Read Koban: Rise of the Kobani Online

Authors: Stephen W Bennett

Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Science Fiction, #Adventure, #Military, #Space Opera, #Colonization, #Genetic Engineering

Koban: Rise of the Kobani (28 page)

BOOK: Koban: Rise of the Kobani
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He finally knew exactly how Mirikami felt, and why, and was in complete sympathy. He couldn’t think of a way to take this data to his superiors, who would insist on knowing how he came by the information. Then there would be the need to obtain approval, which would be refused just as the original idea had been rejected. Except now, there was proof genetic improvement could work, and which he couldn’t reveal. If he did, the sole hope he saw of beating the Krall would be stopped by his own paranoid government.

The future of his beloved spec ops was again placed in a difficult situation. Their standard reply came to mind. A shadow couldn’t be held in place by standing on it, they would simply slip away. One way or another, he was going to join forces with Mirikami’s group, even if they didn’t want him along.

 

 

****

 

 

Nabarone was alone with his aide, having drinks with lunch. “Howard, I felt guilty about trying to have them both followed. Now that the ships split up and shook off our tails, I don’t feel so guilty. I won’t try again. They definitely are being careful, and not without cause. If they have just the one under populated and undefended world, a minor slip could get them all wiped out.”


Boss, you know if they accomplish what they are trying to do, and stop the Krall by destroying their supply of war material, that no matter where their home system is located, it won’t be long before it becomes a center of power. Who would risk trying to push them around?”


They only have about thirty thousand people, and no infrastructure. How could they manage that?”  Yet in the back of his mind came a thought.
It’s sometimes strange how words come back on you later.

“We know Mr. Greeves’ wife was going home. However, that much equipment should have taken over a day to transfer. Even when passed through the four wide ports on a clanship, with an experienced and sizable crew in suits to help. We couldn’t see the stealthed ship arrive, but the collection of container pods vanished suddenly, several hours after they were left in orbit. The empty pods are not there now, two days later.

“The same thing happened to the other pods. Blink and they were gone.” He laughed. “It’s not as if they could just haul them along like a back pack.”

“Well, at least that’s one thing I can ask Thad about. He knows we would have been watching the supplies, in case the Krall came after them. Assuming I can extract him from his spec ops trainers slash torturers to talk to him. They really are wringing them out. I have to be honest; I don’t see how, even with the clone mods, they are keeping pace with their younger trainers in their special suits. Even Tet. He’s
well past middle age, and except for height limitations, is staying even with his three younger friends. I’m only thankful I can claim duty as my lame excuse for telling Thad I don’t have time to exercise.”

“Here’s to another six ounce arm curl,” proposed Caudwell, as he downed the last of his
mixed drink.

“Have you been to the crater yet, Howard, to watch the workouts? I mean by the TGs, not the old farts, which are impressive but not astounding. You won’t believe what those kids can do.”

“No Sir. It’s only a thirty-minute hop, so I may do it this week. I’ve seen hard physical training before though. I was a captain in a PUA Ranger unit for a year, at the start of the war, on the Old Colony of New Glasgow. We ran a great deal, but we had a lot of PT and obstacle courses as well.”

“Have you seen the course the spec ops teams run?”

“I saw the course layout, but didn’t see them using it. That’s because they closed it off to outsiders, to retain some supposed level of secrecy. I assumed it was more to attain a level of mystique. However, the width and height of obstacles to jump across clamber over, crawl through or scale, were impressive. No Ranger I ever met could complete that course in the times spec ops claim, not with those scores. Assuming a Ranger completed it at all.”

“Howard, I used my authority to go watch some of them practice, at their facility outside New Zagreb. I don’t think its hype to build a phony reputation. From personally observing them perform feats of running, jumping, climbing, and demonstrations of individual and combined team strength exercises, I can tell you it isn’t bullshit. Besides, a mystique to impress who? The Krall don’t give a crap, and can kick their asses nearly as easily as they can any of our troops. Spec ops are only narrowing the gap, to try and hold out longer against the enemy.”

“Thad and his friends, with their clone enhancements, are physically well matched with the spec ops troops, when those troops wear their black exomuscle suits. The electronic implants provide them IR vision and data feed, and the fiber nerve overlays boost their reaction speed over the SGs. However, if you add that technology and Booster Suits to the SGs, they would have all of the spec ops ability, plus significantly greater strength, with heat and cold adaptation advantages. That alone would have had Trakenburg salivating. Until he found what he really wants! The ability of those TGs.”

