Inherited War 3: Retaliation (11 page)

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Thalo nearly jumped out of his skin, and the voice quietly spoke from the creature as it stepped out of the wall. “Neat trick that invisibility; have to show me how to do it sometime.” Thalo was thunder struck to say the least. He was staring at the diminutive creature in shock.

“Fire didn’t know you were there, and I won’t tell him, for a price.” That shocked Thalo out of his stunned trance.

“What? Now wait a minute,” Thalo said as he moved around the desk. “I don’t know who or what you are, but you are picking the wrong Worlder to level ultimatums at.”

“No, I believe you are the perfect one to ask for help. You broke into Fire’s home and spied on him in his inner sanctuary without getting caught. You are the perfect person to help me.”

Thalo looked at the being and paused before he spoke. “I like that better. Asking me for help is better than demanding it. I can assume that you need me to get rid of whatever Fire has of yours that he can make you do his bidding?”

“Get rid of? No. Save? Yes,” it responded.

“Save?” Thalo asked.

“My people,” it stated. “Fire has my people as hostage and he uses a few of us in his dealings. We have no choice because he threatens our world. We are peaceful race. We are few in number and are content with being left alone on our world. But our abilities are too useful to Fire, and he would not take no for an answer when his star ships discovered our world.”

“I find it hard to believe that even Fire has the capacity to destroy a whole world.” Thalo was thinking out loud. “It must be something else.”

“You are correct. When we refused to help him initially, he sent a team of scientists down to our planet. He captured our leader and placed him in a clear box. They pumped a strange smoke into the box and we all saw our leader melt before our eyes. He then informed us that there were small ships, he called them satellites, all around our world and that these ships would release more of the smoke if we didn’t cooperate. As you can see, we didn’t have a choice.”

“No, none that I can see. I tell you what. Help me, and when this mess is cleaned up, I will help your people. Hell, if this goes the way I hope, Fire will be rotting in a cell somewhere and unable to hurt anyone again.”

The two beings locked stares for a moment, both assessing each other for trustworthiness.  Finally it spoke.

“It seems, once again, I have no choice. I will trust you to uphold your end of our bargain,” it said.

“You have my word, friend.” Thalo stuck out his hand and the smaller being grabbed it. After shaking hands, Thalo asked one more question.

“Do you have a name? I don’t know what to call you.”

“This device,” he pointed to the translator on his throat, “is unable to translate my name and Fire has never bothered to ask me for one.”

“Well you need a name I can call you. Can’t keep calling you, you.” Thalo thought for a moment then smiled. Suddenly a memory of a conversation with Cole bubbled to the surface of his mind. A talk he had with Cole a while ago where Cole was telling Thalo about men on his home that had the knack for going unnoticed and working as spies for their governments. He had referred to them as ghosts and when he explained to Thalo what a ghost was, Thalo had liked the name instantly.

“From now on I will call you Ghost. Now Ghost, why shouldn’t I access this computer?” The two fell to talking about security and passwords on Fire’s files. They were two like-minded beings and liked each other instantly. Hours later both departed the Administrators residence and went their separate ways. Thalo was content that Fire wouldn’t be receiving any useful Intel and that he had a new lead to follow.

Uriel flew over the sleeping city and scanned the streets. After setting down on the planet, he had immediately sensed the Esii hiding out in Nixa bodies, along with some other races as well. He had found the first group readily enough and dealt with them. Unfortunately, he had caught the attention of the Nixa authorities and that had hampered his search. He wished no ill will on the Nixa on purpose, but in his mind, they were still the traitors from twenty thousand years ago who had made the same mistakes this time around. He had little patience for their interference and hoped his killing of the squad of police had deterred them from pursuit. For the moment, it seemed to have worked so he was back on the trail of the hidden Esii.

The feeling of the nearby Esii could only be described as a feeling of wrongness. They didn’t belong in this galaxy or universe. They were perversions who should have never been allowed to exist. They fouled the air and tainted the ground they walked on. Uriel was the best at hunting those foul beings; his loathing of them had heightened his ability to find and kill them. The Nixa didn’t know that of course, so they thought he was killing innocent beings. He wasn’t, but that wasn’t his problem.

By finding the hidden cells of Esii, he was hopefully finding links to who was working with them. The first group had yielded little in true information, but he had gleaned a few important things from them and their location and clothes. They had all been wearing the same uniform with the same insignia on the breast. He had found a public com center and forwarded the information on to Thalo before continuing the hunt.

Suddenly he felt a surge in wrongness. It nearly made him sick. He had to dive and land on a rooftop nearby. He could feel them all around. There had to be thirty or forty of them. He took a moment and fixed every location in his mind of where he felt them. Then he sighed. There were just too many for him to take on alone. He needed help. He flew a short distance away and found what he needed. Landing, he placed a quick call. He relayed his request and was given his answer. Uriel disconnected and moved off the street to wait in an alleyway. Within the hour, several hundred Nixa in various uniforms arrived. Thalo was with the commander.

Thalo walked up to Uriel and stopped a few feet short of the big Kin. They looked at each other. Thalo noticing the dried blood of Uriel’s previous victims still on any exposed skin. The usually brightly glowing clothes of the Kin were muted and subdued.

“Are you sure about this?” Thalo asked. “What the hell were you thinking?” Thalo was more than irritated with the Kin. He had spent the last forty-eight hours with no sleep, meeting with Nixa and meeting a new friend just hours ago in Fire’s house. He was tired and hungry and not in the mood.

“If you knew me, you wouldn’t be asking me that,” Uriel responded.

