Koban 5: A Federation Forged in Fire (79 page)

Stewart was ready to move on to other matters. “If that concludes the military side of our meeting, I have to deal with a matter related to our new Department of Colonial Affairs. We have an influx of nearly six thousand new immigrants from Human Space passing through Haven this week, acquiring clone mods here. They’re destined to join the new Zanzibar Redoux colony in another five days. Their supply ships are loading now on Tanners world, a Rim world that contracted to deliver their property, and we need the colonists to be delivered to Zanzibar just when their supplies arrive and require unloading.

“As you know, the colonist already landed there were from three different Rim worlds, but they don’t particularly want to help native Terrans move in next door. It’s a bit of reverse discrimination, but it’ll work itself out when they get to know each other. These are relatively poor people, who have not benefited very much from Earth’s prosperity. They were attracted to the colony name, its mild climate, and large number of big islands. We offered to transport them there free of charge, if they managed to get out of the Hub area to some Rim World.

“We simply couldn’t turn down Earth citizens as immigrants to the Federation; the publicity will be great for us. These are people mostly from East Africa, and from the island of Zanzibar on Earth, who have all opted for Koban mods before the end of the year. Instead of returning here for the Koban mods, the proposed mobile transformation ward would actually be just the thing to send there. Like Paradise, the planet has higher gravity than standard, about 1.2 g’s, so Kobani mods will make it extremely easy to live and work there. I’m confident the Rimmers will want to keep up with them, so I think many of them will opt for the mods. What I’m asking today, is if some of the Kobani aboard the ships guarding the colony can help them with the heavy lifting in the first few days. I want to pay them in Fed credits for their time, of course.”

The Minister of the Department of Colonial Affairs, Clarice Femfreid, of Mirikami’s Spider Hole Team fame, said she would find some way to squeeze money from her budget, and pay the Kobani helpers in Federation credits, for working during their free time. Fed credits weren’t accepted at any Hub world, and only the Rim Worlds that traded with the Federation would accept them. The use of money was finally catching on with the young Kobani, as they encountered Rimmers that expected cash for services or purchases.

Stewart shook his head in amazement. “Earthborn Kobani. I didn’t expect to see that happen so soon. We’re growing almost as fast as we can transport the people to the new planets. I wonder how long we can keep this pace going.”

****

“At this pace we will soon find their main worlds.” Asserted Force Commander Gimtal Thond, better known by his nickname “Bone Breaker,” in the Ragnar language. It was his practice, as a young trooper in an Enforcer brigade, one of four units in a Punishment battalion, to use his highly muscular build to break the bones or exoskeletons of several of whichever subject species was receiving the Empire’s object lesson. The practice got him noticed by his admiring fellow Enforcers, and by his superiors, who appreciated his attitude. Anyone could pull a trigger, but snapping a limb or spine was personal, and a more impressive feat that demanded strength and aggression.

Even as he rose through the ranks to officer status, he kept this popular image alive for the enjoyment of the Enforcers and Punishers under his command, making sure he broke a few bones in a live broadcast from every action he participated in, or led. He hoped there would be multiple species at this Federation colony, so he could increase his legendary string of different species bones broken or crushed, he was looking for species number twelve and higher today.

He passed his orders to his Force Lieutenant Commander, FLC Grudfad, “Advise all units that we will attack when the scouts return. If the current disposition of enemy ships guarding this world is unchanged, we will follow my original plan, or I’ll make an adjustment.”

He shivered his grey tipped black fur, which covered his thick muscular frame under his utility belts, thus showing his eager anticipation. It started at his broad shoulders, and moved down his thick torso, to his hips. This was one of the milder aggression displays of his species, and it inspired others to make similar displays. He’d done it a number of times this week, along with occasional heavy chest thumps with his fists, making deep grunts. The shiver displays on the Bridge had started after he’d been given this assignment, along with his new rank. The Thandol had not appointed a Force Commander to any of their security forces for over a generation of the long lived Ragnar.

