Koban: When Empires Collide Read online

  “I think the slender tan one with brown markings is a female,” suggested Mel. “Until they spread out I can’t be sure, but there’s a greater scent difference from one of them than from the others.”

  Macy agreed. “It’s certainly a greater difference than there is between a man and a woman. They all have more distinctive odors than do humans. I don’t think they wash that long fur as often as we do our skin.” She grinned mischievously. “Except for Sarge, who always smells like an unwashed rhinolo butt.”

  Reynolds rolled with the friendly jab. “I’ll have you know I’m wearing my best rhinolo-butt cologne. It helps me get close to the herd when I hunt them on foot.”

  She had a comeback ready. “Does it also help you run faster when a horny bull chases your ass? You bought the wrong bottle, slick. You smell like a cow’s butt.”

  The humans enjoyed the joking around, and waited to see how long it would take the Ragnar to get the show started. The newcomers were looking past Hitok, sizing up their opponents, a grimace on each of their faces apparently passed for a Ragnar grin. They seemed eager to get started, and their actions soon verified that impression.

  Abruptly, Hitok turned away from his volunteers and strode towards the Kobani, as the Ragoons proceeded briskly to one of the shuttles. There wasn’t going to be an introduction. Oh well. It wasn’t like they were planning on being friends.

  Hitok announced, “A pilot is in the other shuttle, waiting to take you to the island. You will be let out at a central assembly field, where the staff and Ragoons in training have just been lifted out on a Pounder, leaving the training camp vacant. Our volunteers will be dropped off at the ends of the island, two groups of four. They will then move towards that assembly field, seeking to locate, and kill you. You do as you chose. Seek them, wait for them, or hide. The island is heavily forested, except around the camp, and it’s ridged and longer than it is wide. It should take either team about a twentieth of a cycle for them to reach the assembly area. They are able to communicate with one another with their memory enhancers, of course, as you can with your devices.”

  Macy asked, “Where are our weapons, and theirs?”

  “In each shuttle, there are duplicate selections of various knives, spears, and short swords. Our hands are not very dissimilar to yours, so I think they will be acceptable to you. If you have similar cutting or stabbing weapons of your own, I must see them first, but you can take those with you. You can carry as many of your own as you wish, if I find them acceptable.”

  Thad shrugged. “We didn’t bring combat knives, unless one of us has something stashed in their personal kits?” He looked around at the others.

  “I have a folding pocket knife,” Sarge said, shaking his head, “but I don’t think it’ll be useful.”

  None had brought a useful sized knife for fighting, but all had brought along a plasma rifle, and their suits themselves had multiple energy weapons incorporated.

  “Why do we need to travel on one of your shuttles?” Thad asked. “We can follow them.”

  “Your craft all have Artificial Intelligence systems installed, and they can fly and operate your weapons. Your ship will remain here. Is there anyone still inside?”

  “Nope. All of us walked out onto the plaza.” That was true, although two of them were invisible. And now they’d be staying here, since it was too risky to attempt to slip anyone stealthed onto the shuttle. Besides, they had nine other Scouts with them, and Athena was somewhere close by, and could follow them.

  As they walked towards the indicated shuttle, Thad used his Comtap, in tachyon mode to avoid radio emissions, following the protocol they’d established at the outset, to speak to his entire group.

  “I mean this! None of you other Scouts are to interfere with what happens on that island, so long as they don’t violate the rules they have set for the engagement. In the unlikely case that we all get our heads handed to us, Athena assumes overall command. They know we didn’t come here alone. She can then discuss what comes next, and either send a pilot to pretend to retrieve our scout, or say that it flew out on its own, after the other two of our team slips aboard. Wish us luck.”

  ****

  Ragnar shuttle craft, unlike those the Krall built, had side view ports, so the flight to the island gave them opportunity to see the countryside and the approach. Hitok rode with them, and provided comments, although that was limited to basic information, and pointing out land marks.

