Koban 5: A Federation Forged in Fire (36 page)

“All of humanity owes a debt to rippers for simply existing. Because they never developed a technological society, our allies and we Kobani have provided them with technology designed for them. I have been explaining how we became what we are, and where we copied the abilities that we have. Now I’ll let Kobalt use a brand new bit of technology, developed just for rippers, and he can speak for himself. He is the first ripper ever to be able to do so outside of contact telepathy.”

There was a brief pause, and then a deep bass voice that was just a bit too loud came from the speakers. It quickly adjusted to a baritone male voice, speaking Standard with an incongruous Rhamian accent. It took Kobalt only a second to regulate the Comtap implant, so he could speak like his father.

“Captain Mirikami, or my Uncle as I have called him all of my life, asked our friends the Raspani and Torki, to make a talking device to place in my head, so I can use it to speak to others, without having to touch them with my frill.”

Mirikami looked over at Maggi, enjoying the open mouth and shocked look. She hadn’t known of this enhancement, although she obviously knew about his undergoing rejuvenation in the med lab. Kobalt had also wanted to hide it from Kit, but the siblings had never been good at keeping secrets from each other. It was Dillon and Noreen’s faces he wanted to see right now, but he had to rely on Carson to capture the video for him inside the ship. Carson and Ethan already knew of this, because the damn cats couldn’t hide anything from them either.

Thad and Sarge were in armor and on security duty, right here on the portico somewhere behind him, so their expressions would be lost to him. He didn’t get to see surprised looks on faces as often as before, because of remote Comtap use when he revealed startling news from a distance.

As Kobalt went through his short prepared speech, Mirikami received some quick links.

“You sneaky dog,” came from Sarge. Thad said, “Well done.”

Noreen, with tears forming from the sound of her shaky mental voice, managed both to thank him, and threatened to get even in the same breath. “Tet, I’ll always be able to reach him now, anywhere. This is wonderful, thank you. But you hid this from me, and I can see Carson recording me for everyone’s amusement. There’s payback coming for making me cry in front of the family, my friend.”

Dillon sent him a mental image of Noreen with a smile and tears. “That’s one of your better surprises. She agonized over being away from him when he was shot and in the med lab, and we were deep in Krall territory. Thanks. I assume Kit will want one?”

“Ask Ethan. He learned about Kobalt’s Comtap from her, and he’ll know if Kit wants a rejuvenation treatment as well.”

“OK. I’ll leave you alone. I see that Medford’s caravan has arrived. She’ll be pissed.”

“I can see the car tops over the heads of the crowd on the steps. I wonder if she’ll push her way up through the crowd. Everybody seems spellbound by our talking tiger. The motorcade wasn’t noticed except by some people at the bottom of the steps. I wonder if she knows what we’ve been saying to the press.”

****

“I can’t believe the crap they’ve been saying. It’s contrary to everything I’ve said. I can’t even shut them up nor have it censored. It’s going out live over all the networks. I’ll have a hell of a lot of damage control to do.”

Secretary Oswald looked bemused. “Such as what Madam President? I haven’t heard anything contradictory to anything I’m aware that you’ve said on the record in public.”

“That furry rodent that spoke first, before we finished getting in the cars. It thanked the Kobani for rescuing its people from slavery on Krall worlds. Congratulated the Kobani in general and Mirikami by name, for disabling all of the war machines of the Krall, making it possible for humanity to defeat them."

“I heard that Mam. How does that conflict with any position I have heard you present publicly. I know your private feelings about Mirikami, but they aren’t calling you a liar, or attacking you in any way. From the reports I have from the governors of Poldark and New Dublin, the Kobani raced in and did fundamentally what the Prada said they did. They somehow disabled the Krall ships and all their major weapons. I understand our forces are now pushing them back, and killing them by the tens of thousands, since they refuse to surrender.”

“Well, that isn’t how I was planning to present events. It is my commanders in the field that are defeating the enemy, not the damned Kobani, led by Mirikami.”

