Inherited War 1: Retribution (29 page)

Cole chuckled at his exuberance and said.  “Okay
I will leave in two days on the
Retribution
and do a quick snoop and poop on the planet to see what we can see.  If nothing else, this will be a good test of
Retribution’
s stealth systems against a live enemy.  If we make it out undetected and it looks like an appropriate target, we will plan our attack.  Go spread the word and cancel the simulation for tomorrow.  Give the crews a break before we head out for real.  Anything else either of you can think of as far as targets are concerned?”  Both of them shook their heads no.  “Hop to it then. When I get back, I want to be able to have the minimum amount of turnaround possible.  So give the crews tomorrow to relax then get them moved onto the battleship.  One more thing Major, name that damn ship or I will.”

They both responded with a “Yes
, Sir.”  Then exited the briefing room.  Cole was tired.  Before he had gone to the simulator for the day’s exercises he had worked out in the gym with Sky and yet again his body took a beating from her. But he was learning and getting a little better every time they practiced.  Cole opened the door to his quarters and saw steam rising from the shower.  He smiled a little and thought it was time for a little payback for the first time Sky had snuck up on him.  He quietly took off his suit and slipped in behind her.  She was pleasantly surprised.

48

“
My feelings for Sky are very confusing to me at the present.  I know I feel something for her, but just what those feelings are I don’t know yet.  She is a very beautiful, smart, sexy and strong female, who I very much enjoy spending my down time with.  She is everything I could ever have wanted in a woman but the fact remains there is an actual human woman in a coma just down the hall from me.  Sometimes I feel like I am betraying the human race by being with Sky, when there is a chance, however small, that the human race could be reborn from myself and the mystery astronaut in the medical bay.  Right now the chances are slim that she will pull through this coma.  I may never have to worry about it and I can spend the rest of whatever life I have left to me with Sky.  But what happens if she recovers?  Do I leave Sky if she wants to rebuild humanity?  Do I say “oh I’m sorry” I would rather be selfish and screw humanity. I am in love with an alien?  These are all issues I will someday have to deal with, but for now I must concentrate on taking the war to the Esii.”

The
Retribution
ghosted through the empty void of space.  She had dropped out of grav warped space a full day outside of the system simply known as XX4426.  Upon reverting to normal space, she had dialed up her full stealth package and had gone dark.  Silent as a wraith, she had finished the journey into the system on a ballistic course heading straight towards the only settled planet in the system.  Cole had been awake and connected to the ship for the last day or so.  He was nervous about the first test of the
Retribution’
s stealth systems in a hostile environment.  So far so good.  He had chosen their point of real space reversion well outside of any currently know ranges of perimeter sensor systems so no one was alerted to their imminent arrival. Travelling from that point to their target area would take time though and he couldn’t use the main engines either.  They had fired the main engines for only a minute to build up momentum before they went ballistic, trying for as much speed as possible.  They had some maneuvering and breaking thrusters available with the stealth package but those were for small changes and slowdowns only. 

The stealth systems
that the
Retribution
possessed were formidable.  The camouflage skin made the ship disappear into the night sky and it didn’t even distort star light as it passed by.  She primarily used passive sensors to keep track of local space but also used some fairly advanced techniques to actively scan for threats.  Cole didn’t understand it all yet. As far as he could tell, the stealthed active sensors somehow used the natural radiation found everywhere in space to locate and track ships, debris and anything else they needed to track, without betraying that they were there.

Cole had left Home, he had grown tired of calling it the base
, so had finally just named the whole base, dry dock, ship yards Home, a day and a half ago with a full complement of crew.  Hal had remarked that it was much easier to do his job now that he didn’t have to keep track of all the other systems, as well as his own.   The
Retribution’
s crew was primarily made up of Nixa but there was a contingent of Worlders on board in case they were discovered and they had to engage the Esii openly.  There were five pairs of Worlders.  Ten in all, who kept their focus on the offensive weapons and reaction force in case of a boarding action.  Cole desperately hoped they would be bored and unused for this mission.

