Koban 4: Shattered Worlds (22 page)

Pendor was suspicious at the lack of aerial support for the humans at Novi Sad, and held his single ships back from that battle, so long as the humans held their own air support in reserve. Many of the single ships were slated to be withdrawn with the clanships, and he was ordered to conserve them if possible. Besides, he fully expected to be making use of the resources he conserved here on some other world, as that invasion commander.

The human artillery barrage, which commenced as the replacement bridges were assembled, did not seriously disrupt Gatlek Pendor’s operation, although the finger clan warriors at the bottom of the river would have disputed that assessment. Nevertheless, within thirty minutes of initiating the assembly, the first waves of mini-tanks, interspersed with loaded standard trucks, armored transports, and running warriors on foot, were all starting to stream over the pontoon bridges. The added laser defenses performed well to defend the structures and those crossing on them.

****

Photok, perfectly aware of how short a time his unique opportunity to rack up easy kills would last, rushed towards the nearest large human nests. Along with nearly a hundred former transport borne warriors, who also had escaped from the trap on the river bridges, he rushed the buildings where humans had stayed to watch his clan mates die. The figures on the top floors were still moving, and perhaps thought the fallen bridges had provided them with a reprieve, and time to escape.

Photok was first to reach his chosen nest, the last one on the right side of the line of seven structures, and rather than enter via one of the possibly guarded entrances, he shot out a lower window to the left of the entrance, and leaped through the still cascading glass. He found himself crashing into soft human furniture, positioned around the individual family nest area.

His visor and infrared vision both told him the room was unoccupied, as he’d anticipated. He rushed through, jumping over the objects in the room, and kicked the door to the inner corridor completely out of its frame. Ricocheting from the opposite corridor wall, he spun to his right and saw the elevators that served the entrance, with a stairwell door beside them. He wrenched open that door even as he heard other warriors, located some distance behind him, smash their way into the same corridor. He’d have to be fast if he wanted to take the largest share of kills.

As he started recklessly up the stairs, his rifle at the ready, he activated his helmet camera for verifying the kills to come. It was transmitting continuously to the multichannel recorder his clan had left active at their own command bunker, and the images were available to any of his lower status clan mates, who were left behind to coordinate with other clans and the Gatlek’s main bunker. They were free to follow his exploits if they chose. He imagined they would be watching him, the most forward warrior of his clan in this nest, observing with nearly the same excitement and anticipation that he felt.

He raced up the open stairwell, at least two floors ahead of his closest competitors. His battlefield memory told him he had eleven levels to climb before he reached the first floor he’d seen with prey. However, that twelfth floor had relatively few lit windows, so he bypassed that level for the next one, where he’d seen three times the number of nests illuminated. He heard the warrior immediately behind him make the poorer choice and smash through the level twelve exit from the stairs. That warrior would have to travel half the length of the wide building to find his few targets at the midpoint.

He recalled that a nest merely two windows from this very stairwell had been lit, as were the two windows immediately adjacent to it, on the thirteenth level. He didn’t understand human script very well, and didn’t notice that the door he smashed in had a “14” painted on it, rather than the appropriate “13.” Even had he noticed, he would have been ignorant of the still pervasive human superstition concerning the correct number. The man that had set up the jolly window decorations on this level had been perfectly aware of the significance of level thirteen, and had selected this “unlucky” floor with a puckish sense of humor.

There were human voices heard, and some sort of strange sounds that humans classified as “music,” which he could hear through the closed door of the second entrance. The annoying tinkling sounds of the so-called music would be the last that those humans would ever experience.

He smashed his armored shoulder into the flimsy door and came in firing his pulse rifle, screaming “Die, vermin animals,” using what he believed to be his best insulting and terrifying phrase in Standard.

First, he blasted completely through the pudgy figure dressed in white, wearing a tall black head covering, standing in front of the floor to ceiling window. The sliding glass doors virtually exploded outward over the balcony, in a spray of glittering fragments as it was struck by the cyan colored plasma bolts passing easily through the fake snowman. The other, more traditional appearing human in the room yelled at him, and he fired his next pulse through his rosy cheeked face, in response to the “Ho Ho Ho” that it had shouted. The white bearded, red and white clothed figure, disintegrated in a flash of electronic sparks as the animatronic figure, made of Smart Plastic, was hit. It had looked exactly like a happy but overweight human.

He realized, an instant after firing that these were not living creatures, because the star heat bolts ripping into their unprotected bodies had not produced the expected gouts of flesh and blood, which should have violently erupted as the searing plasma vaporized tissue and fluids on entry. Instead, as he hesitated, looking around for actual living targets, a recording sounded from wall speakers on the apartment’s intercom system.

“Thanks for coming to my party. I’m sure you and your friends will get a bang out of this. Goodbye, sucker.”

Realizing he would make no kills here today, he turned swiftly, hoping only to escape this trap. Photok mouthed a Krall insult. “Stinking treacherous animals!”

Those were the final words and images Photok’s clan mates received from him, recorded for posterity by his helmet camera. When the charges hidden in that room’s furniture exploded, he never heard the subsequent synchronized detonations work their way down the internal support beams for the structure, which collapsed the building’s fifteen stories in on itself. Segments of recordings from sixty-seven other warriors, who were ascending building seven of the complex, were also available for later viewing enjoyment. 

