Inherited War 1: Retribution (14 page)

“Yes, of course.  I should have no
problems at all with these injuries.  It will take more time, but I should be able to give her a full recovery with the rest of the equipment in the lab.”  Sky and Cole gently lifted her out of the drawer and onto the gurney Sky had brought with her.

“Do you need me to help you with her Sky?”  Cole asked.

“No, this is pretty standard trauma stuff I can deal with on my own.  Why?”

“I think I’m going to stay here and try to figure out
who she was and anything else that may be of use to us.  I am going to go through all this crap on the floor.  Try to salvage anything not too torn up, then help Hal unload this thing from the bay.  Give me a shout if anything changes, all right?” Sky went to turn away when Cole grabbed her arm.  “Thanks for helping her Sky, it means everything to me.”  Cole watched Sky push the only other human still alive in the galaxy out the door.  He turned back and began the daunting task of sorting though the tumbled junk on the floor.

Hours later and no closer to finishing his task of sorting through the detritus of the station
, Cole was leaning against the wall slipping into a frustrated funk.  He hated feeling this way.  He had no past now, no home, however bad that home had been, it was his.  Where was he going to go?  His present was a plethora of choices, most of which would probably lead to his death in the near term.  That of course left him with a very limited future.  He asked the classic question all people asked when faced with these kinds of choices.  Why me?  Why am I the one who has to figure this crap out?  Well me, Sky, and an as yet unconscious, unidentified Earth girl who may or may not live to regret surviving.   He lashed out and kicked a pile of junk scattering it all over the section he had just cleared.

“You need to relieve some stress Cole.”  He hadn’t heard Sky come down the passageway.  He jumped a little.

“Jesus, give me some warning I’m kinda edgy right now.  I thought that’s what I was doing kicking helpless junk around, exerting my male dominance upon it.”  He pounded his fist into the wall.  “I can’t find anything important in here.  When it was breached, the vacuum tossed everything around as it depressurized.  Just about everything is already broken, so kicking it seemed like a good idea to me.”  He glanced around at the piles he had been making of the various things he had found on the floor and in cabinets.  He reached down and picked up one of the sacks he had been filling.  It was a run of the mill garbage bag he had found.  Black, plastic and about half filled with all the personal items he could identify.  Hopefully some belonged to the injured girl.  “I am done here.  Besides this personal stuff, there is nothing worth trying to salvage.”  He ushered Sky out of the station and back into
Retribution
’s passageway.

“Are you going to ask me about our patient?”  Sky asked absently, as she watched the door slide shut.

“I assume if something had gone wrong you would have startled me with that instead of the stress thing
, so I assume she is at the least stable and sleeping.”  He never looked away from the station in the cargo room as he talked.  “Hal, eject that hunk of junk please.”  He turned to face Sky.  She looked worn and tired.  More time must have passed than he thought.  She had spent the last few hours working on the girl with no break and had probably come straight down here to check on him.  “Sorry, and yes you are right I need to do something, anything to feel productive.  Feel like I’m moving forward not just spinning my wheels.  I have decisions to make and am not one step closer to making them than I was before.”

“Well
, sounds like you need a distraction from your problems then.”  She looked him up and down.  “Yes definitely need to ease the tension and get some of that stress out of you.  Come with me I know just the thing.”  She grabbed his hand and started to lead him away from the cargo area.  She instantly quashed any objections he started to form and just kept pulling him on down the hall.  “Trust me you will feel better after this.

25

“
I never knew what to expect, I guess, when I had Hal out looking for survivors.  I had hoped but never for a second actually believed we would find anyone alive.  I was also no fool.  Two people could never restart a whole race no matter what certain books say.  Human kind depends on the changes genetic diversity provides.  Fishing in the family pond only leads to two headed kids and learning the banjo.  I was anxious and worried when it came time to wake the girl up.  I didn’t even know if she had seen what had happened or if remembered it. Or even if she wanted to go on living knowing we may be the last of our kind.  I hoped she was strong enough to deal with it and stay to help us.  Sky, on the other hand, found another way to channel my negative emotions.  I didn’t enjoy it at first but came to love doing it with her.”

Cole was on his back sweating heavily and gasping for breath.  Sky was over him straddling his hips and had his hands pinned under hers.  She was mildly sweating and slightly panting.  They were staring intently at each other.  “Do you have another one in you?”  She asked teasingly.  “Or have we worn out your anger for the moment?”

