Koban 4: Shattered Worlds (4 page)

As predicted, there was sporadic plasma fire in the crumpled mess of the dome in the pile of debris overlaying the heavily damaged, but largely intact, bottom levels. Previous attacks on other domes had revealed that any Prada housed in the domes over a factory occupied the lowest levels, often the ground floor. The shorter distance to their work areas made this practical, and in this case, the relatively clean environment would suggest many of the Prada families would live in the nearby forest. That was the hope, anyway. The reaction speed of the Kobani meant they could hold their fire for a moment, to better ascertain if a motion detected in the wreckage was a Krall or a Prada.

The sporadic sizzle-crack of plasma fire up high proved Krall were being found alive in the rubble, and some of the shooting, from the slightly different sound, was from plasma rifles, rather than Kobani helmet plasma bolts. Because only the Krall would have those rifles for this mission, that sound drew Kobani attention to surviving clusters of the enemy. Most would be killed, but if any were found that appeared to have higher status, based on their tattoos, they would be captured alive if possible for a Mind Tap.

The shuttle teams carried the cases of explosives to use in the factory, and had a number of the recovered Raspani boring tools, found on captured clanships or recovered from weapons belts of dead high status warriors. The tools were to be used to destroy fusion bottles, both at the base of the dome, and down inside the factory, after first shutting them off. If breached while in operation, the fusion generators became potent “bombs.” The Raspani invented tools could bore holes up to a hundred twenty two feet deep in any substance thus far tested. There had been a bonanza of the tools recovered at an orbital station, where the Torki technicians had used them to delicately dissolve away some of the collapsed crystal material of the Eight Balls, to make them hollow, and provide an opening to install Jump drives, fusion bottles, and pilot controls.

The Raspani name in their language for the tools, was three sputtering lip smacks, a snort in the middle, and a deep grunt at the end. That native pronunciation lead Sarge to suggest the human description of them to be loosely translated as some form of the sound of a “wet fart.” His own rendering was made by blowing with his tongue between moistened lips.

He pretended to be offended when the consensus from all of the names proposed for them was chosen to be Q-rupter, for quantum disrupter. “What a boring name for  a device that turns any material it’s beamed at into a gas of atoms. Fart Blaster was a better name.”

Dillon was flying one of the shuttles with side gunners. They had found only one target worth their plasma guns attention thus far. An unattended Krall shuttle was parked nearly under the overhang of the east dome entrance. The two gunners each got a shot at the cockpit, cautioned to avoid the reaction mass fuel tank at the rear and its fusion generator. Once in space and out of the gravity well, shuttle Traps could snare tachyons to power the Normal Space reactionless gravitational drives.

The Kobani shuttles and four-ships had all retained tachyon power in their Traps, and could launch directly back to space without using reaction fuel. The cleaner and cooler trail made for a more difficult to follow IR or radar signature if an anti-ship missile were fired at them.

Thad was in charge of the factory destruction, and Ethan and Carson were leading two of the teams that would descend into the factory levels. They had entered via the east entrance, just before the Krall shuttle was made useless. Sarge, his own shuttle left empty and on “idle,” as were all of the parked four-ships, led his demolition team in from the north side. Others teams entered at the south dome entrance. All of the factory entrances were at the base level of the dome, reached either via the swift elevators, or by stairs. The elevators made for potential traps, so they would take the stairs, located at the inner large ring of elevators and stairs, surrounding the central hall. Every dome so far found followed the same unimaginative design that the Krall appeared to find satisfyingly efficient, if boring to a human.

Today, the frequently encountered collapsed ceilings and penetrating dome support struts required some detours from the well know paths to the ring of stairwell openings. Although the teams were encumbered with the stealth-coated explosives cases, carried between pairs of armored and equally invisible troopers, they were hardly unprepared for a fight.

The front of their helmets contained all of the firepower it was decided they would require on this quick in-and-out raid. A thought to the suit could initiate two types of laser beams, a plasma bolt, or a microwave heat beam in an instant. The weapons would hit what you looked at, and had indicated mentally was the target. The suit could lock on and continue to fire at a target, even if the wearer looked away to lock onto another target and fire. The only limitation was that firing all weapons at once reduced the energy available to produce the most powerful plasma bolts, at the maximum fire rate.

The look, shoot, and forget, target tracking mode meant that a single spec ops trooper could take on multiple opponents at once, and focus on a different task while the first designated targets were under continuous fire. They each also carried a waist load of eight grenades, concealed under a disposable belt of stealth-coated material. While attached, or in contact with the suit, they could select the mode of operation of any grenade number by thought (small digits 1 through 8 could appear on the bottom of their inner visor, and brighten when touched for removal).

The timing before detonation could be set verbally, manually, or by thought. They also could choose the proximity mode and set the range for a booby trap (nearby friendly suits would block triggering), and there was a ten step range of explosive power. The lowest three levels threw the depleted uranium pellets with less force, so that their own armor could resist penetration, but a nearby Krall (out of armor) would be perforated like Swiss cheese. At higher power levels, which could kill a Krall in armor, their own suits were equally at risk if they failed to take cover or were too close.

As a precaution, based on recent experience, additional armor thickness had been added in two areas to reduce the risk of nearby grenade use. The top of the helmet and over the shoulders was thickened, and on the feet, butt and crotch. If you threw the grenade yourself, you could point the top of your head and shoulders at the impending explosion (arms pressed against your sides), in presumably a prone position. The alternative was to lay flat in the other direction, with your feet and butt pointed at the detonation. So far, this strategy had only been used on empty suits in testing; with mixed results if the explosive power was set at the highest two power levels and went off too near. You literally risked your head or your ass if you tossed them too close.

