Koban 5: A Federation Forged in Fire (18 page)

“Shit, Griswold ain’t steady under fire. That’s what Zolan says, and he’s had several gunners. She may have missed them.”

“Neither of them are deaf, Deke. Slugs hitting anywhere on a bug are unmistakable. There was no more return fire, and a Krall can zero in on tread sounds with their eyes closed at a half mile. It’s usually plasma fire, but if all they have is a projectile gun, they don’t conserve ammo, and they don’t miss.”

“You think they’ve really lost their main weapons?”

“Maybe. They seem to be way too passive after that barrage let up. They should be coming out of wherever they took cover. I’m still not ready for you to drive back down this street. Deke, why don’t cha tell the squad leader we’re moving over to patrol the next grid in front of us?” The driver, yoke in his hand, would decide where they patrolled, not the gunner, but he agreed.

A breeze from the mountains began to push the smoke away, and the dust was settling. A renewed barrage or a frontal assault was awaiting reports from the multiple ladybug squads sent into the outskirts of Kovoso. Shots were being fired at suspected Krall movements and occasional return fire came from projectile weapons. In one case, a relatively low power laser beam was used, probably from a handheld weapon. Those were generally not considered deadly enough weapons by a Krall, particularly against humans in armor. Regardless, if all other weapons were disabled, even a club or knife would have to serve.

In past probes of the outskirts of Kovoso, the Krall response had been decidedly vigorous, and they had driven back the probing forces, often with a loss of a ladybug or two, out of four or five squads. It was premature to recommend the involvement of ground troops, tanks and other armor, and space planes, but the Krall seemed to have pulled back from the edge of Kovoso. They weren’t known for laying traps, to entice a reckless enemy to enter. To the contrary, a recent slow buildup at all eight main Krall concentrations seemed to foretell a renewed series of assaults. It was to measure enemy readiness the probe was initiated, and to determine if Krall heavy weapons were out of service.

The Krall didn’t seem ready, and no heavy weapons had been fired, but no mere bug squad leader wanted to make a bad call, and then find him and his squad at the front of the advance into a buzz saw.

Deke drove up another street six blocks over, and here the dust had settled, and the smoke from a smoldering fire was being blown over the grid they had been in previously, to their left.

They cautiously approached a large traffic circle intersection, in a former shopping district. The trees in the former inner park area still had some ragged foliage on them, and a couple had been shattered today, by the looks of the fresh white wood. Although, smart munitions didn’t select trees as targets unless there were Krall detected under or behind them.

Scattered throughout the trees, were dozens of dead Krall, most without helmets, and some without any armor at all. There were rifles lying about, but not in the grip of any warrior’s hand, as usually seen. They held on to those even in death.

“Shit! Saul, you seeing this?”

“Yea. I never saw that many dead in one spot before. I wonder why they gathered here? They must have known the mortar rounds that sent over the chips were a hint of more to come. They should have gone to cover.”

“I may know why. That dry fountain in the center. Are those stacks of rifle cases and power packs in the empty basin, behind the raised rim? What if they came to get replacements for rifles that didn’t work, and the defense system didn’t warn them of the main barrage coming?”

Suddenly, Saul fired three bolts from the tri-barrel into a cluster of several warriors lying on the ground by a busted concrete park bench. “One of them was moving, fumbling at a weapons harness. He’s good now.” Good, as in a dead Krall.

“Saul, there are rifles all over the place, and he was checking his weapons belt for a pistol or a knife? I think these suckers are down to handguns, knives or clubs. If their helmet visors don’t work, they don’t have any data feeds, and the armor won’t go stealth. I just noticed I see every one of them that has on body armor. At least some of them would be heads on an invisible body if the suits were powered. I’m calling this in to Sargent Wilkins.”

Soon, drones spotted Krall moving into the center of Kovoso from the northern fringes being probed, and only pistol shots were fired at the drones. Not a single plasma or heavy laser weapon was used from within the center the recently pounded city. As the drones moved beyond the other side of the city to the south, they were finally shot down by multiple plasma bolts from rifles, and once by a laser defense battery. That area had not yet been hit with Denial chips.

