Koban (93 page)

“I know, but that was the shell I’d saved for myself. I didn’t
need it anymore.” He giggled at how stupid that sounded, then laughed, coughed painfully,
and slapped Dillon weakly on his shoulder.

Getting a bit of his breath back, he had a question. “Doc, can
I ask where the hell you found that small cannon you have there? These Krall pieces
of shit,” he pointed at his pistol, now in Dillon’s hand, “ain’t worth spit on these
things.” He pointed to the rhinolo.

“Jason, meet my fifty caliber anti-tank rifle and new best
friend,” he replied, and let the man hold it. It was heavy and he yelped as his
ribs hurt from the effort.

“I have broken ribs, so can you take it back? I’ll make love
to it later.” He quipped.

Chack, now standing next to him said, “If broken ribs are all
that big mother gave you, you came out better than the three Primes.”

A voice sounded in all their ears, “Chack, we are all Kobani
now.” It was Mirikami, now linked to Dillon and Chack. “Jason, I can’t tell you
how relieved we are that you’re safe. I watched you risk your life to warn those
other trucks. It’s unfortunate that the lead truck didn’t understand what you were
trying to do before you wrecked while warning them. But they did try to come back
for you.”

“Yes Sir, they did, and I don’t fault them for turning back when
they saw what was coming. I wish they’d left sooner.”

“I saw your gunner firing as that bull came after your truck.
I’m sorry he didn’t make it.”

“I’m sorry he didn’t make it too, but he and I would have settled
up afterwards anyway. He shot me in the side when I didn’t turn back and kept chasing
after the lead truck. He didn’t give a damn about them.”

Concerned, Dillon and Mirikami simultaneously asked how badly
he was wounded, speaking at the same time.

“My body suit saved me,” he said wheezing. “I have some broken
ribs, and I think a punctured lung, but I’m alive. That’s better off than Aaron
and the others.”

“Dillon, you and Chack bring him back to the Fancy for treatment.
I’m working on finding some other drivers to get out there to help those ships unload.
Dillon, as soon as you drop off Jason, we need more of those big guns uncrated.”

“Yes Sir.”

“Our other work needs to continue, and the Chief and his group
never broke stride. We have to get all the ships down today. It won’t get any safer
around here. Mirikami Out.”

The day’s work continued. They encountered no more than the expected
problems with transferring people in high gravity. Another handful of people died,
due to age and stress, and a bad fall. Thirteen were stung because they wouldn’t
keep an eye on the sky.

The critical task of moving dead fusion bottles into four ships
went without a hitch. Inside them and out of sight, they worked to loosen the bolts
that held one of the two units each ship carried.

Next, the Krall had approved the ferry flights, and they commenced.
Except for the four ships with bottles to be replaced, and the cargo vessels, every
transport launched thirty minutes apart to dock with the eight large transports
in orbit. Those passengers were lined up to go when docking was accomplished, and
some of each large ship’s crew went with each load. As soon as the evacuees were
in couches or bunks, the docked ship broke free. They left orbit as soon as they
could line up for the proper descent.

The small fuel tanker was overworked transferring fuel to ships
that were low. Fortunately, at least half of the transports carried enough fuel
for two more round trips to low orbit, and several had enough for three trips without
a refill.

By dusk the last two ferry trips were preparing to descend, with
two others just down, but unable to complete unloading before dark. Mirikami and
the Captains involved agreed that the discomfort of short rations to feed those
people a full meal tonight wasn’t reason enough to risk lives. They had played recordings
of the nighttime ripper attacks for those people, and they watched that lone bull
rhinolo wreak havoc in broad daylight. Grumbling reduced considerably after watching
those scenes.

At a late super, the six Koban Committee members met to consider
the hardest, yet most successful day since the Krall forcibly brought captives here.

Mirikami offered a toast, “Gracious Ladies, Gentle Men, I salute
the courage, bravery, and sheer hard work witnessed today. Tomorrow will be a final
Krall test, before they depart to invade our worlds, expecting to leave us behind
so weakened that we cannot survive the next year. Because of heroic efforts like
today, I know we
will
survive.” He lifted his glass of wine.

