Koban 4: Shattered Worlds (113 page)

It took longer that it should have for two of them to realize that nothing on the four-position control console would alter its settings or respond for either one of them. With one exception. The radio communications worked at all four control positions. That feature didn’t require a coded key to access.

Demteg ordered one of her other two clanships to follow the enemy but to not engage on its own. The second pilot was ordered to Jump and rendezvous for a docking with them, to let her and Dolbat transfer from this damaged clanship, coasting on a ballistic course that would be many days in returning close to the planet. It was obvious that it had suffered some unsuspected internal computer malfunction at a critical moment. Both clanships would then join in the destruction of the lone enemy craft if it stayed in the system. This rescue of her now meant the other warriors would demand a greater share of her status award. Perhaps she could extract more payment from Telour, when he learned the shocking news that humans at least knew about their future home world. Telour’s own prestige would increase because he had acted on his own to protect their species future home.

She cautioned the remote observer to remain clear of the enemy, and to return to Telda Ka regardless of the outcome here. They had to report that there was at least a limited human presence in this star system.

She and Dolbat would don their armor, stowed below on the lowest deck, for the quick transfer. No docking tube needed to be mated with any of the airlocks. Both clanships would open a main portal, and the two of them would push off to coast through the other ship’s portal, into the artificial gravity once inside its hold.

They found they could also operate the external view screen controls, and observed as the other clanship approach them, and slowly pulled alongside, about two ship lengths away. They went down the stairs at a run, and pulled their armor out of the stowage lockers where it hung.

Their next problem was encountered when they donned their helmets, and they couldn’t activate every suit function. Life support worked, and they would pressure seal, but the visor projection system didn’t activate. They used shoulder mounted com sets to speak to the nearby clanship pilot, who was standing off until they were ready. It was possible to remove the opaque armored covering over the clear face visor, and simply look out through the blank imaging screen without any data being presented there.

She tapped her shoulder com set. “We’re ready. Our suits don’t have normal power assisted movement, sensors, or visor screens, but will pressure seal. Tell us when you are close, and which portal of ours we should use. We’ll open that one and let the atmosphere blow out. We can’t activate the air pump controls to lower internal pressure first. We’ll jump across when we see your open portal.”

The other pilot acknowledged. “I’ve pumped the atmosphere from the hold, and I just opened a portal. I’ll maneuver next to your portal number three. I’ll tell you when we are close enough for the transfer.” It was strange to have to do this, but not particularly difficult,

In moments, they had their notification. “I am two leaps from your hull. Open your portal as I slow my drift towards you.”

Demteg and Dolbat took a firm grip to resist the decompression gusts when the portal would whip up into its storage slot. She pressed the key pad to open the hatch. She pressed it again, and again. It didn’t activate. Dolbat went to the next portal, and it didn’t open either. They were about to try the other hatches when they heard a loud clang and felt a sharp jolt.

The other pilot called. “Sub leader, my reaction thruster control has failed. I collided gently with you, but if you jump before we drift apart, you can still transfer. You need to hurry.”

When none of the portals would open, and the other pilot reported his reactionless drive also would not respond to return them to near proximity, Demteg looked at her clan mate. There was a mutual understanding of their predicament, without a comprehension of how it had happened. They were not getting off this clanship, and even their rescuer was now in need of rescue.

****

Mirikami watched with interest as the two clanships approached slowly, apparently to dock he thought, or to generate a large Jump Hole to take the other ship in tow. With the fourth observer ship safely standing off so far away, it was an extreme long shot to get to that one. However there was one following him in their new wider orbit, and he was watching what happened to the other two, now about a hundred feet apart, he estimated.

Maggi was below, changing ammo belts on the .50 cal guns. She said two belts had a hundred or so rounds, but he told her to switch them all over to new boxes, with fresh thousand round belts. She should have been done by now, but he didn’t want to aggravate her by asking if she needed any help.

Then he saw what he’d been waiting for, and let out a whoop on Comtap for all to hear, with a feeling of satisfaction sent along. “The second ship just lightly banged into the one we disabled, and it’s rebounding, with both doing a bit of a rotation as they part. I’m almost positive the second one is now disabled. The virus infection, or whatever you call it, is also passed from ship to ship, and not just from our infectious little bullets.”

“That’s great cowboy,” Maggi said. “Now how about you boosting us ahead a little bit, along the same exact track we’ve been on, with our trailing coyote following our scent. I want him to keep his metaphorical nose on our trail. I have some droppings I want him to sniff.”

“What are you talking about? You back to western analogies again?”

“My Love, better humor me or get whacked.”

Dillon chimed in. “Speaking from past experience, Tet, she doesn’t bluff.”

“Too late for that warning, so thanks for nothing. I’m letting Jakob gently increase our speed while holding to the same orbital arc. How much of a lead are you talking about? He’s twenty miles behind, and has been back there for ten minutes while we watched these other two get close enough to dance. There has been some encrypted radio traffic, but nothing from the guy behind us.”

“See if you can get him to move up the twenty miles he was behind us when I asked you to boost speed. How about increasing speed twelve hundred miles per hour, but gradual. It won’t take much more than a minute to see if this works at that speed.”

“If what works?”

“Be patient. I didn’t criticize you a while ago when you goofed.”

“Yes you did!”

“That wasn’t for the goof of missing the shots, dear twit. It was for not accepting credit for the goofy plan that disabled the ship.”

“Oh. Gee, that sure makes the sting go away. The twit apologizes for not knowing why he was whacked.”

There was almost a minute of silence, as Mirikami watched the pair of clanships slowly tumble apart, clearly not under pilot control. Several radio calls came from the original ship, and a prompt response came from the ship trailing them this time.

