Koban 4: Shattered Worlds (9 page)

This process was still underway when Captain Retief broadcast down to them on the general push frequency. Before Noreen even heard her say more than her ship ID, she knew it was bad news.

“This is Slasher. The clanship passing over you has started a deceleration burn. It may have seen the smoke and the destruction there, or heard something from a broadcast sent just a moment ago from another dome. We’ll have to fight our way out I think.”

This warning didn’t really speed boarding, because that was already proceeding as fast as TG2 coordination could make things happen. The shuttles and four-ships had smoothly and swiftly, slipped into the empty bays. Only the pilots that had lingered to set the destruct systems on the abandoned craft were running to leap twenty feet into the open portals. As the last one entered, the portals were slammed shut, and Noreen selected passive tracking for the weapons system, and tied four missile launchers with five missiles in each rack to Alyson’s console.

Noreen was about to tell everyone to grab their socks and hold on, when Slasher broadcast again. “The second clanship, or its first cousin, is coming back over the curve of the northern hemisphere, and clearly coming your way. Somebody else will surely be coming out to the moon to see who the hell is talking in our strange mode of encryption. You start your lift and I’ll be at the outer atmosphere before they know I’m coming. Retief out.”

Noreen warned them. “Lay down now. Max performance lift in one second.”

She was generous and allowed one point five seconds, which is considerably longer feeling to a TG2, at ten times the reaction and thought processing speed of a normal human.

The main thruster and attitude thrusters contributed slightly, but Noreen had retained tachyons in Avengers Traps for the Normal Space drive, which did the real heavy lifting this time. They left a plasma trail in a literal blue streak as the ship rose at close to the TG2 tolerance for this level of g force, limited only by the atmospheric resistance the hull could accept. That was when all of the personnel were in acceleration couches. Almost half were not, laying prone in their armor on the deck, and if they survived the next few minutes without destruction, some of them would fly home in a med lab. Otherwise, a med lab would be superfluous.

Unnoticed behind them, the ECM pods went off in minor explosions on top of the wrecked dome, and oddly, the parked fleet of small craft lifted off as well and moved away from the dome. Before the small craft were five hundred feet in the air and a quarter mile away, the ships still trapped under the fallen wall exploded powerfully, as their fusion bottles suddenly ruptured. The already shattered dome hardly suffered any meaningful damage, but more of the ground managed to fall into the factory below.

At an altitude of just under ten miles, Alyson used her suit communications to send a launch command, via Karl, to initiate the high scan rate targeting radar, and to start firing anti-ship missiles as the atmosphere thinned enough they could safely clear the launch ports. At the hull searing passage through the now diminished atmosphere, it wasn’t possible to fire them even a mile lower. The stealth capability of the burned and damaged skin of the leading edges of the hull was ruined, and would have to be replaced. Stealth wasn’t needed now anyway, because there wasn’t a thing sneaky about this departure, and the Krall could see stealthed clanships anyway.

The clanship that had been overhead and decelerating may have thought it was coming to the aid of the supposed accident at that dome, which had been mistakenly been declared to be that by Droktad, and he was never able to correct that error. It wasn’t using high rate target scanning at all, suggesting it had not been expecting to need to launch missiles as it flew a possible rescue mission, and it needed a few more seconds to get ready, which it didn’t have.

However, its commander or pilot activated its instant-on automated defense system, and it spewed targeting decoys, and started firing lasers as Avenger’s eight hypersonic missiles used the twenty miles to build velocity. Another four missiles were launched after a brief few second delay, when Alyson recalled how the previous clanship had nearly survived four short-range shots, with even less time to react.

Next, an event that sealed the descending clanship’s fate occurred. A gamma ray burst flared above them, only a hundred ten miles above the planet and less than thirty miles above the clanship. Slasher came out swinging. She quickly launched a stream of ten missiles, five at the clanship below her, and five in the general direction of the much farther away second clanship. That particular distant opponent had seen Avenger’s hostile actions, and had just fired a hand of missiles towards her, but at five hundred miles of separation, Avenger wasn’t at great risk from them. She and Slasher would both be able to Jump before those threats drew near. It was that nearby clanship that Avenger had to get past.

The closer clanship, caught between Avenger and Slasher, couldn’t defend effectively from heavy attacks from two directions, dividing its laser fire, and two of Avengers missiles struck home. One aft, and one at midship, and it blossomed into an orange and black lumpy bubble of fire, nevertheless a thing of beauty to the human ships. Their extra missiles, of no danger to the two human ships designated as “friendlies,” were redirected towards the second clanship, in the event they could cover that distance before being destroyed.

