Koban 5: A Federation Forged in Fire (81 page)

They now had two kills of the larger Thandol trapezoid designs, and four of the smaller and more aggressive angular blunt ships that took greater risks because of better maneuverability. The larger ships appeared to have the highest fire rates, but were the least maneuverable and tried to stay farther away. They were most effective when fighting from a distance, while the smaller craft, roughly the mass of clanships, was assumed to be from one of the three security force species, which most likely was the Ragnar.

The Kobani craft proved to be far more maneuverable than even the smaller class of ships the enemy flew, the crews accepting far greater uncompensated internal accelerations than the two enemy ship types could accept. It was obviously a major Kobani advantage if they could function well under considerably higher accelerations and turn rates than the occupants inside the enemy ships could.

Despite the edge in damage inflicted thus far, their being outnumbered ten to one didn’t bode well for an extended battle, or for an effective defense of the cities. The Kobani ships couldn’t take full advantage of the rapid micro-Jumps that worked so well against the Krall, because the gamma rays they emitted drew heavy computer coordinated fire at each exit. They needed the new White Out technology adapted, so they could make exits without giving their position away like a flashbulb in the dark.

Oddly, the enemy didn’t use the micro-Jump tactic when they could have gained a slight advantage by the tactic. Perhaps it was because they feared intersects with ships that their sensors couldn’t see, except when they fired weapons.

The Kobani had placed all their ships in constant spin, to spread the beam hits over their entire hulls. It complicated pilotage without an AI at the helm, of every ship but Ricco’s Revenge, but seat of the pants flying skills had been learned the hard way, by fighting the Krall. Mind Taps made every captain and pilot expert in its application, and that might be why they were better at micro-Jumps. The navigation system of the clanship had been designed with Krall manual control preferences in mind, and humans flew better than the Krall could. Kobani felt comfortable making micro-Jumps if they had accurate sensor data, and in emergencies, would take chances even if they didn’t have accurate data.

Trevon Caldwell debated launching Thresher and giving the other nine captains the option to join the fight in orbit, but he knew they’d become prime targets while rising through the atmosphere. He did have one tactic to use, what with their Normal Space drives available, and stealth systems that were proving to be better than what the enemy had. He issued his orders. 

A few minutes later, he thought they were better prepared to protect the new colonists, who had minimal shelter. The best shelter available was reminiscent of the one used by the lone survivor from Elysium. The street drainage infrastructure had gone in before the streets themselves, and the five-foot diameter culverts were at least out of sight, with eight feet of soil over them. Dozens of Kobani stayed with colonists, as they helped them go down the opened storm drain covers, while other crewmates ran to the ships to reload missile racks, don body armor, and gather plasma and projectile rifles to distribute to the colonists. They all had heard the warning of inbound enemy ships. Those could be intent on targeting them with missiles and energy beams, but they might also land troops.

The Debilitater projectors weren’t given a great deal of thought by the Kobani, who anticipated that their ships, body armor, or soil overhead would shield them adequately. They were partly right, and mostly wrong.

****

Thond was enraged as he scream-shouted, “Which ship revealed our attack too soon? All of the enemy moved or Jumped at the same time.” That generalization overlooked the impossibility of it being a single ship commander’s mistake. How could one ship simultaneously alert all forty of the widely separated human ships, some of which were on opposite side of the planet. The incredible speed of Kobani reactions, and the unsuspected Comtap links conspired to lead him to blame his own people.

Then, as he analyzed the sequence of what had happened, he came close to making a fatal political blunder. His life and future was saved because the Emperor’s Observer, the only Thandol with the fleet, was not aboard his flagship to hear him.

“The insane decision of the Emperor and his High Command, to fire those useless single missiles without warheads, is what gave them warning.”

Later study would prove that particular explanation was inadequate as well, because only three of the test missiles actually made physical contact with any of the human ships before they Jumped, or before they had entered stealth and maneuvered out of the way. They did that using what had to be life threatening uncompensated internal acceleration, clearly under computer control, since no manual operation could be possible. Even if the first missiles were full salvos with warheads, he still would not have achieved the total surprise and mass destruction he’d anticipated.

