Inherited War 1: Retribution (35 page)

55

“We leave today to fire the opening salvo of this war.  We have planned everything out as best we can and if this is to be my last entry into this log then let me finish with these words.  We go to right a wrong.”

The
Retribution
shuddered under the impact of multiple hits on her aft shields.  Cole swore vehemently and sent the ship into a series of tight spirals and loops trying to gain distance on the battle cruiser that had dropped right on top of him a few moments ago.  His shields could take a lot more damage than what had hit him so far, but he was trying to minimize the incoming fires’ chances of hitting him.

Up until this point of the mission everything had gone to plan.  They had set out on the appointed day and arrived at their first staging point exactly on schedule.  They had gotten confirmation that the
Reckoning
had made a pin point insertion on their first objective and were summarily crushing all Esii resistance.  Things had continued that way for the first nine missions for both ships, until now. 
This, their tenth and final solo mission before meeting up with the
Reckoning,
had gone wrong since they had reverted back into real space.

The space station and single light Esii attack craft had been the only one in system at the time, just like the Intel had suggested.  What they hadn’t counted on was the battle cruiser that popped in system shortly after the
Retribution
had committed itself to the attack.  To add insult to injury the
Retribution’
s main plasma gun had malfunctioned taking away their only viable option of actually defeating the much larger, better armored, cruiser.

Cole had ordered the crew to find emergency seating as soon as the cruiser had hit his screens.  He had then dropped the personal battle shielding and inertia displacer over everyone on board.  He had his squadron of drones deploy then he sent the
Retribution
into a series of dazzling maneuvers that seemed to confuse the Esii gunners aboard the cruiser.  Another volley of impacts shuddered through the ship, this time impacting on the left side.  They had obviously regained their bearings because they were hitting him more than not.

“I recommend calling a Broken Arrow and summoning the
Reckoning
for help.”  Hal’s voice managed to sound worried but Cole knew that he said it on a private channel only he could hear.

“Not a chance pal, we can do this
.  We just need our main gun back online.”  Cole scanned surrounding space looking for an advantage.  He found it in the form of the Esii station.  Turning almost ninety degrees he shot off at max acceleration directly toward the station.

“Cole, watch out.”  Hal sounded almost hysterical.  “Cole I'm serious.”

“Shut up I know what I'm doing.”  Cole shot back.

“Cole I …” Hal didn’t get any further because Cole started to yell.

“Let see if you assholes will shoot at me now!”  Cole turned the
Retribution
on its side and pulled up as hard as he could.  He was off by a fraction of a second because he felt the ship shudder violently as it scraped against the outer hull of the station.  Cole kept his ship at max accel hugging the outer hull hoping the Esii wouldn’t risk firing at him so close to their own station.  A dozen shots streaked by the front of the ship and impacted into the station throwing debris up all around the ship.  Cole felt the impacts as pieces of hull plating ricochet of the
Retribution
.  “Damn it.”  Apparently he had been wrong.

“Cole are you trying to smash us into the deck?”  Thalo’s shout came over Cole’s private channel.  “If we are gonna have any chance of fixing the gun we need some steady flying.  Our personal compensator almost failed.  If that happens, we go splat.”

“Let me worry about flying, you get that gun fixed or we are all gonna go splat.”  Cole snarled back at Thalo. Finally Cole managed to put the station between himself and the Esii.  “I can’t keep this up long you two so if you
’re gonna fix the gun, fix it now.”  Cole checked his speed verses the total diameter of the station.  “You got about thirty seconds to find the problem, after that we are gonna be accelerating at max speed right at the rear of the cruiser.  Gun or no, we are going to engage it.”

Cole check
ed on his drone squadron as he flew around the station, hoping to come out of his flight path directly behind the Esii cruiser.  The cruiser had deployed all of its forty-four spider fighters while Cole had responded with his total compliment of twelve drones.  His boys were currently getting the better of the spiders.  Their total strength was down by a quarter while he only had one fighter out of the battle.  Per orders, that fighter was waiting for a wingman before he left with his second drone.

“Out of time
.  I'm going to ram that son of a bitch and see whose armor is tougher.”  Cole let loose a wild scream as the
Retribution
came around the curve of the station and had the cruiser’s tail in his sights.  Cole focused solely on the enemy ship and barely paid attention to Thalo’s frantic chatter.  Until he heard that the gun was fixed Cole was going to ignore the Worlder.  Cole finished his slingshot around the station and pulled away setting a course for the rear of the ship.

“COLE IT’S FIXED
!”  The relieved shout came thundering over the com.  Cole cranked the speed down as best as he could and opened up with his main gun.  A string of super hot plasma shot out from the front of the
Retribution
.  The Esii cruiser saw it too late.  It started to make a turn to avoid the path of the energy but it was too slow.  The Esii shielding managed to dissipate some of the heat from the first few impacts but that was all.  The rest of the first volley tore into its rear section and instantly turned it all into liquid metal.  Huge globs of metal floated away from the rear of the cruiser and the ship started to list to one side.

In this war Cole had promised himself that there would be no mercy and no quarter given.  He released another barrage of super hot plasma at the rear of the ship.  The plasma must have hit the gravity collectors because suddenly the whole ship turned into a supernova.

“Broken Arrow my ass.”  Cole said to Hal.  “Thalo, Jeth great job on the gun.  We got the cruiser now get up here and start getting ready for the second part of this objective.”

Cole re
-orientated the ship and headed out to help finish off the last of the spider fighters.  With the full effort of the
Retribution’
s weapons systems and the now fully reconstituted drone squadron, the remaining fighters were easily destroyed.  White squadron lost two more drone fighters before actions were over though.

