Inherited War 1: Retribution (25 page)

PART 3

CRY HAVOC AND LET SLIP THE DOGS OF WAR

43

“I actually find myself missing the cockiness of the rail thin Thalo and the quiet bulk of his bond mate Jeth.  I was too excited to be off on my own mission to let it affect me too much though.  Sky, on the other hand, is a different story.  I know I have feelings for her but what they mean is still uncertain to me at this time.  If we live through the first phases of this attack, it is something I will have to come to terms with.  We stayed on Pitt until the relief force of Nixa showed up and the Major was able to officially resign and hand over command to his replacement.  It was harder for him than he let on and I hope he doesn’t come to regret his decision.”

Cole and Sky had been back at the ship yards for two standard days since saying good bye to Thalo and Jeth.  They had crammed the Nixa into every free space they could, aboard the
Retribution,
while the Worlders were off meeting their people and briefing them.  It had been a tight fit and Cole and Sky hadn’t had any time to themselves until they had arrived back in the system containing the already built ships and the dock facilities.  They had spent the last two days shuttling the Nixa volunteers down to the unoccupied ship yard base.  They had kept busy making it habitable for the Nixa and getting the med bay up and running.  Sky was going to have a rough time of it by herself, prepping and administering the nanites to the new crew.  She was confident she could train up the few Nixa field medics to be at least proficient enough to help her out.  Now that process was under way.  The ship had been emptied of soldiers and the lights were on and humming on the base located on one of the larger asteroids.  Cole had flown Sky and the Major down to the base in the small transport shuttle and was saying his goodbyes to Sky.

Cole gripped Sky in a fierce embrace.  He whispered softly into her ear.  “We will only be gone a few days at the most
, there should be no danger in this little task and I need you here to get your people ready to fight.”  He shifted his head so he could look into her eyes, then leaned forward and kissed her soundly.  They held that pose for twenty or so heart beats before finally breaking away a few inches.  “I will be careful and I will miss you.  Be safe and take care of everyone while I’m gone.”

“I have been worrying over you since before you were born Cole and I reserve the right to continue to worry about you for the foreseeable future.  Go straight to the AIs and back here.  No sightseeing
.  That’s an order.”  She rested her head against his chest inhaling his scent deep into her being as she clutched him to her body.

“You will see.”  He was saying.  “I will be back before you know it and we will go rendezvous with the Twin Worlders and get this party going.  Keep a close eye on our patient as well.”  Cole had transferred the still unconscious astronaut from the
Retribution’
s med bay, to the bases’, so Sky could keep her under close observation.

“I am still not sure what to make of her.”  Sky replied softly.  “She still doesn’t have anything remotely resembling normal brain function and I think there is more wrong with her mentally than the nanites can cure.”

“All the more reason to keep her under constant observation.”
  He leaned forward again and stole another kiss.  “Now I have to get going if I plan on making my timetable.  So please try not to worry,”  he said with a smile as he detangled himself from her embrace.  Cole rested his hand on the side of her face and stared at her.  Slowly he turned and headed back down the hallway that lead to the hanger bays.  Sky stood in the same spot he had left her, until he had left her line of sight.  She stared at the last spot she had seen him as he turned a corner.  She snuffled a little and dabbed at her eyes wiping her tears away.  A quiet voice sounded behind her.

“Is that altogether wise of you
, Doctor?”  It was the Major.  She turned to face him.

“I don’t see how it is any of your business and I would ask you to stay out of my
personnel affairs.”  She moved to go around the Major but he stepped in front of her blocking her way.  “Major let’s not get off on the wrong foot here please.  I have great respect for what you and your men are doing but I will not tolerate anyone interfering in Cole’s and my business.  I was stuck on that god forsaken ship for over twenty years.  I watched Cole grow from a baby into adulthood and I have loved him every step of the way.  If my being with him can replace any of the bad memories with good ones, then it is the least I can do for him.”  Anger flashed in her eyes as she spoke.

“You misunderstand me Doctor.  All I meant was what about the one you were engaged to before your kidnapping?  He still waits
for you on Nixa.”  The Major said as he turned to allow her to pass.

“That was a purely family arrangement and now
, as I have no family, I can safely say that the arrangement is null and void.  Now again I ask you to stay out of my business.”  Again she moved to go by him when he spoke again.

“Wait please, I believe you are mistaken.  What do you think happened to your family?”

If her eyes were angry before, now they were on fire with rage.  “My family was killed during the attack on the Sector 1 capitol planet.  Records on the ship that held me captive showed that after the Admiral kidnapped me he took my parents and sibling to the Sector Capitol to hold as assurance of my good behavior and cooperation.  Nothing we could find after we won our freedom suggested they had been moved prior to the attack.”  She held her arms to her side her fist made into tight balls.

“I am so sorry Doctor.” 
Said Major Fury.  “To live thinking those you loved were dead, it’s unimaginable.”

“
What did you say?”  She growled at the Major.

