Koban 4: Shattered Worlds (63 page)

“The Krall won’t expect a sizable fleet to show up and hit them so quickly when they can be called instantly. They’ll think they have at least two weeks to pillage without challenge, because it normally takes one week to warn us, and at least another week for help to arrive. They won’t be ready for the level of force I’ll send.”

“That might be an argument you can use. However, logic will go out the window if the extent of their gene modifications leaks to the public. The DNA samples we took from cups used by Captain Longstreet and Corporal Condor revealed they have unique genes that our new sequencers can’t find a match for, not from any current population.

“The best guess I was given is that they were designed from scratch; a task our medical scientist would have said was beyond our ability even before the Clone Wars. Successful functional genes usually imply millions of years of evolutionary selection. Our so-called experts don’t even know what most of the genes code for, how they make them so fast and strong. However, we may have found a possible source for Rimmer expertise in the field of genetics, and from a most unlikely Hub world reference.”

“What was that?”

“I know you recall President Stanford’s chief military advisor from our first raids on K1. Retired Admiral Anderfem was Stanford’s friend and her military advisor. Her family has dominated Alders world politics since that Old Colony was settled, nearly five hundred years ago. Anderfem wrote a memoir of her years advising Stanford and about the K1 raids, and wrote a strong defense for Mauss’ actions and strategy. She also mentioned in a personal history chapter, her suspicion that a member of her own family may have been one of the earliest to suffer from a Krall attack. Her sister, Aldry Anderfem vanished on a mission to a remote orbital station located beyond the Rim worlds, in the general direction from which the Krall came. Eight hundred ninety nine passengers and crew of the ship the sister was on vanished with her, without a trace.”

“How is that a clue, and how would you have heard about the story?”

“My aide, Commander Gale, read the memoir a year ago and brought it to my attention when I started questioning where the Rimmer’s knowledge to perform genetic modifications came from. The bulk of the passengers that vanished on that charter ship were other bio-scientists, slated to do research on an orbital station placed out well beyond the Rim.

“I’ve since had Gale do a bit of digging in the minutes of the Joint Academic Council of major Hub universities, who organized a science mission called the Midwife Project. The project received government grants from the Department of Colonization, which in turn was provided a budget increase supported by political allies of the president. President Stanford appears to have secretly supported what would have been an unpopular and politically sensitive bioscience program. The scientist sent were the cream of the crop of those that
might
have been able to recover the lost scientific knowledge of how to do human genetic modifications.”

Chatsworth wasn’t buying the connection. “Oh come on, Adriana. Unless there were armed Rimmer pirates that knew a superior race called the Krall was about to attack us, it’s pretty farfetched that they would have had the foresight to kidnap them and put them to work to do these gene changes, all before the war even started.”

“No, of course I don’t think that. Its pure speculation at this point and perhaps a coincidence that the best minds in the area of human genetics vanished when they did. However, let me add this other bizarre coincidence to the mix, which has me scratching my head. I looked up the lost ship Aldry Anderfem was supposed to be on, to confirm that detail from the book. It was named the Flight of Fancy, and her master was listed as a Captain Tetsuo Mirikami.”

She let that hang in the air until seeing recognition flash on Chatsworth’s face.

“Exactly. He was from New Honshu, so his last name isn’t particularly rare on any of the Japanese settled worlds, not even the first name of Tetsuo is unusual, but the combination of both names isn’t as common. A Rimmer leader of genetically enhanced people, who is a ship’s captain with that same name, gave me goose bumps.”

Chatsworth shrugged. “I think you’re seeing a confluence of random coincidences. You told me this Rimmer named Mirikami was young. It’s been over twenty years since that passenger ship disappeared. An experienced captain of a large transport ship couldn’t have been a young man back then, not with gender bias to slow his career advancement. Add in another twenty or so years, and I suppose this young Mirikami might conceivably be the original man’s son, and have the same name. That’s a far stretch to make this presumed connection.”

“I considered that. I did. Yet when I met the man on Poldark, he seemed far more educated, mature and experienced than I’d expect from a twenty five-year-old male, who was raised in the boondocks of civilization. Hell, I don't know Lela. I just wanted you to pass this along to Admiral Mauss, since she’ll be coordinating with Mirikami to deploy his hundred ten ships, learning what he can do for us. They just advised us they had captured another ten ships this past week, making them pretty damned competent I think. You told me she’ll be Jumping to a sterile system to meet with him and his fellow captains. Anything she can learn about him and his people will be useful, and the story I related to you is at least worth exploring. They got their genetic changes in some fashion, and they’re keeping how they did it a secret. Golda is as good as anyone at getting to the truth, or detecting deception.”

“OK. I’ll have my AI look up Anderfem’s memoir and send it to her, with attention given to the interesting items you found in them.”

****

Mauss was waiting at the airlock of the battleship Lancer as her guest arrived. “Captain Mirikami, I’m pleased to meet you, and intrigued, to say the least. I’ve heard some curious things about you.” She shook the hand he offered in lieu of a salute. Something Bledso and Chatsworth had cautioned her to expect.

“Admiral Mauss, I can say much the same of what I’ve heard of you, and I’m honored to have you as our navy liaison. Having read your book, and Marshal Freidka’s history of your tactics and the strategy that went into the first two strikes on K1, I’m hopeful you have some interesting proposals for taking advantage of our unique capabilities. We can’t continue to allow the Krall to have the war fought their way.” He was watching her with intensity and obvious curiosity as they shook hands.

“Yes. I suppose you were too young when those actions took place to remember them first hand, but they have been covered extensively over the years. It’s unusual to encounter a reader of history, versus the media’s docudramas of typically shallow Tri-Vid snapshots of complex military actions.”

