Koban 6: Conflict and Empire Page 2

  “We can make certain the enemy will desperately want to fire on these ships, because they’ll emerge shooting at them. The damaged clanships each have operational weapons, so they only need hull integrity restored, and the T-cubed modification installed, to get deep into the Empire fast. After that, those clanships don’t have to return home. They can do something else destructive.” He grinned and looked at Max Born.

  “Max, can we have some of the first Nova II bombs to send on the three test ships? Assuming that a simple AI can target and launch them, of course.”

  Born shrugged, then nodded. “We don’t have many reduced to a size that fits inside the heavy one-meter radius steel cases yet, but we have at least ten of the prototype models, which can be used without the sleek steel covers. They don't need to look pretty, so long as they have coordinates of where to Jump. If the mission doesn’t leave for a couple of months, some of the newer ones will be ready.”

  “The prototypes are good enough, because I don't want to wait. Thad, I’d like you and Sarge to find the clanships we need on K1, ask the Prada there to patch them enough so the hulls hold pressure, and find out, perhaps in Human Space, where we can buy Sulfur Hexafluoride, and two other relatively cheap dense gasses that don't have to be breathable, just denser than breathable air, and less dense than the first gas. We want to learn at what level the gas density gets high enough to disrupt those bomb circuits, or if the Thandol weapon simply won’t target those volumes for that reason.

  “We want to know if the bombs are delivered but can’t activate because they were damaged, or if the targeting systems won’t select them without a low density area to target. Either way, our ships would be safer, I think.”

  The two men nodded, accepting the task assigned.

  Maggi reminded her husband of a secondary matter, related to launching the new Nova bombs. “Tet, we don’t need perfect aiming on the test ships for the Novas, since all you want to do is provoke return fire with Decoherence bombs. But what about installing the mass detectors, to triangulate the densest spot in a target to aim at, for the biggest bang for the credits spent.”

  The question was eagerly intercepted by Wister, because the Prada energetically wanted to contribute to this new fight, since it no longer required overcoming millennia of indoctrination of loyalty to their former Krall Rulers. “We have started production of the newer and more sensitive mass detectors, and we can build dozens per day on the one production line we have running now. That line can be scaled up to produce several hundred a day. We need three mass detectors per ship for accurate triangulation of the highest mass concentrations, for all five thousand of our ships. I’m confident we can deliver more of them than we can of the new Nova bombs, which need small Trap field generators and Jump engines, and a basic AI system to aim them at the Jump coordinates the mass detectors provided.”

  “Thank you Wister.”

  Mirikami continued. “The last item I have today is for better shielding of both body armor and our ships, from Debilitater ray radiation leakage. Such as what caused the loss of the Dauntless on Zanzibar 2, when the radiation entered an open weapon’s port, and leakage from there entered suit joints, disabling or killing the Bridge crew. Coldar, your team and Blue’s technicians were examining those vulnerable points, for both ships and suits.”

  The Raspani took the lead here. “The solution for one works for both. There is a form of solid carbon that is harder than diamond, which is less well organized than the normal symmetric crystalline form. This, oddly enough, is not a new development by us. It was a human discovery on Earth, over five centuries ago. I discovered this form of carbon from a human database when I searched for specific electromagnetic properties, and material hardness. It’s called Q-carbon.

  “To make it for the suits, we vaporized carbon to form a fine film at the joints of body armor, and then we hit the film with just enough laser heat to melt it at the line of the joints. We rapidly cool it, or quench is the word in Standard you use, which is where the letter Q in Q-carbon originates.

  “Instead of the carbon interlocking in the neat lattices of diamonds, there is an amorphous jumble of tetrahedrals of carbon, of various microscopic sizes. These crystals are magnetic and conductive, a key property for our needs, and at their microscopic sizes they disrupt nearly the full spectrum of the mix of high frequency signals of the Debilitater ray, blocking or reflecting the portions of the radiation to which Kobani superconducting nervous systems are most sensitive. We can overlay the new Q-Carbon film with the same advanced stealth coating we use now, so you remain stealthed in your armor, but now shielded from the Debilitater radiation.”

