Koban: Rise of the Kobani (3 page)

For several thousand recent years, the clans had no powerful alien race to fight, and so they fought only among themselves, in a process that naturally selected for the strongest and fastest warriors, at the expense of the most innovative warriors. In their homogenous society, there were fewer non-standard thinkers. The lack of a recent smart, adaptable foe had created a need for this new breeding focus, to meet the challenge presented by the human prey. The fact that the most recent races they had faced were inherently unwarlike, and were slow to adjust or offer serious challenge to Krall warriors, had resulted in a dearth of warriors suited for meeting the crafty methods humans used to fight them. Poor competition led to poor competitors. Fortunately, the egg laying Krall could far out-produce the slower reproducing humans, with their mere one or two live births per year. The clans poured a nearly inexhaustible supply of warriors into the fight against them.

Even as physically weak as humans were, and with lower technology than many past races, they were forcing the Krall to find better future leaders and warriors, which were then selectively bred. It would be at least a hundred years before
enough
of the resulting wave of smarter more adaptable cubs reached maturity, to dominate the war effort. However, it
would
happen, as it had always happened over the past twenty-two thousand years.

The new heavy metal and rare earth food supplements, based on a Koban environmental model, were finding their way into the tissues of their newest cubs. Eventually, randomly, some of those elements would be incorporated into the nervous system, building the forerunner of the organic super conductor nerves the Krall also sought, as present naturally in all higher animals on Koban. It was hoped that this major step along the Great Path of self-directed evolution could be achieved before the human foe was fully eradicated. They would be a fine test for the new class of warriors that sh
ould be produced.

****

Over the next several days, Mirikami watched for a weather development that he could use to his advantage. Several sizable storms with high cloud tops formed near coastal areas, but those were too far from the mountain range where the Mark of Koban could be more easily hidden, and would require a longer low altitude flight to the mountains. In those three days, there were six clanship arrivals and four departures, all of which successfully ran the gauntlet of Poldark defenses. They each used a high-speed penetration or exit method, which dared the humans to shoot them down. Twice the air defenses came close to succeeding for the arrivals.

After watching Mirikami conduct a careful review of the high-speed penetrations, Sarge asked him, “Rethinking the slow approach?”

“No. On the contrary, I don’t think we could have made it down safely the way the Krall came in. I had Jakob analyze the evasive turns they executed, and the internal g’s they withstood would probably have rendered any of us Second Generation people unconscious after the second or third sharp turn. Avoiding
having
to do that is the only option I see. The multiple missiles fired at them came too close for comfort if we can’t dodge like the Krall.”

“We can’t risk not being able to do those turns if we are spotted
.” Thad warned. “We have to drop out of a thunderstorm at some point, and head for the canyon. Perhaps I need to try to contact Nabarone by radio. Get him to send someone to meet us off planet.”

“No, p
art of our sales pitch is to show
him
our TGs can outperform the Krall. Seeing them perform is believing in them, so I think we need to risk the landing for a face-to-face meeting with Nabarone. However, I think we may be able to take advantage of the capabilities of our TG1’s in a pinch. Jakob, Link me to Chief Haveram.”

“Yes Sir.” The smaller subset of the Flight of Fancy’s Jake AI software, running in older hardware, had been modified to function with the crew’s embedded transducers.

“Chief, I need you to install another two acceleration couches on the Bridge, right next to mine.”

“Captain, we have one in storage as a spare, but the other one will have to be one of those currently installed in either the Jump Drive Room or the Engine Room.” Haveram had planned to use the one in the Engine Room for the Poldark landing.

“Not a problem, Chief. We aren’t going to Jump anywhere soon, and so far, we haven’t needed anyone to stand watch over those gages. The Krall ships are a lot more automatic than ours, so take the couch from the Jump Drive Room.” The chief had been switching from one area to the other to monitor the equipment, depending on their use of the tachyon powered drive or the reaction thrusters. Both monitoring jobs seemed pointless on the former clanship.

****

After several days waiting, they finally had a sizable front moving across the mountain range close to the tropics, with a wall of thunderstorms constantly developing along its front. Leaving final instructions for Marlyn and Noreen, and letting them make their goodbyes to their husbands and sons in private, Mirikami edged away from the Avenger and Beagle, drifting down towards the planet.

Mirikami initially intended to use the Normal Space drive, powered by tachyon energy, and settle more slowly into atmosphere than a normal space craft would do. At a sufficiently low altitude, about thirty-five thousand feet, they would be near the highest cloud tops of mature anvil top thunderstorms, and could switch to weaker but more precisely controlled manual thruster power, and descend down to the most turbulent and thus most concealing levels of the cumulonimbus clouds. Then, staying above the mountain peaks, vector along the line of storms to the northeast until they were almost over the destination mountain range. The next step was to carefully drop below the cloud base, behind the peaks on the Krall controlled side, and use the mountains to screen them from the PDC radar and sensors on the other side for as long as possible. From there they could travel horizontally, using passes and staying clear of the mountain peaks visually, until near the part of the range where Reynolds had found the box canyon for them. Mirikami wanted to avoid using any active radar or laser scans because that would negate the stealth approach.

The first two phases worked as planned, and they were soon moving along the weather front, embedded in the thunderheads and moving slowly and carefully on thruster power. They had ample fuel, and were unconcerned with the waste. The ride was surprisingly even, because the ship was massive compared to the force of the vertical and horizontal gusts, and the attitude thrusters were quick to adjust for dips or updrafts. Going from one storm to the next, the Mark had drawn to within a hundred and fifty miles of the mountain range.

