Koban 6: Conflict and Empire (27 page)

Jansky’s suit AI placed a number in the corner of her helmet visor, showing that seventy-nine of eighty-two receivers had responded to their controllers. It would do.

“OK, you bartenders, on the count of three, light up your cocktails.”

She counted up, and on three, the four people with her, and seventy-five others along two miles of the road, all pressed their thumb buttons. Being a half mile from the narrow valley, the orange flashes of flames and billows of black smoke were seen fractionally before the thunder of explosions came in a steady rumble, as the sounds of the more distant detonations took longer to reach the formerly abandoned explosives storage bunker, turned command center today.

****

Culpa had just ordered the first tank of the next Legion to test the handmade ramp of rocks, to climb over the trapped, but still alive crews of the unlucky Legion, their twenty units forming the base of that ramp. There would be some hurried work on the other side, to prepare a smoother descent ramp, but they would soon be out of this trap. He’d just heard about the fate of Group 4, and the death and humiliation of commander Gontra. At least he’d been lucky after all with his target assignment, and the flat plains hadn’t proven to be the easy avenue for an attack after all. He was about to escape the human’s trap here, and they hadn’t even fired a shot at him, proving how helpless they really were. He didn’t intend to leave a structure standing or a human breathing when he was finished with this city, after securing the spaceport, of course.

Only his head was sticking out of the turret hatch now, and he kept his helmet sealed. Culpa was impatient to see firsthand when the units ahead of him, reaching around a gentle curve, started to move forward again. He frequently glanced up at the ridge tops above him, and from time to time saw one of his surveillance drones, as it crossed over the narrow valley, scanning for enemy movement.

He happened to glance down at the battered human transportation vehicle next to him, parked against the rock wall. It appeared to have room for perhaps four to six of the smaller aliens, and the transparent windows were open, or had been removed. Not that there was room for more than one of the aliens inside now, as a driver. It held large rubbery containers on the seats, which his technicians told him were simple fuel containers, which held some sort of highly viscous petroleum product. These primitive morons apparently still used low energy dirty fossil fuels to operate their personal vehicles.

Although, now that he recalled his earlier actions concerning similar vehicles, most of those roadblock cars he’d driven over or smashed aside had each contained the dense chest sized armored steel housings, which appeared similar to many alien designs he’d seen of small fusion power units. Of course, those were made nearly indestructible, to hold the powerful magnets and plasma in a crush proof case. Not even the weight of a tank could rupture one of them, since if punctured when operating, they were explosively dangerous.

If the fossil fuel wasn’t for powering the beat up clunker, he wondered what it was used for. He couldn’t know this was material originally stockpiled for use against raids by a different alien species, and had absolutely no use as a fuel. It was too thick.

When a green light’s glow came from the dark interior, from below the rubber containers in the rear, he felt a sense of unease. There had been no signs of activity from any of the abandoned vehicles. The explanation soon arrived, although the human description of them as Molotov cocktail cars wouldn’t have meant anything to him, and he’d never heard of any petroleum product like napalm.

The flat sheet of the solid-state explosive under the containers on the rear seat detonated, rupturing them and igniting the highly combustible, sticky gelled substance, which spewed out of the open windows, and through the precut roof of the car as it easily blew off, coating the tank, its commander, and the units closest to him. The explosive sheet under the containers on the front seat had a detonator activated by heat, and seconds later, those containers contributed to the expanding inferno that engulfed six immobilized mechanized units in a sea of flames. There was some overlapping, as multiple simultaneous explosions along the length of column contributed to the conflagration, as seventy-nine contributors did their jobs. The three cars crushed under rocks held ruptured napalm containers, even if their detonators were dead. Flames eventually found their way to them, and they also added to the conflagration, spreading flames under the tanks buried near them, as the napalm grew more fluid as it was heated.

The Ragnar in stealthed armor instantly became visible, turning into large and rapidly moving bipedal living torches. Their suits protected them from the heat for a time, but the smoke and heat images of their surroundings, at visible and infrared frequencies, provided no clue as to what direction they might run to get clear of the flames. They needed to find a clear place where they could try to scrape off the burning sticky substance, which was gradually converting their suits into articulated broiler ovens as the cooling systems were overwhelmed.

