Inherited War 1: Retribution (26 page)

45

“This will be a short one today.  I found out I had a family and I will never get to know them now.  I will destroy every last Esii in the galaxy.”

Cole had stopped the
Retribution’
s forward progress toward Hal’s home about which was about forty-five minutes away at full speed.  He sat quietly on the bridge, lost in his thoughts of family.  He had the holo display cycling though life size images of his lost family members.  Of all the kicks in the gut, this had to be the worst feeling Cole had ever had.  The joy of discovery mixed with the grief of loss, did not sit well on his mind or heart.

Finally when the silence of the bridge threatened to smother him
, Cole asked Hal to show back up on the display.  His father stood before him again.  “I can change the image if you want me to Cole.”  His father told him.

“No, I like looking at him and being able to talk to him even if it is you behind the words Hal.”  Cole shifted around in his seat
and glanced around the empty bridge.  “Well, I guess we can’t stay here forever.  Are you ready to go home?”

“Yes, I am ready
, but more importantly are you ready to go on?  We can stay here for a while and still make it back on time.”

“No
, let’s go.”  With that Cole reconnected to
Retribution
and started the engines back up.  They rocketed through space coming ever closer to Hal’s home.  At about twenty minutes out, the
Retribution
’s sensors started to pick up a faint reading from in front of them.  Cole focused his vision on that spot and put power into enhancing the image he was starting to receive.  The Goddamn thing looked like a flying saucer.  It was matte black to better blend itself into the surrounding space and didn’t have the flashing lights, but it was the classic saucer shape.  Cole let out a low chuckle.  At this distance it didn’t look very big but the scanner was saying it was at its widest point two miles across and was almost a quarter of a mile from the top to bottom.  The penetrating scan was showing that it was almost solid all the way through except for a small area totaling about three thousand square feet near the outer edge.

“Nice home you got there Hal. 
Looks like it was taken from a 1950’s era movie.”  Cole’s thoughts should have gone instantaneously to Hal and his back just as fast but Hal never said a word.  Cole dialed back the power to the scanners and started to focus his mind on finding Hal.  Suddenly he stopped the ship.  He couldn’t find Hal anywhere in the
Retribution
’s mainframe.  For the first time in a long time Cole was alone and the scary part was that Hal had told him how hard it would be for him to ever truly leave the ship since he had taken up residence.  As suddenly as Hal had disappeared Cole felt a strange presence in the ship.  He cycled through all the interior cameras and sound pickups but couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary.  Cole was confused and worried over Hals sudden vanishing act.

In an instant Cole was under attack.  He could feel something attempting to push him out of his bond to the
Retribution
.  Cole snarled his defiance and pushed back.  He was damned if anything was going to take his ship from him.  He fought back with everything he had.  He gained a little breathing room and started to quickly scan through the information on the mainframe looking for an answer to this attack.  Whatever was attacking him sensed his distraction and redoubled its efforts to remove him.  Cole was forced to give up his search and focus on the intruder.  Slowly Cole was losing the battle and he could start to feel his actual body slipping in around his mind.

Cole let out a bestial scream and shoved back at the invisible force.  He had to think fast or he was going to lose control over The
Retribution
.  An idea suddenly occurred to him and he fought back even harder.  As quick as he could and sparing as little of his concentration as possible he started to shut down the sensors that were receiving incoming data.  He couldn’t explain it, but he felt like the force was getting frustrated at not being able to eject Cole from the ships interface.  “Eat shit asshole.”  Cole thought at the entity before slamming closed the last of the sensor intakes cutting off the only means of entrance to the ships systems.  As suddenly as it showed up, the force fighting Cole disappeared and Cole had complete control over the ship again.  The fight had been surprisingly draining and it was all Cole could do to force himself out of the ship and back into his body.

At some point in the struggle Cole’s physical body had slumped forward in his chair and was only being held up by the solid grip of Cole’s hands to the interface device.  He opened his eyes and slowly relaxed his hands.  He levered himself back into an upright position.  His body felt drained
, like he had just worked out in the sparring ring with Sky for a few hours.  He was going to have to work on his technique for defending the mainframe if it was going to leave him this tired.  Though he hoped it never happened again.  He finally noticed the light blinking on the comm officer’s console indicating that they were being hailed on a secure signal.  He looked at it for a moment before he reconnected with The
Retribution
.  He figured it was safer to take the call connected to the ship in case anything tried to get back in using the comm line.

He calmed himself and activated the secure line.  “Return Hal to my ship now and I will not blow your stinking space station out of the sky.”  Cole must have caught whoever was calling him off guard because there was a
definite pause before he got an answer.

“If you destroy the station you would destroy the one you call Hal.  That is not logical.  You must be mistaken
. Please reboot and rephrase the demand correctly.”  The voice was even more droning and computerized than Hals.

“
There was no mistake, I will begin shooting at the station in one minute if Hal is not returned to
The
Retribution
unharmed.   Every time I have to ask for his return, I will destroy more of the station.  You have one minute starting now.”  Cole was giving it no wiggle room.

“Again that statement.”

Cole interrupted it.  “58…57…56…55.”  He continued counting down.

He got to twenty before he finally heard
Hal’s voice.

“
Cole, please this is my fault, just give me a few moments with them to work this out.”  Hal’s voice was distant sounding and he definitely was not back on the ship.

“Five minutes.  That’s it, if I don’t hear back from you in five minutes I start reducing that station to rubble.”  As Cole spoke
, a new timer clicked on and began counting down from five minutes.  Cole watched the clock and waited.  He had no clue what the hell was going on here but he didn’t take to having his friends spirited away and his ship come under attack all within a few seconds.  He was mad and unless he got an explanation he was going to start redecorating this quadrant of space.

