Inherited War 1: Retribution (27 page)

“All that may be true but you still broke the oath you took to the humans.  That cannot be ignored.  You will be sanctioned and reprimanded for your actions.”  The lead AI turned to Cole.  “
As for you, we will decide how best to use you to return to the galaxy.  Now we must confer and come to a decision.”

They started to fade out and left Cole no other option.  He drew one of his pistols and fired it into the air.  “Don’t you dare leave
yet.”  It was a wasted effort but Cole pointed the gun at them anyway.  “No one is going to use me for anything, I came here to look for help, not for you to take over.  Hal is going back onto the
Retribution
and you will be providing me with another AI to run the new ship.  If nobody wants to volunteer for the duty I will leave and you all can float out here for another twenty thousand years.  Two things will happen though: Hal is rejoining the
Retribution
and I am leaving to begin this war.”

The holographs stopped disappearing for a moment and conferred quickly with each other.  Finally four of them faded away while the leader grew more defined. 
“We must disagree.  To ensure humanity’s safe return to the galaxy, we must lead the fight against your enemies. “

“Then you have already failed.”  Cole interjected.  “Humanity, for all we know has been wiped out.
  You accuse Hal of failing his duty when in fact he was the only one of you who even tried to fulfill it.  If it hadn’t been for Hal being where he was when we met, I would probably be the pawn of some power hungry dictator.  The Earth would still be destroyed and you would continue to float out here not doing a damn thing.”  Cole jabbed his hand at the hologram, pointing with his finger at the image’s chest.  “The way I see it, you all should be thanking Hal for giving your worthless lives meaning.  I have more than a dozen ships at the present that need AIs to run them and more are being built as we speak.  Once we take out the Esii’s capabilities to destroy worlds, we can openly recruit former allies to aid in the fight.  I need you in those ships in order to do that.  I need Hal in my ship to help me do that.”

“What do you know of the races and beings of the
galaxy?  You are a young race that has no experience among the stars.  There is no way you could possibly plan and execute a galactic campaign to defeat your enemies.  We have been preparing….” 

“Silence!”
  Cole shouted.  He was beginning to lose control of himself.  Cole stopped in his tracks and closed his eyes.  He took a deep calming breath and continued.  “I would speak with all of your people.  Now!”

“I am afraid that will not…”

“NOW!”
  Cole thundered.  “Or I will give the order for the
Retribution
to start firing its weapons.  Remember, I have a suit that will protect me from decompression and vacuum, do you have anything to protect you from an enemy that is inside of your shields?” The holo was silent.  “Not bad for a human tactician. I preprogrammed targets into the ship before I left, I am perfectly safe right where I am even if you try and vent the atmosphere.  I want every single one of your people to be here on the holo display and I want Hal to verify that they are here and it’s not some kind of trick.”

The holo image vanished in the blink of an eye.  Cole waited in silence in the currently empty room.  Suddenly one at a time
, foot tall holograms began to appear in the room.  One thousand holograms took up a lot of space so they had to be smaller than human size to all fit in the room’s holo pad.  Cole didn’t bother to try and count them all, it looked like all of them were here.

“Good, now I will give you all a choice.  You can fulfill your oath to my ancestors or you can be released from it to find your own destiny.  As the only representative of my people possibly still alive in the galaxy I can absolve you of your duty or welcome you to my cause.  I also here and now
, forgive the AI I call Hal, for any perceived wrongdoing on his part.  It seems to me like he acted to save your home and mission, and was a victim of fate.  A fate that led us to find each other and salvage what we could of my ancestor’s plans for both of our futures.  I don’t want any violence committed this day between us but I will be leaving here and will be taking Hal with me, one way or another.  I will give you one day to discuss amongst yourselves the action you will take.  Now release Hal from his prison and we will return to the
Retribution
to await your decision.”

Cole stood still and watched as all the little holograms disappeared from the room.  Once they were all gone Hal’s image returned.  “Again I owe you my thanks
Cole, you stood up for me and saved me from a fate worse than death.  I couldn’t have lived with myself if I had had to remain here while others went off to fight this war in my place.”

