Koban 5: A Federation Forged in Fire (63 page)

Then she added what she’d discussed with Pholowela while she was in transit to Paradise. “A few younger and more assertive races had a modest number of colonies when the Thandol expansion reached and went around them, and they were granted a bit higher status than some less developed species. They are used to keep the weakest species in their place, and are played against each other at times, with Thandol military action taken if need be. The overlords normally pretend to keep their hands clean while their three regional security forces do the dirty work to suppress rebellion. The Thandol built numerous warships of their own to keep everyone in line, and they prevent military build ups of their subject races, even limiting the forces and technology of those they granted greater roles in keeping order.”

Thad spoke to Pholowela, who had remained in synchronous orbit over Elysium. There was no physiological motivation for her to land for a face-to-face conference if she had no face.

“Do you have any clues as to why the Thandol delayed absorbing the Olt’kitapi territory after they were destroyed by the Krall? I mean
immediately
after your creators were beaten by the Krall, when those warriors were surely weaker then, than they were when humans ran into them twenty thousand years later. By this era, the Krall had sixteen more conquests under their belts, the added military technology they captured, not to mention those thousands of years of physical evolution and selective breeding that made them tougher and harder to kill.”

“No, friend Thad, we don’t know why they waited then, and apparently are ready to confront you now. My sister ships and I were new back then, and had little exposure to other species. We spent all of our time analyzing the great construction tasks our builders intended us to start soon, and we studied multiple giant worlds for building materials, always in uninhabited red dwarf star systems.

“We did not meet the species that were to be invited to participate in habitat construction, other than the security force being formed of the Krall, and the newly changed Krall’tapi. The Krall race had never advanced very far scientifically or socially, and had never left their original world before my creators found them.

“Checking our databases after receiving your requests, my sisters and I believe the Thandol were the next most aggressive species the Olt’kitapi had met, with the possible exception of the Botolians. The latter race had a low population and a small territory, and their only powerful weapon was the condensed matter balls. Unlike the Thandol and Olt’kitapi, they did not have advanced quantum mechanical technology.

“We think the Thandol were cautious concerning the ultra-aggressive Krall, and when their revolt against our makers was successful, it was clear that technology alone was not a deterrent to such an irrational enemy. Not even the destruction of the single Krall home world was enough to defeat them, and that destruction was accomplished using two technologies the Thandol did not have then. The Dismantler’s gravity projectors and quantum computers to direct and control them precisely.

“It seems probable they believed the Krall had acquired full control of Olt’kitapi technology after the revolt, including the ability to destroy planets with gravity projectors. Something the Thandol could not know that my sister ships were tricked into using, in Krall wars that soon followed.

The Thandol had been specifically told of the DNA based quantum key system needed to use the most advanced Olt’kitapi technology, and of the weapons provided to the Krall and Krall’tapi. This was told to them and demonstrated, to prove to them that they couldn’t steal operational weapons or tools, and to dissuade them from aggression.

“They must think that humans do not have the quantum key system to operate Olt’kitapi gravity projectors. In effect you actually do not for the projectors, because my sister ships and I will never yield control of that dangerous tool again, not even to a trusted species. In that sense, you are weaker than the Krall, although we do not know how the Thandol would know this. You Kobani clearly do have control of other Krall weapons, which use that same quantum key system, for trusted DNA patterns. The Thandol would not be trusted, but they do not wear the embedded quantum DNA key transmitters that you Kobani have anyway.

Mirikami proposed why they might not be worried. “I think they have figured out the secret of the denial chips we used to disable the ships and weapons for the Krall, but left them usable for us. They may have recovered and reverse engineered some of those chips, or they perhaps deduced the key change used, based on how we defeated the Krall. They might know how to program our human DNA as another untrusted species pattern, just as easily as Huwayla did to the Krall, and pass the virus update along to all of our captured clanships. They wouldn’t even have to know how to generate the fifth force effects. We sure didn’t.”

