Koban 4: Shattered Worlds (93 page)

She grinned sweetly. “I’ll bet you two were a lot more careful after that, weren’t you?”

Jorl didn’t make it easy on him either. “You and Katelyn? She’s way too glitzy for you man. Outa your league.” She was Noreen and Dillon’s daughter, and took after her mother’s beauty and figure.

“Oh yea, well when you…” Fred didn’t get to finish his retort.

Mirikami, his conservative New Honshu upbringing leaving him sexually suppressed compared to most Human Space cultures, cleared his throat.

“Hurumph. Let’s focus on ideas with the rest of the squadron to intercept this killer ship, shall we?” Perfectly aware that it was he and Maggi, especially her, that had pushed them off onto the amusing and lighter topic. She’d probably done it on purpose to change their moods.

Only Maggi had just said something off the cuff, about jumping on the Krall and kicking their asses, which had him tugging at his lower lip. He’d do exactly that when the ship arrived. “Jakob, the Dismantler ship Jumped from Bootstrap three hours before we received the report that Melnor had exploded. With the previous guess of travel time from K1 to Meadow, and then Meadow to Bootstrap, and the known distances between each system, I want an estimate of its arrival time here in this system.”

“Sir, Tau Boötis is 51 light years from Earth, and Eta Boötis is 37 light years from Earth. However, they are not on a perfect straight line towards Earth, and are nearly 16 light years from each other. If the ship traveled at the same rate as estimated from Meadow to Bootstrap, its travel time from Bootstrap to this system would indicate it arrived approximately two hours and fifty six minutes ago, with an error bar of…”

“Shit!” That sounded from two voices nearly simultaneously.

Without attribution of who shouted the profanities, Jakob summarized, as if the two exclamations had not confirmed full and shocked comprehension. “It is here now if this was its destination. I estimate its equivalent Normal Space rate of travel is between 250 and 255 light years per hour of sidereal time.”

Jorl and Fred glanced at one another, wondering if their elders would have chastised
them
for foul language. Then they both expanded their views of the four clanships that were two light hours from their own position near Poseidon, the presumptive target planet. After their initial examination of the four clanships when they arrived, observing they weren’t doing anything but waiting, everyone had focused attention on the action at Bootstrap, where they
knew
the Dismantler was. It hadn’t seemed possible for the ship to reach this system yet.

Jorl used visible light and Fred used infrared. The four clanships were now positioned around a larger ship, apparently without having to do a micro Jump to advertise their shift.

Observing the two screens, Mirikami linked to the six ships of his squadron. “The Dismantler is already here, and surrounded by the clanships. Here’s what you’re going to do, but exactly thirty seconds behind me…” which he explained briefly with a flash of mental images.

“Keep the clanships occupied so they can’t try to follow me. Good luck and I hope the Mark is able to celebrate with you when we’re done. Let me catch that larger tachyon, and remember you go thirty seconds
after
we Jump. Not too soon, or you might meet a blast wave.” He broke the link to avoid any objections or sentimental comments.

He looked guiltily at those on the Bridge, as he said, “Jacob set the
secondary
Trap to capture the largest tachyon we can catch in the next minute or less. When we have that secondary Trap tachyon, use the
primary
Trap to Jump just off center of the middle of the Krall formation, right next to the big ship.”

“Yes Sir. Secondary Trap tuned and filtering for higher energy particles.”

“Ship wide link, Jakob.”

“Ready Sir.”

“People, we are jumping to attack the Dismantler, which has been here nearly three hours unobserved. We’re out of time. Seal your armor and secure yourselves firmly. If we misjudge the Jump, we may intersect with it, or ram it if not. I’m proud to have served with you all. We Jump in forty seconds or less. I hope we talk on the other side.”

He looked at the two younger men, who nodded their acceptance of the necessary risk. When he looked at Maggi, he saw her grin and her shining blue eyes.

“Now that’s kicking their asses!”

Jakob had the last word. “Secondary has a high energy tachyon. Jumping now.”

****

As they neared the next star system, Pildon was told to ask Huwayla if there were exactly four clanships deployed at the proper offset location, sitting at the designated coordinates that Dolbor furnished for Pildon to relay to Huwayla. That was a point that was offset by a previously specified and a fixed distance by Telour, set away from where the death ship had been told to arrive. When the four clanships were found where they were expected to be, and no other ships or debris were seen, Pildon instructed the ship to change coordinates and to emerge at the center of their formation.

This accomplished not only a gamma ray free entry, but the protective craft had no need to reposition via a micro Jump, thus advertising their relocation. The four pilots might feel surprise at the death ship’s sudden appearance between them, but they were Krall. Surprise would last two hundredths of a second before the efficiency demonstrated by their arrival would be appreciated.

Huwayla was promptly instructed to initiate the fields to begin the process of forming opposite matter. The target planet in this system was slightly larger than at the previous star, and this one would require roughly another hour to reach the calculated destructive force to shatter its core with the requested violent dispersal.

Pildon was already thinking ahead to the final system, where a larger gas giant was to be used. The Krall’tapi was fatalistically thinking of the remaining time needed here, and then the even greater time he expected at the fourth system, to destroy a much more massive world. Would there be enough time to finish the destruction there, then for Huwayla to return him to where the living ships were stored? From that point, the Krall would honor their agreement to send him home.

However, could that journey possibly be completed before any fragments in any system killed millions or billions of intelligent creatures? That would surely result in Huwayla detecting the consequences of her innocent actions. Had he known that in the final system, that an inhabited Mars was much closer to an exploding Jupiter than was Earth, he’d have forsaken any hope of seeing his family again.

