Koban 4: Shattered Worlds (111 page)

“Do you mean load up our people? Including Prada, Torki, and Raspani?” That was Noreen, her emotions and surprise revealing her shock through the link.

Mirikami didn’t reject it outright. “I suppose if anyone wanted to board early I wouldn’t refuse them, but I was only thinking of packing up some of our critical technology, if we have to find somewhere to rebuild. Things from the Torki and Raspani technology labs, Max’s physics lab, and Aldry and Rafe’s gene labs, or at least core parts of those technologies, to retain what we have. Sort of like we did for gene mods, with a duplicate program at Heavyside.”

Dillon had a practical observation. “The migration ships we took have more than enough room for the combined populations here and on Haven. Even with ten thousand or so new Kobani, from transformed spec ops and other invited converts, the entire human population could cram into a single migration ship if it had too. Not that we would do that, but they have a large capacity. We’re outnumbered by rescued Prada two to one now, but they use less room than we do, and Raspani are still in short supply. What? About eleven thousand of them with embeds, and several thousand wild blanks when they can make enough mind enhancers.

“Raspani need more room than humans but one migration ship is enough. The Torki are the tougher ones to move. Not so many of them. About twelve thousand, but for a long Jump they need a lot of water and probably two ships. Even so, we could even take along a great deal of the things we bought in Human Space. At least if we had time to load them. What I can’t see, though, is our having enough time to pack the ships. Our people won’t do it until they know for sure we have to leave.”

Thad put in his two cents. “Then like Tet suggested, we set up one or two ships with contingency loads, and stash them well away from the inner system. Land them on one of the gas giant moons. Keep Jump tachyons in their Traps at all times.”

Maggi didn’t like the sense of defeatism she was hearing, particularly from her husband. “We need to strike first Tet. Hit the Krall before they hit us. You know what I mean. Take out their ability to come after us here by pinning them on K1.”

“Well, I’m not one to give up a fight quickly,” Sarge said, but he pointed out some practical limits on attacking the Krall first. “At any given time, one quarter of the Krall fleet is helping to supply or providing ground support for the Poldark invasion, another quarter is doing that at New Dublin. The rest are at K1, or points in between in Jump travel, making new equipment pickups at their production worlds, or on clan business to base worlds. That’s too large a volume of space for only a hundred fourteen of our ships to cover. We had hoped to have the navy with us at first, but Medford has made that impossible.”

Mirikami had a partial counter for the Poldark and New Dublin situation. “We have army help on the invaded planets, with their planetary defenses able to reach ships arriving and departing, and spec ops can get close to those sitting on the ground. I just don’t know if we can deliver enough of the new ammunition in the three or four weeks we might have.”

“Why only three or four weeks Tet?”

“Sarge, that clanship most likely came from K1 if was deliberately sent to check out Koban. A week and a half to wait for it to return, a couple of days before being considered overdue, and then a fleet of clanships sent here to see what happened to the first ship would take a week and a half. Roughly four weeks, a few days less if Telour’s in a hurry.”

“Don’t think that would happen, Tet. Weren’t the Krall forming a new Joint Council, per the aide you captured on Huwayla? Telour rushed to get that planet smasher into action before a new council could consider altering his plan. The new council isn’t going to be rubber-stamping Telour’s ideas. Consider our damaging attack on K1, the busted invasion force, the fact that his four-world destruction idea only half worked, and then they lost a lot of clanships in failed raids at Alders and New Glasgow. He can’t be the most popular war leader right now. Would a possibly hostile Joint Council agree to let Telour send the whole fleet to check out Koban, because of a single overdue clanship?”

Mirikami paid him another complement. “When did you get so deep and astute Sarge? That’s a pretty good analysis.”

He had a pithy explanation, as usual. “Nothing like having your ass caught in a crack to sharpen your mind. Sort of pushes the blood flow up to the gray cells.”

“I’ll have to try that technique. In any case, Telour would still send more than a single clanship the next time, assuming that he did send this one. Two decades after the only previous visit, and Medford is trying to sell us out for political gain. I think this ship probably
was
sent here in a cover-my-ass sort of move by Telour. However, even the pilot didn’t take the possibility of human survival here seriously. The next visit will be more careful, and will have at least two clanships, one to standoff at a safe distance to watch the other one investigate.”

