Koban 4: Shattered Worlds (90 page)

“Damn.”
He thought back to her.
“That seems the right shape, and it’s certainly a lot larger than a clanship. Is anything happening at Meadow? The Krall had two days to start it doing whatever it does. You can’t wait. Go after it with everything you have.”

“Right.”
She triggered the group link to the Kobani in her squadron.
“All Captains and crews, the Dismantler is already here and has been for days. We’re going after it now. Prepare to launch all missiles on exit, and fire all beams at the large central craft. It has the highest priority. We Jump in thirty seconds on my command.”
She shared the view screen image for all the crews below decks in the missile bays, although Karl had automatically sent his visual and scan data to Bridge displays of all five of the other ships.

Thirty seconds wasn’t long to prepare to micro Jump and initiate an attack on five ships, but Noreen had not considered how much longer the Krall clanships had already had to decide on what to do about the precision scans they had received an hour and twenty-one minutes ago, from the Avenger’s location.

****

The Krall could not see an enemy ship on their own view screens near the giant planet, at the source of the previous scanning radiation, but they assumed humans would be using the new stealth system, and only long wave radar with a long round trip time could detect them. It would have low resolution anyway, and the enemy was free to move in that long round trip time. However, the four protectors were
not
free to move away from the death ship.

The four clanships were sent here specifically to prevent the Olt’kitapi ship from being disturbed. Telour himself hadn’t considered that the very presence of the escorts made that disturbance much more likely, even probable. The four clanships had been seen arriving via their gamma rays, but not Huwayla’s emission free exit from Tachyon Space. Had the Olt’kitapi ship traveled alone to the same location, it would have been essentially undetectable. After noting the previous weak radar scans of their region from Meadow itself, the four clanships were on the lookout for possible searchers. One had found them now.

They couldn’t communicate with the high status aids of the Tor Gatrol inside the Olt’kitapi ship for advice, even if allowed to try, because those inside received no outside communications due to the instructions to the ship to block them. When the stronger, tightly focused radar and sensor scans were detected, it was obvious it came from very close to the large gas giant world, proving they had been noticed.

The type, configuration, and frequency of the radiation was proof it could only have come from a sensor system like those installed on a clanship. That meant one or more of the enemy controlled stolen clanships were here, looking for them.

Naturally, the four pilots were not prohibited from communicating with each other, and the sub leader in charge was from Maldo clan. He was adamant. “We will remain here until we are released.”

That was a reminder to one ship commander that wanted to Jump to attack the enemy in a preemptive strike. He was of Tanga clan, and thus felt compelled to avenge the damage done to his clan at Telda Ka by these enemy clanships.

“No. It may be a deception to draw us to them. They used such trickery to lead us into ambushes at Telda Ka, or away from their true targets. We must not leave the death ship before it completes its work.”

The Tanga clanship commander rebutted this argument. “We have waited with it here for two days, and nothing has happened. We were not told what to expect, which planet is the target, or how long we must wait. We only know from Telour’s proposal in Joint Council that the death ship will not attack the inhabited planet. I don't know how that will kill any humans.” His failure to use the title that went with Telour’s name was disrespectful. It was fortunate that there were no Graka clan members on any of the four clanships.

The Tanga Krall made his case. “If the enemy Jumps to attack us now after they see how we are positioned, they will have the surprise and advantage. If we Jump to them before their scan returns to reveal us, we will have the surprise. Let me go to attack them, and the other three clanships may remain here.”

“No!” The sub leader roared his refusal. “The Tor Gatrol instructed that we all stay with the death ship until we are released. I will not permit you to dishonor our responsibility to obey.”

Partly in conciliation, because he too yearned to attack, he ordered that all four clanships be at maximum readiness to defend, or to Jump to the attack the instant they were free to do so. The enemy would not receive the echo of their scans for over an hour.

****

Noreen was ten seconds from ordering the group Jump, as the crews loaded every anti-ship missile the launchers would hold. There was as much overkill being used as six ships could deliver simultaneously.

