Koban: When Empires Collide Page 28

  “Howard, our squadron is still studying their system and the hundred or so ships still at their docks. They have not tried for prisoners yet, but I have a different source of information about them, much closer at hand. I’m on Koban, so give me a moment to link with Maggi, who’s on Haven. I’ll conference her in. She’s been interrogating our Thandol prisoners about the TD. They were relatively accurate at describing the methods used by the Ragnar and Finth, and how they think.”

  There was a period of quiet, while Mirikami conferred with his wife on Haven, then it was Maggi that Howard heard next. He knew her, but had met her only twice, since she’d had little dealings with the war on Poldark.

  “Howard, I’m happy to talk to you again. Chief Haveram told me you and he had started up a cargo operation, mostly legal deals these days, he says. I think you’re having a good influence on him.”

  “Hello Maggi. We were starting to make decent money, until the Federation called in all but three of our ships. I fly a ship I named the Sweet Deal, a former clanship, and Haveram operates mostly out of the Shady Lady, another clanship, although he’d never give up the Falcon. Even though it wouldn’t stand up to a real fight. That’s his cover ship, for when he needs to make a deal without revealing our Koban connection.” He shifted to the subject at hand.

  “I assume Tet told you I’m about to risk the Shady Lady, fighting off what we are sure will be a Thack Delos fleet, coming here to attack New Glasgow.”

  “Tet told me that. And that you’re operating as a liaison, of a sort, between Admiral Foxworthy and the governor there, until she arrives. We’re certain now it’s a TD fleet, so what should I tell you about them?”

  “Start with where they live, and what they’re like, to help me form a picture I can describe and share without a Mind Tap, then I’ll have Rhonda Fabershan, of my crew, call you for a Mind Tap update.”

  “Oh. I recall her. I helped her through her recovery from her first mods as a teen. I’ll link to her after you and I finish talking. What I know about the TD will be second hand, obtained from two Thandol officers that have had only slight dealings with them. Their Crusher made a state visit to the Crinlor Delos system once, to show off the Emperor’s navy muscles.

  “By the way, Crinlor in Thandol means twins, which is derived from the red dwarfs that form the close binary primary suns. They are short period close binary’s, which form their central dual suns. The Thack Delos call them Delos, which means something like family or grandparents, not twins.

  “The stars, nearly of identical mass, rotate around each other in the same plane as the six rocky planets, with a period of about one Earth day. Because they are so close, they trigger frequent solar flares in one another. Most of the flares are traded like punches between the stars, but there’s a lot of UV radiation and coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, that hit the two habitable planets. Those are the third, and forth, rocky worlds. The two inner planets are rather scorched and barren.

  “The third planet, a colony, is on the inner edge of the habitable zone. The TD colonized it tens of thousands of years in the past, but it isn’t any garden planet, even by their harsh standards.

  “It rotates twice for each three-week orbit, so it has long days and nights, in a three to two resonance, but it’s atmosphere distributes heat to the dark side to keep it livable for the days of darkness. The Thandol say the planet’s name is Dolbor Ver, but consider it of little use other than a mining base and a ship yard.”

  “Dolbor Gen Delos, fourth planet out, is their home planet of origin. Adding Delos translates the names of the planets to something like the children of the parent stars, which are collectively called Delos, like a family name. The Thack Delos are the children of their home planet, or grandchildren of the parent suns.

  “A fatherless relationship, I guess, except, like the Torki, they don’t grow up in a family unit, or know their parents. They hatch in swamps from clutches of eggs, and start out much like the amphibians they once were. They swim, and have tails for propulsion in their first years, and gills. The Thandol didn’t know how many years, because they use the term orbits, and with a three-month orbit around their cool stars, our standard Earth years don’t translate well to estimate their life cycle, I don’t know how long they live.

  “In any case, they gradually lose their tails and gills, and their stubby legs, both front and rear, lengthen, and they become upright land dwellers. Their skin retains the ability to absorb some oxygen directly, but they have lungs, and breath like we do.”