Thad and Ethan, each carrying a case of explosives approached the inner hall, their visors showing them icons of teams arriving from other directions around the hall. They both had eliminated icon reports from more than thirty feet overhead, because of the clutter of overlying icons of the swarm of troopers searching and clearing the upper levels. There had been perhaps a hundred twenty warriors up there, and nearly a quarter of them had survived the explosions and collapse. That was more warriors than had been previously found on the other raids on factory related domes, so perhaps this clan had beefed up its complement of guardians. That should have been a clue.

The two of them paused as a voice in low Krall spoke from the other side of the debris cluttered large hall. That it was spoken in low Krall, and was being helpful, proved it wasn’t from an actual Krall. At their thoughts, their visors showed them it was Sarge speaking.

“Leave here by the east exit and go to your village. Do not return and you will not be harmed.”

There was some scuffling noise from the other side, and a chittering sound that particularly young Prada made when frightened. Reynolds and his team had apparently found some of the workers, and he was trying to direct them to safety. Thad, as a team leader, selected a view from Reynolds’ visor, which appeared in a small, fully colored translucent square on the lower left side of his own visor. He could see through the image, but saw a group of four frightened Prada, one was probably a female, with a child clinging to her fur and clutched to her chest. They were scurrying around fallen ceiling sections and broken armored glass pieces, looking back over their narrow shoulders, not certain where the orders came from. However, they were following instructions, and moving quickly towards the dome exit they were told to use.

There had been multiple feeding stations for Prada, set up in the center of the hall, and that and debris prevented an easy passage through the middle. The four went around, and were approaching the south side, where Thad and his teams were about to enter the huge room. To avoid spooking them, he spoke on his group’s channel.

“All teams hold back, and stay quiet. Let these Prada pass. They won’t hear us if we don’t step on anything crunchy.” The workers couldn’t hear him speak of course, unless he selected external speaker mode.

That kindness and consideration was negated, when a shoulder fired rocket blazed out of a stairwell opening. The same one Thad had been moving towards for their descent. It was a high velocity, armor penetrating rocket. The same type that had nearly killed Ethan, when he was driving a Dragon on Poldark.

It didn’t explode when it passed through the body of the mother and child because they didn’t represent a hard enough surface. It tore them apart, however, then exploded against the top of an elevator door on the far side of the hall, where the molten copper core of the warhead instantly burned its way through the metal plate of the lift door. It likely splattered the inside of the empty elevator carriage with red-hot droplets.

There was no doubt the rocket would have killed any of the armored raiders it struck. The Krall that launched that missile either didn’t see the target clearly, or assumed an invisible human in stealth armor was walking with the Prada near the head of the stairs.

The other two Prada froze in terror and horror at the falling and ruined corpses of the mother and child. There was no way to know the relationship of the other two Prada to the dead ones, but any speculation was short lived. Multiple plasma bolts from Krall rifles blasted the other two into charcoaled remnants of smoking and burning gray and brown bits of fur.

On a general push, Thad heard Sarge state the obvious to all teams. “Ambushes set at the stairwells. They’re waiting for us. Use grenades.”

Thad was in overall charge of the ground assault against the factory, but that was sound advice. He let go his side of the explosives case nearly simultaneously with Ethan. Before the case could hit the floor, he had selected a grenade for level 10, a two second delay, as he detached and flipped the fist-sized bomb into the stairwell, where the known ambushers were concealed. Ethan’s grenade was simultaneously clattering with his on the stairs when the one two punch of the explosions shot more dust and smoke out of the stairwell.

The answering scream of pain and rage was a welcome sound, but they could hear many angry voices, and plasma fire was coming up out of all of the stairwells now, in actinic fountains of blue white hell. Multiple other explosions erupted dust and pellets out of all of the stairwells, briefly slowing the rate of fire, which somehow managed to increase the level of screaming rage. The Krall seldom went quietly when they fell off the Great Path. The rate of fire increased again, so it appeared they were trying to clear the way to rush up to meet the enemy.

Suddenly, out of the stream of plasma bolts flew dozens of smoking canisters that arced out and hit the floors, spewing a light gray smoke that was thin enough to see through. Thad selected the general push this time, “Seal suits. They may be using poison gas. Troopers up top, get down to the central hall, the Krall are trying to break out of the factory level.”

As he said this, he flung two more grenades into two stairwells, one from each hand. The other troops were doing the same, so a continuous barrage of explosions were erupting from the stairs, even as the thin smoke spread through the large volume, added to by the explosives and dust they stirred.

Human and Krall suits both could double as space suits, so the use of a disabling or fatal gas didn’t seem an effective weapon to use here. It wasn’t thick enough to conceal the Krall, certainly not as effective for concealment as the trick Carson had used in the clanship cleanout on Poldark.

The similarity must have triggered a memory for Carson. He called on a private channel. “Uncle Thad, this thin smoke isn’t to hide them; it’s to make
us
visible. Some of them used steam and water puddles to spot us despite our stealth on CS2.”

A correct supposition or not, Thad realized that this would be the practical result when the Krall broke out of the stairwells. They would see the “holes” in the smoke, where their enemy hid.

Using the general push Thad warned the others. “The smoke will let them spot us. Don’t count on stealth.”

They couldn’t count on grenades to keep them down below for very long either, because the eighty-four troops here were running low on them. The Krall were somehow maintaining a high level of return plasma fire despite the initial success of the grenades. The enemy plasma bolts were largely ineffectual, because they weren’t hitting any of the Kobani. It simply kept them back from entering the hall. That might have been another clue the Krall had additional plans. Holding a defensive position was not their style.