Koban 5: A Federation Forged in Fire Read online

  “That’s right, meat bag, I sent my thoughts to you in high Krall, and I hear your thoughts. I just listened to you figure that one out. You’re a bit slow for a high status sub leader. Did Telour pick you for his staff because you always agree with him and lick his cloaca?” He uttered a very Krall-like snort of amusement.

  “I have fought and killed many… enemy, to earn my status.” The pause was a giveaway.

  “Killed lots of humans you almost said, most of them unarmed and helpless civilians I suspect. That’s all over for you. Your status points are about to be reset to zero. Tell me where Telour is right now.”

  He said nothing, as he considered what might happen when he withheld the information demanded. He’d die before making any sound, despite torture. Although he feared the rippers

  “Ah,” Carson said in satisfaction as he picked the rapid stray thoughts from the unguarded mind. “He’s at the Stodark clan dome. A former Graka finger clan, where his exalted ass is probably safe from a surprise attack by us. Thank you for that information. Exactly where is that dome, how many warriors are there, and in particular how many clanships are there? I’d gladly let the rippers chew on you for their pleasure.”

  The eye blink the aide made was apparently as eloquent as an admission that the human had guessed right, the aide knew the Tor’s location. He had made no sound, so he assumed the human already knew the answer and sought only confirmation.

  “No, I didn’t already know that, Hothkar.” he came right back. “Your mind just told me, and gave me your name as well. You betrayed your Tor Gatrol to us humans, and we’ll now go get him. Thanks for your help. You should have willed yourself to die. Too late for that now.”

  The air hiss and a minor sting on his neck told him something small had struck him there. In shame, because he’d inadvertently confirmed where Telour was located, he was willing his hearts to stop, and the beating had started to slow.

  “That isn’t going to work, Hothkar. The drug I injected will work in a minute or so to paralyze you, and we know it takes several minutes for a Krall to die by stopping vital organs. You made your bodies too tough to die quickly. If you want to die fast, try pissing off a Kobani, like me, or blowing your brains out.”

  Carson rose and established a Comtap link to Mirikami. “Captain, Telour was at a small finger clan’s dome when we arrived. Here’s the location.” He sent the coordinates of where he believed the dome was located, based on the information from Telour’s aide.

  “Southernmost continent?” Mirikami was surprised. There are only three minor clan domes there and it’s the coldest landmass, almost at the pole. We didn’t focus much attention on those domes, either this time or by the navy on previous attacks on K1. Obviously, we should have paid more attention this time. Damn. I think Telour probably escaped us about five minutes ago.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  “Nine of twelve clanships lifted from that small continent, cleared atmosphere and successfully Jumped before our two ships posted near there could take out more than three of them. All of them came off shooting, but three came directly at our ships in a suicidal rush, firing all beams and missiles as they came, clearly a sacrificial diversion. Our ships had to destroy two of them with plasma beams and armed anti-ship missiles, but managed to disable the third one with a Denial chip missile. The Torch was badly damaged in the exchange and we lost two of her crew. I’ll send boarders immediately to Mind Tap the surviving Krall crew as soon as they can capture them. It will be bad news I fear, but thanks for being so fast.”

  “Sorry Sir. I was hoping we’d have him trapped in this dome. According to his aide, which Kally and Kobalt caught alive here, Telour’s been spending time visiting lesser clans. He was visiting a dome of a Mordo finger clan, called the Tandal. I think he’s gotten cagey and is avoiding places we’d expect him to be if there was another surprise attack. He has to know the Planetary Union couldn’t keep it a secret that they were willing to give us up to him. The Kobani have shown the Krall we won’t sit on our asses wondering what to do next, like the PU often does.”

  “Not all of the PU turned on us or is indecisive, Carson. That is mainly President Medford and her political party, the Leaders of the Old Republic. The LOR holds a majority in parliament and the presidency right now. With the deaths of billions of people in two systems, they either need to find an acceptable scapegoat for the public, or lose their mandate in the upcoming elections.”