It was Avenger and Slasher against a single clanship, which was a bit too far away to be a threat. Even though there were launches seen from tarmacs at several domes, initiated after the fighting just witnessed had started, they would be too late to join this battle. Slasher was high enough to Jump again right now, and Avenger would join her in less than a minute.

That was when the Krall commander in the second clanship reacted as they sometimes did, for “Path and Clan.”

The Slasher was positioned just above the atmosphere, relatively motionless after her micro Jump from behind that moon, and the Avenger, within the upper reaches of atmosphere, was deviating around the spreading pieces of the exploded clanship she’d killed, and was a screeching fast and accelerating target to the approaching distant clanship. One that was too difficult to predict manually.

The unexpected micro Jump, now termed an “intersect maneuver” by the PU navy, had no known defense. The Krall clanship winked out of this Universe, and before the light from that event could arrive (therefore, even computer reaction speeds did not matter), it reappeared within part of the volume of the Universe occupied by Slasher!

The resulting staggering blue-white blast was only survived by Avenger because there was no concussion in a vacuum to transmit the force of the relatively nearby nuclear force detonation. There were no damaging radiation effects to worry about, which the ship’s hull might have protected the crew from in any case, at a distance of seven miles. However, the larger high velocity fragments could have penetrated and shredded Avenger’s hull had it not deviated around the previously blown up clanship fragments. Noreen had naturally chosen the direction away from the second clanship’s missiles, and coincidentally farther away from Slasher. As it was, the sleet of the fastest fine particles of both friend and foe peppered and pitted her upper hull, as she barely slipped past the more dangerous larger debris.

Operation Fast One had become a costly success, and not as fast or so slick as planned. The underwater explosions in the factory happened a few hours later, as flooding reached the detonation sensors. At least that all-important goal was achieved, as a return on the lives invested in its destruction.

As a sidelight, where Alyson would never have confirmation, she would be pleased at the results from her last moment instructions to Karl. When she was about to release the AI to destroy the small ships they were forced to abandon, she had a moment of inspiration. She remembered how the AI had remotely flown a single ship down to the surface of Heavyside when they were there. This time, the AI was also instructed to program each of the flight capable ships to fly somewhere, providing them with navigational coordinates of an alternate target dome on the northern hemisphere of the planet. This was where production of other war material was conducted. The small craft were all sent at ground hugging altitudes, like ancient cruise missiles, set to fly into the dome and detonate their fusion bottles. They might not totally knock out the underground factory, but it was a good use of the sacrificed small ships to slow production there.

Mission completed, the Avenger entered a Jump Hole a hundred fifty miles up, and she limped home by a devious route, to foil possible attempts to trace the direction of her travel. Today, the majority of the raiders went home, with some very painful exceptions. The equipment lost also hurt the Kobani efforts, particularly the Slasher. In sharp contrast to the Krall, material was far less important to humans than their people were. Koban and Haven had a small production base, so replacing the material would take months, but valiant friends could never be replaced.

Mirikami listened to the last of the informal After Action Reports, from Noreen, Dillon, Thad, Sarge, and various team leads of the assault elements. The process wasn’t as formal and thorough as the late Colonel Trakenburg would have expected, but for the Kobani, it was clear that they had mistakenly assumed the Krall would display the same sort of inertia on their own defense methods, as the aliens had displayed over many years of offensive attacks made in Human Space.

In twenty-two years of raids, and two planetary invasions, the Krall had largely stayed with tactics that had worked before, introducing changes or new equipment only when humans did, after a period of lagging behind them, often by nearly a year. This maintained rough parity with their foe’s ability to fight them. By design, it was always the skill and superior physical ability of a Krall warrior that provided them with the edge. This was exactly what they wanted, for selecting the best physical warriors for breeding.

However, the surprise attacks against their rear area supply and manufacturing sources didn’t provide them with the same breeding potential advantages, at least not from
most
of those surviving warriors. Fewer of the Krall in the rear were elite, high status warriors considered worthy of breeding.

That lower status was often why those warriors were away from the battlefronts, or perhaps they had returned to a clan world only to quickly breed, and then leave lesser warriors to train and cull the hatchlings. The recent human attacks not only didn’t provide for selecting the best warriors out of their rear areas, they had damaged speed of the selection processes at the kill boundaries of the invasion on Poldark. This happened because of the decreasing frequency and scale of the Krall attacks, in turn caused by their supply issues. The goal of conducting invasions on two other human worlds was made more complex for the same reason. The Krall demonstrated that they
could
adapt quicker on the defensive side, if properly motivated.

Mirikami was kicking himself, thinking the Krall’s quicker reaction in defending their worlds should have been anticipated. “We lost forty three people of the six hundred twenty eight that we sent, and lost half of our assault ships, including the Slasher. I should have considered this possible Krall quick reaction. Four of our ships should have provided the protective cover that Slasher died providing. We were lucky not to have lost the entire force.”

