Koban: The Mark of Koban (65 page)

The truck wheels tore up the dirt and grass as it spun
around, and Kit stretched her neck over the seat back to press her frill against
his upraised left forearm. There was an image of a gazelle’s meat rotting on a
savanna, apparently on the plains of Cenozo continent if Thad was correct in
his assumption. Then an image of the kill they had just left behind followed,
making the context clear to him. The inference was obvious; this was wasteful
to leave the meat.

He risked a head bump to grip her frill with his left hand,
forming a mental image of something he had never actually seen. This was something
humans were good at, but hard for a ripper to do. She received an image from
him of the Krall, shooting at humans of her pride and at her now grown cubs. Rippers
could distinguish real memory images from those humans created, but understood
this was her “Father’s” explanation of why they had to go now.

Her deep snarl and exposed canines proved she had forgotten
the wasted kill.

Ethan was able to roll smoothly with the truck jounces, and
was bracing and floating at various times as they bounced and turned, at nearly
seventy miles per hour, over the lumpy and grassy semi-plains, going around
trees, shrubs, and the larger rocks he could see. “What’s going on Dad? I saw
the images, but Kit didn’t have the context. When did the Krall do those
things? Why didn’t Uncle Tet call us on the radio?”

Unlike Ethan, Thad had trouble finishing a sentence without
grunting from some hard bounce or jolt. “They haven’t arrived…
grunt
…yet.
Tet didn’t …
oops…
use radio because they…
unhh…
might hear. Jake
must have…
ugh
…picked up a White Out. We’re maintaining radio silence now…
ugh
…as
planned. They might land at either dome....
ouch
…” He bumped the top of
his head against the cab roof.

“
Damn!
Try
to miss some of them,
OK?
”

Except for involuntary grunts, and a few yelps as Thad
banged an elbow, head, or knee, they drove on without conversation for nearly nine
minutes. It was annoying for Thad to see even Kit handle the jolts better than
he did, and he was using hands, feet, elbows and knees, for bracing. He was
going to be bruised by the time they reached their destination, assuming he was
even conscious. He swore the TG kids all went to some secret Krall driving
school.

The truck finally slid to a dusty halt in the camp, finding
it in disarray. It was obvious that they were leaving much of the durable or
easily replaced equipment where it was. Tet was at the door of the larger
shuttle, and shouted to Thad to hurry. Kobalt’s huge head peered around
Mirikami’s side. Several SG kids were carrying fragile equipment to the other
shuttle, on the run.

Forced to limp from a knee bang as the truck jarred to a
stop, Thad hustled to join Mirikami. He was halfway there when he remembered
his rifle. He was turning around when Ethan passed him with the heavy weapon
carried lightly in his left hand, and he gripped his dad’s arm with his right
hand to hurry him along. Kit flashed by and darted through the shuttle hatch,
briefly pausing to touch frills with her brother.

Mirikami clapped him on the shoulder. “I was afraid I’d have
to leave the second shuttle for you. You nearly beat Dillon back from the Krall
compound, only two miles away. It’s a single Clanship, and so far, Jake couldn’t
say where it’s going. He picked up the gamma ray burst at about two hundred
thousand miles out. He can’t use radar, but Jake visually tracked it by
telescope as it vectored towards the moon. That’s almost on the night side right
now or at least over the horizon, and I have no idea what it’s doing. As soon
as Jake detected the White Out, he sounded the recall sirens at Prime City and
Hub City. I only hope we get everyone inside or under cover.”

“Tet, if they are around the limb of the planet, we can still
use the com sats for a few minutes.”

“Sorry Thad, I did use them briefly to speak with Jake, then
I told him to use tight beam laser to place them both in standby. Cahill, the
idiot, tried to use their radio right after Jake issued the warnings to go radio
silent. We need to play dead as long as we can. We have to get them to land where
we have some chance of catching them off guard.”

