Inherited War 3: Retaliation (6 page)

Slowly Sky lowered her pistol and hung her shoulders in defeat. “So much for a secret hiding spot. Ok, how are you going to do it?” she asked the now smiling human.

“Ahh, well that’s the fun part. It seems that these damn nanites can block alcohol from affecting our brains. Seems they look on it as being harmful to our bodies.” Sky was giving him her best, hurry up look. “To cut to the chase, Anastacia figured out how to tell the nanites to power down for short periods. She also brewed up a batch of bathtub vodka. Real good vodka, that is. End result is I get Cole drunk and on an outbound explorer ship. Get him to personally look into some of the possible sites for our new home. I will try to give you ten days. I picked the least likely systems to have what we want. Bain said minimum of ten days to survey each of the planets on my list. So unless we find a suitable site right away, you get your time.” West walked over and hunkered down next to Sky.

She looked at the man as she considered what he was saying. He was dressed in a second skin suit and had a secondary suit made into a jacket over top of it. The human had a slightly receding hairline that was beginning to grow back due to the nanites fixing his body and altering his DNA. He had a weightlifters body. Not starkly defined but solid and powerful. He exuded confidence. No, overconfidence, and it was off-putting.

“Ok, do it. How soon?” she asked.

“No time like the present and as they say, its five o’clock somewhere.” He rose to leave but Sky stopped him with a hand on his forearm. West looked at the hand grabbing him before looking to Sky’s face.

“I am sorry about before, thanks for the help.” She gave his arm a gentle squeeze of thanks.

“Hey, like I said,” he turned to face her. “The difference between what he told us on that hell hole of a planet and what is going on here is like night and day. We were friends before all of this and still are. We have, had, a motto in the Army. Never leave a fallen soldier behind. I don’t plan on abandoning Cole, and don’t want to see him brought down by this.” With that, he turned and walked out through the tunnel he had entered.

Sky turned to regard the Kin. Gavreal had been silent through the whole exchange.

“Can we trust him?” she asked.

“Yes, he has an almost reverent attitude towards me. He will fulfill his end of the agreement. He will also ensure that Cole is disorientated upon his return so we can succeed in penetrating his mind. One final note of warning before we attempt any of this. If we fail and you survive, Cole will look at you in the same light as those who tortured him before in his own mind. He will hate and despise you, me, all of us involved. He may even take it out on our people.”

“And if we do nothing?” she asked in response.

“All that could still happen, maybe more,” he said.

“Then we do what we need to do and hope we can win. Now where do we start?” She stood and faced the Kin.

“Once Cole has left the base, we will begin.” With that, the Kin turned and left Sky’s new makeshift home inside the guts of the base. She looked around at her empty little home and gave a great sigh.

Cole was sitting at his desk, staring at the screen in front of him. Somewhere deep in his mind, Cole, the real Cole, was screaming.

“STOP, don’t give that order!” He was clawing at his conscious mind, tearing at it with the few shreds of sanity he had left. He fought and railed, to no avail. The other shoved Cole back down into the depths of his mind. The battle inside Cole’s head raged constantly. Sometimes one or the other had control, but mostly it was a combination of both. The other had control now and was checking his orders to his new human army. Seeing all was in order, he smiled and closed down the screen.

The entry chime on his door dinged and broke the other’s concentration. Cole surged forward and grappled for control. The door opened and West walked in.

“Hey boss man, how’s it hanging?” West asked with a grin.

Cole hesitated a moment before answering. He had partial control. Being around his kind gave him more strength. Though he was still heavily influenced by the other.

“Good, just going over a few things.” Was what he said, what he wanted to say was miles apart. He tried to tell West to stop listening to him, to lock him up. To figure out what the hell was wrong. He couldn’t say any of it. “How is everything with you?”

“Good, actually great. I need a favor,” he said.

“Sure thing, anything you want,” Cole replied.

“You remember Jess, right?”

“Yea, she was the one you got with on the Esii home world. Shit what did you do?” Cole got worried, with West and women it was the only thing you could be.

“Calm down, nothing bad. We had her checked and as it turns out, her two girls, oh she is having girls by the way, are mine.” He had a huge smile plastered on his face now that he had told the good news.

“Shit, you beat the odds, that’s for sure.” Cole blew out a soft whistle. Ten thousand pregnant women using the DNA of one thousand men. Long odds on falling for the one who has yours inside her. “I would say buy a lotto ticket, but well, you know.”

‘Yea I had the same thought. On to my favor. I know it really doesn’t mean much anymore, now that we know our true past as a people, but we are both catholic and since we managed to find each other and are having a kid together, well we wanted to get married before they came. And they are coming soon.” West walked further in the room and sat down opposite of Cole. “You’re the Captain or whatever, so we want you to do it.”

Cole pretended to think on it for a moment then a big smile split his face. He shoved the other down deep into his mind, and stood and grabbed West to his feet. He wrapped him in a tight hug.

“Of course, Eric. I would be honored.” SMG Eric West returned the hug and waved at someone standing in the doorway that Cole had noticed but not paid attention to. It was Jess. She waddled into the room as best as she could and joined the two in their embrace.

“Thanks Cole, oh and one more surprise.” The three disengaged and West wrapped his arm protectively around Jess. “It seems that Anastacia has been missing home a lot lately and brewed up a batch of genuine Russian Vodka.” He held up his hand to stop Cole before he started. “She figured out how to get around the nanites and their misguided opinions of alcohol.”

“Good God, I need a drink,” Cole hissed out. “When and where?”

