Koban: Rise of the Kobani (83 page)

“I placed their warheads on safe, Mam, and switched off their engines and seeker mode when both targeted migration ships. They have escape velocity from Toborkiti. Do you wish us to chase them for reuse? They are traveling in nearly opposite directions.”

“Do they have fuel to reach some of the orbiting ships we don’t have crews aboard?”

“Yes, if you do not delay very long to retarget them.”

“Do that, Kap. However, choose ships that are as far from those we have in our control as possible, and in low orbits. They will be waiting for Jump tacs for some time, and I don't want them in the middle of a debris field.”

Next, she told Maggi to broadcast to all the captured ships to prepare to Jump as soon as they were able, to the nearby rendezvous system. Then, to ensure they would get the time they needed, she had Kap take the Beagle to a lower orbit, and head for the main habitat dome for the Krall detachment based there.

The dome had been at the horizon when the first ship lifted, and the quick combat had taken place after the two ships would have been over their horizon. They probably didn’t know that things had turned out poorly for their clan mates. She wanted to be the first to deliver the bad news, actually sent via more bad news in the way of “parting gifts,” unknowingly repeating the same action that Mirikami had taken. She left no clanships untouched on the planet, and put several missiles into the habitat dome. The domes near the two shipyards received a single missile to the top center, presumably where the Krall monitors stayed. She didn’t want to inflict damage too severe, if fires could spread to an underground factory filled with Prada workers.

In a communication Maggi made to Coldar and Wister on one of the migration ships, she apologized for the Beagle not attempting a rescue of their people on the ground there. There were two known Torki lodges, and the Prada must have at least one factory under either or both small domes at the costal shipyards.

She explained that the Beagle had risked being damaged or disabled in the fight, and the next mission was too vital to the human first-strike plans. If the mission to destroy Eight Balls, and the production facilities went well, one or two migration ships, with adequate space remaining, could return here to
Toborkiti with one or two of their fighting ships for protection, and pick up the workers.

Coldar, when she told him how the older ships in orbit were to be destroyed, was confident that the workers below would be safe from Krall abuse, and they would be needed to increase production of replacement migration ships. There were two vessels already under assembly, visible in the huge support cradles in different stages of construction. Coldar said one ship looked to be within a half orbit of completion.

He told Maggi that the Olts belonging to the Torki in orbit, using the new capability discovered after they had experienced her Mind Tap, had a greater communication range and should be able to reach the Torki Olts on the surface, at least to send data. There was no reply yet from the more limited range of those groundside Olts, which apparently had not spontaneously opened the new library of data and ability as those on Haven had done. The data sent down explained the new Olt capability. If the data had actually been received, it was possible the Olts might soon undergo the change anyway. If not, a Mind Tap from one of the Kobani should unlock the new library of data for them, as it had on Haven.

Marlyn waited the almost two hours it required for the unluckiest of the fifteen migration ships to trap a tachyon of adequate energy, and Jump for the target system. The Beagle then put a missile in many of the higher orbit ships, which potentially could be revived with the least refurbishment. Plasma bolts and lasers targeted the hulls, propulsion systems, and Trap emitters of the oldest ships, thus destroying their maneuverability and making them useless in the short term while saving anti-ship missiles. Then she Jumped to join her prizes.

Her communications specialists sent the news into Tachyon Space that the migration ships were obtained, and that six would be dispatched towards CS1, six for CS2, and three for the Eight Ball production world. The captured clanships would return to Koban or Haven for supplies, and then Jump ahead to overtake the slow migration ships. They would meet them at the previously coordinated star systems, for initial supply transfers. There were enough migration ships to provide redundancy if there were technical problems with any of the older ones.

In return, they received word that the Avenger had passed through an intermediate star system the day before to leave the message, while enroute to the CS2 system. Noreen would wait at an uninhabited system short of her destination to wait for the migration ships.

There was no new message from Mirikami on the Mark, but he was in transit to his next waypoint.  He would learn of the success of the migration ship capture when he made his next intermediate Jump. He too would wait at an empty star system closer to CS1, waiting for the migration ships to catch up.

The pieces were coming together for a coordinated set of attacks, and their loss of one of the supply clanships had been unexpected and tragic, but was included in the contingency planning, for taking more ships than required to provide redundancy. The additional migration ships were good news because it would speed the loading of refugees.