Nabarone, receiving the same kinds of report from every area where the Denial chips were dropped first, let lose the hounds.

“Advance on all fronts, with artillery and mortars leading the way. Pause only when we run low on Denial chips. Every soldier is to gather up Krall rifles and power packs, and send them back to their mobile command posts by truck. There we’ll have noncombat people remove the chips, to be packed into mortar shells. We’ll keep shoving them back and killing the bastards until we stack them like cordwood, and have to burn them to prevent the stink from their rotting corpses.”

The Krall had not broken or turned to run yet, but it was a lesson he was eager to teach them. It could be that by breeding, they were incapable of that sort of panic, but they certainly didn’t know how to withdraw in an organized fashion, and regroup for another stand. Stand and die, or retreat and die, but die they would. There didn’t appear to be any that were willing to surrender to a superior human force, as they were often permitted to do in interclan warfare. That too may have been bred out of them. If so, there wouldn’t be a Krall alive on Poldark inside of a year.

He linked to his friend. “Thad my lad, would you and Sarge like to come down for some really fine brandy? Feel free to drop any Denial chips on the enemy as you cruise over them.” He was in a gleeful mood.

“Henry, we’ll do that, just as soon as Sarge, Ethan and Kit get back to their four-ship, and join me in orbit. They have Gatlek Fistok, who seems to have lost his left arm in capture. Sarge says it was shot off inadvertently, but he lost his own left arm you’ll recall, when he tried to get away with a previous dead Gatlek’s corpse. Sounds fishy to me.

“I’ve recalled all our small ships. They used up their chips, and we have some more we extracted in orbit while we kept the clanships from launching. By my rough count, we will be able to recover all but about fifty of those clanships that were here, or approximately four hundred fifty. You can keep some of them if you want, but you’d have to reveal your mods and tattoo if you wanted to use them. The navy is bound to notice.”

After a brief consideration, he declined. “No. Assuming the Krall don’t find a way to put their weapons back into service, I’ll have at least a year of fighting and mop up work right here. I’ll have time to rethink the offer, and you and Tet have more need for the massive fleet you can use to attack and exploit Krall worlds. I’m more of a homebody than you are now, and I won’t leave Poldark unless forced to do so, if my mods are discovered and I’m suddenly declared an outlaw. That depends on whether Tet can convince the Hub government to accept the existence of Kobani in their midst, or he forces them to accept us.”

He changed subject. “I linked to Haveram and Caldwell while you were slapping down clanships. They are barely a day ahead of your New Dublin fleet, and the bait ship will arrive close to when they White Out, after their stop here. Most incoming clanships make it through planetary defenses anyway, but that one doesn’t have any defensive capability. The navy might not hold missiles back if they get a shot at him.”

“That would be inconvenient Henry, but if it happens, they can wait to start the assault while preparing more Denial chips. Manwell Aldana, who has charge of that Kobani fleet, could White Out all four hundred ships behind a gas giant, and stay concealed while they wait for Caldwell and Haveram get the PU prepared. I assume New Dublin has a planet like that. Nearly every system does.”

“They do,” Nabarone confirmed. “A Super Saturn, but I suppose some scientific egghead would call it a Super Jupiter with rings. They could duck behind that as long as needed, and the Krall wouldn’t know they were there.

“Depending on how fast the two PU military leaders respond to Howard and the Chief, Manwell can adjust his plans and exit where the Krall won’t see the fleet, and the navy won’t get nervous before they know what’s going on. Comtap takes the guesswork and mistakes out of unplanned situations when you have instant com, even in Tachyon Space.

“I mean, you knew we were coming eight days before we arrived.”

“Thad, if the attack preparations take longer to set up at New Dublin, the previous hundred supply ships may finish unloading and head back to K1.”

“Possibly, but Tet left five hundred ships there. With Mind Tap, even the teenagers will know as much as the Krall do about those ships, and they’ll have all the theory on tactics, and some practice by then. They’ll know in advance the day they should arrive. We have that covered.”

“I’ve been busy, have you talked with Tet about the operation here?”