  Mirikami nodded in satisfaction. “That’s for the body armor. You said it also solved the radiation entry into the ships via the weapons ports. We don’t always wear body armor in flight, so how is that solved if we find ourselves ambushed?”

  “Same principle. We weld a steel baffle in the back of the cavities that house the heavy-duty lasers and plasma cannons, with tight seals around the power and control lines, and apply the new Q-carbon film around the seals, to prevent radiation leakage when the external ports are open. It takes less than a half day to seal all eight weapons ports on a ship.

  “It isn’t really a problem for missile port openings, because nothing living is exposed behind those when they open, and the machinery in the missile lockers, where crews work, only moves reloaded racks into place while the outer ports are closed, and internal openings are resealed against explosions before the outer ports reopen. We learned that there’s no path for leakage.”

  “That’s good, at least for our troops and ship crews, who will be involved in actions against Thandol forces. Nevertheless, as I noted last week, our civilians can’t prepare the same way combat troops dress for a fight, or inhabit sealed ships. We’ve seen that the Thandol and their security forces will show them no mercy. A large fleet of Stranglers could wipe out most life on Koban.”

  Coldar shifted his carapace sideways, indicating confusion. “What are Stranglers?”

  Mirikami grimaced. “Oh, sorry. We have two Ragnar prisoners of war from the fighting at Zanzibar 2, and they told us the names of their ship classes. We know that the three types of ships they used in the fight there are classed as Ravagers, comparable to our own ships, which is a Ragnar design, and quite good in a fight requiring speed and maneuvering. Then there is the Smasher class, a pyramidal Thandol design, much smaller than a Crusher, and a good weapons platform, but too massive and slow to fight the fluid sort of space battle we fought against the Ragnar. They can have several Decoherence bomb launchers installed, but the Ragnar are never provided Smashers with those types of weapons.

  “Then, there is the Thandol designed Strangler, with a triangular base the same size of the Smashers, but is a much truncated pyramid with a broad flat top. In fact, they are a modified version of the Smashers. They are reinforced with armor, ground attack and ground defense weapons, and designed for low-level operation in atmosphere, conducting attacks on population centers. Those were the ships carrying the Debilitater projector on their bottom side, disabling normal or clone-mod humans, killing every Kobani directly exposed to the beam, and severely crippling the Kobani struck only by weakened, reflected, or distorted radiation. The Thandol allow the Ragnar full use of Debilitaters. I don't know if they’ve learned how devastating that weapon was to us.”

  ****

  “Now that I know how devastating the Debilitater is to those falgrat sucking, foul dragnak berserkers, I’ll soak entire human planets with that radiation,” swore Bone Breaker Gimtal Thond, the Force Commander of the Ragnar led Annexation Campaign for the Thandol Empire.

  He’d just received an analysis from orbital recordings, and those from the Stranglers, particularly from the Strangler that attacked an unfinished human colony town. That was where ten of the same class of ships that fought his fleet so effectively in space, had been trapped on the surface when the Ragnar attack started.

&n
bsp; Some presumed members of the crews from those ships were identified as having joined what appeared to be ordinary colonists in an impromptu shelter system, in the form of an underground storm drain system. It wasn’t that the combat ship crewmembers wore uniforms, but close study revealed that they all moved in an unusually easy and smooth motion on that significantly higher than average gravity planet. They were the humans that ran faster, with high leaps not matched by the other identical appearing humans that were certainly colonists.

  One human, with such ability, wore a brightly colored shirt that was unique among the population seen in the images at that unfinished town. It was identified again later, by cameras on a Strangler as it first approached the outline of that future town. It was recording the initial effects of the wide angel Debilitater beam as it began to be felt by the exposed crews of two of the freighters. Those humans didn’t have the speed or high leaps of the crews from the combat ships, and as the effects of the nerve pain started to impair their ability to run towards the underground shelter, they collapsed to the ground.

