Koban: Rise of the Kobani (27 page)

Noreen smiled, and agreed.  She and Tet knew that Jake, their AI, had actually described the alternative to the Krall solution, which was to kill enough captives so that the remainder would fit in his clanship for the journey to Koban. Mirikami had talked the Krall raid leader into trying the trick.

Marlyn would move close to the cargo pod, capture an extreme high-energy tachyon and enclose it and the Beagle in a large event horizon, then Jump in a zigzag route home, to prevent any possible tracking of where she was headed. That was how the Flight of Fancy had reached Koban, towed by Parkoda’s clanship, with all of her people.

“Noreen, your delivery pod will be considerably smaller, but rather than stay here under so many eyes, unstealthed, I suggest you also tow it to where you can dock and bring it all aboard safely. After that, you are good to go on your own excursion. I’ll see that you receive a recording that fills you in on some details you can use to your advantage.”

They wanted her to know where the spec ops training bases were located, and had some details that Nabarone had gathered about Heavyside.

Mirikami didn’t care to confide in Trakenburg concerning their plan to visit there. The colonel, remaining secretive, had agreed that two of his teams would provide some training, but assumed it would be a long-term mission. He wasn’t committed to divert his troops from their real mission of slowing the Krall and disrupting their supply lines.

“Our TGs will be receiving some advanced training from specialized troops, which are currently considered the best that humanity has to offer. That opinion will be short lived, when they discover how fast these youngsters absorb everything they are taught, and quickly outstrip their teachers.

“Marlyn, I want to make a stop at home for some modifications. Please have Rafe, Aldry, and Maggi prepare for that. Tell them there will also be older models needing modern upgrades.” He knew she understood most of what he meant.

More TGs would get the TG1 contact telepathy mods from ripper genes. They also had learned in the clanship assault that TGs needed vision, scent, and hearing enhancements as well, to gain every possible advantage when facing the Krall. They couldn’t count on spec ops eyesight and knowledge where they were going next.

What Noreen and Marlyn didn’t know was that the four men on the Bridge of the Mark of Koban had made firm decisions, involving personal risks. They couldn’t shelter the TG1s from the necessary risks the coming fight forced on them, but they would
not
increase that level of risk by their having leaders that were physically too weak and slow to go with them. They were the older models needing upgrades, and Rafe had said that it was risky for people not born as SGs, with the technology he had. It was time to find out how risky.

Having started the wheels turning, Mirikami grimaced. “Gentlemen, we had better get a few hours of sleep. Trakenburg says his trainers will have our TGs assembled on the floor of the crater at 0600 local time, for ‘vigorous exercises,’ as he described them. He’ll let us sleep late this one morning only because we just had a long tough arrival day. The four of us are expected to be there. We have less than five hours. Enjoy your naps.”

****

Three days later, the supply pods were on their way to fifteen hundred mile equatorial orbits, with the Avenger and Beagle watching on their sensors. It was evening, for the time zone where the Mark was located.

Both wives had figured out Mirikami’s initially cryptic remarks about upgrading “older models.” Dillon had explained to her how Carson had needed to finish the landing on Poldark, after a series of violent maneuvers to avoid missiles had left only the TGs conscious. If the mission had
required
the SGs to be in full control, or Mirikami had not arranged for Carson to be on the Bridge, they all would have died.

The older men were now working out to get in better physical shape and as an example for the youngsters that nobody was exempt. The chief wisely stayed on the ship.

Noreen was laughing as her husband picked up the com line. “Carson was on watch, and he said he had to wake you up to take my call. It’s not even nine in the evening there. Getting a bit worn out aren’t we, future superman?”

“Don’t try to make me laugh,” he groaned. “My ribs and abs ache from the damned sit ups.”

“You do those all the time.”

“Not with a two-foot thick, twenty-foot long ironwood log on my chest, which I share lifting with Thad, Sarge, and even Tet, the four of us laid out in a row.

“You should see the solid metal posts they had to find for our TGs to use. Ironwood doesn’t grow thick or heavy enough to challenge the kids, so they brought in some thick steel poles used to build Dragon tank barriers. The mini-tanks themselves are not that hard to stop, but the plasma cannons burn through anything else too quickly. They weigh a ton. Actually, a lot more I think. The four of us can’t even pick one up. Three TGs can, and one of those was a small girl.”

Noreen was puzzled. “I don’t understand why they are pushing the TGs to exercise. They are ten times as strong as normal people already.”

“Hon, it’s part of team building, and just because they start strong, that doesn’t mean they are as fit as they can be. The instructors can’t match them, but have cut them no slack. Four of the TGs have already said they don’t want to do this. They didn’t like the fighting and killing on the clanship. They want a position on the Beagle, after we get home, or to join in the exploration of our other continents. Exploring is more to their liking. Tet told them they would get that chance, and informed all of our complement that there was no stigma in looking for a noncombat role, if that new role could still help our colony move ahead.” He checked his thumbnail watch, which he’d set to glow in his dark sleeping compartment.

“I have to get up at 0330, to be dressed and outside before the TGs assemble there in the morning at 0400. I’m supposed to be a perky and
wide-awake leader example for them. I hate early mornings.”

“Poor baby. I mainly called to tell you that the Avenger is Jumping in an hour. I’ve just matched orbits with my pod. It’s even larger than I expected, so I can’t wait to open the presents. Having an AI again will be nice. I already spoke with Carson and said my goodbyes, and he recorded messages for home, to go with Marlyn.