His younger Lieutenant promptly shivered his own glossy solid black fur in sympathetic response. Then the shiver display spread among the other members of the Bridge crew of the Smasher class cruiser. Thond was the only silver tipped mature Ragnar on the Bridge, but his strength and virility wasn’t in doubt.

Grudfad noted something about their new opponents with considerable distain, “These careless aliens led us directly to their weakest new colonies with their continuous third level traffic. That was very reckless. They will soon learn a need for caution, right after they learn to fear us.”

This was the largest Annexation Campaign the Empire had ever conducted, and the first such campaign for the Ragnar in generations. The Empire normally grew slowly as they encountered new and scattered intelligent species, many of which were not yet space faring.

It was a rare opportunity for the Ragnar to exhibit their natural and innate aggression with fewer limits placed on their actions. Naturally, they hated the Thandol, but they also didn’t have the resources or technology to fight them and win. If they ever revolted, the Empire had promised that it would lead to their complete destruction. Instead, an agreement was reached to exploit the tall primate-like species natural aggression, and to reward them for their service. The Thandol sent them to fight on the Empire’s behalf, in exchange for a privileged position and a share of the taxes they collected in a third of the empire.

For a change, this time the action was not mere intimidation of some restive species within the Empire, such as a put down of a tax revolt, imposition of new trade regulations, or an object lesson to a species that failed to show proper respect for the Emperor or his family herd.

This was a large new region of star systems to add to the Empire. From historical records, it was known there should still be at least four or five surviving species in the region to subjugate. At one time there had been far more species there, eradicated now by a legendary foe, but the Krall enemy had never actually been fought by the Empire.

They were the vaunted and feared race the Ragnar had always wanted to confront. but the Krall were said to be gone now. When those ruthless barbarians had unexpectedly revolted against the Olt’kitapi long ago, and won, the Thandol had drawn back from where their borders had tentatively touched. The Krall had then rampaged with utter brutality and reckless abandon for thousands of years in the Orion Spur, where the Olt’kitapi had originated. The Empire quietly observed them from a safe distance. The Thandol knew they were destined to meet them someday, but they wanted to select opportune circumstances.

The Ragnar knew the Empire’s withdrawal demonstrated more than simple caution by the Thandol; it was a fear that went deeper than the threat of a barbarian horde with high tech weapons. The Ragnar military command, which was also the local governing group of their home world and their two colonies, had long ago decided the Thandol didn’t want any of their three security forces to witness exactly how the Krall had overthrown their more technically advanced masters. The truth was probably a composite of fearing the Krall, and of allowing their security force races to see a dangerous example of a successful revolt against powerful scientifically advanced overlords.

It was only within the last orbit the Thandol told the Ragnar that the Krall had been swiftly defeated by a new species that horde had recently encountered. They were beaten by a far less imposing looking young race with low technology, which had also used borrowed technology left behind by the Olt’kitapi. The weapon systems stolen by the Krall were specifically designed with a species based DNA key, which was required to activate those systems.

The new species, who called themselves humans, had somehow obtained and successfully used a technology that the Olt’kitapi had failed to implement properly during the Krall revolt. The humans had disabled the Krall’s keys ability to activate their own weapons.

Thond decided that what the Thandol were telling them was plausible, and that the human victors represented a lesser threat to the Empire. Otherwise, the Emperor wouldn’t take the risk of provoking these new aliens. The humans had only beaten an effectively disarmed enemy, which made them clever and opportunistic, but not necessarily tough or dangerous.

The Thandol were careful to inform the Ragnar that the same key disabling technology obviously didn’t apply to the Empire’s weapons. However, they thought the DNA key disabling tactic
might
work again, to disarm the same weapons these humans had taken from the Krall. The Ragnar were provided with a number of nondestructive missiles to test against the ships the humans had captured. They were not intended to destroy the rugged ships directly in combat, a task that was said to be difficult. The test was to see if the ships became unresponsive to the humans controlling them. Even if that didn’t work, the Ragnar were confident of their ability in war using their own ships, and hundreds more built by the Thandol, which supplemented their fleet.

