Koban 4: Shattered Worlds (78 page)

Mirikami raised an eyebrow and looked accusingly at his wife. “Spilling the beans? Dear Lady, do you spread those archaic sayings everywhere you go, letting them take root in any untarnished mind where they lodge?”

Maggi shot right back. “If that came from me it would be her saying something like
spilling their guts, snitching,
or
ratting us out.
You know I switched to watching old gangster movies instead of westerns. Gangsters don’t eat a lot of beans.”

Mauss smiled at this common subject of friendly bickering with Maggi. “I’ll have you know Tet, that my mind became well and properly tarnished years ago, in raunchy navy ports of call all over human Space. I have an amply dirty mind for any number of stray and archaic thoughts to grow roots.”

Mirikami, recognizing when he was outnumbered, retreated. After a fashion. “Fine, twisted minds think alike and I concede you probably thought of the phrase on your own. In answer to you, yes, the name of our home planet is Koban, as we call it, and I don't think you’ll spread that around. Besides, you already know, so pretending you don’t is stupid. To the Krall, that isn’t its name, because they don’t assign names to objects or places, but they do use the names that
we
give places sometimes, when talking to us or about us. They customarily describe a place by its use, or by the clan using it. That’s partly the reason for their simplified navigation system that can be used as a point and click system, taking advantage of their superb battlefield memory capability. The Nav system has greater sophistication built into it, and we’ve learned to use that.

“Koban is just two words in low Krall, ko ban, which describes a place used as a training ground. There are literally thousands of places that the Krall have used that as a description. However, a few of them know that some presumably dead humans once used it as a name for a place. For only one world. ”

“Tet, I thank you for your trust. I give you my word that it isn’t misplaced, and I will guard your privacy, and anything you reveal to me that you think could compromise your safety.”

Maggi offered her opinion on the subject. “Golda, I’m a good judge of character, and a better judge of friends. You pass muster on both counts, and you shared the same risks as we did, with a lot less assurance that you would survive than for anyone else on board this ship. You have guts, and put your life on the line for the good of humanity. These are good qualities, which we believe we share in common with you. Tet has a proposal to make, which you are free to accept, or not, no repercussions if you say no.”

Mauss looked slightly startled, but quickly reached the correct conclusion. “Tet, am I being invited to join the Kobani?”

“I told you she was a quick study.” He said, looking at Maggi and laughing.

Mauss looked slightly distressed. “Hell Tet. I’m acting Fleet Admiral now, at least until I return to the Hub. I can’t switch allegiance.”

“You probably wouldn’t be someone we’d want if you thought that was needed, and were willing to do so. However, there’s no pressure and no rush for a decision. I might add, I don't think you’ll find that there is any change in allegiance. My people just fought and some of them died, alongside the Planetary Union navy. We have done so even longer and in closer contact with the PU army and spec ops units. We’re not in opposition to the Planetary Union or its people and government. Although, I’m not as certain the PU politicians, and some of the public, might not at some point turn against anyone they know is a Kobani.

“As to your being Fleet Admiral, would that be permanent do you think? Or do you still intend to retire as you had stated, before Chatsworth and Bledso changed your mind?”

“Evil man!” She laughed. “You know perfectly well I’ll not be offered a chance to stay in this temporary position after we return. I did expect, and still intend to retire. As a flag officer, I’m never really retired anyway and subject to recall. Let me get back to you on this.” She almost changed the subject, but suddenly blurted a question that occurred to her.

“Wait! Does it hurt? Damn, I don’t much like pain at my age.”

Maggi reassured her. “I was considerably older than you are now when I underwent the final and complete transformation, and I’ll bet it hurt less than what you went through in that acceleration suit. Look at your bruises.” She pointed to black and blue spots on Mauss’ bare lower arms and neck.

“Besides, we put you asleep for most of it while you lay in a med lab for a couple of weeks. You wake up a new you, with very little residual discomfort.”

“You were older than me?” She looked skeptically at the attractive and slender small woman, who in appearance looked to be in her early to mid-twenties.

Maggi nodded. “Listen to your elders, kid, I’ll be a hundred thirteen in a couple of months.”

“Oh…, you two really are rotten. I can go back to being young looking too? How the hell can I turn that down?”

Maggi shrugged. “Age regression isn’t a gene mod but it’s guided by our knowledge of genetics, and implemented by nanites that we obtained from Human Space. We have older Kobani, mostly NCO and officer recruits from spec ops, who elected to retain their physiological age at the transformation so they could continue in their military career. You have the ability to go younger when you wish. I’m afraid we can’t prevent you from looking stronger and better fit, and from moving more gracefully. I’ve heard you ask if we all trained in yoga or as dancers. That will come naturally.”

Mauss smirked. “I’ll consider your bribes when I’m no longer on active duty. That may be in only a month or two.”

She turned back to their current mission, which was leading potential Krall trackers to Spica. “Enough about my future prospects. How will we know if we were followed, and if they will do what you expect? We can’t peek out of Tachyon Space to see. How will we know if they simply never tried to track us, or they’re playing the same waiting game at Spica?”

“First of all, Jakob, and Noreen’s AI, Karl, saw one or two clanships wink out within a minute of each task force when they Jumped separately. There were nine of those clanships, and they sure seemed timed to follow each task force. We don’t know if any left after the three Kobani formations Jumped or not. Second, the enemy was at times clearly berserk with rage at the damage we inflicted. I understand Krall personality fairly well, and the loss of status for the Great and Major clans, which we hurt the most, and particularly for the leader that was in charge here, honor demands they find the very ships and enemy that made them look ineffective, hunt them down and kill them if they can. To do that most quickly, they have to know where we went, just as they followed your fleet after Operation New Lance.”

