Koban: The Mark of Koban (13 page)

“Jake, Link us all together, including Rafe and his
technicians when they arrive, and display Thad’s vital signs on the wall
monitor.”

“Yes Mam,” the AI replied.

The salvaged casket-like box was a med lab from a medical department
of another Krall disabled passenger ship. Rafe’s team had modified and rigged it
with tubes and injector jets from several med labs and spares from other ships.

Rafe Linked in to say they had almost finished filling the virus-laden
vials for the injectors, and were leaving the refrigeration unit in five
minutes. He suggested the first volunteer (he actually said guinea pig) should
strip and position himself inside the med lab.

The two Ladies, both Doctors, but not physicians, both
elderly, but not dead, politely turned their backs so Thad could strip and
climb into the med lab. Nude, he first stepped through a decontamination booth,
converted to spray a light coating of a topical anesthetic.

His eyes had a set of plastic goggles over them. Aside from
protection from the spray, the goggles provided a firm attachment for two
ultra-fine injectors that would see to it that the optic nerves integrated into
the gene modification process very early.

By the time Rafe’s team arrived, Thad was as comfortable as
the modified framework would allow. His view of the room was one of tunnel
vision with the goggles in place. Even that view reduced once the injectors were
mounted. He wouldn’t see anyone else in his exposed state, but he was on full display
for all seven people in the room.

Tie down straps were made snug, and the hundred twenty vials
were screwed onto the injectors. The final set up took less than twenty
minutes, while the lumps and corners of the med lab equipment taught Thad how
little he ever wanted to spend a week convalescing in one of these things.

They were ready to start before Thad expected them to be. The
last steps were of clipping injectors to each fingertip and thumb.

“Thad,” He recognized Aldry’s voice, since he couldn’t see
anyone. “We’re ready if you are. I’ll count up to ten, and we trigger the jets on
ten. You can answer me right now, but avoid speaking for the next hour.”

“I’m ready,” he muttered, equipment mounted around his face
and neck muffling the words.

“Fine, here we go. One, two, three…,”
Pshhht
went all
one hundred twenty injectors.

“Humphh,” was all that Thad uttered.

“That was damned sneaky!” Dillon laughed. Admiring how Aldry
had ensured her patient’s muscles were relaxed before the injections took
place.

An hour later, Thad climbed out of the med lab, rubbing at
the places that had grown numb from things pressing too hard on his anatomy. Jake
directed the minor repositioning of the injectors. Dillon stripped while Rafe’s
team returned with fresh vials.

The younger man was similarly strapped down when Maggi stepped
to his side. Aldry was busy examining Thad’s injection sites.

“OK, cowboy, same drill. I’ll count up to ten, then inject.
Right?”

“Sure,” was his skeptical reply. She smirked, knowing he
couldn’t see her, but clearly expecting the same trick.

“Here we go. One, two, three…,” she paused. “Dillon, stop
tensing up. I’m not going to go on the same damned number you twit. Relax so I
can start counting again...” 
Pshhht.
She caught him by surprise anyway.

A grunt was all she heard. Good.

An hour later Dillon was out of the med lab getting dressed,
and found they had a lovely meal prepared of supplement loaded meat and fish,
with mineral laden drinks to wash the delicious stuff down.

“The greatest drawback I see to doing this mod,” Thad
commented, “is the crappy food reward we get after enduring your torture. Where’s
the chocolate cake?”

“That may not be too far in the future,” Rafe told him. “One
of the cargo ships the Krall captured had a lot of
coco
seeds in one of its containers. They’re the hardy Forastero variety
coco trees, which were headed to Greater West Africa for cultivation. Their
loss is our gain,” he added, unaware of the grim irony.

“Jimbo Skaleski has had the trees growing in
the new Hydroponics section on the former Krall top level of the dome. He says
they’re doing very well. Luckily, this genetically tweaked variety matures
early. The trees were modified well before the Collapse, naturally. We have
peanuts and peanut butter coming too. Jimbo’s going to provide us some fresh
tastes of home.”

“Terrific! That really makes this crap
much
more enjoyable today. Thanks.” Thad grumbled.

