Koban: Rise of the Kobani (74 page)

The rest of the command staff now needed to focus on the actual raids. This was the most responsible job Sarge had accepted since his original rescue from the Krall. It seemed TG2 status had boosted his mental self-confidence as much as his body. His country boy slang talk was seldom heard now, unless it was at a poker table, trying to fool one of the spec ops boys into thinking he was some dunderheaded hick.

Mirikami, Dillon and Thad, left the Bridge and joined Marlyn and Noreen, who were with the spec ops group and the leaders of the young Kobani TG2 teams. They were already gathered in the conference room below the Bridge.

Mirikami explained the inclusion of Torki and Prada to them. “We have to capture additional clanships for resupply of the slow migration ships, and to get Torki and Prada representatives to the raid sites to obtain worker cooperation. The clanship theft will have to be done as quietly and sneakily as possible by stealing parked ships from tarmacs around Krall domes, using minimal noise and fighting, as we
tried
to do on K1. I don’t think K1 will be as vulnerable a target as it was the first time, because the Krall don’t take well to looking inept. They will surely be on guard there now. I think remote Krall worlds with low population finger clans could be prime candidates. Their ships sitting out on tarmacs might be completely unguarded.

“Wister gave me a list, by Mind Tap, of some Krall nest worlds for small clans that sounded like good candidates sixty years ago, the date of his last outside source of information. Even the Krall appear to change habits, homes, and social customs at a slower pace compared to us hyperactive and immature humans. Those small Krall colonies are probably still in the same places. Low population clan worlds should be the best bet for quick in and out operations.” He turned to Trakenburg.

“Frank, I’d like you and Joe to plan and execute that particular operation, and I will deliver you there. You ten men have the most experience at stealth and bushwhacking. Please get back to me by tomorrow with a list of what resources in the way of additional TG2’s and material you think you will need. Obviously, with Mind Tapping, the training of everyone involved will go extremely fast. Flight crews for each clanship prize have to be taken with us. At an absolute minimum, three more clanships are needed, but preferably many more if you can swing that. We need to provide full support for as many as three simultaneous rescue missions from the three Krall production worlds we will raid, and there could be up to fifteen migration ships involved.”

Trakenburg was pleased to get a mission right out of the starting gate, which matched up with spec ops training. “This would need to happen first then, Tet, so the supply side can be ready for supporting the rescue operations that follow immediately after your raids. Those clanships will need to come here to get supplies.”

“Yes. We don’t want to initiate the three main attacks until we have the two pieces we need to provide for the rescues in place. However, to avoid spreading the word too soon to the Krall that humans are operating inside their territory, at widely separated planets, we can’t let much time pass between the capture of clanships and migration ships, and the start of the main raids.”

“Tet, you may have to start the raiders on their way before the other parts are in place.”

“Probably, Frank. After I take you to get the clanships we need, one of the other ships will deliver the flight crews for the migration ship theft.

“The migration ships should be easier to take because they are in high parking orbits around a former Torki colony they called Toborkiti. There might be some investigation by clanships of the Tanga clan if we don’t answer radio hails. Coldar says this old prestigious clan has had control of that world for many breeding cycles. However, the total Krall population on the planet was typically low, because it has low gravity, and is cooler and wetter than the Krall prefer. That’s not surprising since it was a planet originally settled by the Torki.

“It’s possible that the typical Krall’s
mind your own business
attitude between clans will delay their curiosity, and put off investigation until the migration ships are ready to leave orbit. Coldar indicates that it might take less than half an hour to power up a migration ship, and I think it could require one to two hours to capture an energetic enough Jump tachyon for those big diameter ships to make a large enough Event Horizon to Jump. Since the Prada and Torki want to send representatives with the migration ships, they can handle bringing the craft fully on line, warming them up, and testing their systems. We’ll place a human flight crew on board as well.”

He didn’t say it, but the human presence was for more than a backup flight crew. They could defend the ships from Krall boarders if that were needed, and any deviation from the intended use of the ships by an alien crew would be avoided. Trust them, but ensure compliance.

Longstreet had a question. “How will the two ship capture teams know when their separate operations have succeeded? Will you simply dart off to start your raids? Where will we meet each other?”

Mirikami grinned. “Ain’t used that long range Mind Tap when entering and leaving a Jump Hole yet have you?”

Joe flushed. “Nope. I think we need to practice that locally before we do the real Jumps. We need to establish some sort of order to the windows for communication, and set up a way to subdivide the message workload to fewer individuals. When you Jumped back here from Poldark, you had a bit of a mishmash of messages from multiple people on more than one ship, targeted at too many different individuals. The information overlapped, and it required considerable sorting. We’ll have more vital messages coming, and we don’t want delays and confusion.”

Thad pointed a gleeful finger. “I believe I just heard Joe, a former communications officer, describe how to set up better communications. Sounded
just
like a volunteer to me.”

Longstreet laughed. “Damn! I thought I’d been in long enough not to do that anymore. Fine, I’ll do the boring job and sort it out. I’ll need at least three ships to Jump around the system to decide how many designated signal senders and receivers we’ll need.”

Dillon reminded him that the former smugglers ship and now a freighter, the Falcon, was also available for local Jumps. With out-of-practice flight crews, training on the Mark, Avenger, and Beagle, there would be opportunities in local Jumps to refine the message process in the next two weeks. Two weeks being the target date to initiate the first of their multiple offensive actions against the Krall.

“Now for the meat of the missions,” Mirikami stated. “The three worlds we intend to hit the hardest will be to halt critical weapons production. We all agree that clanships are the Krall’s primary tool for delivering warriors and single ships, defending their bases, hauling supplies, and engaging in space combat.

