Koban: Rise of the Kobani (15 page)

“Yea,” was the hurried reply.

“You keep the ship on the ground?” That was their main worry, once again. Koban wasn’t at risk this time, but their lives were.

“Shot the crap out of the base of the ship, it can’t lift, but it sure as hell can shoot. They finally got their plasma chambers hot. Our plasma batteries had to lay back and find cover in the next valley to get away. They are too vulnerable in the open.” He paused, as he had before he mentioned Gamal’s loss.

“We lost another cart, to a plasma blast that made a hole in front of one of the cannons as it sped towards the clanship, flipping it over forward. Jolene is probably dead. Neither Carlton nor I saw her go down as we did Gamal before the explosion.

“The Krall can open and close the protective gun ports too damn fast. We haven’t knocked out a single heavy weapon. We took down the lower power lasers because they don’t have the protective port covers. It’s hard to get a shot in when the big guns open up to shoot. They seem to see it coming, just before a bolt fires the port slams closed. Too often to be just chance. Sorry, we’re busy now, working to get closer…, staying behind boulders and hills. I’ll call back.”

Carson thought about what Ethan had said.
They seem to see it coming.

He knew the TGs had faster…, significantly faster, reactions than did the Krall. He was alive only because of that, and his ability to move quicker than they could. He had seen the plasma bolt that grazed him when it was fired, and he replayed that moment in slow motion through his high speed thought processes. He relived the instant when he saw the bolt flash at the weapon, and judged how much he could have moved to avoid the beam track. Even to his high-speed superconductor mind, the firing and arrival was as close to simultaneous to his senses as he could discern. In short, he had zero chance to avoid that near light speed shot when he first saw the flash. Therefore, its miss wasn’t due to an instinctive move he had made to dodge. It was probably a reflexive trigger pull as Gentot was hit by the head shot, and the aim was slightly off target. He was lucky to be alive.

He next recalled his carefully aimed first shot at Hortak, as he compensated for his motion on the cart, and that of the Krall’s moving excavator. He had pulled the trigger at a moment estimated to place the beam precisely between the Krall’s eyes. Yet he had missed him, barely, when his target ducked. For moving targets, using a line of site plasma weapon with no wind or drop to consider, he thought of the other variables in aiming. One was the mentally estimated instant to pull the trigger, as the gun sight passed across the desired target point. He noticed in this careful analysis now that the last part of the trigger pull, taking up the final slack, happened two hundredths of a second early. That was because there was a slight lag in the pulse fired after you pulled the trigger. It wasn’t possible for the Krall to have seen his finger pull happen from behind the power pack. Nevertheless, it seems like he did anticipate the shot.

He painfully came to his feet, and walked stiff legged closer to Hortak, who struggled to swing a broken-wristed arm at him. It had to be painful. He gave him credit for that, but snatched the hand easily as it passed, causing the bones to grate. That elicited a scream of rage mixed with pain. Music to Carson’s ears, recalling his own shouted pain filled curses a moment ago.

“How did you anticipate my rifle pulse coming at you the first time I fired at you? It should have burned your skull off, yet you ducked. What did you see?”

The Krall spoke not a word, but the image of a close double flash was obvious in his mind. The first was dim red and the second bright blue-white. The interval between them matched the time delay he automatically allowed for after he squeezed the trigger, for the ravening energy of the pulse to lance towards the target.

“I’ll be damned. There is some sort of pre-flash the human eye can’t see. Probably in the infrared, since the whole process involves heat.”

The Krall raised his head and the merciless black orbs with the flame red pupils, resembling recessed pits of fire, glared at him hatefully. Carson had idly picked up a tiny one- eighth inch round pebble, and positioning it on the inner curve of his forefinger, the thumb directly behind it, flicked it at one of the glaring eyes faster than the Krall could see it coming. It struck painfully on the open eye with a solid sounding “thwack,” where it stayed stuck. The Krall screeched in anger and pain and tried to pull its arm back to rub the injury and remove the tiny stone. He held the hand for an instant, then released it with a shove, and watched the floppy broken wrist deliver a solid sounding hand smack to the Krall’s face.

“That’s what you deserve for having your warrior dishonorably try to kill me from behind. I offered you a fair challenge, you cowardly pile of Krall shit.”

“A prey animal has earned no right to challenge a Krall warrior. Even if some clan leaders declare humans as worthy enemies. However, dishonor was not possible in this act, because Gentot was ordered not to kill you, but to shoot a leg. He almost did that I see. Only for missing you and failing my order did he deserve to die
.”

Carson shook his head. “Yet you say human honor is strange?”

He limped away, happy to have caused the Krall more pain with the pebble and hand smack, yet feeling petty for having done so. He considered how what he had just learned might help Ethan and Conrad, since those were the only two fighters he could reach by Link. He wanted to chase after them, but leaving the Krall alone here seemed like a bad idea, and the plasma cannon carts were too vulnerable to the return fire from the clanship. He was looking at his cart, when he raised his view and saw the massive armored personnel carriers were right behind them.

I can drive that thing!
He thought.
I can take the Krall with me.

He grabbed the Krall’s hand again. “Do the big transports have any assault capability?”

He could have jumped for joy when the flash image appeared of a double battery of plasma cannons on the high roof of each articulated section. It made sense that Krall warriors wouldn’t travel essentially as passengers inside a big truck. Except he didn’t see anything on top of the three vehicles, and at his distance he’d see the barrels Hortak had pictured.

“Where are the cannons?”

