Inherited War 1: Retribution (6 page)

A
t that point Cole couldn’t contain his mouth anymore and in a moment of weakness he said,   “Where is your cap?  How can you be an Admiral without a cap?”   

Sky interjected, “Please
Sir, understand he has limited control over how he reacts to things and no inhibitions for the moment. He can’t control what he says at times, and tends toward humor or sarcasm.  Frankly I don’t know what half the things he says, mean.”  She pleaded.

“No apology necessary
, I understand that the procedures he has undergone are quite stressful and a certain amount of leeway is understandable.  This is purely a social call to meet the Doctor and human who will soon be responsible for making me one of the strongest powers in the galaxy.  I wanted to tell you two, because I think you deserve to know what is about to happen.  In a few days time when preparations are complete, we will be entering into system 1000981 a previously unexplored system on the outer rim of the galaxy.  Unexplored by anyone except the Pure Humans that is.  Inside the system is a fully automated manufacturing facility that a few decades ago started to build ships never before seen in this galaxy.  My long range scans tell me that in the last seventy-five years, roughly thirty-five ships have been fully built.  Built for a war that has not been declared yet.  A war that was to be fought by your descendants young human, against the Roche, Esii and whomever it was that backed them in their rebellion against the Pure Humans.  But alas, I managed to find them and you first, so now they will be mine and you, my pet human, will go and get them for me.”  He paused for dramatic effect, Cole supposed, “And get them you will.  Or I will activate the very small capsules located in different parts of your body that will flood your system with acid that will eat you alive from the inside out.  So you see, I hold all the cards and you are powerless to alter my destiny one single bit.”

Sky looked up at
Cole with sorrow in her eyes.  Cole looked at Sky, winked then looked towards the Admiral grinning an evil grin and said.  “I’m your huckleberry.”

10

After the pair had left
, the Admiral leaned back in the ex-Captains chair with another drink in his hand.  He had many decisions that had to be made before Captain Feng left in a few days time.  He needed to decide first and foremost whether Captain Feng would be allowed to return from his supply run to Archon alive.  He liked the Captain a great deal and no one else he knew could have done this mission as well as the Captain.  He was a one of a kind Kerr.  He was almost indispensable at this point, with his network destroyed and fragmented.  Once you come to rely too heavily on a being, that being takes a small part of you and will eventually want the rest.  No, he was too dangerous to let him live for too much longer.  He regretted it and dreaded finding someone as good to replace the Captain, but in the long run it had to be done to protect his own position.  His eyes travelled around the office.  Not a single personal touch anywhere thought the Admiral.  She still looked the same as when she launched, though there were some odd looking dents in the wall.  He mentally shrugged to himself “oh well” now on to a bigger question.  Could he trust the human to firstly get them past the perimeter security, and secondly secure access and command capabilities of a ship once there?  And for that matter should he hold on to the Doctor just in case the human didn’t work out.  He dreaded the thought of another half century search for a suitable candidate.  But it would be that much harder if he didn’t have Sky.  He would have to hold onto her until the human had done his job, then there would be plenty of time to space her.  He took a long slow drink and smiled.  Command was hard but it had its perks.  Speaking of the Doctor she was a fine specimen, he dearly wanted to see how well she held up to his brand of, well, fun.  He hit the comm button “Give me three hours to rest and freshen up then bring the doctor to my cabin.”  Yes command certainly did have its perks.

The guards walked them back down the hall to their cell.
  Cole was getting tired of staring at these blank white walls.  He almost preferred the view from the airlock.  They made it to the cell and were roughly shoved in.  The manacles were taken off and the guards backed out.  These guards had a more menacing air about them then the Captain’s.  They seemed more alert and ready for violence at any rate.  They moved with strength and confidence, never taking their eyes off of either of them.  The door slid shut and once again they were alone.  Well alone as in, no one in the room, he was sure they were being monitored.  Cole walked over to the panel and hit the button that popped out a sink.  Turned on the water and took a long drink.  Then he let the sink fill up and splashed water on his face and hair scrubbing vigorously.  He turned and lean back on the sink looking at Sky.

“Well this
doesn’t bode well for us.”  Cole started.  “This Admiral seems like a tougher son of a bitch than the Captain and his guards seem more capable to me.  It has me wondering why the big boss man was out here, so obviously unexpected by our dear Captain.  And what that means for us? At least they kept us together.  You’re much better company than me by myself, that’s for sure.”

She
laughed, Cole thought it was a nice laugh.  “I have enjoyed your company as well, and I was wondering the same things about the Captain and Admiral myself. Unless the Admiral doesn’t trust the Captain to turn over the ships once he has control of them…that is the only reason I can think for him being here.”