“Henry, I saw the videos of the inside of the clanship, after the fact with dead Krall laying everywhere. There were no shots of the TGs in action. Are they that much better?”

“Yes! They make the spec ops instructors look like they’re wading through mud when they try to keep pace on the new course they duplicated in the crater. That’s when the TGs are running, jumping, and climbing. Any two of them can lift or carry as much as an eight-man boosted spec ops team. When it comes to reaction times, like hand or foot speed in hand-to-hand or knife fighting, the differential is even more pronounced.

“Thad claims they also think at an accelerated rate. They don’t appear to be any smarter than the normal range of young people, which of course are always sure they know everything.” He laughed at that truism.

“However, if you or I had one second to think of what to do when an enemy is about to pull a trigger, versus ten seconds to think about it, and the ability to act that much faster, you are far more likely to choose the best response. The same for a tactical situation, with more time to analyze what the possibilities are and match them with your grater capabilities, then follow an action that the enemy is least able to counter.”

“If you give me the authorization in writing, or call Trakenburg, I might be able to finally see what you’ve been telling me about. The blackout on data feeds is a real pain. We don’t usually have to travel to check on an operation we are supposedly running. The colonel is acting like that crater is his own preserve.”

“My fault. I needed the colonel’s people for the kind of training Thad wanted. He was given more control over access because of his own need to keep his involvement quiet. I don’t think he has passed this up the line to his superiors. When Mirikami asked us to join the conspiracy to keep their existence secret, the colonel bought in all the way. He’s been doing that for years already, for the Heavyside project, and I think secrecy is part of his personality.”

“If I have a day free early next month, I can go over then.”

“I’ll cover for you tomorrow in that Navy meeting. My impressive presence might make them cough up the extra fighters for ground support we want. If you put off a trip to the crater too long, our visitors might be gone. I need you informed as to how we might be using them in the near future.”

“Why would they quit training so soon? The spec ops’ training takes almost two years, and that’s accelerated for the war, and by use of the Booster Suits and implant surgery.”

“I told you these TGs, on average, seem as bright as a similar group of college students, except they learn and remember at a phenomenal rate. It must be some aspect of the superconducting nerves. Trakenburg’s instructors say that after a single class on a subject, say how two armed troopers should properly enter and clear a room of a possible enemy by covering one another and their assigned sectors and hard corners, the instructors lecture them and then demonstrate.

“The designated TG leaders always step up and shake the hands of the men that demonstrated the process, just before trying it themselves. They were taught to be invariably polite that way, Thad says. Anyway, they usually do it nearly perfectly. If there are any minor errors, they hear from the instructors
, who go over and help position them properly. More hand shaking and thanks. Then the leaders will execute the action to virtual perfection.

“When they are told that it was done properly, the leaders call over their teams, and d
o this rally cry thing. They all put their hands on the team leader’s hand in a circle, pause a moment, in tribute I guess. I don’t know. Then they split out into two person teams, which then execute the room clearing process to near perfection, for each pair. They almost never need correction or to have a demonstration repeated. One time is enough for them.

“Trakenburg’s instructors say at this rate they can cover Unconventional Warfare guerilla tactics this week, Direct Action against enemy targets next week, Counterterrorism the week after, and Special Reconnaissance the week after that.

“They may not always remember everything they are told, but the instructors are baffled at the memory they retain of how to move. They even copied, for a time, the slight arm stiffness that Sergeant Jenkins displayed. He was one of the men that squared off against a TG inside the parking garage. A med lad repaired his dislocated elbow in a couple of days, and he’s now one of the instructors. After he described what they were doing, apparently favoring their left elbow, they all quit doing it that same day. Moving their left arms more fluidly.”

“Are you serious? Isn’t
what you listed most of what they came here to learn?”

“Yes. That’s why I told you not to wait too long in observing them. When we finally give them the intelligence our scouts and drones have collected from worlds inside space the Krall control, they might just tear out of here to go get them!” He laughed, but it wasn’t all in jest.

“What about the months of team building, physical training, gradual combat experience as they go on missions?”