Dillon looked around the edge of the cockpit door, from the
pilot’s seat. “Hey Thad, saw Ethan driving. I’ll try to be smoother than that.  Everyone
get seated, we’re lifting right now. Tet can tell what little we know.” The
increasing high pitch thruster noise cut off as the hatch closed, and the
shuttle lifted, a bit rocky in his haste. Dillon was a qualified pilot, as was
Thad, but he lacked what Tet called “the touch.”

Thad took a seat next to Alyson Formby, the first TG from
Hub City, and one of only three TGs on this expedition. She had virtually
begged to go on this trip. After a taste of “freedom,” her own words, from what
she called the “repressive social boredom” of conservative Hub City, she was a
full convert to the idea of gene mods after a week’s visit at age seventeen. At
eighteen, the age of consent set for Hub City youngsters to make adult
decisions, she had flown to Prime City against her parent’s wishes, and asked
for the Koban mods.

When her initial adaptation period was over, which the
ripper frilling had helped accelerate, she went home and recruited dozens of
eighteen-year-old Hub City kids to try the same mods.

Recruiting among the girls didn’t prove to be very hard, not
after her former dominating large boyfriend, Brad Culligan, tried to force himself
back into her good graces. His arm would heal sooner than his pride, because
Alyson chose the same public location to humiliate him as he had selected in
trying to forcibly kiss and fondle her. The Great Auditorium was half-full at
lunch time when his high pitched cry drew everyone’s eyes, as he flew seventeen
and a half vertical feet into the air (measured by Jake, on request), breaking
his arm as he tried to break his fall. The pitch of Brad’s shriek on the way up
was “assisted” by virtue of where Alyson had applied her “lift” to launch the good
looking, but obnoxious bully.

One aspect of the social changes on Koban had been to bring
males out from under the repressive “weaker sex” image that had pervaded
society after the Collapse. The “boys are back,” was a new catch phrase, but a
few went too far back into the past. The girls insisted on remaining “Ladies.”

Alyson had a question that must have been on the minds of
the six SGs aboard the shuttle, with Carson and Ethan the only other TGs. “Mister
Greeves, what are we going to do if the Krall find out we didn’t all die?”

Thad glanced at Tet, and answered her, and the other youngsters,
as honestly as possible. He figured Ethan and Carson already knew, having been
around the Inner Circle’s social conversations all their lives.

“Alyson, there is to our present knowledge only one
Clanship, with an unknown number of warriors aboard. We need it to land, we
hope at one of the cities where we can hide and try to ambush them, and make
certain it never departs. We have to prevent that departure,
at whatever the
cost
.” He looked around at the young faces, one his own son, and realized
he could be looking at the price right now.

Mirikami told them some of the flexible plans, many of which
had been in outline form for years. “If this is the only ship, and we can keep
it from leaving, we will not need to resort to the
diaspora model, where we send families and small
groups out into the wild, all over the planet to survive as best they can on
what they can carry with them or make out of local materials. That has been our
last resort plan.

“The
situation we face now, at least thus far, offers us a greater hope of
preserving what we have built. If there are five hundred, or even two thousand
armed warriors aboard, which, given the size of a Clanship is possible, we will
be hard pressed to kill them all without losing many of our own, and possibly
one or both domes. That still requires that we not let that ship get airborne,
to use its lasers, plasma cannons, and missiles. We will lose if that happens.
The worst event for us would be if they escaped the planet and Jumped.”

“Sir,” it
was Alyson again. “How will we keep the Clanship grounded? We don’t have any
weapons that can dent one of those. I studied all I could find in the library
about them. They’re supposed to be really tough.”

Mirikami
nodded grimly. “We could try to storm the ship and get inside to take control,
but the weapon that I see as most effective is the one we are riding in right
now.”

Their
blank looks turned to comprehension when Carson blurted, “Ram them with this
shuttle?” Now they all looked positively alarmed.

Mirikami
shook his head. “For smart kids, you sure miss the point sometimes. I wouldn’t
ram them with all of us aboard, actually with nobody aboard. Jake, if his
signal isn’t being jammed, can control a shuttle if given Link capability.”