Cole wiggled a little trying to get some separation. 
“No, god, no.  No more, I’m gonna be sore for a year now.  How the hell did you do that four times?”

Sky stood up and headed for the far wall w
here the towels were hanging.  Cole lay panting on the ground.  “It is a fighting style all young ones are trained in.  It was developed after the purge, as not only a mode of self-defense, but of training the body to work independently from your brain.”  She grabbed two towels.  She put one over her shoulders and tossed the other to Cole.  “Of course it can also be used to relieve stress in you macho male types.”

“Trust
me, I am not feeling anything right now, especially macho.”  He slowly sat up and wiped the sweat from his head.  They had been at it for only a half an hour but he felt like he had just walked twelve miles with a fifty pound rucksack and was getting hit in the gut the whole way.  “Other than my body hurting, I am feeling less inclined toward frustrated violence aimed at random junk on the floor.  I hope you plan on teaching me how to fight like that someday.  Soon.  All I know is some basic pressure and takedown stuff the army taught me.  This is now, apparently useless because there is no one left to use it on.”  He glanced up at her.  “It was odd though, I started to pick up on it fairly fast and was moving at a greater speed than I ever could before.”

“I had almost forgotten about that.”  She said.  “Well
, better late than never I guess.  When I was altering you for the Captain, I added some of my own alterations into the mix.  Some of the bacteria increased your muscle mass for strength, nervous system for faster reflexes and movement, and increased the total area of accessible brain tissue for learning and memorization.  You should learn things quicker than normal, maybe only needing to be shown one or two times before you can repeat whatever it is.”

“Cool
, can’t complain about any of that I guess.  Well, I am going to hit the showers and get some rest.  Try to get some inspiration on what we need to do next and all of that.  Thanks again, I needed that work out Sky, I would love to do it every day if we can.”  Cole walked up and rested his hand on her shoulder.  “You are one of a kind there doctor.”  He gave her shoulder a squeeze and turned to walk out of the gym.  He grabbed at his right shoulder, squeezing gently and rotating his arm around trying to relieve the aching pressure in his joint.  Man she was good, he never realized he stood no chance against her until the second time she had him flat on his back on the floor.  He got to his quarters and went inside.  He deactivated the bonding agent of his human made second skin and tossed it onto his bed.  He looked around his room.  He hadn’t cleaned it up since he had been raging around in here earlier.  He shrugged and decided to clean it later.  He stepped over to the shower stall and dialed it up to almost max heat and stepped in.  The showers on board, he had found, could clean in two different ways.  The first, and one Cole liked, was the standard water shower with a button to add soap to the mix.  The second would be good for quick clean ups.  It was some sort of disinfectant spray and UV light combo that left him clean but unsatisfied.  He had tried it once, but preferred the tried and true method.  Plus the heat helped him relax his muscles.  He closed his eyes and put his head in the water stream letting it soak him completely.  At that point, for the second time today, Sky startled him and this time made him shout a little as she slid into the shower behind him.  He turned to ask her what she was doing, but didn’t get a chance as she covered his mouth with hers.  Yes, she definitely had fun and interesting ways to help him relieve stress.

26

“
It seems that no matter what race or where in the galaxy they come from, women tend to complicate things.  Not that I mind too much, but it can now be stated as a universal truth.  I wasn’t ready to deal with my own issues yet and Sky goes and throws me this giant curve ball.  I didn’t help matters by going along with her.  I guess I could have kicked her out of the shower, but that in itself would have created different problems.  As you can probably tell I have little to zero experience with females of any species. It is something else I will have to muddle my way through.  Don’t get me wrong I have feelings for Sky I just don’t know what they mean yet.  Hell I’m only nineteen and possibly the last man…umm anywhere.  Now, after doing what we just did I have to focus on our next step and try not to get distracted.  Yeah a nineteen year old not letting himself get distracted by a hot chick.  That’s gonna happen.”

