Koban: When Empires Collide Read online

  The other tall slender buildings stood closer together than would human structures, and they were nearly of uniform height and color, and sported many interconnected aerial walkways. The dark grey color of the outside of the buildings was drab when compared to those in a human city. The live tall trees, called Skytouch trees, were planted around the bases of all the structures, and gave the best clue to explain their style of construction. The similarity of the buildings to the natural trees was obvious. The Ragnar had recreated their forested origins in their cities, with the frequent crosswalks being equivalent to the sturdy path-vines that threaded between the trees in the rainforests.

  They had noticed that Tantor’s continental topography was predominately wrinkled looking when seen from orbit, with nearly eighty percent of the land mountainous, with over half of that covered by dense rainforests. This was a rainy, semi tropical world. The seas covered sixty five percent of the surface, but none were the wide expanses seen on most planets, due to numerous long groups of ridges breaking them up into many long strips of water. Sarge had commented that the planet reminded him of a soaking prune.

  Thad checked the image of the landing area one more time. “I don’t see anyone in the plaza, although there are armed Ragoons standing at the sides of Grudfad’s Ravager, which is sitting in front of that one isolated building. I wonder if they’re worried that something will go wrong with the landing. Such as our intersecting with atmosphere, and do more than create a soft pop.”

  “Speaking of that,” Sarge offered, “I coordinated with Athena, and both of our AIs will simultaneously transfer our arrival pockets of air to almost the same point, directly above that plaza. The Ragnar will detect the small burst of gamma rays when the air pockets reenter Normal Space, but if they’re close together, I doubt they’ll be able to tell there was two of them, because they won’t have instruments focused on the precise location. Athena’s arrival will be in an unoccupied box canyon, well below the rim, where there won’t be anyone to hear the pop of her stealthed Scout. She’ll use Normal Space drive to move the few miles over to the plaza, and be in position to watch over us.”

  Thad was still concerned. “If this turns out to be a trap, I wish Athena could use the gravity projectors this deep in a gravity well. With a Scout’s conventional weapons, even a first strike, with her two lasers and a plasma cannon from short range, can’t knock out an armored Ravager in even two or three hits. An anti-ship missile, set for instant arming would do the trick from that close, but if we’re standing outside on the plaza, and not in armor, we’re goners.”

  “Well,” Cal reminded him, “if you hand them what amounts to an ultimatum, after one or more of you eight demonstrates what being a Kobani means, we might be in a fight here anyway.”

  By you eight, he meant the eight team members of Scout 1 that would walk out unarmed. Cal Branson would be in armor and stealthed, with the other Kobani that would provide them close-up protection. All ten team members would have Comtap link with Scout 1’s AI, with Athena and her ship somewhere above them, and the eight other Scouts in orbit.

  “Hey,” Thad called out. “A greeting party is forming I think. There’s a big Ragnar with charcoal gray fur coming around from behind that Ravager. Hitok had that same coloration. He may have come out of that official looking building behind the Ravager. I see a black furred ape coming out of the Ravager. That’s likely to be Grudfad. Come on folks, let’s swirl open the hatch and go meet them.” He mentally cued the AI to open both airlock hatches.

  Their ears popped slightly, as the somewhat lower outside pressure equalized the standard internal Koban environment. The eight official representatives walked out onto the still extruding ramp as it lowered to the natural gray and pink granite stones of the plaza surface. The stark, pure white color set for the Scout’s hull material suggested the peaceful hope the mission had for this meeting. If it flipped suddenly to a mirrored surface, it would mean their hosts had fired on them, and the other Scouts would make the betrayal very costly when they avenged their deaths. Unseen, the two armored Kobani spread out ahead of them in the plaza.

  The AI, asked earlier to report sensor scans, reported to their Comtaps. “Radar, infrared, and sonic scans are being conducted from the Ravager.”

  “Sonic?” Sarge asked the AI for confirmation. The suit stealth systems would be undetectable by standard electromagnetic sensors. He’d never encountered sonic scanners when wearing PU armor, because the Krall didn’t use such sensors.

