Koban 5: A Federation Forged in Fire (72 page)

“Not to us, but we know they have told the Ragnar, Finth, and Thack Delos, that the Krall are no longer in control of that region of stars, in what you called the Orion Spur. To demonstrate that it’s safe for them to enter that area, the Thandol claim to have flown one of their largest giant ships there several times, the Crusher class.

“They have eight of those huge four sided ships, which can crush a revolt on an entire world in less than a day. It’s capable of launching thousands of warheads, which they call Decoherence bombs, which they claim cannot be intercepted or stopped because they are delivered via travel through the alternate Universe, and arrive too fast to be countered. They create a small sphere of degenerate low pressure matter where they appear.”

“They have another weapon, which they have shared with their three security forces, which is an antipersonnel radiation beam. It is said to have a median effective range of…” he looked up at the Mark of Koban, making a rough mental conversion, “several hundred lengths of your ship, I would think. The atmospheric density, moisture content, and beam width alters that range. It’s called a Debilitater ray, which sounds milder than its effect is supposed to be.”

Mirikami did the distance conversion much faster. The maximum range sounded like roughly thirty miles, with attenuation. The latter caused by atmospheric conditions, and how wide the beam had been set.

He wanted more details. “What’s the effect and type of this radiation? Is it ionizing, causing radiation damage, electrical, charged particle beam, or something else?”

“Our sources in the court on Wendal have not learned what form of radiation it is, but it is evidently not particle based, nor a type of laser. It disrupts the nerves of those targeted, causing great pain and loss of some muscle control. The residual effects and nerve pain lasts for a quarter day, but the worst affects last only a fraction of that time, unless you are hit by a tightly focused beam at closer range. A short-range full power dosage is said to be fatal. We heard that the Ragnar were told the only defense is shielding, such as body armor, or being inside a metal building or vehicle. To us, that sounded like a form of electromagnetic radiation that affects your nervous system. It is designed to disable large unprotected populations gathered outside, who would not have armor or other shielding.”

Mirikami thought aloud. “Sounds like a Jazzer, only elevated to long range and lethal power levels.”

“What is a Jazzer?”

“A short range, low power version of something we have, which sounds similar to what you described, but ours is never fatal, and its effects last for less than 300th of a day, and it isn’t painful when applied and has a temporary numbing effect for muscle control, and feels very uncomfortable as your nerves recover. The beam of a Jazzer is fired from a small hand weapon, but its short range means it isn’t a crowd control weapon, and certainly has no combat use.”

“Our technicians think the one the Thandol built is too large to carry by any of their soldiers, and is fired from a spacecraft, an aircraft, a shuttle, or a large ground vehicle, where there is enough power available.”

Mirikami nodded. “That seems probable. Our soldiers would probably not be at great risk because they normally fight in armor. I don't know if we have tested the suits for leakage of such radiation. That’s something we can test for and correct before we face that weapon. I don’t know if we can devise a defense for the Decoherence bomb. We have a comparable weapons delivery system, which has a far slower rate of delivery, and we don’t have many of them at present. However, it has a much greater destructive effect per weapon. We call them Novae missiles, and I think they’re much bulkier than the bomb you describe.”

“When the Thandol know where you are, they can deliver hundreds of their bombs in seconds. How would your ships and crews survive long enough to fight them? Their Crusher class ships are very large, and could probably absorb many hits from their own bombs before being disabled.”

“Surviving would depend on how good their sensor systems are at finding us before we can hit them. Are they able to hide from the sensors that you used on us when we arrived?”

“Yes, and we saw your ships easily.”

“Of course you did, we weren’t in stealth mode. Have you detected our fifth ship yet? It was in orbit at Canji Mot, traveled to Canji Dol in stealth mode, and should be back in orbit here again shortly.”

The Chief Counselor spoke rapidly in his own tongue and paused. He apparently was wearing a com set with an earpiece under his fur. In a moment, he answered. “Your ship has not returned from our colony world, and we think it must have Jumped away because we do not see it there.”

