Koban: Rise of the Kobani (5 page)

As he passed over the last of the high peaks, staying barely in the churning dark cloud bases as the updraft came up the steep rocky slopes, he dropped below the mountain crest on the other side, now shielding his turbulent wake from the pursuing missiles.

He could see the dust still settling from the other ship’s crash site, being blown away rapidly by storm gusts, and collected by the mass of heavy raindrops falling. He made his decision. He would use the other ship’s sudden disappearance and dust to help conceal his own landing site. He flipped his ship end-for-end and applied his own savage reverse thrust. Not as strong as the other ship had used, somewhat less than maximum. With the heavy load he carried, the deceleration of all that inertia wasn’t disabling for him, but it was painfully difficult, and it stressed his ability to the limit to complete a safe manual landing. He selected a steep walled canyon, miles from where the other ship had crashed, and set down, with only a slight brush against a cliff side. Fortunately, there were no rock falls or boulders to avoid on the narrow valley floor.

He cut thrust as the craft settled on its landing jacks, automatically adjusting for a slight slope due to his proximity to the sidewall. The wind whipped over the top of the cliff two hundred feet above the nose of his ship, shearing away the dust, as it had done for the other crash-landed clanship. Thirty seconds later, the first of the six missiles flashed over him on sensor readings, still embedded in the clouds. The other five missiles passed by in the same manner, spreading apart as they vainly sought new traces of his wake turbulence, chasing down vortices cause by nature. Low on fuel, the reusable rockets turned toward human lines, where they could be serviced and reused.

Hortak was on the wrong side of the mountains from where he’d intended to train his warriors, but that only meant they had farther to travel to join up with him. This was still conquered territory, equally suited for training. He would radio to find out where his second ship had landed, but
after
the enemy missiles had withdrawn from the area.

“Tet, can you hear me?” Dillon had only just recovered, and was concerned for his older and still motionless friend. Thad was trying to fumble his own couch release switch, to rise to his feet and check on the still form of the captain, across the four-way control console from him. Reynolds was clearly breathing, and making snoring sounds, but had not moved yet. Mirikami was so still that neither Dillon nor Thad, having just regained their senses, could detect any sign he was breathing.

Suddenly Dillon had another thought, of even more concern to him personally. Where were their two sons? “Carson and Ethan aren’t on their couches.” He looked around the Bridge, and the four SGs were the only people he could see.

Thad carefully placed his feet on the floor, and felt dizzy as he tried to stand. Nevertheless, he leaned around to look at the deck below the couches where their two son’s had ridden next to Mirikami and Reynolds, and they were not down on the deck. “They aren’t here. Did we crash? I blacked out when we hit that last hard thrust.”

Dillon looked around, moving his head carefully. “The deck seems level, and I don’t see any damage.”

Thad was holding onto Reynolds’ couch, working his unsteady way to Mirikami. Dillon sat up and rubbed his temples, trying to erase the headache that action had caused. Reynolds mumbled something, and moved a hand. The three of them were awake or rousing, but Mirikami was disturbingly still. He was the oldest member of the crew, and the possibility of a stroke from the acceleration stress was on both of their minds.

Thad reached Mirikami’s couch and touched his right hand and forehead. They were warm, but how long did it take a body to cool? He still didn’t see his chest rising, but even if he did, there could be brain damage.

He and Dillon were both startled when a form flew up a stairwell, and in mid flip called out, “Hi Dad. You and Uncle Thad finally getting off your butts?”

Dillon, made further light-headed simply trying to follow his son’s fast movement, asked, “Where did you go, son? Tet needs help.”

“Dad, I think he’s fine, I Mind Tapped him all the way down, and he was simply unconscious. Like all of you old ‘classic’ SGs were. Ethan and I checked you all afterwards, and Ethan already knew Sarge was OK since he had his hand.”

“Afterwards?” Thad asked. “We landed OK?” It seemed like a dull stupid question, even to his muddled thinking. The ship was upright and they were alive. Crashed, toppled and dead was the alternative.

Carson answered, cocky and with a laugh, “Sure. Why wouldn’t we? I had Uncle Tet’s directions and images fresh in my mind, and Ethan had Sarge’s pictures of what the box canyon looked like. The ship came to a halt almost directly over the correct spot, and as it started to drop, I rotated to vertical as Uncle Tet had showed me, used the attitude and rear thrusters to center and rotate us as Ethan fed me Sarge’s images of the obstacles and hidden base entrances. I matched that to the video on the screen of the ground and set us down. Fast, and in a swirl of dust.”

