Inherited War 1: Retribution (15 page)

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“
I had never wanted to be an officer while I was in the Army.  I preferred to be a follower not a leader.  Someone else came up with the plans, I just helped execute them.  Now I have no choice.  Not only that, but I have no clue about how to fight what’s basically a naval battle in space.  The distances are massive, the battle field is a 360 degree sphere and the vacuum of space is always trying to get in.  Will it be like Star Wars and all close in ship to ship fighting, or would we be so far away we would never actually see each other?  Or some combination of both or either.  If I can survive the first few battles, I can learn from mistakes and better prepare for the next one.  If I can survive.  I have an edge with the Retribution, but will it be enough?”

The shrilling alarm broke through the haze of Cole’s sleep.  He was instantly awake and reaching for his suit.  “Hal what’s going on?”  Cole danced from one leg to the other putting his suit on.  Slightly slower but also fully awake, Sky was sitting and pulling her suit on as quickly as she could.

“I believe we stayed
in system for too long Cole, we just picked up four ships coming within range of our sensors.  They appear to be Esii Spider fighters.”  Hal responded.  “I would advise getting to the bridge ASAP.”

“On our way
, bring systems online and get weapons and defenses primed.”  Cole silently cursed himself.  He had made a rookie mistake.  He had stayed in a system that had been attacked and his people exterminated.  The Esii was bound to leave sensors or satellites or something to report any activity in system, or just have random patrols out looking for us.  This confirmed that they had to know at least one human had survived and depending on how much information they had gotten from the Admirals files, that the human would have access to an ancient ship.  Damn, he was a fool.  He had let the whole situation get away from him and he didn’t like it.  He hit the door to his cabin at a run and sprinted down the hall.  He could feel Sky close behind him.  He skipped the lift and took the stairs three at a time.  The door to the bridge barely opened in time to admit him.  “Kill the Siren Hal, there is no need for it anymore.”

“This is a ship
Cole, it’s called a klaxon, not a Siren,” Hal responded.  Cole had seen way too many Sci-Fi movies, he had expected the bridge to be darker and filled with flashing lights.  It looked exactly the same as before, brightly lit and no lights blinking or flashing.  He vaulted into the Captain’s chair and gripped the arm rests.  His thoughts were instantly flooded with information.  He started to organize the information into a 3D grid.  In moments the area in front of him was filled with the moon, debris from Earth and four flashing lights representing the Esii ships.  He started to access the ships information on Esii Spider Fighters.  He only got basic information on them.  Small two man fighters designed for ship to ship and defensive screening.   Main weapon is magnetic rail gun that shoots titanium rounds at near light speed.  Secondary weapons could either be long or short range missiles, carrying payloads in the megatons.  Capable of high speed maneuvering, with grav drives and collectors allowing interstellar flight.  Cole ran the numbers on a stand up fight with them.  Close, if he could knock some out fast and keep the rest from engaging him all at the same time, they had a chance.

Cole powered the ship down and engaged his stealth package.  “What is our plan here
Cole, are we gonna wait them out?”  Asked Hal through the link.  Talking while linked was fast as thought.

“Not quite, if they don’t change course, I plot them as passing within a thousand miles of our position.  If they stay on course, that will put them, roughly to our front.  We wait powered down until they hit the closest point to us which should just put them facing away.  Then we come to full power and light them up from the rear.  I think we can get two of the four before they really know what’s happening.   We should get a decent lock on all four of them but I’m only counting on taking out two.  The other two, if they are smart, will split and circle getting one of them behind us no matter what we do.  Our armor should stand up to any one ships attack, leaving us to focus on taking out the other one.  Then we can turn and deal with the last one at our leisure.”

“I don’t like it
Cole, but I will aid however I can.”  Said Hal.

“I have gotten pretty good at the defensive measures.  I can handle counter measures and defensive fire if you want me to Cole?” 
Asked Sky.

