Koban: Rise of the Kobani (93 page)

Good shooting
, he thought,
all of them hit it.

He stepped behind the rear
most two warriors and fired the microwave weapon at one, and a plasma bolt into the rear of the helmet of the other. Neither was a kill shot, but were disabling. That moment was all that he needed.

He grabbed the rifle from the Krall that was more interested in removing the steaming helmet on its roasting head, and while standing behind him, he fired twice to kill two of the warriors looking back into the corridor. They were caught while looking at the thoroughly destroyed rifle they all had managed to kill.

The third warrior in the front shot the burned warrior he was standing behind in the head. This effectively took away Reynolds cover, and the warrior shooting towards him had dived to take cover behind corpses. He was blindly shooting over the top of one corpse accurately, using its battlefield memory of where his enemy had been.

Reynolds tossed the visible weapon in the air as he moved away, but it didn’t draw fire this time.
Fooled them just once
, he thought.

He wisely didn’t move towards the Krall he’d stunned with the helmet head shot either. It was down on its knees, trying to recover its senses, but the warrior up front had raised its head to get fresh information, and ignoring the falling rifle, fired into the empty space around the kneeling warrior. It had assumed the invisible enemy would go to cover behind the
next
closest Krall.

Suddenly, as he stepped over dead Krall bodies to get closer to the shoot
er, that worthy foe was shot in the back of its head. He first thought the main force had made it through, but no. It was Bill Coleman, the man paired with Jason Sieko.

With alarm, Reynolds realized that he had failed to note the missing icons. He and Bill were the only ones left from the squad. It had only been four minutes. The door wasn’t ready to lift and the rest of the troops weren’t inside yet.

“Bill, what’s happening in the corridor on the other side?”

“They ran over us, Sarge.” He sounded apologetic. “We needed more of those grenades. Maude followed your nutty example. God, she took down a dozen, but they are gathering in front of the airlock. They can’t stop all of them, but they’ll cut a bunch of our guys down. They know we have better stealth
now, so they’ll shoot as soon as the door starts to lift.”

Mentally selecting the push for squad leaders for his group, he
warned them. “The Krall had a shit pile more warriors here than we thought. At least a dozen are waiting for you when the airlock completes its cycle. If you have grenades, throw them under the door first.”

“We don’t have any. Seemed like a bad idea on a space station.” That was
Andrew Johnson’s voice, and his ID appeared on the visor icon.

“Andy, I’ll give you a diversion the moment the door starts to lift.”

“OK. The pressure is almost equalized, we can start to open when you say go. We’ll come out shooting.”

“Good. Lock onto my visor image so you can see what I see. I’m headed for the entrance again.”

He turned to Bill. “Cover my back. I’m going to get their attention.”

“What can you do against so many?”

“Why play with dolls, of course.” Staying close to the inside curve of the wall, he moved closer the corridor junction.

****

Therdak felt certain they were going to lose the station. The enemy was incredibly effective in battle, and had suit technology well beyond anything the Krall used. The stealth was nearly perfect. This new armor made the enemy essentially invisible at infrared as well as at visible light wavelengths. It was as if single ship stealth coatings had been applied to their suits, except the power needs for that material required a fusion bottle.

The only thing he was certain of was that this was not an assault by another clan. Not
just because of the technology displayed. The one dead fighter’s armor he could see was much smaller than a Krall’s, and the stealthed armored corpses they could touch were the same size. The armor’s integrity had failed when it was penetrated at close range, something that was harder to do than with Krall armor.

There had been a partial report from a leader of a hand of octets,
voice cut off before it was finished, that an unseen enemy had poured out of an airlock on the opposite side of the station. His warriors were being killed quickly, from almost any point, even being shot from behind their formation in the firefight. The other sub leader at a different airlock had not answered him.

He was down to fifteen warriors at this particular airlock, only eleven were fully effective. None of the warriors that
should
have come from the opposite corridor had arrived.

There had been explosions heard, and multiple sounds of plasma bolts in that direction, but it was silent there now. He had one of his badly wounded warriors, without
lower legs, working to remove the armor from one of the dead enemy. Unlike five of the six that had died, this one’s stealth had fully failed when it was blasted into two pieces. He wanted to see the face of this new enemy before he died fighting them. He hated them even as he admired them.