“We have all become Kobani.”

To shouted accolades, they drank the first of several toasts,
before eating a meal rich more for its newly arrived variety than its delicacy or
finery.

“I have
really
missed pork and beans.” Thad, shoveled
in another mouthful of a mundane but long absent dish from his diet. “Despite jokes
and complaints about military food on Poldark, this was my favorite.” He ate a bite
of sharp cheddar cheese, took a swallow of beer, and chewed happily.

Maggi looked over at the big man, and asked innocently. “Are
you sleeping in your dome quarters tonight?”

“I hadn’t thought about it. I’m thinking of giving it away. Why?”

“The Krall have a more advanced air handling system is all,”
she answered sweetly.

Dillon guffawed. “Thad, you know the more she likes you the more
she picks on you, right?”

“I’ve noticed. If the love gets to where I need a cup like
you wear, show me where you hid the larger ones, OK?”

Reverting to fading feminine sexual mores, Noreen defended her
man, “His cup runneth over, trust me.” She patted his bulging bicep. “I think the
genetic mods have had other beneficial side effects.”

Maggi groaned, but laughed at the youthful exuberance.

Aldry chuckled as well, with a bright idea, “Letting that rumor
get out would make recruiting candidates for the mods really easy.”

“What do you mean
rumor
?” retorted Dillon.

Aldry continued, “Speaking of physical abilities in general,
as soon as you have the time to come to the lab, we can start your mods Thad. Tell
Deanna and the others for me too please. Tet, Dillon, my team is ready to start
you two on the slower developing mods, for enhanced muscle strength and endurance.
When winter comes soon, we have a cold adaptation mod to try.”

Mirikami was ready to start. “I had about decided that with the
Krall’s departure that we might not need those mods. However, our experience with
rippers and rhinolo proved to me that we need every possible physical boost we can
get to force the native life out of the compound. We have to reseal the outer gates
and push out the native life just to step outside the dome.”

“Ahh yes, faster, stronger, better..., that continuing problem.”
Aldry hesitated, looking to Maggi for approval to say more.

Maggi stood and took the reins. “Tet, we have done additional
original research, well beyond what we extracted from the old records. We believe
we can do considerably better science than simply implementing three-century-old
procedures. It’s too soon to start live testing of our discoveries. When things
settle down after the Krall leave, we have some soul searching to do. There are
ways humans should be able to match up pretty well with native Koban life in speed
and strength, not quickly, but eventually.”

“Really?” Mirikami was surprised. “How is that possible? Not
even the Krall managed to live here without hiding behind guns, walls, and electric
fences. Wouldn’t we have to physically surpass them to accomplish that?”

“Exactly!” Aldry let the implication sink in.

Mirikami thought on this a moment before he spoke. “So your gorilla
comparison was wrong then?” he asked.

“What’s that about a gorilla comparison?” Thad asked.

Aldry explained. “I once told Tet and Dillon that we couldn’t
modify their human genetics to match a Krall’s strength, basically because we would
have needed them to be
born
with a gorilla’s strength and DNA in the first
place, and work up from there. Or I said something to that effect. It was a physical
and a practical restriction that applied to them, to all humans actually, and it
still does.” She saw Thad’s blank expression, and expanded on what she was saying.

“We were not born with the DNA framework needed to build ourselves
up, from where we are now, to the physical level of the Krall. The Krall were already
well evolved towards the high physical level they have achieved now. We can’t simply
add-on features to our own DNA to match them.” She tried an analogy.

“Putting a fusion bottle and electric motors on a child’s tricycle
isn’t going to make it competitive with a race car or one of our trucks. However,
there is a long-term solution to reach that goal if we prepare ourselves first.
We can…”

Stopping, she shook her head and waved her hands as if dispelling
smoke.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. This is early research right
now,” She cautioned. “We’ll know more in a month or two, once we are free to expand
our research and set up the other labs to confirm what we think. We have to recruit
more of our scientists to get a wider range of opinions and ideas.”

