Koban: Rise of the Kobani (64 page)

Now he was waving at Jorl, Fred, and Yil, accepting the use of their first names now (he remained Top to them). All he could think of for the moment was how he could finagle a trip to go with them to raid a Krall planet when they sent the next ship back. They promised to deliver some equipment and supplies that their camp scientists didn’t presently have. He was completely unaware of the fact that, even at his age, he could actually receive the gene mods these kids sported. Had he known of that possibility, it’s likely the staff car might have been found abandoned a mile from the rough road, its driver off on an adventure.

He trotted away from the ship as its ramp retracted and its portal hatch slammed down in a flash. His pleasure at running in a Booster Suit was now forever spoiled, knowing how slow he appeared to be to those young men that had watched him turn away. He ached to have what they had.

The Mark of Koban did a one day diversionary Jump to an intermediate uninhabited star system, to throw off any follower. Ethan was on the Bridge for the White Out, occupying one of the extra four acceleration couches they had permanently placed between the four couches in front of the actual control positions.

Using the Normal Space drive, they were still at a high rate of acceleration. Mirikami was allowing Jakob to build up a matching velocity that the Krall navigation system said would place them in a thousand mile orbit, moving along with Koban at their next White Out.

Ethan had been focused on intercepting any messages left in Tachyon Space by either of the other two ships. He appeared to be having trouble sorting something out, suggesting there
had
been a message. Carson was below, tasked with sending a message of their own at the time of transition between Normal Space and Tachyon Space.

“Uncle Tet. I picked up two message strings meant for us and for the other ships, but I haven’t sorted them out completely. One was from the Beagle of course, the other from Avenger. I think part of the problem is that the Avenger’s signal is a day or two fresher, and it was from Alyson, who really hoped to reach Carson. However, Carson was busy sending our message. We need to come up with a better system than blanket broadcasts for just anyone that’s listening.”

Mirikami, not having experienced the long-range mental communication process had to take Ethan’s word for the problem. “Do we need to do another quick Jump in and out to catch the full message streams?”

“It won’t work, Sir. When the messages are received, they are gone. The other ships were not waiting for us to respond live. We have to try to piece each data string together, and the other TG1’s aboard will have gathered parts that I may have missed. We’ll do a group ring Tap and share what we each sensed, then sort out who said what to us.” However, he laughed at one thing of which he was certain.

“You won’t believe this. Aunt Maggi has ripper frill ability! There is no possibility I could have mistaken her mental touch, and that is part of what distracted me.”

“What?” Dillon displayed a flip-flop of emotions. “Aldry and Rafe actually figured out how to use the new nanites and med labs for that? That’s wonderful. Damn! Maggi has the frill gene mod from the rippers.” He promptly slipped back to a state of shock as the implication struck home.

“Oh no! She’s able to Mind Tap now! Damn, that’s going to be scary for me until I get the same mod. She’ll know what I’m thinking. I don’t block my thoughts very well yet.”

“I think it’s more than that, Uncle Dillon.” Ethan was grinning. “I saw a mental image of her making a jump from some sort of high aerial rope bridge, which could only have been performed safely with the same muscle mods and coordination I have. She might have the full set of TG1 mods.”

Thad had a hilarious thought. “You’d better get a stronger athletic cup than the plastic one you have now, or learn to hold your tongue. One wise crack from you and she might accidentally knock your balls up by your Adam’s apple.”  Tiny Maggi often struck back after a smart aleck remark from Dillon, using a playful and very light low blow. It would be less light if it were a knuckle to his hard head.

Dillon was unusually tall and Maggi was unusually short. His crotch was a perfect and effective target area for her. He no longer behaved like one of society’s male breeding studs, which the handsome science geek had previously imitated, before he met Noreen. However, Maggi had a long memory of his many randy years as a successful Ladies man. Most of his former dress suits had a palm-sized, floridly colored male passion patch on the “package,” as advertising. Due to the war, the second-class citizen role for males had changed dramatically. Maggi’s favorite bull’s eye had not.

“You had best just hide when we land. You can’t stop yourself from mouthing off to her,” added Sarge, his grin matched by the others.