  “Yes, Sir. Higher frequency than your wolfbat hearing’s upper range.”

  Thad, hearing concern in Reynold’s Comtap query, reassured him. “Our armor does more than absorb and reradiate electromagnetic energy from one side to the other, to keep us invisible. The microscopic reactive surface of our armor has a mechanical mode that vibrates in a cancelation of incident sounds, to prevent echoes. It isn’t perfect, but a sound it can’t cancel, doesn’t reflect directly back towards the source. Our armor still should be hard to detect.”

  “I didn’t know it did that. Those Torki thought of almost everything when they built our suits. Wonder what gave a sea going crab that idea?”

  “If you lived your adolescent life at sea in an armored body, and ventured into waters where echo location and detection was common in predators, survival teaches you different lessons than us land lubbers learn.”

  “Oh. I never thought about that.”

  “It’s why you’re still a sergeant, dummy.” Thad enjoyed needling his friend, when the opportunity arose.

  “Sarge is my nickname, wiseass, not my rank. I ain’t in the army now, and you ain’t really a colonel neither,” he said, sticking him right back.

  The two Ragnar approached the humans in long strides, and Hitok, using his memory enhancer, recognized two of the humans from the stored images, and fished their names, and proper pronunciation from the attached files.

  “Greetings Thad Greeves, and Sarge Reynolds.” He offered his large closed hand with knuckles extended.

  Thad and Sarge bumped knuckles with him in the Ragnar custom, and looked expectantly up at the, thinner ape, with jet black body hair, featuring dark brown facial hair over his eyes, and below his chin. Both apes were at least a head taller and bulkier than any of the Kobani, yet Greeves and Reynolds were large, for humans. The Ragnar, on average, appeared to mass close to three hundred Earth pounds, with Hitok perhaps fifty pounds heavier than that average, as had been Thond, when they met him.

  The black furred ape extended his knuckles for bumping. “I’m Commander Dotal Grudfad. Commander Hitok granted my request to meet you today. I’m pleased to see humans up close for the first time.” He drew back, and suddenly apologized.

  “Forgive my possible error. I do not know if you are human or Kobani. I am unable to tell the difference.”

  Thad emulated the huffs of Ragnar laughter he’d heard on Tanner’s World at the truce meeting. “Kobani are humans, although we are just one of the races of humans, a distinction that is growing less meaningful as our distinct races continue to blend as we expand and share many worlds. We Kobani originated from the other four main races of humanity, at least we look like them externally, but we have considerable internal differences, something that we believe it is important to explain to you before we leave here.

  “However, before we start that complicated discussion, allow me to introduce my companions.” Names and knuckle bumps were exchanged again.

  Hitok cut to the meat of the subject. “I am not a diplomat, neither is Thond, as we explained at our previous meeting, and I see you did not bring the small human named Maggi Fisher with you, one of your diplomats. You are military, I am military, what do you expect to accomplish by insisting on this meeting with me, or with Thond if he were here? We fight, we don’t negotiate treaties or make political decisions. Do human military representatives do that? I’d think that would conflict with your training.”

  Thad’s first words may have confused them more. “
I was told I’m to act as a Soldier-Diplomat. Although I’m not allowed to negotiate political agreements. I wouldn’t want to do that, even if allowed. My inclination is to beat an opponent down until they offer me an unconditional surrender, or die. The word soldier expresses my true calling, and my original role was in what you call your Ground Force. It is my Kobani capability that has expanded my skills to include leading Space Forces. To be honest, nearly any Kobani can be trained to serve in either capacity.

  “I hope I can present you with valid reasons why it would be to your advantage, and in the best interest of your species, to avoid the coming Thandol conflict with the Federation, whom I represent, and with the Planetary Union, with whom we are allies. You should know that the PU also have an increasing number of Kobani among them, in their military, and they will be provided many of the same technological advances we have demonstrated to you.