Cole was awake and staring at his ceiling with Sky laying half on him, arm thrown over his chest.  She was sound asleep and he was wide awake.  He was gently stroking her hair and thinking about the future.  He was rapidly coming to a decision about a few things.  He was stuck on Sky though.  They hadn’t said anything to each other since they had been at the gym.  She had just come in and took control over him.  It had been very nice, hell it had been the best he had ever had.  But he had enough complicated things in his life at the moment and this was a big one.  Other than Hal, Sky was the only person he knew in the galaxy and he was going to be relying on her knowledge of said galaxy very heavily over the foreseeable future.  Was he in love with Sky or was it just lust?  He didn’t know and he didn’t know what it meant for her.  Well he was going to have to shelve this train of thought for a later date.  He needed to focus on a plan for the rest of his life.  He had almost come to a decision on that one.  He never wanted to see that goddamn Sun Eater ship destroy another planet again.  If the Esii, or whatever they were called, found out he was still alive and had Sky helping him, her planet could be next.  It was up to him to stop them and remove the threat of the Sun Eater from the galaxy.  The problem was he didn’t think they could do it alone.  Even if the chick from the station wanted to help, Hal had said a minimum of ten people jacked into the ship were needed to maximize attack and defense.  With no humans to draw from and an AI that was very leery about letting non humans receive implants to allow bonding with the ship’s systems, he was stuck on where to get help.  Now to top it off, his arm was going to sleep under Sky.  He tried to shift around a bit to allow blood back into his trapped arm.  Sky shifted with him and snuggled closer to his body, which distracted him even more.  He slowed his breathing and tried to focus his mind.  Sky shifted again.  Oh god damn, now even his body was turning against him.  Baseball, think about baseball.  Oh well, if you can’t beat em, so to speak, join em.  It was his turn to surprise Sky.

Other than having a better time the second time around
, all it achieved was them both being awake and staring at the ceiling.

“
What’s on your mind, Cole?  Well, other than you obviously were thinking about me.”  She said as she rolled over onto his chest and laid her head on his shoulder.

“Ha-ha you started this remember.  I was making plans or trying to anyway.  But it all comes down to one problem
.  Whatever we are going to do will require us getting more crew.  The first course I would like to pursue is trying to locate your family.  Hal brought over all the data and personal files from the other ship, we could get him to comb through it to find a clue to start us in the right direction.  The second thing we will do is take out that damn Esii Sun Eater.  If anyone is going to help us, it will only be after that threat is eliminated.  But we need bodies to do it.  Even this small ship needs ten persons bonded to the systems to be an effective fighter.  I just have to convince Hal to let more nonhumans be implanted and bonded.  As for that, we have to find a group willing to risk siding with us against the Esii and whoever else is allied with them.  All I know about the galaxy is Jack and Shit, and Jack left town.”

“
Sir, I have started running a search on the location of Dr. Sky’s family.  It should only take a moment to find the information if there is any.”  Came Hal’s unexpected voice over the intercom.

“Oh my god
! Hal have you been here the whole time?”  Cole sat up without warning, dumping Sky off the side of the bed.  “Man, sorry, Hal just startled me.”  He reached down to help Sky back under the covers.

“
I assure you my interest in human coupling techniques is purely academic.  I never had the chance to study humanity after I was created and am looking forward to documenting human behavioral patterns.  I am compiling an extensive file on yourself and how you act and react to stimuli and outside influence.”

“What do you mean documenting?  Did you film all of that Hal?”  A red flush was creeping up Coles face.  Sky started to giggle and tickled him under the covers.  “Well
, I don’t know about your planet but on mine someone who videos people doing it, without prior consent, is a criminal.”

“If you are offended
Sir I will delete the visual record and just leave my own observations and critiques.”  Cole could almost swear he was hearing sarcasm in Hal’s voice.

“Oh you’re a critic to
o, are you?  You think this is funny as well?  Alright, new rule as of now.  When I am in here you, Hal, are to stay out unless it is an emergency or I call for you.  No more peeping at me.  In fact all crew quarters are off limits to you unless invited in by the occupants or they are vacant.  I grew up in a country where the right to privacy was upheld by the laws of our nation and I enjoy my privacy still.  Now go find the information on Sky’s family and have it ready for us to go over at breakfast.”  He looked over at Sky.  “And you are just as bad.  That didn’t bother you at all?”

“My people are very open about
ourselves and our sexuality and I knew he was exaggerating because he knew you were uncomfortable.  He had you in a corner and knew it, I just helped a little.  Now, as far as the other things, I will think on them and see if I can come up with anything that could help us out.  She leaned into him and kissed him.  “Thank you for remembering my family.”  They both lay back down.  Finally Cole closed his eyes and found the sleep he needed, Sky did too.