Mirikami used his Comtap. “Thad, where are you?”

“Two thousand miles above you, holding station. Why?”

“They don’t see you, and I’m proving a point. We clearly have better stealth than they have detectors. Standby for a Krall level stealth test. I think they will see you then. Be ready to blink back out in ten seconds and change position quickly. I don't believe they’d fire on you, but we don’t want a trigger happy underling to ruin a good day.”

“OK. Tell me when.”

“Chief Counselor, our fifth ship is two thousand miles directly above us. I know you don’t know what that distance means, but check with your tracking systems when he changes to a different stealth mode. I’ll give you a moment to alert your people.”

A brief conversation in native Hothor, and he said, “We don’t see a ship.”

“Now Thad.”

The Hothor sensors must have been watching that area overhead closely, because they reported immediately. The startled expression of the Chief Counselor was comical. “A faint target image just appeared above us. It has the parameters expected of a Krall clanship in stealth mode. It simply appeared suddenly.” He paused.

“It just vanished again.”

Mirikami taught him the meaning of a nod again. “I suspected that you had been given the technology for detecting a clanship operating in the normal Krall stealth mode. Neither you nor the Thandol wanted to be surprised if the Krall happened to drop in on any of the worlds in the Empire. Are your detectors good enough to see the Thandol Crusher class ships, or those of the other security forces?”

“Yes, we can see any of their ships faintly. They all use the same stealth system, copied from what the Olt’kitapi used when they first visited us so long ago. The Thandol have not improved on that, it seems, but you have.”

“One of our allied species was forced to work for the Krall, and learned how to improve the stealth system, but never shared that with them.”

“If we Hothor had military ships, they would use the same system as the Thandol. Not that we are permitted to build any sort of ships that have such a coating. Even if the Thandol can’t sneak in on us and avoid detection after arrival, they do have the means to exit from the alternate universe, from level three, without a revelation of the gamma rays you caused. Our own ships do not have the secret of reaching the third level, and the Thandol would detect and destroy any we built, if we knew how. We keep our sensors active at all times to watch for them if they come unannounced. You appear to have a better system than they do.”

“Chief Counselor that was one of the things we needed to know, before we make a visit to Wendal after we leave here. That is, if you will be so kind as to tell us where it is. The Olt’kitapi records we used knew where your star was, and a few others of member species, but not the location of the capitol world.”

“Wendal is only the latest Emperor’s court. The capitol changes if the ruling family changes. We will be happy to tell you where it is, although I think you will be taking a terrible risk to travel there. They maintain one Crusher in orbit there at all times. Please, do not go there directly from here. They will know where you originated, and we and the Olt’kitapi we protect would pay for that carelessness.”

“We promise to leave with even greater stealth than when we arrived. Using Level one for a time, before rotating to level two, and moving hundreds of light years from here. When we Jump to Wendal in level three, our direction of travel will not point back to you.”

“Yegleth! We suspected you had third level travel capability, when you appeared this deep inside the Empire. It would be a long travel time otherwise. I have slight hopes now that you may have the technology to fight the Thandol and their security forces.”

“We might have adequate technology, but we don’t know that yet. Before we leave, we would be honored if we could meet with the Olt’kitapi. They obviously know that we found them, since they surely reported our scans that penetrated their camouflage.”

“Oh. I wasn’t told you had penetrated the cover. Only that you tried.”

“We did, and we recognized their insect origins in their body types. We wish to tell them what happened to some of their former client species that they once helped evolve into spacefaring civilizations, and who are most grateful to them. If they ever wish to return to inhabit any of their former worlds, they are welcome in the Galactic Federation, as full citizens.”

The Chief Counselor reminded Mirikami of the obvious. “That offer depends on your ability to keep those worlds out of the Empire’s tentacles.”  

“Yes. There is that small problem.”