Mauss nodded, but voiced a doubt. “They saw what we did at K1 when we went Ghost. When we do it at Spica, why won’t they stay in Tachyon Space and see if we move again?”

“The Krall are conservative, and adopt new methods only after consideration by their Joint Council. They
will
change, but usually not this quickly. They themselves had not used a maneuver such as Ghosting before, and initially didn’t understand its purpose because they don’t operate that way, waiting around to return to strike an enemy. Unfortunately for Chatsworth, they did figure out that
she
might be back a third time, and they sacrificed domes and ships to get her to stay in Normal Space long enough for them to set up their ambush.

“It’s one thing to know that you don’t
have
to perform a rotation out of Tachyon Space after you travel as far as you needed to go. You simply have to come up with a reason to wait. That’s a sneaky aspect of us monkeys. The Krall prefer to charge in and attack, no waiting. We’ll wait in a Jump Hole at Spica, and I predict they won’t. They can’t effectively communicate while in Tachyon Space. They have a cumbersome and slow method of information exchange, which requires the clanships to be traveling close together. Most of these nine were not. Their pilots will act independently, and I believe all of them will act the same way, even if they
think
they’re being cautious with us tricky bastards. They’re going to take a look.”

“You didn’t say how we’ll know.” Mauss prodded.

“Oh…, that’s right, you weren’t in on the conversation I had with the Dagger. It’s sitting in Normal Space, about a half an Astronomical Unit out from Spica, watching with a spectrometer.”

****

One after another, nine clanships closed in on the narrowing wave crests of the respective clusters of mass they had each followed through Tachyon Space. When the detectors revealed multiple trails had converged, and didn’t continue away from the narrowest points, they looked for the enemy in Normal Space, where they presumably had emerged. That’s all it took to tell them everything they needed to know.

****

Mirikami acknowledged Bob Danker’s report. He passed it on to the others. “Nine heavy element spikes in the plasma fields between the two stars in the last hour. Spectroscopy confirms the spikes came in separate bursts before being diluted with the hydrogen and traces of helium in the swirling magnetic fields. The Krall appear to have found where they think we went. I almost wish we could send one of them back to lead more of them here.”

Mauss still seemed doubtful, “Just like that, we killed nine more of them? None could get away after taking a fast peek?”

“Not possible. The typical plasma density and energy between those two stars would destroy a clanship in five or ten minutes at the mildest of times. The recent trillions of tons of coronal mass ejections, which the local magnetic fields and gravity have fed back here over a period of several weeks, has been observed repeatedly over several centuries by PU astronomers. The plasma field close between the stars is more powerful than all our energy beam weapons focused on a single clanship at once, and has been this way for almost two weeks and will continue for another week or two. The Krall simply vaporized when they did a White Out, leaving detectable winds of heavy trace elements that are characteristic of clanship hulls, decks and bulkheads. I didn’t ask Bob if any organics were detected.”

Mauss, thinking like a skeptical admiral and strategist said, “They have our entire volume of space mapped, every single star. They have it for the entire galaxy I think. I saw Spica on your Krall style navigation display, Tet. Why would they even bother to look for us between those two huge stars?”

“I told you, I understand them. Not perfectly, but well enough. They don’t navigate to new places out of curiosity, or stand off for scientific research or study. Their seeing a strange star system on a map is merely a pinpoint of light at a place that they have never been, and don’t generally know or care about them.

“They had to learn where any of our worlds were from their first captives, after a ship of
ours
ran into
them
. They didn’t come looking for us out of curiosity to see what was out there. Eventually, we were going to meet them, because we were so close and we were expanding. Most of the races they met before had been in contact with the Olt’kitapi, or were within the sphere of that species slow explorations, or were neighbors of them.

“Until they know where there is something worth an attack or a raid, they rarely explore or visit new systems without some clue there is a race already there. They take whatever they find when it’s discovered, and then seek the other places where the new race lives. That’s perhaps why we haven’t heard from other more distant aliens. Our allies think that may be the case. Don’t make a noise, and the Krall plague won’t come looking for you.

“According to our older alien friends, aggressive species like the Krall, and apparently us humans, are exceptions to the rule for most interstellar civilizations. We don't know for sure, but it seems possible, since only two out of twenty species they know about were warlike. Humans were on the way to evolving into a more peaceful civilization, but we’re a very young species compared to most that ventured into space. The Krall are much older, but they have not only stayed warlike, they deliberately bred themselves to be more so. We Kobani humans have upped the ante to play this sort of game.” He shrugged.

“Anyway, at Spica the Krall will think we stopped and probably did a White Out at some remote base. If it’s safe enough for us to come here, they certainly will feel it is for them, or they might even expect to fight their way out and return to K1. Lacking communications with each other in Tachyon Space, they don’t know what’s here and can’t send a pilot in as an observer to report back. They were on their own and each acted exactly like the bold Krall warriors they are, and one after another, they popped out to have a look. No clanship could survive more than a few seconds in there when they did that, and their hulls and Trap field emitters were rapidly eroded away to prevent another Jump. I simply chose a place where it would be fast and fatal when they took that look.”

“Tet, you made a risky assumption they would all barge right in and stick their head in the oven. They do learn, as you just said.”

Mirikami nodded agreement, but explained his thinking. “The Krall are a twenty-five thousand year old case of arrested development, kept that way by their own meddling with their potential advancement. As a species, they haven’t experienced brushes with self-caused near extinction, or learned caution through slow gentle evolution. They were accidentally given great power by the Olt’kitapi, when they were an adolescent barbaric race, and they never needed to change, to learn to cooperate with others, or forced to expand into space gradually. They didn’t need to be cautious, and they don’t act that way the first two or three times they should do so. This is one of those first times. This trick wouldn’t work indefinitely.”