Inherited War 3: Retaliation (13 page)

The chime on his door dinged. That would be Liam. Cole opened the door and smiled; he was right. Liam asked for permission to enter before walking in and sitting down.

“Thanks for a moment, Sir,” he started.

“Not a problem. What’s on your mind?” Cole asked him.

“I have been thinking, and I after we get back Home, well, I want to take you up on your offer, Sir.” He was clearly nervous. Cole thought it was understandable. He hadn’t been very stable lately.

“Relax a little, I am feeling much better. What offer was that?” Cole asked a moment before realizing what it was. “Oh, never mind. You want a ship, is that it?”

“Yes, Sir. Ever since I heard you talk about some of the places you have been in the galaxy, it stirred something inside of me. I don’t know. I suddenly wanted to see a place like Pitt or the Kin’s homeworld. Some place exotic and maybe a little dangerous. Don’t get me wrong, I know it will take time to get stuff together and for the yards to build a ship. For that time I will be your man, do whatever you want. But after, I would love to see what the next star is hiding.”

Cole looked at the man, stared into his soul. He saw a spark of something, something he had had in himself when he was first learning of the galaxy. He smiled at Liam. “Of course, I meant what I said. This whole situation is screwed up. We were not supposed to be here yet. We were not supposed to be nearly extinct. I won’t begrudge anyone who wants to leave. Hell, I envy them. Envy you. The greatest time of my life was when it was me and Sky, alone on
The Retribution
,” his voice caught as he named the ship he had first taken into space. He missed her.
The Resurrection
was identical in design but lacked the memories his first ship had. “You can sit down with the yards AI and work something out. You don’t have to know anything about engineering: you just tell it what you want it to do and if you have a specific shape in mind, and it will work out the specs with you. I designed two ships in a relatively short amount of time with the AI.”

“Nice,” Liam said, “I was thinking
Millennium Falcon.”

“Hah,” Cole barked out a laugh. “That was my first thought too, but it just wasn’t feasible. First off, the cockpit all the way on the edge of a nearly round ship screws with your perspective, hard to fly and not hit shit. But what the hell, spend some time with the yard and see if you can make it work.”

“I will, Sir, I will make it work.” Liam was excited now. He stood up, shook Cole’s hand, and thanked him again before leaving. Moments later, Cole got a call from Anastacia on the bridge.

“Cole this may be it, we are getting the first readings back from the system. Five planets, second is approximately the same distance from its yellow sun as Earth was. We are twenty minutes out.” She cut the call and Cole rose to his feet. He didn’t get his hopes up, but he figured he would go to the bridge to check it out anyway.

Cole arrived on the bridge and saw the other three already hooked in, so he joined them. He felt the momentary disconnect as his mind separated from his body and entered the ship’s computer. He shifted from his normal prospective and joined his friends on the VR bridge.

“Let’s see what we have. Visual image of the second planet, please.” A small dot appeared on the giant star trek-like forward view screen. “Max resolution and zoom. Adjust as we get closer.” The small dot raced at the ship and grew in size as it neared. It was a planet, that was for sure. Other than that, it was nothing special or different than what they had found in the last few systems. Though this one did have an atmosphere, and that would mean a temperature above zero. Still, it looked an awful lot like Mars did the one time Cole saw Mars up-close.

“Launch the probes and verify that this is an actual waste of time, and then we leave.” The explorer ship fired out the required amount of probes to get complete coverage across the whole planet. Once they deployed their nanite gatherers, it would be twenty to twenty-five minutes before they began to receive any relevant information. The VR Bridge was quiet as they waited for the first initial reports. Information began flooding in. The first report was promising, almost identical to Earth atmo, but the carbon dioxide was at around twenty percent and the oxygen count was almost nonexistent. There was also very little water vapor in the air, but there was some. The ships AI began to process the information and catalogue it into an ancient program that could predict the feasibility for terraforming planets. Temperatures from all over the world flooded in and were added into the mix. Cole kept a watchful eye on the percent chance of successfully terraforming this planet. As each new variable came in, the percentage of success steadily rose.

Then the probes themselves, having delivered their payloads and returned to a shallow orbit of the planet, began streaming live images to the ship. Dotted all over the face of the planet were what appeared to be ancient cities, falling to ruins, but they were definitely man made. Or alien made, as the case may be.

Cole started to enlarge and sort through the images. As more and more information came in over the next hour, a clear picture was being painted of this world. Cities ruined by high yield explosions could be found in all corners of the planet. Certain areas still had significantly higher volumes of radiation than others, but not in lethal amounts. He saw buildings of steel and concrete with gaping holes or knocked to their sides. There were no records of this planet in any of the resources he had used to plot his prospects, so this may well have been a race that never made it to the stars.

Cole remembered some scientist on Earth once saying something to the effect that if a species could discover nuclear weapons and not destroy themselves, and find faster than light travel, then they would probably be friendly. These guys failed in the first part, it seemed.

All four of them watched in silence over the next few hours as the ships AI received and catalogued the data from the planet. Water was found in a liquid state under the crust, ice caps were found buried under the dust and dirt of the poles. Sentient made structures and roads were found crisscrossing the planet. The AI was estimating by the rate of radiation decay the battle that claimed this world happened between nine and ten thousand years ago.

With a majority of the scout nanites reporting in, Cole stared at the percent chance of success for terraforming this world. It had stopped at ninety percent. He liked those odds. “Manny,” Cole called out to the AI, (the AI’s name, like the name of the ship, was just too much to say so it chose the nickname “Manny” when talking to its crew). “Start compiling a strategic plan for terraforming this world. Use the genetic material we recovered from the Esii and see if it is possible to rebuild the ecosystem of this world with all Earth Native Species. Also, with the tech and equipment we have, is it possible to get water back to the surface of this world and uncover the icecaps.”