Not in full agreement, Thad countered Tet’s bleaker picture. “I’d actually rate Operation Fast One as a qualified success. We adjusted, and took down two factories and their domes. Despite the Krall being prepared for our style of attack, we still caught them off guard, and got the job done with new technology, and ingenuity.”

Shaking his head, Mirikami knew their next raids would be even harder. “The Krall will react to our radio jamming technology with landlines, which we can’t switch off with ECM gear. They’ll post more warriors in the factories, and establish better monitoring of approaches to their planets. The Prada will be told to build better flood protection for the factories. They were unprepared for how we ruptured the water coolant lines, by entering them from the outside this time. They won’t be the next time.”

Mirikami looked at Captain Longstreet, who had been researching an apparent Krall technological solution to their armored suit’s invisibility, which a pair of Krall had somehow managed to discover from their crashed clanship. “Joe did you figure out how they were able to see our suits on their screens?”

“Yes Sir. I had previously noticed something a few months ago, on the raid when we stole the eleven clanships. On one of those I boarded, when I looked through my own helmet visor at a view screen on the clanship we were stealing, I could faintly see our stealthed people moving on the tarmac below. They had the same ghostly silhouette image as we see when we look
directly
at them with our visors active. That meant the clanship view screen was able to relay some form of radiation from our suits, which was invisible to the naked eye, but which my visor detected second hand.

“With the help of your AI, Jakob, and some volunteers, I was able to go through all the view screen frequencies until my naked eye saw faint shadows moving on a dark background. That was when I was using radio frequencies, much longer wavelength than infrared. Jakob then knew how to select that faint radio frequency background, and combined it with a visible light image of the same scene. Even without my visor, I could see faint stealthed armor outlines on the view screen. Further testing revealed it has a limited practical detection range, because the faint images fade out quickly with distance, and at nearly one mile, I couldn’t see them at all. Jakob could still detect the motion of stealthed armor for another quarter of a mile. This means we can’t count on total invisibility anymore, particularly not from a clanship, once the Krall figure out we’re there.”

Mirikami nodded, with a grim expression. “That’s how we lost those four boys, thinking they could simply walk away unseen from their four-ships. Those two Krall died without being able to tell anyone about this, but if that crew figured it out, others will. Our stealth is still better than we ever had before, even if not perfect when fairly close to a clanship. We need to try something different now anyway than these type raids, to keep them off balance.” He put a finger on his lower lip.

Noreen saw the signs, “I know you aren’t proposing we stop hitting them, Tet. What’s your alternative? I see the lip rubbing going on there. It isn’t a lip tug, so it isn’t what you really want to do, but you have something in mind.” She smiled as he grimaced, realizing his simple gestures gave his thought processes away. He’d have to watch that at their weekly poker games.

Shaking off his poker tell lapse, he nodded and said, “I think we have to work on reducing the number of clanships they possess now, and hitting the supply caches they already have, at a time when they can’t replace the equipment at the front lines quickly. Without the migration ships, it’s slower for them to shift large quantities of weapons systems from their more distant worlds. If they can’t be as wasteful as they normally are with equipment it might curtail some of their aggression, and lead some clans into reckless moves despite the lack of material support. ”

Noreen sensed where he was leading. “Sounds like you might mean orbital strikes on equipment stockpiles and parked clanships, instead of attacking where they build them. We decided previously that this would take a much larger force than we personally can muster, at least for a planetary scale bombardment. We’re down to a baker’s dozen of ships, and our craft have no better defense or offense than any Krall operated clanship has, except for the higher accelerations we can tolerate, of course. That isn’t much of an edge against their higher numbers, unless we gain some additional advantage.”

Mirikami grinned. “I wasn’t thinking of using only
our
ships, although I want to work on sneaking onto remote clan worlds and stealing more ships. We do need greater numbers than what we can capture for what I’d like to do, and only the PU Navy has the ships. We have only one point of contact with real influence in the high ranks of PU military.” He shrugged.

Thad provided the name they all thought of, “Henry Nabarone.”

“Yes. We owe General Nabarone a visit anyway, to provide him with the gene mods we promised. We can offer him some help on Poldark fighting in exchange for a favor he will find very distasteful. I think we probably have stirred a hornet’s nest for him with the Krall, because they want to punish humans somewhere, and Poldark is where they can apply the most force right away. We should go talk to him, and convince him that it’s time he mended his fences with the Lady Admirals of the PU Navy, and to suck up to them for a change.”

****

Turning to a runner, Kanpardi ordered him to go to the Joint Council chambers, “Find Telour, and tell him I want him to report here to me, as soon as possible.”