“He’d probably send a more typical hand of ships.” Noreen pointed out. “Think we can ambush four of them before one of them Jumps?”

“Probably not, but what difference would that make anyway, if they don’t return to K1 on time?” Mirikami stated the obvious facts. “They’ll be back in force after that, either way. All we gain is some time, so the round trip between us and K1 is all we’ll have.”

Now even Noreen started talking evacuation. “OK, then what’s the plan, get ready to flee with what we can carry? I support trying to delay them by attacking K1.”

“Noreen, you and Maggi may be right.” Tet said. “We may have to try to hit them again at K1 before they can send a fleet here. We’re safer for longer if they can’t come after us right away. We can always run for distant stars, if that doesn’t work.”

Sarge reminded him of other clanship resources. “Poldark and New Glasgow, Tet. Those clanships commute back and forth weekly, or even more often to K1. They’ll learn who hit K1, and where we are.”

Mirikami sent a mental image of himself shrugging. “One step at a time folks. We might get the navy back on our side when we demonstrate what we have. Medford won’t like it, but a little publicity for our side with some news interviews could turn public opinion around. With Hub manufacturing and navy ships to help with delivery of the new ordinance, we just might be able to slam the door before the Krall figure out what we did and how we did it.

“Just to let you know, the Mark will be back at Haven in a few hours. After our White Out, I want to hold an open meeting at the Xenos arena, and let everyone know where we stand, and what our options are. We also need to make the entire system look like a ghost town from a distance.”

****

“Koldok should have returned from that simple mission two days ago.” An agitated Telour was speaking to Demteg, an aide to whom he’d recently given added status, for her helpful information on the unpleasant mood of many of the new Joint Council members. She knew only that Koldok’s mission had started three weeks ago, but not where she had been sent or why.

Telour had apparently not expected the trip to produce any surprises. However, by not returning on time, her journey had done exactly that, surprised him. His agitation suggested it was of considerable concern to the Tor, and because he was expressing this only with Demteg present, that the resolution would involve her in some fashion. She sensed an opportunity coming, which might earn her additional status from the war leader. She waited to hear what duty he had for her.

Telour’s question was blunt. “How can I secretly send a hand of clanships on a follow up mission to discover what happened to Koldok, and not reveal what I asked her to investigate to the new council? I have enforced strict limits on clanship use, and I will not ask the council for approval for this. They would want an explanation, which I am not ready to provide.”

She thought only seconds, which for a Krall is time for deep reflection. “The council is angry that repairs to salvageable clanships are hampered by the factories the humans damaged in the attack. There are over three hands of Jump capable clanships, which were damaged internally when ruptured fusion bottles inside loaded equipment vented their plasma. Appoint your own commander and pilots, and divert them to where you sent Koldok. Because they are not operational, the council would probably not know they were sent elsewhere. However, if you are asked where they are, you can say they were sent for repair off world. Then you send them for that after they return.”

He was instant in his own decision. “You are the commander. Find three other high status Graka pilots, and four competent warriors for the weapons consoles. The four clanships you select must have all of their energy weapons operational, and if any of their launchers function, they need anti-ship missiles.”

This sounded like a chance to earn significant status to Demteg. “What do I tell our warriors about the purpose of the mission, my Tor, and status for them?” That was something she needed to know herself of course, in order to inform them.

There was no point in being less than blunt now. “The highest human clan leader has said that the most effective human fighters are a clan not under her control, and they call themselves Kobani. These new fighters flew our stolen clanships against us. Their name for themselves contains the sound
ko ban
in our language, and a human custom is to use the place where they live as part of their clan name. Our very first human prisoners called our future home world by the name Koban.”

He saw she made the connection, humans using Krall words and making them a name for a place. Something the Krall didn’t do for places. It was nearly inconceivable to consider this a valid link, thinking humans lived on a planet the Krall had not been able to master.