“There are two significant planets where the Torki and Prada know they were building and repairing clanships and single ships for at least the last several thousand years. Other factories on different worlds can switch to building them, but the needed supply of specific raw materials and metals requires those other worlds develop additional or new mining facilities, transportation for the raw materials, plus new plants for processing and smelting the ores. They would need to build more Torki operated high tech factories to manufacture the complex quantum control surface coatings for the ships, to keep them stealthy, as well as build the navigation and weapon control systems. The Torki that already know how to manufacture those and other key electronics will be gone from the old production worlds if our plans work.

“Migration ships to bring in worker replacements and factory modules from other Krall worlds will be in short supply, if not totally absent. We certainly will not leave any usable migration ships behind when we depart Toborkiti.”

Carson, listening and learning had to ask a question. “Sir, won’t the Krall make the Torki workers increase the rate of building migration ships? Shouldn’t we destroy the ship yards and evacuate the workers there as well?”

“Reasonable question, but that’s not worth the time and diversion of our limited resources to do that yet. Migration ships normally take over a year to construct, and are not immediately useful for conducting the war. What the Krall would need are workers moved to where they can quickly make more clanships and single ships. We won’t leave the existing factories and facilities operational to do that where they currently build them, so putting new workers there isn’t going to restart things quickly, even if they do have the mining and other infrastructure in place. They’d still have to bring in a modular starter factory, which also takes time to assemble and expand.

“I hope the Krall won’t have many migration ships at their disposal to move workers to any planet for large scale ship building. Even when they do get workers to a designated new planet, they will be building infrastructure to prepare for building ships. In the time window we have for a surprise strike, halting clanship building and destroying Eight Balls takes away the greatest means the Krall have of directly applying offensive pressure on human worlds.”

“What about the probably tens of thousands of clanships already built, Sir?”

Mirikami shrugged. “That’s a problem Human Space has that we can’t solve for them, and which only the Planetary Union can try to counter. They have to increase clanship attrition, while we try to prevent clanship production. General Nabarone, when we give him the word that we did what we planned, will start pushing for new ships for the Navy, to go after the roughly ten thousand clanships on K1 for example. I assure you, it’s a position he will find most uncomfortable, because he’s also made no friends with Lady Admirals.”

They all smiled and chuckled at that accurate remark.

“However, his planetary defense forces have only been marginally successful at knocking down a handful of clanships per year at Poldark. The Navy needs to make a serious dent in their numbers while Krall pilots are still allowed to operate recklessly, as if there were plenty of material to replace losses. That attitude will not last long when the ship shortages are recognized by clan leaders.”

He added, “The enemy can make Prada and Torki slaves build all the laser and plasma cannons, rockets, trucks, body armor and hand weapons they like. If they can’t get them and the warriors that use them to new worlds to invade in massive numbers, the war will slow down. That could take years to accomplish, and we may lose more planets to invasions.

“If we are successful, and we find more people willing to accept our Koban gene mods, the ranks of the Kobani will swell, and we can expand our efforts to diminish the Krall’s supply of war material.”

Noreen, eager to discuss the role of the raiders said, “Tet, I’m ready for the nuts and bolts of how we will conduct the raids. Who goes where and does what?”

“OK. Here is the general outline. A raider will consist of each one of our three converted clanships, the Mark, Avenger, and Beagle, each packed with a thousand TG2s and their equipment, and four Dragons per ship. We have the ones we brought with us from Poldark and some that were assembled from what the Prada had stored as spare parts on Haven.

“I’ll lead the raid to the shipyard on the planet I’ve labeled CS1, Noreen you have CS2, the other clanship site. Marlyn, you will have the Eight Ball production site.

“We will not do the Jumps to conduct the major raids before the extra clanships and migration ships are ours. However, after they are acquired, we three will Jump at staggered intervals to reach our target worlds nearly simultaneously, just before the migration ships can get there. The migration ships will proceed to the raid sites early, from where we steal them. They won’t come here first. That would take too long, and the Krall might figure out we plan to steal some of their workers. I don’t think they would guess where, but I don't want them to even suspect.

“The captured clanships are much faster, and they
could
make a round back trip here easily, if that particular operation moves as fast as I hope. I’ll leave that decision to those flight officers.” 

He referred to a hologram chart of Krall territory, projected in the air of the slightly darkened room at the end of the long conference table. As Mirikami spoke, Jakob highlighted the described stars for visual reference from Koban, which was marked by an exaggerated size teal-colored light.

“Because the method we’ll use to eliminate the shipyards on each of the two planets is similar, I’ll describe what my own raiders will be doing, and you can extrapolate that to the other shipyard, Noreen.”

“The Mark will go to CS1, designated as clanship production world number one. Not even the Prada or Torki know what the long dead species, called the Doloria, named their home world.” A white light flickered at the proper location, deep in the Krall volume of space. Noreen, you will go to CS2, a former Raspani colony world, nearer to us than CS1.”

A green light flickered for that star system, showing it was closer to Koban. “CS1 is roughly seven thousand light-years away on the far side of Krall territory. CS2 is three thousand light-years closer.”

He gave them time to look at the relative locations, and then resumed his briefing. “CS1 was the main home nest for the Graka clan for five thousand years and had vast mineral resources for clanship and weapons production. The seat of the Graka clan moved about six thousand years ago to a cleaner world, inside former Raspani settled space. They did that to escape environmental pollution, and to move closer to some other war at that time. CS1 is a worn out manufacturing planet, raped of much of its natural resources, and its environment ruined.  I’m told it is unpleasant to look at or to live there.”