Koban 4: Shattered Worlds (66 page)

“Golda! You don’t really think the mass of our population will accept what they’ve done do you? Theirs could be the first step in provoking a future Gene War.”

“If they prove to be our saviors in the Krall war? No, I don't think the same level of distrust and resentment will apply. These aren’t soulless clone soldiers, without true individual personalities. The New Honshu soldier clones were flesh and bone robots that fought for their owners, no questions asked. No one will ever own a Kobani.”

“Kobani?”

“After spending the last week with so many of them around me, I repeatedly heard them refer to themselves by that term. I never probed as to its meaning. They weren’t speaking directly to me when I overheard them, but they seem to acknowledge that I really am accepting of whom they are, and that I trust them in what they want to achieve for all of humanity. While that is a correct assessment, I don't know if this is naive on their part to trust me, or a reflection of their amazing intuitive ability to understand the motives of those around them. They almost seem to know what others are thinking, and come to agreements and understandings with us, and with each other very rapidly.

“I think it’s more a level of trust they show towards me. They’re certainly more circumspect when a few of my subordinates are present. I have never observed any of my staff behaving in a disrespectful manner towards them, or even see them display hints of their personal unfavorable feelings for these Kobani. At least not where I could see it, despite my knowing which of them are uncomfortable with these gene modified super-humans.”

Chatsworth agreed with their caution. “Their staying under wraps is probably the better move for them now, although the truth about their abilities is becoming wider known, and some of that information will make it into the scuttle butt realm. Just as it did for the Special Operations troops, when they first came out of training at Heavyside. At least everyone knew where spec ops got their technological improvements. The PU hardware store. Heavyside is the worst kept big secret in Human Space. Now where Mirikami’s people actually live, and their claim that they come from beyond the Rim, that will stoke the fires of curiosity and suspicion.”

“Lela, if they perform as well in the coming fight as I suspect they will, gratitude will outweigh curiosity for some time.”

“I hope so, Golda. Thanks for accepting my invitation and coming along. I wish you luck, and look forward to your updates and opinions when things hit the fan. I know we’ll exchange messages before then, but this is just us two talking. I was so proud to serve under you, and pleased to have you with me now.”

“Lela, thank you for this chance to redeem myself and mostly for another opportunity to strike back at the Krall. I didn’t believe I’d ever see another navy strike happen in my lifetime, let alone be included in the effort.”

****

Impatient, but satisfied that the loaded fleet could lift from Telda Ka in two weeks or less, he had ordered a courier ship sent to the prison planet of the soft Krall one week ago. His personal representatives went, with several Great Clan sub leaders aboard as confirmation. They would select an appropriate soft Krall male, with an extensive family to hold as hostages on the prison world. The group would travel to the host world of the living ships with the soft Krall male, to select a responsive living ship. The return to Telda Ka from there would be but a single day of flight for what was being called the third level rotation into Tachyon Space. Humans called the faster mode of travel they learned from the Krall, using two rotations, T squared. They would probably label the next higher rotation “T cubed,” if they ever learned it existed.

One of their brighter K’Tals, generations ago, had compared the initial rotation into the tachyon universe to a Normal Space analogue with only one dimension. The next rotation seemed something like reaching a two dimensional analogue in the tachyon universe, where you could move on a diagonal to arrive faster. A third and even higher level might be like using the diagonal through a cube in Normal Space, for even faster travel.

Math and geometrical theories described more dimensions than was seen in what humans and Krall thought of as the “Real” Universe, so there was conjecture that Tachyon Space had equivalent mathematical higher dimensions. Even the Olt’kitapi had only learned how to access this higher level late in their advancement, shortly before they were destroyed in the Krall’s revolt. The living ships could somehow harness those correspondingly higher energies and dimensions, and travel vastly faster.

After the fleet finally departed for New Glasgow, however many days it was delayed by loading confusion, Telour wanted the Joint Council to witness him entering the ancient living ship, to instruct the captive pilot on the slow manner in which he was to use it as a weapon. That was if the soft Krall male expected to save his family from agonizing deaths. Telour would be honor bound to send the male’s family home after the agreement was reached. The pilot himself would accept the same uncertain fate as those warriors aboard the ship with him. The guardians of the ships traditionally sent five hundred twelve with each mission. If the living ship suddenly returned to its home base without warning or communication, or at least didn’t vanish in Tachyon Space, they all might survive.

It didn’t seem necessary to Telour to wait for a successful landing on New Glasgow to summon one of the ancient ships, since the humans had few ground forces to oppose this even more massive landing force than what was sent to any of the previous human worlds. He’d pressure the council to let him announce the two human planets they would allow him to hit, and send the mission of destruction on its way when it arrived. He’d still lobby for even more planets to destroy.

However, his network of informers told him that council sentiment tended towards waiting for the humans to learn of the new invasion and react to it, which would ensure their dwindling response forces would all be enroute to New Glasgow, before they learned what their true penalty was for attacking Krall worlds.

His recent decisions to tweak the muzzle of the Tanga clan leader, was starting to yield bits of tasty meat for Telour’s amused consumption. As predicted, close to eight hundred Tanga clanships were being crammed with bodies as well as equipment, the warriors coming from small clans. Some rations and small arms were diverted to the clanships of those small clans for transport. Tanga didn’t have enough food aboard the packed ships to sustain the warriors for much more than a week. If they launched them early for orbit, to await the rest of the fleet to arrive and finish loading, they would eat all their food even before the Jump to the target world. Orbital resupply wasn’t in the plan so they stayed put, crowing the tarmac.

