Koban: When Empires Collide Read online

  It was impossible for them to counter the Emperor’s orders to his servants, particularly after he had the Palace Gardeners executed for either carelessness, or were accused of attempting a regime change. When food was brought to him on his orders, his condition did not improve in the period promised if he’d followed their instructions. So, the first physicians followed the gardeners to the grave.

  When assured by his new doctors that he would never recover if he continued to eat real food, he accepted their advice. More because he’d grown so sick, sore, and weak, that the very act of chewing and swallowing became so painful that he was more willing to accept being constantly hungry. Tests now told his doctors that the expelled parasites and their unhatched eggs proved his body was healing, and lacking food in which to lay eggs, or to feed themselves, they were dying.

  He sometimes wanted to die, but was determined to discover who within his wide circle of noble contacts had deliberately infested four or five grazing plots, here, in the access restricted upper levels of the Imperial Palace complex. His advisors finally convinced him he’d rashly had his gardeners executed, because they were also infected. He felt consoled when he remembered they were already old, and would not likely have survived the infection, even with expert medical attention.

  Retroactively, he falsely notified their families they had succumbed to the parasites, and had to be cremated to protect others from its spread. That was also the fate of his harem of consorts. They wouldn’t have been sexually attractive to him after the physical ravages, and they knew too much of the Palace inner workings to leave. They were put down painlessly.

  Now, his High Commander, Delthab Trindal, was insisting he needed to speak with him, about the attacks he’d ordered on the Federation. All Farlol wanted was for that war to proceed as ordered, and not need to make new decisions.

  After the third attempt to reach him via a memcache link, and there had been no fresh unfortunate biological discharge for a quarter cycle, Farlol decided he could tolerate a brief conversation.

  “You will not have much of my time, High Commander. I am in no mood for a progress report on our attacks on the Federation.”

  “Your Majesty, would a serious Federation attack on two of our largest fleet bases fall within your time restriction, and be of interest to you?”

  “What two bases?” His second stomach churned, as he tensed for what would be bad news.

  “Rogue 1 was attacked, as we anticipated, and the thirty Smashers left there for an ambush force destroyed an estimated half of the enemy ships, almost as soon as they appeared. The number destroyed was believed to be about twenty.”

  That didn’t sound like a disaster report to Farlol. However, he only needed to be more patient. His momentary silence, as his stomach cramps eased, was taken as allowance by Trindal to continue to the bad news.

  “They sent very small ships of apparently the same type that attacked Rogue 2. They arrived in a relatively tight formation, which permitted the flotilla to detect the approach of their combined masses through Tachyon Space. They predicted accurately where they would exit, and had a barrage of Decoherence bombs waiting for them to emerge.

  “Much as Force Commander Thond told us, the human pilots, which he says call themselves Kobani, reacted extremely quickly to our attack, and the survivors spread apart to escape our target area. Their small size and superior stealth then rendered them undetectable.

  “The flotilla commander was Commander Jistolra, your third cousin, as I’m sure you recall.” It wouldn’t hurt to mention the Emperor’s personal choice to lead that flotilla, considering what happened next.

  “Before Jistolra’s force could adjust, the enemy attacked them with new gravity controlled weapons, of much greater effectiveness than those used at Rogue 2. They used small black holes to attack our Smashers.

  “He lost eight of his ships almost immediately, and Jistolra ordered a withdrawal to the base where our Sector one fleet had been relocated.”

  Farlol wasn’t as distressed as he’d expected to be. It was the patience thing again. “We were fortunate I followed your suggestion to evacuate that base, High Commander. Trading twenty enemy ships for eight of ours was unfortunate, but to our advantage.” He’d totally forgotten Trindal had said there had been two bases attacked.

  “Your Majesty, the enemy followed the twenty-two Smashers to Fleet Staging area 1. They were still establishing the base, and were disorganized, and unprepared. The enemy attacked with the small black holes, which can sweep through multiple ships, and destroyed the rest of Jistolra’s flotilla, and approximately three thousand eight hundred ships, and all the orbital stations and repair docks. That was the disaster I described.