“Sky, what’s the situation on casualties if any?”  Cole had accessed the medical channels and was hearing some chatter from her medical team.

“The pilots of the two drones just destroyed didn’t separate fast enough from their ships.  One is unconscious and the other has a hell of a migraine.  They should both recover just fine though.”  Sky’s response was hurried but in control.

“Good
, I want them back on their feet ASAP.  Do whatever you have to, to get them back into a drone chair.”  Cole was about to change his attention over to his assault team freq when Sky called back.

“Cole they need time, you can’t…..”  Cole interrupted her.

“I wasn’t making a request Sky.  Get them both back up and flying a drone, now!  Also get your medical team down to the rear airlock and begin setting up a med station.  Cole out.”  He didn’t give her a chance to respond this time, he just turned off her freq.  “Thalo I want the assault team assembled and ready to go, in ten, at the rear air lock.”

“Already on our way.”
  Cole did a quick check on all of the
Retribution
s systems to make doubly sure they hadn’t sustained any damage.  He was satisfied when all the readouts and reports confirmed that they had sustained no damage and nothing was broken.

“Hal
, tell your people to get ready to assault the station’s computers.  Remind them that I want them to capture security and surveillance systems first, or destroy them if they cannot be captured.  After that they move onto the main memory storage.”  Cole did a quick check of the surrounding space before turning over control of the ship to Hal.  “Find us a spot and latch on.”

“Will do
, Cole.  Remember to be careful down there.”  Cole gave a small mental smile at that just before disconnecting from the ship.  He slammed back into his body and took a few seconds to orientate himself.  The hectic pace and frantic conversations when he had been jacked into the ship were a huge contrast to the seemingly calm feeling on the bridge.  It was deathly silent and full of Nixa and Worlders plugged into the ship.  It was an eerie sight indeed.  Cole was glad he had planned ahead and worn his combat skins on the bridge and had stored his weapons in a nearby locker.  It only took him a few moments to secure his gear and head to the rear lock.

To anyone else the rear air lock would have been a very odd sight.  Stacked to the right and left of the air lock doors in two columns of five were the biggest of the Two Worlders he had ever seen.  They were all resting their hands on seemingly empty air in front of them.  Cole recognized the slight blurring in the air that represented a stealthed Worlder. 
Away from the door, Sky and a medical team were setting up a makeshift infirmary.  Cole had argued about this with her.  She convinced him that in combat, seconds could make the difference between life and death.  He had relented and allowed her to set this area up.  It had the added benefit of providing the entry door with some basic security.  The Nixa had all been assigned weapons.

Cole saw Jeth stacked up in the front rank of the right hand side column and only assumed that the blur he had his hand on was Thalo.  Cole started to move towards the door when he felt a hand grab his arm.

“Way we see it, everyone else is in a pair.  What that make you?”  Cole turned to see Split blur and solidify.  He cocked his head to the side in that odd gesture he does when he is “listening” to his dead bond mate.  “Heh, I bet he don’t care a lick about that but I’ll ask.”  He looked at Cole.  “We were promised that we could kill Esii.  So we are going with you and we are gonna make sure you come back in one piece.”  He crossed his arms and stared at Cole.

Cole matched his steely look.  “Can you keep up
, is the question you should be asking yourself right about now.”

“Har, har, look at the balls on this one.  We have been killing Esii since before you were a twinkle in your momma’s eye, so yea we can keep up.”  He cocked his head again and started to quietly chuckle before fading back into near invisibility.

Cole inwardly groaned about having the crazy Worlder tagging along behind him for this mission but he didn’t think it would hurt to have him just in case.  Cole strode through the air lock room and went to stand directly in front of the door.  “Helmets up.”  He ordered and did just that.  His combat suit was finer tuned than his normal one and it instantly showed.  He turned to look at his assault team.  Above each of them was their name softly glowing in green.  If he focused on a particular one it would bring up his vitals.  Except for the stealthed ones that is, they even fooled the suit’s radar and sonar systems that tracked moving objects.  “Thalo, tell your people to turn on their tags so I can see them, we don’t want any friendly fire accidents.”  One by one names started to pop up over the heads of the blurry outlines of the stealthed Worlders.  “Thanks.”

“Just like we planned, no heroics and everyone
comes home.”  He got a few grunts in reply but for the most part they remained focused on the task ahead.  Hurry up and wait.  The story of the infantrymen.  Cole wondered how long the common foot soldier had been made to move as fast as he could, only to find himself waiting at the end of whatever it was he was doing.  Cole knew he had certainly done it enough during his short military career on Earth.  Without warning, the light above the door turned from red to green and the air lock doors opened.  Cole, who was still standing in front of the doors saw the hull plate of the station first.  “Set the breaching charge.”

Jeth lumbered forward and held out
, what looked like a can of spray paint, to Cole.  Jeth triggered the can and a steady stream of mist shot out.  He slowly traced the outline of a rectangle on the hull of the station.  As the spray came into contact with the hull it started to bubble and foam expanding in size until a solid line appeared.  After outlining a big enough frame to allow even the biggest of the Worlders access, he detached something from the bottom of the can and placed it directly on one of the lines he had painted.  Stepping back he held up his hand and gave a thumbs up signal.

Cole took a deep breath to calm
himself then nodded at Jeth.  Jeth triggered the device in his hand and an electrical spark danced across the outline he had drawn on the stations hull.  Without so much as a flash or a puff of smoke, the outlined section just dropped forward into the air lock, off the
Retribution,
and clanged onto the floor.  The cool thing about that spray was when it was in contact with metal and received an electrical charge it broke the bonds of the molecules.  It disintegrated the metal in essence.