Resurrection (The Inherited War) (7 page)

~

              Cole suddenly awoke and thrashed around for a few moments before he remembered where he was.  He felt the goggles over his eyes so he knew he hadn’t lost his sight.  He could just feel the ground under his toes and his nanites were reporting extreme stress to his shoulders and wrists.  They were advising him to stop jerking all over the place.  He settled down and started to rub his face on his arms in an attempt to dislodge the goggles.  For a fleeting moment he felt the pain of the screws in his face before the nanites kicked in and blocked those pain receptors.  They were reporting the four holes and the metal screws inside them.

             
“Shit,” he muttered aloud.  “Anyone in here?”  He asked not expecting an answer.

             
“Finally awake I see, sorry I dozed off there for a minute myself.”  The voice Cole heard was unlike any he had heard before.  It was deep and electronic sounding.  He instantly tried to turn to face his visitor and his nanites started pestering him about moving.  Cole was going to have to start referring to them as nannies with all the nagging they were doing.

             
“Who’s there?  Are you a friend or foe?  Not that I would trust you if you said friend.”

             
“I am a prisoner like you; I guess we will be sharing a cell.”  The unknown being responded.

             
“Not likely pal.  The Esii don’t do things that way, especially the freaky five.  They put you here with me for a reason.  What's your name?  Mine is Cole.”

             
“There are certain things I can’t tell you so just call me friend.  Nice to meet you Cole.”  He said

             
“Wish I could say the same.  I got another question for you.  Do you have anything sharp on you?  Shit do you have anything on you at all?”  Cole asked.

             
“No, sorry nothing I could use to get you down.”

             
Cole laughed at that.  “No, not for getting me down for cutting my throat.  Getting down would do me no good.  These assholes want something from me and I can’t give it to them if I'm dead.  I was hoping you had a shiv or something you could kill me with.”  To the newcomer it actually sounded like Cole was disappointed.

             
“Why not just tell them what they want and avoid all of this.  What is so important that you would willingly take your own life to protect?”

             
“Clever, good try at tricking it out of me but I am not that dumb.  If you don’t have a better approach, I suggest you keep quiet.”  Cole snorted as he tried to relax as much as he could in his position.  A few minutes passed in silence before Cole’s new friend spoke again.

             
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to trick anything out of you; I was just trying to understand your motivation.  Is there anything you can tell me that they already know or wouldn’t matter if they did?”  He asked.  Cole noticed that the voice stayed in the same spot and never moved closer.  Whoever he was, he was afraid of Cole even though he was currently no threat to anyone.

             
Cole thought for a moment before answering.  “What the hell.  I am the last survivor of a race of beings descended from the ancient rulers of this galaxy.  I was forced to rapidly evolve and taken to the stars to claim my races inheritance.  I witnessed the destruction of my home world and vowed vengeance against the Esii for that destruction.  I whipped their asses up and down the galaxy before I was betrayed and taken prisoner.  I know the location to the strongest ships in the galaxy, and the Esii need to either destroy them or capture them before my friends come calling to set me free.  So now I will be tortured until I reveal the information or I get rescued.  More than that you will have to find out yourself.”

             
“That is an amazing story.  I am sorry it has to end here, like this.”  There was genuine sorry behind the speaker’s voice.

             
“Don’t count me out just yet, Friend, I have been down before and came out swinging.  Granted, this situation is almost impossible to escape from, but the longer I live without talking the better my chances get.  If I can’t end it here and now, I will survive, and I will see those five freaks dead by my own hands.”

             
“For your sake, I hope your right.”  Both had tired of talking at that point and remained silent.  Cole didn’t think the reprieve from his torture would last too much longer so he took some time and meditated.  It was hard to focus in the position he was in but he finally achieved a small sense of calmness.  He must have fallen asleep while meditating because he never felt them lower him from the ceiling into a chair.  He awoke seated with his arms and legs free.  The chair was cold, hard and had a strap that ran from his armpits to his waist holding him in place.  It was the same material that the room was made of and was seamless.  He had no room to move and was limited in his reach.

             
“Prepare for the second lesson.”  Cole looked wildly around the room and spotted the freaky five entering through the door.  He didn’t see his new roomy so he had either been moved to another room or his new friend had been removed.  It was at this point he realized he could see again.  His hands went to his face and he could feel the four holes they had drilled into his face.  “The goggles were necessary, your little machines kept repairing the break we made in your visual cortex.  We were unable to blind you internally.  But as we said there are ways around any impediment.” 

             
As he finished talking, the floor to Cole’s front started to undulate.  The metal flowed up between Cole’s legs and flattened out into the shape of an instrument table.  The metal on top of the tray flowed and formed the shapes of various knives and scalpels.  Cole didn’t even have to think, as fast as he could his hands were moving.  Before the first thrown knife even hit its target he had two more in the air and was working on the last two.  His nanites kicked in his battle awareness and time seemed to slow down for him.  He watched as each knife traveled in agonizing slowness towards their targets.  His aim was perfect.  All five knives traveled a perfect course towards their hearts.  His smile was cut short.  At the moment of impact, each knife reverted back to its malleable form and stopped before impacting the Pyndingum.  Cole watched as all five knives plopped back to the floor and returned to the tray in front of him. 