“Almost every hour, and I don’t call him, he calls me. They’re stuck in a Jump Hole for three weeks, so he’s been bugging Manwell and me every hour, asking about my progress, or Manwell’s preparations. He hates not being in the thick of things, and while in Jump travel, he’s bored and anxious. Haveram, the crusty old friend that he is, asked Tet to
please
not link with him for the next few hours. There’s just the two of them on the Falcon, and they’re sitting and pulling Denial chips from a stack of power packs you gave them, just as fast as they can.”

“OK. I’ll link to him and Maggi, to give you guys a break, and I’ll tell him how well my troops are advancing on the ground on all eight fronts. After I get through,
he’ll
be the one that wants a break.”

Chapter 4: New Dublin

After Nabarone broke the lengthy link, Maggi offered her opinion. “Tet, I told you that you were acting like a mother hen. Even Henry, a famous windbag, suggested you were checking up on everyone too often, keeping them from their work while they were too polite not to have a conversation with you.”

“You both are right, even if he didn’t come right out and say it like that. Unlike my dear wife, who had no problem at all telling me.”

“Just doing my job. It’s why I get paid the big bucks.”

“Bucks?”

“Old North American slang term for money. I guess it would be credits today, if that old saying were still used.”

“Hummph. I don't pay you anything, and if you get paid at all it’s more than I earn.”

“You know what? You’re right, and we need to change that. I don’t mean for you and I. Our budding society needs an economy similar to what we had in Human Space. We’ve been in a sort of barter system and communal property status for so long that we’ve all forgotten what it was like earning a salary before we were isolated on Koban.

“Now that Koban has been revealed as our home, at least to the Krall, there’s no need to keep it a secret from the Planetary Union. With our new fleet, we don’t have to fear what they think of our genetics. We’ll soon be engaging in open trade and travel, I suppose, and we’ll need currency for that. PU credits can be bought with precious metals and jewels, but rare metals are not as highly valued as they were before asteroid mining put so much of it on the market. It’s still valued, but not as much as it was hundreds of years ago. It’s why Chief Haveram has to haul tons of the stuff to pay for our secret shopping sprees in Human Space. He said we got a better exchange for the jewels we mined, because those are not as common on asteroids, but Koban doesn’t have any more gems than most worlds. We only just started mining them so they’re easy to find right now, but they’ll eventually run low and get scarce if we use them up that way.”

Mirikami nodded his agreement. “I’ve given that a bit of thought, but assumed it was still far in our future. We do have something we can offer that no one else can. Ourselves, with our capabilities, and now a fleet of warships. I don’t see the Hub worlds wanting us for that purpose, and they’d probably be opposed. Maybe half or more of the Rim worlds might want a police force that criminals can’t corrupt, bribe, or resist, and that can’t be intimidated by outside pressure. We could hire on to be a buffer from the intense bullying the PU government has used for centuries to force concessions from them. Henry and Thad both built a militia because they thought a PU forcible takeover of Poldark was a threat, even before the Krall arrived to turn the PU into their protector.

“The thousands of worlds we are about to liberate from Krall control were largely underused, and under exploited, with a few exceptions. We’ll be the ones to tell the PU who can colonize them, and under what conditions. Our alien allies have no defensive capability, so they’ll need us as they resettle worlds taken from them. There are unknown threats out there beyond the limits we’ve barely touched, at the edges of what the Krall conquered.”

“Are you thinking of us becoming an independent military force?”

“Our physical strength, mental capability, secure communications via Comtap, and sheer speed make us naturals as soldiers, if we wished to serve in that role. I’m not thinking of a typical military force exactly, like the PU’s army or navy. Guardians, or interstellar police perhaps, at least inside our own borders, where we’ll be our own protectors. Some Kobani might become mercenaries for other planets, but I want us to establish rigid and firm moral grounds for what we will permit people to hire out to do, and remain part of Koban society. We can’t allow anyone that lives in our midst to become killers or conquers for hire.

“Although, with Mind Taps making us sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of other beings, and the ripper morality that we all seem to share, we object to killing without justification. There have been some exceptions while fighting the Krall, but even there it doesn’t last. I don't expect that kind of moral decay to happen to us, becoming callus killers. I don't suppose that Rome’s founders thought that empire would turn decadent and rot from within either.