Koban 4: Shattered Worlds (89 page)

“My builders designed me, and the gravity projectors and tachyon fields I’m using, to access a higher and more energetic dimension within that alternate Universe than that which clanships use for travel. It is the same higher dimensional level that I used to travel here. The tachyon energies available at that level are much greater than at either of the two lower dimensions. By adjusting the permeability of the Trap fields at a quantum level, it is possible to permit tachyons to tunnel through the event horizon from the alternate Universe and interact with the matter I have contained there. This is destructive to matter from our Universe, and a ship is destroyed if a Trap field fails when a ship moves through that Universe. However, this destruction can be controlled and limited.

“The destruction of matter by many low energy tachyons produces particle pair creation from the energy of the radiation released. Some new particles are matter, like most of the material that is in this Universe. Some of it is what low Krall words describe as opposite matter. Those two forms of material always destroy each other, releasing pure energy of radiation if they make contact. Using a small quantum uncertainty, which is enhanced within the event horizon I have projected, material from pair production that is the same as matter in this Universe is more often changed back into to radiation energy by the slow influx of low energy tachyons. The additional radiation produces more particle pairs from that energy.

“However, the opposite matter is preserved more often by the same quantum uncertainty, and it is not converted back to radiation as often. This process is the reverse of what happened when our Universe was created. In the first instants of creation, with very high energy density, opposite matter was destroyed more often by a different quantum uncertainty, preserving some of what you call normal matter. Within the event horizon, which I projected inside the core of the planet, the matter enclosed is being enriched to become opposite matter. The material does not have the high energy density of the early Universe, and the conversion to opposite matter requires much more time to finish. When enough time has passed, I will rotate the remaining material back unto this Universe within the core, and the opposite matter that was formed will destroy an equal mass of matter, and the radiation pressure will disrupt the entire planet from the inside.”

The aide, worried about the simple sound of the process was concerned. He prompted Pildon with a question. “Disrupt sounds gentle. Will this do what the Tor Gatrol wants?”

“Huwayla, what will happen to the planet in this disruption?” Pildon asked.

“Disruption is a word in low Krall that is close to describing the proper way to prepare for obtaining raw material for habitat construction. The sections of the planet should move apart, but only slightly faster than they can be recaptured by their mutual gravity. The segments would be small enough that it is easy for ships, like my sisters and me, to project powerful gravity fields to move and sort the clumps into the proper size and composition pods that are held together by their own gravity. We then can move them into the desired polar orbits around the star for use later. What you have instructed me to do is much more energetic than the builders considered optimum.”

The two aides and the guardians looked relieved. The lower status aide gave Pildon another question to relay. Which he did. “Where will the pieces of this planet travel?”

“If I am not instructed to halt the opposite matter conversion process early for a milder effect, I cannot capture all of the fragments quickly, and many will travel in long arcs, some away from the star and others towards the star. Because I was instructed to do this so far from the world where I worked, I was not able to place the event horizon exactly at the center of the core of the planet. The disruption will not be as symmetrical as desired. Some sections of the disrupted matter will eventually fall into the star to make it unstable for many orbits, and many sections will be captured by the gravity of other large planets. Much of the disruption work will have to be repeated, after many collisions between other planets and the large number of fragments you will cause me to create.

“In two of your days, Pildon, the more appropriate word in low Krall for the effect you required of me would be similar to
shatter
.”

****

Mirikami had his K1 Kobani ships enroute now to three of the systems he considered potentially at risk. Based on a one shot use of an Olt’kitapi ship by the Krall in the past, he believed the Krall could attack only one of the four systems, and there were navy ships for the Sol system. For the other three Hub planets he thought were possible targets, he knew his people would definitely arrive before any navy units could from Alders or New Glasgow. The fact that the Krall raids had pulled nearly all of the navy units so far away from where the clanships seemed to be headed, that alone increased Mirikami’s suspicions. It seemed probable the Krall had used a human style diversion.

Luna Base had ten heavy cruisers based there, the surviving battleship and the lone dreadnaught. After Mirikami’s warnings to Bledso, they were being deployed out as far as the orbit of Neptune from the sun, but that encompassed a huge volume. They would quickly focus in on the clanships if four of them Jumped in-system, as Mirikami forecast would happen.

At least out there by Neptune’s orbit, one or more of them should receive the gamma ray detections of arriving clanships much sooner than they would at Earth’s orbit, and they could Jump to Earth in minutes if needed there. However, there weren’t enough Comtap specialists posted on or near Earth to accompany each navy ship. Four of them went with the navy ships, Bledso as Chairfem of the Joint Chiefs kept hers close, and now President Medford had one at her disposal. That was only after she’d hurriedly been briefed on the Rimmer/Kobani presence within
her
military, and she finally learned about their instant communications capability. She insisted on having access to instant long-range communications, and was so angry with Bledso about not knowing before, that she didn’t want to be in the same room with her right now.

Medford was reading a briefing item from the navy that said this ultra-secret, non-PU controlled military force, equipped with their own warships, soldiers, and new technology, had just reported a potential Krall threat, directed possibly at Earth, or at any one of three Hub worlds, all three lying in the sky from Earth in the constellation Boötis.

“Where the hell is the constellation Boots?” She demanded as she read, looking up. Having herself corrected by a naval officer, and informed that it was pronounced "boo-OH-tees" not "Boots," did absolutely
nothing
to improve her disposition.

Medford was pissed that this small but apparently highly effective Rim world force had been kept secret even from the Commander in Chief. Being told that secrecy was a precondition of their providing assistance to the navy didn’t mollify her in the slightest. She was sure to be more outraged soon, when she heard they had alien allies who had furnished all of the the new technology. Bledso wasn’t about to tell her that the nice unarmed young woman in her office, sent as a Comtap specialist (whatever that meant), could probably take out her entire security detail of twenty, all by herself.

