Koban 5: A Federation Forged in Fire (12 page)

Thad assured her, “When this week is over, Admiral, you may never have to worry about a Krall fleet again. We sent the same number of ships to New Dublin. They haven’t arrived yet, but we’re telling them how things are going here. They may have it easier because of lessons learned here.”

“Well, right now you and I do have to worry. The PDC’s sensors report multiple Krall launches, and satellite images show crews around most of their clanships. I don’t know why they took so long to react to your arrival, but we’re going to be busy for a time. I might have to pull my cruisers back a bit. We simply can’t risk getting in close to fight like I saw you do at K1.”

“I see them Mam. If you focus on any that get by us, we’ll try to keep most of them out of orbit, and I hope held too low for them to Jump.”

Things got very busy and often downright chaotic after that transmission.

Chapter 3: Catching a Virus

Reynolds found it hard to do as Thad had asked of him. Look after his son and keep him safe. “Ethan, you’re going to fall out of that damned hatch if I have to maneuver suddenly. I’ve been trying to keep the open hatch turned away from the ships blindly scanning us from below, but we’re so low now that I can’t do that. Some of them will see that open hole in our stealth, using normal scan mode.” The little four-ship held only Reynolds, Ethan, and Kit, plus a tub full of grease coated Denial chips they wanted find ways to disburse.

“Sarge, I’ve disabled each of the clanships within a mile of the hill top landing point you selected. They won’t be shooting at us.”

“If they were the only clanships able to shoot at us that’d be great, kid. But it ain’t like the beams from more distant clanships are limited to a mile ya know. Shut the hatch until I get us down.”

He heard the hatch slide shut, noticeable more by the reduction of wind noise than from the quiet motors. Ethan had asked to open the hatch when they were about ten thousand feet up. He wanted to use the height advantage to fire slugs with Denial chips close to the parked clanships they spotted around their selected landing point. By Ethan’s tally, he’d clipped the wings of over a dozen clanships that were gathered close to a rounded rocky mound. The moderate sized hilltop had offered good cover for their little craft, within a jumble of large craggy rocks and underbrush on its crown, and it would give them height for additional sniping.

Reynolds flew laterally towards the hillock, now that their revealing open door had shut to restore full stealth. The tachyon powered Normal Space drive made a slight hum, discernable only within the craft. They would be able to gently, and silently, ease down between the scattered boulders and scrub trees, with perhaps some rustling of branches. It appeared to be a breezy day, so there should be some of those rustling branch and leaf sounds produced naturally.

Reynolds issued a caution. “Before you open the hatch again, adjust and activate Kit’s Chameleon Skin. She might bolt out before you can stop her, like you said she did on K1.”

The deep throaty rumble and cold stare from intense, almost glowing blue eyes, told Reynolds the comment didn’t please her. He was questioning her stalking and hunting ability.

Ethan heard her growl and looked back at his cat sibling. “She didn’t have one of these suits at K1. Speed and terror was her best defense there.”

What Kit was wearing was an older style spec ops camouflage, called Chameleon Skin. It was lightweight, flexible stealth armor, fastened and draped over her large body to render her invisible. Except for her head, which Ethan would cover for her before they made their exit. The hoodie of the suit, fashioned by Joe Longstreet, was modified for ripper use while they were in transit to Poldark. The ghillie style suits were seldom used by speck ops now, not since they had received superior form fitting hard suits, with better stealth.

Their recent experience on K1, with several wounded or grazed cats proved that sheer speed and agility wasn’t always enough when there were too many Krall for them to distract, using typical ripper cunning and stalking methods. The suit’s flexible small flat links of metal and ceramic fabric had once been called Dragon Skin. When the design incorporated powered stealth coatings, the name changed.