In seconds, his fifty-ship vanguard was engaged in a desperate mad scramble; fighting for its own survival, much as if they had attacked a wild pack of dragnak’s in space, with the human ships the equivalent of the agile nasty fanged beasts, biting and clawing at their attackers. The only nonsurprise was the destruction of the slow giant ship, which they predictably blew apart when it was disabled from Jumping by the parasitic mine attached to its hull, and then destroyed by missiles. That was a task a huge Crusher, using Decoherence bombs, had failed to accomplish previously on the same type craft.

He was astounded when he first thought the human ships had fled without a shot, when they vanished from sensors, but a spatter of gamma ray bursts proved that many had only micro-Jumped, staying here to fight. Except, the burst of reentry radiation was the only sign of any of them. They were completely absent on sensor screens after that.

Absent until they fired on his ships, that is, a reaction they initiated almost instantly. He was sure that he had surprise on his side when he ordered the attack to start, but that elusive advantage lasted for less than a short breath. 

The human ships didn’t focus much firepower on defending against the anti-ship missiles. Why should they? Those sophisticated missiles were effectively flying blind, and they could only threaten a human ship by accident. His own stealthed ships didn’t fare as well. Initially, only heavy laser beams hit the Ravagers as they closed in, at first suffering only superficial damage to their armored hulls. Unfortunately, they received spot damage to their stealth coating from the unusually powerful laser cannons. Then the humans started firing their own missiles, and after a preheat time, they had extremely potent plasma bolts available. The Olt’kitapi warship designs were proving to be very formidable, which lent credence to the untested reputation the Krall had earned in the Empire, using these same ships in their own wars.

Then, as his main battle fleet emerged, without the fanfare of gamma rays, the human ships immediately responded with missiles fired at them, proving their sensors saw the new arrivals, and that it wasn’t merely luck they had hit so many Ravagers at first. The stealth damage to the Ravager hulls had been nearly irrelevant,  so far as revealing them to an enemy that could already target them.

Contrary to what the Thandol High Commander had assured them, the human ships had better stealth, and their sensors
could
still see his stealthed fleet. The humans were fully aware they were heavily outnumbered now, but they stayed to fight anyway.

Thond had an uncomfortable thought.
This species defeated the Krall juggernaut in twenty or so orbits, when they didn’t even have an army or navy at the start of the war.

They were also reported to have been somewhat technologically backwards, nevertheless, these humans had apparently improved on the original Olt’kitapi stealth and sensor design, which the Krall had found no need to change for twenty thousand years. He failed to consider that Krall slave races might have aided the humans. The subservient races in the Empire would not have helped the Thandol, or any of the three security species.

Both sides had ship hulls with a quantum controlled reflective surface, or used it as a radiation absorbing material when needed, which was the stealth coating technology the Empire had adapted after analyzing what the Olt’kitapi possessed. The Thandol had not encountered another high tech species like the Olt’kitapi since then, to spur stealth improvements. Until now.

This species also fought like deranged demons, taking high risks despite their stealth, which could keep them safe if they simply held their fire. The subjugated races the Ragnar normally fought were considerably more conservative and less aggressive.

When the first of his ships lost was a Thandol built Smasher, one like the flagship the Thandol had assigned to the Force Commander. He was angry that humans had made a kill of their own, as a sort of trade for the large ship they had lost. However, he felt a slight trace of pride that none of the more numerous and aggressively engaged Ragnar designed cruisers had met that fate.

His pride was short lived, when two Ravagers soon added to the spreading Smasher debris field. Every crewmember he lost was Ragnar, so in an ambush that his own forces sprang, the human
victims
had scored three kills, and as far as he could detect, the enemy had suffered no losses.

It grew unbearably worse as he lost another Smasher, shortly followed by two more Ravagers. The only visible damage to the impossibly agile and speedy human ships was damage to a few stealth coatings, as revealed by his sensors. Although, his crews were finally starting to improve targeting on the elusive foe, as their attack and escape patterns became clearer.