“Your family is alive and well on Home World and have been since you disappeared all those years ago.  Your father put all his considerable power towards finding you. Your mother and sibling are safe too.  They lied to you Sky
, and for that I am sorry.  You can be glad now though to know your family yet lives.”  With that he turned to head down the hallway back to the living quarters, leaving Sky behind in stunned silence.

Her family still alive and unhurt.
  It was unbelievable to say the least.  It was wonderful and dreadful to say the least.  Her father would certainly be glad to have her back but when he found out what she was involved with, he would be very upset.  She came from a long line of politicians, not warriors.  She had never felt so conflicted in her life.  She owed so much to Cole.  Yet she owed as much to her family.  She didn’t know what to do or think about the bomb the Major had just dropped on her.

She decided to do the one thing that almost always made her feel good. 
Medicine.  Over the next few days she threw herself into her work.  She ate little and slept less, but she was determined to meet Cole’s timetable.  Especially if it helped her to forget for just a little while.

44

“Today is the first time I will be traveling alone in the Retribution.  Hal assures me that it should be an easy job, picking up his friends who will power the rest of the ships at the base.  I get a chill down my spine when I hear someone saying “Don’t worry” and “It will be easy,” because they are usually wrong.  Still, I am excited and ready to leave.  I wouldn’t mind a little excitement along the way if I get the chance though.  I will probably regret that last statement.”

Cole walked down the hallway heading for the hangar bays.  He couldn’t bring himself to turn around and take one last look at Sky.  He could hear her sniffle and didn’t want to see her crying so he plodded onward.  When he turned the corner and felt he was out of her range of sight, he stopped and leaned his arms up against the wall.  He hadn’t realized how much he would miss having her near him.  Since their escape they had not been apart.  He straightened up and started back down the hallway again.  He was damned if he was going to use her as a crutch.  He had to go out on his own and see how well he did.  If he couldn’t get this tiny job done by himself, then he had no business leading two hundred living beings and two AIs into battle.  He needed to test his metal alone.

He climbed back into the small transport and bonded with it.  A few moments later they were shooting out of the hanger into open space.  Cole pushed the transport’s acceleration to full throttle and shot towards the
Retribution
at breakneck speed.  Seeing the
Retribution
from the perspective of the little ship was awe inspiring.  She was a beautiful lady, all sleek lines and curves.  He slowed as he approached her landing bay.  He had made this run so many times over the last few days he didn’t even have to think about the landing anymore, he just gently brought the ship inside and set her down without even a bump.  Cole disconnected from the transport and locked her down for the voyage.

“
Hal, start getting the
Retribution
ready for grav jump, I will be on the bridge in a moment,” Cole said as he locked the hanger down for the upcoming jump.  As the lights went out in the bay, he headed through the doors and into the main passage of the ship.  He turned and headed down the hallway at a brisk walk.  It only took him a few moments to reach the bridge.  “All right, show me your home on the star chart please Hal.”  Cole took his customary seat in the commander’s chair.  The foot high visual representation of Hal popped up at the same time as the galactic map.  He did his God walking though the heaven’s routine and came to a stop at yet another part of the galaxy that was as far from the center of the Milky Way as you could get.  “Man, these guys really stayed as far from civilization as possible, huh?”

“Well the point was to keep all of their secret sites
, secret Cole.”  The small figure said as it walked through the galaxy.  “The majority of the people, and explored worlds of the galaxy, were generally found more in the core of the galaxy.  It was natural to hide their projects out here on the fringe where no one ever really goes.  Ah here we go.”  Hal cupped a star in the palms of his hands.  “This is my home.”  The computer was showing no information was contained on the mainframe as to the makeup of the system.  “This star won’t be on any other galactic map in the universe, because it’s not really a star.  I didn’t know what else to use as visual representation on the map.  It is, in reality, just a giant computer floating in the void.”  He sounded kind of sad when he said that.

“It must be rough to be stranded all alone for thousands of years in the middle of nowhere.”  Cole said trying to sound sympathetic.

“Yes, that is a mild way to put it.  I will admit that we
volunteered for the duty and gladly accepted the working conditions.  We knew that the galaxy would want to capture and enslave us to their whims.  We knew that if we ever wanted the same choices in life that all other beings had, we needed to support those that made us.  It did get boring though.”

“No more stalling I guess. 
Let’s get this show on the road.”  Cole reached out and bonded with
Retribution
.  It never got old seeing the universe from the ships point of view.  The raw power of the universe was awesome to behold.  He felt his engines cycling up.  He transferred power from the collectors to the grav engines.  He felt the pressure building, a great throbbing urge to release the power and warp the very fabric of space and time itself.  It was very god-like he mused.  He turned the ship away from the asteroid belt and released a tiny fraction of the stored energy the gravity collectors had gathered.  The ship was there one moment and gone the next.  She had gone from standing still to the speed of light in a blink.  The
Retribution
was speeding away from the gravity well created by the systems suns.  It was only seconds before they reached the minimum distance to engage the drives.  Cole brought up the coordinates for Hal’s home.  He concentrated for a moment and set the jump on a ten second timer.  He disengaged himself from
Retribution
and sat back in the command chair.  This was still the only down-side to traveling this way.  The countdown hit zero and once again the universe felt like it broke the bonds of all matter everywhere.