He could see by the pressure indicator outside of the wide airlock door that it would open soon. He and his warriors, true to the “Path and clan” order he had issued, would take as many of the enemy as possible before they died.

“Force leader.” It was the wounded warrior working on the dead enemy’s corpse. “I have found the release for the helmet, it has partly opened and I can remove it now. You wanted to be first to see.”

Therdak, knowing time was short, stepped close and bent to pull the strange looking object off. There had been no transparent faceplate at all. He didn’t understand how it could see
the outside world.

As he lifted the strange clamshell like helmet, he caught sight of the features, and drew in a sharp suck of air. A stab of fear, the first he’d ever recalled feeling, entered his mind. He was glad he still wore his helmet so his reaction wasn’t seen.

His wounded warrior, however, had removed his damaged helmet to facilitate the task of visually seeing how to open the enemy armor. His shock was as great, and his blurted words were heard by all. “This is a human! We were boarded by humans.”

Despite the circumstances, many of the warriors leaned over or stepped away from their place in the firing line to see. It was impossible that these weak animals had bested them in close combat.

Therdak had an answer to the strength they had demonstrated. The warrior on the floor, holding the dead human’s torso could testify to that strength. His legs had been twisted and torn off at the knees in a hand-to-hand struggle, three against one human.

“Their armor must be powered. This gives them the strength that was not bred into them, as it is with us.” He wasn’t convinced that the slender armor had that ability, but what else could he say?

Just then, a hiss and clank told everyone, on both sides of the door, that the solid metal plate of the airlock door was about to lift.

Suddenly, a screeching banshee of a sound from the side corridor told them something insane was coming at them. Two Krall warriors, loosely holding their rifles came jiggling and wobbling towards them, looking oddly loose jointed. It drew the attention of every warrior. Four of them died, looking on in disbelief at the bizarre actions of their clan mates.

****

Reynolds used the rifle slings to lash them quickly to the hands of two dead Krall warriors. Then he grabbed them by the back rim of their helmet attachments and bodily lifted them. He sent a message to Johnson. “OK, raise the door when you see me reach the corridor junction on my visor. You had better shoot straight and often.” He didn’t wait for a reply.

Using a thought to activate his external speaker system, and setting it to high volume, he let out a screeching sound that echoed through the corridor. He ran around the inside curve towards the Krall, waggling the corpses like the dolls he’d mentioned to Coleman.

He instantly spotted one warrior standing over Kredman’s body, holding his helmet. That one knew who they were for sure, and his first shot went through that one’s faceplate. He didn’t know he’d killed the Force leader, but with Krall, they weren’t really disrupted much by that. It happened too often. He shot three more in quick succession.

Fortunately, for those in the airlock, the distraction worked. Ten troopers were lying prone, with plasma rifles ready and suit targeting set for auto fire on any target that didn’t have a “friendly” icon.

Unfortunately, for Reynolds, the distraction worked. Half of the Krall opened fire on his “dolls,” and his using them for protection only worked to a limited extent. That extent did not give his legs much protection. He was shot three times in his right leg. He went down in a tangle with his two “toys.”

In seconds, the remaining Krall at this airlock were tangled bodies as well. Two of the ten Kobani in the prone firing line were killed by random shots to their helmets, one was wounded in the neck. All told, there were eleven Kobani killed at this forced entry point, seven seriously wounded, and five minor wounds. The Krall didn’t miss often. Neither did the Kobani. The Krall losses were one hundred percent dead.

Three Torki were killed by decompression when
in a panic, they forced open an adjacent compartment that had been breached. There was half a lodge present on the station, and even though they understood low Krall and hated the Krall, they didn’t actively cooperate with the strange aliens until the migration ship arrived and docked. They received Olt communications, and shortly after the arrival of the Torki on the rescue ship, they all spontaneously underwent the experience of having the new internal library opened to them.