His fire control divisions were relying less on an AI to predict where the highly variable enemy would be when they made a firing pass, and more importantly, on which way and how fast they would dodge after firing. The AIs repeatedly made estimates based on performance parameters of Ragnar and Thandol ships, which couldn’t match what these ships did.

Despite this, he accurately deduced that his ten-to-one ship advantage would eventually take a serious toll on the human ships. Except, he wanted human suffering and losses to start now. He thumped his knuckles against his chest in anger.

“Grudfad, send down the Stranglers, with two Ravagers as escorts for each. Those riot control ships are poorly designed for this sort of space battle. Tell their commanders that if any of the grounded human ships lift or fire on them, I have canceled my instructions to try to capture them. They may destroy them all where they sit. We don’t need any more of them up here in orbit. Their stealth can’t hide them in atmosphere if they try to escape. Order the Stranglers to pass low over the cities. I want their people squirming in pain, or even dead if they can get low enough.”

The Stranglers were another Thandol ship design, and it was roughly the same tonnage as a Ravager, but they were a truncated pyramid shape, flat on the top. It was equipped with considerably more weaponry than just the Debilitater projector, mounted in a rotating blister on the underside. It was heavily armed with laser and plasma bolt defenses, with air to air and air to ground missiles. That made for safer low passes over hostile cities, as it irradiated rebellious populations into agonized compliance.

As Thond watched the Stranglers and their escorts separate and enter atmosphere, he had the satisfaction of seeing a rash enemy ship enter the tenuous upper wisps, attempting to divert one of the impending ground attacks. Their superb stealth couldn’t prevent the faint trail of ions their passage caused, and multiple energy beams converged on its position. The flare of white quickly turned orange and black as the ship exploded.

Grudfad, also watching, remarked in surprise, “They carry actual reaction mass for thrusters! Their maneuverability and acceleration tell us their inertial drives and internal compensation is already better than what our cruisers have. Why would they need reaction thrusters at all?”

The Ravagers, as dedicated space combat craft, didn’t employ reaction thrusters, and landed on planets with tachyons held within three redundant trap fields, for reliable Normal Space drive use when they were unable to establish new Trap fields when within gravity wells.

Having participated in strategy sessions, forming contingency plans if the Krall had ever entered Empire space, Thond knew the answer. “These former Krall ships are multipurpose. They also served as landing craft, to deliver large numbers of warriors to the surface of a world they would raid or invade. We design special purpose ships, such as our Ravagers for space combat, and Pounders for landing troops and heavy equipment.

Even the Thandol do this. The Stranglers they designed are not ground assault craft, but they do have reaction thrusters as backup, should they lose tachyon power while in atmosphere, from damaged suffered to their Trap field generators. They can land using them if they must, but of course would attempt to return to orbit if possible.”

“Force Commander, we land our own troops from Ravagers after a suppression raid, to complete the punishment. We intend to do so today.” He made certain to say this in a tone that sought enlightenment, rather than appearing to contradict his superior.

“Yes, Lieutenant, but that landing always comes after the opposition species has been quelled by Strangler Debilitater runs and our bombardment from orbit. Ravagers do not normally fight their way down to the ground, giving up their stealth while they do that. A Ravager has limited internal space for many ground troops, and we did not bring an invasion force. We would use Pounder transports for major landings, after first establishing a safe base of operations for them. The Krall obviously provided their masters with the design features they wanted for their ships, combining a combat capability in space, with that of a ground assault landing craft.”

Then he added a bit of Imperial blasphemy for his trusted second in command. “Listening to us is something the Thandol never do when we offer suggestions for improving their ship designs, which they insist we use. That’s why I held the Smashers back from close combat, while our smaller Ravagers do the real work. The loss ratio for their more clumsy ships would be unacceptable to the Emperor’s Observer and to me for that matter, since our crews are aboard. If I had sent the Smashers in for close space combat today, we would have lost many more. We lost two of them as it is, and they were not in the thick of the battle.”