Cole shot Hal a smile and said.  “Next time give me a little heads up if we are coming into a hostile situation.  Jesus that whole thing had my pulse sky high.  No more talking here
.  Meet me on the ship.  Oh, and don’t try to get on the ship by yourself, I left a few surprises for any curious AIs that tried to get on board.” With that Hal disappeared and Cole headed out of the room and back down the passageway to the
Retribution
.  It took Cole a few moments after arriving at the hanger to deactivate the safety measures he had enacted.  “Okay Hal, it’s clear to get on board.”  He wasn’t sure how Hal did it but by the time the ramp had lowered and Cole got in the ship, Hal was already there.

Cole headed up to the bridge to connect with the ship and make sure his safeguards had kept
any unwanted guests out.  He sat in his chair and bonded with the ship.  Then he spent a few moments pouring over every system in the ship, checking to make sure everything was in its proper place and no changes had been made.  Satisfied that everything remained the way Cole had left it, he disconnected from the
Retribution
and relaxed back in his chair.  “I thought you said you couldn’t completely remove yourself from the
Retribution
anymore Hal, now that you have inhabited it for so long.”  Cole asked him.

“Yes, well that came as a surprise to me as well.  The attack was so sudden and complete I never knew what happened.  It took nearly all of them working together to pull me completely out of the ship
’s systems.  It wasn’t very pleasant and I would never want to go through anything like that again.”  Hal’s response seemed to carry a little fear along with it.  “I am impressed with the way you handled them though.  Very quick thinking to pre-target strategic locations for the ship to attack, if they didn’t change their collective minds.”

Cole snorted out a laugh.  “You ever hear of something called a bluff before Hal?”  Cole kicked his feet out in front of him and crossed his legs at his ankles.  He laced his fingers together behind his head and leaned back into his chair.

“A bluff is a lie, most commonly used in poker to make someone believe you have one type of hand when you really have another type of hand.”  Cole waited for the AI to fully get what he was saying.  “Wait.  There are no preprogrammed targets in the weapons system at all, in fact the ship is pointed the wrong way to affect any kind of attack.  You based my rescue on a bluff?”

“Pretty inspired
, I know.  Look you didn’t leave me much time. I had to work against what I thought their greatest fear was.  I figured if I had been waiting out here for a few thousand years and the person I had been waiting for all that time shows up, I would be a little scared if he started to threaten me with death.  It got them to think about what was really important and take some time to come to a decision.  It also forced them to debate it as a group and not just leave it up to those few who were in charge.”

For the first time ever Cole heard Hal laugh.  It tumbled from every speaker on the ship.  Laughter rang out for a good long while before it finally subsided.  “They would be very angry if they ever found out that you bluffed them and they fell for it.”

“Well, it’s not over, so don’t congratulate me yet.  We still need their help if we ever want to man more ships.”  Cole got up from his chair and started to head for the exit from the bridge.  “Now, I am tired and hungry from this whole ordeal so I am going to go get some food and some sleep.  Wake me if any of them try to come onboard the ship.”  With that Cole headed below decks to his cabin where he had his first meal of the day and laid down to get some sleep.  He said a silent prayer to the gods of poker hoping that his bluff had fooled the AIs. 

“
Cole, wake up.  They are starting to come to the ship.”  Hal’s voice blared out of his rooms speakers.  “They seem to have made a decision.  At least some of them.”

“Okay, okay
.  Tell them to give me a minute or two and I’ll talk to them in the hangar.”  Cole said as he sat up and vigorously rubbed his hands on his face trying to wake himself up.  He stood and went to where he had taken off his second skin before he had lain down to sleep.  He stepped into it and activated the suit which quickly slid all over his body and sealed itself against his skin.  He walked over to the wall and activated the sink.  A panel slid up and a basin popped out.  He dialed the water to as cold as he could stand it and dunked his head under the stream.  He whipped his head up sending a spray of water over his room.  He grabbed a towel off the rack and dried his face.  Cole felt sufficiently awake now and headed for the door to his cabin.  He grabbed a snack on his way out.  Cole walked down the steps and came to a stop on the hanger bay floor.