Sarge gave a Krall sounding snort of amusement. “Hell, that won’t work, or at least for very long. We don’t even have any of those key chips left inside of our first hundred or so captured ships now. We scavenged them all to use against the Krall at K1, and our Torki and Raspani technicians bypassed the equipment interlocks they controlled so we didn’t need a key code. We can do that to every ship and piece of Krall equipment we captured since then. That will surprise the crap out of them if they try to shut us down the same way. We’ll shoot their asses off.”

Thad clapped him on the shoulder. “Smart thinking ole buddy. You need to volunteer to head a new mission. You’re exactly the right man to take that information back to Haven, and then see that it gets applied to all the rest of our ships, before we find our pants pulled down around our ankles by the Thandol.”

Everyone grinned at Sarge’s sour face, knowing of his strong aversion to volunteering.

Maggi went back to discussing the Thandol’s original caution concerning the Krall. “After the Krall revolt, the Empire must have pulled back into the Sagittarius Arm, avoiding the Orion Spur in order to prevent being noticed by the barbarians almost at their door. Nevertheless, they clearly monitored what happened here. They may originally have hoped the Krall would resume interclan wars and self-destruct, a course they were certainly following prior to getting off their planet of origin. After the revolt, they had bigger and better weapons that could have put an end to them sooner.”

Sarge grunted at how well that had turned out. “Instead, they watched the Krall find new species to fight and kicked their asses, one species after another for a prolonged period. They saw them depopulate and abandon many of those worlds, destroying some of them by dismantling them with gravity projectors, in a manner that would look like they controlled them. They rapidly gained in population and war making ability, conquered new territory and found slave races. The Thandol waited, and thereby missed their best chance.

“Polo, old gal, you called the Thandol more aggressive and assertive than any other advanced species the Olt’kitapi knew, but I think your point of comparison is from a position of insecurity. Exactly like your builder’s perspective.”

“Friend Sarge, I presume Polo is a human style diminutive version of my proper name of Pholowela, much as you humans shorten names of friends. It omits the Olt’kitapi feminine ending for my name, of
la
. But because I’m an artificial lifeform, I have no gender and cannot reproduce. Therefore, I find no logical reason to object to the use of Polo as indicating myself, as one of your friends.”

Having his flippant and casual informality being addressed and analyzed so formally, took Reynolds by surprise for a moment.

“Uh…, OK, fine, then Polo it is. But back to what I said. I don't want you to think I’m being overly
disparaging
to a generous and benevolent people, but the Olt’kitapi, whose mind patterns you said were copied to make yours and the other Dismantlers, were a timid bunch of wimps, who literally couldn’t fight to save their lives. You share the same weakness of their myopic viewpoint of how threatening and aggressive the Thandol are.”

Maggi looked at him sharply. “Damn Sarge. Sure glad you didn’t want to be
overly
disparaging.”

“Hey! Our alien friends don’t mind telling us we’re potentially dangerous hyperactive adolescents!”

“I think they just meant you.”

“If so, then instead of sending me to Haven, you had better send my butt off to teach these murderous cowardly bastards a lesson. They mostly use other species to do their fighting, and they killed unarmed people here in their sleep, without any warning.”

Surprisingly she said, “I’ll concede that we need to let them know that if we defeated the Krall, they had best not provoke the people who accomplished that feat. A quick application of our sort of dangerous hyperactive adolescent human belligerence, along with Kobani genetics, might just be what is needed to keep them from making a major miscalculation.”

“Friend Sarge, you are in error about a lack of warning from the Thandol.” Pholowela’s statement surprised them all.

Mirikami quickly deduced how she could know that. “You’ve translated the recorded messages, haven’t you? What did they say?”

“Friend Tet, the message was spoken live, using the Thandol imperative mode of grammar by an Imperial authority aboard their ship. Per the Thandol protocol database we found in archives, the warning was delivered in what they consider a formal and fair manner, via four repetitions, which is a standard number for them. They use a base four number system.