With only a thousand TG2s on each of the three raiding ships, there was no hope, or intent, to take possession of any part of the domes, factories, or orbital stations and hold them for very long. They were counting on Krall overconfidence by relying on a handful of warriors controlling their slave labor at the production sites, and most of those warriors staying in the small observer dome facilities near the shipyards.

The main Krall habitat domes were built well away from the polluted factory and mining areas. A heavy missile barrage on the way in to knock out any parked clanships and to make hits on the domes, to try to take out clan sub leaders, would disrupt and delay the Krall reply. They hoped.

The Mark of Koban and the Avenger would leave their raiders on the ground, and get airborne again to defend against any clanship that might have been missed, and to attack the slower shuttles the Krall would still have available.

The time of greatest risk to the rescue mission, would be the extended period of landing and loading the migration ships, and getting them back into space. The intent was to have them hold onto a tachyon in Trap field, with enough energy to execute a Jump as soon as the ship reached low orbit. The Torki, a safety conscious race, operated three independent Trap field systems on their ships versus the two that both humans and Krall used. They couldn’t
Trap
a tachyon while in a gravity well, but like the Flight of Fancy had done for twenty- three years, they could hold onto any they caught out in space, before they landed on a planet. They then could form a stable event horizon shortly after reaching three hundred miles, and Jump to safety.

It was hoped the captured clanships would already be well enough armed that they could provide some orbital cover for the migration ships if needed. If not, there was a limited supply of anti-ship missiles on Haven, which the Prada were now making. Most had been loaded onto the three raiders. However, some of those newly produced missiles could be loaded when the supply ships picked up provisions on Haven. There would be little time for that if they were Jumping back to CS1, the most distant point in the raids.

Mirikami, anxious to reach his next planned White Out system, wanted to confirm the plan was working out for the rescue. If that part of the complex mission failed to come together, they were committed to complete the raids, even if the Krall exterminated the workers, which they couldn’t move to another factory world and didn’t need where they were.

He wasn’t certain if their new alien friendships would remain intact if the collateral damage to their people was as horrendous as the Krall were certainly willing to apply. The balls were all in motion, now they had to keep juggling.

A single clanship made an exit over Koban, broadcasting the recognition signal as it did so, and thirty minutes later  another ten ships erupted into Normal Space within a two or three minutes. Without the advance warning, some of the people below might have gone into a panic, learning so many clanships emerged together. Work crews quickly met them as they landed near the four entrances of the Prime City dome. There, some provisions for the human crews were taken on, and dozens more TG2s came on board to supplement the flight crews as supply loaders when they Jumped to Haven. They would remain aboard as added crew for the missions to support and defend the migration ships, which were still enroute to the systems where they would rendezvous with the three raiders.

The pause at Koban
lasted only an hour, and all eleven ships launched in rapid succession for Haven, making the short Jump inward as soon as they cleared atmosphere. Having been forewarned by radio, the Kobani, Prada, and Torki waiting for them on Haven, had provisions ready for the refugee’s needs, which were loaded as swiftly as possible. Some of the TG2’s focused on loading pallets of anti-ship, and new heavy ground attack missiles aboard each ship, and using the internal hoists to place them in the appropriate launcher compartments. The designated TG2 gunners used a few minutes in Mind Taps with the Torki, learning how the new ground attack missiles worked, and their capability. The new larger rockets had just been produced on a recently opened production line.

The Prada seriously needed the refugees they expected to arrive
soon, to increase their worker numbers. The factory was in short supply of the raw materials needed to make many of the weapons that were being requested. There were too few Prada to manufacture and to expand mining operations. They also needed workers to rebuild the old transport systems to bring the materials to the required locations. This entire process seemed much like the wartime migrations to new bases, which the younger Prada had heard about, in histories that described past Krall wars. They were eager to please, and knew what was required of them. However, those
being
pleased were not those that the average Prada thought they were serving.

For now, only a few of the elder Prada were aware that the pr
oduction was not for use by the Rulers. There was no one openly lying to the work force about the purpose of this increased production. The deceit was one of omission. After thousands of years of working as loyal slaves on behalf of the Krall, direct explanations from the Rulers had never been offered previously, and that absence now wasn’t questioned.

Mirikami, and the handful of Prada elders, accepted the guilty necessity of having the war material
manufactured, which was needed for the rescue of Prada populations. Wister had cautioned Mirikami against trying to explain what was happening, when he had suggested that he wanted to be more forthright with the younger Prada.