  Howard, trying to form a mental picture, asked, “They’re sort of walking salamanders? How large and what color? They don’t sound fearsome.”

  “Not much like I picture a salamander. They’re bipedal, all green, from four feet to a slender six feet tall, dry skin that holds in moisture, with a bug-eyed head, with wide set large blue eyes. The eyes are very large, compared to ours, for the lower light environment of their suns, and longer nights than we evolved under.

  “We now have infrared vision, thanks to our ripper genes, but I’ll bet theirs is better. We’ll surely have better vision in what we call the visible range, which is a conceit on our part, since any radiation a life form can see is called their own visual range.”

  “What ship types? At least what the Thandol told you they have.”

  “Their light cruiser, per the Thandol estimate, who build oversized ships, looks more like what the PU navy would classify as a medium cruiser. It’s named something that I believe translates into the word Marauder, and is their best craft at ship-on-ship combat. It mounts heavy lasers, less powerful than a clanship’s, but a match for the navy’s beams. Four plasma cannons, less powerful than your clanship has, and now the navy heavy medium cruisers have been upgraded to match ours. Their plasma cannons cycle faster, because of their lower power demands. They fire four type missiles. Anti-ship, anti-missile, and two type of ground attack missiles.

  “Their Heavy cruisers, which I’ve decided the name would be best translated as Exterminators, come heavily armed. The ship is as large as the Thandol permits for a Security force, and is bigger than a Smasher, but more agile. Armed with six plasma cannons heavier than yours or the navy’s, only two heavy lasers, one front, one rear, and they are monsters, mounted in turrets and used for defense as much as offense. They fire the same four missile types. There are other ship types, but only one of the other categories is likely be on this mission.

  “It’s a sort of small carrier, simply called an Egg Layer, and it carries six oval shaped Infiltrators, which have two or three crew members each, and it has defensive missiles and lasers. However, it can launch up to ten ground attack missiles simultaneously.”

  “What weapons did nature give the Thack Delos?” he asked.

  The Krall had talons and teeth, Ragnar had big muscles and were agile and well balanced for being so bulky, the Finth had big teeth, claws, and massive shoulders and arms, the Thandol had trunks and tentacles, with those four flat stomping feet. He wondered about this new species.

  She sent a mental image, gleaned from the minds of the Thandol prisoners. “The TD, except for some pointy front teeth, which I’d not call fangs at all, don’t have claws, and their fingers and hands are uncannily like ours, but green, with a slightly warty looking skin, which also covers their entire hairless bodies. They are no more imposing looking than we are, but their home world has about ninety three percent of Earth’s mass. That makes them somewhat like normal humans in physical capability, thus stronger for their smaller size than the other security species are, who all have larger bodies.

  “They don’t wear much in the way of clothing, so yet again, we oversexed and overdressed humans are the exception. They often wear harnesses and belts, with purses or pouches, made of what looked to me like leather, but could be artificial. They sometimes carry side arms in holster type devices, either at their waist, or in a chest carry. They often wear sandals, but also wear shoes or boots.

  “I saw images of the
m in armor that conforms to their wide-headed anatomy, with stealth capability that matched what the Ragnar use, and the Thandol are also the source of much of their weapons technology. They carry automatic plasma rifles, and use a sort of flame thrower used by a handful of troops. They often carry lightweight, short range, Debilitater projectors. Although, they favor shoulder fired weapons that none of our other adversaries use, for fear it will be used on them. These nasty little warheads, and larger versions, can be placed on any of their anti-ship missiles, and their largest ground attack missiles.

  “What’s that type warhead?”

  “Nuclear weapons. Not the hugely destructive thermonuclear weapons, but the smaller, damaging, dirty, ionizing radiation producing kind. They only use these when the Thandol approve, because after they dirty up a planet it isn’t suitable for any other species except them, and their imported plants and animals for many years.”

  “I don’t get it. How do they live on radiation polluted worlds?”