The suits were designed for easy field repair or modification, so that panels of the suits could be replaced, or in the case of the larger ripper bodies, more of them added around the edges to cover their huge frames. Without the use of a military visor, or the AI furnished eye implants of spec ops to have an external vison system, a small stealth compromise was made for the hoods. Some links around each eye had been removed. To ensure the eyeholes remained in position, organic adhesives had been placed over the brows and top of cat’s heads, to make the hoods adhere with the peep holes fixed firmly in place. The cats didn’t like having their ears constantly pressed down, but they certainly weren’t deafened because sound passed through the loose overlapping links.

Besides, as they informed their spec ops instructors by frilling them, in their natural low belly crawl mode of sneaking up on prey, their ears were held pinned back anyway. The slightly curved and flattened battery packs for the suits stealth system was strapped and snugged around the ripper’s abdomen, rather than around a human’s lower back. It left them able to crawl or run unimpeded. With no need to power hand carried weapons, the power pack would last a considerable time for stealth only. There was a radio for them, and ear buds were placed in the hoods near the ears, not inside. The cats couldn’t tolerate the buds when inserted. They discovered ripper hearing was so sensitive that verbal information could be passed to the cats. Unfortunately, all the rippers could send back to their human cohorts were expressive growls or roars. This technology was a work in progress.

The Chamskin, as they had been called by the snipers that sometimes still wore them, could be draped to hang open underneath, rather than enclosing the body when walking upright. This gave the cats the full use of their powerful legs and long retractable claws. But those were only their secondary weapons.

A quick toss of the neck would throw the draped hoodie to the top and back of the head and neck, revealing their primary weapon. Those massive jaws, capable of gaping wide enough to enclose half of a Krall’s thick chest, and exposing the nearly steel hard carbon fiber reinforced fangs, which could puncture and tear through the armored hides of a rhinolo, their normal primary prey.

A Krall’s inbred physiology might not allow them to bleed to death, but having a twelve to fifteen inch diameter hunk of flesh and bone torn out was more than a bit debilitating. Particularly if it included their head, or a disembowelment.

Ethan pulled the hood over and pressed it firmly around the eyeholes to ensure there would be no shifting. He could sense Kit’s eager thoughts through the conductive mesh, and of course, he didn’t have his gauntlets on yet. He reached under the draping material, and made direct contact with her frill. He also felt the neck collar, with the Denial chip attached, similar to the one he had around his own neck. They exchanged hunter’s thoughts of the stalking and action to come, and with their confidence so high, wishing each other good fortune in the coming hunt would seem superfluous. There was more “game” here than they could possibly catch. He activated Kit’s stealth, and as she shimmered nearly out of sight, he verified the draping fully covered her, and that all panels were working. The floating pupils of her two eager blue eyes were all he could see.

As before on K1, the goal today was more like counting coup, as Longstreet had explained, a tradition among brave and ancient warriors on the plains of North America. Disabling clanships, Dragons, weapons dumps, armored transports, lasers and plasma batteries was what they wanted to count here, more than Krall kills. There would be some of those, but they wouldn’t go out of their way to kill in this fight. Ethan and Kit had soured on the thrill of killing members of this genocidal species. It wasn’t what their mother would have wanted of them, to become like their enemy.

Ethan felt the ship rock as it settled to the ground, and Reynolds rose from the pilot seat. “We have old basalt extrusions all around us. I think this hump is an old eroded cinder cone of an extinct volcano. I saw a ring-like range of low hills of an old caldera when we got lower. There isn’t anything up here but rock and low trees and shrubs. When you open the hatch, let’s get out fast and close it behind us. There are seven other singe or four-ships within five miles of us if we need to link up with them, or if we have to help one another.”

Ethan hit the hatch switch and the three of them poured through the opening in two seconds, with Reynolds closing the hatch as he left. In a crouch, Kit rushed to a gap in the rocks where she could scan the area on her chosen third of the terrain. Ethan, his .50 cal rifle, silencer equipped, went to the top of a rock overlooking his third of their surroundings, trusting to his suit and his weapon’s stealth coating to make him invisible.

