Resurrection (The Inherited War) (37 page)

             
“Brother, we must talk.”  Jeth’s voice even rumbled in VR.

             
“Can it wait? I am on duty.”  Thalo said as he lazed on his VR chair.

             
“It has waited too long already.  We must speak. Now.”

             
“Fine,” Thalo waved to his second in command.  “You have the bridge I am going to disconnect for a moment.”

             
“Yes, Sir,” came the response.

             
Both Worlders disconnected and found themselves back in their bodies.  Thalo stood and stretched to work out the stiff muscles in his body.  “Ok thanks for getting me out of there.  I am beginning to think this was a punishment and not a reward.”

             
“No jokes, brother.  With Fury’s report of conditions on Esii we must act soon, no we must act now.”  Jeth spoke plainly as always.

             
“Do what exactly?  Frankly I am surprised the Esii haven’t thrown their entire fleet at us already.  Something is keeping them from attacking us, and whatever that is, it is also keeping us penned in here.  Trust me brother, I have been wracking my brain, trying to figure a way out of this but I can’t.”  Thalo saw a look come over Jeth's face.  It was a look not often seen on the big Worlder.  Rage.  Pure unadulterated rage.

             
“No!”  His voice thundered in the quiet space.  “We found the Kin; we wasted time finding the Kin.  We must move now.”

             
Thalo moved quick to calm his brother down.  “Easy Jeth, I know how you feel I want the same thing too.  Any time our ships so much as move their position, a little the Esii fleet reacts and begins massing nearby.  We have tried and tried.  Every move we make, they reposition to storm the defense grid.”  Thalo lay his hand on Jeth’s shoulder.  “Damn it, I hate this too but he is one man Jeth.  This is our people’s future we are talking about here.  We can’t abandon them now.  Not even for Cole.”

             
Jeth slammed his fist into the floor and left a small dent in the super tough steel plate.  “Do not stop thinking about a way.”  He pointed a large finger at Thalo.  “There is a way and you will find it.”

             
Thalo nodded his head at his big friend.  “You going to be ok?”

             
“Yes.”

             
“Okay, I got to get back on the bridge before the Captain shows up for his shift.  Trust me brother, I have never stopped for a moment trying to find a way.”  Thalo gave Jeth one last look before he settled back in his chair and reentered the VR Bridge.

~

              The newly enlarged fleet settled into its new formation and watched the Esii fleet.  Fury had told the fleet Admiral that he had sent out messages to other allied fleets before he had warped his own fleet into the Worlder’s system.  They had received the message.  Within a week of Fury and the Nixa fleet arriving in system, more ships appeared.

             
The current Admiral in charge of Sector One arrived with one hundred of his remaining ships.  They came looking for revenge against the race that had decimated their capital planet.  More ships filtered in from other allies of both the Nixa and the Worlders.  The size of the fleet defending the two planets tripled, then quadrupled.  Everyone deferred to Admiral Suns as the Supreme Commander of all allied forces. 

             
Unfortunately, at the same time more Esii ships began to show up in orbit as well.  These new ships were their outlaying privateers.  All war ships and all ready for war.  Their numbers didn’t match the amount of newcomers on the Worlders side but with their already massive numbers, made the odds just as long.

             
Admiral Suns was just finishing his briefing with the other ships officers.  Thalo sat by his right side and Gavreal by his left.

             
“I still see no way to break this stalemate.  The numbers simply do not add up.  Any action on our part would leave other areas too vulnerable to sudden attack.  We may have the human ships but the Esii are just too numerous.  We need to find a weakness, or come up with a great ruse to fool them.  I ask all of you to return to your ships and spread the word to your crews.  If anyone can think of any way to trick or otherwise foul up the Esii, I want to know about it.  Dismissed.”  Suns began to rise from his chair when an urgent call came in from the bridge of the Justice.

             
“Admiral this is the bridge,” the room went silent.  Something major had to be going on for the staff meeting to be interrupted by a com call.

             
“Admiral here, go ahead.”

             
“Sir, I um, you have an incoming transmission.”  The bridge officer said with a hesitation. 

             
“Our meeting is almost over, I will take it in a few minutes tell whoever it is to hold on a moment.”  The Admiral spread his arms wide.  “Sorry folks, seems he may be new to his job.”  A few chuckles could be heard around the room.

             
“Sir, sorry Sir, its incoming form the Esii.”  The officer stammered out as the briefing room suddenly went very silent.  “Visual and everything Sir.”

             
Suns sat down heavily in his chair.  He waved as those present in the room.  “Move back, I only want them to see me.”

             
“You can’t seriously be thinking of talking to them can you?”  Thalo was on his feet and in a rage.

             
“Yes I can, and I told you to move.  This may offer us a new direction in this conflict.”  Suns looked at Gavreal.  “Can he do anything to me through a comm call?  If he can, can you protect me?”

             
“No he cannot harm you over your comms.  But I would like to be near you when you speak to them.  It has been a while since their kind have seen our kind.  It will be interesting to gauge his reaction.”  Gavreal said and slid his chair closer to the Admirals.  Suns waited until everyone was out of range of the camera pick up.

             
“Okay bridge, pipe the feed down here.”  Suns gave one last look at Thalo’s angry face before he focused on the holo pad that rose out of the table in front of him.

             
“Signal rerouted.”  The Bridge officer said as the lights dimmed and a light bloomed in front of the Admiral.  Slowly the head and shoulders of an Esii male took shape and hovered in front of Suns and Gavreal.

