Koban 5: A Federation Forged in Fire Read online

  “We also will visit the soft Krall prison planet, learn what we can about those people and decide if, as a species, they have anything for which to be held accountable for the destruction at Meadow and Bootstrap.

  “There’s no question that the murderous bastard Telour has a great deal to answer for, as do the entire genocidal Krall species. We’ll do our best to make sure that he and all his kind are held to account for their thousands of years of atrocities.

  “Good luck to those assigned to the various groups. With Comtaps, no one will be out of the loop for what any group does, or of problems encountered. Mirikami out.”

  Within hours of the completion of preparations, Mirikami and two hundred clanships Jumped for the coordinates of a star system that the Mind Tapped high-level Krall captives had revealed to them. Another three hundred ships simultaneously headed deeper into Krall territory, intending to break into smaller groups of fifty after reaching the closest clan worlds.

  Eight hundred newly acquired clanships, with light crews of sixteen each, split into two forces and jumped for Poldark and New Dublin.

  The Vanguard, with the alien allies aboard, along with five hundred escort ships, went to the small continent where most of the forced labor had been confined by the Krall for manufacturing and repair work.

  A day later, the five hundred ships departed for Koban itself, to screen against any raiders that might go there. They also carried all of the Torki rescued on K1, with several thousand Prada youngsters and their mothers, after they had listened to the words of Wister and his sister Nawella, elder than any Prada on K1. They were told the Krall were not the elder race in the galaxy. They then were introduced to the first group of intelligent Raspani they had ever seen. They were assured by Blue Flower Eater that the Krall had deceived and used the Prada.

  With so many Prada, and so much equipment they wanted to transport, they couldn’t fit everything or everyone in the first trip. Several migration ships would return for the rest, and take as much equipment as they could dismantle to take with them to the promised new home on Haven. All of the Torki had undergone the library expansion of their Olts, and their smaller numbers were eager to travel to Haven and freedom, despite the lack of comfortable water filled craft for the week of travel.

  The final five hundred ships set up a screen around K1 itself, to look like Krall watch standers with the recognition codes to lure in new arrivals to disable. Two hundred of those ships patrolled low over the planet, looking for signs of power restored at any domes not occupied by freed Prada, or of movements of heavy war material that had not yet been disabled.

  A hundred ships searched K1 for Raspani herds to rescue, to transport to that same isolated continent with the repair domes. The Raspani representatives had brought several thousand of the mind enhancers with them, and implantation equipment. They wanted to move more of the minds of their people out of the congested mental state they had existed in, stored in a few special library chips, many in a state of near mental hibernation to stay sane. Knowing that full independent mental freedom was possible for some of them made the wait less tolerable now, than when they had no hope of an independent life.

  ****

  The Ripper, and the three hundred ninety nine Kobani ships in the Poldark fleet, commanded by Greeves, was now only hours away from White Out. Nabarone had just confirmed that the expected bait clanship had performed a low White Out, ten hours ago, and had streaked straight in to land in the center of the Krall main defensive area. They had fired only heavy lasers at it, which came close but didn’t hit the target. The navy just happened to have most of its squadron on the far side of the planet, or placed too far out to dive and intercept.

  Thad was listening to Nabarone’s intelligence report. “Gatlek Fistok pulled back his most advanced elements where they were overextended when we counter attacked after the withdrawal. With some fresh deliveries of heavy equipment from K1 in the last two weeks, after the New Glasgow invasion was thwarted, he appears to be preparing to launch new assaults on two fronts. He wants to retake Novi Sad’s east bank after we pushed them back over the river, and up in the north he wants to push back into the foothills they had previously reached outside Kovoso.

  “We never got them out of Kovoso itself after they overran that town, but we do hold those foothills now, and the mountain passes behind them. They actually need more rifles and small arms there, since some spec ops sappers blew up a huge supply dump they didn’t consider at risk. They really guard their heavy equipment in common equipment parks, watched over by several clans.