  “However, in the process, we learned limitations of their new gravity weapon, and we salvaged some of the wreckage of their ships from Rogue 1, recovering hull sections coated with their advanced stealth coatings.”

  The cramps vengefully returned, but Farlol persevered. “Can we use what you found to our advantage, to help our war effort quickly enough to matter?”

  “We believe so, your Imperial Majesty. We have our best technical minds working on the debris, and theoretical scientist considering what we learned about their gravity control ability, and its observed limits. We need your approval to divert resources for the effort, and permission to conduct risky live combat testing. We may not have time to fight an extended war of attrition, as we anticipated. Humans are too reckless and aggressive for our normal and reasonable caution.”

  An explosive intestinal “event” was forming. Farlol quickly said, “You have my order to divert what is needed for this work. Goodbye.” He terminated the link just in time.

  ****

  Mirikami was adamant. “Stewart, I intended to lead this task force from The Mark, as the fleet flagship. If I need to resign from the government and become just another captain, I’ll take my old Mark of Koban and go anyway. I’ll damn well fight to defend the Prada worlds.”

  MacDougal was fearful of losing the strongest glue that bound the fledgling Federation together. “Tet, with Comtap you can receive instant updates and mental visuals from those that are there, and direct their operations from anywhere, such as from here on Haven, or even Koban. Generals and admirals don’t normally participate in the actual fighting.”

  “Had I done that with the Spider Hole team on that Testing Day at Koban Prime, they would all have died, the Krall would have had another demoralizing victory over those captives, and none of the other captives would later have followed my lead had I been that cautious. I put myself at common risk with them, and that is what boosted their morale, and convinced them to follow me.

  “I swear I don’t mean this as an insult Stewart, but you and your family were still in Human Space, unaware of the Krall threat, months prior to your cruise ship’s capture. I was on Koban, and I foresaw what needed to be done then. I know what needs to be done now, to keep our militarily weak Federation united. None of the four species that survived to become Krall slaves are natural fighters, and the Prada, Torki, and Raspani, need to see my personal commitment to their safety, as I fight alongside them. The Krall’tapi were once fighters, but became slaves and tools of the Krall for thousands of years, and they say they will fight, if I do.

  “We know the Prada were never fighters, and they promptly accepted Krall Rule because they were an elder species to them. They are going to fight now, against an Empire led by a species even older than were the Krall, and possibly older than the Olt’kitapi. I will be there with them, I promised them, and I am going. Do I have your support, or will I be a freelance captain with his own personal clanship?”

  Hurt and angry, MacDougal could only express his feelings. “That crack about me and my family being safe in Human Space, back when you organized the resistance to the Krall was needlessly hurtful. That was a low blow.”

  “Stewart, I am truly sorry if that’s how I came across. I didn’t mean it that way. I only meant that I have ofte
n been able to see what needed to be done before it needed doing. Had you already been a captive on Koban, that wouldn’t have changed what Dillion and I did on that fateful Training Day. And, as you did later in Prime City, you backed our political position despite not endorsing gene modifications. That took courage to oppose the Cahill faction. Forgive me if I offended you. That was not my intent, old friend.”

  With a sigh, MacDougal offered his hand. “I’m afraid I let my concern for your safety sway me, and my fear of leading this fragile Federation without you around to help. That worry pushed me into what I knew was a futile argument before it started. Your President, and more importantly, your friend, wishes you God Speed. Please come back to us safely.”

  Gripping the offered hand, Mirikami said, “You have no idea how many of our other mutual friends have warned me of the severe consequences to my ass and health if I get myself killed.”