             
“I see,” the voice hissed like a serpent over the com, “that you have dug up an old relic to aid you cat.  I understand now how you have been thwarting my Pyndingum from harnessing your crew’s minds.  I must say, it was unexpected.”  He didn’t even glance at the Kin as he spoke.

             
“I was under the impression that you wanted to talk, not piss me off.”  Suns retorted.  Gavreal placed his hand on the Admiral’s wrist in a calming manner.

             
“Please Admiral, it is in this creatures DNA to be hostile and antagonize everything around it.  Speak your words and stop trying to enter this one’s mind.  Your Pyndingum are powerful in the use of their minds but I assure you, I am stronger.”  Gavreal closed his eyes for an instant and a sudden scream could be heard from the Esii side of the com.

             
“No matter, there are more where he came from.  Long have I wished to challenge myself against one of your kind, but alas it will not be this day.”  The Esii refocused on Suns.  “Cat I am lead to believe you are in command here, is that true?”

             
“Yes, and my name is Admiral, use it.”

             
“Very well,” he continued without calling Suns by his rank or name.  “We have reached a stalemate it would seem.  Our forces are not sufficient enough to conquer yours and yours are ineffective at breaking out.  We could throw our fleets at one another and risk both of our peoples being wiped from the galaxy or come to terms.”

             
Suns suddenly broke out in a deep laugh.  “Terms, with the Esii?  We could never trust any arrangement we made with you.  You must truly think us fools.  What could possibly make us deal with you?”

             
“It is no secret that we came here for a reason as we did during the war.  That reason is why we came back.”  Suns could see the pain on his face as he spoke.  This was something new for the Esii, negotiating.  “There are assurances we are prepared to offer.”

             
“Go ahead, I am listening, for now.”

             
“Do not think that because I am offering a solution to our situation, that I am negotiating from a position of weakness.  I see no other way for my people to live through this if it comes to battle.  We lose and die or win and become so weak that we are easily defeated by another.”

             
“Scared of being wiped out are you?”  Suns asked.  “What about those other races you used you planet killer on.  Why should we save you from that fate?  How many races have you killed off?”

             
“More than you will ever know.  If those beings had a way to stave off that fate they would have used it, as I am now.  My offer is simple.  First: you will give us the fourth planet in this system as our new home.  Second: you will allow all of our possessions to accompany us to the surface and leave us alone for as long as we are here.  Finally, we will destroy all but a few of our ships after they are unloaded.  Those ships will be allowed to come and go as they search for a new home.”  The Esii finished his demands.

             
“Ha, ha, ha.  Give you a planet, here in the Worlder system?  Why?  Why is this system so important to your people?  Why not just go home and wait for your world to cool?  That’s right; I know what happened to your home world.”  Suns stared intently at his adversary.

             
“There is something that will remain a secret, here that was only found in one other place in the galaxy we have found.  Our home and this system.  We shall continue to search the galaxy for a more suitable home but for the mean time we are quite capable of living on the fourth planet of your system.”  The Esii responded.

             
Suns looked long and hard at the holo of his hated enemy.  “Give me twenty four hours and I will bring you our answer.”

             
“I will await your response.”  With that the transmission ended and the Esii’s image disappeared.

             
“Don’t you dare,” Thalo started from where he was standing.

             
“No, don’t you dare speak to me in that tone.  Everyone here agreed that I was in command and that makes me your commanding officer.  If you want to bark at me then resign and join your government otherwise be quiet and let me think.”  Suns roared at Thalo.  Thalo wisely held his tongue and sat back down.  Suns sat in silence and mulled over what the Esii had said.

             
“This may work to our advantage.”  Suns looked up at the speaker.  It was the Admiral from Sector One.

             
“Continue.”  Suns deferred to the Archon speaker.

             
“We have been looking for a way to break some of our forces free to send for help and rescue the human.  We could agree to their terms with a few of our own added.  After reaching an agreement, we could endeavor to bring in much needed aid and retrieve the human.  That is after all our current goal, is it not?”  The Archon Admiral leaned forward and rested his chin on his intertwined hands.

             
“What would our terms be exactly?”  Suns asked.

             
“We have to assume that the fleet they have had around the fourth planet has already begun landing their civilians and slaves on the planet to make it habitable.  We could stipulate that all slaves not too far gone and capable of recovering be turned over to us and we would hold a permanent blockade of their planet until they find a new world to settle.  We could also demand to be the ones who destroy their ships as they are vacated.  This could buy us the time and space we have been looking for.”

             
“An interesting notion, Thalo, would your people agree to it?”  Suns asked.

             
“No God damn it, would you want the Esii in your back yard?  The bastards are scared lets attack and drive them away into extinction.  Sir.”  Thalo responded.

             
Suns shot Thalo and angry look.  “We have twenty-four hours, get with your people and hammer out some details for me to go over.  I will speak to the Worlders government and make a decision.  Dismissed, Thalo stay a moment.”  The rest of the officers left to return to their command ships while Thalo stayed behind.  Jeth, quiet as ever had gone unnoticed in the far corner, had remained behind as well.

             
Suns got up and walked over to Thalo.  Thalo stood and both beings locked eyes on each other.  Suns moved slightly faster than Thalo.  Suns closed fist impacted just under Thalo's jaw and sent his head snapping backwards.  Thalo over balanced and fell to the floor.