When it was explained that this library opening was a side effect of having communicated with the humans via their form of telepathy, the former slaves became most cooperative. As a token of their appreciation, they went along to direct their search for all of the Eight Balls they had been forced to build over the centuries. It was a pleasure for them to see things that had never been used for anything but war, destroyed.

With Krall resistance quickly eliminated on the planet and by the dome, the rest of the Torki lodge was taken aboard, and a second migration ship was landed to collect the one village of Prada. They were convinced by an elder to come along, just as the Prada at CS2 had been.

Marlyn came into the Beagle’s infirmary to see the wounded, and lingered by one med lab in particular. “
Sarge that was one nutty fine job you did on that station. You really managed to farkle up that bunch of Krall waiting at the door.”

The nanites in his body had quickly eased his initial pain when he lost his leg
at the knee, and now those of the med lab were starting the three-month task of regrowth. He was feeling no pain, and felt rather good about the mission. “Thanks. ‘Twern’t nuthin, Mam. And where’d you learn my home world cuss word, farkle?”

“
From my Poldark husband, you twit. And, don’t say what you did was nothing!” she told him. “We’re going to have to create some sort of medal or an award, just for
your
actions today. Not to mention the heroics of so many others.”

“Crap. Marlyn, I don’t want a medal or award. It’ll just mean a promotion to some other position I don't really want. I’m happy as I am.”

Smiling, she answered, “You can’t mean that! Why there are people who would give an arm and a leg to be a decorated Kobani.” She started to turn away but stopped.

Looking back she added, “Oh, right
... You already did that.” She laughed as she walked out.

The Mark did its White Out at a thousand miles. It arrived alone, but left a Tachyon Space message for one of the four new clanships. The ship with the largest number of ground attack missiles aboard was instructed to follow him to CS1 as soon as possible. He had received the message about the larger missiles when he arrived at his waypoint. He wanted their firepower to help reduce the domes to rubble. The anti-ship missiles would do considerable damage, but they relied on high speed to hit and kill ships, and delivered less destruction to a dome.

While Thad watched the sensors for clanships off-planet, he talked. “Tet, do you really think our supply clanships will be that close behind us? The migration ships are probably another two days from the waypoint. Perhaps we should have waited for another clanship. Marlyn and Noreen will have had those available.”

  “Thad, I don’t know that a day delay would matter, this far from the actual war. However, knowing a weapon I would have wanted is almost in my grasp makes me feel more cautious. I know I was prepared to go in exactly the way we’re armed now, but small things can make a difference that you didn’t foresee.” He looked over to Ethan. 

“What do you see on the tarmac of the main habitat dome?” They had luckily emerged over the hemisphere where the main dome was located. It was in an oasis of green, compared to the considerable expanse of gray and brown wastelands of the metal rich planet.

The drab looking world had been strip mined for many thousands of years, making war materials. Smaller, more easily produced equipment was now made closer to where any war was conducted. However, the more complex and resource hungry ship production stayed put. The powerful two clans that retained the prestige of producing clanships, the backbone of their interstellar war machine, didn’t intend to lose status by giving up that control.

“Uncle Tet, there are seventeen clanships at that dome. One of them appears to be preparing to depart. It has a ramp down and its portal open. A row of warriors are lined up along each side of the ramp.”

Mirikami leaned forward in interest. “Put that image on screen. Your description sounds like an honor guard. That could be a high ranking visitor.”

A zoomed-in image flashed up on the view screen across the Bridge consoles from Mirikami. “I saw an honor guard like that on Koban, when Gatrol Kanpardi came to visit. I don't know if clan leaders get the same sort of honor, or if it’s even a common practice. I see blue, brown and gray uniforms coming out of the closest dome entrance, running to the waiting ship.” He chuckled.

“I once said I’d pay a week’s pay just to see a damned Krall simply walk some place.”

Jakob, placed on speaker for convenience, spoke up, when Mirikami would probably have preferred he talk to him through his transducer. “I believe you later told Maggi you would pay a hundred Hub credits to see them walk, right after Kanpardi and his guards left the Flight of Fancy.”