Two days after Mirikami had Jumped the Mark from K1, headed for Pittsburg II with five other Kobani ships with him, the Comtap specialist in the patrol boat there confirmed that four clanships had performed White Outs in the outer realms of the system. This third time clinched it for Mirikami, and he was convinced they were all connected in some way to a Krall threat, which might have Earth as one of the four optional targets they could strike. He predicted that the last four clanships would exit in the outer regions of the Sol system, which explained why the navy was deploying to watch for them.

He hadn’t discussed the possibility of the Krall possessing a planet-wrecking weapon with the PU government. Alien rumors and Krall braggart histories were hardly proof he could offer to the president. Certainly, claiming that he’d read the minds of several Krall that said the stories were true wouldn’t earn him credibility with the president, even if he claimed it was by use of the mind controlled alien designed body armor, the same way he had fooled Bledso. He was told Medford was already skeptical of this surprise new ally, and Bledso asked him to avoid stretching her credibility too far. She had not yet received all of the reports of how the navy had been helped by the Kobani ships at K1, and that they were operating stolen clanships, which they operated better than the Krall could.

Besides, Mirikami didn’t know what the Krall weapon really did, or how to defend against it. What could he say other than be on the alert in all of the systems he’d named. He’d done that, and was coming to help defend the system closest to Earth.

Shortly after the Pittsburg II report, the patrol boat stationed at Meadow reported the four clanships there had each performed small Jumps, and had repositioned close to where they had first appeared. Those were the only gamma ray bursts detected anywhere in the entire outer system at Meadow. It was curious, but everything seemed calm. Unknown to the watchers, the Olt’kitapi ship hadn’t created even a blip in the gamma ray spectrum.

Noreen reached the Meadow system with her six Kobani ship squadron, shortly after the patrol boat informed her of the repositioning of the four Krall clanships. She had decided not to get too close to the Krall ships to alert them, at least initially, not without observations that could guide them better. The enemy seemed to be hiding something by staying that far out. The six Kobani ships emerged an hour and twenty minutes light travel time from the Krall position, doing their White Outs behind Thor, the monster gas giant, to conceal their gamma rays from the clanships. Although the Krall wouldn’t have seen the gamma rays for over an hour anyway.

Directing her squadron to use Normal Space drive, they moved around the enormous planet to where the patrol boat said the four clanships should be visible on long-range scans. At a bit over 10 AU from the supergiant, the roundtrip time for radar to the clanships was over a hundred sixty minutes. Even the detailed quantum zoom of a clanship’s view screens would be hard pressed to find those four small targets at nearly a billion miles, not without a pinpoint radar return to direct Karl, the Avenger’s AI on where and how far to focus.

None of the other Kobani ships with Noreen had AIs yet. The Mark of Koban had one, but Thad’s ship, which he’d named Thor, didn’t have one. The now atomized Beagle had had one, and the Falcon had an AI. Now that the navy knew about the Kobani ships, and had benefited from their assistance, more AIs were on order for them. These would be of military quality and capability, not the three commercial models that Mirikami had first bought on Poldark. However, that didn’t help them right now.

Meadow defense systems had been scanning the outer system with a lower resolution long wave radar system, to “see through” the Krall stealth, ever since the clanships had done their initial White Out. However, Meadow was another 9.5 AU’s farther away than the Avenger was. Human radar and synthetic antenna technology was well behind what the Olt’kitapi had provided to their presumptive Krall “protectors,” on the clanships they had designed for them.

The Avenger’s clanship sensors now could easily “see” stealthed clanships, and it had sent a relatively narrow spread radar beam in the direction of the four closely clustered clanships. Noreen had to wait a hundred sixty minutes for the return echoes. She had decided when the Krall had a fifth ship with them, that she and her squadron were going to Jump right next to them, firing missiles and energy beams on exit.

This was very unlike the Krall when they entered a human system, to stand off and watch. Unless they were observing another clan conduct an attack, which they considered entertainment and education. They had been here seven and a half days before Noreen’s group reached Meadow, and had moved again two days ago. They were being very quiescent, observing for nearly a week. This was more like the defensive postures the Krall held at K1, conducting boring but required guard duty in orbit. There was nothing to guard here.

When the signal returned, Karl surprised her with his analysis. “Mam, the four clanships are in a four cornered formation around a much larger ship. The vessel in the center is larger than all of them combined.”

“Is it a Migration ship?” Carson asked.

“No Sir. It is considerably smaller than one of those, and it is not spherical. It is at a slight angle to us and is longer than the front cross section. However, like a migration ship, it is not stealthed at all.”

Noreen felt a chill at the description. “Karl, can you focus a zoomed view screen on that formation at this distance?”

“It will be slightly blurred. Observe the screen directly across from your console Captain.”

Even fuzzy, the rounded and elongated shape of the ship was obvious, with the four less distinct oblong football shapes of the clanships arrayed around the larger ship they were protecting.

With no hesitation, Noreen initiated a Comtap link to Mirikami.
“Tet, it’s here at Meadow. The Dismantler is here.”

His reply was as swift, with a question.
“It just arrived?”

“No. I think it was here two days before we arrived, apparently causing no gamma ray burst. I believe when the clanships repositioned two days ago that they Jumped to form up around it after it appeared. Meadow defenses have been looking for any signs of White Outs, as was the patrol boat, and saw none. Here’s the fuzzy image we see on a view screen.”
Her Comtap transmitted what she was seeing, and conveyed the apprehension and concern she felt.