Cole had been constantly scanning the reports he was receiving from the Nixa manning the sensor stations
, and Hal’s reports on the status of the ship itself.  So far they had passed by the outer sensor platforms the Esii had set up around the perimeter of the system.  It looked like they had just floated right on by without alerting anyone of their presence.  They had passed through the orbits of the two furthest planets and were approaching the one currently held by the Esii.  The system itself wasn’t big compared to some others in the galaxy, and according to all reports was void of anything resembling value to other races.  It had a very weak red giant that gave off little light and the outer two planets were frozen solid.  The closest planet to the system’s sun was so close to it that it was baked dry and constantly washed in stellar radiation.  Nothing could even get close enough to it for it to be of any use.  The second planet wasn’t that much different than the first, though it was far enough away that the Esii and the Pures had landed on it to do some research.  The Pures had left while the Esii had stayed.

Cole had read up on the system when they had decided to test their attack force here.  He had Hal dig up all the information he could from his files on the planet.  There wasn’t much.  He had read the initial and final
reports made by his ancestors on the planets and the system.  They were pretty cut and dry as far as Cole was concerned.  His ancestors had come to the conclusion that the star had died almost a million years ago but lacked the mass to collapse into a black hole.  It ended swelling up and forming a red giant, probably consuming a planet or two as it grew.  The stars’ metamorphosis left the system barren and dead, if it ever even had life in it before the star’s death.  They found nothing else remarkable about the system so they left it with a XX designator.  That was their code for unremarkable and waste no more resources on it.  It was the 4426
th
system they had given the XX rating.

Cole was very interested in what the Esii had found out here that his ancestors hadn’t. 
He was more concerned with troop and ship levels at the moment and would worry about what they were doing here later.  “Okay people, stay sharp.  We are about twenty minutes out from the Esii base.  I want a constant feed from everyone on what they are seeing.”  Cole didn’t know why he kept whispering.  It wasn’t like he was actually talking and even if he was, the Esii sure as hell couldn’t hear him.  It was his nerves and he knew it.  He forced himself to take a few deep breaths and slow his pulse down.  He knew that good leaders never let on about how nervous or scared they might really be so he had to relax as much as he could.  This time with more volume and confidence he said.  “Hal, we are going to be focusing on what’s in front of us.  I need you to keep an eye on our back side.”

“Sure thing boss
,” Came Hal’s reply.

Cole left the recon work to the crew
.  He had only given himself one job.  He was responsible for the flying of the ship.  He had to keep his movements slow and deliberate while also being able to respond to his crew requests for better angles on targets and avoiding threats that might betray them to the Esii.  “Here we go, now remember everyone has their own assigned sectors to watch.  I don’t want anyone outside of those sectors and give me as much warning as you can if you need me to adjust the ship’s direction so you can get a better view of possible threats.”  He got a quiet murmur of confirmation from the crew.

As time and space slipped slowly by
, the tension on the bridge steadily grew.  This was the last test of the stealth package and it was going to be live or die.  Cole watched as the time and distance countdown hit all zeros.  He held his breath. He watched his readouts and visually scanned local space.  Nothing.  No reaction to their presence yet.  He slowed the
Retribution
down and put her into a high orbit of the planet and waited.  It should only take the orbiting Esii ships a few more minutes to swing into view of his people sensor net. 

Cole saw a flash of reflected light on the curve of the dead planet.  “Here they come
, get ready.”  He said firmly to his crew.  Within a few moments the orbiting ships of the Esii base were in plain view and rapidly approaching The
Retribution
.  Cole moved the ship closer to the Esii and began to increase his speed to match that of the orbiting station and ship.

The tension on board melted away once the crew started to do their jobs and they forgot how exposed they currently were if anything unfortunate happened.  Cole scanned the reports as they started to come in from his people. 
There was zero surface activity on the planet, so whatever the Esii were doing there, it was happening below the surface.  There were a dozen satellites and countless space debris holding low planetary orbits.  Cole had to adjust the ship’s orbit on occasion to avoid colliding with some of that junk.  Cole watched as the big Esii battle cruiser hovered over the planet.  God, he wanted to sneak up and blast it with everything he had.  Screw the training exorcise, he wanted some vengeance.  He forced those thoughts away and regained his composure.  He noticed he was getting a request from a sensor tech.  Cole responded to the tech’s request bringing the ship in even closer to the Esii battle cruiser.  Those things were ugly.  Not a sleek line anywhere on her.  She was a bloated mass with protrusions and bulges all over her exterior.  She would never enter atmosphere, that was for certain.