The reason for extra high tops on the trucks became obvious. Additional fusion bottles were up there, plasma chambers, and two paired ceramic and magnetic coil cannon barrels, one set per truck section, which could be elevated from inside and controlled from a virtually identical console as he had used on a cart. They had a smaller defensive shield on a rotating pedestal, because there was no exposed operator to protect. The bores were the same diameter as the cannon mounted on the carts, but had a shorter length. He knew the range of plasma cannons was related to the length of the focusing coils. A tighter beam traveled farther, and required more confinement and focusing, and therefore longer barrels. These were for short-range use, on the near battlefield.

He headed for the nearest vehicle at a run. The heavy side door had been left open by the team checking the cab out. When he entered, he saw it had a passage between the bench seats back into the larger compartment, which was also lined with benches for the armored Krall passengers. There had not been time to share Mind Taps with the four TGs that checked these out, and they now were in the fight, inside the Dragons, while he stood here ignorant.

Looking in the back he quickly saw the consoles for monitoring and firing the roof top batteries. He activated the one in front, then ran to the one in the rear and did the same. The external view screens provided the targeting system as before. The driver couldn’t operate them, and therefore he needed two other operators to ride in back. He started the plasma chambers heating, and went outside to see what the thumping he’d heard overhead had accomplished.

On both truck trailer sections, the double short barrels were each facing forward, protruding only two feet through the smaller protective shields. He jumped in the cab and powered up the drive system, which worked like a standard Krall utility truck, as Sarge had said. He took the yoke, and started forward, and circled over to the crippled Krall, who had been belly crawling towards a dead warrior’s rifle. Grasping the back of Hortak’s blue suit, he lifted and dumped him on the floor on the far side of the broad cockpit, built with room for four Krall to sit up front. Carson was indifferent to the grunts of pain he heard. He fetched the dead Krall’s rifle, his own and the one Hortak had dropped. There was a storage pocket on the inside of the heavy door, suited to hold the weapons if inserted vertically.

He was ready to go, and jammed the throttle levers full forward. The fusion-powered electric motors surged the big heavy transport ahead at a surprising rate of acceleration. He Linked with Ethan, and told him he was on his way, and asked for an update.

“Good timing, man. I’m letting my two laser slingers get out in the valley with the rest of the plasma cannon herd. The small low powered lasers aren’t useful against the clanship, and the surviving Krall warriors all appear to have retreated inside the ship. They have the portals open just a foot at the bottom, and take potshots from there. I didn’t even know you could hold a portal part way open.”

Carson asked the key question. “Have you sealed the ports or knocked out any of the big guns?”

“No. A short time ago the pilot used the undamaged upper attitude thrusters to slightly lift and rotate the ship a little, so we now have three plasma cannons to dodge from any side we approach, instead of two. We promptly knocked out more of those smaller thrusters. Their lighter power lasers are already dead, but they were worthless against a Dragon anyway. We are now down to six Dragons.”

“Oh no. Who did we lose?” Carson’s heart was in his throat.

“No one, just the tanks. The ceramic got cracked on two turrets when they had double plasma strikes, and they both refused to rotate after that. The cannon on one can’t elevate either. By the way, how the hell are you planning on coming over here? Don’t cross over the top of the ridges. They can see you up there as you get closer to the ship.”

“Nope, I’m driving over. The scenic route.” He sounded smug and casual.

 
“Be careful. Going around the ends is risky. There’s over a mile and a half of open territory to cover, all of it exposed to the ship’s fire. If you drive out of the valley, they see you immediately. That shield is not enough protection on one of the carts.” He grew more somber. “We verified Jolene didn’t make it when her cart flipped. The follow up lasers found her in the open where she’d been thrown.”

“Damn.” He was sickened. Carson had once been on a date with Jolene. “However, I’m not on a battery cart, I’m in one of the armored transports, and guess what? They have double batteries of plasma cannons that lift up out of the roof of each section.” You use consoles like on the carts, except from safely inside the heavy armor.”

“Uh, they have big clear windshields don’t they? Are you planning on backing up all the way here?”

He looked through the clear windshield at the right side half of the clanship he could see. “God! I’m a moron. I’m turning into the next valley before I get too close.” He whipped the large truck to the left, and drove it along the lower slope of a hillside, to keep only a slender view of the clanship in sight, and limit how much exposure he had to their laser or plasma fire. They may have been waiting for him to get close, to ravage the cab and its driver. He felt pretty much like a nitwit at the moment, rather than someone bringing reinforcements.

As he pulled into the opening of the next valley, he saw the fourth largest transport, just like the one he was driving, and several standard size trucks and halftracks. There were also thirteen plasma battery carts. This is where they ducked into the valley to avoid the heavy fire from the clanship. He didn’t see anyone, until he noticed that three of the batteries were tracking him, pivoting to keep him in their sights.

Damn, from frying pan into the fire
, as Maggi often said.

He was about to become a friendly fire incident because they didn’t know he was coming. The only Links were with Ethan and Conrad, in the Dragons.

He jammed on the brakes, and leaped out, waving his arms and shouting. They were a half mile farther into the valley, but his echoing shouts were clearly in Standard, and they could see he was human of course. Brian stepped out from behind a battery that had tracked him, and waved him to continue. He returned to the cab in time to kick the Krall in the head and shove him back to the other side. The cripple had tried to reach either the rifles in the door pocket, or the steering yoke. He didn’t have any of the Death Lime paralyzing agent, and had no sure way to make him harmless, since he’d found nothing to bind him with that was very strong.

Most of the others had taken shelter near the other transport, leaving just four on guard with the cannons. It turned out they had recent information, if not up to the minute news, of the action on the other side of the ridge. Peter Godwin was on the ridge top as an observer, and came down low enough to shout them the news every five minutes or so.

Carson showed them the Krall captive, and mind shared what he had learned from him, and how the transports all had guns. He mentioned that he’d almost let himself be killed by driving towards the clanship in the open. Carol Slobovic noticed his leg, and asked about his burnt pant leg he was holding over the burn injury.