Inherited War 1: Retribution (11 page)

20

He moved as quietly as he could through the
maintenance hallway, parallel to the main hallway, trying to follow the Admiral and his prisoners to the airlock.  It was time consuming and slow going at times.  The passageways were narrow, almost too narrow for him to squeeze through.  He continued on though, hoping for a chance to finish this before the Admiral got his hands on this new fleet.  He turned a corner just as the four shots that were fired on the human ship impacted the wall of the main hallway blasting through the wall into the maintenance passageway and out the other side.  He was glad he was moving slow now.  Creeping up to the newly made holes in the wall, he hunkered down to see what there was to see though them.  He saw the Admiral and the Doctor still in the hallway and a team of Thrashodon mercs stacked up in the airlock on either side of the outer door.  He had a good enough view that he could see all the way to the end of the docking tube and see the human hugging the wall in an effort to stay out of the open door way.  He slowly pulled out his multitool and began to loosen the fasteners that held up this piece of wall to the frame.  He worked slow and steady trying to minimize the noise.  He didn’t need all of the fasteners off just enough to let him burst through the wall when the time was right.  He hoped the other mercs would be going into the human ship leaving him alone with the Admiral and the doctor.  He knew he could take the Admiral down before he knew what was happening.  He finally got the wall loosened to the point he thought he could bash it open when he charged out.  He leaned back against the far wall and waited for the opportune moment to strike.  He had read through the Admirals files, all of them that pertained to him anyway.  He hadn’t liked what he had seen.  The Admiral was a sick being and had to be put down and former Captain Feng was the one to do it.

21

              The Admiral was pacing the hallway in frustration, being extra careful to stay out of the line of fire from the doorway.  Dr Sky was squatting on the floor with one of the two guards standing over her with its weapon aimed at her.  So far nothing had gone according to his plan and it was maddeningly frustrating.  He hadn’t expected to find an interior defense system operational on board the ship, let alone it wipe out some of the most expensive mercenaries in the galaxy.  At least he had the second half of that group still alive, but absolutely useless until the ships systems were down.  “What the hell is taking so long?”  He growled under his breath.  “How much time has passed?”  He asked his guards.

“Forty minutes
Sir,” was the reply.

The
Admiral pulled out the remote and looked at his guard.  “Tell me when the hour is up.”  He didn’t want to kill the human because he didn’t want to wait another few decades to try this again.  He hoped that his decision to send the human in alone hadn’t been clouded by his haste to get into the ship.  Bah.  This human was an ignorant savage, how could it possibly know how to do anything on that ship other than what he was told.  He had no help on board so there could be no possible harm he could do.  Better to have him dead than in control over there though.  “Time Check.”  He barked.

“Five minutes left
Admiral.”

He stopped pacing and went to the airlock door.  He looked down at the Doctor.  She had been silently weeping the whole time
.  He shook his head and popped open the safety cap on the remote detonator. Then he placed his finger on the trigger mechanism. 

“Anyone there?
  This is Cole on the ancient’s ship. Come in, over.”  The voice blared out of the over head speaker.  “If you can hear me I think I have the systems powered down now.  If I leave I think they may rearm so you might want to send a team over now.  The system will need a complete reboot before you can take full control.”

The
Admiral smiled an evil smile.  He turned around the corner and signaled to his mercs to go ahead on inside.  He turned back to retrieve the doctor and his own guards as the mercs rushed down the hallway towards the ship.  “Well my dear, it seems that you did your job and created someone who could get me these ships.  For that I will promise you a swift death.  But take heart, you have allowed a new power to take shape in the galaxy, one that will change the course of history for the better, better for me that is.  Bring her,” he said to his guards.  He turned to head towards the airlock when he heard the same popping noise he had heard before when the first team had gone in.  The bravo mercs hadn’t even made it into the ship.  They had been taken down in the docking arm about halfway there.  The Admiral swore as he turned to get back in the hallway and out of the line of fire.  Just as he turned around to run back, the panel that now had eight holes in it exploded outward.  It sent one of his guards sprawling and the Doctor crashing to the floor.  Suddenly a mass of muscle slammed into the Admiral taking him to the ground.  He felt his back hit the floor and his breath shoot out of him.  He also lost his grip on the detonator.  Seconds after they hit the floor hands snaked around his neck and started squeezing the life out of him.  The Admiral’s eyes focused long enough for him to see his attacker was Captain Feng.  Feng leaned in close and whispered.  “You sick bastard I am going to make you pay for everything you did to me and the other victims.  I saw your precious files and I can’t allow you this kind of power.  You bred me and changed me, so I wasn’t like any of my kind anywhere in the galaxy.  You lied to me and you experimented on me and for that you will die.”