  “Uncle Tet, I think Telour was taking precautions without seeming to do so to his own warriors, in case we came after his head again. Where do you think he went? To gather ships from Poldark or New Dublin?”

  “I don't think so. He had time to hear what we were doing to clanships already here. We couldn’t keep more than a fraction of their communications suppressed after our White Outs in orbit and our surface attacks began. He surely knows about our deactivating their weapons and ships. Perhaps not how we did it, but he certainly knows who did it, since only Kobani can fly their clanships.

  “He’ll know now that the technology we displayed today has to be fought at a safe distance. I know of only one weapon he thinks they have that can do that.”

  “Sir, you said Huwayla also declared the Krall’tapi distrusted. If she told the other Dismantlers, they won’t respond to them.”

  “I’m confident she talked to the other ships. She had the ability to communicate with our Comtaps using the tachyon modulation mode, rather than the electromagnetic mode for local communications. She did that when she was forbidden by the Krall’tapi operator from monitoring or using any of the electromagnetic spectrum. We first spoke via direct contact, by touching her. After that, she used our Comtaps via tachyon entanglement. That has infinite range and is instant. The Olt’kitapi obviously had that same technology. She would have told her sister ships.” He said that with confidence.

  “Therefore, Telour isn’t able to bring them back here to destroy other worlds, but he doesn’t know that yet. His escape is disappointing, but not one leading to planetary catastrophe. With the Denial chips, we know we can take out his clanships too easily for them to risk closing with us. We’ve eliminated their ship numbers advantage, because their style of fighting is to get in close and kill their enemy in as personal a manner as possible. They can’t win a space battle if they, or we, Jump right into each other’s formations. Our lighter weight anti-ship missiles have proven too fast and maneuverable to be easily destroyed or evaded when fired so close to their backsides.

  “I stayed in orbit to watch their response. They didn’t recognize the real threat for long critical minutes, because none of their orbiting clanships became balls of fire after we attacked them. I’m sure they wondered why none of ours exploded when we moved in close for boarding, because their missiles should have struck us. I think our relatively smaller numbers, compared to the thousands of clanships they have here, caused their sub leaders on the ground to attempt to send fewer clanships aloft after us, unaware we were already among them on the surface. Otherwise, more of them might have gotten off the ground before being disabled.”

  “Does that mean when we have their fleet here fully grounded, we’ll take on the warriors in the domes, Sir?” He sounded a bit too eager to Mirikami.

  “No Carson, it does not. They have at least ten or fifteen million warriors down there. We would lose too many people, no matter how fast and strong we are individually. I was serious when I said a Krall body count isn’t what we’re after. That isn’t mercy on my part; it’s practical. If we leave them stranded on K1, with their strongest offensive weapons neutralized, then we can inform the PU army, and they can invade here and expect to win this time. This was a human New Colony once. The PU should be granted the right to reclaim it. You take care of yourself, and link to your mom and dad. They’re trying to pretend they don’t worry about you, Katelyn, Cory, and Kobalt.”

  Carson felt guilty he hadn’t called his parents when it was so easy. He rushed to tell his uncle
now. “Kobalt was shot between the right front shoulder and chest. He’s not bleeding too badly, but it went deep and I think hit bone. I had Danner call for medical help while I reported.”

  “Damn! OK. I’ll send some medical help down to you. Ethan thinks we have all the clanships at that particular dome complex disabled. I’ll send our technical and medical staff on the Vanguard down from Cheetah. They’ll land well away from the dome for their safety, but if you call for a shuttle to carry Kobalt over to them, they’ll give him the best of care. We have several med labs configured for rippers. He and Kit are really too old to be fighting at this intensity anyway. They’re slowing down.”

  Carson automatically defended his lifelong friend and protector. “He did good Uncle Tet. He distracted Telour’s aide with a roaring charge while Kayla snuck up and attacked him from the side. The shot was random and convulsive, not aimed, caused when she struck and bit down on the Krall’s arm.”