  He laughed, thinking of how they would do that. At their urgings, he’d made a Raspani style recording of his personality, stored in one of their specially built mind enhancers. There was no such thing as an empty minded Kobani to use as a vessel for his resurrected mind, so it seemed pointless to him. If he got himself killed, the aggravation of the never ending “I told you so’s” would limit the pleasure of a return to life, or at least to awareness. He’d just be very careful.

  “When will you be leaving?”

  “Tonight. Carol estimates the route taken by the Finth fleet, arcing out below the galactic plane, to the south, was deep enough that she estimated two days of travel below, two days horizontal, and two days to climb north, towards one of the Prada colonies. That means her ten Scouts, traveling direct, can arrive near any of the Prada worlds almost as soon as our task force gets there. Thad’s ten Scouts will get there with me, because they are due back here in a few hours. The ten Thack Delos Scouts will continue to search for that fleet at their home star. I need to know if they also launched for Federation worlds, and which ones.”

  “What of the Ragnar, and Thandol?”

  “Thad left the Ragnar fleet in disarray and with an uncertain acting Force Commander, but their fleet is mostly intact. The Thandol have released Thond to return home. That’s what we learned from house servant spies of nobles in the High Command. We don’t know what Thond will do, but he certainly knows what we will do to his fleet and home worlds, and that should give him pause.

  “The Emperor and his palace are essentially in a closed box because of the quarantine. From the busy crematorium, absentee gardeners, and several missing Imperial Physicians, we can assume the Emperor is, shall we say, down in the dumps, and distracted. That mission appears to have worked to divert the Emperor’s attention, but it should have occurred a month sooner. I don’t know if the Thandol will wait until after their security forces attack, or send one or two fleets of their own at the same time. They are not acting at all as they have historically. I stirred up a mess by having less of an understanding of how they think and react, than I did of the raw instincts of the Krall.

  “The Thandol are smarter, and The Emperor is driven by a Herd Master’s ego and sexual drive to dominate his domain, which I failed to fully grasp. Right now, they are acting less predictably than the subservient species say they have acted in the past. I hope they don’t join their proxy fleets right now, since we are spread so thin.”

  “Well, we don’t have hundreds of worlds to guard yet, like they probably think. We have a huge territory, but it’s sparsely settled.”

  “Yes, but we can’t meet five fleets at one time, if that’s what they send against us. We are most vulnerable if they find the Koban system. Because we don’t know if they have, we need to keep a strong force here at home.

  “Even with the new unexpectedly potent Scouts, the five Mark II class ships, and the operational clanships, we have less than five thousand eight hundred fighting ships. The Prada shifted most ship production to Scouts, which can fight with their gravity projectors, and they turn out nearly eight a week. Our clanships will take on the supply of missiles, anti-ship mostly, but heavier ground attack types as well, now that we learned that Scout gravity weapons lose focus and their control fades in stronger gravity fields.

  “What about the larger and more powerful projectors, like on your new Mark?”

  “I ran a test, and we deeply penetrated the surface of Kratos with a three-foot diameter black hole, to add a new small crater on its rear side. A Scout was unable to do that with even a tightly focused one inch event horizon.”

  “You fired on our moon?” Stewart sounded horrified.

  “Relax, we can terminate a black hole by cutting off projector power, or sending the mathematical polarization twist to rotate it out of Normal Space. We wouldn’t risk collapsing our moon. Now we know the Mark II’s have the power to attack the surface of a lunar mass, and perhaps the surface of a terrestrial planet.”

  “How did the Dismantlers disrupt the centers of super Jovians?”

  “Stewart, those ships are three times the size of the Mark II’s, and their gravity projectors take up a full quarter of their entire volume. We did not design our ships to need that much gravitational power, which would reduce the cargo hauling capacity, and carry fewer passengers. We didn’t think about using the projectors as weapons when they were designed. We wanted to unload and move cargo at our colony planets that would be without orbital stations. The Dismantlers weren’t built for commercial use, they were tools to obtain raw materials to build the giant habitats for the Olt’kitapi.”

