Koban 4: Shattered Worlds (7 page)

He made his broadcast. “This is sub leader Droktad. I observed what appears to be an accidental explosion as we approached for landing. The dome is heavily damaged. Is there any octet leader or warrior that can say what has happened?”

There was no reply, and from the heavy damage, it was possible that confusion and noise was a factor. He motioned to the K’Tal. “Fangar, take us down. Do not land too close to the dome in case there are other explosions, or the roof of the factory settles from the weight above.”

As they sank within range of the ECM pods, the loss of the com light on their communications control panels went unnoticed, what with their attention focused on the jumble of wreckage of the dome and parts lying on the surrounding tarmac. There was an unheard return call to them, from the orbiting clanship nearly over the northern pole, who had replied to the emergency frequency broadcast. Droktad had neglected to describe
which
dome had suffered damage, and had said it was an accident. This would be a simple matter to remedy, if he had heard and answered that next communication, or realized that he now could not use his radios. The orbiting clanship only knew the transmission came from the northern hemisphere of the planet. Instead of reversing course, it continued its request for more information, because the ship that made the call could be ahead or behind them. The name Droktad, as a sub leader could be tracked down of course, but there was no reason he would refuse to answer an inquiry about an accident he reported, was there?

It wasn’t until the heavy landing jacks were deployed, at the normal altitude of just above a half mile that the mystery of the events below grew considerably clearer to both occupants of the clanship. That was when Thad ordered the two waiting four-ships to launch their anti-ship missiles.

Droktad had his eyes focused on the tableau below, where some oddly smooth shapes were mixed among ragged debris, and seemed clustered more on the opposite side of the tarmac from where they were intending to land. He had just realized that they looked like single ships in form, but he knew the only such small ships available to his warriors at this site were presently in their internal launch tubes, on this very clanship.

Two such smooth forms suddenly fired four missiles at them. Droktad was standing at his console already, and rapidly activated the target decoys. Those sometimes drew missiles away from their original target, provided the incoming seekers on the missiles saw the stronger signal from a decoy when it was still close to the original target, and just slightly diverging away, as was the case here. He also activated the instant-on automated laser defense system, another new tactic ordered for clanship pilots and mission commanders to use.

This defensive procedure was imposed after the human raids had cost them so many undefended ships to missiles, some of which might have been defeated by the automated systems, even if no Krall were able to fire manually. Any true warrior preferred to control their weapons personally, and this seldom-used feature of the weapons suite, designed by the Olt’kitapi, was normally ignored. Those ancients had thought these types of computer systems would protect them from an enemy, but those aliens were all dead at the hands of the Krall, weren’t they? That was taken as evidence that the warrior’s way was best, despite the fact that manual control cost them more warriors in the end, and worse, cost them more clanships.

Control of
one
of the four high-powered laser cannons was retained by the ship’s commander, who masterfully targeted one of the missiles and fired, all accomplished in less than three seconds. The multiple decoys managed to pull two missiles aside, where they detonated harmlessly via their proximity fuses, as they passed close to the false targets.

The automated defense system used a heavy laser, the only one of those it controlled that could bear on one rapidly approaching rocket, to disable steering on that third missile. As it veered aside, it was cut in half by the computer tracked and controlled laser. The four missiles had not reached their maximum hypervelocity capability in that short a distance, so the automated system had no problem, at least with the sole target it was able to attack.

The incoming missile that Droktad had fired on was grazed and slightly deflected, making it a pretty darn good shot, for an organic fire control system in such a short reaction time. However, that wasn’t quite good enough, as demonstrated when the warhead detonated against the left inside part of the bottom of the bell mouth of the large thruster nozzle. An automatic engine cutoff prevented the now missing section of the thruster from tipping the clanship over onto its side, from what would have been a horizontal vector of escaping plasma that the attitude thrusters could never have countered. The grazing shot had deflected the missile, and its warhead hit the toughest part of the clanship, the hardened ceramic material that could absorb the near star heat of the exhaust. It saved the lower part of the ship and hull, at the expense of loss of main thrust. 

Ironically, the automated defense system would probably have claimed that missile as its victim as well, since the laser it was denied use of was the only one that could have done the job. Droktad’s ego could not relinquish full weapons control to a computer, so the laser that
could
do the job
wasn’t tracking quite as precisely.

As a result, the K’Tal pilot now only had the main attitude thrusters, located near the upper part of the clanship, to slow their descent. The earlier arbitrary decision to slow the approach briefly now meant their speed of fall was far less than would have been the case for a typical Krall pilot’s max performance landing. They still hit hard, heavily damaging the landing jacks, and they didn’t rise back on them as the springy actions normally did. The damaged thruster bell shattered as it sank low enough to strike the tarmac, with star hot black fragments spinning away. For a moment, tilted slightly, it appeared the ship might fall over, but it stayed upright, with a pronounced list.

The two Krall, knocked to the floor by the landing, could have benefited from the human style acceleration couches that they distained (again for ego reasons). They sprang to their feet, ready to defend their grounded ship and avenge the loss of the dome, and possibly the factory.

****

Sarge was impressed. “Whoever did the shooting, and deployed the decoys was fast.”

Thad, annoyed he hadn’t called for eight missiles, shook his head. “All of the heavy lasers ports were open simultaneously, but only two fired. I think they may have activated the automated defense system. That has been one of our edges, the use of computers versus their fast reactions. Even now that we personally are faster than they are, computers still act faster. They obviously have learned from their mistakes. I wish I had learned from our successes, and not stayed with the same basic attack plan. They laid a
trap
for us, expecting us to head down into the factory through the interior stairwells.”