The top Ragnar military leaders had long told their people, confidentially, that had they met the Thandol at an earlier time in the overlord race’s expansion, they were confident that today it would be a Ragnar led empire. Thandol trunks would be nuzzling furry Ragnar rumps in gratitude, for ruling and protecting them.

The scout ships they used were Thandol designed craft, spherical shaped which traveled in the third level of Tachyon Space. They used Thandol gamma ray suppression technology, which permitted them to exit to Normal Space in stealth mode, close to the target world. Undetected, they passively observed activity for two planetary rotations.

They reported forty-one ships in orbit, not spread out in a proper defensive posture, such as using staggered and crisscrossing orbits and altitudes, and they were not using active sensor scans or stealth. One ship was large, but it was one of the crab creature ships, which were not armed. There were twenty additional ships, all parked at one place on a large island, with apparently very few crew aboard them. Only ten were warships, the others cargo craft.

The humans from those warships, their species identified using the description and pictures provided by the Thandol, appeared to be helping other humans unload ten supply ships of a different design than the former Krall ships. Those supply ships did not appear to be armed.

This island was obviously the site of a completely new city, just being established on this colony world, despite the fact that there were three older cities. There were no large spacecraft parked anywhere else on the planet. The three other established cities had no defenses that were visible. They only had three modest sized shuttles each, parked on otherwise empty tarmacs. Those cities would be secondary targets, since the strongest defensive forces were in orbit, or parked at the newest colony city. Most of the crews of the grounded human ships were off their ships, performing manual labor such as unloading the cargo ships, and setting up prefabricated structures.

Force Commander Thond made a minor change to force dispositions. “As the Emperor’s Observer requires, I will send only fifty Ragnar ships to launch the individual test missiles against the Krall made craft, to learn if those will completely disable the ships the human’s captured. At least one missile will target each enemy craft aloft. This will obviously alert them to our attack, therefore in a second wave, the remaining four hundred fifty four ships, the two hundred Thandol Smasher class ships added to our three hundred Ravager class cruisers, will Jump and launch missiles with active warheads as soon as those first missiles reach their targets.

“In the second wave, the entire fleet will emerge and combine with our first fifty Ravagers, placing ten or eleven ships behind each human ship, and they will promptly fire all particle beams and heaviest lasers against every ship they find in orbit. The Smasher AI on the Empire’s Demand, the one carrying the Emperor’s Observer, has already assigned targets for each of us.” This Thandol interference galled him, since he felt his strike force should also simultaneously initiate their ground attack.

“When we have eliminated orbital defenses, the four Strangler’s and their Debilitater projectors will enter atmosphere over all four enemy cities, and subdue the civilian populations, leaving them helpless and in agony for our landings. For our main target, the newest colony, the Debilitater must strike swiftly, before the crews outside their ships can return to arm their plasma cannons and missile systems. They will learn what it is like to face an enemy that is more than a barbarian carrying a plasma rifle or flying a stolen ship.”

****

Trevon Caldwell, captain of the Thresher, had released his entire crew to earn extra Federation credits working ashore. So had the nine other Kobani captains parked at New Mombasa, here on Zanzibar Redoux. The young Kobani, without the benefit of an Earth based education, persisted in saying Zanzibar 2. To them, Redoux came from a “dead” language, as if Standard itself wasn’t a compilation of multiple old Earth languages.

The new colonists were already at work unloading the supply ships from Tanners world, when the ten Kobani ships landed. These helpers had quickly earned the respect of the new colonists, and generated considerable amazement and envy among them, when an individual Kobani was able to lift five times the weight a colonist could manage. This was with the colonists already feeling the strongest they had in their lives, after receiving clone mods on Haven.