Koban 5: A Federation Forged in Fire Read online

  He realized they were all looking outward, away from the hill itself, and by gestures knew they were engaged in animated but unheard discussions. They were certainly using suit com systems, and even if he scanned for the frequency, it would be encrypted. He decided they were definitely focused on some issue besides the top of the hill. None of them ever turned a visor up the steep slope on his side. Several more blue suits seemed to appear from the flat rock wall at the base, which he couldn’t see. They gestured and spoke briefly, and turned and walked back the way they came, accompanied by another blue suit, and several K’Tal.

  With a thrill, he knew there was an opening into the rocks below him. There had to be a Krall bunker placed under this hill for protection. “Hey Ethan,” he called on Comtap. “I landed us on top of a clan bunker I think.”

  “Ah,” Ethan replied in understanding. “That must be why there were so many clanships stationed all around this hill. I see some stockpiles of various supplies under some active camouflage mesh a quarter mile away, some of it looks like rifle cases. From the top, I’ll bet that mesh cover looks like rocks and weeds.”

  “Probably so. I have a bunch of higher status blue suits right below me, all of them in full armor, and having animated discussions.” He paused to observe something odd.

  “Hold on. I just saw some approaching warriors in blue and plain armor, with helmets off, and they were just waved back by some of the plain armored black suit warriors below me. The newcomers came from the direction of a cluster of clanships you disabled on our way down. They must have dead armor and dead ships. I think they were trying to report this strange problem. The high status leaders below me evidently already know something is wrong, because they ordered the others to stay back from them and the bunker.”

  “Sarge, we’re on top of the bull’s-eye of a clan combat center, and they must have just figured out what’s happening to their equipment. If you snipe one of them, you’ll disable all of the suits and plasma rifles within range of the chip.”

  “Yes and thereby let them know we’re up here. We’re so far above the bunker and the Krall standing outside that they’re out of range of the Denial chip around our necks.”

  Stating the obvious, Ethan said, “If we infect one suit or rifle, we’ll get them all. Take a shot.”

  “No. We can get that result without firing a shot, which they could trace back up to us, even if silenced. I’d rather not be chased away from this spot, now that we know we have some big shots almost in our grasp.”

  “So what do you want to do? I just told Kit to stay in place, so she doesn’t move down to attack.”

  “Do you see any warriors on your side of the hill? How close is the nearest clanship on your side?”

  “Just a few plain suit warriors standing near the stockpile I mentioned. The closest four clanships to me are at least a quarter mile away, and I’m sure I got them all on the way down. There’re some more parked almost a mile out, which I also targeted. Even if not hearing my shots, there could have been some impact noise or dust spurts. That could clue them in that there was someone shooting a non-Krall weapon.”

  “I was thinking more about what happened on my side. The guards here prevented warriors in armor with rifles from approaching any closer. They’ll have to do that all the way around the hill to protect the bunker. Do you have any loose chips in any of your suit compartments?”

  “No, only the one around my neck. That would be the same for Kit, of course.”

  “Well, I’m obviously the thinker in this party. I have a handful if the greasy little suckers that I picked up when we were given that bucket full. They’re too light to throw very far, but I have an idea. Open your helmet to outside air, and let’s both sniff around for bush-tails. Even if you’ve never smelled one, I think you be able to locate a burrow or a trail. They scurry around on beaten little tracks. I know what they smell like. It’s a sour musty odor.

  “I think they should be plentiful up here, what with the Krall killing them for fun down below. They dig burrows under tree roots, or rock ledges. Get Kit involved. She has the real nose of the group. Frill her and tell her not to hurt them, at least not all of them. One dead one is fine, but we need it fast, and then some live ones.”

  Reynolds started his search, as he saw Ethan’s icon move towards where he knew Kit had gone. Her older stealth system didn’t send him a visor icon, but he knew he’d see her ripple against a background when she moved.

  Reynolds had just gone down on hands and knees under some low trees, sniffing, when Ethan called. “Kit has a dead one. Found it on the way to her sector. She says the smell is all over the area up here. Now that I smelled this one, I can smell their trails if my nose is close.”

  “Dead or alive?”

  “Dead and wet. She put a heavy paw on it when it ran in panic from her odor, but it couldn’t see her. She was sorry she didn’t get to play with it for a time, scaring the hell out of it.”

  Reynolds nodded to himself and said, “Just like house cat behavior with a mouse. Why wet? Is it all bloody?”

  “Nah. She put it in her mouth and sucked on it for the flavor. Reluctantly spit it out for me. Frilled me that it’s the first live prey she’s had in several weeks. Says she can get us more, probably alive, but wants to sample one of them as a snack.”

  “Fine. I’m coming over with a chip. How’s your throwing arm?”

  “Good I guess. Why?”

  “My Left arm was regrown and is stronger than my right, but I can’t throw well lefty.”

  “I can throw the same with either hand. Why can’t you?”

  “You almost grew up a Kobani, so it seems natural to you. I was in my forties when I was transformed. My brain still thinks I can’t throw the same with both hands, so I can’t.”

  “So what?”