  “The same way they do now. Dolbor Ver and Dolbor Gen are both bathed in frequent radiation storms from solar flares from their stars. They thrive under UV radiation that we’d die from within a week or two, and we’d die from more than just severe sunburn. We’d develop cancers, tumors, and suffer tissue damage faster than our oldest Earth installed gene mods could fight, kill, and repair. They don’t even get radiation sickness.”

  “Why not?”

  “Kind of like what happened on Koban with organic superconducting nerves, they inherited common DNA genetics that evolved in all their surface life forms on Dolbor Gen, which can tolerate more radiation without damage. But, they also have an energy driven biological repair system that corrects damage to their chromosomal DNA. It sounds like a natural system related to our artificial anti-aging genetics, which we copied from the Prada. Only it’s more robust. They don’t need nanites or med labs for repairing accumulated radiation damage.

  “Their tissues absorb radiation in a biofluorescence phenomenon, which absorbs UV energy, and possibly other electromagnetic radiation spectrums, and emit it as a different color, green in their case. But aside from it being useful for some basic glowing skin communication flashes, and skin color camouflage, their bodies can use that energy to power metabolic processes that attack tumors, to kill or rapidly excise them, and repair damage to their DNA from penetrating atomic particles. A nuke detonated nearby will kill them as easily as any human from blast effects, but if farther away, they will recover from a dose of radiation that would kill us in hours.”

  “I take it this radiation resistance guides some of their weapons technology? Are they resistant to a Debilitater, like we are now?”

  “Nope. The Thandol were adamant. The Thack Delos nervous system reacts strongly to that electromagnetic radiation. However, they use Debilitater weapons, and wear body armor for protection from it. They also have other damaging radiation weapons.”

  “Such as?”

  “Antipersonnel weapons that send out beams of electrons, called beta radiation, which is short range, and is effective on any unprotected skin. They have longer range UV beams, and particle beams of much lower energy than a plasma bolt, which radiate UV and gamma photons from the decaying unstable accelerated nuclei that embed in tissues. These weapons deliver slow developing damage to populations or groups of people, who will die in hours or days without med lab and nanite treatment, or will die in minutes at more intense doses. These are population control, or actually, population reduction weapons.”

  “Shit. We don’t have much in the way of field radiation treatments, or protection and shielding from penetrating particle radiation. Not for civilians, anyway. We have Kobani armor, with nanite injectors, and natural radiation reflection from our stealth coatings. Likewise, my clanship has that coating, as do Foxworthy’s refitted ships. But not the people of this planet, nor the admiral’s later arriving ships. The Krall wouldn’t permit the use of radiation weapons or nukes by their enemies, so we didn’t develop those defenses. The Krall weren’t concerned for our health, but it could spoil their selective breeding program. Now we aren’t prepared to encounter these types of weapons.”

  “Tet is in a Comtap discussion with our scientists and technicians here on Haven while you and I talk. Although, I don’t know what they could come up with that would help New Glasgow implement it within the next twenty-four hours.”

  “Will they fire the radiation beam weapons from orbit, or in low atmosphere?”

  “Oh. I guess that’s one of the good points in your favor. I hadn’t considered that aspect while I was describing weapons they have, rather than how they’re deployed. Most of the beam-like radiation is delivered via heavy armored trucks or tanks on the ground, powered by large fusion bottles, and they also carry the radioactive material they will ionize, to magnetically, or electrostatically, fire at their living targets. Electrons they produce themselves, by stripping them from atmospheric atoms, but radioactive isotopes they refine and bring with them, and they’re the most dangerous penetrating kinds of radiation. Layers of clothing can stop most Beta radiation.

  “All of those beams have shorter ranges than a laser or plasma bolt in air. They couldn’t be fired from orbit at the ground, or even by a ship in low atmosphere. Unless the TD brings landing craft with them, those sorts of weapons won’t be put on the ground and used to attack the population. But, nuclear tipped missiles with dirty warheads or neutron bombs might be used.”

