Koban 5: A Federation Forged in Fire (6 page)

The question, in Standard, startled him almost beyond words. “Where is Telour?”

He answered in low Krall, “Kill me quickly.”

Another question came in Standard, which this time he realized was not spoken, and came with a sense of pain in the background. It simply appeared in his mind, in a human voice. “Where is Telour hiding? Speak Standard. You wear the suit of blue, so you know the way to speak to us.”

“Telour isn’t here. He is traveling. Kill me quickly, before you start to eat.”

“You taste too dirty, and your meat is stringy and dry. Say where Telour traveled or we will pull out your organs to decide what can be eaten.” A very vivid mental image came to him of exactly that happening, while his mind sensed the pain he’d expect to experience. He watched the mental image squirming in pain and screaming. That generated a tremendous sense of terror in his mind, which somehow seemed to please the two rippers pressed against him. That sense of their pleasure from his fear, similar to those one he’d experienced as he’d killed humans slowly, brought him to the verge of whimpering. Being on the receiving end wasn’t quite the pleasant feeling he had when he was delivering a slow and painful death.

Both rippers suddenly drew back, a feeling of disgust clearly sent to his mind before they broke contact. Hothkar heard words in Standard again, but this time he knew it was actually spoken.

Carson walked up to the pair. “Kobalt, Kally, did he tell you anything? Two other blue suits say this one should know.” There was a moment of silence for Hothkar, but he saw a human in armor ripple into view, one hand on the back of the neck of each ripper.

The helmeted face turned away and looked at the larger of the two demons, clearly a mature male. “Damn it Kobalt, you’re shot. How bad?” There was another moment of silence as they exchanged thoughts, which the Krall was naturally unaware was happening.

A second armored human rippled into sight, and Carson linked. “Danner, Kobalt was shot in the chest by chance when your sister Kayla bit down on this Krall scum. Get hold of someone to come treat him.”

He turned to speak to Kobalt. “Don’t move too much. Danner will apply a smart bandage. Kally, watch over your uncle.”

The human then knelt by Hothkar, who tried to strike him in the helmet with his right hand. He got another broken arm for his effort, to match the one the ripper gave him on his left, although this one wasn’t a compound fracture. “That’s my brother you shot you piece of shit. I’ll cut you open and make you eat pieces of one of your own hearts if you give me the slightest excuse.”

A horrifyingly more detailed image than before came into the Krall’s mind, which he somehow knew came through the bare hand the human placed on top of his head. This was actually more frightening because he sensed the barely repressed urge to slice out one of his two hearts, and dice it into bloody cubes to feed to him.

He tried to move either of his legs, to try to lift one to kick or rake talons against the human. A futile gesture against armor he knew, but he’d like to toss him across the room and perhaps provoke a swift death in retaliation. The futility was compounded when he realized he couldn’t feel either of his legs. No pain, and in fact no feeling at all below his midsection. The ripper had broken his thick and sturdy spinal column at his hips when she shook him. He wondered how he knew that it was a female ripper and the one he’d wounded was a male. He’d seen only their heads and necks. It had been implicit in their thoughts, he realized. That was odd, that he knew what the animal’s thoughts were.

Unable to move, thinking was all that he could do. He thought of the most recent words the human had said to him, the threat to cut out one heart. It occurred to him that the words had been delivered in high Krall, but not through the speakers on the human’s suit in Standard, as he’d used when he first arrived. A human didn’t have the capability to make those ultrasonic sounds, yet that was what he’d perceived just now. A moment of reflection, and he knew the words had appeared directly in his mind, without any actual sound. Delivered via the hand on top of his head.

“That’s right, meat bag, I sent my thoughts to you in high Krall, and I hear your thoughts. I just listened to you figure that one out. You’re a bit slow for a high status sub leader. Did Telour pick you for his staff because you always agree with him and lick his cloaca?” He uttered a very Krall-like snort of amusement.

“I have fought and killed many… enemy, to earn my status.” The pause was a giveaway.

“Killed lots of humans you almost said, most of them unarmed and helpless civilians I suspect. That’s all over for you. Your status points are about to be reset to zero. Tell me where Telour is right now.”