  “I may not be able to throw that dead bush-tail far enough out. This hill is over a couple of hundred feet high and more than that wide at the base. I want that thing out on the flat ground near the base of the hill.”

  “You said the Krall on your side were right below you.”

  “I don't want it dropped in their laps, not where they can see it fall.”

  “Oh. I told you there weren’t any close on my side and none on Kit’s side either, now that I’ve looked from her spot.”

  “Trust me, there will be soon.”

  He reached Ethan and Kit, and held out his hand.

  The revolting, soggy, half-pound dead rat analogue with a formerly bushy tail smelled bad and looked worse.

  He looked at Kit’s eyes, hovering in the air almost at his head height. “You put this smelly hair ball in your mouth? Don’t you dare lick me after any of your hunts, not if this thing tastes good to you.” He heard the chuff sound a ripper makes that passes for a snicker. There was no doubt in Reynolds mind that a particularly unpleasant face lick was in his future.

  He pulled out several of the tiny grease laden chips from a small compartment at his suit’s waist. Separating one, he passed several to Ethan to carry, and placed several back in his own compartment.

  “I’d thought I’d be feeding one of these to something alive, but I suppose it will go down if I push it in.” He used a finger of his gauntlet to wedge open the toothy jaws of the pointed little mouth, and placed the chip inside. He quickly reached over and broke off a twig from a bush, and used it to push the object farther down the throat.

  “OK, kid. You go to a gap in the trees and rocks, and you show me how good your arm is. I want this on the beaten track that I see around the base of the hill, where these idiot warriors walk and tramp down the grass on guard duty, making this hump look occupied.”

  He stayed back to reduce any added motion of the foliage, but stood where he could see the ghostly silhouette of Ethan make his throw. The bush-tail in his hand was visible of course, as his arm snapped forward so fast that it made a clearly heard whoosh.

  The pitiful dead little delivery animal sailed up and out, in a much lon
ger and higher arc than Reynolds knew he could have produced. In fact, he stepped forward to keep it in sight, and nearly whistled as it finally hit the ground.

  “Damn son. You almost overshot the target area. But it’s within fifty feet of that path. That’s close enough. Let’s you and I go back to our watch areas.”

  Ethan had less distance to walk, and linked promptly. “There are warriors passing below me right now. Following that path you bitched about them making.”

  Reynolds thought of the channel for Kit’s receiver, staying linked with Ethan, and the suit made the connection. “Kit, give us low growl if any Krall passes below you.”

  The growls were almost immediate, and the number indicated more than one. “Damn, we got that bush-tail in place just in time.” Ethan sounded excited.

  “I’m back above the bunker entrance now, and I see the Krall have thinned out here, apparently making a cordon around the hill to keep anyone from outside well away. Most of the blue suits must have gone back inside, along with the K’Tal I saw. There’s one unit commander still here in front, but the others went around the sides or into the bunker. Let me know as soon as the first Krall gets within a hundred feet of our dead critter.”

  “Uh Oh,” Ethan said. “I just saw some launches many miles off in the distance, and laser cannon fire. It appeared to come from another grounded clanship.”

  “I see some too,” Reynolds said. “A lot of laser and plasma fire, and a few launches out near the edges of this defensive perimeter. I saw some of the heavy plasma batteries fire too. Over where I know we have a number of our small ships on the ground, everything seems quiet. Those clanships are dead quiet.”

  Suddenly, there were missile streaks descending through broken cloud layers. Some intersected with the ships rising on flaming plasma torches, and others vanished in a puff of smoke and a flash as they were intercepted by a laser beam. The incoming missiles were obviously taking preemptive evasive action to make targeting them difficult, and many got through. Even so, there were no explosions when they intersected with a rising clanship, and often the missile track appeared bent as it continued down to the surface. Clearly, those anti-ship missiles had touched their targets. With luck, the missiles came down close to some other target, to infect it with their Denial list.

  In fascination, Reynolds watched two clanship plasma trails, after he’d seen missiles deflect after touching them, and their reaction engine thrust continued to lift them. One began a slow tilt away from a vertical climb before entering an obscuring cloud layer, and he knew from observing this on K1, that this clanship was probably going to end with an arc back to the surface. Possibly some hundreds or even thousands of miles away, out of control and the main engine and attitude thrusters locked, accelerating along whatever the last course change had been.

  He was so engrossed that he missed seeing what he’d asked Ethan to report. The first Krall had obviously walked close enough to the dead bush-tail’s chip that its weapon and suit was infected, and in an instantaneous daisy chain, passed it around the warriors encircling the hill, back to those directly below him. He saw a Krall below removing his helmet, just as when Ethan announced, “I think they already passed within range. I was watching something else”

  “Oh yes. These poor slobs no longer have working plasma rifles, visor input or powered suits. They’ll shed all of those soon. I wonder how many of them carried pistols under their suits? I wouldn’t be surprised if the warriors start using captured human weapons in a few days. Lack of resupply, and no spares, will quickly limit that use. I know Nabarone once asked the PU to make arms that would only respond to a human’s touch, but the Army Ladies in charge said there was no need, because the Krall showed distain for our smaller weapons. They’ll wish they had done that.”

