Free Fleet #03 No Rest for the Wicked Read online

  “Now,” I said moments later as the remaining corridors with Syndicate mechas in were given the same treatment.

  “Begin increasing gravity in our areas. Ramp up in the areas already breached immediately,”

  You trained us in high gravity, let’s see if you trained your own troops that way.

  “I will be joining the Commandos in battle. Call either me or Commander Monk if you need assistance. Until then, Brova you're in charge,” I nodded to Monk's second-in-command.

  I checked my rifle and walked towards the doors.

  “Commander,” Krom hissed, a glance to my protection detail showed that they all disapproved of my actions.

  “I am the commander of the Free Fleet. I will not wait on the damned Bridge watching the fate of my people. I started this damned thing in a mecha. I'll be damned if I don't fight in it alongside the men and women that follow me,” I growled, checking the rest of my kit as I went to the last position I saw Henry.

  ***

  Sergeant Falesh had tried two more airlocks before he'd found one that actually led into Parnmal. Cannons killed the squad he was with as they rushed headlong down the corridor. He stayed in the airlock, throwing grenades as the internal doors closed, filling once again from the outside.

  “Get out! There's cannons in the corridor!” he yelled as those that didn't have their communications online pushed against those that did and could hear, or see the cannon bearing down on them.

  It fired, shredding those in it's sights.

  “Get grenades ready,” he said prepping his own. The inner airlock doors opened as he whipped his grenade down the corridor. A few others did the same as other people charged the cannons panic, fear or a sense of idiotic duty pushing them.

  The Cannon's fire cut them down before there was a muted Thurcrank as a grenade found it's mark.

  Falesh checked the corridor again before getting out of the airlock.

  “Clear here, moving up,” he said as another squad came in, filling the room quickly. Falesh saw people popping their helmets.

  “Hard reset your comms,” he barked as he continued on with the half squad down the corridor. He got to a T-intersection where a beader cannon that had cut down his men smoked at chest height behind an armoured slit.

  “Assholes,” he spat, seeing the beader was set up to be operated remotely There was a loud noise behind him and he whipped around to find a bulkhead locking his people into the corridor they'd just gotten through. He had three people with him but there was closer to fifty in that hallway.

  One of them grabbed a breeching charge.

  “Stop! You blow it and you'll kill our people!” Falesh barked. The one with the Breaching charge made to say something as the beader opened up.

  Falesh didn't think but threw himself at the only doorway he saw in the corridor, he crashed through it, finding himself in some remote control room.

  He heard an explosion behind him as it seemed the breacher had got off his charge.

  Falesh winced as he looked out of the doorway. The beader was now firing at the stunned Syndicate troops that had just faced a breaching charge right on.

  Falesh looked around the room, seeing another door out from the centre.

  The Syndicate troops got their act together somewhat, grenades exploded as they used that cover to move up, a few of them piling into Falesh's room.

  “Get up you three, we're going to push down this hall here and see if we can't get behind that damned beader,” Falesh indicated the other doorway leading from the room.

  “Good?”

  He got nods and signs of agreement, nodding himself before turning and going down the corridor, his weapon up and ready for whatever showed it's face.

  This place is a death trap, he thought as he reached the end of the corridor, a cannon letting a burst go down the corridor.

  There was a loud noise and a rush of air leaving as Falesh and his group were pulled down the corridor towards the room they had come from. It subsided quickly no atmosphere and no gravity readings showing on Falesh's HUD.

  “You stay here and try and get a grenade on that damned gun.” He yelled over the local channel, getting a few nods as he jogged back to the command centre. He walked in as a syndicate trooper stumbled into the room.

  “What happened, private?” he asked moving past the troopers now holing up in the command centre.

  “They turned off the gravity and pulled the atmo out. The officers couldn't pull their helmets down before they ran out of air.”

  A new sound came from the corridor, different, some how havier and faster than the beader cannon. Falesh tilted in the doorway to see.

  It's like the PDS system, Falesh realized as rounds passed through the first runners, exploding into shards and ripping into those behind them. The wounded and dying slowed those that were still alive. Falesh grabbed grenades off a fallen syndicate mecha, looking to those in the room his three had grown to twelve.

  “You,” he singled out one of them, “You’re our grenade thrower,”

  “But..,” Falesh put his face plate in the corporal's.

  “What was that?” he growled, his voice deadly as the Corporal looked away.

  “Nothing sir,” he said as Falesh grunted, shoving the extra grenades he'd found into his arms.

  The thrower looked out into the hallway guessing the distances before he began throwing the grenades. It took eight grenades and Falesh didn't know how many dead to silence the weapon system.

  “Give your grenades to him,” Falesh said and the mecha's obeyed. “Good. Now you lot are with me,” he said, checking the corridor.

  “Why should we?” one asked.

  “Want to stay alive to see the reward for this puppy?” Falesh said, but he didn't get a reply. Didn't think so. No one’s in the Syndicate for anything but the money.

  Suddenly everything got much heavier and everyone sunk to the ground.