  “Double damn. I need to pass this on to Governor Goodfem in just a few minutes. That isn’t going to be pleasant.” Then he had a thought.

  “Is it possible to negotiate with them? Buy them off, or arrange a truce? I doubt if we have a translation for their language, but if they understand Thandol, the PU has the translation data bases you gave them. We can try to talk them out of the attack, and to revolt against the Thandol. You were trying to do that with the Ragnar and Finth.”

  “That was a better idea in theory than it’s been in practice. It hasn’t worked so far, and I don’t think that’s a possibility with these aliens, at least at this point. From the minds of the Thandol officers, the Thack Delos behave strangely, and apparently other species think so as well. They don’t exhibit, or seem to even experience the typical emotional responses, such as anger, hatred, or rage towards a foe. Nor do they display sympathy, empathy, or compassion for their victims, or those they deal with peacefully. They certainly perpetuate hateful and heartless seeming acts on those they attack, but it is measured, to try to produce the results they wish to achieve. No emotions involved.

  “They have never formed an alliance with another species, thus they have no subservient species allies or spies within the Empire. By the same measure, until they are given a motive or reason to punish or attack one of the subservient species they tax, on behalf of the Emperor, they leave them alone.

  “They don’t lord it over those they regulate, although they collect tribute from them on behalf of the Empire, and themselves, of course. They always pay the agreed upon share to the Emperor’s representatives. No more, and no less. It can prove fatal for the Thandol noble that collects the revenue if they try to cheat the TD representative that comes to count and divide the funds. Tax skimming is a common form of Thandol corruption, but not with our bug eyed little green men. There can be negotiations over the amounts to be exchanged, and of the division of the spoils, but threatening the TD agent, and keeping part of what he believes is owed him after negotiations have concluded, always leads to a physical attack, and a death. The Thandol noble, or the TD agent.

  “There have been thousands of subsequent deaths involved when a corrupt Thandol tax collector made off with a tax haul that was not divided as fairly as the Thack Delos representative believes was agreed upon. For a relatively small amount, and for the principle involved, the entire species may prepare to fight a war they can’t win.

  “On the other hand, they will accept and keep an overpayment, but will not demand one greater th
an negotiated, and will never return an overpayment if asked to do so, and will not deliver any added service, benefit, or material that was not agreed upon in advance, in exchange for the extra payment. You must stick to the deal negotiated, but if you pay them more, then it is assumed you discovered what you received was worth the additional payment. If the TD make a bad deal, and offer you something, or some service too cheaply, they won’t demand an adjustment.

  “They don’t bully, brag, or even lash out because of some verbal insult or social slight, so long as it isn’t physical. Yet, if a subservient species, a merchant, or a government representative, tries to withhold a payment for a tax, or for a purchase, of even a slight amount less than agreed, the TD representative involved may kill, or order to be killed, a member of the offender’s family, ranging from one of their small children, their mate, or a distant relation, depending on how serious the underpayment is thought to be. It can escalate from there. Prompt payment of the difference will not prevent the initial retaliation, it will only halt the escalation.

  “The choice of penalty is based entirely on what the tax or debt collector involved believes will produce the payment in full. If it seems likely that escalating the selective debt penalty of murder will not succeed, or is repeated on a later debt collection, the offending individual, all their relatives, and even close associates will be killed, and continue to be killed until the amount owed is paid by someone. Anyone. If there are no relatives and associates remaining to kill, that generally settles the debt.

  “The thing you must know, is that you don’t cheat or steal from them and get away with it without some form of payment for the transgression. Although, you can fight them and defeat them badly enough that they agree that the cost has become too steep to them for their principles. Then, they stop fighting and withdraw, allowing you to retain what they think you took unfairly, and they will not hold a grudge to be revived at some future date. It is done for them, unless you offend them further, by not accepting the new implied negotiated settlement after they withdraw, and renew your attacks on them. They are capable of fighting to the very end, with absolutely no compunction against what they are willing to do to you, and are willing to accept tremendous losses in the renewed fighting.”