Mirikami, as was often the case, shifted the men’s irreverent interplay back to practical matters. “Ethan, go down and ring-up with the other TG1’s to compare messages. Then let us know the overall gist of the messages from each ship. We’ll be Jumping in another couple of minutes. We have nearly five days to sort out what they each sent to us and to each other.”

The desired Normal Space direction and velocity established, parallel to Koban’s expected orbit at White Out, they winked out of Normal Space again, for five days this time.

Shortly after the group Ring Tap was completed, Ethan and Carson, as the two senior TG1’s (plus being sons of four parents in leadership positions), reported excitedly to Mirikami. The captain then called a meeting, with selected participants coming to the conference room, and Jakob would broadcast to the remainder of the ship. Everyone would be interested in this.

All ten spec ops volunteers were invited to the conference room. They would be more stunned, and presumably pleased, at what they were about to learn than anyone aboard. The TGs would all discover how things at home were about to change in ways they never expected with their parents.

Mirikami started with the update from Heavyside. “Gentle Men, Ladies, we received updates from both of our other ships. The Avenger, at Heavyside, has confirmed what Colonel Trakenburg suspected and hoped was happening there. A cabal of people at the main camp, a number of scientists, base commander, and the top NCO were planning to venture into the realm of genetic engineering. They were essentially attempting to start a genetics program, much as we did twenty-two years ago on Koban, right under the noses of the Krall. On Heavyside,
they need to fear the PU authorities. They still face imprisonment or death if caught.” He paused to look at their ten new volunteers.

“Colonel, Captain, and you other eight men just heard me use the name of our home world, Koban. It’s a Krall word that if they heard it used often enough might lead them to us. Be aware that the Krall associate it with a place they someday want to call their own home, and they don’t want it contaminated by humans. I’ll let some others fill you in on our history there. The ship you are in is actually named The Mark of Koban, and not simply the Mark.

“The ship was named for the tattoo marking I received from a Krall sub-leader, just before they departed Koban, expecting us all to die shortly after that. He thought that I was a
worthy enemy
, and hoped to find other humans to make their war worthwhile. My tattoo was made solid black at that time, as all of us now wear.

“For any of you to operate even simple doors on this ship, you need these tattoos as well. They actually contain some sort of quantum device or mechanism, which is a key to your using every piece of complex Krall equipment we’ve encountered thus far. Colonel Trakenburg and Captain Longstreet already have them. It doesn’t have to be placed at the base of your throat, although mine was placed there by the enemy, where they wear their own markings.

“I
want
to display mine to the enemy someday, as we defeat them.” He’d opened his tunic top to reveal the black oval. “You can place them on your butts if you wish. However, I wouldn’t care to drop trousers and turn my back to show them.” He got the chuckles he expected.

I doubt you will be the only spec ops forces to join us either. “Captain Renaldo sent us a message saying they had made contact with the people pushing for genetic enhancements at SOB-1 on Heavyside. She provided them with a data cube of our genetic upgrades, and some tissue samples to prove they work, and to help them get a head start on their own program. It will be conducted in secrecy from the PU government and out of the public eye, of course.”

He addressed a puzzled look he saw on Trakenburg’s face. “Captain Renaldo is Noreen Renaldo, Dillon Martin’s wife, and Carson’s mother. She kept her last name, per the usual social custom, and Dillon, breaking with that custom, kept his own last name when they married. Carson has the option I guess of using either last name, or both. It hasn’t been an issue on Koban, but we are breaking with so many three hundred year old customs it’s hard to keep track.” He grinned.

“Anyway, the Avenger has departed Heavyside, and like ourselves, is on her way home. We should arrive within a day of each other, if not on the same day. Like I did, she chose a departure day at the start of a long range message window.” He paused while there were some cheers from his crew, loudest from Dillon and Carson. Then he continued.

“The cooperation with another section of spec ops is gratifying to me, and eases one of my great worries for the future of our species.  Not all of our genetic enhancement eggs are in just the Koban basket now. From Heavyside, humanity can take another independent step towards meeting the Krall head on, thus reducing the overall odds against success if Koban went down.” He bore a serious expression.