It became quite toasty along Ridgeway Road, and that unpleasant odor would linger for months. The apes inside the buried tanks didn’t all broil to death, but weeks later, their decaying odor eked out through the cracks of the hatches they tried to open. Some even made it out of their bottom hatches at the start, but had nowhere to go when the heat reached them. Of those that stayed buttoned up under the rocks, with only the limited consumables of a mechanized army in a hurry, their support forces left behind on foot, they couldn’t last long.

****

Thond addressed his two remaining Ground Force commanders, Hitok standing next to him, but linked to the other. “Commander Jithal, yours and Commander Hitok’s Groups are now absolutely vital to the invasion. The Commanders of Groups 3 and 4 rushed too quickly into closing and engaging this new enemy. They and most of their armor have been lost, although their infantry is intact, but they will fight without the benefit of the firepower of the Pillagers we expected to provide them.

“I admit that we, and most surprisingly the cautious Thandol, have underestimated this species. We
shouldn’t
have done so, because they did defeat the Krall in an incredibly short amount of time. We attributed that victory entirely to their discovery and use of the Olt’kitapi genetic codes, to take away use of the weapons the Krall inherited. We thought they won only because they had disarmed their foe. While there is some evidence and a degree of accuracy in that belief, they have now proven that it is also their uncanny ability to improvise, to adapt and react quickly to an attack. They use whatever material is at hand as weapons in ways that surprise us, using tactics and aggression that we have not encountered from any of the subservient species in the Empire.”

Jithal sought another reason for their plans going awry. “Sire, what of your discovery that the humans your fleet fought at their colony are uniquely physically enhanced? Do we face those types of humans here on the ground? Is that how Group 3 and 4 were defeated?”

“No, there is no evidence of their presence on the surface, but they are clearly involved in the battle being conducted over our heads. The infantry forces that remained behind when our armor moved ahead, have found the humans they encountered to be stronger than expected. Not our physical equal in strength, but they do react faster. Considering their smaller size, yet unexpected strength, I believe they evolved on a higher gravity world than we did.

“As you surely feel here, the gravity of this world is about five percent higher than on Tantor, but it is probably less than their own home world. We must cease underestimating them, and we need to consolidate our forces.

“I have ordered the infantry of Groups 3 and 4 to consolidate the territory immediately around their landers, and be prepared to board them to join with your two groups when we’re able to protect the Pounders in flight. Group 3 also has a small force of twenty-six Pillagers that escaped, which I have ordered to rejoin their infantry units.

“Our Hoths are presently providing air support for the four infantry landings, and have shot down a number of human atmospheric craft that tried to draw close for attacks or reconnaissance. The enemy craft were not space capable, and are inferior to a Hoth both in speed, handling, weapons, and do not employ stealth. The Hoths, in stealth mode, are apparently not easily detectible electronically, but we’ve learned there is a system used here that detects atmospheric turbulence. It’s how they are able to send missiles after any fast moving ship. Our stealth isn’t perfect enough that going slow helps us much either.”

Hitok added, “Like Commander Jithal, I have slowed my rapid movement towards the city and spaceport you assigned me to capture. We both have dispatched a Legion of lighter Pillagers ahead of our columns, with recon drones to scout the terrain. We hope to identify unusual looking defensive positions along our possible routes, or signs of ambushes and traps.”

Jithal was in agreement with his counterpart. “Knowledge of laser batteries being placed in pits and tipped to the side, allowing them to fire vertically at orbital targets, but also shoot horizontally at Gontra’s Pillagers, would have saved his force. He would never have spread out his armor in an exposed line, to be destroyed like the clay targets of an apprentice Ragoon’s rifle training. Those batteries were fixed in place. He could have split his column in a wide pincher long before they were in range, and attacked from the flanks where they could not aim.”

Listening to them, Thond reached a decision. “It’s true we need either one of the two targeted spaceports for basing our Spears, and time is vital. The four hundred Hoths already here will soon run out of missiles. Their lasers and plasma bolts will soon only be able to provide you close fire support and aerial surveillance. I’m going to bring in our other four hundred eighty birds to help you push ahead more quickly. They will escort the least damaged Pounders of all four groups, as they move closer to your armor.”

Hitok was concerned by a risk he perceived. “The Spears will be vulnerable, and perhaps destroyed before they have time to launch all of their Hoths.”