The plan was proceeding perfectly. Until suddenly, it wasn’t.

****

The Darpot finger clan was at last receiving their hard won opportunity to fight humans in more than a two or three day raid. Their now experienced raiders would have use of mini tanks, command their own artillery defense, scout drones, armored transports for warriors, missile equipped single ships, and slave Prada to build underground bunkers for their training, to be conducted on the human world below. After practice in coordinated movements and attacks, and learning the new tactics used here, they could join with larger more powerful and storied clans, conducting weeks or months long assaults on the worthy foe.

First, Hortak, the senior warrior and a sub leader of the young finger clan, needed to deliver their new equipment safely to the rugged terrain they would use for training. Their two clanships would penetrate the enemy defenses on Poldark using the strategies described to them on Telda Ka. Hortak’s own clanship was transporting the equipment his warriors must master if they were to participate alongside the great clans in this still young and evolving war. The bulk of his more experienced cadre of raiders was on the second clanship.

Each ship would swiftly penetrate the enemy orbital defenses before they could react, and then separate to divide their attackers focus for in-atmosphere defense. This was the aggressive tactic most often used they were told, learned while listening to experienced pilots on Telda Ka, who had run the gauntlet many times.

After establishing a command post in a mountainous region, his young warriors would learn how to use the equipment on that terrain, following the advice of the experienced warriors assigned to them from other clans, as ordered by the Gatlek. This latter requirement, to accept outside leadership, would be harder to endure than mastering the equipment, subjugating their natural instinct to destroy the enemy to commands from other clans, telling them when to hold back.

The conditions they had to meet, to participate in the larger war, were to submit to the will of Gatlek Pendor’s overall strategy, who in turn was obeying Tor Gatrol Kanpardi edicts, handed down from the joint clan council. Hortak knew the chain of command had set this course for the war, that fighting was limited by design, as part of achieving the goal of following the Great Path with greater efficiency. However,
knowing
that, and
feeling
that it was right were two different things.

On past raids, he and his warriors had rampaged to their fierce dual hearts content, killing and destroying humans and their beloved
objects
with abandon. It
felt
glorious. Here, the goal was to bleed the enemy more slowly, allowing the clever and ever changing enemy to slowly eliminate the less adaptable Krall warriors from the lists of highest status breeders. The killing rampages could still happen in an assault, but just as the enemy line broke to retreat, they would be recalled, allowing their foe a chance to recover.
That
was a discipline they needed to learn, and which Hortak himself found repulsive to obey.

He entered atmosphere, ahead of the missiles and railguns that sought his ship, heedless of the flashing plasma and laser beams that could only find them by random chance. He was seeking the aid of weather or terrain to evade the next level of defenses, when he must proceed slower, and for which there was a measure of predictability for the enemy, if he was careless.

A large weather front was slowly passing over the territory the Krall had conquered, cutting across the very mountain range that was his general goal for a landing site. The tracking methods the clever humans had devised could see his back trail now, and he was changing track often and sharply as he descended rapidly. The heavy load of equipment made the clanship less responsive than usual, and his sensors had detected missile launches from human lines closer to the mountains, where he wished to go. Somehow, the humans could feed the information from his past disturbances of the atmosphere to the missiles, and they would aim for where he was expected to be next.

He remained on the tachyon powered reactionless space drive, despite the drain on additional energy available for plasma cannons, and the less precise maneuvering possible at lower speeds. The plasma cannons would have to make do with fusion power alone, because evasion held higher priority than beam power right now. The humans had recently introduced missiles that had a means to follow behind a clanship that was using thruster power, seeming to operate like a Krall on a scent trail. Staying on the space drive in atmosphere countered that innovation. At least until time to actually land, when only normal thrusters provided the fine control needed.

He dove into the storm clouds on a path away from the missiles and the mountains, and then, inside that turbulent concealment, sharply reversed course. The jolt of uncompensated inertia, from the sudden reverse acceleration, was a severe strain on his ability to hold onto his stabilization post by his control console. If the other warriors aboard, unaware of what direction he would turn next, were unprepared, slamming into a bulkhead could disable them, or even cause death if unable to flip to land feet first. Any lack of readiness on their part was of no concern to him, acting as pilot. As mission commander, Hortak had two flight qualified K’Tals with him, but their expertise was more with the new equipment than with pilot skills, and he had spent years as a K’Tal pilot, before advancing to sub leader. He trusted his own piloting ability more than theirs.

Racing through the storm, he checked his sensors for the missile tracks, and was satisfied that they had so far stayed outside the weather front, still on a vector towards where his last track suggested he was headed. He switched sensor mode to seek his other clanship, and found it hundreds of miles away, also using the two thousand mile line of weather as cover, but moving away from his own goal of the mountain range.

If the other ship continued in that direction, they might have to land and use ground transport to join up with him in the mountains. That would waste days in starting their training. The K’Tal pilot of that other ship might find herself performing some unpleasant maintenance duties, normally reserved for the Prada slaves.

That last thought immediately forced him to rethink his punishment detail for Gordok, the K’Tal flying the other clanship. She was carrying the Prada, and if he wanted them to arrive alive, she
had
to avoid the type of hard acceleration Hortak had just applied to his own ship.