Koban: Rise of the Kobani (2 page)

The Avenger and Beagle followed the Mark into a lower orbit, taking up a tight formation again, enabling them to use the intercept-proof laser com communications.

Two hours later, after a second pass over the largely Krall controlled land mass, Reynolds had two likely landing areas for Mirikami to consider.

“There is a really wild and undeveloped area in the Sredna Gora mountain range with multiple valleys and canyons, where there are few roads and less likelihood of anyone spotting us landing, or of stumbling on us after we are down.” He shook his head. “I don’t like that as the first choice because it’s so far from the combat lines we need to cross, and its very inaccessibility would make it hard for us to contact Poldark forces, and then to get the supplies we need.”

“You said you didn’t like it as the ‘first choice,’ so I presume you have one you like better.”

“Yes. It’s a small former Special Ops base on the edge of what was the front line when I was captured, and we were being pushed back from there at the time. I know it well because that underground base is one I had used for months, and it had just been evacuated. It’s where I helped stage the ambush that killed the Krall invasion leader, and which indirectly led to my own capture. Multiple concealed entrances were in that box canyon, where there are steep cliff sides and a curve in the canyon where the ship would be hidden from the opening to the box canyon valley for passersby. The cliffs are several hundred feet higher than this clanship…, I mean than the Mark is. It’s also in the foothills of the Sredna Gora range, on the same side of the mountains closer to where I think the PU Army will be fighting now.”

“You don’t think the Krall will be using your old base themselves?”

Sarge shook his head. “They never have before, not even when they push us out of a small field command post. They know we have miniature spy bots, disguised as insects and small animals, which we leave behind in areas we abandon. They learned the hard way that we ‘cowardly’ sneaky humans sometimes mine our underground lairs, to blow up and bury their red, scaly, colored asses under millions of tons of rock. They make underground bunkers for their own use, and stay out of ours.”

“It’s safe for us to use that old base ourselves?” Mirikami asked.

“Probably. We have to check it out first, but it had long tunnels leading away from its center under the foothills in all directions, which would let us surface miles from where the ship is hidden.”

“W
on’t our own people going inside trigger the booby traps?” Noreen was asking what was on Marlyn’s mind as well. Both of their sons, Carson and Ethan, and husbands, Dillon and Thad, were part of Mirikami’s landing party.

“Nope. They use life-form discrimination detectors Ladies.” He answered, and then he grinned. “Fancy pants words for saying they can tell the difference between Krall and humans, or even from animals that might enter the tunnels. At some point, if a mined but still occupied base was being overrun by Krall, a seriously detrimental ratio of enemy to human is reached in different sections. Those areas would blow first, where the most Krall are located, and there could be collateral losses of our people trapped there or captured. However, remember that the Krall don’t let prisoners live to a peaceful ripe old age anyway.”

Tet wanted details of the tunnels. “How far away could those tunnels take us? Into or even behind the Poldark lines?”

Reynolds seemed to think for a moment. “I don’t think they would go that far. At the rate we were losing ground, I’d expect the Krall to have pushed our forces back a dozen miles from where the longest tunnel I recall came to the surface. I never used all of the tunnels personally, so I can’t be sure. It was a forward post for the spec ops troops, and our ambush teams came along when the Krall were on the doorstep. We tried to suck their lead elements into artillery ambushes or mine fields.” He paused to think for a moment.

“You know…, I said we leave spy bots behind, so there could be some crawling on the walls inside. We might get one or two of them to report seeing humans in the tunnels, to set up some sort of remote meeting. I don’t know how good they are at talking back to us if they report seeing humans. I wasn’t part of the ‘spook’ division, and the Krall wouldn’t make for good conversationalists, so the spy bots might provide only a one way street to the listeners.”

Tet nodded. “OK. In any case, I like the proximity to the Poldark lines, and the ship should have good cover. Frankly, I’m not worried about the Krall questioning our ship being there, since they already control the area. They’ll assume we are some clan of raiders on our own business, at least if the ship is only seen from a distance. The PU Army, however, will shoot first at a clanship, and ask no questions at all. How wide is that canyon compared to this ship? How much room will I have to set down?”

Reynolds closed his eyes a moment to visualize the canyon the last time he’d seen it, with Dragon mini tanks chasing his team. “It’s roughly twice as wide as the ship for most of its length, and actually opens up a bit near the back wall at the end of the box canyon.” Reynolds could only fly a shuttle, so a large vertical landing ship, like the Mark of Koban, was outside his expertise as a pilot.

Mirikami pulled at his lip. “I’ll have to slow and hover over the canyon for a moment to get centered. Unless the wind is high that day, I should be able to counter any side drift. I don’t want to still be evading missiles or chase planes when I go vertical and settle. The long-range sensors show that Navy Carrier you said was usually here. It’s standing off and parked out by the inner gas giant, orbiting one of its moons. How many of its fighters do you think would be in the inner system?”

Reynolds shrugged. “I was a dirt pounder. I know that sometimes the one or two man fighters would come in for cover and air support if our forces were being hit in the rear by single ships. It took a four or five to one advantage to take on one of their single ships, and our pilots stayed well away from the Dragons and front lines, since those portable plasma cannons can knock them down from five or even ten miles away.

“Our pilots and planes are far and away more maneuverable than a single ship in atmosphere, since they have wings, and a single ship is a simple tube that farts propellant to turn or accelerate.
It also as Normal Space drives with tachyon Traps, usually for operation in space. It is much faster and has heavier armament than our space planes, but a Krall pilot isn’t as good as our people, once they leave orbit and hit air, even if a Krall
can
take much greater acceleration.

