Koban 4: Shattered Worlds (112 page)

Just then, a plasma bolt flashed on his screen and he assumed invisible laser fire was also beamed their direction. However, the ship started rotating rapidly to distribute any heat, and the four machine guns continued to fire as each portal came to bear. The AI kept the display image steady for them despite the spin, but the feeling of spinning was disconcerting despite the inertial compensation being applied.

The Normal Space drive’s thrust vector suddenly changed, and savage acceleration slammed against them at near black out levels as the spinning Mark, still moving sideways but with its nose pointed away from the planet, shot away with a huge thrust vector along its tail to nose axis. The Mark rapidly shot away from the planet. The two passengers were pressed deeply into their couches, the crushing and unexpected extreme pressure coming up against their backs from their couches.

The pressure quickly eased, and Mirikami fought his way back to full awareness. “What happened?” his eyesight had briefly gone to tunnel vision, and he’d not been able to see his screen. Unprepared for the burst of g’s, he’d not used his legs and abdominal muscles to force blood to his brain as he’d normally do for a boost like that. There was no clanship on his screen and the guns had ceased firing.

Jakob explained. “The chasing ship suddenly backed off, despite the railgun slugs aimed behind it, and I detected a missile prelaunch signal from their tracking radar. Our axis at a right angle from our direction of motion allowed me to apply maximum thrust to try to avoid the missile.”

Maggi, proving she was alert and part of the Comtap exchange said, “You got Nav control back just in time then.”

“No Mam. It was too late.”

“Wait. What?” Mirikami sure felt alive.

“Sir, the missiles were not launched, and the clanship has continued along our former course, which is well below and beyond our former position now.”

“Where are the other two clanships now?” He asked quickly. He didn’t know what happened to save their butts from his mistake, but he wasn’t going to repeat it again.

“Both remain on Normal Space drive and are descending towards us, but are still thousands of miles away and higher. They apparently were waiting for the ship behind us to fire their missiles. I believe there were four missiles selected, based on the number of open launch ports I detected.”

“Why didn’t at least one of the four missiles fire?” Maggi seemed to be questioning their survival, as had Mirikami.

“I cannot say Mam.”

“Jakob, when either of those two clanships reaches us or Jumps close, you have full control of weapons and navigation. I’ll just Comtap my instruction to you. I nearly got us killed, just like some damned Krall warrior’s ego would do. Don’t forget to keep firing the machine guns when they’re chasing us, range doesn’t matter much. Is the rail gun too far behind us now, to fire on the next two ships?”

“The railgun can fire on them Sir. Should I do so?”

“Be sure to fire where they
will be
, not where they are, like I did with the machineguns.”

“Yes Sir.”

Maggi asked, “Tet, what did you meant by that?”

“Jakob, controlling the railgun, fired to fill the space several miles behind us with the heavy slugs. They moved up close behind us to avoid them. If not, the railgun slugs would reach them. Up close, the machinegun slugs could do the job.

“I took attitude control to rotate the ship to let the guns in the hold bear on the chase ship, since we can’t shoot an object directly behind us. Only we were under lateral acceleration by the Normal Space drive. I stupidly shot where the clanship would be if we were both at a constant velocity. The acceleration moved him past the spreading field of slugs I sent their way before they could reach him. They were in a perfect position and I missed. I’m faster than a Krall, but not as good as the AI. I could have gotten us killed. Should have, actually. I wonder why they held fire with the missiles.”

Maggi, not grasping all the Spacer mechanics of orbits and accelerations, asked a series of questions. “Remind me again why we’re shooting what you called pop guns at them? Wasn’t that the point of all this crazy crap? To apply our discovery that one of the Mark’s keypads was close enough to receive the untrusted DNA code list from Huwayla’s nearest airlock hatch?”

“Well yes, but…” He was interrupted.

“Then that list propagated through all the locks on this entire ship? And we let that list infect new chips we installed on all the bullets? Did I understand the point of all this?”

“Uh, yea. But even if I’d hit them a minute ago, or Jakob did, it would affect doors locks, plasma rifles, Dragons, body armor, clanship navigation …,” he trailed off in thought.

She stared at him, and pulled meaningfully at her lower lip. “And weapons consoles, genius?”

He looked sheepish. “We couldn’t risk allowing Dorkda to reach the Bridge or a weapons console. Besides, we were sitting up here watching him when he was unable to open any doors on the ship, and couldn’t activate that plasma rifle. That’s all we tested.”

She asked Jakob, “What has that clanship done since it went past us?”

“It has not changed direction, although its automatic radar system is still locked on and tracking us in prelaunch mode. Its velocity will take it on an elongated elliptical orbit around Koban unless it applies thrust or it Jumps.”

Her acceleration couch released her on command and she stood up and tapped him on an arm, “There you go, master planner. The modified slugs worked like you thought they would. Replacing the Krall Killer chips with Torki made door lock circuits, which were brought within a hundred twenty two feet of one from the Mark, blocks Olt’kitapi circuits from activating for an untrusted species. You just locked the bastards inside a ship they can no longer control!”

“Not me. I completely missed them. It was probably Jakob that fired the shots that worked.” He ended that statement with a loud Yipe.

“Damn. No wonder Dillon wore a cup around you. That stung.”

“Well, straighten up and get ready for the other two clanships lover. I’ll tell the others we have our next chess move for the Krall to discover.”

****

Demteg, briefed by Telour concerning his last sight of the Koban system as the Krall fleet departed to start the war, relied on his battlefield memory description, and the images that were recorded. They activated radar scans to search nearby space for threats, but her motion sensitive Krall vision quickly spotted one object, a pinprick of reflection actually, moving across the distant visual image of the planet.