“Jakob, have that Jump I called for ready. I also think the one on our tail was just ordered to do something. Boost by fifty g’s and turn sixty degrees starboard. I don’t want to risk a suicidal intersect from him.”

“Hey,” Maggi complained. “He’s was right where I wanted him.”

“I think
we
were where
he
wanted
us
. I don’t want to be there if he shows up.”

The Mark made a sharp turn and increased speed rapidly.

The enemy continued on the same course, and Maggi, with her visor repeating the navigation presentation, said “Ha. He didn’t Jump, so that turn wasn’t needed.”

“Hmm.” Mirikami thought quickly. “He didn’t react either. Even if he canceled a micro Jump, he’d turn to follow us. Jakob put a radar lock on him and let’s see what he does. Up to now, we’ve not acted like we had any missiles. Activate full stealth.”

The clanship kept going as before.

With no hesitation, Mirikami said “Jakob, Jump.”

Maggi, startled, said “What?” Then was forced to grab onto something as the ship rotated, the machine guns silently blazing in the vacuum, and four missiles trails streaked away. She was at risk of flying out of one of the four opened portals if she hadn’t grabbed a leg of a secured tripod mount.

Less than a mile away there was a blossoming orange ball of a detonating clanship. “Damn. Was that our coyote?” However, Maggi suddenly saw the greatly diminished globe of Koban come into view, as the Mark stabilized its rotation, and the machine guns ceased their flashing.

“You got the observer!” She shouted in understanding.

Her open remark was instantly followed by multiple requests for information, via Comtap, from those watching on Kronos.

Mirikami had to shout them all down, with a mental shout. “Stop! Hold on. Let me talk.”

Instant mental silence, expectant silence.

“I realized the observer clanship was five seconds away in light time. It had just heard the sub leader order the clanship behind us to do something. I don't know what it was told for certain, but whatever it was ordered to do, that observer sure as hell wasn’t Jumping before it saw what happened.

“I Jumped out here just when the light from our sudden turn would be reaching the observer. I’d had Jakob previously pick a point a mile behind that clanship, knowing it was ready to Jump in an instant. Unlike Krall missiles, mine had the safety interlocks removed, and they were armed when they left the launch tubes. I also fired all the guns to fill the space out here with slugs, to try to disable the ship if the missiles were defeated. I wasn’t oriented properly when I jumped, so I spun the ship to fill the area with chips on lead slugs. The missiles worked. You saw the flash of the explosion five seconds after we got here. My guess is the observer was waiting to see the intersect flash of the Mark’s destruction.”

Maggi said, “Could have warned me. I damn near went out the door when you spun us around.”

“I’d have picked you up…, eventually.” The grin was implicit in his mental image.

“Hey, that last ship will still get away.” She had just started to relax when that struck her.

Noreen said, “It’s still headed the way it was before Tet turned away and then Jumped.”

Mirikami said, “I think we have Maggi to thank for that, but she’ll have to tell us what she did. That one is as disabled as the other two ships, somehow.”

“Ha, then it worked.” She crowed. “You orbital mechanics and gun slingers don’t have all the answers.”

“What worked?” Sarge’s unmistakable mental pattern was behind that question.

“When I swapped out the ammunition belts there were at least two hundred slugs with chips on them in the old belts. While I confirmed the Krall was still on our trail, I quickly popped the slugs off the belts and threw them out the portals in all directions. They wouldn’t have time to spread far, and they shared our velocity. Then I got Tet to speed up.

“At twelve hundred miles per hour increase, it only takes a minute to travel twenty miles. That’s how many miles he was behind us. He must have sped up and passed close to or bumped into one of the drifting bullets a minute later. That was just when Mister paranoid turned aside and almost lured him off my baited trail.”

Sarge said, “I’ll guess we’ll never know.”

“The hell we won’t.” She rebutted. “He’s still here so he’s disabled. But stop picking your nose with one hand and scratching your ass with the other, and go out and collect them all for Mind Taps. Unless penned up Krall with only a pistol or a knife are too scary for you. I can show you how it’s done.”

“People.” Mirikami interrupted the sense of relief and euphoria they all felt right now.

“Sarge, Thad, some others, please do pick them up before they find a way to get to and rupture the fuel tanks and we lose these three ships. We need them, and we need them right now. I want all of us to Jump for K1, with our loads of special delivery chips, before the end of the day. Some of you head to Koban or Haven for more of the ammo and any other weapons that can fire slugs that will hold these chips inside.”

One of the Kobani captains asked, “Why today, Sir? Telour won’t know what happened here, and these ships would have taken a week and a half to get back.”

“If he sends a fleet back promptly when the four of them are overdue, do you want to be on the way there to stop it when it passes us going the other way in Tachyon Space? We can’t let it depart K1.”

Dillon asked, “Do we have enough chips to do that?”

“I don’t know. I think not, but we can make some plans on the way. We have to stretch what we have, or figure how to get more chips. The Torki turned out to be the only ones that made them previously for the Krall, at least for many thousands of years. They follow a standard chip manufacturing method they were given, using their existing Olt production technology.

“Like humans that assemble Tri-Vid systems. The factory workers didn’t invent them, or know how their circuits work. They build them per computer specifications, and make use of the working results.

“Neither the Torki nor the Raspani knew that one of the quantum interactions employed by the Olt’kitapi involved this medium range fifth force, or that it had a data base for recording DNA patterns that could be blocked from using the quantum code keys contained in the tattoos. The Raspani also have the ability to make these simple chips, using their mind enhancer technology, and both species have been making a few more of them while we chatter out here. I think we can do without any of the door locks in our ships, or in the buildings and old domes that use those chips. We have stores of Krall plasma rifles and other code keyed weapons. We need all of them we can get, and fast. Let’s get moving.”