“Oh well, we will find out soon enough I guess
,” responded Cole.  “For right now though, I’m going to do some calisthenics then take a shower and a nap.  You are welcome to join me if you want.”  Cole started to stammer.  “I mean with the calisthenics, not the shower.”

Sky blushed.  “I would love to work out with you, but I will be showering alone.”  She smiled sweetly at Cole his cheeks turning red.  They started to laugh then got up and began working out as best they could in the tight quarters.  An hour and a half later both were reclining on the bench and cot respectively, tired and cleaned up.  Both dozed off and neither heard an hour or so later when the door slid open and the guards crept into the cell.  In a lighting fast motion, one reached out, grabbed Sky up, and put her over his shoulder. The other let loose with a right hook that took Cole totally by surprise as he was attempting to sit up.  The punch laid him out flat again and by the time he got up, they had Sky outside and the door closing. Cole jumped up but the door had closed in the few short seconds it took Cole to get there.  He pounded his fist on the door shouting at the cowardice of the guards and how they never would dare take him on fully awake and ready.  He got no response and after a few moments of futile pounding he stopped.  Breathing heavy he sat down on the bench.  He glanced up, looking around for the camera or mic that he knew was hidden in the room and said.  “I swear to fucking Christ if you harm her I will pull your damn heart out through your mouth.”  He sat back and did the only thing he could, wait.  He seethed the whole time she was gone.  Anger building.  He didn’t think he could get any angrier, he was wrong.  Was he ever wrong.

He
spent the next twenty four hours awake and angry.  He paced, sat and tried to sleep but he couldn’t stop thinking about Sky.  Almost a day after she had been snatched out of their cell Cole heard a slight hissing.  He also started smelling something out of the norm.  He was sitting on the bench at the time and when he tried to get up he found his arms and legs sluggish to respond.  He made it about half way to his feet before falling back to the bench.  He struggled for a few moments losing more and more control of his body until all he could do was move his eyes.

The door slid open.  In walked the
Admiral.  He walked in and stood so Cole could see him.  “Well now it seems you won’t be doing anything to me now, will you.  That is a very handy aerosol paralyzing agent my people developed.  It disrupts all voluntary muscle movement except for the eyes.  Very useful in situations like these don’t you agree?  Bring her in.”  The guards came into the room and deposited Sky on the bed.  Well Cole assumed it was Sky but he couldn’t tell from here.  The being that was lying in front of Cole was covered head to toe in blood and bruises.  She was naked and covered with lesions, welts bruises and burns.  It even looked like she might have some dislocated joints.  Cole couldn’t talk or move but he let his anger and hatred burn out of his eyes.  “Ahh the good doctor, she stood up well to my special brand of fun.  If I’m not wrong,” he looked at his guards and smiled, “I believe she was even begging for it at one point.”  That got a chuckle from the guards.  “Yes, yes she was quite good.  But on to more important matters.  Let this be a lesson to you my boy.  The Captain answers to me, I answer to no one. What I choose to do is my business and I will tolerate nothing from you or the woman.  You will do what I tell you when I tell you, or she will hurt more.  If she is not enough to make you follow along, there are about seven billion people on your puny planet that will suffer greatly for your insolence.  Now if we have reached an understanding blink your eyes twice.”  Cole did, what choice did he have?  “Good, good now that that is settled, I will leave you a basic first aid kit so you can help the poor Doctor along the healing process.  That is after the paralyzer wears off in an hour or so.  Please take that time to reflect on the decisions before you.”  He looked at Cole for a few moments gauging his reaction, then in one swift motion he backhanded Cole across the face.  Cole flew sideways landing on the floor.  The Admiral leaned downed and said.  “I have wanted to do that since I found out how much this process was going to cost me,  but you are about to pay off in spades.”  He turned to the guards and said.  “Sit him up so he can see the Doctor.”  He walked out leaving the guards to their task.

  After
Cole had been propped back into a sitting position, he stared at Dr Sky.  That was all he could do, though he was trying to force his muscles to work.  He was going to go insane looking at her and not being able to help.  This was the person who had kept him alive, all his life apparently, and he could do nothing to help her now when she needed him the most.  It took him almost forty minutes before he could start moving again.  She started to moan and twitch long before then.  She was hurt bad and he railed against the drug holding him in place.  It had been an hour before he finally got over to her.