Her response was designed to draw him out, and confirm if he was as young as he appeared to be. She saw a strong resemblance to an old picture of a middle-aged man she had found in Interworld Transport records, of their presumed dead Captain Mirikami. However, this man was clearly much younger than even that old hologram. However, she was distracted and surprised that he’d read two of the most accurate depictions of what had happened at K1, rather than watching the popular media versions that inevitably focused on the drama and tragedy of the near destruction of Rhama, and the political downfall of President Stanford.

The true detrimental impact of Rhama’s devastation and the fall of the president had never been from their military value for the enemy. It was in the reaction of the public and the politicians to the Krall’s ultimatum, which clearly shifted the war in a direction that would help the enemy gradually to destroy human society in the manner they preferred. She also wasn’t expecting the smile and chuckle from the smallish, young looking man.

“I wasn’t even aware of the progress of the war for twenty years, although I knew it was about to start before anyone in Human Space did. As you already suspect, I’m older than our cosmetic procedures might lead you to believe. I was certain then that the initial response of the PU government would be to underestimate this new enemy, and misunderstand the Krall’s real motivation and goals. I believed our leaders would seek to avoid conflict, and try to negotiate their way out of a war with a clearly barbaric and implacable race of pure warriors that only live to fight.”

Mauss nodded, confirming her impression from the first moments of meeting Mirikami that his bearing wasn’t that of a young man. He wasn’t physically imposing, but conveyed a confidence and sense of strength, and had the odd graceful movements that she was told all of these secretive Rimmers displayed.

“Captain, your comments imply that you were somehow out of touch with what was happening on the Rim worlds after the war started, which is where you say you and your people are from. I’m sure some news must have reached you, because Hub contact existed with every Rim world.”

“I suppose there
was
news available on Rim world colonies, Admiral. We wouldn’t know.” He grinned, and then said, cryptically, “I don’t know how that sort of news could spread that far beyond the Rim.”

She pounced on that statement. “You’re implying your people are from farther out than the Rim colonies. How could that be? How could any group colonize such remote and unannounced planet discoveries without major assistance from the Hub worlds, or at least from other well established colonies?”

“Admiral, I prefer not to say, because if somehow the Krall received enough hints of where we are located, we don’t have the resources or population to defend ourselves. We know they are aware of our existence from our raids, and they have experienced our capabilities, but they think we are a small exceptional unit of the PU Army using perhaps an experimental type of armor that makes us seem stronger and faster. Not unlike the impression we’ve conveyed to the PU itself.”

Mauss was blunt. “Captain, you have concealed yourselves from the PU just as you have from the Krall. Do you consider us to be a potential enemy, a friend now only of convenience?”

Mirikami looked at her askance, and asked. “Admiral, are you being coy with me concerning PU laws? Both the Krall we fight and the PU we defend are potentially a threat to our existence, and oddly enough, for the same reason. The Krall would wipe us out at any cost if they knew we were their physical superiors, that we have bypassed them on their twenty-five thousand year selective breeding program of their Great Path. The Hub government may someday come after us, due to how we achieved that superiority. Also because of our genetic modifications.

“Nevertheless, I think our actions
prove
we are on the same side as the Planetary Union, which puts us squarely on humanity’s side, because we
are
human. We don’t just happen to appear to be human. We can marry and have children with unmodified humans, and we have the offspring at home to prove that claim. We are not a different species; we are another race of Homo sapiens, as you appear to be a member of the Caucasian race.”

Mauss smiled at this. “I’m more of a racial mix than I appear, just as you must be. You for example look somewhat Asiatic, specifically part Japanese and Caucasian, yet due to your modifications you claim you are also now a member of a new race.”

Mirikami returned her smile. “True. I was a mixture of Japanese and one-quarter Earth born Caucasian even before my gene mods. There isn’t such a thing as a purebred member of our new race, just as there is no purebred human of any race of human anymore. All of us of the older generation naturally carried whatever genetics we possessed at birth on our home worlds in Human Space.

“Which, incidentally includes the same long ago gene mods that you, me, and everyone alive carried from well before the Clone Wars. The children many of my people have borne since our changes have the typical mix of genes all humans carry, plus the new ones that our scientists were meticulously careful to make compatible with human reproduction.”

There was a hint Mauss wanted to follow. “You say you are of an older generation than you seem, and were born on a world in Human Space. How would we verify that claim, of your origin on a human world?”

“You’ve already done that I think. You just identified me as part Japanese and Caucasian, when most people couldn’t be that specific if they hadn’t done some research. Nevertheless, look up the records of the Flight of Fancy, a former passenger ship of Interworld Transport, serving Rim worlds and New Colonies. I understand the company still serves many of the same routes. I was captain of the Fancy when she vanished, and her passenger list will surely provide you a huge clue as to how we made our genetic advances.

“One of the people serving as a captain of a ship I brought with me today was my first officer on the Fancy, Noreen Renaldo. Other captains with us were serving on over thirty-five other ships that should be vessels suspected of capture by the Krall, taken some months after mine was captured. It’s certain that you would learn of these connections anyway, therefore it isn’t a secret we could keep. I won’t go into details of how we all came to be held together, where we were, or how we survived, because that could cause slips that might lead the Krall to us. They think we’re dead, and we want them to keep thinking that.”

His hand was no longer in contact with Mauss, but he saw the easy acceptance of his mention of the Flight of Fancy in her expression. That told him she had already suspected who he was, and was seeking verification. From the moment of the handshake, he’d seen her mental comparison of his current face to that of a hologram photo from his old Interworld company ID that she’d found. He also sensed her determination to make this new navy attack on the Krall more damaging and lasting than the last. She wanted his help.