Wister
justified his actions this way, “Our people do not question guidance and advice from the elder Prada, accepting that we have the longer perspective and wisdom to make the right decisions for them. We elders are doing this for them now. It would be unwise to shake their confidence in a belief system that was bred into us before we met the Krall, and has been reinforced more strongly in us not to question the Rulers. Any Prada that questioned their right to rule us as an elder species has died. Such selective evolution applies to us as well as to the Krall. Now is not the time to try to modify those inbred instincts. Not when the first opportunity to do so in thousands of years is close to a reality, and is still fragile.”

The
workers probably thought the humans were taking the arms to the Rulers elsewhere. That presumption was accurate, if they were not to be as benignly delivered as they assumed.

The Torki had technical
improvements to offer on some of the standard Krall weapons, and they too needed more workers and production facilities. Haven was swinging into a phase of growth that would create an inter species power base for the years to come. Unarmed Kobani supermen were far less effective than some armed with weapons only they could wield so fast and deadly, as no previous species in the galaxy had been able to do.

The Kobani spear point was being sharpened, even as their numbers (
although still far too few) were increasing faster than anticipated. Humanity was in no way able to take the Krall on head-to-head. These first three strikes were only expected to wound, and with luck could prove crippling to Krall invasion plans for a year or two, giving humanity some breathing room, and time to prepare for greater strikes.

The eleven clanships were
on the ground on Haven in as short a time as possible, and the first five ships were launched in a rush, going to join the six slow migration ships they knew were headed for distant CS1, and joining Captain Mirikami on the Mark. Within hours, the other clanships would be launched as well. Four of them would go in support of Captain Renaldo and the Avenger, for the CS2 raid. Two more went to the Botolian world where Captain Greeves and the Beagle would attack the Eight Ball orbital manufacturing station.

****

Marlyn’s Beagle reached her rendezvous star system, six light-years from the old Botolian target world, twenty-two hours before the first migration ship did a White Out. The next two migration ship arrivals were staggered over a forty-five minute interval, matching the different tachyon capture times for their Jumps from Toborkiti.

Marlyn
sent both shuttles to gather the three flight crews for a meeting on the Beagle, and to give them food supplies specific to both species, which she still had aboard from the journey transporting them all out from Haven.

This was only
a contingency, in the event the two clanship loads of supplies from Haven failed to arrive before she had to depart. In order to coordinate her attack with those that the Mark and the Avenger would make, she had to Jump in two days.

Marlyn
was still hosting the three Prada and three Torki representatives, furnishing them with a small buffet, when Kap told her the expected two clanships had all performed White Outs within minutes of each other. They were on the far side of the blue giant star, and had emerged transmitting their recognition signals. The wide separation distance was actually a security precaution to prevent an accidental emergence of all of the ships into any potential Krall ambush. That seemed incredibly unlikely, but it was another caution that Mirikami insisted on, and which cost nothing to implement.

Marlyn had been continuously broadcasting her
own encrypted recognition signal, and the clanships had sent their own as they emerged. The intent was for them to allow enough time for her to have received their counter signals, and then they would Jump in-system to join the Beagle and the three migration ships. With Jump technology, the clanships arrived right on the heels of their own original gamma rays and recognition signals, popping out a few hundred miles away. Using Normal Space drives, they moved into a loose formation. They each had two shuttles, but rather than physically cross over to talk, they used their view screen systems for a conference meeting. Marlyn led her alien guests up to the Bridge to participate.

Marlyn took charge of her small task force. “Captains, I will Jump in a little more than
fifty-two hours. I sent a message into Tachyon Space to both the Mark and Avenger, to let them know I was on schedule. I hope and expect to receive their messages, telling me the same thing, as I depart from here.

“The Beagle and our
two shuttles will be here for two days to assist you in transferring supplies to the three migration ships.” She paused a moment, looking at the Prada and Torki with her. “I don’t know which ships are being used for which species to evacuate. Nor do I know the names you have chosen for them. I assume you have decided that already?”

Because the ships were to become Torki property, and each had a pilot, they had made the naming decisions on their own.  In discussions with the Prada representatives, they had assigned which species would be boarded on each ship. Marlyn heard now what they had decided.