Dillon added his comment. “I don't think they were expecting the actual landing, or we wouldn’t have made it to atmosphere before they would have been after us. The ECM was a new trick that gave us a slight edge, but they’ll be ready to counter that with land lines soon.”

“Yea, but that’s for the next raid. Let’s dig ourselves out and get away from this one first.”

“Colonel?” it was Fred Saber.

“Yes son?”

“Do you want another four-ship to try to finish the job? Rich and I are out of missiles, but the clanship looks like it can still shoot back.”

“What? Hell, my shuttle is covered up and I can’t see. Is the damn thing still
standing
? I figured it crashed and fell over.” He had not heard an explosion from the clanship’s reaction fuel, but the tanks didn’t always rupture.

“Yes Sir. The laser ports are still open and from our external microphones, we picked up the faint high pitch ultrasonic whine of the magnetic coils of the plasma cannons, as they came on-line. The ceramic barrels are heating because I can see a faint IR glow behind those ports, which are still closed.” The TG2 senses were paying dividends. Now what to do?

“No. There’s no point in firing anti-ship missiles from where we’re sitting. We’re all too close for a missile to arm and detonate if we fire. We would need more distance.”

Thad, using his command override, selected a higher power narrow focus radio, by deploying a dish on one of the other shuttles not buried under the collapsed wall. “Noreen, you saw what happened.” It wasn’t a question. He knew she was watching as she came inbound from the moon. “Did the other orbiting clanship turn back?”

“Not yet, but he did try to reply to that broadcast on the same frequency. I don’t think it knew where that came from, and it’s gone around the curvature of the planet. I’ll be down there before the next guardian rounds the southern pole. I can’t even see half of your ships under the crap lying over top of you.”

“I’ll send teams out to uncover what they can. However, we’ll need you for transport of some of us, and then blow up the craft we leave behind. I want you to blow up that tough assed clanship on the tarmac for us. We have plenty of missiles, but they won’t arm and explode at this close range. If I send out a few four-ships to get some distance, that clanship will nail them when they move.”

“Right, when I hit atmosphere in five minutes I’ll fire a salvo of five, with more to follow if he knocks those down. Keep your people on the far side of the dome. The explosion will make a big fireball of ragged parts.”

“Will do.” Switching to his low power transmitter, he said, “Fred, Richard, don’t move your ships or that clanship will fire on you for certain. All eight of you climb out and run like hell for cover around the side of the dome. The Avenger will blast that clanship in five minutes, and then a fireball and parts are going to fly. Your suits will hide your movements. Go!”

Both four-ship pilots had kept their three companions linked into the conversation. Without a word, the person in back activated the rear hatch on each craft, and they worked their way out of the tight confines of the reclined seats and into the outside debris. Each nervously checking the large deadly clanship as they made their exit, located only a quarter of a mile away with a clear view of their craft.

****

Droktad now shared weapons control with Fangar. She would operate the Plasma cannons as soon as the plasma reservoirs finished heating. The ceramic barrels were already hot. Unaware of an incoming enemy clanship, they were not actively running a radar scan above them, and so didn’t have any missiles ready. Protecting the sky was what the orbital guardians were expected to be doing. He had not asked himself how these small craft had managed to elude that same protective coverage.

At close range, with the known size of the jumbled support struts from the dome as comparison, the two small ships he could see near the north and south edges of the dome rubble pile were larger than a single ship, but they looked almost exactly like them. They were the source of the four missiles fired at them. A single ship didn’t carry two missiles, and these apparently carried only two each, or else he wouldn’t still be here, wondering who made them. Actually, the “who” wasn’t a valid question, because there was only one enemy he could suspect. It was more one of “how” they had made a larger version of a Krall slave built product. It wasn’t fully two times the volume of a single ship, most likely because a typical human was smaller than a warrior was. He guessed the ship would hold three to five humans, depending on internal equipment and weapons they brought.

He intended to destroy both of them soon, but wanted any crew still inside to think that perhaps the crew or equipment on the clanship was disabled.

It certainly would be out of service if this were a human ship and crew
, he thought.

Droktad was learning new things about the enemy. He intended to use patience to see what else these ships and their operators might do. If they showed the slightest sign of lifting, they would be smoking piles of metal in an instant. He had them both targeted for tracking, a talon tip ready to tap the firing command.

A slight movement of debris, several leaps from one of the small ships, instantly caught the stare of his red-pitted eyes. That wasn’t the first time his attention had been so drawn, of course. Pieces of wreckage were still settling on the dome, and wind would move lightweight pieces of fragments. However, being close to an object of intense interest, he zoomed one screen on the area where he’d seen the motion. There was a repeat of the movement, as a section of strut rotated down for a moment, then lifted again. Just beyond that location, some dust spilled from a nearly flat section of a wide piece of armored glass, splintered from the windows of the dome. There was a scuffmark in a layer of dust on the clear surface. The dust had probably settled there before his own ship crashed, and he just saw dust move.

He selected one of the lower power lasers, and while it remained off, aimed it towards the scuffmark. As he was watching, the scuff widened and it was paired with a new mark, which appeared a half step to the right. He instantly fired the beam and then, with a talon tip on the targeting screen, made the red beam wander back and forth above the scuffmarks. Imagine his surprised pleasure when scorch marks appeared in the air not only over the section of glass, but in another area almost a leap farther beyond. Two different targets had been revealed, and they started moving very rapidly, in different directions, but the scorched parts remained visible to him.