Telour proved that he felt the same way. “It was impossible for humans to live there without our protections, and the prisoners were left exposed to the native life before we left. Even if other humans discovered the planet so far from their own frontiers, they would not try to live there and build a base. They have many safer worlds for that. However, to be efficient I sent Koldok in secret, to confirm our future home was untouched. She was not permitted to land, only to observe, and her sensors were recording everything so she would have obeyed me. She has not returned.”

“My Tor, I will select the most suitable of the damaged clanships immediately, and select those warriors I will lead. Do you wish to speak with the clan mates I take?”

“I speak only to you. No other connection will be made to me. You will divide the status points as you decide. I award you a hundred thousand of the status points I earned when the human world of Meadow died.” He made the simple point transfer to her clan account on the computer system in the command center while she observed.

She had been obligated to ask if he wanted to meet the other warriors, but the nature of the mission meant that the Tor’s only direct link was through her. If she failed him, that link was easily broken, as it was with Koldok. However, she would not fail. With a successful return, no matter what was discovered, her future was secure with the Tor. He rewarded loyalty and performance.

The Mark was standing watch in a Normal Space drive powered stationary position at two hundred miles, and not in orbit. It had been there alone for three days. Mirikami knew the round trip time between Koban and K1, and he had allowed for this margin of response time. He had the Mark constantly positioned on the side towards where the Krall would White Out if they came. They would use the most direct approach they always preferred, and he wanted them to sight the Mark immediately if they came.

The remainder of the hundred thirteen Kobani ships had spent the same three days on Kratos, Koban’s moon, where they wouldn’t show on radar scans. The geosynchronous communications satellites were stowed inside one of the Orbital Based Only passenger liners circling Kronos, all of them placed where the Krall had left them twenty-three years ago.

The com satellites over Haven were similarly hidden, even though Koban was where the visitors, if they came, were expected to look first. The Torki migration ships were sitting on several of the larger moons of the two outer gas giants. As decided, two of them contained key parts of alien and human technologies, and people from the four species that knew how it worked. Surprisingly few aliens had chosen to board the other migration ships, although several thousand humans from Haven had done so.

Except for Kobani crews to watch after them, none of that portion of the fully gene modified population had elected to prepare for an evacuation. It was the non-Kobani that boarded, who knew they would only be in the way of a fight. The majority of them now considered Haven home, and didn’t want to leave. They understood that they were unlikely to be welcomed in Human Space anyway, and a new planet would have to be found to settle if they needed to flee.

On radio frequencies, the entire system had been quite for five days, in case the Krall made a remote stop first in the outer system just to listen. With Comtaps, Olts, and mind enhancers, no group was out of contact for news. Their constant chatter via quantum entanglement, through Tachyon Space was undetectable so long as they avoided the electromagnetic spectrum for those devices in local mode.

Impatience was growing after three uneventful days, even as Mirikami was saying patience was now most needed. He broadcast on the universal link, “Tell everyone that we are now at the center of the highest probability window for their return if they’re coming.”

Maggi was sympathetic. “Keeping kids home and out of school for three days has to be wearing on parents nerves. I’m antsy, and all I have is you pacing around the Bridge every waking moment, checking sensors, making sure the damned sleepless AI is awake.”

“I can’t shut my mind off, thinking of what we might lose. I don't doubt I need to relax and get my mind on something else.”

“Then why don’t you watch an old movie with me? Perhaps read a damned book. Stop asking Jakob something every hour about things that you already know. I wish you’d had the boys stay with you here on the Mark, to play poker and swap lies. I’d rather listen to you four bicker and pick on each other than hear your feet clumping around the Bridge, while you address some minor detail or petty emergency with someone on the ground.”

By boys, she meant Dillon, Thad, and Sarge, who were on Kratos waiting for something to happen. There was no one else on the Mark, and Mirikami had met “Tiger Lady” Fisher again when he suggested that only he had to be here, to act as bait if the Krall returned with a small number of clanships. When his backside healed from the chewing out, he appreciated how congenial she became when she got her way. Which, upon reflection, he decided was much of the time.

