Koban 4: Shattered Worlds (3 page)

There was never a doubt they could reach the atmosphere well ahead of the second clanship rounding the southern pole. However, if they left behind one hundred thirty six ion plasma trails, even against a daytime sky, someone on the ground would surely notice. The residual streaks in the atmosphere would also point the way to the general area of the attack.

It wasn’t necessary to come to a halt, merely to get their velocity down to where their passage would not strip electrons from the molecules of the thin upper atmosphere. They were still traveling multiple times the speed of sound initially as they entered, but would drop below mach one high enough that the sound shockwave would dissipate in the thin upper air before reaching the ground. At some altitude, they assumed their passage would produce contrails if the moisture content of the atmosphere were right. To disguise the multiple contrails, the now slowed craft clustered in formation closely enough that when or if the vapor trails appeared, the separate trails would all quickly merge in the turbulence of passage. It was hoped that a wide elongated white streak, if noticed after the fact, would resemble a high, cirrus layer of cloud. Only its sudden formation would be curious, if noticed. The craft causing it would be invisible, of course, because optical stealth was active.

Dillon, piloting the lead shuttle of the group from Avenger, was in formation with the lead shuttle of the group from Slasher. There were ships spread to either side of them to widen the contrail front if those formed.

Using a command to his armor to open a laser com link to the ship on his right, Dillon said, “Hey Sarge! Looks like my flying lessons for you were worth the money. You haven’t bumped anyone even once.”

The salty answer was prompt. “Nah. Your lessons were worth exactly what I paid for them. Absolutely nothing. Thad provided for my flying expertise.”

“What? He’s a crappy pilot. He has two left wings, making him fly in circles.”

“I didn’t say he
taught
me. What a horrible, if not fatal result that could bring about. I said he
provided
for the lessons. Cost him a lot too.” Dillon could hear the man’s laughter.

“He actually paid for you? Who was it? I gave you
free
lessons, for cripes sake.”

“I already told ya what yours was worth. Anyway, there was no actual money exchanged, although I’m sure he paid in other ways. Marlyn taught me all she knew in compensation, just to hold it over Thad’s head.”

“Compensation?”

“Yep. Thad still can’t play cards worth a crap. Marlyn found out about a bad poker night of his, and paid me with flight lessons. Now
she
holds his IOU. Worth every cent to us both!”

“Ouch. I can’t believe you told on him.”

“I didn’t. Honor among men, ya understand. She found out in an evening of passion. You can’t block your thoughts
all
the time, you know.”

“Ahh. Been there myself. Leaked a thought when I felt guilty about something. Oh well.”

Knowing that Thad, sitting in the seat next to him had heard half of that exchange, Dillon looked over at him with an eyebrow raised.

“I don’t want to talk about it, so fly your damn ship!”

Grinning, Dillon switched to why he really had called the other group leader.

“I’ll fire the two ECM pods, just before we clear the passes. How about we cluster all of our landings around the north, east, and south side entrances of the dome, and leave that west one wide open for the Prada, to evacuate to that grove of tall trees on the northwest side. They’re bound to have a village over there, and they’ll be afraid of us, and our ships.”

“OK. I’ll pass the word to the Slasher crews. The Prada will have underground exits in the woods that also lead to the factory. I hope they don't have many workers living in the dome. Fourteen missiles will bring most of it down you know.”

“I know. They’ll be unavoidable collateral damage if they do house families there. Fortunately, this world’s environment isn’t as screwed up as the shipyard worlds were. They can live outside and above ground here, so most will be in the forest I hope.”

“I hope so too. Let me pass the word before we reach those foothills and spread out, losing laser com connections. We only have about five more minutes before we split up.”

The onboard AIs had the mapping of the foothills from their observations as guides, and the two groups would take multiple paths to reach the dome, staying below visual or radar scans (if any) as they made their way closer. At the lower speeds needed in the winding passes, they had about five additional minutes of flying at low altitudes. Dillon’s shuttle was to hold the lead of either group, and was given one of the more direct routes. They needed to launch the ECM systems about thirty seconds before the other missiles. That second launch should be when the forefront of the leading assault ships was fifteen seconds from leaving the passes, and entering the wide valley where the dome was located. By that time the ECM equipment, broadcasting its signal ahead of them, should have shut down all radio communications at the dome. The exhaust trails of the inbound missiles might be seen in visible or in infrared light, but the observers wouldn’t be able to tell anyone by radio.

The seconds ticked down. Dillon tapped the yoke button that launched the two ECM rockets, which promptly diverged as they climbed over the rim of the ridge of the pass that was concealing the shuttle. They diverged just in case some fast reacting and super observant Krall fired a laser and picked one of the low flying objects out of the sky. Either ECM pod was adequate for complete radio suppression. There was a spare third such device in a cargo hold.

Thirty seconds later, the eight shuttles combined to launch fourteen ground attack missiles at the dome, which was only fifteen seconds from direct view of the attacking force. Each missile, part of a smart network, was programed to spread out their impact points to destroy not only the upper four levels; the ones most often occupied by Krall when they were on duty at a factory dome, but missiles were also to strike major structural nodes on the perimeter of the dome, to bring more of it down.