****

Aboard the Mark, Maggi spoke the words Mirikami had been thinking. “I’m nervous to meet an Olt’kitapi. They had such great power, and yet used it gently, often for the benefit of developing species. They seemed so saint-like, yet had the strength to try to destroy the Krall, and in that failure, managed to destroy themselves. I can’t imagine our committing mass suicide over something we did against an enemy that was trying to kill us.”

Tet nodded his agreement. “I have the same nervous feelings, but the Hothor don’t feel that way. They’re comfortable and casual talking about them. Perhaps because they’ve been caretakers of their descendants for so long, and know little of how advanced and how powerful these people had once been. Obviously, they weren’t saints, and certainly weren’t infallible. I doubt that they all committed voluntary racial suicide, any more than the Dismantlers do after learning of the deaths they inadvertently caused. They simply couldn’t continue or their minds shut down. Those ships that were better shielded or insulated from the deaths the Krall caused them to trigger, didn’t always die. It may be that the Olt’kitapi mind enhancers delivered too great a sense of the tragic loss of life suffered, when the wave of tachyons somehow connected with conscious life were disturbed by those deaths. Our Comtaps didn’t send us, or the Torki or Raspani, any sense of the billions of deaths that happened on Meadow and Bootstrap. It isn’t that we ignored them we simply didn’t sense them. The Olt’kitapi and Dismantlers feel a sort of wave caused by dying minds, which has an effect on the weakest tachyons. Our devices are obviously not as sensitive as theirs are, even after the sensitivity was increased so we could communicate between Normal and Tachyon Space. Perhaps that greater degree of device sensitivity was a fatal flaw for them, and we know they had a level of moral responsibility that we don’t share with them. As Sarge might say, humans are callous bastards.”

Maggi had made inquiries about the tachyon wave Huwayla said she had sensed, and that her sister ships often felt from disasters involving loss of inhabited planets in deep space, from Super Novas. “Max Born thinks that any conscious mind may have some weak link to low level tachyons, which might account for certain sensitive people having had seemingly prescient
experiences. Such as when someone knows of a distant event, which they don’t believe has happened yet. In Max’s view, it could actually be the instantaneous reception of the tachyon wave, arriving at an unusually sensitive mind, well before the information can be delivered via conventional means, where the velocity of light is the speed limit. That was his theory of how our superconducting nerves, with our Mind Tap ability, made our instant communications possible before we had Comtaps. And now we do have Comtaps that are even more sensitive. I’d hesitate to boost them to the levels of sensitivity the Olt’kitapi achieved. It might not be healthy.”

Mirikami pondered this a moment, and shrugged. “It may also be that we humans are a hell of a lot more indifferent to death and killing than were the Olt’kitapi. The same data may pass through our minds, but we ignore it as background noise. Their salvation might have been as simple a thing as detuning or reducing the sensitivity of their mind enhancers, eliminating the level of guilt they experienced. I have to tell you, I haven’t felt much guilt over the billions of Krall we’ve left subject to being killed by the PU army and navy. Or the billions that will die as feral Krall on some of their clan worlds. I did want to save some of them, to give them a second chance at getting off that Great Path to self-destruction. If they don’t make it, I’ll survive just fine, guilt free.”

Maggi agreed with him in one respect. “It probably wasn’t so much a conscious decision of the adult Olt’kitapi to die when they sensed the mass deaths they deliberately caused. I suspect it was being unable to continue to live with their feelings of moral guilt. We’ve known, or heard of people that have given up on life after a serious personal loss. A mother that lost an only child in tragic circumstances that she could have prevented, for example.”

“Perhaps.” He dismissed that line of thought. “I see the third minister is returning from his preparatory meeting with the senior female leader. We’ll soon know if they’ll meet with us or not. The Hothor say we’ll be the first new species to meet them since they arrived here, twenty-two
millennia
ago.”

When the Hothor stepped aboard the Mark, he bowed and extended his right arm, hand cupped to his face. “She is eager to meet with you. When I mentioned your genders, Gith Prola wished to know if Maggi would be offended if she spoke directly to you both, or if she should ask the male, her mate Gith Frithda, to speak to Tet.”