“Yes. If they operated as they normally do.” Thond countered. “I will order each of our eight Spears to attach fifty of their internally carried Hoths outside of their hulls, the same way we brought the additional ones when they Jumped from home. The remaining ten Hoths will be poised at pre-opened launch bays.

“The humans are not the only ones that can Jump ships into a raging space battle. Configured as I propose, the Spears can launch every one of their birds quicker, just as they released the fifty externally attached Hoths they carried here. The Spears will Jump away the instant their Hoths are clear. If they exit just above atmosphere, two carriers over each of our landing forces, their birds will descend immediately, to join up with our landers and infantry.

“Your own Group 1 and 2 infantry forces will fly as low and quickly as possible in atmosphere, to travel the short distance to join up with your armored columns. The infantry with no armor to join will remain with their landers, using the Hoths for air cover, and wait for us to provide a secure escort for the longer flights for them to join with you both.

“Because the Ragoon’s need to keep pace with your armor, I’ve been informed that most of the units have already obtained a significant number of human trucks, equipped with long empty trailers that can carry them. Some of our overflow of troopers will stay inside them when they are driven onto the landers, and that way we can leave the most damaged Pounders sitting here they are, flying only the most effective ships. You can use their transportation to position infantry anywhere our enemy gathers to oppose you.

“We have to coordinate this carefully, but your Pillagers need that additional support, because our fleet is too heavily engaged in keeping the enemy ships from descending to attack you. You can’t afford to advance as recklessly as I first instructed you to do. And I can’t continue to underestimate the enemy’s adaptability.”

“I think the Ragnar overestimated how easy invading Tanner’s would be, they compared us to species within the Empire, and how few Federation citizens they and the Thandol found of us on our new colonies, which were nearly defenseless at the time. We humans, as our friends often remind us, are like wild and unruly children of the galaxy, and the new and growing Kobani branch is even worse.” Mirikami explained, with a grin. The second Kobani fleet was on its way to Tanner’s World, and he was sharing his thoughts with a varied audience.

“We know now, after receiving information from other previously well-traveled and intelligent alien species,” he nodded to the Prada, Torki, and Raspani representatives in the room, “that humanity is not at all like the typical, slowly evolving, cautious and gradually expanding space faring species they knew or heard about. We’ve since had reinforcement of that notion after meeting two species living in the Empire, the Hothor, and the remnants of the Olt’kitapi.

“The Hothor are more cosmopolitan than any of us here, despite restrictions placed on their travel by the Thandol. They trade with several nearby species, and through a web of multi-species hired help, employed by the Thandol on their various capitol worlds over millennia, they have learned what all of the empire’s twenty-six species are like.” He paused a moment.

“There once were at least eighteen species here in our relatively small spur off the Sagittarius Arm of the galaxy. That’s at least forty-four species, all of which spread slowly, over what we humans consider very long periods of time. Tens of thousands of years.

“To paraphrase an old human saying, the Olt’kitapi and Thandol were slow in expanding, but they were old! They explored and controlled sizable tracks of their local galactic regions, but they did that over many thousands of years.

“In contrast, we Humans have only been in space for a bit over five hundred of our years, or orbits, as many of you prefer to count, and we now control Human Space, and what was once the Krall conquered territories.”

He listed another smaller category within the known, and slowly spreading races. “There have been five particularly aggressive races like the Krall, Thandol, Ragnar, Finth, and Thack Delos, which are relatively rare, yet are still relatively slow expanding, slow to embrace changes. Had the Krall not had help, they would never have achieved spaceflight, and would have self-destructed. So only four aggressive, and slow evolving species, achieved interstellar travel.”

“I don’t wish to sound aggrandizing when I create a different category for humanity, or because I’m a Kobani human, perhaps I can’t help myself,” He smiled.

“Humans are both aggressive, fast evolving, and have rapidly expanded. Perhaps too much for our own good. We may have met our match with a long established empire, who wants to take us down.”

He had deliberately excluded rippers from his classifications, as a non-technological, but intelligent alien species, who had never traveled anywhere without humans, and had not shown a desire to expand or colonize.

“We humans are neither cautious or gradual, nor very peaceful, and we evolved on a world near the upper gravitational margins of where complex large land based life forms typically can arise. Worlds that exceed about 1.3 times Earth’s gravity is where the approximate energy boundary, or energy wall if you prefer, is encountered for complex advanced land based creatures. They need more energy to function at a high level than is readily available to them, and larger lifeforms rarely evolve out of water.