“Uhh…, thanks Jakob.” They sounded different, but Mirikami knew that the newer AI on the Mark had a full set of Jake’s memory bank data from the Fancy. He could have said that a hundred credits actually
was
a week’s pay, but then he’d be promptly corrected with a quote of his considerably higher annual pay, divided into the monthly payments to his account, and then divided into weeks.
Pick your arguments carefully
, he thought,
and none at all with an AI.
Or with Maggi,
he amended.

Thad had a suggestion. “Tet, do you think this is a chance to take out an important leader at the start of the fight?”

It was tempting, but Mirikami pulled at his lip, and after a moment said no. “The dome might be on higher alert to impress this visitor, and for all we know one or more of the other clanships could be staffed and ready to go with him. We might get into a shootout we don’t want and may not win. Besides, if this leader safely Jumps out of the system, he’ll report that all was well when he left. If we kill him, someone will come looking for a high status Krall much sooner. If we knockout all the clanships here in a surprise attack, the survivors might sit here for weeks or months before they get a visitor. Let’s wait and watch. We need to complete this orbit anyway, to see what other targets we have.”

Yet another logical-seeming decision that would have unimagined consequences.

****

Telour was satisfied with his inspection visit. The shipyards themselves were adequate to double production, the infrastructure to increase mining was already present, and an extensive transport system was already available, if they used refurbished older roadways and tracked lines. After all, this world had been under steady resource development and consumption for nearly eighteen thousand years. The Krall didn’t build cities or need consumer goods (unless a mini tank was a work car, and a plasma rifle a credit card). The mineral wealth here was still sufficient for thousands of years of production.

The only bottleneck to quickly increasing production was the work force. The Torki and Prada bred at a slow pace, and required lengthy training to learn the complex tasks. The living conditions on the polluted world kept reproduction rates lower than on less ravaged planets.

The solution was trivial. Send one or two migration ships to worlds that had underused lodges and villages, and bring them here. If they died off too soon and were unable to breed quickly enough to repopulate, bring in more. It was just like mining any other resource.

The Graka clan already controlled multiple worlds with extra slaves that they could relocate within a month or two, using just one or two migration ships. No new factories needed to be built, so within a single orbit of this world, they could increase clanship production to double its current rate. All of the status points would belong to Graca when the joint council finally did the inevitable, and granted Kanpardi the material his additional invasion forces required.

Economics were
simple
when you sacrificed things that were unimportant, such as workers, ecosystems and material, and you gained something that did matter, status points for breeding more like yourself.

He left the dome knowing he had instilled energy in the sub leaders here, to prepare for the production increase in a few months, with a promise of a share of the status points that would result. These were largely low status warriors. Otherwise, they would not be stuck here, away from the war they craved to join. They would earn more status points soon, rank high enough to demand to go fight humans, then fail to be effective enough as warriors (as previously demonstrated). They would be sent to some
other
backwater production world to watch over slaves, still without enough status points to breed and continue their worthless bloodlines. The Great Path was served well in the long term.

As he ran towards the clanship, his honor guards lined up, he was accompanied by unfinished business, which he would presently conclude in a pleasant (for him) manner. Parkoda had been brought along for the sole purpose of allowing him to see what a successful high status Graka clan warrior Telour had become. He was still rising. He had already fostered thousands of (unknown) offspring, from mating’s with high status females. A fact he had pointed out to Parkoda on occasion during the trip.

He pretended to thank Parkoda for the status points he had earned from the only raid he had shared with him, when Parkoda was the raid leader. This reminded his opponent of Telour’s clever use of the humans on Koban, which Parkoda had captured, but which had given Telour and Graka clan ascendency over Tanga clan. He had out maneuvered Tanga clan, and arrogant Parkoda in particular, who then made the error of insulting Kanpardi.

Now, by offering to humiliate and punish Parkoda on behalf of Kanpardi, he had again created a status increase for himself at the expense of Parkoda. It was time for the final degrading step.

Telour pulled up at the base of the clanship ramp, standing between his two lines of honor guards, and turned to Parkoda. “I have found no indication that any of the soft ones have escaped your custody, despite the lax security I found at their compound. I now must return to report to Tor Gatrol Kanpardi. I must immediately tell him my mission to increase Graka clan’s advance production of clanships for the new invasions will meet or exceed his expectations.