“They already have split into teams, which work extremely well together. The team members always seem to know what the other members will do in almost any situation. They are still developing strength, and keep at the PT in twice a day sessions. We can hardly keep food in the mess tent for those voracious appetites. Even the smaller girls eat us out of groceries, and the only weight they gained was muscle mass.

“They do lack practical combat experience, which can get some of them killed, as they learned the hard way in that last fight. Trakenburg has called for a meeting with Mirikami and his; I guess I’d call them his staff, for lack of a better word. I suspect he wants to go along with them, taking some volunteer teams. I have no idea if he’s clearing this with his bosses. I’m not about to interfere, because we both want Mirikami’s idea to be given a try.

“They don’t answer to the PU Army, and refused any official military structure, saying that it might not set well with the free spirited people at home. I have honorably discharged Sergeant Reynolds, who was going to stay with them, no matter what anyone tried to order him to do. The man is not a leader, but only because he refuses to be one. However, he wants to be in on crippling the Krall in any way he can contribute, and I want to let him do that.”

“Boss, I’ll order a hopper and a pilot for tomorrow morning, and go to the crater. You can play patty cake with the Ladies of the Navy in my place. Please keep your language under control, and don’t let Carla speak aloud at the conference. We really do want those space planes stationed closer to us. Perhaps some even parked dirt-side. If you’re nice to them, you might get what you want from them for a change.”

“Hummph.” Was that a skeptical reply, or an outright refusal to cater to a woman’s wishes?

 

 

Chapter 7: Exploration can be a Howl

 

Despite Mirikami’s assurances, Marlyn was half surprised when the large stack of lightly tethered cargo pods arrived with the Beagle, simply hanging in space less than fifty feet away, where they had been floating when she’d Jumped. She’d been worried that the “treasure” might drift away and be lost in Tachyon Space. She’d slowly accelerated the ship and pods to match Koban’s expected orbital motion prior to the Jump.

The edge of the pods now were outlined against the beauty of the many shades of teal tinted plains and deeper blue-green forests, gray mountains and a few brown deserts, and blue oceans with plenty of cloud cover. There was a spectacular large spiral storm system off the western coast of the continent of Jura, probably gaining energy as it passed over the warm deep blue ocean. It appeared poised to give the dinosaur analogues a pounding. The denser atmosphere produced winds with considerably greater force than on Earth. However, this was home. Koban.

This
felt
like home to her, after twenty-two years, a husband, and three children; four when she counted Kit; the female ripper certainly counted as family, being raised as one of her “babies.” She was as eager to see her multiple grandkits as she was her other two children. Ripper cubs grew so fast compared to human children, particularly in the first years, that she feared they would find Grandma a stranger.

Her first task had been to broadcast immediately to the world below that this was not a random clanship arrival.  It wasn’t the Mark, but a new captured ship renamed the Beagle. The second was to have her Chief of Engineering, John Yin-Lee, and a former Dive Rat from the Flight of Fancy, securely attach the cargo pod cluster to them for faster towing to a lower orbit. She had made her White Out at about two hundred fifty miles, but the ferry process to land their equipment would go faster if they were even lower.

She matched orbits with the Raven, the huge passenger transport they intended to restore to Jump capability. Some of the supplies she had brought were for that work.

Jake had responded immediately, of course, after she transmitted the prearranged opening phrase of her initial call. “We’re home, folks.” Simple, but not anything a Krall or other human ship would transmit.

“Welcome home Captain Greeves. We expected you to return first, and I recognize your voice. From the much larger gamma ray burst and radar target it appears you brought a large package with you.”

“Yes. It’s everything we had on our list, and considerably more. I’ll be making a rendezvous with the Raven. We need help sorting things, and when we have done that, I’ll ferry down what goes to Hub City, what goes to Prime City, and send some parts to the Raven.”

Jake announced, “Dr. Fisher has just arrived on the Bridge of the Flight of Fancy, with Doctors Anderfem and Campbell right behind her. I’ll place you on speaker.”

“Maggi, Aldry, and Rafe, hello. I’m home, and I have some news. Both good and some sad. The latter will await my landing, but the good news is that we have made contact, and General Nabarone has welcomed us quietly, as we hoped. You will be thrilled at what I have brought you for new med labs, and nanites. I also have parts for the Raven, and some equipment for upgrading the Beagle to make it a more human friendly ship.”