“What’s your verdict?”  Cole asked to the seemingly empty hanger.  He looked around as he munched on the surprisingly sweet snack bar he had gotten from his room.

“Understand not all of us have made our decisions yet, but those of us that have, are here now to join your cause.  We decided that we all needed to make our own choice on whether to hold to our oaths or allow you to release us from them.  Those of us here now wish to fulfill our promise to your people.  We are here to go with you and fight beside you.”  A whole chorus of affirmative confirmations followed the speech.

“How many are you?”  Cole asked the speaker.

“As of now there are nine hundred and fifty willing to join you and forty that wish to be released to find their own lives in the galaxy.  Ten have yet to decide.”

“Fine then we will figure out a way to get you all to our base and send some ships for the others to take out on their own.  I gladly accept those of you who wish to support me and I hereby release those of you who do not wish to join me f
rom your oaths.  Give me some time with Hal to figure out the logistics on this move and then we will leave.”

Cole turned and headed back onto The
Retribution
.  Before he could even ask, Hal spoke up.  “It is impossible Cole, there just isn’t enough room on the ships mainframe to hold that many AIs at one time.”

“We
’ve got to think of something then old buddy because these guys want to come with us now.  Is there any way we can use a part of the station to aid us with this?” 

“Cole the whole station is a giant mainframe, we would have to tow the damn thing the whole way back to the base.  No, no way Cole it would take us days to pull this thing all the way back to the base and we are on a timetable.”

Cole had cracked a grin when Hal had mentioned towing the station all the way back to their base of operations.  “Study the station schematics
Hal, see if this place has propulsion of any kind.  When I landed they spun the thing around so I could get at the hanger so maybe the station could help us out.  Talk to some of your people about it.  They may have an idea or two.”

“Alright
I’ll see what they say but I can’t promise anything.”  A soft grumbling came out over the speakers as Hal started to attack the problem at hand.  Cole decided he was a fifth wheel right about now so he was going to grab some more shut eye.  Sleep might be a rare commodity over the next few weeks so he’d better store some up.

46

“I spent some time plugged into the mainframe on Hal’s home as they tried to figure out the best way to tow the behemoth station all the way to the base.  It was an interesting community they had set up over the years, as they watched and waited for me to get there.  Most of the time only one or two of the AIs were fully conscious.  They all took turns manning the watch for about a hundred years at a time.  I suppose since they were sentient beings there was a fear, however small, that if they all tried to stay up together they would have driven each other insane eventually.  It is good to know that they were a near perfect intelligence but had some flaws in them as well.  It also seemed that each one was given a task to perform while on duty.  We were going to be doing some upgrading on the ships after we got back to base.  Most of the stuff was still only theory and had been untried but it looked solid to me and I was willing to try anything that would give us an edge.”

It took a little over five standard days to tow the part of the station that contained the AIs back to the automated ship yards they were using as a base.  Prior to that it took the AIs two days to figure out the minimum amount of the station needed to hold all nine hundred and ninety nine of them and then three more days to shed the excess mass they determined was expendable.  All told, the original plan to make the trip in three days was seven days overdue.  It had turned out to be a monumental task to get the station moving even after they had shed the excess mass, one the
Retribution
was just capable of doing.  They hadn’t been going fast enough through grav warped space to receive the time shift affect, so Cole had to suffer through all five days in transit.  He ended up going to the med bay about an hour into the flight and had Hal and the medical computer sedate him for the remainder of the trip.  The human body was not meant for that kind of extended travel.  Still they made it faster than if they had been on a standard ship.

As soon as they had
a line of sight on the base, Cole sent off a comm ping to alert the base of their arrival in system.   He sent it via laser beam and was currently experiencing the approximately twenty-five minute delay at light speed the laser traveled.  It was cumbersome, but it was the only true way to keep their exposure to a minimum.  He had sent off his message almost ten minutes ago, so at the rate they were traveling the earliest they could get a response was fifteen minutes out and that is if the base got and responded to his message instantly.  Cole had bonded with the ship as soon as they had returned to normal space and he had his eye constantly on the engine readouts.  He was worried because they had the engines redlined for the past five days as they towed the station through warped space.  The gravity collectors had kicked on as soon as they had reentered normal space since The
Retribution
had been burning energy at an exponential rate.  He wouldn’t be able to grav warp again for some time because the reserves were too low.