  “Combined, I’m confident the Federation and PU represent the greatest threat the Thandol have ever faced. We believe their egos, and their evolutionary nature leave them incapable of peaceful coexistence with us unless they are defeated. We also believe that you, the Ragnar, have not informed the Emperor, or his High Command, that there are two independent political entities they must fight, each with significant military forces that will oppose them. We combined to defeat the Krall barbarians in only twenty-two orbits, while the Empire hid from them for many thousands of orbits.

  “We feel certain your hope is that we will fight and weaken the Thandol enough that you might safely revolt against them, or if we are defeated, you would gain when the Thandol granted you a major role in controlling the new stars annexed. We know you hate the Thandol, but can’t defeat them while they are as strong as they are now. Does that describe your positon?”

  The huffing from Hitok, and a wrist flip, showed the ape was amused. “You mostly understand our position, but I don’t see evidence of your claim that you are a serious threat to the Thandol navy. All three of the security sectors, if our forces were combined, would have little hope of defeating them.”

  Thad nodded, not knowing if the gesture had meaning to him. “You still have most of your fleet intact, and you recovered part of your ground forces on Tanner’s World. That was only allowed because we wanted you left stronger. We didn’t even need to follow your ships to find Tantor, Menlat, or Gilgan. We already had the coordinates of this world and your two colonies.” He noticed that both Hitok and Grudfad’s eyes widened minutely, revealing their surprise.

  He explained how they learned this. “We hold two low ranking Ragnar as prisoners, whom we will return to you before we depart. They were aboard a Smasher that carried the Emperor’s Observer, when we first fought you in space at our colony world of Zanzibar 2.

  “I have some of our newer design ships above this planet now, which you did not detect arriving, and you still can’t locate them, not even using mass detectors. One of those ships put that tiny hole through a docked Ravager, venting the plasma from a fusion bottle. That single weapon could have done the same thing to every docked ship at that repair station. And not just with small holes. It could easily punch multiple head sized cavities through each of them.” He noted the glance Hitok gave Grudfad. The Space Force Commander had been right that it was no accident.

  “If that isn’t evidence you will accept of our technological capability, I can direct your attention to a Thandol base in Security Sector two, which we called Rogue 2, translated from similar meaning Thandol words. It is an isolated, cast off and frozen rocky world, where they were gathering a sizable fleet to attack Tanner’s World, but you beat them to that target.

  “Thond didn’t tell the High Command what happened to you at Tanner’s, possibly because he wanted them to stick their heads into the same ripper’s jaws you found. It doesn’t matter, and he may be telling them now, since you told us he was called to Wendal. That Thandol fleet was severely damaged by only five of our ships, each exactly like the one behind me. That is what provoked the Emperor to order the three security forces to attack us simultaneously. That, and our crashing some orbiting Crusher wreckage onto Wendal. Yes, we have been there, we did that undetected, and we also have contacts inside the imperial Court. You aren’t the only species who hates them.”

  Greeves looked at Grudfad. “I assume Commander Thond or Commander Hitok told you about rippers, the large blue predators from our home planet? Their telepathic ability is how we interrogated your two prisoners without causing them harm, or even allowing them to know that we learned anything from them. They are very loyal to their home and species, and Maggi, our small female diplomat you met on Tanner’s,” he looked at Hitok, “only hurt them when they thought they could tear her apart, because she was alone with them, and she was unarmed.

  “The story you received from the ripper named Kobalt, that she could defeat you bare handed is well founded. She is small, and she is a Kobani human. She has also interrogated two Thandol officers alone, and she was unarmed. I suspect their trunks still hurt. She doesn’t like the Thandol, but she does like you Ragnar. Sometimes, I do too.”

  Hitok did a brief leg squat, which Greeves didn’t understand was a polite acknowledgement. “We know the High Command has secret major bases in all three security sectors. We’ve long searched for one here in our sector, but our scouting missions must travel slowly, in level one to avoid detection, and the volume of stars is huge. Naturally, when the High Command ordered attacks on your worlds, they omitted the details of what had enraged the Emperor.”