He knew now that the powerful and amazing ship could remotely see the systems where she had been made to act, at least in gross detail, if perhaps not on a small scale. How she would learn when her actions had killed millions of intelligent creatures he couldn’t imagine. He feared the longer journey to rejoin her sister ships would not yet be completed when she learned. This level of death would make the mission one of those that never returned. He’d not rejoin his family.

His concerns proved to be entirely the wrong ones.

Huwayla, without warning, abruptly moved so sharply that everyone but Pildon was knocked violently off their feet. The only reason he remained standing was that he was within the emergency cylindrical inertial containment field that was instantly projected floor to ceiling around each of the circular marks on the deck. That was where the trusted operators were required to stand or sit, and where control room guests should be.

Most of the Krall were completely clear of the containment field areas marked by floor disks. Most, except for the one guardian that today was assigned to maintain a firm grip on Pildon’s shackles. Only his arm, from elbow to hand was within the containment field. His upper arm was sheared at the elbow when he was thrown across the compartment.

Pildon felt the ship jolt, but with far less force than anything that was external to the containment field. Unthinking and unaware that his immediate guardian was no longer attached to the hand gripping the chains at his back he recklessly called out. “What happened?” 

Huwayla didn’t sound distressed, yet her words suggested distress would not have been an unwarranted emotion. “An arriving clanship was about to emerge inside a portion of the volume of the normal Universe where we were located. I was forced to move aside to prevent our mutual destruction, and I enclosed it with a stasis field used to move pods of building material, or there would have been a damaging impact after it emerged. I regret that I was unable to provide you with a warning. Your guests have been injured. However, I am equipped with means to repair them if they still live.”

“Who arrived?” Pildon was looking over his shoulder at the ten warriors just starting to stir, piled in a jumble along a wall. One was missing half an arm, although the blood flow was already slowing.

Before the ship could answer, there was another jolt, the lighting from the glowing walls briefly dimmed, the system display of the star and planets vanished and the containment field failed, allowing Pildon to fall to the side.

“What now?” he called out fearfully.

There was no immediate reply, but the interior lights resumed their former intensity and the local system map, which had been projected in the space in front of his operator’s position, was now replaced with a new display. It appeared to be a completely different solar system, until he realized it was a view of the same system from a different perspective, closer to the star and on its opposite side from the targeted ice giant.

Huwayla’s voice sounded uncertain when it returned. “I have been relocated, and part of me is missing. I regret that I have lost control of the disruption fields, and the incomplete conversion of opposite matter was released early within the planetary core. It is inadequate to disrupt the planet.”

Pildon looked fearfully at the Krall moving at the wall where they had been thrown, most of them appeared to be injured or stunned, based on their slower than usual recovery. He asked anxiously, “What happened? Can you resume the disruption?”

“No. The clanship that arrived extended an event horizon and rotated most of my structure into the second level of the alternate Universe when it Jumped. It moved me with it, and I was unable to control events when I briefly lost tachyon power. We are on the other side of the star now. I have reestablished external surface integrity to seal off atmosphere loss where my skin was missing. When I can perform adequate self-repair, I will be able to travel again through the alternate universe. This repair will not be finished for perhaps a fifth of a rotation of the world where your people live, Pildon.”

The self-repair sounded promising, and they could Jump within four hours, so perhaps they could move to the final system, which Pildon knew was most important to Telour. However, the ship had more to say on the subject.

“One of my two gravity projectors was separated from me and remains at our previous position. I cannot replace that. I may be able to recover the projector left behind and make repairs if it is not damaged internally, but not in time for any of your building projects to progress effectively. I require both projectors to produce planetary disruption. I do not understand why your guests did this. It could have resulted in deaths of all those I carry, and in their own deaths.”

Pildon thought he knew who they were. “I don’t think I have ever met any of these creatures, and they were not invited here. Those that were with me do not want to stop the projects. Where is that clanship now?”

“We are touching, because I held them secure after they damaged me, and they have also suffered much damage. They do not have Trap fields deployed, and I think their real space thruster system is inoperable. Some of them rushed to leave the clanship to try to enter me where my skin was replaced. That clanship has suffered much damage, and a part of it is open to space. There was an explosion and fire, perhaps caused when I made them stop moving to prevent a collision. I regret if I have caused them injury.

“This may be why they are trying to enter me in the place where I have made an emergency repair to my outer skin, to ask me for assistance. You do not permit me to communicate with them, so I do not know their purpose. My outer surface area is healed enough to prevent their entry, unless they have the means to cut the thinner repair material open.”

Suddenly, at least a hundred guardians that had been in another part of the living ship charged in from side corridors with weapons at the ready, some of them limping. Several of them moved to examine the other eight guardians, with little attention paid to Telour’s aides. Others advanced on Pildon, in a rather intimidating display of excessive threat, against a shackled and unarmed prisoner.

One warrior, not passing his plasma rifle away as protocol normally required, grasped his shackles, after detaching and discarding the arm still attached by its clinched fist. He pressed the business end of the rifle against the side of Pildon’s head.

“What did you do?” he was asked.

It sounded almost pleasantly mild, from a Krall clearly about to vaporize his skull.

Pildon pleaded. “It wasn’t me. Another clanship tried to hit us, and then pulled us away to the other side of the star. Look at the display, let the ship explain.” He was afraid the knife he saw in another guardian’s hand was about to literally cut off his own explanation.