“Parkoda, you are free to return to the soft Krall compound. If no clanship of any clan arrives to take you there in the next quarter orbit, the migration ships arriving here soon will have ample room to carry you, and can perhaps take you in the direction of one of your clan worlds.”

Telour had already left instructions with the Graka clan sub leader here that this Tanga clan worm had offended the Tor, and no Graka ships would be “able” to take him off planet. The slow migration ships would be his only alternative transport. When Parkoda eventually returned to his former posting, his second in command would surely have secured the sub leader post permanently. It was one more slap to the muzzle, and Kanpardi would enjoy a good snort at the retelling.

Parkoda, indignant, had expected to be dropped off on the return trip. It was only a slight detour, considering it would be a seven thousand light-year Jump. “Telour, you took me from my rightful duty station. You are obligated to allow me to return.”

“I have said exactly that. Return as soon as you can.”

“I can travel on this ship.” It wasn’t so much a demand as pointing out the obvious.

“No. Kanpardi was insistent that as soon as I knew the result of my primary mission, I should immediately return to advise him that his plans should proceed. As ordered, I will return directly to Telda Ka to inform him. That Jump would take you four thousand light-years beyond your destination. You require another ship.”

Telour turned and ran up the ramp; his honor guard closing ranks behind him, cutting off any move by Parkoda try to follow, or to implore Telour to reconsider. However, Parkoda had accepted this new defeat. It had been obvious from the start he would lose a game so stacked against his winning. With his dignity in shreds, he turned and ran back towards the dome even as he heard the portal close and ramp retracted. He heard the fuel pumps activate. That meant they were launching immediately, and Telour probably hoped the thruster blast would “inadvertently” knock him from his feet and deliver painful burns.

The max performance departure was in keeping with the phony urgency Telour claimed for the return, but it didn’t manage to knock Parkoda down. He ran at top speed to reach the dome entrance overhang, as the flakes of plasma torn tarmac bit into his skin. The trickles of blood halted almost immediately.

There was no indication yet that his bad day was only just beginning.

****

Thad leaned back again when the clanship Jumped. “Holy crap, Tet. They were in a hurry. I thought I was going to have to start a missile track the way they came off. I was afraid they were coming after us, as
an unidentified arrival.”

Mirikami had leaned forward too, in alarm when the clanship leaped off like that. “I was watching too, even though I was initially focused on the view on the tarmac after we had orbited past them. I think the lone, blue suit Krall that stayed behind received deliberate disrespect by that hurried launch. The ship buttoned up, and almost immediately did a maximum thrust liftoff
. That blue suited VIP went up the ramp, followed by the honor guards, and didn’t have time to reach even the third deck before the acceleration came. That should cause the loss of a pilot position, if not the pilot’s life, if he did that without the VIP’s approval.

“I believe it was done to insult the Krall left standing at the base of the ramp. He ran out there as if he expected to g
et aboard, but then he was left behind. I don’t know what he did, but he pissed off someone important, who could easily have said goodbye as they left the dome, and not out there on the ramp.”

Ethan said, “Aunt Maggi claims she understands Krall politics better than human politics. The motives are simpler, and the actions and reactions more direct, she says.”

“Nearly frying that one’s ass on the Tarmac is certainly direct.” His dad added.

Mirikami shook his head. “If he had stood there or just walked away slowly he’d be dead. However, running is how the Krall normally prefer to move. I think they wanted him to suffer the indignity of being blown over, or of having to hit top speed to avoid that. He did the latter. I stand by my guess that it was intended to be an insult, not to kill him.”

“I wonder if there’s something there that we can use to our advantage.”

“Ethan,” Mirikami smiled at the youngster. “If Maggi were going to engage in negotiations with them, she’d find a way to use it for sure. However, our only negotiating position here is going to be as simple and direct as the Krall prefer. Missiles down their throats.”

As they were about to lose direct sight of the main dome and its oasis of greenery, Ethan saw something. “Captain, there are five Krall going out to another clanship.”

“Thad, stay with passive tracking but keep ports for a couple of our missile launchers open. They may just be doing something the Krall leader that just departed told them to do.”