“If the planet lacks a massive molten iron core, with an internal magnetic field to protect life from damaging external radiation, from their sun or cosmic rays, then large complex land life doesn’t appear at all, for any gravity level, although sea life might grow large.” He held up a hand at what appeared to be a couple of objections forming from some of those in the conference room.

“Hold on, before you mention an obvious exception. As our geneticists and geologists have explained to us, Koban, at 1.52 times Earth’s gravity, is a far greater rarity than are other more massive-than-Earth analogues, such as Heavyside is, in Human Space. The increased presence of heavy elements in the entire Koban system, it’s richness in rare earths, made it possible for a different sort of early nervous system to evolve on that heavy terrestrial planet. You should note that superconducting nervous systems didn’t appear on smaller Haven, which has the same high ratio of heavy elements, because it wasn’t a required advantage for higher lifeforms evolving in that lighter gravity. The energy needs were less severe.

“Energy consumption requirements are greater for all of Koban’s lifeforms simply to move around, and obtaining that energy to survive made it a far more competitive place for evolution to solve those problems. Organic superconductor nerves were necessary to be able to handle the higher energy requirements of using powerful and faster muscles, and for fueling the quicker thinking, energy consuming minds of every complex animal on that high gravity planet. We Kobani have borrowed that capability, or stolen it, if you think that’s the more appropriate term. There was no way the Empire, or the Ragnar, could have expected that.

“That artificial evolutionary step, which we Kobani made, has placed us outside the physical capabilities of any similarly sized species the Empire has previously faced. For some reason, they discounted the lesson the Krall learned by being defeated by us. Normal humans were already giving the Krall a tougher fight than they expected.

“The original Earth variety of our species, even before some of us modified ourselves to become the Kobani racial branch, will present the Thandol Empire with a considerable challenge. The people of Tanner’s World are demonstrating that now to the Ragnar. The Kobani fleet is showing them how much harder it will become to defeat us, if we combine forces with the Planetary Union.”

Sarge, linked in from the Sneaky Bastard, hadn’t seen Mirikami’s restraining hand, and his question wasn’t about why humanity was so different anyway. “Tet, how do you think the Thandol built and controlled their long lasting empire? They’ve encountered at least three other aggressive species who they beat, and they now use them to do much of their fighting. I’ve met the four prisoners we brought with us, two Thandol and two Ragnar. Neither species evolved on worlds with even as much as Earth’s level of gravity. What made them more powerful than the other species in the empire?”

“Come on Sarge,” Mirikami chided him. “Aggressive and once dominant nations on Earth didn’t have soldiers with greater physical advantages over those they defeated in war. The will to fight, a well-trained trained army, good generals, and technological breakthroughs helped. Per the Ragnar prisoner’s stories, T-cubed travel was discovered by the Thandol first, and they used it to their advantage against less advanced opponents. Sometimes, good fortune determines which side wins the key battles, which then determines the victors in the war.”

Maggi chipped in with her opinion, since she had spent the most time with the prisoners. “The Thandol, Ragnar, and apparently the Finth and Thack Delos are not greatly stronger or faster than those species they are able to dominate. They’re certainly more aggressive than most species, and they developed high technology weapons, giving them an edge over unwarlike species. The Ragnar prisoners are convinced that it’s only because the Thandol discovered T-cubed Jump travel a thousand years before meeting them that the Thandol Empire prevailed and spread faster. They believe it would have become their empire but for that bit of good fortune for the Thandol.”

Blue Flower eater offered some of the now recovered Raspani history. “It’s also true that we and the Olt’kitapi discovered a few worlds with evidence of extinct aggressive species, who used their growing technology to destroy themselves in local wars, before spreading out of their home system to colonize. That is another common thread for many aggressive species, but not all.”

He looked around at the Kobani in the room. “It nearly happened to you humans before you left your home world, and once again after you had many colonies, with your Gene War. Had the Olt’kitapi not helped the Krall get off their home planet, they would have destroyed themselves there. We unaggressive species would undoubtedly be considerably safer without aggressive types like yours around.”