  “Carson, Kobalt and Kit are the two oldest living rippers. No pride member that was around when they were born is still alive, not even other cubs from that same year. Ripper lifetime in the wild runs about eighteen to twenty years. They’re eight months older than you and Ethan. At nearly twenty four, they’re old for rippers, son.” He didn’t want to sound pessimistic, but a touch of realism might help prepare him for a painful loss in the near future.

  “Right. Ethan and I have been talking, and we’re going to have a serious frill talk with both of them. For now, I need to work down through the dome to disable their fusion power, and cut their landlines. I’ll have a shuttle come pick up Kobalt.” Carson ended the link, but his remark made Mirikami think of something he’d overlooked.

  Selecting a wider Comtap circuit he said, “All dome infiltration teams; Kill the power in the main fusion bottles on the ground floors, they won’t be able to restart them after we leave. That’ll leave them in the dark, with only IR vision, and we see better than they do with ambient low light through the windows. It’ll also put any factory in darkness if they have one under them.” The Prada, originally nocturnal, had excellent night vision, and even limited portable lights would allow them to evacuate safely, while the power loss would shut down machines that might be used to produce weapons that didn’t require the quantum keypads, such as older style projectile weapons. The Krall had once used a wide range of more basic low technology weapons, just as humans still had when they first fought them.

  When the PU Army finally invaded K1, there was no need to make it tougher for them to retake the human colony world by leaving the Krall with the ability to produce more and better conventional weapons than they used today. The Krall surely had stores of the older low-tech weapons and ammunition here, and on their production and clan worlds. Without clanships, those clan world weapons couldn’t get to K1. The same held for Poldark and New Dublin for that matter, when the Denial chips arrived there.

  The lightening blitz on K1 had proven that getting in close to the enemy, spreading the Denial chips at close range in direct confrontation was how the Olt’kitapi had failed. They had been a pacifist species at heart, and despite high intelligence, didn’t have the thought processes of aggressive predators. Humans had them in spades, and Kobani would engage eagerly in the confrontations required, and they clearly had won that battle.

  Now the rest of Carson’s information came into play, and Mirikami could make use of it to their advantage. He contacted Carol Slobovic. “Carol, is that pilot you captured still alive?” He’d left its fate to her discretion.

  “You mean Phordot?” she asked, forgetting she’d not mentioned her captive’s name.

  “If that was the blue suit you captured, then yes.”

  “She’s the only surviving crew member, Sir, and that’s because I planned to take this clanship down to her clan’s dome and Tap her mind again.”

  “I have a better use for her and you. Telour was visiting a small finger clan’s dome on the southern-most continent, belonging to the Tandal clan. He escaped in a cluster of nine clanships that made it off K1. We haven’t landed at that dome yet, and I want you go there, as soon as I have someone capture a clanship without using a Denial chip. Your prisoner is about to be much cleverer than you thought.”

  “Huh? I mean, uh…, what Sir? She stammered. “She doesn’t seem any brighter than the average Krall to me.” She was clearly confused. Mirikami explained in a rapid exchange of thoughts and images.

  “Oh. OK, she surely thinks she’s that smart.” She agreed. “Let me know when to deliver her.”

  “I need to set the stage first. I’ll get back to you.” Then Mirikami went hunting for another captive Krall.

  “Dillon, do you or any of your teams have a live blue suit?”

  “Hi Tet. I have a brown suit K’Tal or two, from two Dorbo domes.”

  “Thanks, but if I can find higher rank I’ll leave those K’Tal’s to your discretion.”

  “Carson called me about Kobalt, and mentioned he had an aide of Telour’s.”

  “I know about that one and I have a different use for him later today, besides, his back is broken. You might ask Carson to see if he knows where Telour may have gone when he escaped. I think I know, but his aide might know which star system. We’ll need a guide.”

  “Aha. Do I detect some lip pulling strategy being developed?”

  “Several plans cooking, and you and Carson are included in the main plan. I’ll get back to you.” He checked in with two more people he counted on quite often.

  “Thad, are you and Sarge near each other?”

