Koban 4: Shattered Worlds (45 page)

When his topographical display showed Kanpardi’s shuttle had entered the valley above the long armor column, he ordered all of the mini-tanks to halt, and face up the ridge to provide suppressive fire with their forward lasers and their main guns. He ordered all of the warriors in the transports to exit, and charge up the slopes with tank and plasma cannon fire for support. To make it look good, he called for clanships to fire on the ragged ridges. This kind of assault was a seldom-used tactic on Poldark, for a good reason. It wasn’t because of the pressure of the return fire of the outnumbered armored humans at the ridge top. It was because of the radio call they would make to their comrades driving the mobile artillery carts.

Stationary Dragons, and warriors deployed outside the armored transports, fighting their way uphill in body armor were much better targets for the artillery. Even as untested as these human troops were, this was a perfect battlefield scenario. To use an advantageous tactic against the Krall that was seldom presented. A heavy bombardment with a combination of antipersonnel rounds for the exposed warriors, and high explosive rounds to try to crack the ceramic hull of the motionless Dragons, or blow off one of their tracks to immobilize them. Even the stationary armored transports couldn’t take the pounding very long.

Only inexperienced minor clans still tried this sort of frontal attack on Poldark, and yet here on New Dublin it was being ordered by an experienced Gatlek, with an entirely different goal in mind than securing the ridge. He was willing to lose some warriors and mini-tanks today, to draw the counter fire he needed to cover his tracks.

The humans were slower to react than the Krall would be, requiring seconds to recognize what was happening, and more wasted seconds to grasp the advantage offered. However, in a minute, Pendor’s tactical display showed the ballistic arcs of rising shells coming over the ridge. As usual, the Krall’s laser defense carts were knocking as many shells out of the air as possible, and typically only twenty five percent of them would get through untouched. However, there were many hundreds of them coming.

When the anti-personnel shells began exploding on the upper hillsides, and HE rounds were landing on the lower flanks, where the Dragons were stationed, it was time. Pendor, aware that everyone in the bunker was watching the thrilling, and gloriously foolish assault up the hills into the face of the enemy, reached into his pouch.

The shuttle was well away from the base of the ridge, hundreds of feet above the fray, and as a moving aerial target, it was essentially under no threat from the bombardment directed at the ground assault on the ridge slopes.

Kanpardi spoke to his pilot. “What is that inept fool Pendor, or one of his subordinates trying to do? This sort of attack will waste good warriors on a pointless cull, when the tactic he described to drive humans from these ridges would work better. Does he think this poor strategy of a foolish but brave assault will impress me?”

“My Tor, it does not …,” The words never finished, and Kanpardi would not have heard them if they had. The high explosive human made shell that Pendor had placed in his personal storage bin detonated.

In the bunker, the startled outcry as the shuttle rained down in fiery fragments lasted only a second or two. Random death on a battlefield was too common for the loss to have personally affected any of the observers. Even the loss of the highest status war leader of the Krall. There were competent leaders ready to step in and continue directing the war. Their surprise was more due to an apparently miss-aimed human shell having randomly hit such an unlikely target. Extremely unpredictable and pure bad luck for Kanpardi. His frozen seed would be widely propagated within his Graka clan, and traded with other major clans, who could afford the high price in status points for adding that famous bloodline to theirs.

The warriors charging up the hillsides continued unabated, suffering heavier losses than necessary, yet they exulted in their eventual victory at the top. Over a dozen human bodies were left behind in the hasty retreat of the thousand or more defenders. The soldiers had now crossed the next valley and were scaling the heights of the adjacent ridge, awaiting the Krall’s next attempt to push them back. They would do this until they reached the city where they were based, giving civilians more time to evacuate. It was the best they could do until PU Army reinforcements arrived in a few weeks.

None of those troops and warriors were aware that the course of the war was about to change dramatically because of events on New Dublin. For humanity, it would definitely be for the worse in the immediate future.

****

Mirikami had not taken the Mark of Koban directly to K1 as he’d originally intended. He performed a White Out by diverting to another unused star system, for more testing after the conversation he’d had with Marlyn.

The tests verified that when outside of Tachyon Space, the connection Cal and Mel shared with the four Torki from Philodor didn’t work. When back in a Jump Hole, they could limit their communication to any one of the specific four Torki, who had what were described as uniquely designed Olts, which used a more complex but stable form of quantum entanglement than the previous standard Olt’kitapi design. These were sensitive enough to link to other Torki on the opposite side of Philodor, right through the core of the planet. They didn’t actually know what their normal space communication range was, because they had been bound to the planet’s surface for over a thousand years.

The ability required the combination of Mind Tap ability with the new Raspani chip in their heads, and the more sensitive Olt the Philodor Torki had built.

Mirikami asked Marlyn to work with the Raspani and Torki when she reached Haven, and learn how the combined technology worked. If the Philodor Olt technology could be made to work in the new type chips Cal and Mel had, then any Kobani would have live, instantaneous communications with any other distant Kobani when both were in a Jump Hole.

When Mirikami next Jumped he had intended to continue to K1, but the transit delay presented him with a new opportunity. There was a recent message left floating in Tachyon Space, from Joe Longstreet at Poldark. The contents convinced him to go to Poldark before scouting K1. Joe said a Krall prisoner, one they’d had held for several weeks, had finally proved to be a source of intelligence about K1 that Mirikami should sense first hand, and perhaps pass on to the navy.

On his White Out at Poldark, he placed the Mark in high orbit in stealth mode, and arranged a rendezvous with Nabarone’s shuttle, surprisingly piloted by Longstreet. He’d brought the Krall prisoner up with him. The results of the following interrogation would expand Tet’s original plans, to try to involve the PU Navy in an even greater action.