  Thad offered a gift. “I have the coordinates of all three secret bases, if you would like to have them. The one in Sector two was on a frozen planet that has no star, and we don’t think the others are around stars either. Until we stumbled onto the one they called number two, in Sector 2, we didn’t suspect their existence. With that one as a clue, our rippers picked the locations of the other two bases from the mind of a Crusher Captain that we captured. He and his junior officer are not going home soon, but the two Ragnar we hold will.”

  Hitok asked, “You are not worried our Ragoons will tell us too much about you?”

  “No. First off, we’ve learned you call them Ragnools. You recall that I said they were aboard a Smasher? What they can confirm for you is less than what I came to tell you anyway. They never knew where we held them prisoner. If they knew anything that worried us, the ripper telepathic contacts would have revealed it.”

  Maggi had made certain to use rippers extensively for the last two weeks, as the apes were asked hundreds of questions. This concealed Kobani Mind Tap ability, and ensured the likable if not very brilliant two apes, could return home. However, it had been decided that ripper frilling would not be held secret, but Mind Tap would be. It was a powerful capability, used to intimidate opponents.

  “As a final indication of how deep we can reach into the Thandol Imperial Court, I suggest you follow the health status of Emperor Farlol in the coming cycles. He may make fewer public appearances, and avoid travel. We decided not to kill him, since another Emperor would seamlessly succeed him, but we hoped that making him sick would undermine his support, and hamper his decision making. He’s also contagious, and will infect other Thandol nobles with his intestinal parasites.”

  Now both Hitok and Grudfad huffed and pant hooted at this revelation. Thad hoped Maggi and Tet’s prediction panned out, and their tampering with Farlol’s intestinal fortitude would make itself known to the public. That would help support the case he was making today, that the Federation was preparing to make the Empire pay for its aggression.

  Greeves cut their amusement short with a startling revelation. “I don’t know how you will handle your assignment to attack a Federation colony. If you thought Tanner’s World was a hard nut to crack, that will seem like a calm walk in this lovely plaza.” He smiled coldly, showing his white, even teeth.

  “If you go after a Federation world, we won’t send just our old clanships to its defense. You won’t be bringing a landing for
ce for conducting a space bombardment, so we don’t need to divert resources for that contingency. I might not be placed in charge of that defense, because there are other attacks being organized by the Finth and Thack Delos. Regardless of who of us is placed in command of the fleet we send there, it’s possible none of the attacking fleet will return home this time, or if it disengages early, it will be followed to wherever it retreats, and attacked there. I’m not privy to what the Planetary Union will do for their worlds, but they will not yield easily. As I said, they are gaining additional Kobani every day for their large military.”

  Avoiding the shocking knowledge that the enemy knew which world the Ragnar were ordered to attack, Hitok fished for different information. This enemy seemed enormously revealing, or tremendously confident that it didn’t matter, so he sought to learn what was meant by the repeated reference to how vital Kobani humans were to their military.

  Guns were a great equalizer. How did being a Kobani, even if stronger than their opponent, help them in that sort of fight? The human’s reckless mode of fighting in space was a technique now being taught to their own captains, navigators, and weapons divisions, and there would be no more outgunned destroyers wasted on standoff defense of their fleet, against an enemy that refused to standoff. The strength of a Kobani surely helped them in situations that demanded hard accelerations, but the Ragnools now testing the new space warfare tactics were proving that the Ragnar were no wimps at employing new risky methods. At least not when pitted in contests against squadrons using their former tactics.

  “You say this so often, that you Kobani are different from other humans of your species, yet you look the same. Strength alone does not win a fight, nor do superior weapons always prevail.

  “If we were permitted to build a fleet that matched the Thandol’s in size, their more advance weapons and giant ships would fall to us. On average, I think most male Thandol are stronger than most Ragnar males, and certainly stronger than our female Ragoons, and of many Ragnools, who are generally smaller in stature. Yet we would win the war. How could a small human like Maggi Fisher, or her slightly larger mate, Tetsuo Mirikami, prevail in a gun or knife fight with a Thandol, or say, with a Ragnar like myself, armed the same way?”