brushing the new personne
l off, they were listening to them.

  Bregend turned his sombre look to the main screen, watching as those missiles expanded outwards, heading through the system.

  Soon I'll know this systems secrets, and hopefully I can send something more than messages back to James. Bregend felt anticipation rise in him as he looked at the graveyard of what must've been a massive space battle between the Kalu and Union. The condition of those ships were unknown, but there were a number of carriers and Dreadnought hulls floating there. It was hard to not rub his hands together and grin like a complete idiot. Though he did share a look with Mills whose smirk said he wanted to do the exact same thing.

  Trained personnel are worth a thousand carriers, but you also need the damned carrier to put them to work, and it looks like we just found the leprechaun and his pot at the end of the damned rainbow!

  ***

  Cheerleader had been in the system Bucket for a few days. It was part of the reputed Kuruvian Empire. It was built on trade with the middling planets that had been allowed to survive by the Syndicate. She wondered how the Kuruvians had flourished so. Though as her Intelligence officers reported, it was because the Empire had been largely docile and done as Lady Fairgate asked.

  They had given Lady Fairgate the people she wanted to crew her ships as slaves. They had given her wealth and food. This had made her hold them under her command, using them to reward her people and give a backing to her power.

  From what Min Hae's intelligence department had gathered it looked like Lady Fairgate and the Syndicate hadn't been in Kuruvian space for a number of months. Some, especially merchants were beginning to think that she was gone.

  When they had learned that the Free Fleet was not part of the Syndicate they had recoiled. Well the vassals of the Kuruvian Empress did, the Kuruvian merchants smelled money to be made.

  They had been hesitant at first, but once it was revealed that the Free Merchant Fleet had ship parts. Trade had broken down the barriers. The Empress controlled the Kuruvian docks, the currency of the Empire wasn't credits, it was time in the docks.