  They passed over the central ridge of the large landmass where High City was built, and seemed then to follow tributary streams, which repeatedly merged with other streams, growing larger. They flew below dense cloud cover, and there was heavy rain for half of the flight. They broke out from under the cloud layer, to see the moderate river they were now following would join with a far larger body of water, stretching as far as they could see left and right, with a hazy shoreline many miles to the other side. It looked more like a large lake than a river, but as the shuttle flew out near the center, and turned right, they could see it flowed between two widely separated high ridged land masses, and they passed over many small ridged islands, with dense under growth on them, and unusual thick vines draped between trees. Soon, out of the clearing mist of the morning’s rain, a much larger land mass appeared, with the great river dividing to each side.

  “There is your destination. Danger Island, where camp Junthar is located. The camp is named after a long-ago Force Commander, and Military Sovereign. You can see why it will take a twentieth of a cycle for our volunteers to travel along the trails, and through the trees to reach the center of the camp’s administrative buildings. The assembly area there is where we will land you. From there you can move in any direction you wish.” He did a wrist flip of his right hand.

  “I do not think you humans will be very comfortable climbing trees, or walking along shaky vine trails far above the ground. That is why we are landing our Ragoons at the ends of the island, to give you time to choose where you will meet them, and how. The trails on the ground provide you movement there, but that is also where the largest native animals we placed on the island will be found, and some are predators. None are like your rippers, but they will make an easy meal of you, or a careless Ragnar. Even the larger prey animals that use those trails can trample or gore the unwary. You will share the same risk as do my Ragoons.”

  “That may be true,” Sarge granted, “but they know what to expect, and how it will behave. We don’t. However, compared to living on Koban, I doubt they’re as deadly, as strong, or as fast as animals there. Which, I might add, includes us Kobani. I think we’ll outmatch or handle anything we find down there.”

  There was that irritating attitude again. Hitok couldn’t wait to watch the images as they were fed from the dozens of cameras placed in around the area closest to the camp. Others were dotted around the island, placed in trees and at trail junctions, assuming these humans dared penetrate the jungle. It was time for this hugely overconfident, medium sized species, to learn their real place in the galaxy. At least several notches below the Ragnar, who evolved to reign supreme in these jungles.

  Thad’s enhanced vision caught the infrared thruster flare of the other shuttle, as it lifted from the near end of the large island, after apparently depositing some of their foe. They passed over that bare bluff top, but he couldn’t see the Ragoons, who presumably had already moved into the brush close to the rocky clearing.

  Their shuttle flew at least another eight miles, over a high canopy of the ubiquitous Skytouch trees with long slender green leaves and dark gray bark. There were thick ropy vines that grew between the trees, which formed the basis for the sky walks the Ragnar loved between skyscrapers in their cities. Somehow, the path-vines could bridge the gaps between trees. There were occasional relatively clear areas where there were no tall trees, and signs of trails appeared in the heavier ground cover. He caught a glimpse of black backs, glossy with the recent rain, of some big browsing animals in two separate clearings
. They had heavy dark gray curling horns that curved forward near the tips. They were roughly two thirds the size of a rhinolo cow.

  The island’s terrain displayed, on a smaller scale, the same rocky spine down it’s center length, but it wasn’t as sharp or high in proportion to those of the big landmasses on either side of this Amazonian-like river. This sort of uplift was apparently due to a geological trait in the crustal material of this world, as if the planet had shrunk in radius and wrinkled its crust in linear parallel patterns.

  There appeared to be less soil for nourishing the massive Skytouch trees as they flew towards the higher central region, and occasional crags of pink and gray granite were visible. These were covered in creeping vines and choking vegetation, growing between groves of a prevalent smaller variety of tree with red bark and widespread limbs, and reddish tan leaves. The horizontal path-vines were strung between even these lower, fifty-foot tall “midgets,” within their isolated groves.