It was fortunate that their momentum to get from behind and to the side of Thor, to see the four clanships, had continued to carry them after Avenger had sent it’s scans towards the enemy. When four clanships suddenly appeared behind them, dozens of missiles were launched on exit but they were a hundred nine miles away from where the enemy had estimated the human ships would be.

Nevertheless, at hypervelocity, the missiles would reach the Kobani ships in seconds, and the energy beams, quickly oriented by the long wave sensor returns the four clanships were radiating at White Out, had found six nearby shadowy images to kill.

Kobani reflexes were instantly engaged, and counter missiles launched as their own energy beams lanced out. The six captains, no coordination or orders required, applied hard Normal Space thrust vectors of two hundred forty gravities of external acceleration. The internal uncompensated inertial residual would have killed even a Krall, and did render dozens of Kobani, in seat restraints and body armor, quickly unconscious if their seats were in upright positions. The Bridge chairs had been morphed into deeply reclined couches in preparation of the coming Jump, and those Kobani hung onto threads of conscious control.

Many of the incoming missiles were destroyed or deflected by plasma bolts and heavy lasers, particularly as the Krall missiles were forced to vector and turn to follow the sudden “flower petal” formation of the six Kobani ships. They shot away from their original parallel grouping, and the defensive initial nose-on energy beams found better side angle shots on enemy missiles as they diverged. The Kobani captains also applied rotations to distribute the energy beams impinging on their hulls, just as the Krall were doing.

The Kobani, their mental patterns of the battle space forming faster than for the Krall, were better than Krall pilots at adjusting their own fire towards where the enemy would be rather than at were they had been. Even so, the Kiwi, who had been the farthest back of the Kobani ships, drew a greater share of enemy missiles and plasma beam fire directed at her. Both her primary and secondary Trap emitters suffered hits, dumping her trapped tachyons, killing both her ability to Jump and her power for the reactionless gravity drive in Normal Space.

The Kiwi’s captain, Basil Doherty, a former spec ops trooper from the continent Nova Zealandia, on the jointly settled colony of New Australia, switched instantly to reaction thruster control, and flipped his ship nose on to the Krall. His acceleration capability dropped to a fraction of what it had been, and he knew he couldn’t outrun or out maneuver the missiles. He and his Bridge crew focused all of their energy beams at the nearest Krall clanship, accelerating nose on at them, and the remaining missiles already in racks on the launch tubes were slammed out at the maximum rate. The same impulsive Tanga clan commander met the enemy he so eagerly sought, and was killed as his command deck was blown open by a missile hit, and then ravaged by energy beams, which cut off suddenly when the Kiwi’s own defenses were overwhelmed, and it too exploded in an orange fire ball.

The other Kobani ships scored damage on the other three clanships, but had themselves avoided serious damage. Noreen, no longer acting in pure self-defense mode, used the group Comtap link.

“We can kill these ass wipes, but we have a mission. Jump to the coordinates we set and kill that Dismantler now.” Following her own advice, and having no time to readjust her attitude or current velocity vector, entered a Jump Hole. In an instant, she was where the clanships had previously been stationed, and where the Olt’kitapi ship should be. She was joined in less than a second by the other four squadron survivors.

Like the Avenger, they emerged shooting. Firing at…, nothing! The entire volume of space was empty. They all immediately conducted longer-range scans in every direction seeking the big ship, but it wasn’t to be found.

Noreen feared what that implied. She linked to Thad and Mirikami. “Thad, Tet, the Disrupter has either moved locally, or it departed the Meadow system. We were attacked by the four clanships as we prepared to Jump out to meet them. It was a stupid oversight on my part. We let them know where we were when I scanned them. As soon as my sensor data reflected back to us, we called you and said we were going after them.

