Koban: Rise of the Kobani (24 page)

Today, these warriors had learned about the maximum timing of five seconds for a thrown grenade. They also knew that they could blow even sooner if held for a short time before being thrown. However, they still thought it was safe to attack after one exploded, if the second grenade’s arrival was masked by the first explosion. The lesson learned here would not be passed on to a novice, if the silence on the opposite side were any indication. To test that notion, Carson threw the two handles over, and heard their clinking on the deck. No response this time.

He had heard diminishing gunfire elsewhere, and there had been other grenade blasts heard, but it was growing quiet. He didn’t want to move farther toward the center of the arc of the barricades because that was an area the third TG was assigned.

He’d heard shooting in the center area that he assumed was from Clayton, but blinded as they were, friendly fire was all too possible. To call out in a human voice was to make you a Krall target, and to become as reckless as they were.

To be fair, the Krall had always depended on their rapid halt of blood loss, redundant organs, and regrowth of limbs and organs to accept injuries their enemies could not survive. The accurate fire and reaction speed of the TGs had largely negated that tactic, because the Krall still only had one head. When the TGs encountered armored Krall, things might change.

In this assault, the thirty-two still unassembled Krall armor suits aboard were packed in cases on the third deck, waiting for a K’Tal or Prada slave to assemble, and then adjust them to fit individual warriors.

Carson risked another glimpse through watering eyes, and thought the white was a bit grayer now, and it definitely wasn’t any hotter than his body temperature now. His activity had raised his temperature via his high metabolism, and the air was definitely cooler. That meant the TGs would be visible to infrared vision before they could see the Krall, in what everyone called the visible light range.

The TGs definitely needed the vision enhancements that the ripper genes offered. For now, perhaps they could use what the spec ops troops had in the interim. He thought of a way to “borrow” that capability.

Carson was thinking of some way to contact the others by Link, but remain somewhat protected if overheard by a Krall. He moved back to the remembered barrier location, felt along the side of the freezers, and at the second one, he felt the recessed slot for a door release near the top. That meant the door was on his side, and the hinges on the floor. He gently opened the door and backed away to lower it softly to the floor, then moved inside the still cool large compartment. The spicy odor of Raspani meat still pervaded the now empty space, but he had a degree of protection on all but one side.

“Jakob, Link between all,” he said softly, his rebreather removed for a moment, then returned.

“Ready Sir.”

Taking a deep breath, he started. “This is Carson. Kill the fans below to stop the fumes. We need to see up here.” Fresh breath.  “Only the Krall can see as the steam cools, but don’t anyone on the assault team reply and attract Krall attention.” Breath. “Captain Longstreet, are you Linked? We need IR surveillance up here.”

“T
his is Longstreet. My men and I just moved up to the deck below you. We have our own eyeball IR sensors, and all of us are on the Link. We also have some mobile spy bots with IR, to turn lose up there. Ask your people to hold their fire at noises by the stairs, and we can take a look over the edge to tell you what we see.”

“Good idea, Sir. Identify my stairwell as number one, and count clockwise to report the view at other stairs. Break! Assault team TGs, don’t react to sounds by the stairwell. Spec ops will look and tell us what they can see. They are sending spy bots, so please don’t swat the bugs.”

If the spec ops guys came part way up the stairs he didn’t hear them, but soon heard the faint skitter of one or more spy bot bugs on the deck. One came directly towards him.

“Hello Carson,” Longstreet’s voice sounded. “The bot in front of you spotted you inside that box. What is that, a freezer? Don’t answer. The Krall laying on top of your box is obviously dead, as were three others we can see on the deck close by the stairs. Wait while the bot climbs up to check the back side of the barricade.”

The six-legged little bug, currently the color of the gray deck, scuttled on padded feet to the edge of the freezer, where the footpads turned slightly sticky to let it swiftly run up the side to the top. There was a wait of a couple of minutes.

Longstreet’s voice returned. “Carson, at stair well number one, your own location, we see six dead Krall and none moving near you or the man closest to you at the center of the barricade. Hold on…, the other bot can see your third man, at the other side. He is also clear of any moving Krall, with a dead one beside him on the deck. I’ll see what our other bots have reported.” He was quiet for a moment.

“Conrad, over at stairwell three there is a wounded warrior, and both legs are apparently useless. It’s behind a table and a storage area, twenty feet towards deck center from your stairwell, where he must have crawled. He’s close to you, and armed with a rifle and two pistols. He’s looking your way and may sense your heat signature. To our spy bots, all of you kids glow like flames through that hazy and moist warm air. If you move, it will see the glow shift and provide a sure target.”

Conrad answered. “I hit him with my rifle after a grenade blast made him howl. I heard him drag himself, but had no shot that didn’t reveal my position as the air grew clear. How valuable is that spy bot?”

“Cheap, why?”

“If it can draw the Krall into shooting it, I can take him out when I see his flash or hear him fire.”

“Hold on, I’ll tell my man to move it closer, and then have it make a noise.”

Carson suddenly heard two plasma bolts fired in rapid succession from the opposite side of that deck level, where Conrad was located.

“Nice shot. Another good Krall,” spoke Longstreet.

“Good Krall, Sir?” was Conrad’s query.

“Yes. A dead Krall is a good one.”

“Right, Sir. How many others do you see?”

Longstreet was a half-minute answering. “A Krall head count of dead from all stairwells on that deck comes to twenty-five. How sure are your people that the original number had shrunk to that level?”

Carson stepped in. “We know from the clanship commander that there were a hundred thirty, including him. We’ve counted a hundred five bodies, including the fifteen dead at the other valley and the commander in that total. He had six K’Tal in brown suits. One of those he left on the command deck. We killed two brown suits on lower decks. How many do you see dead on this deck?”

