Inherited War 1: Retribution (41 page)

“I know
, I see it too.  We are going to have some trouble breaking free here, these damn cruisers are a pain and we are actually starting to take damage.  We need time and help.”  Fury responded from the beleaguered ship.

“I am on my
way, prepare to break towards the Sun Eater.”  Cole spun the
Retribution
up onto its tail and shot off towards the
Reckoning,
leaving a swarm of Spiders in his wake.  He bore down on the
Reckoning
at full speed.  There were hundreds of targets for Cole to choose from as he got in range.  He chose the biggest one, an Esii HBC that was attempting to come along side the
Reckoning
.  Cole overrode the safety protocols and fired his main plasma cannon on fully auto.  A solid line of super hot plasma leapt out from the nose of the
Retribution
and burned a hole into and through the HBC.  Metal super heated by the plasma, bled off the ship and froze into large drops.  Bodies and loose equipment were sucked out of the giant hole and into space.  The damage was too much for the mighty ship and she began to break apart.  The damage finally affected her main grav collectors and she went up in a spectacular display.  For a brief moment in time, Nixa had a third sun.  It was soon extinguished in the harshness of a vacuum.  Bits and pieces of the ship joined the other debris rapidly accumulating around the system.

The death of the larger ship
also destroyed most of the smaller ships around the
Reckoning
.  “Thanks Cole, we are breaking to the Sun Eater.  Watch our six.”

Cole turned to provide coverage when more signals began blinking to life on his screens.  Shit
, more Esii were dropping in on the party.  He counted ten more cruisers and another HBC.  It was too much for his forces.  The Nixa were already down to sixty percent strength and falling rapidly.  He started to receive calls for help from all over the system.  The Esii were threatening to overwhelm the defenders.  He had time before the new units were able to join the fight, but not much.

“
Reckoning
to all Nixa forces.  Retreat to your planet and set up a final line of defense with your orbital defense grid and stations.  Draw as many Esii as you can with you.  We will handle the new arrivals and the Sun Eater.”  Well there was nothing else to do at this point, the hammer had been dropped and his allies were waiting for a response.  “Hal make the call.”

61

“I had prepared for almost everything, the amount of ships the Esii could send, the Sun Eater showing up and any other myriad of things.  There was one thing I couldn’t have known about, one thing I was not prepared for.  That thing almost cost me everything.”

  Hal sent out a brief signal, it was only one word.  Come.  It was heard by the ones it was meant for and they did just that, they came.

Five bright green signals flared to life on
Cole’s screen.  They were behind the newly incoming Esii ships.  “Welcome to the battle, please engage those Esii ships.”  Fleet wide everyone heard the response from those ships.  “Vengeance acknowledged, Revenge acknowledged, Payback acknowledged, Reprisal acknowledged, Justice acknowledged.” The voice of the AIs rang out like thunder on the bridge of all the allied ships.

Weeks ago Cole had approached Hal about outfitting the AIs into a relief force only to be used when necessary.  Hal and his people
had figured a way to load themselves into ships without completely bonding to their systems.  Cole had packed all of them into the new carrier that had just been built and four juggernaut class destroyers.  The carrier had over four hundred drones to launch at one time and sported a nice close in defense grid capable of defending it from most enemies without diverting drone strength to its defense.

The destroyers on the other hand were the work horse of the fleet.  They were giant moving weapon platforms.  They boasted the strongest weapons the Pure Humans could devise.  They were slow
, but once they got in range, they could go toe to toe with any five ships the Esii could muster.

Cole had only left a skeleton crew of AIs behind at Home to mind the shop.  The rest he and Hal had loaded onto those ships in secret.  The AIs had trained while Cole was out with the
Reckoning
attacking the Esii targets.  When Cole had formulated this new plan, he had moved the new ships just outside of detection range of the Nixa system and had them wait for the signal for activation.  Come.  They did just that.  The carrier,
The Justice
, deployed its full contingent of drones piloted by the AIs and set up a blocking position on the fringe of the system.  Anyone who wanted to leave had to go through it.

The rest moved in on the newly arrived Esii fleet. The new Esii ships had to come about to deal with the threat to their rear.  That left the now diminished initial attackers too far in system to retreat and now they were in range of the orbital stations.  The carnage was massive.  It would take the Nixa years to clear all of the junk that was orbiting their planet
.  With the arrival of the new ships, Cole and Fury were again able to focus on the Sun Eater, which was rapidly approaching its deployment range.

“
Cole, this is Fury,” Cole noticed it was on a private channel.  “You are going to have to tell me how you knew to station those ships so close to my home when we never expected to be here.  And why no one knew you had placed the AIs on them.”

“Later Fury, I will reveal all of my secrets after this
is over.”  Cole replied.

“As you say, but we will discuss this further.”  Fury cut the connection.

The two ships hurtled through space towards the super ship.  It began to extend its four cutting arms towards the planet.  A bright light blossomed on the rear of the ship and Cole could see the surface of the sun starting to surge and roll.

“Just get your damn ass over to that ship and take it out Fury.”  Cole muttered under his breath.  It was going to be close, too damn close.  The Sun Eater could deploy its weapon arms surprisingly fast considering how long they were.  They started to receive fire from its onboard defense systems.  Fortunately their shields had had a chance to recharge a little during the flight and they were absorbing those hits effectively.

The
Retribution
suddenly lurched to one side and started losing forward momentum.  “Hal, what the hell happened?”  Cole shouted and got no response from his friend.  The ship began shuddering and slowing even faster.  “Fury, this is Cole, we are having some problems, continue on to the target and destroy that ship.”  Cole didn’t know if Fury had heard him or not since he got no reply.  Fury would continue though, Cole knew, because his planet was in danger.