Maggi changed the subject. “We can resume this discussion another
day. We have more immediate problems to solve. Tet?”

“Alright then. At dawn we restart passenger offloading, and should
be done by midmorning. I’ll contact Telour after dinner to see if I can talk him
into letting us disable the engines on these other ships the way we did the Fancy.”
He placed no faith in that prospect.

“It would be good to have the accommodations and facilities for
better human habitats than the dome. We don’t have anything to trade him for his
advantage now, but it’s worth a shot. That’s all I have. Anyone else? No? Then let’s
eat.”

The committee split up after the meal, and Mirikami went to the
bridge to make his call to Telour.

“No,” answered Telour, to Mirikami’s request to let humans disable
the engines and keep the ships as living quarters.

“My K’Tal and warriors will go to each ship at first light. The
engines will be destroyed as well as the power modules, what you call fusion bottles.
If I had a Clanship for use, I would simply put a missile in the heart of each human
ship. It would be faster, but our Clanships are being prepared for Jumps, to start
our war.”

He had to add a boast of course. “I will command a hand of a
hand of Clanships to start our war, and I will join them in orbit soon. We Jump
to a world you named Gribbles’ Nook. It is a mining world, not with as many humans
as I hoped, but our clan leaders chose this place to attack to make your other worlds
angry, to make them want to fight. My clan’s warriors are eager to fight a new enemy.
We need no prisoners so we can kill every animal we find for two days of fighting
and then we leave. Your race will come to see what we have done there. I told my
clan leaders that humans will be angry.”

“How many ships and warriors are going?” Mirikami asked.

“For the raid on the strange name planet, only two thousand forty
eight Clanships, and more than a million warriors, all from Graka clan. Soon other
clans will send many more ships and warriors. All clans will bring slaves closer,
to make nests for us as we clear one of your outer worlds of humans.”

Obviously, Telour’s clan had considerable resources, Mirikami
realized, and they weren’t the most powerful clan.

“Graka clan also has the honor of first assault on a second world,
after the clan leaders chose which of your outer worlds is better for us to live.
My clan gained this honor mostly because I found that humans could be made to fight.
I lead part of the first two attacks.”

Mirikami ignored his bragging and asked about his own problem,
“How will you destroy the engines and fusion bottles on the ships here? The fuel
on the ships can explode and the fusion bottles can lose containment and explode
if not shut down first.”

He didn’t want to lose entire ships, or the salvageable material
and equipment still inside. A fusion bottle needed a ship’s control and monitoring
systems to draw and distribute its power.

This time Telour showed his first real hint of suspicion. “You
did not show surprise when I said my warriors will destroy not only your ships engines,
but their power modules as well.”

Mirikami feared he knew what they had done to try to preserve
some of them. “We are not stupid Telour. This was a possibility we hoped would not
come true, but it was not unexpected. It is extremely dangerous to simply blow up
an operating fusion bottle.”

The Krall leader had an answer ready. “My warriors have been
instructed by the K’Tal that came with me. We have an ancient tool made by the Raspani,
before they fell to us, which makes a small hole in anything it is pointed at, and
we can control how deep we need the holes. There is no fire made from this tool,
even if fuel spills,”

“A hole in a fusion bottle that is operating could be catastrophic,
Telour.”

“The warriors will order them turned off first,” was his simple
answer.

“What about my ship, the one we used to make the weapons that
you ordered us to make to fight you better? It was vital to completing your plan,
and it should be preserved in your honor.” What the hell, that ploy had worked on
Parkoda.

His response was disdainful, “I am not Parkoda to display a human
made trophy as proof I am a Krall worthy to lead. When we leave here what other
Krall would see it anyway? That ship is Parkoda’s now useless prize.

“Kanpardi is my clan’s Gatrol to lead us into the war. He says
to leave you humans no energy to rebuild the electric fences, or to power your computers.
He thinks humans are clever and could survive here many years with power.”