Cole saw a pinprick of light flare to life near
the midsection of the ship.  He saw two of the small spider fighter craft he had done battle with in the ruins of his home planet, boil forth and take off at what had to have been max speed.  They tracked the two ships until they disappeared behind the curve of the planet.  In under ten minutes they came out from behind them and continued on, circling the planet a total of ten times before finally docking back in the battle cruiser.  The
Retribution
stayed in a matching orbit around the planet for two hours gathering all the data they could on the system and its defenses before Cole finally started maneuvering the
Retribution
away from the planet.  Even burning the maneuvering thrusters at full, it took them almost two days to reach the minimum safe distance to avoid detection.  When they got to that point, Cole cranked up the engines and dropped the stealth systems and headed for deep space at best speed.  He wanted to be very far away before he engaged the Grav Warp drive and headed for Home.

As they hurtled through space at nearly the speed of light, Cole began reading and organizing the data they had collected.  He had let the crew return to normal watches and minimal staffing because if they were as tired as he was
, they needed some rest.  Cole couldn’t though because he needed to know that what they had at their planet was sufficient enough to be good training and light enough that they could attack with minimal to zero casualties.  With Hal’s help he slowly began to organize the data and make a plan of attack.  A wicked smile grew on Coles lips.  Yes, it would definitely be time for a little payback.  Hal let Cole know they were far enough away to make the translation to Grav Warp safely and Cole did just that. 

They arrived back at Home in one piece and the Esii were none the wiser to the scouting mission that had just taken place in their system.  Cole
quickly landed and ordered his crew to stand down and rest while he met up with the Major and his squadron commanders.  He only spent ten minutes giving them his assessment and their plan of attack.  It was as simple and straight forward attack as he could think of.  He gave his subordinates a whole day to come up with a better idea before they left.  Nobody could, so one standard day later, they left Home once again headed for system XX4426 and to re-launch a war.

49

“
I think I prefer sudden violence and action to planned warfare.  There are no nerves to sudden violence.  One moment everything is normal, the next you are fighting for your life.  There is no tense nervous waiting period before hand to weaken your resolve. If there is one thing I could avoid in this war it would be the minutes, hours or days before a planned attack. The waiting and wondering is enough to unman the best of us.  The second guessing is the worst though.  The lives of my crew depend on the plan we have made and I have decided to execute.  If I missed something or overestimated our capabilities and underestimated theirs, we could be about to bite off more that we can chew.  It is these things that I think about in those minutes, hours and days before an attack. If this attack goes according to plan I won’t even get to release some of this tension by blowing anything up.  I have to keep reminding myself that this is a training exercise for my new battleship and her crew and not for me to be overly interfering in their attack.”

The
Retribution
and her crew had left almost six standard hours before the battleship, newly named The
Reckoning
, had left its berth at the Home docks.  Cole wanted to have ample time to get back in the system and do a fast recon before the
Reckoning
jumped in for the attack.  If anything had changed in the last few days since they had left, Cole wanted to know about it and be able to update the battleship.

They followed the same procedure they had the first time, and were on a ballistic course for the occupied planet.  The
Retribution
traveled much faster in warped space than the
Reckoning
so it actually arrived about a day faster.  They had plenty of time to get in system, create the command and control the bigger ship would need to successfully attack the Esii.  Again, they had passed by the outer sensor net with no problems and were settling into a matching orbit with the Esii ship and station.

So far everything looked to be about the same as the last time they were here.  The small space station the battleship was docked
with, was still in the same position as before.  There appeared to be no new satellites or ground based structures anywhere.  Cole was looking forward to the show the
Reckoning
was going to be putting on in about an hour. 

There was no way the
Reckoning
was going to be able to jump in close enough to catch the Esii battle cruiser still berthed with the space station, so Cole was expecting the Esii to have time to deploy its Spider Fighters and head out to meet the
Reckoning
before she got into attack range.  Cole had only given himself and the
Retribution
two jobs to do during this fight.  The first was to have all the targets preloaded into the battleships computers and to ensure the Esii couldn’t make any long distance calls for help.  Otherwise Cole was just going to sit back and evaluate his people performance. 