Six additional River View apartment units of the Novi Sad retirement community disappeared in similar clouds of dust and debris within the next two minutes. All faithfully recorded from their interiors by helmet cams on warriors from other eager small clans, as the buildings turned into piles of rubble and crushed Krall armor. The armor was filled with the mangled bodies of the presumed superior breeding inherent in the genes of the highest status warriors from each of those finger clans. It was uncertain if their frozen seed would be considered worthy enough to produce more such ineffective, easily fooled progeny.

****

Former First Sergeant William Crager, now Sergeant First Class and fresh from Heavyside, was almost as excited about this field assignment as he’d been on his first one as a Corporal, twenty years ago. That was just after he’d graduated from the original special operations training program. The enthusiasm felt by this experienced soldier was generated now by his gene mods, and the promised visit to the mystery world where they had originated. There was another mod that he wanted, the Mind Tap ability, and to see the world where the large predators roamed that had naturally evolved this ability.

The new Heavyside gene labs, following the precise details furnished to them by the young super soldiers of a world for which he still had no name, had remade him into one of them. Return visits by representatives of the Kobani told him he would become a nearly full Kobanoid, with just one significant mod remaining, the one for Mind Tap ability.

He also knew that Kobanoid was the name for the new race of Homo sapiens, which they had genetically created. Kobani was the group term they used for themselves. However, he still didn’t know how they derived that self-description, or why the world’s existence was kept secret. The Mind Tap ability of the returning Kobani had vetted all potential candidates for suitability for undergoing the transformation. Not all passed, and none knew they were even being examined. Once accepted, a formality in his case because his feelings had been known, he learned there were other spec ops troops that had already undergone the treatment.

Crager was stunned to learn of the mental ability the next modification would provide, as it was demonstrated for him. He had obviously passed their mental probing, but they insisted he travel to the world of origin for that final modification. The limited telepathy explained the knowledge the first three Kobani he’d met held, one of whom knew too much about the secret plans on Heavyside to delve into forbidden genetic research. His suspicions of their motives had left him prepared to kill the three young men that had infiltrated their training program. He was willing to kill to protect a program he though was vital to producing humans better able to fight the Krall.

It was with wry humor he recalled that it was Jorl Breaker that had instead spared
his
life, and told him about (and demonstrated) the physical capabilities of the Kobani. That teenaged boy could have killed Crager blindfolded, one hand in his pocket, standing on one leg. Then he offered to
give
Crager and his group the genetic secrets that gave that boy his abilities. Learning later of the Mind Tap gene, he understood how they had known to trust him and his circle of coconspirators.

He and his unit commander, Colonel Dearborn, had set up a new base on the nearly empty wastelands of Heavyside, where their volunteer scientists could develop the genetic virus “tools” they would need to insert the samples of the genes they were given. However, it appeared the laboratory work might require a decade to test and complete. Until, that is, they had the promised return visit of a Kobani ship. Bearing more gifts.

Crager was startled when he was greeted at the base of the ship by a former trainee of his, Joseph Longstreet, who had risen to the rank of captain before being reported lost on a mission. Joe was now a full Kobani, with the Mind Tap ability, and had brought new nanites and med labs from Poldark. These were already optimized for producing the gene mods in five weeks, and a month of acclimatization followed afterwards. Crager wanted to be the first to undergo the transformation in the new Heavyside lab, but had to settle for simultaneous transformation with Colonel Dearborn.

Three months later, he was no longer content simply to run a training program on Heavyside. That program
did
need to be revamped, for the new super soldiers they would be selectively producing from the already elite ranks of their recruits. Crager wouldn’t admit it openly, but aside from saying that he wanted field experience to design a tougher, more realistic and practical training course for the new Kobani troops, he wanted to get back into combat. Otherwise, he thought his new body would explode with the pent up need to
use
his abilities against the enemy.

That desire landed him on Poldark, just in time for the continent wide Krall push. One drawback was that he had to accept a voluntary reduction in rank to Sergeant First Class, to fill a platoon sergeant slot. If he wanted to be in on the fun at the sharp end, he couldn’t do so at his former lofty rank of First Sergeant. Colonel Dearborn was reluctant to let him go, and told him his old slot would stay vacant for six months, if he wanted to return to Heavyside. Crager was no longer certain that running a training command was what he wanted for his future, even at age sixty-one. He was only four years away from the PU Army’s mandatory restricted physical duty. He didn’t believe he could ever go back to desk duty feeling as powerful he did now. He might opt for a “missing in action” status, as Longstreet and eight troopers, and the now deceased Colonel Trakenburg had done.

There would be yet another unexpected genetic surprise waiting for Crager in his near future. The much younger Longstreet hadn’t told him about the age regression modifications. Crager couldn’t go back to an apparent physical age of his mid-twenties anyway right now, not if he wanted to be accepted as whom he had been, and go fight on Poldark.

For the present mission, Crager’s sixteen-man platoon was deep inside Krall territory, a few miles from the defensive perimeter of heavy plasma and laser cannons, which surrounded several thousand gathered clanships. They had traveled for two days through some of the abandoned underground tunnels the Krall still didn’t know existed.

The intelligence people had said that the Krall offensives were more than punitive acts for the attacks on the Krall worlds. The PU government had only recently learned about human attacks on Krall worlds. They presumed the raids were executed by independent rogue units formed on some of the Rim worlds. The government didn’t know of the existence of the Kobani, and only knew that long-range navy scout drones had confirmed that some of the reported attacks had actually happened. It was now said; by an unnamed source in General Nabarone’s office, that the impending offensive on Poldark was actually a cover for a Krall partial force withdrawal. Part of preparations for invading a second human world. The anonymous source was actually Nabarone himself, but that wasn’t part of the briefing.