If he’d misjudged Telour’s influence with the new Joint Council, they might come in force with a fleet. Although, he now agreed with Sarge, that they had probably busted the bubble of invulnerability that Telour had lived inside of as the Krall war leader. He’d had his nose repeatedly rubbed in setbacks since he’d taken on the mantle of Tor Gatrol. The last completely successful action for the Krall was the invasion of New Glasgow, and that had been engineered by Kanpardi, not Telour.

This Tor had a blemish on everything he’d ordered done or tried to do, he was too arrogant and self-assured, convinced of his own brilliance, and he blamed his failures on poor performance of weaker clans, or of the random luck of his enemies. The billions of dead at Meadow and more to come at Bootstrap might label him a successful killer, but he’d missed his larger more vital targets. The roughly twenty billion additional lives he had intended to kill on Pittsburg II and Earth-Mars would detract, in Krall minds anyway, from what he’d said he would do.

He was forced to abandon a third concurrent invasion after the K1 attack, then two large punitive raids were repelled with significant losses, leaving the original fleet half in ruins. The domes hit on K1 wouldn’t weigh too heavy on him. The habitats were unimportant property, and not considered tools of war. He probably had benefitted from a comparative increase in stature over other leaders, due to the loss of so many other high status clan leaders in those domes.

Mirikami finally succumbed to prodding by Maggi, to go below and eat a hot meal rather than the sandwiches and snacks, and occasional plate she had brought to him on the Bridge for two days. He was ordered to take a hot shower, change to fresh clothes, and then he’d feel like a new man.

Naturally, that was when the three White Outs were instantly reported by Jakob, to a Mirikami with an unclosed tunic, one leg in his pants, and hair still wet. He probably set a galactic record for a half-dressed man to leap twenty feet over the Bridge railing from the lower deck. He flashed an irritated look at his wife while swallowing the final bite of the rhinolo steak he’d rushed through for his lunch, as he slipped on his boots.

Even before Mirikami could swallow that last morsel, Maggi had calmly initiated the Normal Space drive thrust to move them smoothly into what would look like a normal two hundred mile high equatorial orbit, and had already opened the four main portals on the lowest deck.

That bottom level had been sealed off and in vacuum for three days, so there was no meaningful escape of residual atmosphere. Stealth wasn’t an issue either, because they had none activated. Not even the less effective stealth level that the three Krall clanships were using. If you were not expecting to be attacked at your secret base, you didn’t need stealth. The Mark was the proverbial sitting duck, and intended to be noticed.

The clanships had arrived at about ten thousand miles out, spaced several miles apart, not so close that a single Novae missile could destroy them all at once, but close enough for mutual fire support. Before his bare feet had hit the bridge decking, a fourth White Out gamma ray burst revealed the arrival of the standoff clanship Mirikami had predicted. That burst arrived about five seconds later, which if they had all Jumped together, suggested the observer clanship was a little over nine hundred thirty thousand miles away.

The Mark had no radar scans active, as befit a ship not expecting visitors, but Jakob, with the direction of the arriving gamma rays as his locater, spotted the first three clanships at about where they expected them if they had come from K1. Although, they could have come from almost anywhere in Human Space for that matter, since Koban was so far from there.

Wide spaced Doppler spectrum pulses arrived in seconds from two of the clanships. It was the wide beam automatic scan mode for two of the ships, scanning the entire volume of space near Koban.

The third clanship was using a narrower beam that was directed only towards the planet, checking for objects in orbit. It quickly shifted to a needle sharp beam of tracking mode, and Jakob told them it was now following them. It automatically narrowed to a tight beam for any targets it found. The Krall tracking systems could have used narrow tracking beams for a hundred twenty eight separate targets, but the Mark was the only beneficiary of that close attention right now.

Jakob knew to notify them if the tracking pulse rate suddenly increased for initial accurate missile guidance, as happened just before a launch. Missiles would employ their own radar tracking after launch, and the clanship could fire and forget if they wanted to Jump away. It was possible to fire a missile without that helpful initial course guidance, but the missile was subject to its own target selection in that case, and might not choose wisely. That also had a characteristic signal that Jakob would warn them of if detected.