  “Rifles and power packs seem almost personal weapons to them, and they left a huge stockpile lightly guarded, thinking we couldn’t really do them much harm, since they aren’t self-explosive. Our sappers used hundreds of thermite packs placed on top of alternate pallets near the center of the stockpile. Those sent heavy flaming particles spewing onto so many power pack pallets that when the fire blobs penetrated into the dense storage batteries, they shorted out, starting a self-sustaining series of extremely hot electrical discharges that melted down about seventy percent of the power packs, and damaged close to forty percent of the rifles stacked close to those pallets. They had never experienced a thermite attack on those type weapons, and regular explosives of the same mass as the thermite wouldn’t have done nearly as much damage.”

  “OK,” Thad said. “I take it you think that much of the load of rifles and power packs on that single ship we let escape will go to the north. Have they started unloading? Are their clanships preparing to lift to wait for our arrival you think?”

  “Our spy and fly bots have shown the pallets being loaded onto normal trucks, and some into heavy transports. The heavy transports are going towards Kovoso, but the smaller trucks are spreading through the territory they hold. Some will pass near clanships, and the small trucks are not key coded vehicles, like the heavy transports are, so they won’t break down or notice when the chips become Denials.”

  He answered Thad’s final question. “We see some higher status blue and brown suits gathering near the Gatlek’s underground bunker. They may be planning to lift off some of their clanships shortly, but we don't know. I think the lack of obvious urgency means the warning of what happened at K1 may have been hard for them to believe, particularly coming from Phordot, a low status deliverer of supplies, and a member of a small clan. But they appear considering possible precautions and might get more ships aloft.”

  “Henry, I think you need to trigger some of the Denial chips in the small trucks when they’re driving towards some of the parked clanships. They’ll probably pass close enough to infect some of them, and any other heavy weapons.”

  “How do I exclude those in the transports, headed north from activating? And which pallets went on which trucks? I’d like those heavy transports to get through to Kovoso.”

  Joe Longstreet, in the circuit but quiet thus far, spoke up. “Sir, this is Joe Longstreet. Our spec ops code transmitters can be set for directional and long range for twenty miles or so, or made low power and short range in a sphere. Don’t aim our drone mounted high power directional transmitters towards the north moving transports, and use lower power short-range mortar carried devices near the regular trucks that are on the north side.

  “Some of our device actuators are built into special mortar shells that your non-Kobani spec ops already have in their supplies. Tell them to set the actuators to step through the complete basic three-code set, which is all that we used on our trigger devices. We didn’t have enough triggers for more than about a third of the pallets anyway. Krall counter battery lasers are only sixty percent effective against artillery, so fire several shells near where you want the Denial chips activated. The triggering range for our transmitters can be set for as little as a mile radius, or out to five miles when set for non-directional signals.

  “After that, each activated pallet will become a mobile center for the spread of the Denial list. If they pass a Dragon within range, it
’ll lock the Krall out. The same for a clanship or any device with a keypad where they pass close. The Krall won’t understand the spreading problem right away, and the truck drivers will be unaware of the trouble they’re leaving behind in their wake. When the heavy transports start to unload at Kovoso, activate those pallets with your directional transmitters in some fast drones you’re willing to sacrifice. There are no explosions to alert them right away, and they may oblige you by continuing to distribute the infected rifles and power packs. If they put them in a new arms dump, you eliminate everything in the dump all at once.”

  Thad had another question. “Henry what did you do with the Denial chips Haveram left you before he and Howard Jumped for New Dublin?”

  “We used them as seed stock to infect several thousand chips on rifles and power packs we captured when we pushed the Novi Sad assault forces back past some of their supply dumps. Normally, only we Kobani can activate them, but now I have a select group of my army troops, upon who I had the Katusha’s used to give them invisible tattoos. We found how to avoid leaving a visible mark, by practicing on volunteers. The first ones had black or colored ovals, placed somewhere inconspicuous. Now they can use any Krall equipment, but Normals find the Krall rifles too heavy to be practical for them, and we don’t get very many operational Dragons, and no clanships, of course.”