  “Shit, they upped the gravity,” someone said and Falesh found his entire body fighting him as he struggled to stand.

  Why would any syndicate force want to fight in heavier gravity? He thought as he remembered one of the commandos on Kelu's ship saying how the Captain didn't think that they were syndicate forces. He forced himself vertical with a few concentrated breaths.

  “The further we get the less gravity we'll feel,” he said as those in the room with him also got to their feet. For now Flaesh just had to make sure he survived; his role as company sergeant could wait.

  “You, run to the next room,” he said, pointing to the ones that had gotten up the most quickly. They didn't say anything but Falesh could see through their faceplates that they weren't happy as they left the safety of the room, walking awkwardly before getting up to a light jog. Running was impossible for them.

  The same went for him as Falesh's turn came and he was barely able to jog in the increased gravity.

  ***

  “This is what I'm talking about!” Bok Soo said, thumping Amarr on the arm, who shook his head at his rambunctious commander.

  “Someone might think that you like the extra gravity,” Amarr said as Bok Soo grinned.

  “I love it as much as those Syndicate wimps must hate it,” he said, looking to his armband as an alert went off.

  “They're getting to line three. It's time we ended this. Dreckt, you ready?” he asked the spec ops commander, who he'd made his other company commander in light of Rosa's venture into the dark. With the influx of the newly minted commandos, he was also a reassuring older hand. His other trainer spec ops brothers made up the reserve, along with veterans and the best of the trainees. The third line were larger rooms that interconnected in multiple ways to one another. They usually had transport cars to move materials across the station, but the rails they ran on had been blocked off and removed.

  “Always, commander,” Dreckt acknowledged.

  “That's what I like to hear. By the numbers,” Bok Soo said as the syndicates turned the corner, entering the larger r
oom the hallway directly across from the entrance from the airlocks slits like the ones they'd run into before. Though here there were three weapons systems pointing down the hallway and into the three entryways Bok Soo was in charge of. Six thousand Commandos waited at the third level, five thousand were held in reserve and the rest were staggered across the station, either waiting at their defensive lines or being moved to bolster others as commanders saw fit.

  “Fire as targets present themselves. Beaders unless a large concentration, then rails,” Bok Soo said, his voice losing humour as he focused on his task of making the syndicate run an impossible gauntlet.

  “Shield techs, hold off those grenades. Advise when the shield's will drop for pull back,” Shield techs had become a new appointment as Felix had shown Henry how he could create limited one way shields within Parnmal. Bok Soo had four of them up with the guns to balance out shields and to give his people enough time to run to the next position if they were over-run.

  Salchar had made it clear in his briefings that this battle was going to be won by paying attention to the plan, as long as they could, and bleeding the Syndicate forces. If they got past the eighth defensive grid then it would be an all-out battle and there were no guarantees. Bok Soo watched as his gunners worked their weapons. With the training that had been ingrained into them, it was second nature and they could move with ease in the higher gravity environment.

  “Bok Soo, Engaged Bravo,” he said simply to comms who would update Henry automatically.

  Chapter Halls of Darkness

  Kelu had finally gotten communications back online. Yet his mood had barely improved as his engineering officer was dead from a power blow out, and the rest of the engineering crew were trying to push the job onto someone else.

  “Urlow, tell the engineers that they'll get two percent of my share,” he said, tapping his holster as he had no doubt that nearly all of them would now be clamoring for the position of engineer chief. He would deal with them after the battle.

  His Dreadnought had taken some serious pounding but it had survived the landing on Parnmal. Now the Mecha corps were swarming across Parnmal, and whoever commanded it had changed it from a station into a death trap. As Syndicate soldiers moved forward they were met by multiple entrenched weapon systems. The newest he'd heard of was multiple weapon systems down a long wide hallway, working systematically to clear anything that appeared in their line of view. While grenades were bouncing off what appeared to be internal shields inside the station.

  “Who the fuck are these people?” he asked himself. He'd already lost close to twenty thousand troops just getting this bare beachhead.

  And I'm yet to know just who the hell I'm fighting, or come into contact with them.

  “Urlow, I want a transmission for Parnmal,”

  “Sir, ready when you are,” Urlow said as Kelu looked to the pickup.

  “Whoever controls Parnmal, I will make this offer to you this one time. Surrender and I will guarantee your people will live as slaves instead of die painful deaths. Do not prolong their suffering. What do you say?”

  The response was immediate.

  “Surrender and we will likewise arrest you, to serve out your sentences assisting our pursuits,” the voice came. But there was no visual.

  “Very well, then. We shall meet, and I shall personally escort you to the Lady Fairgate’s halls, where she will glean her answers from your pain,” Kelu said, cutting the transmission.

  “Whoever gets me one of his people alive I'll give them a percent of mine,” Kelu said. As he slumped into his chair, his console beeped that an engineering officer had been selected finally and would have the ship back to fighting trim within twelve hours.

  Kelu snarled at the report as he looked to the syndicate troops.