  “What do you think we should do now, Sarge? Spread out and disable more weapons and ships?”

  “Ethan, we lucked into a good landing zone. I want to figure out how to disable the bunker under this hill, and perhaps capture the clan leader or his flunkies. If the main door was left closed, the keypad won’t allow anyone in or out now. Unless they have a manual method to get the heavy blast doors open, they’re trapped inside. The keypads will work for us, except we don’t know the code. I’m sure some of those below know what that code is, and then we can get inside. I don’t want to have to fight off a horde of them to do that.

  “If we catch a live brush-tail, we can force feed it a greasy chip and send it down on the elevator. They started burying these bunkers deeper after the PU used high velocity massive penetrators. The command center will likely be well over a hundred feet down, with at least one long escape tunnel if the main entrance is destroyed. The bunker commander will have computers, power, and communications available. If we knock their power offline, this bunker will be ripe for the picking, and their leaders locked in down there.”

  “What if Kit and I draw the guards away, towards that supply dump. We can briefly expose ourselves, or I can, anyway. If they come running I can go stealth and circle back here.”

  “OK. Sounds like a plan. But you and Kit stay close for mutual support. I can get to the door if most of them follow you, and if any of us catches a Krall that knows the door code, we can get inside. Now find me a live bush-tail or two for the elevator.”

  Forty-five minutes later, half of that time spent trying to catch bush-tails for Reynolds, Ethan pulled the Krall guarding the hill’s perimeter away in a chase. The majority of the angry and frustrated Krall around the base of the hill had streamed off after Ethan, when he deactivated stealth and killed a warrior with a single punch through, not just to his helmetless head, and then ran away.

  Enroute, they quickly noticed the huge paw prints Kip deliberately left in dusty places along Ethan’s back trail, but they didn’t see the creature that left them. None of these lower status young black suits had ever been to Koban, and there were no large cat-like predators on Poldark. The tracks were therefore a curiosity, and not the big red flag they should have been. Some of them were about to become kitty litter.

  Only about two thirds of those pursuing the armored figure, which they’d briefly seen yet again standing casually at their supply dump, carried backup pistols with them. The figure had selected a plasma rifle from an open case, switched it on as they fired at him while they charged toward him, and he used it to kill the two leading warriors, before laying it down on the rifle case and switching on stealth.

  Aside from pissing off the pursuers more, it encouraged them to get to the obviously operational rifles. That had been exactly why Ethan had used one of their weapons, rather than the more effective multiple beam weapons of his suit. He wanted to give more of them a reason to leave the bunker area to obtain what they thought would be working weapons.

  Their disappointment, when the weapons failed to activate for them, was instantly forgotten when a gigantic blue-green animal’s head, suddenly floating over the top of a nearby stack of weapon cases, lunged down into their midst, ripping and tearing at warriors that had removed their armor. There were flashes of huge blue colored clawed paws, which appeared out of the rippling and nearly invisible shape attacking them.

  The disembodied huge teal colored head, poised above a dying warrior who’d had his chest ripped open, suddenly pointed its fearsome muzzle to the sky, opened its bloodied fanged jaws and issued a blasting roar of challenge. That pure animal sound nearly congealed the blood of those not even touched by this impossibly fast and powerful beast.

  When it lowered its head and focused its fierce and intensely blue eyes directly at two nearby armed warriors, their own red pupils, centered in black onyx-like orbs, widened in terror and they turned and ran, weapons unfired.

  Never having seen any Krall react this way, Ethan was astounded. When Kit ducked her head sharply and the hood flew back forward over her bloody muzzle, she shook her head to orient the eyeholes, and she effectively vanished for any Krall that glanced back. She looked where Ethan stood, and he
could see the same intense blue glow of the eyes of a natural killer, which had just terrified those warriors into fleeing for their lives.

  It was chilling, even to a young man who had grown up with this lovable big “kitty.” He’d not appreciated how rippers affected the Krall at some base level of their psyche. She brought out a primitive instinct from their far distant past, before they guided their own evolution, back when they feared being killed and eaten alive by something larger and more powerful than they were. There probably had been large predators they feared on their original home world, long before they mastered weapon making, and learned group cooperation.

  It explained how usually fearless warriors, willing to face certain death in a battle against overwhelming numbers of humans, could suddenly turn and run in near panic when a creature they had never even seen before, preyed on them. Ethan was very envious of his sister. The Krall would chase him and run from her, and he was actually the more dangerous of the two. At least when I’m armed, he thought.

  The dying Krall that Kit stood over was the next thing Ethan found of interest, after his admiring thoughts of his ripper sibling. He pulled off a gauntlet and grasped a quivering hand. Instead of speaking aloud, he sent mental words in high Krall, with images of a standard door keypad. “What is the door code to enter the bunker?”

  The Krall was startled and in shock, and knew it was dying. The warrior wondered if this was the beast speaking to her. Ethan used its gender and desire for breeding rights to get its attention focused. “If your clan wanted to save your unfertilized eggs to preserve your bloodline, how would they carry you down into the bunker? What is the door code?”