Radar tracking was initiated, and a visual screen zoom revealed it was a clanship in a low orbit. If it was Koldok, there should be a radio contact in response to the White Outs. If not her, then some other reaction, hostile or evasive.

Her two companion clanships used line of sight laser com to inform her that the moon had a number of orbiting large human spacecraft, which appeared dead and cold. That was as she was told to expect by Telour. Her console’s wide spectrum electromagnetic sensors still had detected no radio traffic or radar pulses. That matched with readings they made when they paused briefly, three light-days out, to scan for residual communication signals that didn’t belong here.

If this was Koldok’s clanship, and it had suffered battle damage or system failure in its Jump Drive or tachyon Traps, she would still have fusion power for radios and life support. Demteg didn’t know if that other clanship was taken from the salvageable lists of those awaiting repair at Telda Ka, as the four in her command were. However, her own four ships had internal problems.

Hers was the only clanship of the four in her command with any functioning missile launchers. The escaping star hot plasma from ruptured fusion bottles had heated the interiors of all four ships to where some equipment components had melted. Not to mention the stench of the roasted dead crews that was left in place to decay. The other three clanships had carried full loads of mini-tanks, plasma battery carts, and ordinary trucks loaded with rifles and ammunition. At least two fusion bottles had ruptured inside each of them. Her clanship, which still carried its load of ruined heavy armored transports, only had one fusion bottle sabotaged. Because the plasma had been partially contained within a transport located on the lowest deck, not as much damage was done to the upper missile launchers. She had two launchers that worked. That was why she investigated the clanship they found here. It also provided a justification for her retention of the largest share of the status points. Her comrades didn’t know how generous the Tor Gatrol had been.

She approached cautiously at first, to give the other pilot, if it was Koldok, time to respond. She would have White Out alarms set, and could be below attempting repairs or even eating. When no radio call came, she decided to get in behind the other clanship.

She readied for a visual micro Jump to go in several miles behind the silent clanship. Getting a report from Koldok would be useful after her weeks here, but this behavior, despite being non-threatening, was bizarre.

Just as she was about to activate the Jump, her weapons operator issued a warning. “Sub leader. They have fired small metallic objects at us. They appear to be low velocity and very small.”

“Low velocity? We’re too far away even for laser or plasma cannons.”

“True. They would never reach us anyway, climbing from the gravity well. I don’t know their purpose. Too small to be a useful weapon. Perhaps it’s a signal.”

She reconsidered her Jump, reference the spreading objects that would now be falling behind the accelerating clanship. Instead of her exit at about three miles. She manually tapped a point on her navigation console that would White Out closer to the target than those objects would be. Her seat-of-the-pants flight style brought them so close that they were just outside missile warhead arming range.

“They released a large object and they’re accelerating slightly.” That was from Dolbat, her weapons operator. “It’s coasting, but our own acceleration will bring us closer.”

He appeared about to target a plasma cannon at it when he shouted a hasty warning. “It’s a railgun and it’s firing at us.”

Seeing the radar returns of dozens of heavy large slugs, she promptly maneuvered and moved closer to the other clanship, ahead of their path. These rounds sometimes had limited steering capability, so she also dropped lower to be below them. That was when she noted the radar profile of the clanship had altered from a tail-on slim target, to an elongated side view, even though it was still using its reactionless drive to continue to accelerate in the original direction. It had rotated so its bow pointed away from the planet below. With no atmosphere, the ship’s attitude with respect to its direction of travel was irrelevant.

However, what was less irrelevant was the sudden swarm of small metallic objects, which originated from the two open main portals. The ship had never been stealthed, so the open portals had gone unnoticed at a distance. Someone was firing simple small projectile weapons at her clanship. Their low velocity and mass had already been noted by Dolbat, and were clearly too small to damage them. Besides, they were poorly aimed and they would all pass above them. Her acceleration would move them out of their future path.

“Kill them,” she ordered. Whoever they were they didn’t act like Krall, and unlike the humans at Telda Ka, this foe used ineffective projectile weapons. However, they did have tachyon power and possibly energy weapons. Turned sideways, some of those weapons could now fire behind their direction of travel.

Demteg saw Dolbat fire the only plasma cannon of the two that were operational at the oddly positioned ship, and all four lasers were on automatic. However, none of the energy beam weapons ports of the other ship was opened. Their first plasma bolt glanced off a closed cannon port, and the lasers needed more time to penetrate. The other ship started a rapid rotation to disburse the heat, and continued to fire those useless small projectiles. There appeared to be a slug thrower mounted in each portal. She ignored the sleet of useless projectiles.

Demteg had backed off on her own acceleration to let the other clanship pull ahead. The radar missile tracker had a shrinking circle on the target, to indicate exactly when it was at a great enough range for a launched missile to arm its warhead. The circle went to zero radius, and she watched Dolbat tap the weapons console to fire the four missiles he’d selected. To avoid the debris blast, she backed completely off their acceleration, and initiated a vector on the reactionless drive to lower their altitude even more, to pass below the expected spread of scrap metal.

Except she didn’t feel the vibration of the four missiles launch, but she could hear the faint pings of the metal pellets deflecting from their armored skin. There was also no sensation of the uncompensated inertial forces of her course change.

Dolbat needed no orders to check for error codes for the missile system that had failed to fire, he was doing that, and he tried to resume firing plasma and lasers, to no avail.

Demteg was first to notice they no longer had a nearby target. The radar lock was still tracking the enemy, but the target was streaking away from the planet so violently that it left no doubt as to who was in control of the other craft. No warrior was likely to have survived the internal acceleration, and no Krall operated spacecraft would have permitted such acceleration anyway. Humans definitely knew about this system.