“Actually, right now if we could. Like I said, she is going to pop any minute, and I don’t want a couple of bastards running around,” West said with a chuckle as Jess smacked him on the back of the head. “Ow,” he cried mockingly and rubbed at his bruised ego. “Technically if we don’t get married, they are bastards.”

“Yes, but you didn’t have to point it out,” Jess responded.

Cole stifled a laugh. “Ok then, let’s go do this.” They walked out of Cole’s office and down toward the mess hall that was going to double as the chapel. Cole felt better than he had in days and hoped that there would be more of these marriages to officiate in the future.

The transport ships reentered normal space at the limits of the Nixa home system. The reversion was perfect and uneventful, except for those on board. The four beings on board felt the weight of their task settle onto their shoulders. Thalo, Jeth, Snow, and the Kin named Uriel. Thalo was the only one who reconnected to the ship after reversion. He received the incoming challenge and asked for permission to land on the planet. He also informed them of Snow’s presence on board and asked for port control to inform her father, the Nixa Prime Administrator. After receiving acknowledgments from port control, he disconnected and turned the short flight and landing over to the ships AI.

“Your father,” he looked at Snow, “will be waiting for us when we land. We are landing at his private hanger at the capitol. Your mother will be there too.”

Snow nodded her head at the news but seemed distracted. Jeth placed his arm protectively around her and held her close. Thalo looked her over and was confident that all the exterior damage had been healed by her nanites. He wished they had healed her inside as well. She looked up at the big Worlder.

“Remember,” she started to say, but Jeth’s gentle rumble stopped her short.

“I know. I will be respectful of your wishes. No one can see us now, though.” They smiled at each other. Thalo held in a deep sigh. He still hadn’t had a chance to talk to Jeth about this budding fling between him and Snow. Besides the anatomy problems, there were a thousand other reasons why this wouldn’t work. Later though. Right now, there were more important things coming up.

“There won’t be much time for reunions, though. We have a lot on our plates and little time to do it,” Thalo remarked. “We are going to have enough to do explaining him. Him being the Kin. They have been gone a long time from the galaxy and your people will be interested in him.”

“I will deal with the traitors, Thalo. Do not worry,” Uriel responded.

“That’s going to be another problem.” This time he did sigh. “Dam it, Uriel, you can’t just kill Nixa if they bug you. We are here to save them from Cole’s madness.”

“Wrong, Thalo. I was sent because I enjoy mysteries and puzzles. I am better than any of my kind at finding things out and am here to help find the mysterious Nixa that was on Esii. We only forgave and trusted Sky and Snow, the others must earn it also. I will broach no actions that undermine our investigation.” Thalo gave him a pleading look. “Fine, I will only use death as a last resort.”

“Gee, thanks. Well at least that is settled. Let’s go make ourselves presentable.” They filed out of the command cabin and made their way to the back of the ship. Standing in silence, they waited while the ship entered the atmosphere of the planet and made its way around the globe to the capitol of the Nixa people. The AI was good. They never felt the reentry and barely felt when the ship touched down. After settling on its landing gear, the big rear cargo hatch slid up, revealing the brightly illuminated landing field. Thalo checked the time.
Oops
, he thought. Four in the morning. He hadn’t given the Prime much time to get ready, not to mention waking him up in the middle of the night.

Thalo strode off first and was followed by Snow, Jeth, and Uriel, who brought up the rear. Once the Kin cleared the ship, he spread his wings out to either side. He hadn’t been on the ship long but he needed to stretch. There weren’t many Nixa there to greet them, but those that were, gasped at the sight of the Kin as he extended his wings. Thalo ignored the small crowed and made his way directly to the Prime.

“Sir,” he started, “we have news. News that should be discussed in private and with only you.”

The Prime looked at Thalo, and his shoulders slumped. He nodded his head. “I knew I wouldn’t get to see much of my daughter tonight. After the battle of the Twin Worlds and what happened after, I was expecting this.” He turned and extended his arm. “Please, this way.” Thalo walked by the Prime, but Snow stopped and hugged her father. She broke down a little and cried against his chest. Jeth forced himself to walk by without stopping. Snow regained her composure and waited for the Kin to pass before turning, holding her father’s hand, and walking after them.

If the Prime had been worried before, he was downright terrified now. This wasn’t the reaction he had been expecting. He couldn’t remember the last time his willful little girl had clutched at him and cried. For that matter, where was Sky? He held his youngest daughters hand as they walked out of the cool morning air and into the stuffiness of the Prime’s offices.

Two hours later and full of information he never wanted, the Prime leaned his chair back and contemplated what he had just heard. His office was spartan compared to his counterparts of the assembly. The walls were void of any art; the furniture was plain and inexpensive. The walls were painted in warm colors of creams and browns. The floor was made of hard woods that grew on the planet, and were shined to a sparkling sheen. His dark brown desk was made of the same wood, and the chairs, while plain, fit the room perfectly.

“So Sky stayed behind and we came here after dropping my people and the Kin off on a Worlder colony. That’s about it.” Thalo had talked the whole time with Snow interjecting here and there. They had told him about Cole restraining Snow but not about beating her.

The room was quiet as Snow’s father took it all in.

“Is she safe there?” It was the first thing he had said since arriving at his office.

“Yes, we believe so. Sky was certain and so was Bain,” Snow supplied.

“Can you trust the AI, though? Are they not sworn to Cole?” he asked.

“They are, but they are also sworn to the rest of humanity. To work with and help protect them. They have another human and Kin there, so she should be ok. Well until they confront Cole. I am still a little fuzzy on that part…” Thalo responded.