Dillon questioned his son, “You got all of that before Tet passed out?”

“Not all. Even out like a light, we can pick up a person’s recent images, and Uncle Tet was running all sorts of potential problems through his mind before he passed out. I used some of that information to choose the rotation and shifted us closer to where Sarge remembered the concealed down ramp doors are located.”

As he spoke, he walked over to Mirikami and touched his left hand. The captain immediately took a deep breath, and his eyes fluttered.

“What did you just do to him?” his father asked.

“Oh. He was agitated when he was losing control of his body before that last hard thrust, so once he was out I fed him some soothing images to ease his worry. After we landed, I settled his thoughts with pleasant images and memories, so he went into a deep sleep, dreaming. Just now I sent him a mild wake up call.”

Even though Sarge was already moving his hands nervously, his eyes fluttering, Carson stepped around and touched his hand. Reynolds opened his eyes, coughed, and reached down to release his seat restraints. He stayed down but had a comment. “I don’t hurt so much, so I guess Tet’s idea worked?”

“It seems it did.” They heard Mirikami say. He flipped his own seat release, but Dillon, smiling, placed a hand on his friend’s chest to keep him prone.

“Don’t sit up too fast, like I did. It gave me a brief headache and made me dizzy. How was your nap?”

“Annoying now that I’m aware I took one. However, the dream was nice. I haven’t been home in over thirty years. The cherry blossoms from my youth were beautiful. You found that event while digging around did you?” He was looking at Carson, a smile on his face, but with a penetrating look at his godson.

“Uh…, Uncle Tet, you popped that picture up when I asked your unconscious mind what you thought was pretty and pleasant. Pink flowers, raining from those trees is the image you sent back to me. I just suggested you sleep and dream about them. I wasn’t prying, honest.”

“You didn’t notice anyone with me in the image?”

“No. Why? I was in a hurry because the ship was dropping.”

“Good, Michiko and I are pleased you did
not
observe the rest of our tryst in that orchard.” He grinned, as Carson turned beet red beneath the inherited natural olive coloration of his mother, and his own deep Koban suntan.

Dillon laughed at his son’s discomfort. “If you ever have a reason to send me to sleepy land, don’t ask me that. The return mental images could scar your delicate young mind for life.”

The reddening deepened, as Thad, chuckling, clapped Carson on the back in a reassuring manner. “Good job, lad. Did you see what happened to that Krall ship behind us?”

Gulping down his embarrassment, relieved by the subject change, he answered. “Yes Sir. On the sensors
, I did. It ducked down below the mountain peaks to hide after it crossed, and it’s apparently five and a half miles northwest of us in a straight line, in another valley. The walking distance is more like double that far, because of other ridges in between.”

“All six missiles missed them?” Mirikami asked.

“I think so. I didn’t switch sensor mode to look for them until Ethan and I checked on you four. They were gone when I did check, perhaps fifteen seconds later.”

“Then we probably have an intact clanship close by, with an unknown complement aboard, and they know where we are. They won’t be cordial to us as another clan, and won’t expect us to be with them, since they tried to send the PDC’s missiles after us. That could mean they’ll keep their distance, but with the Krall attitude that all warfare is fun, it may just be water over the bridge and forgotten. I won’t feel comfortable leaving the ship with a light force for defense, if most of us leave to make contact with the PU Army.”

“I agree,” Thad said. “We have the most force we can apply right now, before we split up, and they know they are well inside Krall held territory. That should put them more at ease. They won’t expect an attack from us here.” He turned to Carson.

“
Was anyone below hurt by the rough evasion and landing? How about Chief Haveram?”

“Ethan is checking on him now. As for the TGs, there were a few bruises. Careless people that unstrapped because the ride was so smooth at first. If we didn’t have carbon nanotubes in our bones, I think we’d have some broken arms and legs.”

Mirikami, reminded of his man in the engine room called the com set there, using speaker mode for the others to hear. “Chief, are you OK?”

There was a brief pause, then “Who the hell was flying this crate after we made that last stop? I went out like a broken light. I think we all must have. Ethan just bounced in here, helped me get up and moving, but all he said was that we were down safe, and he left.”

“Chief, Carson and Ethan got us down safely after that last hard burst of deceleration. I knew the Third Gens would be able to take anything the Krall could tolerate, and still be able to function. That’s why I had you put the extra couches up here.”

“Yes, Sir, I had gathered that when I bolted them down up there. However, they don’t know how to fly a clanship. You only learned yourself in the last couple of months.”