Maggi answered. “Glad to have you back safely. Did you manage to get two ships at K1, as Tet planned?”

“We did, and Noreen is captain of a ship she has named Avenger, and has departed on her own mission to Heavyside. I can’t wait to get started on my next mission.”

“You aren’t leaving right away are you?” Aldry sounded dismayed.

“As soon as I can gather volunteers I’ll be off to explore a new world. However, I won’t be far away. Not even out of the local system in fact, within long-range radio distance. There’s a second habitable world here, remember? I intend to discover how habitable it is. I’ll be back and forth weekly, and daily by radio report.

“Tet also wants the exploration of the continent of Jura to resume, and we need a great deal more of the gold and platinum we found on Paleogene, commodities to sell for Hub credits. I brought some automated mining equipment to do that for us. We have to buy most of what we need for making Koban more comfortable. Tet has a deal in the works to purchase a general purpose orbital factory, to make consumer goods for us.”

Maggi was excited. “Great. It sounds like we are on the way to joining the Rim world society, with dreams to become a New Colony someday. On the way up here, I had Jake notify Spacers at both domes to ready the larger shuttles, to go up to meet you. There will be quite a few TG1s coming up to help.”

“We were busy after you left.” Aldry informed her. “There are fifty new TG1s, ready to Tap our old Spacers about weightless cargo moving methods. Another one hundred TG1s, in two groups of fifty, are two weeks behind each other on that same round of mods. There are enough TG1s now that we don’t need to take time from our cats to help the kids develop coordination and Mind Tap ability quickly.”

“Good. That matches with Tet’s instructions. To give all of the TGs contact telepathy provided they want the enhancement of course. It has proved tremendously important, more than you would believe. I can’t wait to tell you what we have discovered about long-range communications on the trip.

“He also asked me to tell you that the Mark will be making a stop home before he moves against the Krall worlds. All of the remaining Koban gene enhancements are needed for the TG1s that will go with him. I have thirty new and modern med labs, and nanites of eighteen new types to speed the processes.”

Rafe had a concern about the last revelation. “Marlyn, we still have not deciphered all of the functions of the three new nanite types we found in Sarge’s bloodstream. We don’t have enough research people to divert to work on more nanite types we don’t know how to properly use.”

“Rafe, I know nothing about nanites. However, Dillon said that somehow, a Special Ops colonel that is working with them, managed to
procure
the detailed specifications, instruction manuals, and manufacturing templates of all of those nanites I brought with me. He told Dillon not to ask too many questions. He said they apparently ‘fell off trucks,’ right where his troops happened to be walking, outside of nine different competing commercial production sites.”

“Oh..., that should help.” Was his weak-kneed understated reply, concerning a staggering bonanza of what had to represent enormous biological wealth? He needed to sit down.

 

****

 

A busy week later, ten men and women were working on the outside of Raven, using new lightweight scooters to position the Trap emitters the Beagle had brought, and which were intended for that class of older ship. The Raven could be Jump capable in two or three months.

The med labs had been distributed equally between Hub and Prime cities, with TGs from both compounds gathering at Prime City, for the stepped-up schedule of receiving the ripper mod for contact telepathy, and the other Koban mods. Soon there would be TG2s, with a ripper’s enhanced night vision and sense of smell, and hearing that extended into the ultrasonic range.

Marlyn had not had much time to spend with her children, who had all been waiting for her on the tarmac at Prime city. Bradley and Danner provided hugs and kisses, Kit bowled her over and licked and sniffed her, frilling her with an overwhelming flood of images she couldn’t sort out fast enough. Then four shy “cubs” came out to pile on and lick their grandmother, who had to call for Kit’s help before the three to five hundred pound grandkits killed her with the weight of their affection. To think she was afraid they’d forget her, even with Kit’s frilling to remind them.

Danner, the youngest, laughing at the cat swarm, said, “Now you don’t need a bath Mom.”

On the contrary, she felt she needed a laundry for her clothes, and a hose for the coating of cat saliva on her face and hands.

Considering what the cubs ate, when Maggi’s turn came to greet her friend, she avoided a big hug and wrinkled her nose. She, in her ever gracious and tactful manner, told Marlyn, “Dear Lady, you smell like raw rhinolo butt.”