“She has parked next to her own pod, which is gigantic, over half the volume of the Beagle. I think she is talking to Thad and Ethan right now. I’m so pleased that boy is already out of the med lab. It looks like TGs are fast healers as well, with that high metabolism.” Here she paused, looking into the camera, and watching his face on her own screen.

“I needed to tell you I love you. I know that you know that, but I needed to say it directly. I think you may visit home before I do, and I’m worried about your decision. I understand it, and may even follow your example. Only, I don’t want you any crazier than you are now. Even if Maggi thinks that would be an improvement.” She laughed weakly.

Rafe had said that the ripper gene mods for telepathy might not attach properly to the neural receptors of the existing unused super conducting nerves in the older SGs. He thought that such a failure could disrupt the subject’s ability to think. The cold reference to “subject” concealed the possible mental breakdown of a person’s mind, if the new neural growths in the brain did not link properly.

Dillon looked back into the beautiful dark eyes and perfect shaped face of the woman he loved, longing for physical contact. “Lady, I love you too. Have a safe trip. I hope the ‘toys’ we bought you are to your liking.”

After breaking contact, Dillon was slow returning to sleep. 

****

Trakenburg was questioning Max, his AI. “So Nabarone’s Space Defense tried to trace the two outbound Jumps, but they only led to uninhabited systems?”

“Yes Sir. That’s what was reported to him. The two clanships apparently Jumped again immediately, and their wake in Tachyon Space was too diffuse for the tracking ships to follow after that. It appears the ship commanders are aware of our tracking capability.”

“I doubt Nabarone told them we had that ability, or he wouldn’t have tried to follow them. They could have figured it out some other way, it was discussed in the media after the two fleet actions years ago proved the Krall could do that.” Perhaps there were other clues.

“Max, you have listened to all of the conversations we recorded, and what they said before they knew we were listening. Have you found any clue as to where they came from?”

“Sir, there is a reference to a place called Koban a number of times, and they described the name of their new race of Homo sapiens as Kobanoid, another possible connection. However, there is no record of a planet discovery given that name. Their world must be well beyond the Rim area humanity has explored, and towards the region where the Krall originated. Beyond that, there is no definite clue to that world’s location.

“There are nearly a million stars within a wide cone, which is two thousand light- years deep along that galactic spur. Using T squared travel in Tachyon Space, even a three thousand light-year cone is within range of a two week Jump. Finding that particular planet would be more difficult than the often described
human metaphor of a needle in a haystack.”

“OK. What have the DNA scans from our samples told us about the four older men, and the four wounded young men that we treated in the med labs?”

“Sir, the first reports are listed as possibly contaminated for all eight of them. The results found repeated examples of genes that are not part of the human genome at all, and of other unusual genes that are human, but did not appear in the general human population. They were formerly used in clone development before the Collapse. The tests are being redone.”

“The clone genes I expected, but the new genes are what made the so called TGs so fast and strong. They are new, and I want to know more about them, so assume they are not contamination.”

“Sir, the unknown genes are very complex and completely unrecorded previously, even among alien life on our many settled planets. Only one scientist said they could have been designed entirely by a team of geneticists, but most of the investigative team thinks the new genes are too well integrated in the younger people, and most likely were transferred from some living host that had them naturally. The muscles and nervous system the new genes produce have a fully functional interface, with a now passive human neural system present, which is largely bypassed by the newer organic superconducting nerves

“The bones of the younger subjects have some carbon nano tube enhancements that appear genetically distinct from the muscle and nervous system changes. It is as if they have received multiple genes from other pre-existing biological organisms.”

Trakenburg had the answer. Most of it anyway. “They have inserted nonhuman genes! Probably copied from animals on that heavy gravity planet. They lied to us. They said the TGs were reproductively compatible with normal humans.” He was shocked, and angry.

“Sir, I have no information as to the veracity of those that told you reproduction with the general human population is possible by those young men. However, the statement itself is correct. The young men that were treated in the med labs are completely capable of reproduction with human females that do not have the same genetic modifications.”

“Oh…” That abruptly stemmed his flow of adrenalin and anger.

He resumed considering the AI’s purloined reports. Trakenburg had obtained the data via his backdoor access to Nabarone’s own AI database.

He tried to summarize what he knew. “So, all the foreign genes were inserted in the children, called TGs, born of the older generation, called SGs which have only the clone enhancements.”

Always patient with
wise humans and idiots alike, an AI corrected people with a subtle gentleness. “That is not the case at all, Sir.”

“I did not say nonhuman genes are absent in the DNA of the four older men. On the contrary. They have the same organic superconductor nervous system, in parallel to the normal nervous system, just as the TGs do, although it is nonfunctional. It was passed to the TGs at conception.”

“How can nonhuman genes be compatible with producing babies with ordinary women?” He was confused, and knew the AI surely had some other humbling revelation if he was only patient enough to let it “talk down” to him.

It came quickly. “You, Sir have
had children, and yet you contain a number of genes that were derived from nonhuman sources. A gene derived from an Earth shark species is responsible for modern human resistance to several forms of cancer. The absence of facial and chest hair on men is…” The AI was cutoff.

“Stop. I get it.”

Now all he wanted to know was could the next phase of the Heavyside project steal the genetics for building better spec ops soldiers. Not that Max had that answer. The next phase on Heavyside, which no one had admitted to him involved genetics, surely had to change direction. Hardware and Booster Suits could never match what these kids had done to the Krall warriors. The scientists had their genes tagged and knew where they fit into their own DNA.  What were needed were people that knew how to do the insertion work, and were willing to risk being caught and executed by their own government. Simple.