“Only, they hit us first. They knew how long the return time was for our radar echo and they started for us almost exactly when it would arrive. We lost the Kiwi for that mistake, and only killed one of them. We left them behind and went after the Olt’kitapi ship, which was gone when we arrived. It’s probably headed for one of your two systems.”

Mirikami answered first. “Noreen, I’m not at Pittsburg II yet so I hope it isn’t headed there or to Earth next, because that would bypass me. I hope not, because think we’re better equipped to face them than the navy is. However, I still think it will arrive at Bootstrap shortly, with Thad’s squadron set to intercept. I don't know how fast it travels, but it won’t be measured in days for that short of a hop. I don’t think it left K1 until days after we did, and it still beat you to Meadow.”

Thad said, “That big ship wasn’t detected arriving at K1 or at Meadow by gamma rays, so how will I know when it arrives here?”

Noreen told him what had been her clue. “Watch for the Krall clanships to move to surround it for its protection. That’s their weak link. The Dismantler is hard to detect, but the clanships painted a bull’s-eye for us when they micro Jumped to meet it. If they did that at Meadow, they probably all have the same orders. The fighting that happened here after the Dismantler Jumped will be unknown to the four clanships at Bootstrap. They’ll repeat the same mistake.”

Tet had an observation and a question for Noreen. “The Dismantler left before you got close, so its departure must be what allowed the clanships to Jump inward to attack you. They wouldn’t have left that ship defenseless to go fight you, since you or part of your squadron could leave them behind, as you did. It had spent two days there. It must have finished what it came to do. Did you see anything unusual before you Jumped to where it’d been parked?”

Noreen answered in the negative. “We didn’t detect anything unusual, but at the velocity of light things can happen and you don’t know about them right away. What does the patrol boat observer say about Meadow? We were over an hour out from them in light travel time when we Jumped.”

“Hold on. I’ll link to him.” Mirikami said.

In a minute Tet was back. “He says Meadow is fine. Kelly Handler, our Comtap observer, is only a few light seconds from the planet. I wonder what in hell the Dismantler was doing for two days. I asked the patrol boat to Jump out near the gas giant, to see if the Krall clanships hung around there. I guess it’s possible the Dismantler Jumped in with them, and stayed out of way of the fighting, undetected, but close enough to start dismantling something. That’s a bit devious for typical Krall thinking, but we’re teaching them how to think that way.”

After that, Mirikami spent a few minutes consoling Noreen, and the four captains with her, on the loss of those on the Kiwi. He had just told them he was only hours from a White Out at Pittsburg II, when a panicked Comtap link came from Kelly, directed only to Mirikami.

“It blew up! The whole damn thing is coming apart. We have to get out of here and warn Meadow.”

He cut off without more explanation. Mirikami could sense the link was still available, but nothing was being sent. “Kelly?” he inquired, widening his own link to include all of the Kobani ships in the squadron. He had a chilling thought.

He repeated his call. “Kelly, I sent you to check on the three surviving clanships. What blew up?” He feared the answer he expected.

The reply came hurried again. “Sorry Sir. I had to get my pilot moving, she froze. Thor is fragmenting. There are huge chunks of dark rocky type material punching out through the cloud tops, and the atmosphere has ballooned out hugely, with wide crevasses deep down between tears in the clouds. There are continuous giant lightning flashes that would fry an entire world.

“There’s a tremendous amount of radio static at all frequencies from the lightning. The pilot was trying to radio Meadow defense command, when I reminded her we could Jump back there and tell them sooner. We just trapped a tachyon and are getting out of here barely in time. Some of the pieces I see tearing out of the cloud tops have to be larger than Meadow itself. Smaller pieces, perhaps the sizes of moons and asteroids appear to be glowing and molten. They must be moving faster than escape velocity, even from this huge planet. The enormous scale makes it hard to estimate speed because it looks like slow motion. Let me send you an image before we Jump.” It came, and then the live image ended as the patrol boat Jumped. However, the vison lingered in the minds of everyone Mirikami was connected to by Comtap.