“How soon before you said we might experience
the premonition illusion?” Dillon inquired. “I’m sure I’m experiencing it right
now.”

Rafe looked puzzled. “Sensing something an
instant before your standard nerve path does? That can’t happen until the
superconductor nerves complete most of their growth. It shouldn’t occur this
early.” Now he looked worried, as did Maggi and Aldry, sensitive to anything
going wrong.

“Well,” Dillon looked alarmed, “I sense I’m
about to throw up this shitty tasting food.” He watched their faces for an
instant before he burst out laughing.

Whack!

“Hey! I hid your damned wood strip,” Dillon yelped.

“What?” Maggi asked smugly. “There’s only one piece of wood
on Koban?”

****

“Commander,” Noreen called out, “Port side, a bit behind us,
I think I saw one just outside the wall.” She liked using his new title,
despite his mild objections.

Mirikami stood up to change sides in the shuttle, to see where
she pointed, just as Roni banked the craft left where indicated, causing him to
half fall into the left side seats.

“Were?” he asked. Noreen shifted her arm to match the roll
to the left, and indicated a spot now more to their front.

“I see it. In fact there’s more than one, they’re directly
against the outside of the wall.”

As the shuttle passed well above Prime City’s compound wall,
all three occupants could see there were four whiteraptors, feeding on a
bloodied white haired moosetodon. It appeared they had trapped it against the
thirty-foot high wall, isolated from the rest of its herd. Tracks in the three
feet of snow showed the direction the rest of the fleeing herd had gone.

“Jake, was right when he said to look over here. He couldn’t
see them on cameras from the ship or dome, but the new seismic sensors picked
up the stampede. Dillon predicted the sensors should detect something like
this.” It was an idea conceived after Dillon had felt the ground tremble on a
hunt last month, when raptors chased a moosetodon herd.

Mirikami bobbed his head in approval. “The sensors are not
only a way to passively scout for nearby herds to hunt, but if there’s a
stampede we need to be on the alert for predators.” The four raptors looked up
suspiciously at the sound of the shuttle, but didn’t seem in the least
frightened. With their size and speed, not much
should
frighten them.
They were apex predators.

Noreen had a question to have relayed to Jake. “Roni,” she
called to the pilot, “Ask Jake if he still can detect the herd’s vibrations. I
see the snow cloud they’re kicking up, at least five miles away.”

The AI was out of transmitter range of their tiny embedded
transducers, which only had an effective range of about seven miles. Roni used
the shuttle radio.

The pilot asked the question, listened a long moment, and
repeated the reply. “He says they have slowed, but he can still identify a
sensor signal from them, now that he has a sample of what the seismic pattern
is. From the center of the compound, he believes he can probably identify a
herd of moosetodon simply marching at thirty to thirty five miles out, and if
stampeding, much farther away. He asked me about a jumbled harmonic with them
that didn’t match the four-legged moosetodon patterns. Any idea what that might
have been?”

“It may have been the hopping and running two legged raptors
he picked up,” Mirikami surmised. When these three depart, we can find out what
if anything he can detect from them in isolation. I don’t suppose they’ll be
leaving any time soon. There’s a lot more meat than they can finish in a single
meal. They will likely stay close for a day or more.”

Roni had a question. “What use is Jake going to make of
identifying the sound of the big animals?”

“He’ll help us conserve shuttle fuel,” Noreen provided.

“Excuse me?” The crinkling over the bridge of her nose
displayed her confusion. “How does he manage that by the pitter patter of big
feet?”

Noreen explained. “When we range farther to hunt, we use
more shuttle fuel. Until we can manufacture our own, we have to siphon from the
grounded ships. Knowing when we can hunt closer to home saves longer trips.”

“Oh. Well, in the interest of saving some of that fuel,”
Roni proposed, “why can’t we give Jake the footsteps he needs to detect the
raptors right now? We can buzz low over them, as we do rhinolo herds to drive
them away from our own kills. We might even be able to salvage most of that fresh
meat. We have a sling in back.”