  “I bet you wish you had a bigger war tool right now.”

  “Wishing won’t help us, and we don’t have time to design and build even larger warships. I need to get up to orbit and start organizing and planning. We’ll have time to talk after we Jump. It’s a full day to the nearest Prada world of One Land, and we only have five hundred clanships there now, with fifty Prada crewed Scouts that we pulled from our own fleet.”

  “What if the Finth attack either of the other two Prada colonies?”

  “No more than an hour’s Jump to either one. Besides, six of our border patrol boats were diverted from the Empire’s border, with three placed above the galactic plane, three below, near the Prada worlds. We should see a large fleet coming more than an hour away.”

  “Good idea, but I didn’t know about, or authorize that.”

  “No, one of your low-level administrators did, yesterday. At the request of your highly placed and trusted Secretary of Defense, Fleet Admiral, Head Honcho, or whatever the new damned title you managed to assign me behind my back this month. Good old Captain Mirikami still has some influence around here, ya know. Besides, I sent Maggi in my name. Nobody wins an argument with the Tiger Lady.”

  “I’ll tell her you called her that.”

  “I’ll deny it to the dimpled darling, also known as Mighty Mite, and send her to talk to you about your use of those awful pejorative terms. You’d best be wearing armor, and a cup. See ya later Stew.” And Mirikami cheerfully headed off to a nice safe war.

  ****

  Cossfass Thisster was enjoying the view of the galaxy from an unusual perspective, a thousand lightyears out of the plane of its disk. It made his first taste of unfettered dominance more exhilarating. In one sense, it wasn’t as dominate a view as he’d like, because it was really considered a view from the underside of the Milky Way, on its magnetic south side. But that was a trivial matter of biased perspective, since it looked as identical to him as a view from the north side, because to him he seemed to be slightly above the vast barred spiral. He could see the filmy edge of the central bulge of core stars in its glory, swelling much higher than his position, roughly fifteen thousand light years away.

  Intellectually aware that he was only the alpha male of the Beta clan, nevertheless, he was leading the Finth Sky Hunters fleet, as its Dominant Flight Commander.

  It was a rare opportunity for any Finth, with the actual Dominate One, Fissloss Slassler, and his coleaders of the Alpha
clan, the Stalkers of Sissbalt, relegated to a homeland defense role, when such a defense appeared to be highly unnecessary. The Thandol truly needed their Security Forces to soften this new enemy, of unknown strength, apparently ruling a large expanse of stars that was perhaps two thirds the volume the Empire currently claimed.

  His Beta leader, Hassler Kisstas, was relishing the same view, but posed a needed question, despite its negative implication for their mission, and expectations of earning battlefield glory.

  “Will you turn back the fleet, and return to Home Den? As Fissloss demanded?”

  The instantaneous message had arrived a day ago, while they were in Jump status on the second and longest parallel track of their journey to their target.

  The answer was firm. “No! Had Slassler sent the message before our position check at the first exit point, prior to our Jump to fly parallel to the disk, we were only one thousand lightyears from home, and a short time away from defending them. The attack at home might have only paused, and could have resumed at any moment. We would have been compelled to Jump to Home Den for its defense then.

  “But, the transmissions can only reach us while in Tachyon Space, and only three ships of the fleet have tachyon receivers. The Delta and Gama pack leaders heard the order to return, but none of the thousands of fleet units would know, and they would have continued to this predetermine waypoint, many thousands of lightyears and more than four cycles away from Home Den. If the pack leader’s three ships turned back, the rest of the fleet would be out here anyway, leaderless, and not know how to proceed. We all decided to stay with the fleet.

  “We have the advantage now of knowing that the attacks at Home Den ended three cycles ago, and the small number of enemy ships, having demonstrated their anger, have withdrawn. We are only one thousand lightyears from the Prada planet, a half cycle from attacking the enemy that came to us uninvited, attacked us, and then ran away.”