He said nothing, as he considered what might happen when he withheld the information demanded. He’d die before making any sound, despite torture. Although he feared the rippers

“Ah,” Carson said in satisfaction as he picked the rapid stray thoughts from the unguarded mind. “He’s at the Stodark clan dome. A former Graka finger clan, where his exalted ass is probably safe from a surprise attack by us. Thank you for that information. Exactly where is that dome, how many warriors are there, and in particular how many clanships are there? I’d gladly let the rippers chew on you for their pleasure.”

The eye blink the aide made was apparently as eloquent as an admission that the human had guessed right, the aide knew the Tor’s location. He had made no sound, so he assumed the human already knew the answer and sought only confirmation.

“No, I didn’t already know that, Hothkar.” he came right back. “Your mind just told me, and gave me your name as well. You betrayed your Tor Gatrol to us humans, and we’ll now go get him. Thanks for your help. You should have willed yourself to die. Too late for that now.”

The air hiss and a minor sting on his neck told him something small had struck him there. In shame, because he’d inadvertently confirmed where Telour was located, he was willing his hearts to stop, and the beating had started to slow.

“That isn’t going to work, Hothkar. The drug I injected will work in a minute or so to paralyze you, and we know it takes several minutes for a Krall to die by stopping vital organs. You made your bodies too tough to die quickly. If you want to die fast, try pissing off a Kobani, like me, or blowing your brains out.”

Carson rose and established a Comtap link to Mirikami. “Captain, Telour was at a small finger clan’s dome when we arrived. Here’s the location.” He sent the coordinates of where he believed the dome was located, based on the information from Telour’s aide.

“Southernmost continent?” Mirikami was surprised. There are only three minor clan domes there and it’s the coldest landmass, almost at the pole. We didn’t focus much attention on those domes, either this time or by the navy on previous attacks on K1. Obviously, we should have paid more attention this time. Damn. I think Telour probably escaped us about five minutes ago.”

“Why? What happened?”

“Nine of twelve clanships lifted from that small continent, cleared atmosphere and successfully Jumped before our two ships posted near there could take out more than three of them. All of them came off shooting, but three came directly at our ships in a suicidal rush, firing all beams and missiles as they came, clearly a sacrificial diversion. Our ships had to destroy two of them with plasma beams and armed anti-ship missiles, but managed to disable the third one with a Denial chip missile. The Torch was badly damaged in the exchange and we lost two of her crew. I’ll send boarders immediately to Mind Tap the surviving Krall crew as soon as they can capture them. It will be bad news I fear, but thanks for being so fast.”

“Sorry Sir. I was hoping we’d have him trapped in this dome. According to his aide, which Kally and Kobalt caught alive here, Telour’s been spending time visiting lesser clans. He was visiting a dome of a Mordo finger clan, called the Tandal. I think he’s gotten cagey and is avoiding places we’d expect him to be if there was another surprise attack. He has to know the Planetary Union couldn’t keep it a secret that they were willing to give us up to him. The Kobani have shown the Krall we won’t sit on our asses wondering what to do next, like the PU often does.”

“Not all of the PU turned on us or is indecisive, Carson. That is mainly President Medford and her political party, the Leaders of the Old Republic. The LOR holds a majority in parliament and the presidency right now. With the deaths of billions of people in two systems, they either need to find an acceptable scapegoat for the public, or lose their mandate in the upcoming elections.”

“Uncle Tet, I think Telour was taking precautions without seeming to do so to his own warriors, in case we came after his head again. Where do you think he went? To gather ships from Poldark or New Dublin?”

“I don't think so. He had time to hear what we were doing to clanships already here. We couldn’t keep more than a fraction of their communications suppressed after our White Outs in orbit and our surface attacks began. He surely knows about our deactivating their weapons and ships. Perhaps not how we did it, but he certainly knows who did it, since only Kobani can fly their clanships.

“He’ll know now that the technology we displayed today has to be fought at a safe distance. I know of only one weapon he thinks they have that can do that.”

“Sir, you said Huwayla also declared the Krall’tapi distrusted. If she told the other Dismantlers, they won’t respond to them.”