Oswald looked at her askance. “The Prada female, Narwale I think she said was her name, and also that Raspani called Blue Flower, both said it was the human armies and navy who are now beating the Krall on the invaded worlds. They anticipate our military retaking K1. That seems to back what you wanted to say.”

Proving she had been listening to the broadcast closely, and that her politician’s knack for catching names was working, she corrected Oswald. “Nawella is the Prada’s name, and Blue Flower Eater is the Raspani. They’re giving the Kobani credit for things they couldn’t have done. That tubby little lisping sausage said that Mirikami sent part of his fleet into Krall territory to attack the Krall on their home planets after raiding K1. He left another part of the fleet at K1, sent part to Poldark and New Dublin, and sent other ships home to guard Koban. Attacking the Krall on their planets is what got Meadow and Bootstrap destroyed, and they almost included Earth the last time. It’s another provocation, and exactly what that war leader Telour warned us against.”

Mentally, the Secretary moved the day forward when he would submit his resignation. It was probably too late to distance himself from this administration. He spoke more boldly now that his mind was made up. “I was under the impression that pushing the Krall out of Human Space and saving our worlds
was
our military goal. How would that ever happen
without
provoking the Krall?”

“Kicking them off our planets and back to where they came from means you must give them a place to retreat. If you cut that escape avenue off, they will use their ultimate weapon again. Mirikami has left them no other option.”

Oswald held his tongue this time. She could dig her own grave. He’d start on his letter of resignation tonight, if she didn’t fire him first. Her bias wasn’t going to yield to any rational argument. She knew her legacy and the next reelection were slipping away from her, and she couldn’t accept that the more gracious, and smart course, was to tie her political wagon to the people that had made pushing the Krall
anywhere
possible. She had already publically declared Mirikami at fault for provoking the enemy, and she was apparently incapable of reversing her position now.

Even as few as the Kobani were, it didn’t seem wise to provoke a people so effective at war. He was listening to Mirikami speak again as they approached the Capitol steps, and heard how the Kobani had become what they were. Then he heard that they had given themselves contact telepathy, one of the multiple genes they had adapted from the very species he stood next to, as he made the introduction of what looked like huge blue-green tiger on the monitor screen in the limo.

This
peace-loving diplomat didn’t want to try to face down people that shared so many genes with
that
fierce looking big sucker! He was reluctant to get out of the limo, but the livid look on Medford’s face made it apparent he had no option. She’d just heard the same claims made by Mirikami as he had, and he now realized that the real basis of her hatred for the man, and of the Kobani, was their genetic changes. Those were old laws, enforcement of which was not applied for decades between the rare infractions, but some personal beliefs on that three hundred year old subject were still strongly held, particularly if based on one’s religious background.

He remembered the church he’d once read that Medford had attended before rising higher in politics. It was one of the obscure fundamentalist faiths, and before the last election, her critics claimed she had distanced herself for the sake of appearing more of a middle of the road politician, able to draw support from the center, and not just the right. It appeared she was returning to her roots.

Medford looked from the Limo window at the backs of the crowd, which were so ensnared in the drama above them they hadn’t notice the arrival of her motorcade. It hadn’t been using any sirens, as they would have on a public street with other traffic.

“Agent Ferguson, use your men to make a path for us to the top.”

He looked at the person he was sworn to protect, then at the crowd, and decided that this wasn’t a hostile or antagonistic group, being comprised of essentially tourists and news hawks, it would be safe once his men got their attention and asked them to make an opening. This was Earth, after all, and detectors at every pedestrian avenue onto the Grand Mall and on doors in every government building assured no foot traffic reached here with weapons. He hadn’t considered the possibility that the big mysterious structure on the Mall was a spacecraft, and had carried invisible armored troops that had bypassed the weapons detectors. It didn’t resemble any spaceship he’d ever seen, even if he didn’t know how it had suddenly appeared.