The last remaining guard, the one Feng never saw because he was standing outside of the range of the holes in the wall jumped on Feng’s back getting his arm around Feng’s neck and trying to wrench him off backwards.  When that didn’t work he started to slam his pistol into the side of Feng’s head.  He didn’t dare shoot at Feng for fear of hitting the Admiral.  Eventually the repeated slamming of the pistol disorientated Feng and loosened his grip on the Admiral.  The guard immediately wrenched back as hard as he could, ripping Feng off the Admiral.  They both tumbled backwards with Feng on top of the guard.  All the Admiral could do was lie on the floor panting for breath.  The guard under Feng was trying to get him in some kind of submission hold, to either incapacitate him or buy time until the other guard got up to help him.  He had lost his pistol in the struggle and was trying to hang onto Feng for dear life.  The other guard was groggily starting to get to his feet, shaking his head in an attempt to clear it.  “Doctor, get the pistol,” Feng managed to say through clenched teeth.  Sky looked up at Feng from her sprawled position on the floor.  She could see him struggling with one guard while the other one was getting slowly to his feet.  She saw the pistol a few inches from her feet and the Admiral was no were to be seen.  She forced down her fear and began to slide backwards.  She hooked the pistol with her foot and slid it up into her hand.  She rolled into a sitting position and raised the gun up.  She took aim and squeezed the trigger.  Nothing happened, so she squeezed again.  Still nothing

“Safety on the right side by the trigger
, turn it off.”  Wheezed Feng.  “Hurry.”  He choked.

She looked and saw the button he was ta
lking about and turned it to the off position.  She got the gun back up just as the second guard was turning towards her drawing his own pistol.  She barely had time to aim before she fired off five shots in rapid succession.  All but the last one missed.  It hit the guard’s forehead dead center.  The guard slowly toppled backwards.  Sky stood up on shaky feet.   She looked down at Feng, watching him struggle for his life.  She put the gun to the guards head and pulled the trigger.  She got a face full of blood for her efforts.  Feng lay gasping for breath.  He raised his hand pointing behind her.  Sky went to turn around just as the Admiral hit her in the side of her head with his gun, propelling her forward to trip over the prostrate Captain Feng and sending her sprawling.

“You traitorous cur
, Feng. I will have your skin flayed off every inch of your body.”  Yelled the Admiral.   He waived his gun towards Feng then remembered the Doctor.  He pointed the pistol at her back.  “And you, you lousy bitch, will not get the quick death I promised. I will enjoy every moment of making you scream.”  He reached his hand out towards the comm switch on the wall getting ready to call for more guards. A loud report sounded from inside the airlock.  The Admiral suddenly stopped in mid-reach.  He stood there for several seconds staring straight ahead before collapsing into a heap on the floor.  There a few feet behind where the Admiral had collapsed, was the human Cole.  Cole looked at the Admiral for a second then hurried over to Sky’s side to help her stand up.  “I am sorry it took so long for me to get here to help. I had to be sure that I took out the other team of mercs before I risked coming for you.  I’m just glad I got here in time.”  Cole wrapped Sky up in a crushing hug.  They held each other for a moment before he held her at arm’s length to make sure she was unharmed.  That’s when he noticed Captain Feng slowly getting into a sitting position on the floor.  Cole extended his arm and put the barrel of the pistol up to Feng’s head.  Feng froze and started to speak.  “Please listen.”  Was all he got out before Cole pulled the trigger and splattered Feng’s brains against the far wall.  Feng collapsed into a heap on the floor.  He looked back to Sky, grabbed her hand, and tugged her towards the airlock.  “Come on, we have to go.  It is safe for you to come on board with me.  There are some things I have to explain, things I couldn’t tell you before but we have to get out of this ship and detach from it quickly.”  Cole began pulling her by her hand down the docking tube.