“I’m confident she talked to the other ships. She had the ability to communicate with our Comtaps using the tachyon modulation mode, rather than the electromagnetic mode for local communications. She did that when she was forbidden by the Krall’tapi operator from monitoring or using any of the electromagnetic spectrum. We first spoke via direct contact, by touching her. After that, she used our Comtaps via tachyon entanglement. That has infinite range and is instant. The Olt’kitapi obviously had that same technology. She would have told her sister ships.” He said that with confidence.

“Therefore, Telour isn’t able to bring them back here to destroy other worlds, but he doesn’t know that yet. His escape is disappointing, but not one leading to planetary catastrophe. With the Denial chips, we know we can take out his clanships too easily for them to risk closing with us. We’ve eliminated their ship numbers advantage, because their style of fighting is to get in close and kill their enemy in as personal a manner as possible. They can’t win a space battle if they, or we, Jump right into each other’s formations. Our lighter weight anti-ship missiles have proven too fast and maneuverable to be easily destroyed or evaded when fired so close to their backsides.

“I stayed in orbit to watch their response. They didn’t recognize the real threat for long critical minutes, because none of their orbiting clanships became balls of fire after we attacked them. I’m sure they wondered why none of ours exploded when we moved in close for boarding, because their missiles should have struck us. I think our relatively smaller numbers, compared to the thousands of clanships they have here, caused their sub leaders on the ground to attempt to send fewer clanships aloft after us, unaware we were already among them on the surface. Otherwise, more of them might have gotten off the ground before being disabled.”

“Does that mean when we have their fleet here fully grounded, we’ll take on the warriors in the domes, Sir?” He sounded a bit too eager to Mirikami.

“No Carson, it does not. They have at
least
ten or fifteen million warriors down there. We would lose too many people, no matter how fast and strong we are individually. I was serious when I said a Krall body count isn’t what we’re after. That isn’t mercy on my part; it’s practical. If we leave them stranded on K1, with their strongest offensive weapons neutralized, then we can inform the PU army, and they can invade here and expect to win this time. This was a human New Colony once. The PU should be granted the right to reclaim it. You take care of yourself, and link to your mom and dad. They’re trying to pretend they don’t worry about you, Katelyn, Cory, and Kobalt.”

Carson felt guilty he hadn’t called his parents when it was so easy. He rushed to tell his uncle now. “Kobalt was shot between the right front shoulder and chest. He’s not bleeding too badly, but it went deep and I think hit bone. I had Danner call for medical help while I reported.”

“Damn! OK. I’ll send some medical help down to you. Ethan thinks we have all the clanships at that particular dome complex disabled. I’ll send our technical and medical staff on the Vanguard down from Cheetah. They’ll land well away from the dome for their safety, but if you call for a shuttle to carry Kobalt over to them, they’ll give him the best of care. We have several med labs configured for rippers. He and Kit are really too old to be fighting at this intensity anyway. They’re slowing down.”

Carson automatically defended his lifelong friend and protector. “He did good Uncle Tet. He distracted Telour’s aide with a roaring charge while Kayla snuck up and attacked him from the side. The shot was random and convulsive, not aimed, caused when she struck and bit down on the Krall’s arm.”

“Carson, Kobalt and Kit are the two oldest living rippers. No pride member that was around when they were born is still alive, not even other cubs from that same year. Ripper lifetime in the wild runs about eighteen to twenty years. They’re eight months older than you and Ethan. At nearly twenty four, they’re old for rippers, son.” He didn’t want to sound pessimistic, but a touch of realism might help prepare him for a painful loss in the near future.

“Right. Ethan and I have been talking, and we’re going to have a serious frill talk with both of them. For now, I need to work down through the dome to disable their fusion power, and cut their landlines. I’ll have a shuttle come pick up Kobalt.” Carson ended the link, but his remark made Mirikami think of something he’d overlooked.

Selecting a wider Comtap circuit he said, “All dome infiltration teams; Kill the power in the main fusion bottles on the ground floors, they won’t be able to restart them after we leave. That’ll leave them in the dark, with only IR vision, and we see better than they do with ambient low light through the windows. It’ll also put any factory in darkness if they have one under them.” The Prada, originally nocturnal, had excellent night vision, and even limited portable lights would allow them to evacuate safely, while the power loss would shut down machines that might be used to produce weapons that didn’t require the quantum keypads, such as older style projectile weapons. The Krall had once used a wide range of more basic low technology weapons, just as humans still had when they first fought them.