  “Get Captain Shanuolr's troops moving, or I'll take his share from him. Tell the other captains that if they hold their troops back, or they don't have the motivation, to move forward, I'll take all of their shares,”

  “Yes Captain!” Urlow said. After this I'm going to get him his own ship, I need more competent people in my personal fleet, Kelu thought before turning back to the bloody battle.

  ***

  Grenades were the biggest problem for Henry right now. The Syndicates had gotten into the swing of using grenades to clear out obstructions such as is weapon systems littered across the station. They were also using them to great effect against the third line defences.

  I'm going to have to use my Commandos sooner than I thought.

  He needed to slow the Syndicate forces, and if his commanders timed the conflicts right then their people could rest and resupply in between battles, while the Syndicate had no time to recover.

  “I'm going to need you and your commandos to engage the Syndicate forces sooner than we originally thought,” Henry said over the command channel. “I want you to prepare to engage them on fourth line defences.” There was a commotion as commandos moved out of the way for a distinct mecha.

  Commanders under Henry greened up as Salchar checked his hair wouldn't fly free from its leather tie, chewing his gum, his face hard. Without looking Krom gave him his helmet and he sealed it, the face plate open.

  “What are you doing here?” Henry demanded, looking to James' security detail.

  “More use fighting then sitting up there,” he said as someone behind him calmly swung a staff with rounded ornaments on either end.

  “Akatski has everything in hand,” Monk said as he rested on his staff. Monk's mecha was heavily armoured, but with an exoskeleton that would fit an Avar, and gave him more power. Salchar's was similarly massive due to the exoskeleton, but it had less armour in areas to provide greater mobility.

  “You two are essential to the Fleet,” he said.

  “Every person in the Free Fleet is essential to it,” Salchar said. “We found that other people could do our jobs up there, freeing us from those responsibilities. Now, use us. We're pretty good at taking orders still.”

  Henry was distinctly unhappy with the entire thing, but he knew there was no deterring Salchar once he had made up his mind.

  Plus if the Syndicates overrun us it won't matter who someone is, or what their rank is; they'll die all the same.

  “Alright, you stubborn bastards. You'll be under Shminkt,” Henry said, knowing it was a bad idea as soon as the words had left his mouth, but also knowing that they'd take no less.

  “Thank you, Henry,” Salchar said grinning, turning to go find Shminkt and his company.

  Indicators started appearing on Henry's screen as Commandos started pulling back to fourth line. He pressed icons on his data pad connecting him to different units.

  “Pull back to fourth line,” he said. As he cut the channel, units that had been waiting now met up with their fellow Commando's, waiting for the Syndicate's troops.

  ***

  Falesh was altogether done with running around and finding booby traps in the rooms, hallways and waiting at every corner. He now had only thirty people doing as he said, his turnover rate had grown to almost four hundred percent.

  The weight of the extra gravities made him sluggish, tired and pissed off as he gasped for air. Fighting these bastards was like fighting an invisible enemy. They'd gotten to a corridor that ran through a large open area and finally met their enemy. They'd had shield generators inside the station, which was something that Falesh had never seen or heard of before, and three weapon systems firing continuously. There was always one firing and at least one ready.

  “General, from what I've seen these guys are at home with the higher gravity hell they've turned the station into,” he communicated to higher command. Captain Kelu wanted to know everything and anything about these mysterious defenders, making sure Falesh's information went to the highest levels.

  “Why do you think that, Sergeant?” the nameless general asked, sounding skeptical. I don't have time to give you a dark-cursed written report you pencil pushing shit, he thought, forcing himself
to breathe.

  “The speed with which they switched barrels and reloaded their weapons makes me believe that,” Falesh panted, talking had become much more difficult.

  “Sarge, they're leaving,” one of Falesh's grenade throwers said. Thankfully grenades were one thing that was not in short supply.

  “Keep the pressure up then!”

  One of his men charged the hallway, a burst of beads taking out his face plate. His cries ending in their throat as he dropped to the floor.

  “No one fucking moves until I say so!” Falesh yelled. He didn't care if they lived or died, but to get his share he needed to take this station. For that he needed troops.

  “The shields are spotting!” the grenade thrower from before yelled as they doubled their throwing speed.

  The rail gun fired as Falesh's smirk at the enemy wasting ammo turned to horror. The rounds exploded as soon as they passed the protecting walls, killing troops on either side with the blast and shards.

  As soon as we change to their tactics, they change them again.

  Falesh wanted to beat the crap out of something, anything. He hit the wall a few times but found himself exhausted as the heavier gravity weighed on him.

  It's not fucking fair!

  “Get more grenades on those damn things!” he yelled as he saw that the majority of his grenade throwers had been ripped apart by the Rail gun.

  Replacement's crept up, only to get washed away with more rounds.

  “Stack the dead, use them as cover,” Falesh said as troops started to create protective walls with dead or dying troops.

  A wounded woman was yelling for aid and Falesh absently shot her, stopping her annoying screams.

  “Shields are down,” a gruffer sounding grenade thrower said. Falesh saw the new one was using a dead trooper as a shield.

  “Good. Now silence those fucking guns!” Falesh barked as he checked his weapon.