Another brief pause. “There are four brown suits. Why does that matter?”

“Their commander helped me discover that the warriors were all novices and had no pilot training or clanship experience, so only a K’Tal would stay on the top deck. The last of them were all gathered here to fight us, since the ship could no longer fly or fire its weapons.”

“I’d be careful accepting his word before moving around until the smoke clears. I wouldn’t put a lie out of the realm of possibility, son.”

“Oh, he would have lied to me, if that were possible, Sir. But we can detect that attempt.” Realizing he was raising a question he couldn’t answer, he used a diversion. “We have him drugged, you know.” So far, Longstreet had not been provided access to the Krall, just allowed to see the captive. He didn’t know he was so paralyzed he was unable to speak.

Carson tested his eyes again, because the ship’s air filtration had been switched back on now that the smoke trick had run its course. The previous burning still left them watery, but the sting was less sharp now, and the air was clearing by the minute. He maintained awareness as he climbed out of concealment and looked around, keeping the rebreather in place. He could see the outline of the Krall corpse right on top of the freezer where he’d been concealed. Another two feet away and he’d have seen only gray mist. That IR ability had to be the next mod they added.

In five minutes, he could see fifty feet through the thinning haze, and Longstreet told him that he wanted to come up, along with some of his men. Carson agreed, and he alerted Conrad by Link, and then called out the warning to Carol and Brian who had no transducers.

A couple of dozen TGs followed the spec ops up, without rebreathers, because Carson had only been provided twenty, some of which were spares the spec ops carried. He removed his own as Longstreet approached, Thad close behind. The air was tangy and acidic, but safe.

He handed Longstreet the nine inch wide, one-inch thick tube with attached soft mouthpiece and nose clip. “Thanks, this stunt would not have been possible without your man’s idea on incendiary rounds, and these gadgets.”

Thad added. “It is those ideas and gadgets we want, and want training in order to make use of them. With the proper equipment and know how, we might not have lost any of the six people we did today.”

Longstreet nodded, but looked around the area at the dead Krall, strewn around inside their clanship. “I would have thought an assault like this would be very difficult against a human ship. You kicked Krall asses the way they kick ours.” He seemed to think for a moment then shrugged.

“I know I’ll get the same answer if I ask how you did it, that you have mysterious abilities which you can’t explain yet. However, I can tell you things we obviously have seen, that you know we know from firsthand observation.

“You have strength well beyond what a high gravity world would furnish a human, because my men and I train on Heavyside. Your TGs display extreme reaction speeds, which easily exceed that of a Krall warrior. Their warriors benefit from
thousands
of years of breeding for those traits. My IR vision and our bots see your TGs as virtual heat torches after they have been in combat for a few minutes, demonstrating a greatly elevated metabolism. We also saw your TGs eat a mountain of high-energy food bars they carry with them, to keep fueling those bodies. We have some similar snacks that we use on missions, which serve the same purpose.

“You, Dillon, and Sarge,” he was looking at Thad, “don’t have this capability, but you do have increased ability similar to my own, when I wear a Booster Suit. However, the elevated ability
is
available in your children. I know what that implies, and the implication will be obvious to others in the PU Army, and in the Hub. I truly want what you have achieved for my own use, and fear I can’t have it because you don’t have it, Thad. I’ll tell you that I personally will support your group in any way I can.

“This conversation is off the record by the way. I am not Linked or recording. My greatest loyalty is to humanity, more than to an organization. I love spec ops, but I devoted myself to it to try to slow the Krall advances. I see it may be possible to do more than that.” He had put his cards on the table, at personal risk for his career.

“Captain, we appreciate your support, and your words will be held in confidence. When we are in a position to explain ourselves, I will specifically make an effort to contact you in private, if you can provide a means to do that.”

“Thad, I’ll leave contact information with your AI and Captain Mirikami. I suspect I’ll be meeting him shortly. Considering none of you is active military, with perhaps the exception of Sarge down below, I see no reason we can’t be on a first name basis. My first name is Joseph, and big surprise, I go by Joe.”

“Joe it is, Joe. Now, if we have cleared all of the Krall on this wreck, we need to finish stripping it of what we can use, and get the hell out of here.”

“Carson,” Thad turned back to his nephew, only to find he had left while the older men were talking.

He spotted Clayton descending the stairwell from the next deck. “Where’s Carson? He was right here.”

“He’s on the command deck with Conrad, Sir. I just came from there. Nobody was home because all the survivors gathered down here, to make their last stand. We’re taking anything of interest back to the Mark, like the five Katushas we found up there. I want to drive a Dragon back. I just Tapped Conrad for operating instructions, and I’m going down to make a claim on one before the others learn we’re keeping them.” He grinned, and leaped down to the next level without using the steps.

****

Mirikami nodded his approval. “That distribution seems reasonable.” He was talking about the Krall heavy transports parked in a circle around the Mark, and the three disabled Dragons they had towed here were with them.

It appeared as if the Mark was under siege, and they were about to increase that appearance, by using the plasma cannons and lasers to mark up the terrain and vehicles. There were sixty-four armed Krall bodies placed inside and around them. It wouldn’t exactly explain the other destroyed clanship and its dead complement, or what clan had been in the missing clanship that was parked here. However, the extended Dragon and transport tracks, and signs of fighting in multiple valleys, would convey a confusing scene of possible interclan fighting.

“Gentlemen, the youngsters did all of the shooting today. Now it’s our turn.”

With the ship sealed, and the remaining five Dragons aboard, with samples of other Krall equipment, such as their weapons, armor, and four plasma cannon carts, it was safe to blast away. Sarge, Dillon, Thad, and Mirikami played target practice.