Reynolds, the same type rifle, did the same on his third share of the terrain, but went to a sharp drop off that gave him the view of his area, as well as a better look at the base of this roughly two hundred foot high hummock. He was surprised, and initially alarmed, to see at least ten sets of blue tinged armor below, surrounded by as many K’Tals in brown tinted armor, and at least what had to be a hundred Krall in basic armor, which made them black suits. There were five grey shaded sets of armor, which meant they were unit commanders of four octets or greater. He first thought they were preparing to direct an assault up the hill at the newly arrived intruders. Then he chastised himself because their stealth was off, which was how he could see the tints of the suits. They were not on the offensive, yet.

He realized they were all looking outward, away from the hill itself, and by gestures knew they were engaged in animated but unheard discussions. They were certainly using suit com systems, and even if he scanned for the frequency, it would be encrypted. He decided they were definitely focused on some issue besides the top of the hill. None of them ever turned a visor up the steep slope on his side. Several more blue suits seemed to appear from the flat rock wall at the base, which he couldn’t see. They gestured and spoke briefly, and turned and walked back the way they came, accompanied by another blue suit, and several K’Tal.

With a thrill, he knew there was an opening into the rocks below him. There had to be a Krall bunker placed under this hill for protection. “Hey Ethan,” he called on Comtap. “I landed us on top of a clan bunker I think.”

“Ah,” Ethan replied in understanding. “That must be why there were so many clanships stationed all around this hill. I see some stockpiles of various supplies under some active camouflage mesh a quarter mile away, some of it looks like rifle cases. From the top, I’ll bet that mesh cover looks like rocks and weeds.”

“Probably so. I have a bunch of higher status blue suits right below me, all of them in full armor, and having animated discussions.” He paused to observe something odd.

“Hold on. I just saw some approaching warriors in blue and plain armor, with helmets off, and they were just waved back by some of the plain armored black suit warriors below me. The newcomers came from the direction of a cluster of clanships you disabled on our way down. They must have dead armor and dead ships. I think they were trying to report this strange problem. The high status leaders below me evidently already know something is wrong, because they ordered the others to stay back from them and the bunker.”

“Sarge, we’re on top of the bull’s-eye of a clan combat center, and they must have just figured out what’s happening to their equipment. If you snipe one of them, you’ll disable all of the suits and plasma rifles within range of the chip.”

“Yes and thereby let them know we’re up here. We’re so far above the bunker and the Krall standing outside that they’re out of range of the Denial chip around our necks.”

Stating the obvious, Ethan said, “If we infect one suit or rifle, we’ll get them all. Take a shot.”

“No. We can get that result without firing a shot, which they could trace back up to us, even if silenced. I’d rather not be chased away from this spot, now that we know we have some big shots almost in our grasp.”

“So what do you want to do? I just told Kit to stay in place, so she doesn’t move down to attack.”

“Do you see any warriors on your side of the hill? How close is the nearest clanship on your side?”

“Just a few plain suit warriors standing near the stockpile I mentioned. The closest four clanships to me are at least a quarter mile away, and I’m sure I got them all on the way down. There’re some more parked almost a mile out, which I also targeted. Even if not hearing my shots, there could have been some impact noise or dust spurts. That could clue them in that there was someone shooting a non-Krall weapon.”

“I was thinking more about what happened on my side. The guards here prevented warriors in armor with rifles from approaching any closer. They’ll have to do that all the way around the hill to protect the bunker. Do you have any loose chips in any of your suit compartments?”

“No, only the one around my neck. That would be the same for Kit, of course.”

“Well, I’m obviously the thinker in this party. I have a handful if the greasy little suckers that I picked up when we were given that bucket full. They’re too light to throw very far, but I have an idea. Open your helmet to outside air, and let’s both sniff around for bush-tails. Even if you’ve never smelled one, I think you be able to locate a burrow or a trail. They scurry around on beaten little tracks. I know what they smell like. It’s a sour musty odor.

“I think they should be plentiful up here, what with the Krall killing them for fun down below. They dig burrows under tree roots, or rock ledges. Get Kit involved. She has the real nose of the group. Frill her and tell her not to hurt them, at least not all of them. One dead one is fine, but we need it fast, and then some live ones.”