Inherited War 1: Retribution (40 page)

She had only just become fully functional and had slowly been exploring her surroundings when the ship had started to attack her people.  She had tried to do what she could to help them
, but any mind she managed to touch was quickly snuffed out.  So she had focused on dominating the human commander’s mind.  That had worked for a little while but he had found a way to fight her and every time he slept he expelled her from his mind.  She managed to keep her location a secret and erase any memories of their battles in his mind, but it hadn’t been enough.  There had to be a way she could use the upcoming battle to her advantage.  She was determined not to allow this human to destroy the Sun Eater.

Maybe she could use the Nixa that the human seemed to love so much.  Yes
, her mind may be weak enough to succumb to my influence.  She would wait for the battle to begin and subvert the good Doctor.  A small smile touched the corners of the human women’s face as the Esii living inside her began to plot and plan.

60

“The one good thing about being surrounded and outnumbered in a battlefield scenario is that you can shoot in any direction and almost guarantee a hit on your enemy.  Of course there are many downsides to that scenario, but I like to look on the bright side of things.”

Both the
Retribution
and the
Reckoning
were as fixed as they were ever going to be out here away from the dry dock facility.  If they weren’t at one-hundred percent, they were damn close to it.  Now they waited.  Cole could feel it in his bones, the Esii were coming and they were coming big time.  Cole figured that the Esii had been waiting a long time for the Nixa to give them an excuse to invade and destroy their home system.  This was too good an opportunity to pass up.

It had been three hours since they had fled the Esii and still nothing had moved on the system yet.  Cole knew it was coming though.  The Esii couldn’t
warp this far in system so they would have to revert to normal space well outside of weapons range. Cole still had his crew on down time and resting.  He could easily have them back in their stations well before any action could occur.

He was the only one currently hooked into the ship and he was enjoying the quiet.  “The last of the repairs are complete
, Cole.”  Hal reported.

“The real repairs or the fake ones?”
  Cole asked him back.

“Both.  Are we ready for what's coming?”  An image of Cole’s father appeared in front of him. 
Hal’s avatar.  Hal moved to be near Cole.  “You have accomplished so much I would hate to see it end here.”

“Yeah me too, but we
have to take risks if we want to win.  We can’t leave that damn ship out there to threaten any more planets.  This is necessary.”

“Are you trying to convince me
, or you, of that?”  Hal replied.

“A little of both I guess.  There is no manual for what we are trying to do here
, Hal.  I have all of this knowledge and memories from ages past, but it comes in flashes and dribbles into my brain.  I have to use it the best way possible, and let’s face it, I am not a great tactician. I just try my best to do what I think will even this war out.  We haven’t even started to deal with the Roche yet and they outnumber us by the millions.  I need allies and this was the only way I could think of to draw out that goddamn ship.”

“
Cole, I will gladly take your secret to the end of time and I truly believe in you and this plan.  If I hadn’t, I would have never helped you.”

“Thanks pal
, I needed that.”  Cole watched as a Nixian ship approached both the
Reckoning
and the
Retribution
.  “Now what do they want, I wonder?”  Cole mused aloud.

“Commander of Combined Task Force this is troop transport 101.  We seek permission to dock and station soldiers on board your ships, over.”  What the hell was this about?

“On whose authority are you acting, transport?”   Cole responded.

“Commander, the
Admiralty thought since you had Nixa citizens on board and you had your hands full with running your ships and fighters, they might provide some onboard security for your Nixian crew, over.”  Cole smiled at that.  Another way to justify aiding them without openly admitting to it.

“Affirmative, have your personnel aboard and report to my ship security commanders
.  Send my thanks to the Admiralty. 
Retribution
out.”  Cole shifted his attention to the security roster.

The transport docked and left twenty-five combat ready Nixa marines on board the
Retribution
and over one hundred and fifty on the
Reckoning
.  Cole hoped to God they wouldn’t need them but it was nice to have them in case they needed to repel boarders.

At that moment the deep space scanner picked up multiple signals appearing in space just at the closest edge of jump range.  They were here.  Cole sent out a fleet wide alarm and ordered his men to attack positions.  This time he had more help on the bridge to manage and
maintain the sensor net and tag targets to control the battle.  He would need it because there was no running this time.

He watched as ship after ship reverted
to normal space and disgorged their fighter compliments.  In total, ten cruisers dropped out of warped space and deployed hundreds of spider fighters.  Then the biggies started to show up.  Hal identified them as Esii Heavy Battle Cruisers or HBC for short.  They were twice the size of the normal ones but instead of having to carry the Spider Fighters into battle, they were pure fighting ships themselves.  Cole didn’t think the
Retribution
had it in her to take on one of those alone, but the
Reckoning
may have a chance if she could get at them one at a time.

But no Sun Eater.
  The numerical odds were still pretty steep but the
Reckoning
and
Retribution
’s tech advantage should even things up.  While the Nixa didn’t have the number of ships, they had fixed defenses they could rely on.  They had a mine field deployed and three massive defense stations in orbit around the planet.  Those stations were death to any ship that came close and they had good range to aid in the main battle.

“Fury, hold until they come in range.
  I don’t know where the Sun Eater is but they may be probing to see if the Nixa really are helping us.  If they find they are, that’s when they will bring in the ship.  We have to force a confrontation with your people and the Esii as soon as possible.”

“Roger, I expected that myself.  We will await your orders.”

Cole got his people in order and settled in while the Esii approached the maximum firing line.  The red blob of Spider Fighters grew to over a thousand and was bearing down on their position.  Cole gave the order to deploy his drones.  They formed up and headed over to link up with the
Reckoning’
s drones.   Cole held them back and wanted them to screen the two ships.  The drones would have plenty of chances to engage enemy fighters and there was no sense in throwing away drones trying to blunt that massed attack.  The
Retribution
and The
Reckoning
could do more damage to those fighters in a few hits than the drones could in a few hours of skirmishing.