He opened up the aid kit and grabbed the only hypo in it hoping it
was a pain killer. He whispered over and over in her ear.  “Please don’t die, I need you.”  He gave her the shot and she quickly stopped moaning and twitching.  He needed to move fast, that was the only pain med in the kit.  He needed to get her cleaned and bandaged up before it wore off.  He started with her dislocated shoulder.  He had never done it before but had seen it lots on TV and in movies.  He grabbed her shoulder and her arm and in a quick motion shoved her arm back into place with a loud pop.  He turned and vomited into the shower, which was fortunately still open.  He turned back to Sky, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, and got down to work cleaning as best he could on the ragged tears and lacerations on her body and face.  He found a tube of what he thought was antibiotics and slathered it over those wounds and the burn marks.  He carefully cleaned the dried and caked blood off of the rest of her body.  He thought she had to have been close to death before that sick bastard had stopped torturing her.  Once he was done, he cleaned up the bloodied remains of the kit and shoved it under the bed out of her sight in case she woke up.  He had nothing to cover her with.  They didn’t return her second skin and he had no towels or blankets to put over her and without her bonder tab he couldn’t take his off.  He had done all he could so he gently rolled her on her side opposite from the dislocated shoulder and got in bed behind her and put his arm over her to keep her warm.  The blood loss had cooled her body down considerably and she needed to get warm again.  He hoped she wouldn’t mind, but it was all he could think of to do.  His mind churned as he lay there.  He was going to alter his plans.  What the AI had said to him didn’t mean squat any more, he was going to get revenge for this one way or another.  He fell asleep wondering how the Admiral would stand up to his own brand of fun.

While they were both sleeping
, someone had placed food inside the door and removed all the waste from the kit.  Cole had a funny taste in his mouth and was wondering if they had drugged him again so he wouldn’t cause problems for who ever brought the food and did the housekeeping.  Sky was still out cold and didn’t seem to be feeling any pain at the moment.  Cole’s internal clock made it feel like only a few hours had passed but he could be wrong if the drug messed with his sense of time passing.  He rolled off the cot and grabbed up the food.  A plate of the same crappy paste he always got and a bowl, of what smelled like some kind of broth.  He shoveled his mush down faster than was probably healthy then he rolled Sky slowly over.  Her bruises had turned a dark purple fringed in yellow.  Cole’s anger flared again.  He fought it down so it wouldn’t interfere with his thinking.  He lifted her head and slid under it so she was slightly elevated with her head on his lap.  “Okay Doctor I really need you to drink some broth.  You lost a lot of blood and this will help replace it, I hope.”  He dipped two fingers in the broth and held it over her mouth letting a few drops drip onto her cracked lips.  The broth pooled for a moment on her closed mouth before her tongue slowly poked out to lick it up.  She parted her lips enough that he could drip it straight into her mouth.  It took almost an hour for Cole to get the whole bowl, drip by drip, into her.  By the time he was done, he was exhausted and she was showing signs of the pain meds wearing off.  It started slowly with low moans and some twitching then she started to fully leave the haze of the pain killers and enter the reality of what she was feeling.  He tried to hold her where it hurt less but her whole body was hurting and she didn’t want him to let go.  She screamed and cried for an hour before she finally passed out again. 

For the
next day Cole never let go of her and soothed her as best as he could.  He never slept or got up from her bed.  Whenever she started moaning he would smooth her hair and let her grip his arm as much as she wanted.  He did anything to help her through the pain.  He was surprised at how fast she was healing.  It had only been a day and her bruises were already fading.  He looked under the bandages and saw the cuts were already further along than they would have been on a normal human.  By the second day she was sitting up and only slightly wincing at the discomfort of her wounds.  She said she was in a lot of pain still, but she could handle it by herself.  “I am sorry,”   Cole said.  “They gave me nothing to cover you up with and I thought it was more important to cover your wounds than your nakedness.”  He had stopped looking at her when she had regained consciousness.  He tried to describe the markings he could remember on both the hypo and the cream.  She had said that they were a pain killer and antibiotic but they also have something called quick cure in them which sped up the healing process, but also cranked up your metabolism.  So she was glad that he had made her drink the broth to keep her energy stores up enough to let the quick cure work faster. 

“You have nothing to apologize for
Cole.  If it hadn’t been for you I might be very sick or worse.  I need some time to myself please for a while.”  She started crying.  “Please just for a while I need to be alone.”  Her body was racked with sobs and tears streamed down her face. 

Cole
moved as far away as the room would allow.  He could never understand what she was going though now, trying to deal with the pain and humiliation the Admiral had caused her.  Once again he silently made a promise to spend a few hours alone with the bastard and some pliers.