The deliberate arrival timing worked extremely well. The advance craft were out of the passes with the dome in sight, just in time to see it explode like so many tinker toy parts, pin wheeling up and outward, then falling back. The parts of the dome not hit directly began to slump awkwardly, in fits and starts, as one collapsing section pulled another down. By the time the entire assault force was out of the passes, the six hundred foot high, half-mile wide dome looked more like a fifty foot high broken pile of sticks and shiny armored glass fragments, sparkling in the bright cheerful sunshine, which beamed its way through the pall of dust. Because there had been no clanships parked here (that was a surprise revealed by observations at the moon), there was no billowing orange and black column of fire and smoke from an exploded fuel tank.

Thad, checking the AIs communications report on one of the screens, verified there had been no outgoing Krall signals detected. The two ECM systems were both online, and their drogue chutes were still lowering them gently over the wreckage of the dome. Surprise was complete, and no warning had made it to the rest of this world. Yet.

Keying a push for the entire flotilla, using their reserved low power frequency band, Dillon told them, “Set down on all sides except the west, to allow Prada evacuations there. Let’s see if the missiles left us any Krall to kill.”

****

No warrior would ever admit to boredom, because that suggested they were less alert than maximum. The Krall had bred the need for sleep from their species thousands of generations ago, without regard to how a long day of wakefulness could be filled, if the enjoyment of continuous personal combat were not a constant mental stimulant. To fill the time on duty when on alert and nothing exciting was happening, most warriors relived past combat kills or actions from near perfect memories of battlefields. They repeatedly analyzed their own performance, and that of warriors that had been around them. Considering how they and their clan mates could have fought better, or more efficiently.

Because their minds were extremely active, they considered themselves to be at maximum alertness, ready to instantly detect and react to any threat. In effect, however, they were retroactively replacing the Krall brain’s equivalent of REM sleep in humans, where the day’s events were dreamed about and moved to long-term memory. The Krall’s brain wasn’t disabled from muscle control, as humans were when dreaming, however the bout of “daydreaming” did not truly make them more aware of their real surroundings than normal. That was an artifact of the daydreaming thought process, where they were keenly aware of the past battles they were reformulating, to do it perfectly the
next
time.

As a result, the four warriors placed on duty at the top of the dome were technically wide-awake, each constantly scanning their quarter of the observational hemisphere with their eyes and heads moving, more or less on autopilot. They were unconsciously relying on visual movement detection to cue their real world attention. This was far better than human ability, but short of the Krall’s expectation.

The two ECM missiles, when they appeared barely over the top of a ridge at five miles distance, were flying directly at the point of view of the Krall observing that quadrant. Their apparent motion was effectively zero across her field of view. She finally noticed their increase in size at about the halfway point.

Her proper first response was to alert the entire dome, relying on the other three warriors to overhear her report to the warriors stationed below. The second response was to try to survive the inbound attack so she could fight back.

Fashtok keyed her com button for wide broadcast, even as she leaped down the adjacent stairs, speaking loudly as she dropped. “Two missiles inbound low from south.”

She couldn’t see her clan mates, but knew they had heard her and would have reacted as she had, and be on their way down after a quick confirmation glance where she indicated. That would put them a second or two behind her, so she assumed they might not survive the expected impending explosions. As she dropped rapidly below the third level, still going down at max break-neck speed, leaping landing to landing as the stairs turned, she heard the echoing voice of one of her clan mates, at least a level above her in the same stairwell, reporting multiple missiles inbound from three quadrants. Leaving seconds later, he had seen more. However, there was something wrong here!

She didn’t hear his report through her com set, but by the echoing sound of his high Krall speaking voice, reverberating down the stairwell. Her own first warning should have been heard by him and every Krall in or near the dome, and in the factory below by radio. She had not heard an answer from her sub leader to her first broadcast. Not only that, but her warning should have resulted in this stairwell now containing warriors evacuating levels she had just passed. Where were they?

She tried another message, as she passed the fifth level below the top. The echo of that transmission should have reached her ears from her trailing clan mate’s com set speaker, when it repeated what she transmitted. She didn’t hear that. That meant none of the broadcasts had been successful. As she passed the eighth level from the top, something else she didn’t hear yet struck her as peculiar. There had been no explosions from those two missiles she’d seen, which had had more than enough time to strike the dome by now.

Her confusion was short lived. Fourteen other high-powered rockets answered her expectations that her three late departing clan mates would not survive. Unfortunately, the onslaught of explosions reduced her survival chances to zero as well. As the wall of debris that would end her life raced in from the sides, she hoped the warriors massed below ground, defending the factory, would avenge the dome’s destruction.

****

The eight shuttles landed on the tarmac and eighty four of their ninety six troops charged out the two open side hatches, with a pilot and two side gunners staying behind on four of them. The stowed plasma cannons were swung into place and the four shuttles lifted again to provide coverage of the dome rubble and surroundings from the air.

The hundred twenty eight four-ships spread out on three sides, as previously directed, and their former crews, five hundred twelve strong, scaled the mostly collapsed structure to seek the warriors normally occupying the upper levels.

All of the forces had stealth activated on their armor, making them ghostly hollows in the settling dust and swirling smoke, and pale shadows with an icon displayed on their helmet visors. The initial task of the crews of the four-ships was to clear the dome of any still living Krall. Despite the destruction, experience had proven that the resilient Krall could survive what seemed unsurvivable, and even with major injuries, could fight back with significant effect.

The missiles had spared the lowest eight levels of the thirty-two level structure, but the collapsing weight of the upper stories, and the penetrating effect of the spoke-like support struts allowed many to stab downward to reach ground level. In some cases, the struts poked slightly below the ground level floor, because underlying the dome was the upper level entrances of the subsurface factory.