  “We’re not far apart, Tet. We’re still at the two large Mordo domes. I’m on the western tarmac and Sarge is on the eastern one, or else he’s inside the dome shutting down their power. We have all their clanships grounded, but I lost seven people when one of the disabled ships found a way to rupture their internal fuel tanks, just as a team was about to board them. At least the explosion was fast and violent, they didn’t burn.”

  “Damn, I’m sorry Thad. I hadn’t heard.”

  “I haven’t reported casualties to Maggi yet. Without plasma weapons or functional body armor, the Krall are a relatively minor threat to us with only pistols. A few got to some of the Dragons and laser batteries before we could deny them access, but they fired on our full sized ships as they came in, instead of at our more vulnerable people on the ground. We had time to snipe them with Denial chips before we had other than minor damage and scorch marks. Do you have another mission for us?”

  “I do. On a small equatorial continent, where they keep many of the Prada and Torki workers, they’ve been repairing damaged clanships. Surveillance from the Mark shows there are several ships that appear intact enough to Jump, but have some unrepaired hull damage. I don’t want any of them disabled with Denial chips, but I need at least two of them captured, and loaded with pallets of plasma rifles and power packs, all still functional. That means you can’t get a Denial chip close to them, or near the weapons I want loaded onto them. When you land there, secure the ships, and try to reassure the Prada and Torki they have nothing to fear from us. The Torki will be an easy sell, as soon as Coldar on the inbound medical ship contacts them through their Olts.”

  “OK. How soon do you need us there?”

  “In an hour will be fine. I need to get Joe Longstreet and his spec ops pals busy rigging some timers or remote triggers, and a Raspani or Torki to tell us how to use those with Denial chips. That requires the medical ship to land there first. I’ll get back to you.”

  “Understood. I’ll ask Sarge to take a shuttle over to join me and we’ll leave his ship here for our people to use.”

  Next, he found Longstreet. “Joe, are you busy?”

  “Hey Tet, not anymore. It’s mostly make-work now, since our snipers, rippers, and flying spy bots have disabled everything around the three domes assigned to us. Our rippers circled under all of the clanships parked at the outer perimeters, the fly bots went inside the domes and shut down fusion power an
d locked a few doors, and our snipers on the roofs shutdown all the clanships closer to the domes.”

  “Any casualties?”

  “Only among the Krall, unless you count a blister on a busy sniper’s trigger finger. Perhaps a thousand dead lizards.”

  “Joe, I asked your men to avoid mixing it up with them if you could. That was an extra risk.”

  “Gee, you should have told the rippers. They were tearing them new assholes anytime they saw one. Sometimes literally. My snipers and I stayed busy picking off any Krall we spotted outside with pistols, afraid they’d be firing at the cats. I guess we didn’t need to be too worried. Other than a graze or two, the Krall couldn’t hit them worth a shit. Man, can those big cats twist and change direction, and I think they rattle and scare the warriors a hell of lot more than any of us do. I guess ‘cause we don’t eat them, or roar our pleasure when we kill one. The freaking noise was awesome.

  “The cats are damned sneaky too. Any warrior with a shot at one coming towards them is dead meat. There would always be one or two coming in from the side or behind the shooter. Hell, I shot one blue suit just before the flanking ripper, which I didn’t see coming, could take it down. The look that cat gave me, exactly back along my firing lane to my stealthed and concealed position, positively gave me shivers. Stealthed or not, it looked directly at me. I could see its eyes boring into me through my scope, and it was clearly pissed that I took its kill. I understand from Dillon that I can expect to find something dead stowed in my bunk, or cat piss in my armor sometime in the near future. They apparently get even for slights or insults, and have a wicked sense of humor.

  “That they do, Joe. I also told them via frills with the experienced pride hunt masters to kill the enemy only when it was necessary to defend themselves or others. They were supposed to pass that along to the younger pride members. I showed an image of a warrior shooting at them as an example that justified attacking the Krall. I see now I didn’t present a clear mental image of their trying to stay concealed, where they wouldn’t be seen in the first place. I suspect they set up situations where one of them exposed themselves just to draw fire, so the pride mate already in position had a valid reason to kill the shooter.”