Koban: Rise of the Kobani (17 page)

A different voice, from another direction, confirmed there was at least one other person watching them. “Don’t forget your other Krall gifts. The pistols and belts as well. Don’t even check the safeties. Keep your hands clear of the gun butts, and lower them to the floor by the belts.”

“Do what he says people.” Thad also did as directed, but he was discomfited by the reference to
other Krall gifts
. Clearly, they were under a cloud of suspicion from whoever this was. On reflection, Greeves wasn’t very surprised by their suspicion. They had access to a Krall ship and weapons, which other humans could not operate.

A third voice came from another direction, obviously conveying that they were surrounded. “Shuffle straight ahead until we tell you to stop. Make sure you don’t trip and fall on a weapon until you are all clear. That could cause one of ours to go off with a fatal result for the clumsy person.”

Thad repeated the advice. “Keep your boots on the floor as you shuffle, gently shove anything aside you encounter. They don’t know yet we came here to offer them help and the intelligence they need. We need to convince them we are allies.”

“Shut up Greeves! No clues as to how you want them to behave. We will get what we want from them without your damned help.” The sharp, nasty tone of voice from a fourth person showed there was more than professional caution being displayed. That man was definitely hostile.

The sounds of their boots scraping the floor lasted for a longer time than necessary for the last person in the group to have cleared the pile of weapons. Their captors were being extra cautious. Even in the blackness, Greeves knew they were still less than half way across the large parking area. The echoes confirmed that, and his now dark-adapted eyes caught a faint green glow from patches along the walls, where he recalled water seeps were present. It was the faint glow of the bioluminescence of algae growths, which Reynolds had said were in the tunnels.

He saw multiple shadows briefly block the green glows from each side, and not from where he had heard the voices originate. There were at least a dozen of them to the sides. From slight noise, which they couldn’t fully avoid making, more of their captors were behind them, blocking access to the firearms. He detected no sounds from his front, which meant that they now had clear lanes of fire at their captives, with no risk of cross fire to themselves. Professional certainly, but not comforting.

He suddenly realized they had not ordered them to remove their knives. The calf sheaths would be clearly visible to night vision. They were apparently not concerned, implying they probably wore armor. Only he had not heard the heavy thuds, and servo noise that he expected the powered armor Reynolds spoke about to make. Perhaps it was something lighter than heavy body armor. In any case, even knives in the hands of TGs could be deadly missiles to light armor. That meant they didn’t know anything about the capability of their younger captives. Including observing what the TGs had done scaling the distant cliffs, or fighting the Krall. At least not yet.

“Stop.” It sounded like the original voice from behind them. Perhaps the leader?

“Place your hands behind your heads, fingers interlaced. We will gradually bring the light up so that no one needs to fake a grimace or turn to avoid a bright light. Keep still and facing forward. A few of you shuffled to the sides and are slightly turned the wrong way. When you see the far wall, where you were headed when you came down the ramp, turn to face that way.”

The slowly increasing dim ceiling glow was easy on their eyes, and Greeves saw that Reynolds was several steps ahead of him to his left, and the far wall was perhaps fifty feet ahead. Too far to make a dash for any of the doors there, which were all closed anyway.

“Young lady with the dark hair, turn to your right and face the back wall.”

That had to be Kally, since the second girl with them, Miriam, had almost blond hair. It was the calm cool voice of the original speaker. He then confirmed he was in charge.

“My name is Captain Joseph Longstreet. I am in overall charge of the three teams that have captured you suspected collaborators.” The gasp of astonishment of the TGs was clear, but the accusation was not a surprise to either Greeves or Reynolds.

“That’s right! We have every reason to believe that you are cooperating with the Krall, and have been granted an encrypted key to use their equipment, such as the plasma rifles we just took from you. We watched you march out of the clanship and observed the departure of almost eighty more of you from the valley, and saw the Krall shuttle that followed them. I think the others are going to link up with the second clanship five miles from here, and this group was to either disarm the demolition charges here, or demonstrate that you could travel through the tunnels that Sergeant Reynolds knew were here, and lead closer to Novi Sad.”

They heard his no longer careful and quiet steps as he walked around the captives, and stopped to the right of Reynolds about ten feet away. He was carrying one of the Krall plasma rifles, pointing a human one in Reynolds general direction.

“Mr. Reynolds, I no longer consider you worthy of the rank you previously held, yet I would like to know what the Krall offered you to turn you to their side. You don’t appear to be particularly beaten down, as past collaborators have been, and your left arm has been regrown under their tender care. None of you appears to be in
poor shape. Why is that?”

He shrugged. “The answer is simple, if difficult to believe, because none of us have been turned by the Krall. The parts of our force you saw leave just now is on their way to finish the attack we started on the Krall clanship you mentioned. A smaller force captured some parked Dragons and portable plasma cannons, and used those to disable the main thruster so it can’t lift. They didn’t have enough people with them to take the ship after they knock out the main guns, so we sent them some help. There are over a hundred Krall warriors still aboard the other ship.”

“That’s a nice bit of bullshit Reynolds. I was only told to bring a few of you back alive. I don’t need you if you intend to tell me fairy tales.” He raised his rifle.

Thad spoke up. “Not only is that the truth, but your satellite surveillance can easily confirm the activity there. We’ve lost two of our group to their return fire, and have killed at least fifteen Krall, using their own captured weapons against them.”

“I think you saw the same cloud cover that I did this afternoon, so you are stalling for time. Did you really believe we would accept that you could steal their weapons, and then beat any of them using them? Except for the four older men we’ve seen, all of your so-called troops look like kids, and about a third are girls. I heard you address them as TGs. What does that designate?”