 

****

 

After a hectic week, Rafe, Aldry, and even Maggi, were looking tired but happy, as they worked with the teams of technicians to learn what the new nanites could do for them. With the manuals, there was no need for a scientist to figure out, via laborious and incremental lab tests, what each programmed feature in a nanite was designed to do. With the templates for making and cloning the nanites, they could make alterations in what they did, to custom tailor them for the Koban gene requirements.

Two varieties of nanites were designs from competing companies, both claimed to speed nerve damage repair and regrowth. The teams had focused study on those nanites that they needed most, and organic superconducting nerve generation was a top priority.

The HUB industries, for these very profitable products, were propelled by the large number of wounded citizens and soldiers requiring extensive treatment for war related injuries. To a Krall, any human, any age, was a combatant. These were much needed humanitarian medical improvements, but capitalism and profit drove the development and competition, to corner the vast number of sales on planetary scales.

The two nervous system nanites were the particular focus of the Koban teams, because those normally targeted the standard human nervous system. They delivered the nutrients and enzymes that promoted rapid nerve growth, following mapped out pathways that grew nerve tissue all along the route, rather than just at the severed nerve endings. It was like constructing a rail line simultaneously along the entire convoluted route, rather than building from one, or both ends, to join them. The simultaneous process was far faster, but required the “building material” nutrients to be delivered everywhere along the route quickly. That was one of the nanites jobs.

Because this wasn’t a DNA redesign, the nanites simply followed the known pathways that human nerves always followed, obeying the instructions built into the DNA. The teams were following factory instructions to alter what nutrients and enzymes these nanites would deliver and on what schedule. The previously modified human DNA coding would direct the organic superconducting nerve assembly.

Examining the latest “super pig” nerve tissue sample, in situ, using a new miniature meson imaging microscope probe, Rafe was finally satisfied. “Either batch of modified nerve tissue nanites works fine for us, but the Organite version carries a larger number of molecules of the preassembled chains of rare earths and heavy metals to the nerve assembly sites. Nerve growth is roughly fifteen percent faster, even if more demanding of the raw material supply. That’s the nanite version we will use for future Koban mods involving fast nerve growth.”

The small super piglet in question was tightly confined, but it struggled strongly. As it had developed the ripper based contact telepathy nerve links, located in its sensitive nose, it became aware of what the human touching it was planning to do. It didn’t
want
that sharp looking thing pushed into its tender nose tissue. It settled down after it discovered that it didn’t hurt, a topical pain blocker having been applied first.

The mental feedback from animal test subjects had forced a new “humanitarian” attitude on the formerly cool, clinical, and emotionally detached scientists and lab technicians. Knowing how a subject animal
felt
as you examined it was disconcerting enough, but that wasn’t the worst aspect.

The practice of euthanizing animals for dissection and study, after the contact telepathy genetic modification procedures were implemented, had ended abruptly. The animals sensed the intent and anticipation of the humans, which sometimes thought of the barbeque scheduled that night. The TG1s, asked to help by Mind Tapping the animals for the scientists, pointed out that the researchers had effectively become the “Krall” to their lab animals. It was a sobering revelation, to find that same disdain for lower “animals” in ourselves.

Maggi repeated Rafe’s most significant conclusion to the lab technicians, who were pushing candidates to consume an adequate supply of nerve “building materials.”

“Rapid nerve grown is more demanding of the raw material supply Rafe said. A helpless and confined force-fed piglet already considers you monsters. Good luck forcing a TG to drink more of the lousy tasting mineral supplements we give them now. They can dismantle a Krall, you know.”

Aldry had a solution. “Jimbo, in hydroponics, says both the vanilla and chocolate production is building a stockpile, and we have a few more dairy cows now that the wolfbats don’t attack and eat the calves. We also found that blue sugar beet equivalent last year, and a crop is ready to increase sugar production. Why don’t we make old-fashioned ice cream and milkshakes, and use lower doses of supplements per drink? Even if they have to consume several shakes a day, I doubt their teenage metabolisms will balk at the sweets.”

Maggi, able to find problems with anyone else’s optimism, said, “Oh fine. Make the one I’m watching even more hyper active.” She had been watching Dillon and Noreen’s youngest son, Cory, while his parents were on their missions. The teenager, fifteen and only a month from turning sixteen was a nice kid, but even without the TG mods, he was as adventuresome as Carson, his older brother.

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