“Perfect, you do that Sky
.  Hal, I want you on sensors and giving me and Sky any information you can on their movement and attacks.  I don’t want to be surprised by these bastards and I want you on damage control too.”  The conversation lasted only milliseconds and then Cole was powering down the ship to the maximum levels the stealth package could hide.  Cole used the maneuvering thrusters to adjust his direction to be lined up for an optimal attack vector.  “Visual targeting only at first, nothing that will give us away.  Paint them with the laser as they go past.  Feed data from it into targeting and we will try getting all of them at once.” Cole’s attention was locked on the range finder.  In less than two minutes they would be in range of his missiles.  He watched the counter slowly count down.  They hit the point of closest proximity right on schedule.  Cole saw four lasers reach out and paint the spider fighters and achieve a solid lock.  With a thought he launched four of his missiles.  They would take only four seconds to reach their targets.  As soon as the birds were away, Cole slammed all power back into his systems.  He shut down the stealth and hit the fighters with every sensor suite he had, trusting to Hal to read and interpret them into useable information.

To Cole’s mind the missiles took forever to reach their targets.  When they did they lit the night sky with four brilliant blasts.  Hal quickly sorted out the information he was
receiving.  One totally destroyed, one limping and two turning and burning away from each other.  Cole designated the one on the right as the primary and hit the left one with a defensive target lock icon for Sky to track.  The computer file had said they were fast and capable of some hairpin turns, Cole hadn’t really understood exactly what that meant.  The two remaining fighters seemed to go from heading away to a 90 degree turn and burn in the blink of an eye.  Cole had the advantage though.  His ship did actually respond as fast as thought and he had the
Retribution
alter her course to chase down his designated target.  It was heading toward the nearest debris field as fast as it could.  Cole was still in range for his missiles but he wanted to conserve the finite munitions for now so he switched over to his main plasma cannon.  He needed to get a little closer to be in the maximum effective range of his cannon so he started to cram as much power into the maneuvering engines as possible.  It was going to be close.  The fighter would hit the edge of the debris field just as he came in range of Cole’s cannon.  His first shots had to count.  The plasma would travel at near the speed of light so if he got a clean shot off it would be over for that fighter.  He watched the numbers count down.  “Sky, the second ship is on our six o’clock and is in range to fire.”  He heard Hal updating Sky.  He felt Sky access the defensive programs and start running an anti lock program.  The program basically read the enemy targeting lock system and sent back an overload of signals prohibiting the system from making an actual lock, forcing the pilot to rely on visual targeting only.

Cole shoved those
thoughts from his mind, trusting Hal and Sky to handle the Spider behind them.  His range finder finally pinged green and he let lose a string of plasma at maximum range.  At the same moment he registered his rear hull plates taking a beating from the fighter behind them.  He was using his forward rail guns to try and batter
Retribution
.  The distraction cost Cole.  He refocused on his target and suddenly realized he had missed and lost the fighter in the field.  He snarled and pulled the ship up in the tightest turn he could, catching the rear fighter by surprise.  He let loose with his cannon and watched the fighter turn into particles of dust.  He took two missile hits on his right side.  Sky had gotten six of the eight missiles the last ship had fired on him, but two had slipped through at the close range.  The rail gun rounds had felt like tiny jabs to his body while the missiles felt like round house punches.  He vaguely heard Hal rattling off a damage report.  Cole ignored him and turned a hard right trying to find the last fighter.  “Hal I need some help here, where did he go?”  Cole almost shouted.  Hal brought up the scanning systems and put them full front.  Cole never stopped, he kept pushing forward in the direction the hits had come from.  There off to his nine o’clock, the scanners were picking up an energy source behind a large asteroid.  Cole turned
Retribution
more to his right so he could swing around, wide of the giant floating rock the Esii was hiding behind.  As he turned back to the left he caught sight of the ship, at what looked like the same time it saw him.