Again the trip felt like only a few seconds had passed when they came out of the grav warp jump.  Cole looked up at the jump clock and saw it had been closer to a full day.  Thank god for the time loss, Cole didn’t know if he could live with the feelings of being deconstructed at a molecular level for that long.

“Cole, you missed.”  It was a matter of fact, blunt statement.  “You are about an hour shy of my home.  What happened?”

“I did it on purpose.” 
Was Cole’s response.  “We have a few things to talk about before we get to your home and we are more like two hours out because I lowered our speed to half of light speed.  Now bring up your avatar so I can look at you when we talk, please.”

Cole shifted his view to the holo displa
y where Hal’s image slowly formed.  “Make it as life sized as you can.”  Cole ordered Hal.  Without saying anything Hal grew the image above the holo display.  He stopped its growth when he reached the size of a fully grown human.  “How is that?”  The image before Cole asked.  Cole didn’t respond, he got out of his seat and walked closer to the image.  It was almost as tall as Cole was, maybe only an inch shy of Coles six foot three inch height.  He had the same black hair and air of confidence and authority Cole had noticed in him the first time he had seen the image.

He looked somehow familiar to Cole.  “Who is he?”  Cole asked quietly still staring at the image.  Hal didn’t respond immediately.  “Damn it
Hal, who is he?”  This time it came out sounding like an order.

“Your father.”
  Hal responded.  “I am sorry Cole, I didn’t think you would recognize him and he was the first image that came to mind when you asked me to make an image for you to look at.  I was hoping you would be too distracted to think about it and eventually put it down to mistaken identity.”

“How…how did you know my father?”  Cole asked.

“Cole, I was on the Admiral’s ship before even Sky and was the one responsible for finding the correct combination of DNA needed to create you.  I was the one who found your father and mother and reported it to the Captain.  Sky did the rest, but I found them.  I spent years scouring the planet looking for the right people who carried the right combinations of genes to create you, the one individual that could do what you have done.  They took your father when he was in his middle thirties and got what they needed from him.  He never even knew what had happened to him.  He had gone to work one day and found himself a few hours later somewhere other than his job with no memory as to what happened.  He certainly didn’t know about you.”  Hal gave Cole a moment to digest the information.

“Who was he? What did he do and did I have more family?” 
Cole asked with a shudder in his voice.

“He was descended from warriors.  Your family on his side fought in every
Major war your country was involved in starting at the Revolutionary War.  His father, your grandfather, tried joining the Navy at fifteen when World War Two broke out.  He joined the Navy during the Vietnam War.  After leaving the military he continued to serve his people by becoming a local police officer.  He was a cop until the day the Esii destroyed the Earth.  As for family, yes there were two aunts and an uncle.  Between them you had five cousins.  You also had two half-brothers.”

“Why, Hal, why didn’t you tell me this before
?  We could have done something to try and save them.  We could have come straight back to Earth and fought the Esii.  Why?”  Cole’s voice was trembling with rage.

“I just couldn’t Cole.  What were you going to say to them?  Hi
, I’m the son you never knew you had.  I was abducted by aliens after they got you to impregnate my mother and I am the result.  You spent eighteen years not knowing and I had no idea the Esii had found Earth.  If we had gone rushing back there we would have been destroyed along with the Earth.  I had planned on telling you later, when we went back to Earth to recruit more humans to fight but I never got the chance, with them having died when the Esii attacked, I figured the point was now moot so continued holding my silence.”

“Damn it
, Hal.  Show me my family, all of them.”  Hal knew it was useless to argue so he slowly, one at a time, brought Cole’s unknown family onto the holo display.  Finally he had a family and they were nothing more than a manipulation of light.  Cole etched the faces of his family into his memory.  Aunts, uncles, cousins and brothers all burned into his brain like lightning.  “That’s my father’s side, how about my mother’s?”

“As far as I
know, your mother had no family.  It was just her.  She met the needs of the Admiral and was chosen on that basis.  She was beautiful by human standards.”  Hal dismissed the holos of Cole’s dad’s side of the family and brought up a single exquisite looking female.  She was absolutely beautiful.  She was tall for a woman approaching six feet.  She had honey blond hair and a deep brown tan.  Cole looked into her eyes and he saw himself, and he broke down.  He spent the next few minutes leveling the most horrid curses he could think of on the dead corpses of the Admiral and Captain.  Tears streaming from his eyes the whole time.  The Esii would pay for their sins against him. “What was his name?”

“James McLeod.”  Cole McLeod leaned back in his chair and though
t about his family.