Koban: Rise of the Kobani (41 page)

Overall, Heavyside was considered a “shit hole” assignment for the military that was not part of Special Operations, with relatively few permanent residents, and nearly all of them living at Andropov. There was an orbital transfer station that handled shipments of goods inbound (other than spec ops troops, nothing was exported) and people coming and going. There was limited manufacturing of consumer products on the station, and medical care for residents that needed to get out of the gravity well.

The “industry” that sustained the small economy was the PU Army, using the secret budget for the black ops programs. The recruiting to get spec ops candidates brought many young men, and a few women, to the transfer station (most ignorant of what it really required). Many were filtered out early, in a section of the station where Heavyside gravity was maintained.

Being raised on or spending many years on the handful of settled planets with one g or greater gravity was essential. Earth, with a large population, was the lowest benchmark set for gravity of a home planet, but relatively few candidates came from there. As the heart of Hub society, Earth tended to produce fewer people willing to experience the hardships Special Operation demanded and inflicted on its candidates. None of them was told in advance of the surgical implants, performance drugs, or exomuscle booster suits they would almost live in. Not until after they made it through the tough physical training and initial team building, done on-planet.

Late physical washouts, or usually surgical and drug refusals at that level, were still offered prestigious and physically demanding enlistments in Ranger or PU Commando units. Now there were even newly formed Marine units, currently stationed on the largest Capitol ships. The lack of Navy combat fleet actions, with no Krall boarders to repel since the Rhama disaster, made those roles more ceremonial and largely a waste of their ability. They could and did serve as elite forces for protection from Krall raiders on worlds with Navy bases. They would join planetary defenders against raiders that the Krall still used to measure the strengths of future invasion targets, and for novice training.

Once candidates made it past the initial screening, observed by bored spec ops that were either on the temporary disabled list or on a punishment detail, they transferred down to Andropov. Many patriotic hopefuls arrived at the station, many uninvited by recruiters. Some were even criminals, so no effort was made to create records at this stage, thus not shutting the door to some that might have the aptitude for the dirty work. Seventy percent were never sent down to Heavyside anyway.  The selected thirty percent from the first screening were shuttled down to the planet. There, on Heavyside, they ran and performed calisthenics for a week. Normally, another ten percent of the original hopefuls were weeded out without ever wasting real training time on them.

At this stage, if you were still part of the more motivated group, instead of credits for a government paid trip home, the remaining twenty percent did some minimal paper work. It was still called that, even though an AI took the data, recorded your retinal patterns, hand and foot prints, and took a DNA sample. The candidates were promised the information would be kept completely confidential, and it
was
, because spec ops functioned somewhat like an interstellar Foreign Legion. This was where your past was forgiven if you could meet the requirements, and you became effectively a new citizen with a clean record. If not, you were allowed to leave without prejudice and the information collected expunged.

This commonly collected data started your records for the project, but contained no personal history or medical background. It only put your name on a company roster, and on a black Smart Fabric jumpsuit, which hinted at the carbon fiber exomuscle suit you could earn.

Half of those issued jumpsuits would not finish the following week. Therefore, a detailed personal history was not collected because it might not matter. The “jumpsuits,” their collective group name, were sent to
enjoy
hell week, with “The First Son of a Bitch,” to pick out the truly dedicated, unyielding and most motivated candidates from the chaff. From that final group, the personal histories and medical background would finally matter.

SOB-1was Special Ops Base number one. If you eventually made it through SOB-5, following twenty months of progression, you were a full-fledged graduate Special Operations troop, with eye and nerve implants, internal drug vials, and a booster suit to make you a semi- superman.  You became a “new” citizen of Human Space, without a prior history if you didn’t want one.

It was at Port Andropov where Noreen intended to infiltrate three of her TGs, Jorl Breaker, Yilini Jastrov, and Fred Saber, her second TG1, posing as candidates where they would pretend to “just make it” through the week of rugged planet-side exercise, and be sent on to SOB-1.  She intended to allow them to fly stealthed single ships to within walking distance on different sides of the sprawling town, the only sizable city on Heavyside. Kap would remotely fly the single ships back to the Avenger. The latter was a feature they never knew the clanships and small craft had, until Kap proposed to pilot them home after a risk of discovery was discussed for the hidden craft.

At SOB-1, Tet hoped they could discover more about what direction the Special Ops top command would be taking in the future. There should be doctors and researchers there with knowledge of those plans. If the hint Carson received from Mind Tapping Colonel Trakenburg, via a handshake were accurate, there was an intriguing possibility they could be about to try genetic enhancements. Trakenburg himself hoped the PU Army might be ready to embark on a genetic improvement program, unaware it would be similar to the one the Kobani had nearly completed. There might be a commonality of purpose, where they could cooperate, and give them a huge head start on the genetic research learning curve.

If that wasn’t the case, Koban could keep its secrets, and wait for the time when the Hub government and its citizens were ready to accept them, or not, if that never happened.

There was no possibility that Noreen would allow her TGs to be held against their will, assuming the camp had anyone that
could
hold them, once they had the answer to the questions and were ready to leave. She could drop down in stealth mode with twenty-four Chameleon Skin flex armor equipped TGs if needed, to pick them up, or the three might just steal transportation back towards Port Andropov and wait for her at any spot in between. SOB-1 was a hundred eight miles from the spaceport, ample room to get her people back. The new transducers would reach the ship if she held station in stealth at seventy miles once a day, at noon local and then back away to a higher ninety-minute orbit.