The fighter took off like a shot. 
Going perpendicular to Cole’s line of travel.  But he was too late, Cole had a solid lock on him now and turned to match his course.  His targeting reticule turned green and Cole released a steady stream of the billion degree hot plasma.  The last ship disappeared in a blossoming explosion.  Cole did a quick check on his systems and damage control.  The rail gun had done nothing more than scratch up the hull plating, the missiles on the other hand had actually managed to put a rather large dent in two side hull plates.  Nothing major, but it had rattled the ship around a bit.  “Hal, am I wrong or did we just kick their asses?  Get some repair drones on that side hull plating and make sure that’s the only damage.  Again, good job you two.”  Cole severed his bond to the ship and slammed back into his body.  He was tired, more tired than he should have been and his side actually hurt a little from the missile hits.  He stood and stretched turning to face Sky.  “I’m sorry Cole, those two got by me.”

“No worries
, pretty good for our first time and anyway if I hadn’t gotten distracted by that rail gun fire I could have gotten him.  He never would have shot us.  So lesson learned for us both I guess.  Now Hal, let’s get over to our disabled friend at the ambush site and see if he feels like talking to us.”

“Already on it
Sir, and congratulations on a successful first engagement.”  Came the response.

Cole stretched his sore muscles
some more as the windows opened to give him a good view of space to his front.  Sky stood and said, “I am going to go to the med bay and check to make sure our patient wasn’t bothered too much by your flying antics and the bouncing around by the Esii attacks.”  She gracefully, as always, walked out of the bridge.  Cole watched her go then turned back to the viewers.

“Repair
drones are currently working on the damaged hull plates, estimated time to completion is thirty minutes, no other damage to ship to report Sir.  Coming up on the disabled ship momentarily.”

As they cleared the local debris field and started to close on the disabled ship
, Cole grew tense.  He may get a lead here as to where the Esii keep the Sun Eater ship if he can get these fighter pilots to talk.  “When we get within tractor range Hal, go ahead and lock it up and get ready to pull it into boarding range.”  Just as he finished giving Hal his orders a sudden and very bright detonation lit up the forward area of space.  “What the hell just happened?”

“Initial readings are saying that the ship was trying to control a
buildup of energy from its grav collectors.  Not from damage but was setting a trap for us.  It looks like the damage it suffered was too severe and the collectors went critical before we got there.  Sorry Cole, but maybe it was for the better, you haven’t met an Esii yet.  You probably never want to meet one up close.  Even if he is a prisoner.”

“
Damn it.”  Cole swore for a few moments as he watched what was left of the two ships spread out to join the rest of the debris field.  “Can we track where they came in from?  Retrace their steps at all?”

“We will need to head over to where they jumped in system to see if we can find their signatures, but it is likely we can.”

“Good
, do it then. I want to know where those bastards came from.”

Cole settled back into his chair and let Hal guide them through the remains of
Earth and out the other side.  Sky came back on the bridge and reported no change in the girl’s status and that she would never have known a battle took place.  Apparently the med bay has some automatic functions that it employs to protect patients during a battle.  Sky must have felt the tension building on the bridge because beside the quick report on the patient, she just settled into her chair and stayed quiet.

After about forty minutes of silence Hal came over the
comm with some bad news.  “The amount of energy used by the Esii Sun Eater and the way it uses it, has made the system lousy with radiation which jumbles up drive signatures.  I am sorry Cole I can’t backtrack the fighters to their point of origin.”

“
Damn it.”  Cole swore again.  He reached down and linked with the ship, plotted a quick course back to the hidden dry dock facility and engaged the grav engines.  His body felt all pulled apart again then slammed back together.  He had a slightly nauseous feeling for a moment then checked to make sure they were in the right place.  “Hal, I want a resupply of missiles and counter missiles and anything else we need as fast as you can. Don’t bother me for at least eight hours, I need some sleep.”  He glanced at Sky.  “By myself.”  Then he stormed off the bridge back to his cabin.