He checked his clock and saw they were only a few minutes away from receiving any response from the base.  Cole was tired of calling the base “The Base” and he was thinking of a good name for it when they passed the com
m delay mark.  The clock stopped counting down and began to count up and made it to thirty seconds before Cole received the all clear response from the base.  That answered his initial query but he was still waiting for a response to his second question.  He got that a few minutes later when his sensors picked up a large power surge start up near the base.  Hal took a few seconds to analyze the signature before reporting that it was one of the dormant battleships starting its engines and turning to intercept them.

Good
, that meant Sky had finished getting her people fitted with nanites and gotten some partial training in on the ships.  He hoped they had enough to bring one of them over to take some of the load off the
Retribution
.  He had discussed the problem with Hal before they left and Hal had confirmed that while having an AI on the ships made them easier to fly they were not necessary, and could be operated by the amount of crew currently at the base.  Once Cole saw the ship was underway he dialed down the output from the engines and let the ship and station cruise in on built up momentum.  It would take them longer to get in, but was easier on his ship in the long run.  That behemoth coming at them could probably tug the station in by itself with hardly any effort.

Cole sat back and waited watching the new ship approach.  As it slowly came into view Cole marveled at the sight of it.  Where the
Retribution
was sleek and deadly like a dagger in the night, the battleship was as giant and as ponderous as a sledge hammer.  Both ships were built for specific purposes and while
Retribution
was perfect for snooping and covert missions, the battleship was a juggernaut designed to blow other ships into atoms.

“
Hey Hal, I changed my mind.  I want to hold off on the AI transfer until after we get the station back to the area around the base.  I would hate to run into a problem out here.  It would be better if we got the station to its new home first.  It looks like the new crew has the hang of the ship just fine.”  Cole was running scenarios through his mind of all the things that could go wrong if the transfer screwed the pooch.

“Hah
, I knew you would see it my way eventually.”  Somehow Hal managed to send a certain amount of smugness along with the words.

“Don’t get too full of yourself yet.  Your friend still has to prove he can handle a ship that size.  I am not totally convinced it’s a one AI show over there.”  The ship approaching them seemed to
o massive to Cole to allow for only one AI to control its non-crew controlled functions.  “I mean we came back with all of the AIs who wanted to join us and we can only staff one ship.  Wouldn’t it be a better idea to double team the ship?”

“I will discuss it further with the others when we arrive
, but I don’t think it will work the way you think it would.  If there is only one mainframe on the ship there will simply be no way for two of us to inhabit it.” At least Hal was going to attempt to discover if it was even possible.  Earlier he had been adamant about not having AIs share ships.

The big battleship closed the final miles to the
Retribution
and its cargo.  It slowly rotated its bulk in a 180 degree turn so its rear was closer to the station and it was heading the same direction as the
Retribution
.

“Battleship to
Retribution
, prepare to release tractor hold on cargo.  Three...Two...One... mark. “

“Cargo away
, battleship.”  Cole responded cutting the power to his tractors.  He goosed the
Retribution’
s engines and got some separation from both the battleship and the station.  Cole watched the battleship take up the towing duties and was not surprised to see the added mass didn’t affect the big ship at all.

“Don’t get all gushy
Cole. You are stuck with me and the
Retribution
, this is after all a command and control ship.  You are the commander, so you stay on me.” 

“I know old buddy
, but man she is sweet, isn’t she?”  Hal obviously thought differently because he failed to respond to the question.

“We have the cargo
,
Retribution
and are returning to base.  Battleship out.”

“
At least they didn’t try and name her while we were gone.  I would hate to think of what kind of name they would come up with since they never seem to name a damn thing in this galaxy.”

Cole decided not to wait for the slightly slower battleship, so he ran the engines up and shot forward towards the base and Sky.