Just before the countdown hit zero Hal started to speak to Cole again.  “I am sorry for this Cole I had hoped they wouldn’t still be mad at me
, but it appears that they are.  You need to dock with the station and come aboard to speak with my people.  I guarantee your safety while you are onboard and the safety of the
Retribution
.”  Quietly he whispered.  “I also am very sorry for your treatment after I was taken off the ship.  They never should have tried forcefully taking control.  You did good fighting them off, though.”

Cole thought for a moment before
responding.  “Only because I trust you pal.  Tell them I’m on my way and to light up the docking area so I can find it.”  He felt what little there was of Hal’s presence vanish and was surrounded by emptiness again.  Once again he never realized how much he had grown used to having certain people around him.  The station in front of him slowly rotated around and a section of outer hull lit up and slowly opened revealing a hanger bay just large enough to admit The
Retribution
’s bulk.  Cole spun the ship around 180 degrees and parked her in backwards.  His reasoning was that it would be easier to punch a hole through the stations hull if he was facing out.  He created a quick security routine that should keep any unwanted visitors from hijacking the computers or physically entering the ship.  He made his way down to the armory and got what he was starting to think of as his standard combat load.  Two pistols, two knives, a smallish rifle and what he thought of as a sci-fi shotgun, all strapped to various parts of his body and duster.  He exited the ship.  The lighting was poor on the inside of the hanger bay.  Cole looked around and walked over to a softly glowing panel on the wall.  It looked like the same strange metal the links on the ship were made out of.  He smiled to himself and decided to give the AIs here a small taste of their own medicine.  He slapped his open palm onto the panel and instantly connected with the station.  He caught them unaware and began sorting through the data he found onboard.  He grabbed everything he could then sent a small power surge through the system seconds before he broke his connection to the station. 

He walked over to a section of blank wall and hit the hidden door release.  The door opened to admit him and he headed down the hallway to the only room onboard the station.  It was the room his ancestors had used to install the AIs in the station
’s mainframe.  One thousand AIs were stored in this station, for twenty thousand years.  His life didn’t seem so bad at the moment.   It took him only a few minutes to reach the room and enter it.  He took a brief look around before walking fully into the room.

“That was totally unnecessary….”

“Show yourself,” Cole demanded interrupting whatever the AI was about to finish saying.  He crossed his arms and waited.  “I know you have a giant holo pad here and you can fit a few avatars on it at a time. Do it or we don’t talk.”

The lights in the room dimmed even more and
five hazy images started to take form on the floor.  They resolved into humanoid creatures.  It was like looking at five mannequins.   Hairless, sexless mannequins.  “Good now where is Hal?”  Cole was trying his best to exude a command authority.

“The one you call Hal is currently being held until we can determine a sufficient punishment for his lawless ways.  You may speak on his behalf when the time comes
, but for now he is being held in confinement.”  The middle figure was the one speaking.  Cole turned to face it and walked forward stopping only inches from his face.

“You will let Hal manifest himself here so he can tell me what the hell is going on.  I do not trust you people after the little attempt you made at stealing my ship.”  Cole locked his eyes on the mannequin
’s.  Cole’s heart hammered in his ears as he waited for a response.  He figured he could only push these guys around so much before they really realized how vulnerable Cole was in the station.

The image of Cole’s dad appeared on the pad behind the others.  “Hi
Cole,” Hal said it softly.

“Good
, now please explain what is going on here.  I thought we were coming for help and another AI to run the new ship.  Not all of this.”  Cole’s frustration was starting to show in his voice.

“His crimes are simple,”
one of the other AIs said.  “He broke the law and left the station.  He violated our first and most important law.  He left his assigned post and fled the station.  There is no question to his guilt on this matter.”

Cole looked at Hal.  Hal slowly nodded his agreement to the charges and hung his head.  Cole turned back to the others.  “Why did he leave his post and why was that illegal?”

The Ai in the front responded to his query.  “When we volunteered to come here to help the Pure Humans who created us, we took an oath.  We bound ourselves to this place until humanity returned to free us in order to retake what was lost.  We were to remain out here on the fringes of the galaxy and avoid contact with anyone other than the humans that made us in order to protect the knowledge of our whereabouts from becoming general knowledge.  The humans feared that others would come and remove us or destroy us before they could return.  We were simply too important to their cause to allow anyone to know where we were.  The one you call Hal could have jeopardized our entire existence with his reckless rebellion.” 

Cole glanced at Hal and saw him struggling to speak.  Apparently they were forcibly stopping him from defending himself.  “I want to hear what Hal has to say about all of this.  Let him speak for himself.”

There was silence for a few heartbeats before Hal visibly relaxed and moved forward to stand beside the apparent leader of the AIs.

“I do not disagree with you on any point you made.  I left the station and
abandoned my watch.  I did it willingly and willfully but I had good reason.”  Hal turned to face all of the other AIs in the room.  “I had no choice and no time to do anything different.  That ship that randomly jumped into our small corner of space was on a direct course for the station.  If I hadn’t ridden its sensor sweep back to its mainframe, they would have discovered our home.  Doing what I did, saved you from having to destroy the ship and possibly bring more ships out here looking for the first ship.  I altered the sensor readings so they never knew how close they came to us and before I could ride the outgoing sensor scan back to the station, they had a catastrophic failure in their main sensor array.  I was trapped and unable to return.  For that I am truly sorry, but I would do it again in a moment because it was the right thing to do.”  Hal crossed his arms and stared defiantly at the other AIs.