With their own radar tracking locked onto the Mark, and no radar from the Mark active, the Krall knew the unknown clanship wasn’t preparing to launch a missile. Even opening a missile port where it could alter hull reflectivity on an unstealthed clanship would alert them. The base portals were already open, so no changes would be seen from there.

Maggi was already secured in her acceleration couch, and Mirikami settled into his, as it automatically formed around him. “OK, Jakob, time to shoot our pop guns at them.” Mirikami ordered.

“Is that the .50 caliber machine guns Sir, or the railgun?”

“For the two machine guns that can bear on their general positions, a short burst of fifty slugs each. Don’t rotate the ship to bring other portals to bear. I just want to get their attention.”

Maggi was confused. “Tet, they’re ten thousand miles away. These are completely wasted shots. They’ll be long gone before those slugs can reach them.”

“Oh, we’d never reach them if they sat still, even if we were on target. These are slow ballistic slugs. Koban’s gravity will slow them and they’ll eventually fall back.”

“So why do it?”

“To start them analyzing what we fired at them early, before they get closer.”

“From that range can they see the bullets?”

“We tested, and the tight tracking beam they have on us will see the metallic reflections of the hundred or so slugs coming up that beam, causing Doppler shifts. The slugs will soon drift out of the beam but they’ll have seen them on their sensor suite. I want them to see them more times if I get the chance, so they know what they are, and ignore them.”

“Why would they ignore .50 cal bullets in space? A hole is a hole, is it not?”

“Not to a clanship’s armored hull. The machine gun slugs might nick the stealth coating is all. A massive rail gun slug, at orbital velocity plus several more miles per second when fired
can
penetrate. However, at Poldark with hundreds of railgun platforms like the one we have, they probably have never seriously damaged a clanship. They were designed to send a signal on impact, to locate where a stealthed clanship was for directing more powerful plasma and laser fire. Sometimes a pilot will change course to avoid the heavy slugs for that reason, or simply because they don’t want a hole in their ship. Our railgun might be used to shift them to where I want them, in the path of the smaller slugs.”

“When will that happen?”

“Soon, they’re accelerating inwards towards us.” He spoke to the AI again.

“Jakob, fire a few hundred rounds along our general back track from each of the four guns and release the Railgun.”

“Yes Sir.”

“Frankly, I didn’t expect them to be so cautious. I thought they’d micro Jump behind us. That’s why I just sprayed or back trail. In case…, Oops!” He saw a sensor reading change.

Jakob said, “A single White Out behind us Sir. Rail gun was released, and is firing.” Internal inertial compensation jerked them around as the AI maneuvered the ship.

It followed that report with, “Railgun is firing behind the trailing clanship.”

Both Mirikami and Maggi morphed their chairs into couches for acceleration. A video repeater of the console display was extruded nearly overhead, so each could see while semi reclined. “Jakob, they shifted closer to move away from the railgun slugs. That’s the one that had us track locked earlier, right?”

“Yes Sir. The other two clanships are still accelerating as before. The trailing clanship is locked on us again but it’s too close for a missile launch. It could fire plasma cannons and lasers.”

Mirikami was surprised it was as close as it was, but excited as well. “Taking attitude and gun control.”

“Yes Sir”

Mirikami used reaction thrusters in the bow to kick the ship’s attitude sideways, while maintaining the Normal Space drive thrust vector in the same direction, still accelerating along the same equatorial orbit Maggi had initiated. In vacuum, with a reactionless drive, it didn’t matter what profile the ship presented as it raced ahead. He could as easily have accelerated facing the opposite direction of their motion.

Mirikami sighted in the clanship by use of the joystick on his armrest, and started firing. However, only two machine guns started blazing away in silent vacuum, aimed at the silhouette of the pursuing clanship located less than a mile behind and slightly lower than they were. The other two guns couldn’t bear on the designated target and were holding fire.

“Depress the barrels Sir, you are aiming too high.”

He quickly pushed on the joystick the guns were slaved to on his armrest, doing as the AI instructed, watching the targeting symbol move below the clanship’s image. He quickly said, “Take over firing and navigation Jakob.”

It may be too late,
he thought, angry with himself after drawing them in close where he wanted and missing his shots.