  The shuttle was flying lower now, and it startled hundreds of relatively normal looking colorful flocks of birds. Previously over the tall trees, there had been only occasional hints of them through the top of the canopy roof, with a few wide winged predatory seeming creatures gliding above them. Those looked more like leathery winged mammals, with a long and pointed snout, than they did birds, and they flapped their three to four meter wingspans in a panic when the far larger shuttle approached, diving below the forest canopy to avoid this apparent “predator.”

  Signs of crude civilized meddling appeared at the crest of the island, where the rock of the ridge had been leveled, and the hunks of debris used to build a crude walled compound several thousand meters in diameter, with walls twenty feet high, and thicker at the base. There was no smooth parapet along the top, or guard towers, so it didn’t appear to ever have been a military fortification with room for defenders on the top. It was more like a barrier for keeping something out that wasn’t smart enough to break down a rubble wall, or able to climb over. There were four large double gates embedded in the wall’s circumference, made of what appeared to be heavy red wooden timbers. It was a primitive looking structure. As they passed over, it was apparent that some dark sort of cement-like substance held the rubble together in those ancient looking walls.

  Inside the compound, however, were newer looking one and two story light colored structures, some of which could be ranks of barracks, and there was what looked like an obstacle course, and a wide clearing in front of what could be the main administrative building. The packed dirt of the clearing bore a long and recent impression, from something Thad and Sarge both recognized. Hitok had said the training camp had been evacuated a short time ago, using a Pounder. The indentations pressed into the soil matched those left behind on Tanner’s World, after the Ragnar troop ships lifted.

  As the shuttle settled onto the clearing, Thad caught a glimpse, well above them, of the infrared thruster glare of the other shuttle, headed for the far south end of the island. That was a useful observation, since the second group of Ragoons might need a longer time to reach this compound than would the first ones dropped off at the north end.

  “Interesting place,” Thad commented, as they disembarked. “That wall looks very old, but the buildings look contemporary, made of prefabricated manufactured material.”

  Hitok agreed. “The original wall material predates space flight for us. It had fallen, but was rebuilt a thousand years ago, by Fintor Junthar, the second Ragnar Force Commander ever appointed by the Thandol. He annexed the Trembold Cluster stars into the Empire.

  “In his youth, he explored this island, an ancient training center for heroes mentioned in our legends. He established this camp to train preadult Ragnar, teaching them the same combat and survival skills, as used by those early heroes.

  “I trained here when I was young, and six of those I picked to fight you were trained here, many orbits after I did, of course. This is a link to the heroes of our past, and represents the heart of Ragnar fighting spirit.”

  “Great!” Sarge stated, using a sarcastic tone he knew wouldn’t translate. “They know this island intimately, all of its trails, and the type animals found here. Nothing’s better than having an even playing field.”

  “Exactly!” Hitok agreed, missing his point completely.

  Thad shook his head, with a faint smile, but asked, “I suppose you’ll leave now, to watch events play out?”

  “Yes. And much of the planet will watch. This should inspire tens of thousands to volunteer to become Ragoons and Ragnools. We will sweep down on Federation and Planetary Union worlds and take them for the Empire. In the process, I will cement our place in the future history of our species.”

  “No, you won’t.” Thad countered. “You will be on the wrong side of that history, Force Commander. You are asking your people to follow the race that defeated your heroes when they faced the Thandol. You will only have martyrs today, to your misdirected hope for an honorable future. After today ends, I hope you will recover your proper sense of direction. You’ll need that after this waste of life.”

  “Pahh! I wish I could lead the team, and watch you die with those words crammed into your mouth.” He turned angrily, to reenter the shuttle.

  “Force Commander, I’m confident you will fervently wish that was true by tonight. I hope none on your team are close friends of yours.” Thad led the other Kobani away from the shuttle, as the hatch swung closed.