             
Cole was assaulted with waves of despair and hopelessness.  He fought but he was no match for all five of their minds.  “Lesson two: we control everything you touch and everything that touches you. We also control you”

             
Cole’s head snapped up as he felt his arms slowly start moving of its own accord.  His hand was moving toward the knives again and taking his arm along for the ride.  Cole focused his attention on his arm and halted its progress.  He had a bad feeling about what would happen if his hand got a hold of one of those knives this time.  Suddenly the force driving his hand doubled and he felt the crushing waves of despair assaulting his moral.  He ignored the hopeless feeling of fighting the inevitable and poured himself into his arm.

             
He fought.  It was a silent fight between Cole and his tormentors but it was one of the hardest fights he had ever had.  Again the force on his hand went up by one, then two.  His hand moved and inch closer to the tray before Cole finally stopped it.  Cole could feel the sweat pouring down his face.  His teeth were clenched, and he put everything he had into holding all five of them off at once.  In an instant, the crushing despair vanished, and the final Pyndingum put his effort behind the others. Cole let out a soul rending scream and fought to keep his arm still.  He started screaming at them.  “Go to hell, motherfuckers.”  He yelled it over and over again.  He started to move his arm back.  Cole exploded into wild laughter.  He started to change his cursing and made it as vulgar as he could.  It lent him the energy he needed to keep the five from taking control of his hand.  He felt the pressure lessen for a moment.  He thought he'd won.

             
Cole was suddenly distracted by the door melting away.  Five more of the Pyndingum entered the room.  They all put their force behind the others at one time.  Cole was instantly overrun.  He barely held off the first five, he had no chance against them and the new comers.  He fought them for as long as he could but he was overpowered in the end.

             
“We control everything.”  Cole had no choice but to learn that lesson as well.  He had no choice as he watched his hand move to the instrument tray and pick up a scalpel.  He watched as his body bent slowly forward and his arm extended toward his foot.  They never even let him scream as he slowly poked the scalpel into the skin of his ankle and slowly dragged it up.  He drew a line in blood from his ankle to his knee and finally stopped just below his pelvis.  It hadn’t been too deep, just enough to cut the skin.

             
His body bent forward again and the hand with the knife moved back to his foot.  He tried to close his eyes but they wouldn’t even let him do that.  He watched as his own hand placed the scalpel back into his skin and slowly rotated it around his ankle.  A cold chill went down his spine.  They were going to flay the skin off of his leg.  Cole began his struggle again.  Every time he gathered his will to stop what was about to happen it was smothered by the combined efforts of the ten Pyndingum.  He watched as he made a new cut as far around his thigh as possible.  His hand replaced the scalpel with a fillet knife.

             
Cole didn’t know how long it took him to pass out beyond their control but they got the skin off of both of his legs before he did.  He found out there was only a certain point they could take him too before his body would shut down and his consciousness would retreat beyond their ability to control.  He also realized his nanites had done nothing to blunt the pain or stop the bleeding.  His last and only ally had deserted him.

~

              Split had been scouting the surrounding area for the past few days.  They had been hunting lone Esii, as well.  They had returned to Cole’s cell once already, but having found Cole trapped in a coffin filled with sand, they had grown bored rather quickly and had headed back out as soon as they could.  They had found a nice quiet out of the way place where they could drop their guard and get some rest.  So far they were enjoying hunting the Esii on their own planet and had made some interesting discoveries.  None, unfortunately, that could help them or Cole escape.  The tiny point to point transmitter they had finally recharged enough so that they could send a message to Thalo.  Surviving.  Esii home world.  Those were the only four words the transmitter had power to send each time.  It would be weeks before it had the power to do it again.  They hoped Thalo was paying attention.

             
They were back in Cole’s cell and watching him.  There were ten of the disfigured Esii in the room now and they all seemed to be concentrating rather diligently.

             
“Should we help him?”  Split asked himself.

             
“No.  He can endure.  Torture can be endured.  Be it mental or physical.  We would expose ourselves if we tried.  These, these Esii are hard to keep our mind shielded from. If they suspected our presence they would bring more and we would be found.”  Split responded to himself.

             
“He doesn't deserve this; he is a hero and our commander.  It is hard to sit back and watch them attempting to break him.  Maybe we should just end it and kill him when they leave.  Spare him the suffering.  We could try and make it out on our own.”

             
“No, definitely not.  He will not die here while we live.  If he is to die then he will die fighting.  We must plan for his escape and prepare the way.  Like Jarrod did for us.”

             
“It is remarkable how he predicted the need for us, isn’t it?”

             
“He was more than he appeared; he was more than he knew about himself.  We were made for this moment in time.  No one else could do what we are doing.  No one could help Cole here and now but us.  I fear no one will come for us and we will have to save ourselves.”  Split moved out of Cole’s cell and went back on the prowl.  This time for information and not for murder.

CHAPTER 7

Approximately 20,000 years ago

              Jarrod had put off calling in the Kin for as long as he could.  The time had come and he was on his way to their world.  His forces were suffering heavy losses in this war and he couldn’t afford to lose anymore.  It had been almost a year since the Esii had destroyed his shipyards and had forced him to go on the offensive.  With Jarrod’s people leading the way the war had turned in his favor.