Koban 4: Shattered Worlds (34 page)

The fire directed out at the enemy almost literally couldn’t miss hitting some warrior or other, no matter how energetically the Krall twisted, turned and ducked. The Kobani armor was virtually invisible to the Krall, located as they were inside the darkened resort, with no background ripple to reveal their movement. However, at roughly one thousand five hundred versus just over forty Kobani involved in active shooting, the roughly thirty five to one ratio inevitably took its toll.

Krall dropped in the front wave continuously, but Kobani also started to go down, some wounded and still firing back, others just went down for good.

Reynolds was pleased to see through his tri-barrel’s gun sight, that the men in the creek were taking down warriors from the rear of the pack, despite not being able to see them via the targeting data from the Kobani suit AIs. The Krall were converging on the resort, making a random shot towards the pack much more likely to find one of them. Those at the creek certainly knew that if the men in the resort died, the Krall would return for them next.

Many of the men switched to infrared and microwave energy beams in the increasingly hazy and smoky air, because those beams were harder to trace to their origin in the smoky gloom. A laser or plasma beam showed exactly where you had just been, and a spread of thirty or more return bolts had a better chance of finding you even when you moved.

The trade in lives heavily favored the Kobani, as at least three hundred warriors failed to reach the resort. Not all were killed, of course, because warriors were too tough to expire that quickly. However, they weren’t going to contribute to the close-in fighting.

There were now at least a dozen dead Kobani, with nearly that many fighting wounded. There were five stairwells, and four elevator shafts for the Kobani to use to retreat to the second floor. Leaping ten feet vertically was trivial in Poldark’s gravity for Kobani, or even the heavier Krall. A Kobani could make thirty feet in their lighter unpowered armor, a Krall only fifteen to twenty feet in their heavy powered armor.

The first of the Krall were trying to fight their way through the shattered windows and doors, gradually making their way inside the building, as they even used their own dead and severely wounded, carried as shields.

Spartan sent his first fallback cue on the general push. “Second floor. Second floor. Go!”

On that mark, every man able to do so fired all beam weapons at the closest Krall, specifically targeting their plasma rifles, spare power packs, and helmets, and tossed two grenades. One with an eight-second delay, set for high explosive, the other half had flash-heat settings set at three seconds. The latter were designed to overdrive the Krall helmet filters briefly, with bright lights, heat flares, and dense smoke. For a few seconds they wouldn’t see their prey.

That was the few seconds they needed to pick up their wounded, and leap with them up the stairs, or through the now open and empty elevator shafts to the next level. More grenades were dropped by the last Kobani in line, with various short timers, to keep the Krall guessing. The depleted uranium pellets in these couldn’t do as much damage to the heavier armor as had the sabots, but random hits could disable or penetrate a joint, damage a rifle or power pack, and after the sabots that had ravaged them, some warriors might dive for cover, delaying their pursuit.

Spartan, who was well aware of the supply denial strategy used against the Krall in the main assaults on the cities, had noted that some of the warriors were scavenging rifles and spare power packs from the dead. Stealth mode made it difficult to see the warriors in detail, but a dropped rifle lost stealth capability, and suddenly they would go invisible again when recovered.

He passed this to his men. “An unarmed Krall is nearly as good as a dead Krall. They are low on spare weapons and power packs.” They concentrated on “killing” the easier to eliminate weapons. Most warriors had originally carried two rifles, one slung as a spare, with a sizable “fanny” pack of spare power modules when they left the clanship. Others had a forearm mounted short barrel plasma gun as a backup. However, those too needed power packs. There were no supplies for them closer than the clanship now, other than taking them off their own dead.

The Torki designed Kobani armor never ran out of power, not with the miniature Trap Fields they used. They only lost power if a plasma bolt hit the Trap emitters or power distribution system. They were attempting to reduce the Krall’s standoff offensive capability by disarming as many as they could. However, their sheer numbers could still overwhelm the thirty-seven fully effectives that Spartan’s AI now reported.

He sent a dozen men with the non-mobile wounded up another level, leaving him with twenty-five men on level two to try to hold roughly twelve hundred Krall down on the ground floor a bit longer. That plan only worked to choke off the Krall rush for as long as it took for their heavy firing down the five stairs and four elevator shafts, to convince warriors still outside to take an alternate route to the enemy. They started leaping directly up to the second floor balconies by the dozens.

Three unarmed Krall, with no plasma weapons, leaped directly at a single spec ops trooper at a stair top as he swung around to the sounds they made as they thumped down. He sent two lasers and a plasma bolt into the front of the rippled silhouette of the helmet of the only one with a forearm plasma gun. There was a small amount of dirt and soot on all their armor, making them semi visible. He hadn’t known if the warrior with a forearm weapon had a charged power pack or not, so he killed him first. His shooting served to reveal his position to a certainty for the other two warriors. At least so far as knowing where his head was. That’s where his energy beams originated. The shooter’s body was still stealthed, and his limb positions were not visible.

The two warriors, triumphant at finally closing with one of these challenging enemy soldiers, lost their enthusiasm in short order. The much smaller human, invisible hands free because his weapons were built into his helmet, saw a slightly grimy translucent left arm of the closest Krall swing towards him. He ducked under, reached up and grasped the arm, pivoted under the limb and around to the back, placing that warrior’s torso between him and the second set of ripples flying through the air.

In near instantaneous decision-making, the trooper used the second warrior’s leap and momentum to push the one whose arm he held, sideways and down, as he placed a right knee in his victims back as the body dropped. He wrenched savagely back with both hands on the left forearm and bicep, and snapped the shoulder joint inside the armor. When he heard the sound of a scream of pain, he also knew he’d sprung open the suit’s shoulder joint, else he would not have hear that “music” through his external speakers.