  “Do you have many KK rounds with the new chips inside? We used those to good effect on K1.”

  “Hey Thad!” Nabarone protested. “We’ve had less than twenty-four hours to work. Chief Haveram barely beat your Krall Trojan horse here by a half day. We don't have thousands of Prada to work their nimble little fingers to the bone swapping them out. We have at least ten or fifteen thousand rounds ready now, but we also have the damn Krall spread over most of a large continent, and we’re not able to simply fly in and get to them. They tend to shoot back.”

  “Henry, if you can get snipers close to their main perimeter, where the heavy laser batteries are located, and where they park most of the clanships, a sniper can disable any of them if the target is within several miles. It doesn’t require precision shooting. A slug passing within a hundred feet of several targets affects them all.”

  “Thad, after what we did to them during their force pullout, its tough now to get army infiltrators that deep into their territory and have them survive anymore. The Krall increased patrols five-fold, and they have mist dispersal systems that even reveal stealthed armor around the critical targets we might realistically try to reach. My three staff members and I are the only actual Kobani on Poldark right now. As you well know, everyone else pulled out to defend Koban and to get out of the PU’s clutches when Tet recalled all the Kobani to the home system. After that, the PU had every spec ops on Poldark genetically tested when they decided that anyone that had worn the new armor was one of us. Of course, they didn’t find anyone by the time they looked.

  “They still don’t know about the bio lab and Kobani spec ops training camp on Heavyside, so there are some new Kobani there. So far, they’ve had no reason to test any Army personnel like me, or my staff. We do have some good spec ops people here on Poldark, but they’re the mechanically enhanced Normals that trained in heavy gravity. They can’t send in those men and hope to get them close enough before your fleet gets here in another hour or so.”

  “OK, Henry, I agree we have a dispersal problem for the Denial chips. It will have to be our ships that put a cap over the continent to keep the Krall clanships from launching, and either escaping or fighting at a distance. Our stripped down anti-ship missiles with those chips are highly effective if we get within a few miles when we launch, but they won’t perform as well if they have to come through the entire atmosphere to reach their targets. A laser or plasma bolt can knock them out too easily. Like you, we don’t have an unlimited supply of those built yet.”

  “Foxworthy has had her tech people working on the modified missiles for at least twelve hours. They might be able to back you up in a limited way.”

  “They had enough Denial chips?”

  “Crap, Thad. Think about what you, Tet, and Haveram told us. If you get one Denial circuit close to a stack of rifles or power packs, they all become Denial chips, and each one infects others. I already had some of the power packs we salvaged from the loaded transports we crashed into the river at Novi Sad when we blew the bridges. All we lack is time to make use of all those chips. We’ve been scurrying like rats to weaponize these things.”

  Suddenly another familiar presence intruded into the Comtap link, and apparently went off on a different tangent “Hey, are the wharves and warehouses around the river still infested with rats?”

  “Sarge, I didn’t know you were linked in,” answered Nabarone in pleased surprise. “Sure. Frigging rats are everywhere. Dead people, dead Krall, and dead animals rot where it’s too risky for us to recover or bury them. Hell, the Krall don’t even bury their own dead on their side of the river. They just toss bodies in piles and partly burn them, or throw them in the river. The rats have thrived. Years of war and no exterminators has given them good lives. The Krall actually seem to enjoy playing at killing them, with throwing knives, or even rocks. They don’t make a dent in their numbers. Why?”

  “The Denial chips are the size and thickness of our little finger nails, tiny backup battery included, and they hold a charge for months after removed from a power source. They’re also physically tough.”

  Thad said, “So tell me, oh rat master, what the hell has that got to do with our Krall problem?”

  “Operation Hot Pest. Remember that Henry?” Reynolds asked.