  The strength of the signal at that range was automatically calculated, the purpose being to build a database of how this new species reacted to the Debilitater ray at different signal levels. The loss of muscle control, and degree of flopping of the helpless victims as the beam strength increased fell within expected parameters for the class of warm-blooded lifeforms to which the humans appeared to belong.

  The beam intensity at which exposed humans died would be useful for setting an upper radiation threshold for future punitive actions, after this subservient species was added to the Empire. Dead servants of the empire were less productive than live ones, and paid no taxes. An income that the Ragnar collected for the Empire, and received a share.

  The Strangler’s surveillance system relayed its recordings automatically to the flagship for later scientific review. That was fortunate, since the ship, and the other three Stranglers, were soon lost.

  Before that loss, however, a human wearing a brightly colored shirt, which matched the one worn by the presumed crewmember of a combat ship, shot up out of a square hole in the ground, at one of the openings into the underground drainage system. He rose in an improbably high arc in that gravity, executing a graceful folded up tuck and roll in apparent preparation to land feet first. It looked as if it was trying to come to the aid of the other humans affected by the beam. Some of those more susceptible victims had fallen, and were struggling to crawl to the shelter of that hole, even as the Debilitater robbed them of the ability to control their muscles.

  What was gratifying to Thond was the total collapse of the leaping human, as he failed to control what had started as a graceful and powerful leap. After that, his body reacted far more violently to the beam than did the other adjacent humans. Whereas the bodies of the freighter’s crew flipped and flopped around, as nerves spontaneously directed muscle spasms, the brightly clothed human spectacularly flipped more than a body length into the air from a prone position. Its limb twitches were far faster and more forceful than that of any of the other humans, even when the beam strength grew stronger for the others.

  Well after it was presumed to have died, its body continued impossible gyrations and high flips, which should have broken all of its limbs and many other bones. Yet, the limbs seemed to retain their proper articulation, as if unbroken, the muscle attachments untorn. The detailed study of these images provided some vital clues about the humans that flew in the extremely high performance combat ships. It helped explain some of their improbable tolerance of high acceleration and maneuvers by their ships, if they possessed considerably greater strength and durable bodies than the colonists and freighter crews. Thond was already impressed with the high gravity capability of the colonists, who demonstrated comparable strength to the average Ragnar, despite their smaller size. But the combat ship humans were in a distinct class apart.

  These appeared to be a breed of super humans, and their ability to defeat the Krall began to seem more comprehensible. Except they were suddenly revealed to have a vital weakness, even greater than when compared to others of their own species that did not possess their strength and speed. They fell victim to the Debilitater ray at low signal levels, and died considerably sooner than did the other humans.

  It was that conclusion, which had so energized Force Commander Thond that he lifted his face and roared at the sky, vigorously thumping his chest with the knuckles of both hands. His chest would be sore tomorrow, but his spirit was now healed. He’d been distressed by how successful those outnumbered humans had been at fighting his fleet. Now he knew their great weakness, and it was one the Ragnar themselves were less susceptible to, and had shielded armor, should humans learn to copy that weapon. All he required was more ways to exploit the weapon, and increased Debilitater production would be a significant part of his plans for the future of this conflict.

  ****

  Sarge wouldn’t let go of his gripe. “I still think we should go to Wendal, to rub Emperor Farlol’s trunks in his own crap when we scare the hell out of him, or perhaps kill his royal imperial ass.”

  Thad sighed, again. “You just won’t let it go will you? Both Tet and President MacDougal told us no. Twice for you. Even if you don’t think good old Stewart knows a rifle from his penis, you damn well know Tet understands the military aspects of our raid. He appears to have a grasp of Thandol psychology, and thinks a direct attack against the Emperor, on his capital planet, would trigger a massive and recklessly rash response by them. That would be a major attack, and one we can’t stop. Right now, they don't know how thinly we’re spread. Tet wants to make them cautious, not ragingly reckless.”