Cole watched as the fighters crossed over the invisible line of their max firing range.  “All guns open fire.”  Cole ordered the two ships.  Fury had turned his ship so his sides faced the oncoming rush of fighters.  He had set it into a slow roll so he could fire continues volleys from all his guns.  As one set would fire
, it would roll out of position bringing another set into position.  Doing this gave him max rate of fire.

The massed fire of the two ships tore into the oncoming horde.  Entire squadrons were wiped out in the first few seconds of the barrage.  The remaining fighters broke and dispersed.  They hadn’t been expecting to be hit from that far away.  The two ships kept firing as fast as possible since targets were so plentiful but there was no way to get them all before they closed.

Suddenly a green blip appeared on Cole’s screen between his ships and the oncoming fighters.  He was about to ask, what the hell was going on when the Spider Fighters nearest to it converged and destroyed it.

“Commander McLeod
, this is Admiral Suns, with the destruction of that unmanned survey ship we are officially entering the battle to support you.  What are your orders?”

“I thought you guys didn’t trust me to command everyone?”  Cole responded.

“That is the civilian government. I, on the other hand, haven’t been fighting the Esii like you have for the past few weeks.  This battle was unexpected so we will be glad to rely on you for orders.”

Cole smiled to himself and started feeding tactical data to the Nixa fleet.  “Fit in and make yourself useful.  Use fighters to screen for your capitol ships and use your capitol ships to engage their capitol ships when they get in range.  Other than that, just blow the hell out of anything that gets in range.”

“I am
receiving data and understand, Suns out.”  The Admiral cut the comm line and Cole refocused on the incoming fighters.  He saw the green signals indicating the Nixa fleet, move away from the planet and take up flanking positions on either side of his ships.  A mass of green dots representing Nixa fighters separated from the big ships and moved forward a few hundred miles to prepare to intercept incoming fighters.  Cole shifted some drones to support those fighters and so did Fury.

This whole time the
Reckoning
and the
Retribution
were still tearing into the spider fighters as they approached the ships.  They finally entered their own firing range and started to engage the allied ships but they had lost at least half of their strength by that point.  But they succeeded in their primary mission.  They started to tie up the bigger ships guns, allowing their own capitol ships to move in closer under less sustained fire.  Cole started to maneuver the
Retribution
in order to avoid the incoming fire.  The
Reckoning
was just too big for those little fighters to damage so she just hung in space, knocking out as many as she could while Cole rolled and juked as best as he could.

All too soon
, the allied forces were totally engaged.  The Esii cruisers and HBCs steadily moved forward.  “Shift fire to those heavies as soon as you can, leave the remaining fighters to the drones and Nixa pilots.”  Cole sent the order out across the net so everyone could hear it.  He heard a cheered response from his own drone pilots as they began to peel off and engage the spiders in dog fights.  The Nixa small fighters maneuvered and helped where they could, and the Nixian Capitol ships moved forward to help provide security for Cole’s ships since they had the better range.

“Fury you concentrate on those
HBC’s I will worry about those cruisers.  We can’t get them all but we can hurt them before they get into range themselves.”  Fury acknowledged his orders and left the Nixian navy to protect him from the smaller fighters who were strafing his hull. 

The biggies crossed the firing line and both ships opened up giving them all they had.  It wasn’t enough, the ships sustained damage and only four of them made it to the main battle totally unscathed.  Cole managed to completely destroy one cruiser and cripple one more but had only caused light damage to the others before they started to return fire.  The
Reckoning
had crippled one of the HBCs and knocked it out of the fight but the other three were still inbound and about to start firing.

That’s when the Nixa activated their mine field.  All the Esii ships had passed through the field and had
, unbeknownst to them, picked up the magnetic mines that had been seeded in their line of travel.  The signal was sent and they all detonated as one.  One more HBC was crippled to the point of uselessness, two cruisers were outright destroyed and numerous fighters flared into nothingness.  But onward they came and soon even the Nixa capitol ships were engaging the enemy at close range.

Cole kept the
Retribution
moving and maneuvering, pushing his ship to her limits.  The space around the Nixa home world was a riot of battles.  Groups of small fighters spiraled and swirled around each other in battles to the death.  Capitol ships ponderously moved about trying to find advantage over their enemies.  Still there was no sign of the Sun Eater.  They had to remove the threat here and now or that damn ship could strike anywhere and be off before Cole cold move to intercept.

The
Retribution
danced with death across the sky.  Cole moved her in and out of battles aiding ships where he could or leading off attackers from beleaguered ships.  Finally, despairing that the Sun Eater wasn’t going to come, he fully committed the
Reckoning
and
Retribution
to repelling the attack.  Both ships moved to fully engage the larger capitol ships of the Esii.  The
Reckoning
formed up with two large Nixa destroyers and bore down on the two remaining HBCs.  Cole moved off to support the attackers of the standard Esii battle cruisers.  Once they became fully engaged in those battles the tide started to turn against the numerically superior Esii.

That’s when they dropped the hammer.  The
Reckoning
and
Retribution
became too separated to effectively reform to attack together and that was what the Esii had been waiting for.  The Sun Eater dropped into normal space.  Cole wasn’t certain how they managed to keep it in warped space for so long in one area but they had, and had used it well.  Along with the super ship came a new wave of Spider Fighters and small cruisers.

Cole thanked whoever was in charge of the universe for not including any more
HBCs in the new lot.  Though he figured that the new ships would be trouble enough. Cole contacted Fury.  “We need to break free of this small shit and move against the Sun Eater.  It looks as though it will move to the secondary star in the system to attack your home.”