“The atmosphere is a big drag, literally, on their effectiveness as air attack fighters or bombers. Our smart missiles are better, because they aren’t as easily spoofed by electronic counter measures, and they don’t cause collateral damage for our side if they can’t score a hit. Naturally, the Krall don’t give a shit about what happens if they miss. However, I don’t
think
you will have any fighters try to close with us. The lasers or plasma cannons of a clanship can vaporize them, and its own tough hull and stealth make it hard for them to hit or damage. They won’t know that we aren’t trying to kill them, and they’ll stay away.

“However, our planes and ground Batteries
can
fire some long-range missiles, if they can get targeting information from the Turb AI. Our safest course is to descend over Krall territory where the planes can’t fly and the ground launchers are at extreme range and then we can approach the canyon at tree top level from there.”

“What sort of AI?” Marlyn asked. “Tub did you say?”

“Turb, for turbulence detection. The PDC fills the air with microwaves, and a grid of ground detectors sense the refraction from atmospheric disturbances that the AI examines. There is a lot of turbulence that is natural, from storms and such, particularly over windy mountain ranges. However, none is long and vertically tubular at high altitudes, as when a Krall craft penetrates fast, nor does nature often form horizontal tubes at lower altitudes, as we’d make during high-speed horizontal travel. Those are most likely a fast moving clanship or single ship making a penetration, and if there is no corresponding hard radar or laser reflection, then it’s targeted as a stealthed enemy.”

“Is it accurate?” Noreen wanted to know.

“Fairly accurate, but the Krall don’t fly a nice straight line, and there is a slight lag in detection as the atmosphere reacts to a ship’s passing, so the ship may have changed direction by the time the Turb AI has a targeting solution. Before I was captured, one case that was initially touted as a destroyed clanship proved not to be, when no debris was found. Investigation and recordings revealed the Army had successfully killed a funnel cloud, by heat disruption with lasers and plasma cannons.”

He laughed. “It was an expensive triumph for violent weather control however.”

Mirikami chuckled with him for a moment. “I think we will try a more sedate entry, and attract a lot less attention.”

Reynolds had a cautionary warning. “If the sky is clear there is a chance the ripple effect can show us up, and then you don’t have velocity to get you out of harm’s way as quickly.”

Noreen was exasperated. “Damn it. Our sons and husbands, and our friends will be aboard the Mark! You included, you big negative sounding goof! Isn’t there any simple way to sneak in quietly? What the hell is the ripple effect?”

He smiled, and explained. “Take a perfectly clear glass sphere and tie it to a thin string and hang it from a ceiling.  Then push it to send it oscillating around a normal room filled with lights, furniture, and objects on the walls. The sphere is almost perfectly transparent, but unless it’s motionless, you can see it easily because of how it affects the light passing through it from the other side as it moves. A stealthed ship is somewhat like that. The armor I wore in combat had active camouflage, and blended me in with the background, even matching the surrounding temperature for a low infrared contrast. Nevertheless, if I moved very much, or too fast, I became faintly noticeable. That’s the ripple effect.”

Mirikami tried to ease their worries. “Ladies, I’m hoping to find a major storm system with high cloud tops and lots of turbulence, and try to sink into that for screening as long as I can.”

“Right over the canyon you plan to use? How long will you have to sit and wait for a storm like that?” Marlyn wondered.

Mirikami shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to do it over the destination point anyway. I have two-thirds of a large continent where the Krall are located to find a suitable storm. It’s spring in the northern hemisphere. There should be frequent thunder storms, right Sarge?” He knew Reynolds would agree, because not only was it an accurate statement, but because that was something they had discussed while in Jump transit.

Reynolds tried to reassure them. “There are afternoon storms over coastal regions every day and some big ones in the central area of the continent of Macedonia often located somewhere along that mountain chain where we want to land. There was one storm building there when we arrived, but it will have dissipated before we are ready to make the entry. There’ll be others.”

****

“Gatlek Pendor,” Kaldot called to his superior. “The three clanships you inquired about have not left orbit. They are maintaining stealth and formation, and no clan has announced them as theirs. However, because of their action to move away, I do not think they carry the expected supplies from
Telda Ka.” They were waiting for replacement Dragon mini-tanks, and automated laser defenses against the annoying human artillery. These were being shipped from their base world, named K1 by the humans.

New warriors to participate in the war arrived loosely, as various clans chose to send them. Except for small, brief raids on other human worlds, they were not permitted to take independent action on Poldark without coordination with the Gatlek, and were subject to his orders when they attacked any designated target or fought along any front. Until then they were free to land, to become acclimated to the local gravity, climate, and terrain, and to train their warriors here.

Pendor answered his Mordo clan mate and aid, “Advise me of what they do after they decide to land, Kaldot. They may be waiting for more of their clan to arrive. I have no interest in them if they did not bring the weapons I requested.”

Pendor had only found it necessary to conduct two punitive raids against uncooperative clanship commanders, whom had refused to coordinate with him, or had deliberately not obeyed his orders. They had been removed forcibly, and in the standard Krall tradition, fatally. For one thing, rampaging over the humans was “wasteful” of their potential as worthy enemies. For another, that worthy enemy was adept at making a strategic withdrawal, allowing a foolish clan sub leader to pursue beyond his logistics train, only to be flanked and cut off, subject to annihilation by a physically weaker enemy. This was an inefficient method of culling warriors because smarter and better fighters died with the poor sub leader.

Pendor had no complaint about such a sub leader being eliminated from the gene pool more efficiently, if he or she was being too brash or stupid to contribute to the new genetic reorganization. Tor Gatrol Kanpardi had set a higher goal for racial improvement on the Great Path, and it had been approved by the joint clan council. A poor sub leader was expendable, but competent warriors compelled to follow him might be wasted as a result. Too many useful genes could be lost as young breeders, having greater potential than their over aggressive slow-to-learn higher status leader, died with him.