This time Sky had come with them on board the
Retribution
so the waiting wasn’t as bad.  “How did the medic training go?  Are they going to be able to handle any emergencies over there without you?”

“Yes, Nixa combat medics are very capable at their jobs and took to my abridged training program very well.  They should be able to handle any emergency
, especially with the
Reckoning
s medical computer to help them out.  How are you doing?”  Cole liked the fact that conversations between two people linked into the ship happened as fast as thought.  It made conversations go much faster.

He was sharing a private link that only he and Sky could listen in on.  “Nervous, but good.  I don’t think we have too much to worry about but anyone who has been in the military knows about Murphy and his laws.  They tend to strike at inopportune times.”

“Refresh my
memory, I don’t recall any of these Murphy’s laws.”  Sky asked back.

“Simply put, Murphy’s law states that anything that can go
wrong, will go wrong at the worst time possible.  You can’t factor it into your plans but you can anticipate it happening at some point in time in any military campaign.  On Earth when something bad happens by accident usually someone will say “Murphy strikes again,” Cole explained to her.

“I believe I understand and have run into Mr. Murphy a time or two before.”  Cole could imagine seeing a smile on her face when she said those words. 

They slowly began to pull away from the Esii ship to give the battle cruiser some room to maneuver out, after they picked up the
Reckoning
moving in system.  Space was a big place but ships could still run into each other out here.  Cole glanced at the countdown.  One minute left until the
Reckoning
popped out of warp and onto the Esii sensor net.  Cole started to countdown with the clock when it reached ten.  The
Reckoning
was right on time.  She dropped out of Grav Warp as close to the system as she possibly could.  Cole orientated a camera towards her and magnified.  He loved to watch her deploy her small ship to ship drone fighters. 

One section of her hull plates were violently blown away from her side.  This allowed the drones to launch all as one solid unit.  Drones boiled out from her and began forming up along her right side.  As soon as all the drones were clear of her launch sides
, tractors grabbed all the loose hull plates and firmly reattached them to her sides making her seamless and unbroken again.

Happy with the rapid deployment of her drones and her approach speed in system
, Cole turned his attention back to the planet.  The Esii had been caught completely off guard.  The battle cruiser was still trying to get away from the space station and turn to meet the threat.  The spider fighters were deploying in dribs and drabs slowly, forming into cohesive units.  It looked like the
Reckoning
would be on them before they were fully ready to begin fighting.  Oh well, Cole thought to himself, at least some of the drone pilots would get some action before the
Reckoning
destroyed the battle cruiser.

The Esii finally got their ship away from the space station and that opened up another launch bay for their fighters.  The number of Spider Fighters rapidly grew
as the previously blocked launch bay cleared the space station.  It looked to be as even a fight number wise, as they could hope.  The
Retribution’
s scanner crews found and cataloged all fifty of the Spider Fighters as they emerged from the battle cruiser.  They tagged the fighters and relayed the information to the
Reckoning’
s combat bridge and to the drone pilots.  Cole watched his display as the orders to engage rolled out and a color scheme took shape for the attack.  Cole’s side kept their gold, blue, green, white and orange designators on the HUD while the
Reckoning
was a blazing brilliant white.  The Esii fighters and battle cruiser stayed coded red but with numbers that corresponded to his sides colors.  The Esii had broken into five, ten fighter strong squads.  Each of the five squads had numbers showing above them matching the various colors of the
Reckoning’
s squads, with one left over for the guns of the battleship itself.  Cole watched as his drones broke into attack formation and sped forward to meet the enemy in the first battle of the engagement and the war.

Cole was captivated by the
scene unfolding before him.  The two sides raced forward to meet each other in battle.  Cole watched the distance between the two groups rapidly approach zero and bring the Esii within range of the drone’s main guns.  The counter hit zero and the drones opened fire on the Esii.  They had the range on the Esii by at least twenty seconds.  The Esii broke wildly in all directions unable to adjust to the early, and massive amount of fire from the unknown enemies.  From there it broke down into squadron on squadron dog fights as the two bigger ships steadily approached attack range.