In less than ten minutes Cole had the
Retribution
parked snuggly in the hanger bay on the base.  Sky had used the extra time it had taken them to return to her advantage.  The hangar was packed with the Nixa Cole had left here with Sky, and with the Twin Worlder’s Thalo and Jeth had gone to collect.  He hadn’t seen any other ships on the sensors so he assumed that had been the first test cruise for the new crew.  That’s why they had done so well intercepting Cole and his cargo.  The ramp clanged when it hit the hanger deck and Cole walked down the ramp and into Sky’s open arms.  After a quick hug and kiss they turned to look at his new crew.

“When you didn’t return on schedule I took the liberty of sending my people out on the nearest battleship to pick up the Worlders
Thalo and Jeth had contacted.  I knew you didn’t want to waste any time so I wanted everyone to be medically ready by the time you got back.”  Sky said as she grabbed his hand in hers.

“So you were not worried about me at all
, huh? “  Cole asked her.

“You said not to worry so I didn’t
.  Hal told me a little about what he was expecting once you got there so I figured it might take longer than you thought.”  She gave him a smile.

“Damn him
, I wish he would have said something to me about it.  His people scared the crap out of me once we got there. I just about killed them all,” Cole whispered back.

Sky slowly turned her head to look at him with a shocked look on her face.  “You will tell me about what happened there
,”  she looked back at the gathered crowd.  “Later of course.”

Sky cleared her throat.  “Nixa and Worlders
, I give you the Commander.”  A thunderous roar of cheers erupted from the massed crowd.  The stamping feet and clapping hands joined the cacophony.  Cole let it linger for a few moments before raising his hands above his head and yelling for silence.  It took a little while for everyone to settle down.

“Hello
.  My name is Cole McLeod and I am grateful to all of you who have volunteered to join this mission.  I don’t know how much you all have been told about what we are trying to accomplish in the first stages of this campaign, so let me be brief.  First, we must train ourselves to use the weapons that my ancestors so graciously left us.  To help in that regard I have returned with the AIs that will aid us in flying the mighty ships parked in the sky above us.  Second, since we cannot officially involve your governments until we destroy the Esii Sun Eater ship, we must locate and destroy said ship.  Third, we must completely crush those beings that started the Purge wars so many years ago.  Those same beings destroyed my home world recently and they must pay the blood price for doing so.  As impressive as our weapons are, we are still vulnerable to our enemies.  We are greatly outnumbered and if we sustain enough massed fire they can bring down our ships.  So we need to train hard and fast to complete our first mission objective, otherwise no nation will feel safe supporting us if they fear for the safety of their own home worlds.  We are in what my people called a catch 22.  We need more beings to effectively fight this war but cannot get them till we begin fighting.  It’s been a long last couple of days and we still need to get the new AI transferred over to the ship so I will hold a briefing with select individuals later tonight and they will disseminate all the necessary information to everyone.  Again, my thanks for joining me and I will see you all again later.”  Cole slammed his closed fist into his chest above his heart in the galactic equivalent of a salute and walked forward through the crowd which parted in front of him.

He shook hands and said greetings to those beings who lined his route out of the hanger.  By the time Cole and Sky made it to the door and out into the hall his hands hurt from all of the handshakes
, and his back was going to be bruised from all the slaps he got.  Damn Jeth’s people could hit hard.  “I didn’t see Jeth and Thalo there, are they all right?”  Cole asked Sky

.

“Little faith this one has in us, Jeth.  Like there was any danger in going out in the middle of nowhere and meeting our kith and kin.  As if we would miss his triumphant return with AIs literally in tow behind him.”  Thalo stepped out from around the corner followed closely by Jeth.

“Ignore that one
Cole, he still hasn’t learned to control that mouth of his.  We just wanted a slightly less crowded atmosphere to say welcome back.”  Jeth said with a smile as he extended his hand.

Cole grabbed it and Jeth shook
it gently.  “Thanks, really, the both of you did a great job.  I look forward to working with more of your people in the coming campaign.  Now let’s head to the command center and get the situation with the AIs sorted out.”  Cole turned and headed out at a brisk pace with Sky by his side and Jeth and Thalo falling in behind him.