****

Jorl made his way through the farming district on the east side of the Port city, drawing no particular attention as he walked in on a gravel two-lane road. He’d first stepped onto it five miles from the closest rabbit proof fencing. The mirrored single ship lifted well after he passed the edge of the first planted field, slipping through the atmosphere for over thirty minutes, to avoid a turbulence trail or contrail that might be noticed as it had done on entry.

The number of rabbits surprised him, and made him curious, because he’d never seen one. They were apparently unafraid of him, despite having originally been introduced as a local food animal. They had far outgrown the demand for their meat, and wild ones were safe unless they were too slow to get out of the way of the occasional vehicle. He passed several dried and flattened examples in that category.

Finding the spaceport was no problem, because all roads were like spokes of a wheel, the hub being the control tower and navigation beacon at the hub of the wheel. That was in front of him the entire way, with some low buildings across this roadway that were constructed on the periphery of the one-mile radius landing area.

There were other people on the road ahead of him, some walking his way, some towards the port, and some crossed it on streets that circled the city. There was occasional truck traffic, with people sitting in the open backs, apparently going to work on one of the farms. His fellow TGs would be walking in from other sectors of the town, and the foot traffic would not look particularly unusual to anyone that noticed them. Even their homespun Koban made clothes seemed to fit in when he passed a few people that nodded or waved slightly as he encountered them.

They all seemed to nearly drag their feet and slump when they walked. He became aware that he looked much more comfortable, walking with a lighter step and no slump to his shoulders. He’d just left the Avenger, where the gravity was maintained at Koban normal, and this was seven percent less. Not to mention the fact that he could run miles in this gravity and jump higher than twenty feet flatfooted. He made his shoulders slump slightly, and stopped lifting his feet quite so high.

When he neared the closest-to-port radial road, which circled the landing field just outside the row of buildings blocking his radial street, vehicle activity had picked up. There was quite a bit of traffic here, and about a mile ago, the gravel road had become paved. That was where he encountered the electrified slats in the roadway. There was a mobile robot laser system just beyond that, to keep wild rabbit pests out of the town center, and collect their remains.

There were sidewalks on both side of the three-lane street that circled the cargo buildings around the port. The buildings that gradually replaced fenced fields and food processing sheds had become homes and small businesses. There were street signs at every intersection, but the names and numbers didn’t mean anything to Jorl. He saw a man at a loading dock of one of the port buildings, placing boxes in the back of one of the small trucks. He swallowed his nervousness and walked over.

“Excuse me, Sir, can I get some directions?”

The man glanced up at him and saw his youth, fitness, and relatively clean clothes, compared to his own anyway, and drew the obvious conclusion. “Looking for the prelim camp?”

“Prelim camp? Is that where…” he was interrupted.

“That’s the place where you new arrivals are normally sent right off the ships, for preliminary indoctrination and physical conditioning. You’re looking to join spec ops ain’t you?”

“Yes Sir, but I wanted to walk around and see the town first.”

The man laughed. “I bet you’ve had your fill of that by now. From that direction,” he pointed back the way Jorl had come, “you were on the opposite side of town from even the few bars we have by the terminal and port. That’s pretty dull pickings for an off-worlder. If you have that much pep and energy, to stroll in this gravity for recreation, you might last longer than most of the patriotic but flabby kids that come here. I wish you luck kid.” Pausing just briefly, he added, “Say, considering the distance around the A ring, I can save your legs a bit and give you a lift to the induction center if you like.”

“I take it this street is the A Ring?” He’d seen a sign.

“It is, and I have a pickup to take over closer to the main terminal, a few doors from the camp entrance. Want that ride, or do you intend to jog?” The man laughed pleasantly, but he obviously didn’t think Jorl could go that distance. Tempted to race him in his beat up old truck, Jorl instead accepted his offer.

When they arrived, Jorl could see a sizable cluster of mostly young men, and a handful of sturdy looking young women, gathered around a gate to a fenced off area. They apparently had disembarked from two large buses that were just pulling away.

“Thanks for the ride, Mike.” He shook hands and got out of the beat up old truck.

The man who had introduced himself on the ride said, “Like I told you, Jorl, I wish you luck. We need the fighters. If you don’t make it here, I hope you try one of the other forces. I spent three years fighting in the PUA on Bollovstic, and if I had not lost both legs at the knees and been evacuated for regrowth, I’d have died there when the bastards sealed it off. I’ll fight them again before they get to the Hub worlds. I’m going to be in better shape next time, living here for a few years.”

Jorl looked at him with considerably more respect than the casual friendship he offered had already earned him. “I will, Sir, I promise I’ll be fighting the Krall some place.”

As the truck drove off, Jorl saw Yil in the back of the crowd looking at him. He walked over, seeing that the gate wasn’t open yet, and several men were walking towards the gate from inside the compound. Yil stepped a bit farther from the back of the group to speak with Jorl.

“Fred is near the front of the pack, he’s been Tapping people as he asks questions, seeing what pops into their minds. Did you realize that these are the first new people we’ve ever met in our life? I know everyone at home.”

“You meant you’ve seen all their faces. There are a lot of people we see but don’t really know.”

“Then you will appreciate how many new faces we are seeing here. I do think I’ve met everyone our age at home.”

“That means here they don’t know you either. Which is a bit of good luck for you. You should take advantage, and score while you can.”

“What are you talking about?”

Jorl pointed to two of the stocky, muscular, and homely young women that were trying out for Special Ops. “They don’t know you, so they haven’t had their ass dumped by you yet. You should ask one of them out on a date.” He laughed, reminding Yil of the number of girls he’d asked out just one time, never to repeat. He had a reputation as a
never love ‘em, always leave ‘em
sort of guy.