Cole caught a quick warning from the communications crew aboard the
Retribution
, the space station was calling for help.  “Jam that signal NOW!”  Roared Cole at the communications crew.  The crewman frantically worked to stop it but Cole wasn’t sure if he had been fast enough.  “Send a tight beam transmission to the
Reckoning
and let her know that a distress call may have made it out system.”  Cole got a confirmation of receipt of the information from the
Reckoning
’s commander.

Cole refocused his attention back to the wild dog fights going on to his front.  The Esii were over matched and underprepared.  The Drones were
, simply put, out of the Esii pilot’s league.  With no living occupants they could accelerate faster and do tighter turns than the spider fighters.  They were destroying Esii fighters by the hand full.  They had already lost half of their force with only three drones out of commission in return.  To seal their fate, the
Reckoning
was now in range to fully support the drones.  Her anti-ship guns opened up giving her gunners a shot at some kills before the fun was over.  It was over fast, in all told only seven minutes and thirty-five seconds had passed since the first shots had been fired.  The last of the spider fighters disappeared into rapidly expanding clouds of debris.  The drones reformed on the
Reckoning
to fly support as the big ships crossed into her maximum firing envelope.  Again the Pure Human ships had the advantage of greater range than the Esii and started to fire a full minute before the Esii could even respond.

To
its credit the Esii battle cruiser withstood the first two salvos of the
Reckoning
s attack and got off a partial return fire before she died a fiery death.  None of the return fire got anywhere close to penetrating the
Reckoning
s shields.  It was only a moment later, when they came within range of the planet and the orbiting station.  The station didn’t survive the first and only salvo the
Reckoning
fired at it.

Through it all
, the
Retribution
maintained its stealth integrity and continued sending updated targeting and target information.  Cole let out a breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding and relaxed just a little bit.  So far it had gone off without a hitch and now it was time to see if they could locate any survivors. 

Cole called for a tight beam transmission again to the
Reckoning
and began speaking to the Major.  “Good job Major you have successfully carried the day.  Send out a picket and begin search and capture missions.  If possible, I want some of them alive to interrogate.”  The Major didn’t bother to respond, he just started to issue orders and half the drone fighters returned to dock aboard the
Reckoning
while one quarter moved further out system to act as a rear guard.  The last quarter moved out with the newly emerging wrecker ships that would conduct the actual search.

Cole kept the
Retribution
out of any of the action just in case there was some device they hadn’t discovered still in the area taking readings on what was going on.  The
Retribution
would be his ace in the hole if they ever found themselves in a tight spot.  So he just sat back and watched his people work.

The ships
he had called wreckers, had deployed from the
Reckoning.  T
hey each picked up two drone fighters to act as an escort.  The wreckers each had two crew aboard who had previously been flying drone craft but had been recalled to operate the overly large wreckers.  The wreckers were large flying boxes and were never intended for anything other than clean up after a battle.  Their cargo holds were large enough to hold an undamaged Spider Fighter and they had overpowered tractor beams that were capable of towing massive amounts.  This was also the only time his pilots would actually be present in a small craft on the field of battle so it made Cole a little nervous to see them out there with nothing more than a two drone escort.  The Major seemed to think that it would be enough and never let the wreckers get out of range of the big ship’s guns.

After a few minutes they had given up their search for survivors amongst the
wreckage, they had been too thorough.  Every ship and crew had been destroyed.  Cole sent out another call to the
Reckoning
.  “It’s your call Major, do we go, or stay to go planet side?  Remember, a call may have gone out for help.”  Cole knew what he would do in this situation but he wanted to hear what the Major had in mind.

The Major was about to respond when alarm klaxons rang out on both ships.  A massive signal appeared on Coles HUD.  “Shit. Well Major, the decision has been made for you.  Recall your fighters and head away from those ships until you can jump out.”  Cole watched as the massive blip on his radar slowly formed into six separate battle cruisers.  That would be at least two hundred and eighty-eight spider fighters and six cruisers against his forty-eight main attack drones, twelve reserve drones and one battleship.  Not very good odds even with their advantage in tech, he hated to do it before they had found out what was going on down on the planet but they had achieved their main goal.  His people were ready to take the fight to their enemies.