  It lifted in a rush, thrusters screaming, and they swiveled quickly to produce forward momentum, as the main rear thruster blasted into life, and the shuttle shot off into the clearing and faintly orange tinted sky. The small, distinctly orange-red sun was close to the planet, and the humidity was increasing as the morning rain rejoined the water cycle, and evaporated.

  The cooler granite rubble of the outer walls dripped with condensation. The Kobani, their heat adaptation having already activated, had warm moist skin, but they felt comfortable in what was a cooler morning than they would experience in Koban’s summer. Their body temperature, with its high metabolism, was always higher than that of other non-Koban creatures their size.

  Sarge, in keeping with his body’s demands, pulled one of the dozen high-energy protein bars out of his backpack, and munched contentedly as he walked around the compound. He’d placed a broad bladed hand ax in the same pack, and had two forearm length hunting knives, one in a sheath on his belt, on the left side, and the other knife was in a leather-like sheath and tied to the outside of his right-side boot, which was made of tough rhinolo hide. His Smart Fabric pants was impenetrable to nearly any sharp metal blade. His shirt was made of a synthetic material, but no protection from a blade.

  All eight of them were looking over the buildings, which had closed and locked doors, confirmed by testing the “L” shaped door handles, and their windows were the kind that didn’t open. They were certain they could break inside if they wanted, but saw little need. At two diagonal corners of nearly every building they spotted small camera installations, placed inside self-cleaning domes. They knew they were being watched when the devices pivoted inside the domes to follow them.

  In the eighty-eight percent of standard gravity, Mel, with a starting run, leaped easily to the roof lip of a two-story structure, and walked up to the sloped peak for an overview of the compound. He was high enough to see over the outer compound wall. “Hey! There’s a big animal outside,” he pointed a direction. “It reminds me of a young brown K-Rex, but it has hair. It’s slightly shorter than the twenty-foot wall, so I guess we know why that was built.”

  One continent on Koban hosted dinosaur analogues, and one of those monsters was a bipedal huge carnivore that looked much like T-Rex fossils on Earth. What Mel saw here was smaller, but it’s jaws looked massive enough to eat a man or a Ragnar, in two or three bloody gulps.

  Macy jumped up and hung by two finger tips from another roof’s edge, and she looked closely at a camera that pivoted towards her as she watched. “These gadgets h
ave a small antenna on the backs, so each one probably transmits a low power signal to some central receiver, which must feed all the images to the outside world. Hitok said millions would be watching this show. Probably including the apes looking for us.”

  “That presumes their team members can somehow receive and see the signal. Only they aren’t supposed to carry anything with them but basic low tech weapons like ours.” Thad paused, a questioning look on his face. Then tapped his head meaningfully.

  He switched to a general Comtap link. “People, I’m wondering if, or how, the enemy team might use these images, and perhaps audio? The normal training cadre here must use all these cameras somehow. Unless they carry some sort of handheld monitor, they could only observe the pictures from a room in one of these buildings.

  “Hitok deliberately picked combat instructors, and some of them were once trained here, meaning they know about the cameras. They may have some means to monitor the broadcast, and that could be via their memory enhancers. They would know where we are, and what we’re doing. Athena, have you picked up a broadcast at High City?”

  “I’m checking now.”

  Athena had an answered shortly. “I’m still above Scout 1, and looking after Cal and Fredrico, also in the plaza. My AI has detected a broadcast signal that started about the time you guys reached the island. It isn’t a frequency our Comtaps can receive, but it’s close to the bands it sensed were used when Hitok was communicating with his Sovereigns. There are tens of thousands of those signals on various channels, which come from their memory enhancers. Hitok’s was encrypted, but some are not. I have the AI analyzing the new general broadcast signal, to see if there’s video and audio modulation.”

  The answer was quick in coming. “Hey guys, I can see some of you. There are at least a hundred sideband channels in this general broadcast, and they are all in the range of the frequencies the Ragnar use for their personal communications. If the public is watching you, then perhaps the apes coming after you are also viewers.”