“The protocol requires the subservient species to respond in what is considered a reasonable manner, which to the Thandol can only mean complete compliance by the end of the warnings. Certainly to be accomplished before a fifth, more punitive final visitation. The interval provided between each warning is two of their standard days. That length is a bit longer than the four-day intervals that passed here on Paradise, with its shorter length days.

“According to Thandol standards, the ultimatum, which may be the more appropriate term in Standard than merely calling it a warning message, was delivered four times as is customary. From their perspective, not only was it not complied with expeditiously, the fourth and final delivery was interrupted by the colony leader by her broadcast to them. Based on past reactions by the Thandol to communications with the Olt’kitapi, they demand a measure of courtesy they do not extend to others. Your colony leader did not wait for the Imperial representative, who was speaking as if the words came directly from the Emperor, to finish his prepared statement.

“Traditionally, the threatened enforcement action would not have been applied until the fifth visitation, in two more of their days if the offenders were still not in compliance after the final warning. I believe they interpreted that broadcast, during the final message, as signifying an interruption of the Emperor himself, confirming that a subservient species had refused to listen, and had done so in a rude unacceptable manner. To them, that granted and justified their right to apply the forewarned penalty without further delay.”

Mirikami asked, “Why would they expect the people here to understand a message delivered in the Thandol language, or for us to know their customs? Although, we clearly can see and understand what they think the appropriate penalty was. Death and destruction. What was their demand for compliance by Paradise to avoid this penalty?”

Pholowela furnished answers, but none they liked. “The Olt’kitapi learned most of the Thandol language and grammar modes after extensive dialogue. If you were a subservient species of the Olt’kitapi, they surely expected you to understand the message, or at least to be able to translate what was said. I caution you, however, on your implied assumption that this was an ultimatum directed solely at Paradise. By their phrasing, the demands were not directed to just this one planet, friend Tet.”

She elaborated. “It applies to the unspecified territory they consider to have been ruled by the Olt’kitapi. They demand that all of the subservient species in the former Olt’kitapi Empire to immediately apply to join the Thandol Empire, and formally swear allegiance to Emperor Detab Romal Farlol, who the speaker said is the eighty-fourth Emperor of that great family’s name. Otherwise, you must all leave the annexed territory or face the consequences.”

Pholowela seemed troubled only by one aspect of the translation. “There are serious errors in their perception of the Olt’kitapi, because my makers did not rule an empire, or have subservient species.”

With a glowering expression, Maggi said, “Oh, there were serious errors made all right. And they made them here on Paradise!”

Mirikami spoke up, finger on his lip. “Wait a moment.” He held up a hand the Dismantler couldn’t see from her orbit, but which held back outbursts that he saw threatening to erupt down here, where they were meeting in the Mark’s conference room.

“Pholowela, from how they phrased their demands, would you say they intended this ultimatum for any people on any world they consider to have been inside the volume of space the Olt’kitapi had colonized? The Prada were only partly inside that volume, and the Torki home world was fully inside it, as were their colony planets later. The Raspani only had a bit of an overlap along one side of their joint colonization regions. The other races that the Krall defeated presumably shared boundaries within, or were adjacent to the Olt’kitapi explored and settled areas.

“This particular world we named Paradise, and the other three new human colonies of the Federation are all in the same general region that was settled by other species the Krall exterminated, and were
never
inside of or even in contact with any part of Olt’kitapi Space. The four particular virgin worlds we claimed for human use were never even
occupied
by any colonizing species, perhaps because the gravity was too high for their preferences. Like Paradise, they aren’t within a volume that ever belonged to the Olt’kitapi. Yet the Thandol are claiming Paradise as if it was a world the Olt’kitapi controlled.”

“I understand your confusion, friend Tet. However, the Thandol were perhaps inadvertently ambiguous as to where the boundaries are that they mean. This may be a misunderstanding of former Olt’kitapi boundaries.”