Tanga tarmacs would be crowded even more by the next wave of arrivals from New Dublin. Some of those would be later arriving Tanga clanships, but most would come from other clans, landing to divide and carry the equipment per Telour’s original directions. Tanga’s ramps would grow extremely crowded when the clanships loaded with warriors and their food couldn’t climb to orbit to make room, and landing sites shifted to points farther from the tarmac edge.

There still were ample numbers of mini tanks, plasma cannon carts, heavy plasma cannons, laser defense systems, and mobile rocket launchers to be loaded at the Tanga domes. Equipment, which would not fit now on Tanga ships, crammed as they were with the bulky heavy transport trucks, and all the warriors sent their way. The remaining Tanga ships would also be filled with the rations needed by the warriors Telour had dumped on them. Food filled clanships should have been parked near the ships holding warriors, because the next closest domes and tarmacs were hundreds of miles away. However, Telour made certain they were on tarmacs at different Tanga domes, and many miles apart.

Tanga clan had traded numerous favors in order to hoard so many of the communal resources built on or brought to K1, probably in an effort to try to influence a decision to name Droktor as the Gatlek for the more prestigious invasion of a Hub world. He could then have assigned certain desired equipment loads to various small clans, so they had their pick of the newest machines, and would then owe Tanga clan and Droktor favors in return. Earning, buying, selling and trading status was the only Krall currency.

Having Telour promoted to Tor Gatrol, from their rival clan, had put Tanga clan in an awkward position. Now they couldn’t launch the ships loaded with both equipment and warriors into orbit early to clear their tarmacs for later easy loading, not without enough room to place weeks of rations aboard to feed them properly. They would need to hold a week in orbit and endure another eight days in transit. They also couldn’t launch the ration ships early, because they were needed to feed those warriors now held on the ground. Many loaded ships were stuck on Tanga tarmacs until they all were ready for the eight day Jump to New Glasgow.

The next arriving ships would have to land farther out from the Tanga domes and farther off the tarmacs to avoid the crowded parked craft. That would extend the loading times for new arrivals when the dirt trails of the columns of tracked and wheeled equipment became muddy, rutted swamps leading from the pavement, making Tanga look even more inefficient.

Rains came often on this tropical world at this season, formerly named Greater West Africa, which the Krall had selected as a base partly for its warm climate and their own scaly comfort.

It was due to grow more crowded, less comfortable, and extremely hazardous around Tanga domes, and both Telour and Droktor were soon to experience severe status depreciation.

****

The Mark of Koban made a White Out from the Oort cloud of icy comets, leaving his hundred ten Kobani ships out there, and waiting for his signal. He had emerged in stealth mode, one mile behind an eight hundred mile wide asteroid, in a bit of precise navigation that he’d left up to his AI, Jakob. Even if detected by some Krall ship on watch in the outer system, a single clanship’s gamma ray spectrum wouldn’t trigger a wide alert. When nothing could be seen leaving the area, it would simply be an anomaly.

Mirikami moved under Normal Space drive for a half day to orbit K1 at roughly a thousand miles, in an equatorial orbit. The leading edge of the first mass of clanships coming from New Dublin, which was reported by Comtap days ago, should start emerging here in about three hours. Mirikami knew that the staggered departures leaving New Dublin had also been spread out over two hours of time, so once the first ones arrived here, the Kobani ships could start inbound from the Oort cloud, to mingle with their White Outs with the new arrivals. It wasn’t likely that with an expected high number of arrivals, and Krall casual attitudes concerning movements by other clans, that anyone would be counting. Except for Mirikami and Mauss, that is.

The five navy task force groups, TF 1 through 5, were in place at five times the distance of the Kobani ships. This disbursed and delayed the tachyon wave signal of the gathering of distinctly human massed ships, to prevent Krall accidental detection of over a thousand navy ships poised all around them. They were far enough out their gamma rays would go undetected for days in the inner system, but near enough that a Jump to K1, when Mirikami signaled, that they would all arrive simultaneously after the AI’s coordinated the precise Jump times for each group of two hundred ships.

Chatsworth pondered the numbers she had to work with, speaking privately to the captain of her recently chosen flagship the Sword, commanded by Madelyn Boise, who was also commander of TF 1.

“Maddi, each of our task forces has nearly twice the number ships of either of the two previous attacks Admiral Mauss led against K1, and yet I’m more apprehensive now than I was then. Mirikami’s hundred and ten ships, by themselves, match how many Mauss brought with her each time. I can’t explain why I feel more worried.”

“I do Lela. You were an XO on a battleship in the last two fights, and now you’re Fleet Admiral. It all rests on you, not Mauss this time, so you feel more pressure. However, you aren’t considering how much stronger we are now than we were then. You’re thinking of how things might go wrong. Previously, you only fought with the weapons of your own ship, and didn’t plan for the whole fleet. Your captain controlled where you went. I know if you asked Admiral Mauss she’d tell you she felt the same way back then, only with more justification. She had a mere hundred ten ships combined, facing four or five thousand clanships.”

“You’re right, but there will still probably be three thousand clanships at K1 when we emerge, a thousand more having just arrived and landed, with two hundred in orbit. We know another five hundred more are only four days behind, enroute from New Dublin with another five hundred ships staying behind there, and five hundred ships still at Poldark. There are an unknown number of their ships at other Krall worlds, deeper in their territory.

“No matter how well we do today, I know we’ll still be heavily outnumbered if they gather all their forces. We can’t know which of our worlds they might send them against.”

“Lela, you are the one that told us they have to devote ships to supply and support the two invasions already underway, and we hope to stop this next one in its tracks by inflicting losses. It was you that pointed out they can’t devote all of their ships to conducting revenge raids, and unless they land hundreds of thousands of warriors and equipment, they can’t hold onto any world they attack from space.”