S
ky finally started to move on her own and they both raced down the tube and into the ship.  Cole closed the inner door but left the outer one open so when they disengaged, the vacuum would take the bodies of the dead mercs out with the atmosphere.  Cole led the way down a few different hallways to a stairwell that went up into the ship’s bridge.  “Okay Hal, let’s get separated from the other ship and bring the weapon systems fully online.  Get us out to a minimum safe distance before you blast them, though.  We don’t need any blowback damage.”  He led Sky to a crash chair and buckled her in.  “Stay here until we disengage and take care of that ship.”  He took a few steps and jumped into the Captains chair.  “All right, go when you’re ready Hal.”  Cole said, being very careful not to touch any instruments.  Suddenly the ship came totally alive.  Lights blazed in all of her hallways and rooms on the inside, and the engines hummed to life making the exhaust ports glow a vibrant blue on the outside.  “The Admiral’s crew has got to be freaking out right about now,” said Cole.  Suddenly, the ship shuddered a little then there was a shrieking sound of metal being torn.  Through the windows they saw the starscape begin to rotate and move, they were free from the other ship.  Cole saw some of the bodies from the ship go rocketing past the viewport.  One he could tell, was the Admiral’s.  They raced away from their old ship until it got to a minimum safe distance, then it turned and faced dead on to the Admiral’s ship.  “He is trying to run away,” said Cole.  “Fire when ready, Hal.”  A bright sun like object streaked away from the nose of Cole’s ship.  It closed the distance between the two ships in a heartbeat and impacted directly in front of the engine exhaust ports setting off the ship’s grav collectors.  The Admiral’s ship went up in a flaming ball of plasma, creating a miniature sun for a short time.  The viewports automatically darkened during the brief period of intense light.  As the explosion dimmed, the windows unshielded themselves.  Cole let out a sigh of relief and swiveled his chair towards Sky.  He smiled at her when she looked up.  He was scared for a moment when she didn’t respond in kind, but it was only for a moment.  She hit the release on her restraint’s and literally flew across the deck into his arms.  She gave him a fierce hug and said, “Oh thank you Cole, I knew you would save us, I just knew it.”  She collapsed onto his lap.  “How did you do it?  How could you have known how to use all the systems on board the ship?” she asked him.

“Well I had a little help
,” he replied.  “Do you remember when they took me down to the AI core?”  She nodded her head yes.  “Well, they had an ancient human AI imprisoned in the core controlling certain functions of the ship.  The AI was actually created to run this commando ship.  The Captain, unfortunately for him, had to let the AI out to break the codes on the Admirals files and unbeknownst to him the AI stayed free.  As soon as the two ships made a physical connection, Hal, that’s what I named the AI, jumped from their ship to our ship.  Since he was created to help run this ship he slipped right in and we were able to help each other out enough to pull off this rescue.  We both agreed that no one who knew about us, and wasn’t with us, could be allowed to leave.  I would feel bad for the crew but as Hal pointed out, they were working for a criminal organization of their own free will.  We were the only two unwilling people on board.”  She untangled herself from him and stood up.  “This ship is a masterpiece compared to the one we just left.”  The human ship was comparable in size to the other, but the bridge was much smaller and had a better control system if you could use it.  “Is it time yet, Hal?”  Cole asked.

A voice came out over the speaker system.  “Yes
Cole, I have set up the protocols to accept your mental imprints.  They just need contact to start the initial process.  Place both hands on the ends of the arm rests.  This will be different than the test the Captain ran on you.  You will not be bonding with a small sensor probe, but with the whole ship, so it may take some time to complete the process.  Remember it requires complete focus to activate and use the ship’s systems.”