He added a flip of his body over the downed Krall and did a midair twist as he passed over him, wrenching the armor’s sleeve fully from the shoulder, and down along the broken limb, revealing a six-inch length of red grey flesh below suit’s shoulder. An opening! The stealth of that detached piece of armor failed, revealing the silvery metal of the left limb.

Stomping down with both feet as he came over the top of his first opponent, where he knew the semi visible second warrior must have hit the floor, he felt his feet slam down on the other suit’s back plate. He now knew where both of them were for the second he needed to act. Recalling the stories of Krall “games” with Normal human soldiers, he snapped his last grenade from its waist compartment in a blur of motion and thumbed the actuator in that same motion. He sent a thought to his AI to set the timing and type of detonation he wanted from the device. His hand flashed down and shoved it under the armpit of the arm he still held, down into the suit at the open shoulder joint.

He felt the Krall under him finally react to his presence on his back. These three warriors slow reaction speed was the first close and direct physical contact with the enemy the young spec ops private had ever experienced. He had not felt as physically powerful when he shot them, since no living creature had time to dodge away from a well-aimed energy beam. He had noticed that they reacted slower to a near miss than he’d expected, or to a wounding hit, allowing him and his fellow Kobani to shoot them again before they reached cover or could even fire back.

He was surprised at how much weaker they were than he expected. Normal humans he knew were slow thinking and reacting, and woefully weak, but he never felt so almighty when around them. Probably, because they didn’t hate him nor did they want him or his family dead for simply being alive.

His mother had died in the first raid of the war, on the world where his mother had worked as a City Manager, on Gribble’s Nook. He was in preschool care, and his mother was apparently trying to protect her city. He couldn’t remember her, and he never knew his contracted father. He’d hated the Krall for his entire life, reinforced by the feelings of the aunt that raised him, who never got over the hideous way her sister was butchered.

He quickly felt with a foot where the back of the helmet was, and looked at that spot and fired his plasma bolt at close range, medium power, as the warrior tried to rise. The entire attack had taken no more than five seconds real time. The eruption of fire from the open arm joint and violent twitching of his previous victim drew his attention. He didn’t need to keep looking at the Krall he was standing over, killing him slowly as his plasma bolts burned a way through the helmet at reduced power. He’d instructed his suit’s AI to continue to shoot at the same spot, which quickly darkened as its stealth coating burned away. He was free to glance at a side image inside his visor.

He watched the image of thermite driven flames erupt from the other squirming Krall’s shoulder joint, as the upper arm charred and burned free. His learning to like the feeling of power as he killed this hated enemy had a downside.

He learned a final combat lesson.

It was to behave differently than the Krall you despised, don’t enjoy killing your enemy so much that you watch them die for pleasure. He hadn’t sensed the ripples of leaping warriors passing over the edge of the balcony behind him. The lower power setting on his plasma beam, locked on automatic to kill the warrior under his feet more slowly, made him a perfect target as he watched the other Krall burn to death. Four plasma beams ended the distracted young Kobani’s feeling of personal pleasure at killing his enemy.

You don’t always live and learn.

The amount of time spent defending the second level was considerably less than Spartan had expected, due to the Krall avoiding the fight at the stairwells and elevator shafts. Not a single warrior lived to reach the second floor via those routes, but they started pouring over the outside balconies by directly jumping there. Four more Kobani were lost, and the four remote tri-barrel operators no longer had targets worth the distraction while fighting Krall almost in their face. Immobile Krall away from the building were no immediate threat, and those were the only targets for the heavier guns.

Greeves and Reynolds were staying close to one another, and to Spartan. The Lieutenant issued the order to shift to level three, just before Greeves was about to awkwardly suggest they move up while they could do it properly. The men already on the third level, along with the wounded able to fight were prepared to provide them cover at the open elevator shafts and the somewhat better protected stairwells.

However, they were reaching a supply limitation of their own. There were plenty of grenades in storage under the resort, with about fourteen hundred Krall in the way of obtaining them. The other access to the underground hub was via the roof and the freight elevator shaft down to the spec ops lair. However, that was on the roof of the tenth floor, and they didn’t intend to go that high, nor was there time to send anyone for a round trip.

The Kobani were jumping up the stairs from landing to landing, and making dashing upward leaps, using a quick deflection from the sides in the elevator shafts to go higher or reach an opening. Unlike archaic elevators, there were no cables to grasp. Their remaining grenades served to hold the Krall at bay below them for a short time. That was when Greeves received the radio call he’d hoped would come before the Krall had even reached the building.

“Colonel Greeves, this is Captain Roberts in Cobra 1, of Shadow wing. I have two birds with me, and we just blasted a clanship that had this particular valley blocked. We have the Novi Pazar Lodge in sight. We can shoot up the Krall attackers you reported to Nabarone’s Headquarters bunker if you tell me where they are. I don’t see very many of them in front. I see your icon in the building on…, uh…, moved up to the third level now, and a few of your other people higher above you.”

Novi Pazar?
Greeves wondered.

It took an instant for Greeves to realize the resort had to have a name, but he’d not asked what it was. It had changed owners since he’d last lived on Poldark. He sent a quick command to his AI to link Spartan and Reynolds into the call before he replied.

“Cobra 1, make strafing runs at the base of the building, first two levels. I think nearly all the red bastards are inside there now. That’s why you don’t see them. We’re moving up inside the building, staying just ahead of them. There are perhaps three thousand PU army regulars in a creek bed in the center of the valley.”

“Got their icons. Sensors also report perhaps eighty-five Krall in the open in front of the building. Our ammo and plasma bolts will shred body armor, Kobani type included. You had better get your men a lot higher than level three. We’re passing you now. We’ll swing back and strafe the lower floors in thirty seconds, if you give the all clear.”