“Carson and Ethan are TG1’s. You saw how quickly the TGs learned to do tasks they had not personally tried from them. It works for landing a ship, if someone thinks through the process while they Mind Tap him. I held Carson’s hand, he held Ethan’s, and Ethan held Sarge’s. We had a daisy chain of information sharing going on up here. When Sarge and I blanked out, the boys knew what to do, and had the strength and coordination to apply the knowledge.”

“Hell, I’d say give ‘em their own ships. Only I don’t want to fly with them if that’s a sample of what they’ll do.
My
bones and body won’t take much of that treatment. Of course if I’m in a coma each time it won’t hurt all that much.” He made a sour laugh.

“You have a point, Chief. Come on up anytime you feel ready. Mirikami out.”

He turned to the others. “Gentle Men,” he paused as he saw Alyson and Ethan fly up separate staircases, “and Lady, we need to discuss how we SGs nearly got us all killed today.”

Surprised, Ethan blurted, “It was your ideas, planning, and then adjustments that made it all work, Sir.”

“It was my frailty, and not just my own but of all of us SGs that made it nearly fail. We Second Gens have the experience and knowledge you youngsters need, but our physical presence could have also gotten you killed. The risk goes farther than the tragedy of the loss of our lives and this one ship. We can’t afford any such setback in an already lopsided fight to save humanity, not just for Koban, but also for every human world. We need to work out a solution for the problem before we actually go into Krall territory.”

“What?
Just have them tap us old farts to learn all we know?” Reynolds was proposing that, as much as asking the question.

Carson saw the problem, which the headshake from the captain demonstrated he saw it as well. “When I Tapped the captain, the images of what he was sending me were transferred instantly, but it took some time for him to run through the most likely alternatives and variations that he could think of. I’m sure that he would think of a dozen more things that I’d need to know if something else went wrong, that he couldn’t think of in advance.”

Mirikami was pleased the boy realized where he was going. “If we lost attitude thrusters in one quadrant, or one of four landing jack’s was shot off, I could apply decades of experience to come up with a brand new landing strategy on the fly, to minimize or counter the problem. However, of the thousands of variables involved, no person can think through all of those in advance. What you described, Sarge is in effect, metaphorically sawing our heads open to pour knowledge into the empty TG1 heads…” he glanced at the youngsters with an apologetic grimace.

“
Sorry boys, I don’t mean that quite the way it sounded.”

He continued. “A full lifetime experience transfer isn’t possible, or even desirable if we could. They can learn what we know eventually, but they can’t become us, and they shouldn’t want to do that. We need another way to make sure our experience and knowledge remains available to them.”

“Do you have an idea in mind?” Dillon knew Mirikami usually had an answer when he posed these conundrums.

“Possibly. We need to have Maggi, Aldry, and Rafe involved, re-examining the genetic problems we already know about. As a member of their work group and a participant on this mission, Dillon, you should have some insights to offer. We original, entirely man made SGs, did not opt to attempt the Koban bone and muscle genes because of two major reasons, or problems.

“First of all, we were adults. We had no growth spurts left in our lives, so adding Koban genes to grow carbon nano tubes in our bones would take longer and be more difficult and painful for us.

“Secondly, the ripper derived, carbon fiber muscle enhancements would be useless if we can’t control them through our ripper derived, yet redundant, organic super conductor nervous system. The growth of the neurons to make the nerves link-up to our brains and new muscle tissue works with the children
born
as SGs. With them, the super conductor nerves are not simply an add-on system, as it is with us factory remodel jobs.”

He shrugged. “Even if I can’t become a full-fledged TG, if I can be made physically strong enough to do better than simply survive what we did today, to remain awake and contributing, then I can help keep these youngsters safe. Otherwise, physical limitations on our part endanger them, and yet they need us here.”

Dillon was nodding as he spoke, in basic agreement. “The new bone growth would be slow, but not as painful as what the TGs went through with the new muscle growth linking to the ripper based nervous system simultaneously. There are fewer nerve endings in our bones related to the second nervous system, and moving would cause only moderate joint pain for a couple of months. We can have stronger bones.

“However, our being harder to break isn’t going to help us much if we can’t apply the complete muscle improvements, down to the tiniest capillary, eyelids, and even goose bumps. We will still faint under high acceleration if we can’t keep our blood pressure up and flowing to our brains. We have to have the carbon fiber tissue for that strength, and to be able to
use
those muscles. The final gene mods didn’t work on our test animals.