Cole started to scan through his readouts
.  He couldn’t figure out what was wrong.  Then he started to take hits from incoming fire from the Sun Eater.  Shit, he was losing shields fast.  He had to make a choice and make it fast.  He chose to save his crew.  The hits started impacting on his hull.  The shields were completely down now and he was being hurt.

He ejected the core system that held Hal’s
data, he hoped he had just saved his friend.  At the same time he activated the abandon ship alarm.  He still hadn’t figured out what had happened but somehow something had brought his shields down for a split second, long enough for a hit to get through and damage his shield generators.  The rest was academic.  No shield no protection for long, against sustained fire.

He watched from the
ship’s cameras as the crew left their stations and headed for the life pods.  Cole was busy programming them to return to Nixa using the safest route possible.  In moments the ship was empty except for him.  Wait, he double checked his read outs.  There was no sensor or video feed from the med bay.  Cole, as his last act as commander on board the
Retribution
, turned his ship and pointed it at the main body of the Sun Eater and turned his grav collectors on to full power.  If the ship got close enough it could conceivably take out the super ship when it detonated.

Cole said a final goodbye to his ship and disconnected.  He raced down to the med bay and threw the door open.  The sight that greeted him was one of confusion.  Everyone in the room was on the ground in pools of multicolored blood.  They had been shot at close range.  Cole scanned the bodies on the ground looking for Sky or an explanation to what the he
ll was going on.  So focused was he on the room in front of him, he never felt the being ghost up behind him and jam the barrel of a gun into the back of his neck.

“I have placed a remote explosive onto your lady, if I die or squeeze this trigger
,” she held a small square device in front of his face, “she dies a messy death.”  Cole was shocked at the hands he saw holding the detonator.  He slowly turned around to see who had got the jump on him.  It was the goddamn astronaut he had pulled from the international space station.

“What  ...” He began but was interrupted as she back handed him across the face.

“Silence and do as I say.  Now move to the rear air lock and keep your hands where I can see them.”  She grabbed Cole by his arm and spun him down the hallway, jamming her gun into his back as he started forward.

“Who are you?”  Cole whispered still in shock.

“Pathetic humans, you are just like your ancestors.  If you don’t know about it, it must not exist.  We have been forcing consciousness switches to spy on your people for centuries and you never even knew.”  Suddenly the voice started to speak directly to his mind.  “
I had such fun interrupting your precious sleep.”

Cole staggered to a stop and she jammed the gun into his back again.  “Keep moving.”  She growled alo
ud this time.

“What about the girl whose body you stole?”  Cole asked as they moved closer to the rear air lock.

“She currently inhabits my body and we will switch back when we arrive home.  That’s right
, your ship will be destroyed and everyone will believe you went down with it.”  She laughed.  “I will enjoy torturing you for years before death will claim you.”

They arrived at the rear hatch and Cole
saw Sky bound up and leaning against the wall.  She had a large amount of explosives attached to her torso.  Cole made as if to move to her aid but the Esii slammed her pistol into the side of his head staggering him for a moment.  “Open the door.” 

Cole reached his hand forward and triggered the release.  The door slid open effortlessly.  Cole got a quick glimpse of Sky before he was shoved through and fell to his knees.  The Esii closed the door behind them.  Cole turned to look at her.  She held her hand out and closed her
eyes, Cole didn’t dare go for the gun or the detonator.

“It is done they are coming for us.”  She clipped a tether from her to him and activated their helmets.  She walked forward and opened the outer door.  Cole and the Esii were violently expelled from the
Retribution
.  Cole caught a glimpse of his ship as he spun wildly through space.  He thought it was odd that at this moment he was sad to see her in the beat up shape she was currently in.  He closed his eyes and cursed his failure.

62

Split had ignored the order to abandon ship, and he was glad he did.  He couldn’t stop the strange Earth women from doing what she did, but he could mitigate some of the damage.  He remained stealthed and followed the pair down the hallway to listen to what was said.  If nothing else this piece of Intel was worth living to share with the galaxy as a whole.  Who would have thought it was possible to swap bodies.

He followed the pair to the air lock and watched them enter and vent themselves out the back.  Once he was sure they were gone
, he shuffled up to Sky and began to remove her bindings and disarm the explosives.  The Esii had done a sloppy job and she was freed in a moment.

“We have to do something
.  She took Cole.”  Sky wailed as she bolted to the door and peered out the view port.  “Please do something!  I can’t lose him to them.”  She was crying uncontrollably.

“We will
, don’t you worry pretty thing but we need you to move back and get in another room.  When we open this door the rest of the ship will start venting and you need to get up to the bridge.”  Split said turning her to face back down the hallway.  “Go child, run.”  He smacked her on her butt to get her moving away from him.  He watched her run until she got to the stairs up to the bridge and sealed the bulkhead behind her.

Split turned his helmet on and faced the door.  “
Are you ready for this?”

The voice of his bond mate whispered in
his mind.  “Yes we will aid you through this, we will remain hidden and strike to save the human when the time is right.”

“
We can live with that.”  He opened the door and was sucked out into space.  He had been prepared though and used his small thrusters to angle himself towards the rapidly diminishing forms of Cole and the Esii.  Split’s only goal was to stay close to Cole so he could help him survive until a rescue came.  He had sent a final message to Thalo, letting him know what had happened in the final moments of the
Retribution,
if Sky couldn’t save the ship.  He hoped it had been enough.

Split saw the ship coming for the two in front of him and he managed to get close enough to get caught up in the tractor beam that pulled them all on board.  The small transport, with its cargo now secured, turned and headed out system.  It reached its jump point and disappeared into warp space.  Its next stop would be the planet Esii.