“However, we mere handful from Koban will have the greatest burden for years, in facing the Krall threat.”

Then in another turnaround, his face beamed with a broad smile. “That burden has just been eased a bit by the med labs and nanite technology we sent home with Captain Greeves.” Now he looked at the eight new spec ops men, who didn’t know who he meant.

“She’s Thad Greeves wife, and she
really
broke with the fem tradition and took
his
last name. Ethan over there is their son. He doesn’t care what you call him for a last name so long as it doesn’t make him late for a meal.”

The last was a reference to the large plate of breakfast food he’d brought with him to the conference room. The location for the TG1’s Mind Tap Ring had been in the mess hall. Ethan’s face turned red, which drew a laugh.

Mirikami was still primarily addressing the eight newest spec ops members of the group. They were volunteers, and taken aboard with little advanced information furnished. It was time to share more with them.

“Our TG1’s have a limited form of a mind reading ability, which requires physical contact, strongest with hand-to-hand contact. I know that Colonel Trakenburg and Captain Longstreet briefed you men about that capability just after we lifted off, which means you have had less than two hours to think about this. There’s actually a bit more to it than that, which even they didn’t know about.

“That extra bit explains how we
know
what our two other ships have been doing, even though we are hundreds of light-years apart. A surprising long-range mental connection can exist as well, but
only
between two TG1’s, under very limited conditions, and it is very brief.”

He saw the flash of distrust return instantly to Trakenburg’s eyes, and he continued quickly to allay that feeling. “We discovered, quite by accident on our journey to Human Space a couple of months ago, that TG1’s can somehow link briefly with the minds of other TG1’s that they know, for a moment as we enter or leave Tachyon Space. The messages seem to exist in that alternate universe for as long as five days. We set up a contact schedule, which was the message window that I mentioned for our day of departure. If messages are not received in that time span, they become garbled and lost. The exciting aspect is that separation distance in Normal Space does not appear to matter. Only that the target of the message, the other TG1 you intend to reach, is known to the sender’s mind. Our TG1’s were jointly
listening
and
sending
as we entered and exited Tachyon Space today.

“We frankly don’t know how it works, but we assume that their minds have some sort of modulating effect on the lowest energy, nearly infinite velocity tachyons that harmlessly pour through us and the ship as we enter and exit the Jump Hole. Their thoughts seem to be impressed into that immense flow of a vast sea of low energy tachyons that we know is there.

Distance is of course irrelevant to an infinite velocity tachyon. If the mind patterns of the parties are familiar to each other, communication is possible. Data is also transmitted and received very fast, because the entry into a Jump Hole is quick, and so is a White Out.

“Believe it or not, that is how we obtained the information I’m briefing you on today. Stuck down in the gravity well on Poldark, we were out of that communications loop for two months. Happily, we have caught up on the news.

“Let me tell you the part of that communication that will ease your suspicions concerning this mind reading ability, and all of the other capabilities of the TGs and TG1’s.” He paused, employing his often-criticized
waiting for the other shoe to drop
method of ensuring total attention.

“Thanks to the nanites and new med labs we sent home to Koban, our genetic modifications,
all of them,
can now be given to
any
human who chooses to accept them. That means us SGs can now catch up with our kids, and so can you ten men.”

Longstreet spoke first, hardly able to hold back his enthusiasm. “You mean more than just the muscle mods from the clone genes I was expecting, but the superconductor nerve mods, carbon fiber muscles, and nano tube reinforced bones?”

On a rising tone of voice, he added, “Then, as a bonus gift, we get to read minds as well? Damn, do I at least get a
donut
while I have to
wait
for all this crap?” That cracked up the entire room.

Laughing along with them, Dillon added some more icing to the cake. “Joe, there are three gene mods that the TG1s with us don’t even have yet. We learned that they
have
been applied at home to our people there, to SG’s like us included. They not only worked but they were implemented in much less time than our previous mods. They have transitioned SGs into TG1’s in a few weeks, and TG1’s into what are being called TG2’s in two weeks.