“Yeah, well I don’t know you, and I already kinda don’t like you, so make me believe it or I turn these Nixa on you,” Thalo stated, rubbing the bridge of his nose in irritation.

Uriel suppressed a snarl and calmed himself. “I am the best of my kind at finding Esii. You were there on the planet near your home. I led the first team into the planet and found the hiding Esii. You saw it, so you must concede that we as Kin have the ability to sense the Esii.”

He had been there and he had witnessed the Kin’s abilities in finding the Esii. He had believed Gavreal when he said that there were no living Esii left on that planet.

“I am the best at finding them.” It was no boast; Thalo could tell that, it was just the stated truth. “The building just down the road is filled with Nixa that have been replaced by Esii agents. Just like what had happened to the human Cole had found still alive near Earth. They have different bodies but emanate the same wrongness; maybe it’s even stronger since they are perverting a true being. There are too many for me to take on by myself, and that’s why I called you.” The Kin crossed his arms over his chest and dared Thalo with a stare to refute his claim. Thalo mulled it over for few moments then signaled the Nixa Commander.

“What floor?” he asked Uriel as the Nixa walked in their direction.

“Bottom.” He replied.

“Commander,” Thalo said, nodding his head to the approaching Nixa.

“Ambassador,” the replied with a curt nod never once taking his eyes of off Uriel.

“Bottom floor of that building,” he said, and pointed at a building on the corner, two intersections down. “What do we know about it?”

“It is owned by a manufacturing corporation. Colony Corp. They specialize in the manufacturing of materials needed for colonizing new worlds. Portable factories, power plants etcetera—all the things a new colony could need.” He was reading from a portable computer on his wrist.

“Is it a stand alone or does it have a parent company?” Thalo asked.

“Umm, hang on a second. Here it is. No parent company, but the majority shareholder is one Administrator Fire. Hmm, that seems like a conflict of interest to me.” The Nixa rubbed at his chin in thought.

“Yeah,” Thalo snorted. “That is going to be the least of his worries. They’re your troops, and it is your city, how do you want to play this Commander?”

“Surround the building, and go in with non-lethal stun guns. After all, the Kin may be wrong about them being possessed.”

“It is your show, Commander. I will stay back here with Uriel and watch the show.” The commander nodded at him and turned to direct his forces. It took no more than five minutes to position his teams at the entry and exit points of the building. Thalo and Uriel had crept forward and were hunkered down with the Commander when the call came in.

“Sir,” a quiet voice crackled over the com. “We have been made. Rear entry team was spotted moving into position. Please advise?”

The commander began to reply when the world suddenly went white. Men, ground cars, and anything not bolted down was picked up by the sudden explosion and shot like rockets down the streets. The buildings that lined the streets acted as channels and focused the massive explosions straight down each road. The entire bottom floor of the building, along with the Nixa, had been disintegrated in the blast. The twenty-story building dropped ten feet then listed to the side. Nixa who hadn’t been on the streets were trying to shake off the massive concussive blast that had knocked everyone within a few blocks from their feet and were trying to drag those Nixa who had been caught off the street. The building didn’t wait for those heroes. It fell on them and the injured, alike.

The collapsing building sent up a huge plume of dust and debris, clouding the local area and dropping unaided visibility to zero. Thalo had an ancient built second skin on, so it reacted to the blast before he did. It automatically extended the helmet over his head at the first rapid change of air pressure. The blast still knocked him around, but the suit had absorbed a majority of the blast.

Thalo staggered to his feet and activated his vision mode cycler. It worked its way from unaided to UV and then thermal. Thalo finally settled on a combination of radar and sonar, since the smoke was so think and fires were hampering his thermals. He glanced over at Uriel and saw the Kin sitting groggily against the wall he had smashed into, the commander was nowhere to be seen. Thalo ran forward into the chaos—Nixa were laying everywhere. Some unconscious, most dead from the blast. Thalo spent a frantic few minutes running from body to body trying to find any he could save. He finally ended his search when fallen building blocked access to the other streets. His shoulders sagged as he turned from the smoldering building and trudged back to where he had left Uriel. Thalo wasn’t surprised by what he saw when he arrived. The Kin was on his stomach and hog-tied. Twenty Nixa, including the commander, formed a circle around the fallen Kin and had weapons pointed at him.

The Kin turned his head and saw Thalo step from the smoke.

“Thalo, inform them that I had nothing to do with the blast and have them release me,” the Kin demanded.

“Sorry, this was going to happen no matter what. You killed some of their police. You have to answer for that.” Thalo saw a look of pure hatred pass across the Kin’s face as he spoke. “I don’t think they believe you had anything to do with the blast, but they come out a little better for having captured you in the aftermath of the explosion. You made your choice, deal with it.”

Uriel spat unsuccessfully at Thalo.

“I see,” he hissed. “Then tell me what will be done with Cole after you bring him back from whatever madness has afflicted him? He killed as many of your people as I have killed theirs. And who will find the Esii here? You? Hardly.” He rotated his head away from Thalo. “You have me, kill me or imprison me, I don’t care. Years or centuries, I have enough of both to wait out any sentence you pass.”

Thalo froze as he watched them take the Kin away. Emergency vehicles were pouring into the area at a massive rate, and Thalo was oblivious to it all. What were they going to do? Uriel was right. Cole had murdered several of his people. Once the story made it back to the Worlder system, what would his people think? Would they understand that Cole wasn’t himself, that something was wrong with him? That someone may even be attempting to control him mentally? Would they understand or would they want justice for loved ones lost. A shiver ran the length of his spine. That was a bridge to cross when they came to it, until then he had work to do.