“Sorry,
Sir.” Carson apologized. “TGs do think fast under pressure, and a remote
piloted shuttle was going to be my suggestion. However, none of us could be sure
you classical’s had considered that option.” Rather than call the older humans
slow thinkers, the TG’s had started using the term
classical thinkers.
Once the older generation understood the term, it quickly lost its charm.

Laughing
wryly, Mirikami pointed out something to the three young TGs. “We old farts
don’t think as fast as you hyper youngsters, not in a fight, but with enough
time, and I don’t mean just a few hundredths of a second of time, our
experience and
classical
native intelligence can come up with plans that
work. Our contingency planning was underway before any of you pups were even born.”

“I guess
Aunt Maggi was right about Uncle Tet.” Ethan informed Carson, with a wink.

Mirikami
simply had to ask. “What did she say?”

“Don’t
poke a bear just to see if it’s awake. It might bite your ass off.”

****

To her five other clan members on the command deck, Toltak
said, looking out the viewport, “This will be our home world, after we walk the
Great Path but a few hands of hands of breeding cycles.”

Her pilot, Gapod, was unimpressed with the view, as Krall
generally were with scenery anyway. “It looks like most worlds we own, no more
dangerous.”

“So you can see the three horned rhinolo from here, and
judge its speed, strength, and its few weaknesses? You can see the eight rippers
stalking you from behind?” The sneer was evident in her words, even if it was
difficult to replicate on a Krall’s features. They could widen or narrow their
eyes and move their stiff but flexible lips, deploy the internal ultrasonic
ears, and show their teeth and purple tongues. However, they were limited in
displaying emotions with facial gestures, except for those of rage, domination,
and intimidation. The rare snort and head toss of amusement or sense of irony
was their sole lighter emotional display.

“More than one hunter has fallen to the charge of a powerful
mindless rhinolo. They run and turn faster than any human you have faced in
battle, and as hard to kill with a projectile weapon as any foe with armor. If
you have the misfortune to have the natural hunters of the rhinolo chose you as
its prey, your best defense is to get inside the shuttle door before they kill
you. The one you see is probably not the one that will kill you. They are
faster and stronger than we are, and very good hunters. It is the animals down
there that are the reason we do not live here now, not the higher gravity.” She
had adjusted internal gravity to match her memory of its strength on Koban.

“We must keep this visit as a story told nowhere else, if we
wish to retain our status as it is now. The path to our clan’s home base was
too close to Koban to resist a short visit, but we do not have approval of the
joint clan council.” She almost spat the last words. “Tanga clan proposed that we
should train our novices here, in this gravity, before they fight humans.

“We cannot change the council’s decision, but I desire the
taste of rhinolo meat, and wish to share it with surviving clan mates from my
former octet, as a reward for your support for me and our dead Gatlek, and for the
many status kills you each have earned in battle, as leaders of your own octets.”
The last comments were more to cover her own selfish motives, but once her
subordinates agreed, and participated without protest, the bond of secrecy and
self-interest would hold between them.

“Why was I asked to take us to the moon of this world before
we land?” Gapod cared even less for the view of a moon that he did of the
blue-green world below.

“Parkoda, of our clan, was the sub-leader that taught all the
Krall how to take other ships and objects with us when we Jump. This was a great
discovery, and he used it to tow many large human ships here with captives. The
largest of the dead ships are in orbit of this moon as tributes to Tanga clan.
This feat should be part of Krall histories, and Tanga clan must retell the
story until it is a part of that history. You will tell it more accurately if
you see the prizes we took.”

Naturally, her own retelling omitted the part where Parkoda
stole credit for the towing idea from humanity. It also overlooked the detail
that Parkoda’s raid had captured only three of the eight large prize ships.
When the human captives they contained proved to be unnecessary for additional combat
testing of novices against humans, he had simply suggested blasting the ships with
missiles, with no thought of their trophy value. This would have left rings of trash
and debris surrounding their future home world. The competing Graka clan had
proposed placing them in orbit around the moon, as an expedient means for the
Krall fleet to depart immediately, to make the first attack on a human world, Gribbles’
Nook, thus starting the war. In Krall legends, brags repeated often enough
sometimes became the “truth,” so Tanga clan repeated and exaggerated their
contribution.