  “Early in the war? Sure, I remember. Right after they overran some of the first towns and cities as the invasion got started. The tactic didn’t really bother the Krall. They didn’t want the property or buildings anyway. Why does that come to mind?”

  Thad didn’t know what they were talking about, and reminded them. “I wasn’t here, remember? What was Hot Pest about?”

  Sarge filled him in. “I’d just finished my guerrilla warfare training at Camp Greeves. Don’t let that name go to your swelled head again.” The last was added for Thad’s benefit, since the camp had been named for him years after he’d gone missing, presumed dead after his ship’s capture by the Krall.

  “Anyway, we knew the Krall never kept anyone alive in a captured town, other than a few stupid collaborators for a short time. We thought the enemy was making use of the shelter, and possibly raw materials and food supplies we left behind. We wanted to destroy it all. A scorched earth policy in captured territory, since there were no human lives there worth saving.”

  Henry picked up the narrative. “We tied small thermite packages with timers onto rodents, mostly rats, and some Poldark bush-tails, and used extremely low flying drones to carry hundreds of them to the outskirts of the fallen towns, where they were released.

  “Being urban dwelling pests, they naturally ran into the towns and hid, or ate the dead bodies in houses and buildings. Three days later, the time expired and thermite packs ignited, starting thousands of fires that burned the dead towns to the ground. The Krall didn’t give a crap or even try to put out the fires. After warming their butts against our colder climate, or roasting dried Raspani meat, they simply moved on. It had no impact on the course of the war, so we stopped doing it after four or five tries.”

  “Now’s the time to try again.” Sarge urged.

  “What good will house fires do us now?” Nabarone questioned.

  “I think I see.” Thad came back, in a surprising word of support. “Tie Denial chips to them.”

  “There ya go.” Sarge agreed. “The rats will run around the Krall pretty much ignored, and their weapons and armor will stop working.”

  Henry had a rebuttal. “As I recall, most of the fires started in the outskirts of the towns because that’s where many of the rats paused to chew off the plastic ties that held the thermite onto their backs. They won’t carry those chips very far or for ver
y long.”

  Reynolds also had an answer for that. “I was a new Greeves Camp graduate, so I was one of those low rank flunkies who had to try and tie the damned thermite packs on rats and bush-tails. It was hard to hold them, they bit, and it was slow going in general. “That’s why you won’t tie them on this time. Let them do what they like to do naturally. Eat. Feed those small chips to them in food pellets, perhaps cover ‘em in tasty grease, or shove them down their throats or up their butts, where they can’t get rid of them. They eat damn near anything, and after that they’ll become our little electronic warfare pests.”

  “Hey,” Henry exclaimed. Proving why he had the stars on his collar. “If rats will eat things that small so easily, we can coat thousands of chips with something rats find tasty, and pack them into mortar or smart artillery shells. We can fire them towards enemy positions set for a soft airburst charge, same as we use to drop spy bots over their lines. We’ve noticed their counter battery laser systems don’t always go after shells that are aimed well wide of any target of value. Intelligence thinks the laser defense batteries have digital maps of Krall positions and equipment, which get frequent updates. That’s because if a force has left an area and we fire on that spot, they let most of the shells through to waste our ammo. They focus those laser defenses on shells that might do actual damage.”

  “Henry, that operation won’t be started before we arrive overhead, but it’s a good way to pull the teeth of their forces when you start your own assaults.” There was a noticeable lapse before they received his answer.

  “Gentlemen, I just sent a Comtap to one of my aides. He’s been overseeing the KK chip replacements. We even have kids and old folks helping pop out the KK chips and shoving in the Denial chip. No circuit connections needed. There are piles of the new chips in bins, which they easily removed from infected Krall weapons. We had many more of them than we can load very fast by hand, one bullet at a time. Captain Gilford will take a bin or two by shuttle to deliver them to artillery ammo dumps. He’s going to ask a mess hall sergeant to send some men over to the shuttle with tubs of grease and finely ground up food scraps. The chips will be mixed with that, and stuffed inside the shells.