  Sarge voiced one final bitch, in a tone indicating his acceptance of inevitable defeat of his personal preferences. “Attacking a damned repair base, or any base deep in Empire space, will also piss them off. If they’re gonna hit us back, and nobody doubts that, scaring the boss elephant might make him hesitate.”

  “It wouldn’t damage their ability to strike back, even if Farlol the umpty umpth were killed. The Ragnar would simply be given more material support, and turned lose, with instructions to show no mercy, to accept no surrender of human colonies. They didn’t appear ready to kill everyone on Zanzibar 2, at least not until we started kicking their asses in space. According to the two low ranking apes we captured, they were stationed on a Smasher that carried a close cousin of the Emperor, who was only there to observe the action. The near disaster for that observer’s ship must have embarrassed the Ragnar commander of that fleet.

  “He’d been placed in charge of conquering the Federation for the Empire, and losing that imperial observer could have been disastrous for him. The two ape grunts think that if the cousin of the emperor had died, this Force Commander Gimtal Thond would have been executed, and the Ragnar replaced for the task of trying to take us over.”

  “Humph. Then I don’t suppose he’s very favorably disposed to us then, is he? This ship repair planet, Meglor. Isn’t that where the two captives expected Thond to send the damaged ships of his fleet?”

  Thad detected the first signs of interest from Reynolds, now that he couldn’t talk anyone into his own plan of action. He knew his friend well, and the best way to spark his interest in their mission, was to ridicule his knowledge of the subject. “I thought you had your complaining mouth open too wide to hear the briefing. What the hell do you know about Meglor, except its name?”

  “Aside from a Crusher being parked in orbit there, and Thond’s Zanzibar fleet in for repairs, it’s where Stranglers are made out of damaged Smashers, or from that ship class, when they’re slated for refurbishing. They cut off one pointy corner, install a Debilitater at the bottom, and add better ground attack defenses.”

  Thad was pleased he’d provoked his interest, but was surprised as well. “That last information wasn’t in the briefing I heard Tet give. How do you know about the Stranglers?”

  “Because, Colonel, a mere sergeant like m
e knows to read the mission particulars that are sent to his Comtap, and not just listen to the big wigs chatter. You only picked up the overall strategy with your big floppy looking ears. I read all the dirty details, which often tell you how to survive when the strategy fails, and the fit hits the shan.”

  “O-Kay, detail man. What mission use do you find in the knowledge that Stranglers are made at Meglor? How does that help us determine how effective Decoherence bomb delivery is with dense gasses inside our three test ships?”

  “It doesn’t help a damn bit.” He held up a hand to hold off a reply.

  Then he picked a quote out of his wolfbat memory matrix.

  “But, Tet also said this about the test clanships we’re taking along, ‘those clanships don’t have to return home. They can do something else destructive.’ It’s the something else destructive I’m thinking about. It can be done at Meglor just as well as at Wendal, and it would clearly benefit us if we can destroy as many Stranglers we can find there.

  “By the way, I’d consider Tet’s suggestion to take three damaged clanships with us merely a guideline. There is probably a dozen of them on K1 waiting for hull repairs, which already have the T-cubed software mods and can travel fast enough to go with us. However, I don't know how many basic AI’s we can beg borrow or steal to operate them. There’s no shortage of Prada communicators to give them our instructions, in or out of Tachyon Space, and to hear their reports.”

  Thad was taken aback. “Damn, man. Did you just come up with all of this?”

  “No, of course not, you dullard. I was hoping for a bigger mission to Wendal if I could convince Tet and Stewart to let us go there. I never got a chance to make my case. The only thing that changes for me now is the destination. And however many of the ships we can take from K1. Not all of them can be made airtight, none of them will have advanced stealth, and some probably don’t have full weapons or missile capability. However, we only need three made airtight to test the atmosphere’s effect on Decoherence bombs. Any others we take with us are bonus damage delivery systems.”