“I am a Second Generation product of a project to improve humans so they can fight the Krall, an SG if you will. These younger people are Third Generation, or TGs. If I’m not mistaken, you yourself are a member of Special Ops, a group that is a product of another project to increase human effectiveness against the Krall. Our TGs are almost certainly a far greater step in that direction than you have achieved. We came to Poldark specifically to show General Nabarone what we can do, and to share intelligence and technology that you do not have. I was once a friend of the general.”

“We know, and his link to you has been discovered. However, I don’t answer to the general because my chain of command is outside his control. Don’t plan on an appeal to his friendship to protect you. I’m authorized to execute any of you that I deem uncooperative. One thing I need from you right now is access to the key that allows you to operate a Krall plasma rifle. And per your unsubstantiated claim, use their Dragons, clanships, I presume, and that shuttle that just departed.”

Thad nodded. “That is correct, we wear such a key, and we came prepared to share it with the rest of humanity.”

“Wear the key?”

“Yes, each of us does. It is embedded in some sort of quantum matrix, which every Krall bears. We have some of the tools that can embed the key in anyone that is willing to wear the stigma of a Krall tattoo.”

“You have got to be shitting me!” He looked sharply at Kally, when she snickered.

“I’ll make this a lot less amusing young woman, if you wish. I’ll not grant you the honorific of Lady until I think it’s deserved. What is your name?”

“Kally Murchifem, Sir. I have a Krall tattoo that allows me to use their equipment. It marks me as what they once termed a ‘worthy enemy’ to one of us. I wear it proudly.” Her cool confident voice clearly had caught Longstreet off guard. Neither she nor any of the young captives appeared particularly afraid or cowed.

“This is the same kind of mark at the throat that all of the Krall wear? I see you all have them covered if you wear them. You aren’t quite as proud as you claim, are you?”

Kally answered for herself. “We were ordered to cover them until we had a chance to explain their purpose. However, I don’t think you have ever seen any like the one we wear. May I show you? All I need do is open the top button of my tunic to show the base of my neck, using one hand.”

Longstreet leveled his rifle at her and said, “Slowly, one hand only, keep the other hand behind your head.”

She slowly and smoothly used her left hand to release the button, and folded both sides of the tunic away, revealing the black oval. “Do you want me to turn around to show every one, Sir?”

“Go ahead, slowly.”

She made a graceful slow
pirouette
on her right foot, both hands back behind her head now. She stepped down from the rotation precisely where she had started.

Shifting his rifle to cover Greeves and Reynolds, Longstreet ordered them to open their shirt tops one handed. The captain merely stepped forward a few yards to see their tattoos.

“You claim that is the key. I know for a fact we have cut those from dead Krall and they did not allow anyone to activate Krall devices.”

Thad gave him the only answer he had. “We don’t know how they work. It’s based on technology that even the Krall don’t understand. They received it from an ancient race that tried to help them become civilized. They killed the Olt’kitapi for their atte
mpt to help them. That same species designed their clanships, and probably designed the weapons and tools the Krall use. We have some of the ancient tools they call Katushas, made by that advanced race, which can apply the tattoos. Once you have the tattoo, it allows humans to use Krall weapons and equipment. We have reason to believe it uses some quantum property, and when the wearer dies, the key becomes useless in less than an hour.”

Longstreet reached down with a pointed tool he pulled from a breast pocket, and pressed the recessed talon release point on the power pack of the Krall rifle he held. Retaining the power pack, he motioned one of his men over to take the rifle. “Kally, please step out of the group and stop in front of me.”

She walked in that oddly easy glide that he’d noticed all of the younger people seemed to use. Graceful, with a strange impression of strength conveyed as they moved, almost cat like.

She halted three feet in front of him, ignoring the several rifles that had tracked her movement.

“Kally, these power packs can be activated by a Krall, even without being attached to a rifle, to check their level of charge. Show me how to do that please.” He offered her the pack.

She accepted the device, and then he noticed for the first time that she wore a thimble-like cap on one finger, with a short bluntly pointed tip to act as a talon. She smoothly depressed the recessed power activation button, and the charge indicator lights brightened to show it had a full charge, then the lights dimmed, as was usual. She looked up at him, and handed the power pack back to him, with an invitation. “If you hold the pack and my hand, you can also do that using your pointed talon substitute. If you let go of my hand, the pack will only stay activated for ten or twelve seconds.”

“Just like it works when we have a freshly dead warrior,” he replied. “No thanks, I don’t need a demonstration, I’ve done it before for real. Please step back a few feet, but don’t return to your previous spot.”

He appeared to want her covered within the group, but perhaps might have more questions for someone he considered the most helpless member of the twenty-two of them. Thad suppressed a smile at that, knowing he and Sarge were the weak links of this group.

He looked at Greeves. “Where is one of the tattoo applying tools you described? You called it a Katusha?”

“We have a number of them, but I didn’t bring any with us because they are irreplaceable without capturing another clanship, or killing a Krall that carries one. We intended to use those as trade goods to negotiate for supplies and for the training of our TGs to fight the Krall. We also have some single ships that work, if you have a tattoo, and when we take the other clanship, you are welcome to that, minus any small weapons we need ourselves.”

“You are not in a position to negotiate. Besides, how many years do you think it would take to teach your mostly teenagers here to fight a Krall?”

“Captain, I happen to know that you are very seriously underestimating what these youngsters can do. Any one of them is already more than a match for any two unarmed Krall you have ever seen. I dare say, unarmed, none of your men present here, all twenty or thirty of them I presume, could beat any three of these kids, and probably not the two girls alone.”