One Torki separated slightly from the other three. “I am Tathed, and have been selected to speak for us all. The ship names are in Torki, and are not pronounceable in your words. However, after we explained the meanings of our names to the humans with us, they suggested human terms that you can use to identify them. The Torki names are only symbolic, and logic does not care what you or the Prada use in your own words. Only that you know which ship is which.”

Marlyn nodded, aware now that all Torki and Prada knew the gesture, from Mind Tap lessons
of human speech and mannerisms. “I am pleased we will be able to return your ships to your control when we return to Haven.” A subtle reminder that the three spacecraft had a human intended purpose for now, which probably matched what the Torki wanted as well. It didn’t hurt to make certain there was no misunderstanding.

“What are the ship’s names?”

Tathed told her his own ship’s name, in Standard and in low Krall, meant Sea Wanderer. There was a grating clicking sound he made after that. Marlyn assumed that was the equivalent name in the Torki language. The other two Torki representatives bobbed their whole bodies in apparent excitement.

“The ship that Jatrup will pilot,” he waved a claw, in a gesture to mimic a human’s hand motion, and the indicated Torki did a semi bow by lowering her carapace, “is named Larval Drifter.” A hardly poetic sounding name in Standard.

The third ship’s name was announced for its pilot, Galrop, as Home Tide, which was a better sounding name to a human’s way of thinking. Marlyn had already surmised, from overheard remarks from the human crews that flew the shuttles over and back, that they knew the names in advance, and had already “humanized” them. She didn’t know the official names before now, but had already heard mention of the Wanderer, the Drifter, and the Tide.

“Those are fine names, and I am sure you will do them honor by your service to them. Have you decided which will be used for Prada evacuations if we are able to safely land on the planet?” With the bounty of three ships, they no longer needed to transport Torki and Prada together. The Torki would be drier than they wanted, and the Prada wetter if they had to share.

A small bow from Tathed, and he gestured to the Prada that had accompanied him from the Migration ship. The Prada spoke for the first time that Marlyn had heard. “I am Faltif Maltid, or just Faltif if you wish. Wister choses to use only one name, as do most of the Rulers, but I have taken my paternal name as second, as was our custom long ago.”
A Prada rebel, Marlyn noted with satisfaction.

“The Sea Wanderer will attempt to rescue the Prada that we believe are in a forest close to a
small dome by the sea. Tathed will pilot the ship to land by that dome, and I will try to talk them into leaving the forest to join us. If there are workers in the factory under the dome, they may come as well. That is, if you do not need to destroy the dome first.”

“Faltif, we can attack the dome without its complete destruction. We know where the underground entrances are, below the elevator shafts around the inner ring of the central great hall. We can fire missiles and plasma bolts to miss these areas. There will not be very many Krall inside the dome and most of them will be on the top floors. They always prefer the high ground.”

She knew this from Mind Taps of their Krall prisoners on Koban, those that had not managed to will their own deaths yet. The higher the status, the higher the floor they were assigned for use. Blasting the tops of domes took out their highest status warriors and most experienced sub leaders. It was convenient that they always organized in that “top down” manner.

“There will be a delay before we can be assured you can safely land, Tathed. I can attack the dome and clanships we find there with a surprise volley of missiles they will not expect, from what they will believe is one of their ships. The underground factory is not vital so I don’t need to destroy that, and I will be too busy to land troops there right away.

“M
y primary mission is to destroy the Eight Balls, and the orbital station that helps build them. There are Torki up there, which one of your ships will rescue when we take the station. There may be Prada up there as well. I don't know if the water in the station can be transferred to the migration ship quickly.”

With a mental Olt signal from Tathed, Jatrup spoke now. “I will pilot the Larval Drifter to dock with the station when you say it is safe.
Then when I have the workers, I can land at sea anywhere on the planet to load enough water for the Jump.”

“It may not be made safe
to dock there until I have destroyed all of the Eight Balls, and return.” Marlyn told her. “I don’t know where they might be located.”

“The Torki inside will know. If you take the station, they can tell us where
the hammers were placed.”

“If there are hammers or Eight Balls, where I can see them, I will attack those first. Then I will take the station.
Each of those weapons can kill a planet. However, we have two clanships, and one was not part of the planning. We hoped to have at least one, and we have two. I can place more TG2s on one of those for attacking the station, because I don’t need them with me to shoot at Eight Balls.”