Letting loose of the drugged Krall’s limp hand, Mirikami admitted it had been a detour well worth his time. “Hothdat here knows the code to safely enter orbit at K1, and the different clan codes required to land at several allied clan domes. She had no idea at the time she was captured that the invasion fleet she was part of was eventually going to strike New Dublin. However, she did know Pendor had intended to Jump to K1 first, even before he lost some of his clanships and equipment. They went to load some of the vast stock piles of equipment that they couldn’t risk stripping from the forces remaining on Poldark.”

He looked back to the motionless blue suited prisoner, and in near flawless low Krall, he said, “I thank you for being so helpful, Harzax Kopandi. As your clan title says, you have measured your enemy, and now he has measured you in return. I will be sure to pay the nest near your clan’s dome on Telda Ka a visit someday. Your clan’s eggs will be carefully measured, as you have measured humans.”

Her present title within her Dorbo clan, Harzax Kopandi, was the same title granted to the now dead Parkoda of Tanga clan, who had also been tasked with learning how well humans could fight. This Krall had mental images of her studies of captured human troopers on Poldark, to determine how their newer human weapons and armor measured up to what the Krall were using. The “test” subjects were inevitably dispatched in the most violent and cruel manner possible. Mirikami felt no sympathy for this ruthless Krall, and when he had the chance, he’d make certain to visit this one’s clan dome on K1, called Telda Ka if you used the Krall’s description of it as Base 1.

She had revealed incidental knowledge of a huge buildup of war material at K1, which was
not
destined for use by the invasion force that Gatlek Pendor led. Clan rumors suggested there would be another invasion on a Hub world. Apparently, the plan was not yet ready to be announced by Tor Gatrol Kanpardi, to avoid advance political infighting between the major clans for leadership, when the Gatlek for this even larger invasion would be named.

Mirikami pulled at his lip. He needed to get this information to the navy, and convince them of its accuracy and urgency. It might be possible to head off a second new invasion. He’d have to reveal how some of this data was obtained. He could use when and where this particular prisoner was captured, since the navy had participated.

****

Hothdat had been “rescued” by the navy and a spec ops team. She was the commander of a clanship that had been destroyed by the human navy in space above Poldark, during the Krall partial withdrawal. Held upright now only by being strapped to a metal frame, she glared at her interrogators in helpless fury, unable to move her muscles to break free of the flimsy restraints, or to will her own death because of the paralyzing agent administered. A couple of weeks ago she had been minutes from an honorable death, via a plunge into atmosphere as she was falling back towards Poldark. How had she let this happen?

Her armor-clad body had been dumped into space when the clanship she commanded was ruptured and ripped open as it climbed away from Poldark. She, along with many of the warriors she’d carried, and the clanship debris, were destined to form firey streaks in the night sky a day or two after the massive launch of clanships. A last minute daring effort on the part of several humans had preserved her for this interrogation. She cursed her failure to kill them, and after that, her disgrace and inability to end her own life.

Worse, she now knew those three humans were examples of the mystery people that had attacked multiple Krall production worlds. They represented a new type of human warrior, who had somehow become physically superior to her species. They were obviously a minority within their own multitudes on so many worlds, or Krall successes in the war would have been reversed by now. They needed to find where these stronger animals lived, and use their greatest weapons against any worlds where they were found.

The Claw, a navy heavy cruiser in Admiral Foxworthy’s squadron, was assigned to work with Poldark’s Planetary Defense Command the day after the Krall fleet had departed. Their AI had noted multiple Krall warriors adrift in space, many still alive. However, one of them had a different colored armor, visible only because it had its stealth switched off to conserve power. It was blue tinged, which had marked it as at least a translator, and possibly a sub leader or clanship commander. The scans for Krall survivors had been conducted at the request of the PDC, and they were only interested in higher status warriors. The human’s had more luck than expected. She was a ship commander, with moderately high status within powerful Dorbo clan.

The Claw’s report to the PDC was deemed of enough value to capture this Krall, despite the risk of attempting that for any personnel assigned the task. She was clearly conscious and alert as she fell towards Poldark, and had had fired a wrist gun at the large ship when it approached. The rescue/capture was only attempted at General Nabarone’s insistence, and the navy said they didn’t have the means to safely pull a live warrior aboard, or a means to control it without blasting it with a laser or plasma beam. Nabarone then offered to provide a capture team, and the Claw’s captain explained why they had better hurry. The Krall was about an hour from reentry into the atmosphere.

The general told the Claw he’d found a recovery team, and they would be launching in a rush, to perform the operation when there was less than forty-five minutes until the Krall burned up. A shuttle raced up to meet the cruiser in low orbit. More precisely, the cruiser was allowing itself to free fall vertically out of orbit, keeping pace with the probable high status Krall.

Captain Danforth was surprised when she learned it was the general’s personal shuttle sent up, and its pilot asked to park in their main cargo hold. The man talking on frequency said there were speck ops soldiers aboard. Everyone knew that spec ops had an independent command structure from the PU Army, and that the general didn’t have a history of pleasant relations with past commanders of the spec ops units on Poldark. In fact, his relations with the navy hadn’t been stellar for that matter, at least before this past week. Now he seemed to be a golden boy.

Danforth came down from the Bridge to meet the capture team in the hold, where they had rapidly settled the shuttle in a slick bit of pilotage. She and her security chief had needed to suit up and airlock into the hold, wearing soft suits so they wouldn’t need to use valuable time pressurizing and depressurizing the compartment. They didn’t
have
time to do that if the team was to bring in the live and hostile Krall before it became a red flame streak in the sky.