A
phalanx of agents, shouting and pushing, quickly caught everyone’s attention, and when word that the President was here, a ten-foot wide path to the top formed quickly. It wasn’t as wide as that granted the Federation representatives, but then the PU president wasn’t exactly an alien either, although Oswald now found her a bit frightening.

Before leaving the limo, Medford glanced one more time at the screens she had been watching as they drove over. “Who the hell do they think they’re fooling? That damned tiger’s lips aren’t even moving, and the silly shit that’s talking for him is using an accent from Rhama. Dumb damned inbred hicks.”

This has the potential of being a diplomatic disaster,
Oswald thought.
I can’t see how I can get out of looking like an ass along with her.
He followed her up the steps with dread.

Kobalt had kept his speech very short, and ended with, “My own people have no prior experience of diplomacy, space travel, or of using technology such as I use now to send my thought words out to your ears. We look forward with excitement to…,” he paused to avoid the adlib he’d almost used,
to hunt,
and finished with “to visit on many new worlds. Thank you.” He couldn’t resist the slight smile, which flashed an inch of white incisors protruding below his previously held down upper lip. He turned with the same graceful motion he and Kit had displayed previously.

Maggi then moved to the front again, to field questions for the mission as the prospective ambassador. With the previous announcement that the Kobani had adapted the genes for the ripper’s strength, speed, and nervous system, more than one person now made the connection of the subtle grace and economy of movements they had observed, as the two Kobani had walked from the ship and up the steps. Their movements were like those of the rippers, and conveyed the impression of greater power than was being displayed, and that gravity here didn’t have the hold on them that it did on the watchers.

Glancing twenty feet down the steps in the newly opened gap in the crowd, Maggi said, “Welcome Madam President. We didn’t expect to see you before nine o’clock, our scheduled meeting time at the Department of State. Hello to you too, Secretary Oswald.”

Medford, practically stomping up the steps rather than appearing simply to walk up them, answered in a sour tone. “You were to land at the Denver Spaceport, where our security detail could protect you as you were driven to the meeting.”

Her words were picked up as if she were wearing a microphone, and rather than being heard by the few dozen people she expected to hear what she said, her words were broadcast all around the Capitol portico, and the Mall area immediately below them. This was because Maggi had routed what she heard, through the Comtap for transmission to the suit speakers.

Medford looked around, slightly startled, and sent accusing looks at the news media. They knew the rules of her public appearances. No ambush tactics allowed, when supposedly inactive microphones picked up unguarded moments. They weren’t to blame this time, and looked around as if they didn’t know how it was done either, which was a fact. Besides, this wasn’t a presidential press conference, and those rules had not applied until she arrived unexpectedly.

Maggi nodded agreeably. “Yes, well, we wanted the people of Earth, and in all of Human Space, to get to know our member species prior to a stiff and formal diplomatic meeting. We hope to become good friends and allies. This seemed like a pleasant manner in which to start that process, and we certainly never considered that we would require any protection from the gracious civility the citizens of the Hub worlds are known to exhibit to all visitors. As has proven to be the case this evening.”

True enough, if you discounted the damaged Tri-Vid cameras, overheated earbuds and such, which had only involved the notoriously pushy and intrusive news media. Reporter behavior was why press conference rules existed, and violators of rules for official
government
press conferences had their press credentials revoked for a year for each violation.

Medford was abrupt. “Well this press conference is over. You can travel with my motorcade to our meeting.”

“I’m sorry Madam President, but I offered to answer a limited number of questions from both the press and citizens present here. I assure you we will arrive at the State Department complex in ample time for our nine o’clock meeting,” she listened to a tenth of a second Comtap link and continued. “Unless our meeting was
not
being held in the customary hearing room, where such diplomatic meeting are conducted with Rim World representatives and New Colonies, prior to their decision to join the Planetary Union. I would certainly expect that the first diplomatic representatives of multiple alien races would have received at least the reception granted to a human settled Rim World.”