Mirikami pulled at his lower lip, his usual indication of
thinking something through. “Besides giving Jake his data, and possibly gaining
some meat, I’d like to know how fast these things can run, and how hard they are
to chase away.” He explained his reason.

“Thad and Dillon waited in their shuttle several hours for three
of them to walk away from their own hunting kills the first time they
encountered these things. A shuttle buzz might have cut down the waiting time.
They had already sat freezing for a couple of hours in a snow filled crevasse, just
waiting for the raptors to get gorged and sleepy.”

He clapped his hands together. “Let’s try it Roni. Swing
around to the inside of the compound and pass low over the wall. They won’t see
us coming until we’re directly overhead. That should make them jump.” Those were
prophetic words.

Mirikami took the right side second seat in the cockpit,
while Noreen leaned over their shoulders in the open doorway. Roni slowed the
shuttle to what was essentially a forward drifting hover, moving towards the
perimeter wall at about fifteen miles per hour, ten feet higher than the
roughly thirty foot high flat-topped wall.

The Krall had originally capped the wall with an additional twenty-foot
electrified fence. The humans had scavenged the fencing here, to form a smaller
electrified fenced compound around the dome. They had needed to do this after an
angry Krall raid leader had destroyed all sixteen gates in the wall, because he
was pissed off at Mirikami.

This retribution had allowed dangerous large native animals
and predators to enter the human’s compound. Getting the animals back outside
of an area twenty-six miles in radius was beyond the former captive’s ability
at present, so they built an inner electric fence barricade, salvaged from the
top of the wall.

Roni called the AI, “Jake, we will use the shuttle to drive
off the four raptors feeding next to the wall. Be alert for the seismic impacts
when we tell you they are running away from their kill.”

“Yes Mam.”

Noreen asked, “Roni, we can’t see them, are we lined up with
where they’re feeding?” As they approached the wall this low, it blocked the view
of the feeding raptors.

Roni pointed through the front plazsteel window, “The two
bushes sticking up through the snow, next to the wall, those are just a bit to
the left of where they’re located on the other side. If I stay to the right of
those bushes, it will take us directly over their heads when we cross over.
That’ll get us some action.” 

As the shuttle drew closer to the wall, the thruster noise, muffled
for the occupants was clearly audible outside. On the blind side of the wall,
the increasing noise caused the four raptors to pause in their feeding. They
weren’t even close to feeling sated, not after the energy burned stalking and chasing
that herd for several miles.

Something was coming closer, its rumbling roar resembling to
them a threat to take their kill away. They were the alpha predators in their
food chain, so there wasn’t
anything
that would force them to back down.
Sensing the direction of the threat, the largest female backed away from their
kill by several hops, craning her long neck to try to see the threat from over
the lip of the wall.

The instant she saw the nose of the oncoming interloper beyond
the rim of the wall, she screamed a challenge and rushed towards the wall,
using the seven-foot mound of dead moosetodon as a launching pad. Her leap
intersected the wall twenty-five feet up just as the intruder passed over the
top. She kicked again on the wall and deflected her two-ton body higher,
banking off the wall’s rough side.

Roni had left the retractable landing skids extended,
because they were only making a low speed short flight from the dome. The
raptor grabbed the “limb” in its jaws, and momentum swung its heavy body up
under the shuttle to strike at its exposed underbelly, using one of its carbon
fiber eighteen-inch long slashing toe claws. The hard claw deeply scoured the surface
of the metal, but didn’t gut the “animal” as the raptor expected.

However, the claw did find purchase when it hooked on the
same right side skid, and her added mass rolled her opponent to its right side.
She pulled it to the ground with her, even as it roared louder, and fought to
fly away in its strange wingless manner.

In the cockpit, the three had been watching intently to
catch first sight of the big raptors, to observe their reaction. To have one
suddenly launch itself up at them, jaws agape and already above the top, startled
all three.

Roni, at the controls, yelled “Damn!” and immediately
applied power to the smaller vertical thrusters, but not the powerful main rear
thruster. This proved to be a crucial mistake, because the powerful rear thrust
would have broken them free.