It would demonstrate a lack of respect to the gathered clan leaders to contact his subordinate by a com call when he might be in a negotiation with one or more of them. The runner would know to wait for a pause to step forward. However, it was to interrupt Telour’s string of discussions that he wanted him away from the Joint Council hall.

Tor Gatrol Kanpardi was beginning to lose patience with his most promising protégé. He had other intelligent and high status warriors that showed greater support for his own decisions. He had promoted Telour to Til Gatrol, making him second in command of the Krall war leadership, only after he had cleverly offered to combine a mission to increase clanship production by their own Graka clan, with a personal side trip to humiliate a former mutual enemy of theirs, Parkoda from Tanga clan.

The subtle maneuvering Telour performed then, to generate that mission, was seen by Kanpardi as an example of manipulation and misdirection, a trait that Kanpardi believed could be used against humanity. He thought the ability would help Telour recognize when humans were engaged in strategic misdirection. Relatively few Krall presently in leadership positions had this ability. Scream and charge was the time honored preferred, and most noble method of attack, with deception and trickery considered somehow less effective.

More of the novices entering combat this year had been hatched from unions of males and females who had demonstrated a flair for original thought, and had avoided some of the rampant human deceptions that led brash warriors blindly into ambushes. The first step in mastering use of such tactics yourself was to recognize them when used against you. This selection process might take another hundred years of selective breeding, or even two hundred.

The average Krall warrior would definitely be improved when this war ended. Kanpardi could see this big, long-term picture clearly, but Telour had a more narrow view at present, centered on his own interests.

Telour’s pride had been bruised by the Human attack on Graka clan’s shipyards, initiated literally on Telour’s heels the day he departed that world. The loss of status to the clan, from failing to fight off that attack, had felt personal to Telour because he had just departed. That perceived stigma was pushing him to demand harsher, more wasteful punitive actions against the most worthy enemy the Krall had yet encountered.

Wasteful, because Kanpardi knew that the Krall war capability was only temporarily slowed. Telour wanted to eliminate entire human planets in punishment for his loss of status, thus losing the war potential on those worlds for future decades of ground fighting. Telour was lobbying the Joint Council right now, to urge them to vote to destroy multiple heavily populated human worlds. Those same targets could be used to cull millions of warriors less suited for a smarter form of warfare, if the planets were spared now. The loss of such resources, without some offsetting compensation was inefficient! The death of billions of animals was inconsequential in his mind. The humans were going to die anyway. Their more useful deaths were the proper choice to be made.

Telour arrived perhaps thirty minutes later, not an obvious or unreasonable delay if he had been engaged in discussion with a high status clan leader, but the length of time struck Kanpardi as bordering on disrespectful to his superior.

“My Tor, the runner claimed you wished to speak with me.”

Claimed
I wanted to speak to him. Kanpardi thought in annoyance.

“A runner would not appear inside the hall to retrieve you on a pretext. Of course, I sent him to summon you. I have a mission.”

He was sure now that he wanted to get Telour away from the council members and off this base world, K1, doing something that promoted Kanpardi’s strategy, and block Telour’s lobbying effort for his own agenda.

“I am ready my Tor. Where will I go?” This was really the only reply open to Telour.

“You will go to Poldark, to meet with Gatlek Pendor, and order him to press attacks on all fronts against the humans. They are to be pushed back rapidly, so that when we pause to regroup, they are unable to take advantage of the lull. I want this done within a month.

“Then while we pause, I will send many of our reserve clanships from here, on K1. Half of our warrior forces on Poldark will board them, taking some of our weapons systems with them. I will take one third each of the mini tanks, artillery laser defenses, plasma batteries, heavy armored transports, rocket launchers, and mobile counter battery artillery.”

Telour knew exactly what the purpose was, but he wanted it stated for clarity, to place the responsibility squarely on Kanpardi, “Gatlek Pendor is of Mordo clan, and the clan leaders will want to know why their highest status war leader is being denied so many warriors and material for the invasion force he leads.”

Kanpardi turned the tables on his subordinate. “You sat in the Joint Council with me when I outlined my strategy to widen the war, to invade two other human planets. Prove you were alert and listening. What will you tell Pendor when he asks what I will do with the forces I will remove from his control?” This was a rebuke, asking Telour to prove he had been alert, and it forced him to describe his leader’s plans. There would be no room for maneuver and duplicity after this.

“My Tor, your plan is to remove one third of the war material and one half of the warriors from Poldark, to send them to the world humans call New Dublin, to invade this Rim world, which became a New Colony after our war started. It has nearly the same population as Poldark, but only a small force of a hundred thousand human soldiers for defense. The planet is half way around the volume of human controlled space, on the galactic core side, and you have permitted only a few raids there, to make the invasion less expected.