“I will begin now, though I can answer one of those questions immediately. One of the larger underground water sources is under extreme pressure, it would only take a release point on the surface to cause the water to vent onto the surface of the planet,” Manny responded.

“How much water are we talking about, Manny?” Anastacia asked.

“Nearly six hundred million cubic miles of water would be released from a few strategically placed vents,” Manny answered.

Anastacia let out a low whistle. “That’s almost as much as the Pacific Ocean had in it. Can you predict the coverage area if we did manage to release it all?” she asked.

A nearly perfect computer rendering of the world formed in front of them. “The red dots indicate the areas where pressure has built up the most and would offer the fastest release of water.” Four lines bisected each other forming the north, south, east, and west hemispheres. All of the dots appeared in the southeastern hemisphere.

“There are other, smaller pockets of water that could be brought up to the surface here and here.” More dots popped up on the rest of the world. “I would recommend a precise plasma strike to burn through the outer crust. We would need multiple ships in orbit to hit all areas at once.” Computer generated ships popped up, orbiting the planet. They simultaneously fired with pinpoint accuracy to the surface of the world. “I will speed up the release; it would take many months for it to actually occur.”

They watched as the dead brown planet slowly filled with blue water, which slowly turned grey as it became deeper. The water rushed to fill in the low places of the world. The significantly lower areas would, by the nature of gravity, become the oceans of the world.

“The water is all fresh by the way,” Manny continued. “Unless it uncovers a massive salt deposit, the surface water of this world will be fresh. Also the lack of a moon will decrease tidal surge. The pressure release and voids created by the escaping water will cause seismic anomalies for years to come.”

Manny’s simulation predicted a year for most of the water to reach the surface, though underground springs would continue to feed it for hundreds of years to come. His final prediction was one thousand years out, when he thought the water would finally stop rising. The planet didn’t have nearly as much water as Earth, but it covered almost half the planet. Since it would all be fresh, it was more than enough.

“The poles will be more difficult to uncover. Dust from the massive explosions effectively covered the icecaps and are anywhere from a few feet deep to hundreds of feet deep. It will take a sizeable effort to uncover them, and as you can see, the water will never reach the northern most icecap.”

Cole took all this information in and stared at the world. This might be it, he thought. This world could be rebuilt with Earth organisms. His mouth watered at the thought of a steak that actually tasted like a steak.

“How long after the water settles down enough to plant basic life that can start turning the CO2 into oxygen?” Cole asked.

“At about six months the water has found its basin and is just filling up, the mass upheavals should be over by then. Also, weather patterns should be forming and moving the water around in the form of clouds and rain. New streams will form, along with small ponds and lakes. We should know at about this time where we can start sowing the seeds of the simplest life forms. Of course you will want to start with the biggest oxygen producers first. If you can do that, then it may take a year to reverse the oxygen and carbon dioxide levels and make it safe for humans to move around with no external source of air.” Manny went silent then hedged his bet. “I would say two years total before you could move your people here safely, plus or minus six months.”

“Well boss, what do you think?” Liam asked.

“Me, I think it will work. We are even further out from the core worlds than Earth was. We can start over fresh with plants and animals we already know how to use. Unless someone finds a better place than this, I say we get started on it right away. For now, this will be our primary site. If we happen to find a better one in the next two years, this will be, if nothing else, a backup world for us. In fact, we should keep looking for other worlds so we can never be wiped out again in one shot. Manny, leave a node here for the probes to store data in. We are going to go home and send
The Missouri
to start the process of bringing up the water.” The ship dropped the data node and turned to head out system, hit the warp limit, and disappeared into warped space.

A gentle hand shook a sleeping Sky to wakefulness. She woke instantly and sat up, almost knocking Gavreal over.

“It is time. His ship just reentered local space and is inbound now. He reverted further out than I was expecting, so we have some time to prepare,” Gavreal said as he helped her to her feet. “We must move to the area adjacent to the hanger. The closer we are, the better our chances of breaking through into his mind”

“I am ready, let’s go,” Sky responded, looking to the Kin expectantly.

“You have time, Sky,” that was from Bain the base’s AI. “He is an hour out at the rate he is approaching.”

“An hour?” Sky thought aloud. “Why so far out and so slow?” Her breath caught in her throat. “Is everything alright? Have we received any transmissions from the ship?”

“No, nothing yet. Wait a moment.” Bain went silent. “Receiving a recorded transmission now, I will play it for you.”

The small flat screen maintenance monitor suddenly lit up and Cole’s face appeared. To Sky, he looked more alive and himself than ever before. The time away from the base had been good for him it seemed. Bain began to play the recording.

“I have good news and orders. First the orders. Suspend all preparations for a fleet move to Nixa. Stand down all ships except
The Missouri
. Everyone else needs to be preparing for the arrival of a few thousand new humans. The good news is, I think we have found a world that can become our new home.
The Missouri
will be leaving with very specific orders in the next day to start prepping the world for terraforming. I realize that some of you may be confused by my actions now, compared to my action when I arrive back on the base. I recorded this away from the base because I think something there is affecting me negatively, and when I return it may begin doing so again. If this is the case, then I have authorized Sergeant Major West to relieve me of command and render me unconscious until a reason for my mental instability can be found. If he finds himself unable to restrain me, then I have given the green light for him to neutralize me, permanently. Do not take my actions of the past few weeks towards our allies to heart. In order for us to survive, we need the aid of the Nixa and the Worlders. Thank you and see you soon.” The image snapped off, leaving a blank screen and a terrified Sky.