He furrowed his forehead in a vertical Raspani smile, and pinched in his elbows in a sort of shrug. “That does not mean we are not most grateful to have you, the most irrational and dangerous species any of us have encountered, as our neighbors and allies. More than that, having you as our friends. I twitch my knees with dread, to think that had we somehow avoided the Krall disaster, there were at least four other warlike species within easy distance of us, at T-cubed speeds, living in the Sagittarius Arm. The fledgling and ambitious Galactic Federation, which you Kobani have enabled us to form, is the only protection we have from an unknown number of hostile races, sprinkled throughout a large galaxy.”

Mirikami smiled. “Well, don’t count our victories before they’re won. Although, it appears from Thad’s reports from Tanner’s, that they have stalled the Ragnar fleet’s bombardment, and would wear them down in a couple of weeks, forcing them to withdraw if they didn’t have forces already on the ground. It isn’t certain if the four independent ground forces would be able to withdraw with them, because they had a tough enough time landing, and a worse time after that. Two of the landings have had their tank forces severely degraded. Assuming the mild sounding term
degraded
describes the near annihilation of two of their armored columns. As I said, even ordinary humans are bad asses.” He smiled and shrugged.

“I wasn’t surprised their fleet stayed to fight, when they surely detected Thad’s inbound force, with our ships being roughly equivalent in numbers and weaponry to their Ravagers. Counting those six hundred smaller ships they call Shredders, they outnumbered his combined fleet. I’m sure they expected to win the space battle, or hold him at bay while the ground invasion took the first cities.

“When the advance tachyon wave of this group of two thousand ships registers on their detectors, about twenty minutes before we arrive, they may elect to withdraw. I had us all stay clustered close together, to increase the intensity of the advanced tachyon wave front, just so they would know we were coming. I’d prefer it if they did pull out, with tails between their legs…”

There was very short pause, and he quickly added, “Yes, Sarge, I know the apes don’t have tails. It’s a metaphor. I’ll have one of the kids explain what that is for you.” He grinned wickedly at Maggi, who nodded her approval as he turned the discussion over to her.

“Maggi has some observations about the relationship between the Ragnar and Thandol, and how we might use that to our long-term advantage.”

“Thanks, dear.” And she began.

“After extensive Mind Taps with the pair of prisoners from each species, there’s no doubt that they don’t like one another, and the Ragnar retain the hope that one day they’ll be out from under the repressive footpads of the Thandol.

“With the assistance of an AI, and several Mind Tap volunteers, we have created an early translation between Standard and Fotrol, which is what the Ragnar named their native tongue, but which we’ll simply call the Ragnar language. Like humanity now, they only speak one. I can understand it fairly well, and even speak it if necessary, although very poorly, and my chest thumps can hardly be heard, and we don’t have a hairy body for visual displays.

“Fortunately, with a software translation loaded into our Comtaps or other electronic enhancements, and a voice synthesizer, we won’t need to struggle to try to speak the language. I’ll be sharing that database with everyone, and furnish updates as we learn more.

“We’ve also refined the far more complex Thandol language, to build on the translation that we received from the Olt’kitapi, via their Dismantler ship records. We know more about their different grammar modes now, but a human will never be a speaker of their trumpeting language, any more than I can pronounce Torki claw clicks and carapace scrapes and scratches. I’ll leave most of the translation to our software.”

She shifted away from the mechanics of communication, to what contact telepathy told her how the two species think, and what they really want. “The Thandol are fearful of losing control of their extensive empire, and they have restrained the naval capability of their three security forces, to retain an overwhelming superiority in space warfare capability. Their paranoia caused them to build a vast monitoring system for detecting space travel, which they claim was aimed at detecting commerce that was attempting to avoid taxes. It’s done more to detect potential revolts developing within their security species, and to watch for any cooperative effort between them to combine their forces against the Thandol.

“The Ragnar would eagerly revolt against them, exactly as the Thandol fear they might, if they could do so with a chance of success. The Ragnar believe the other security forces would do so as well. However, they have no reason to trust each another. If one of them colluded with one of the other species, they might be betrayed to the Thandol, and lose their privileged place in the Empire. In addition, they know their home and colony worlds would be savagely attacked by Thandol fleets. Then, the species that betrayed them to the masters would benefit from their loss. Paranoia also holds the security forces in check.”

She rubbed her hands together, and displayed her best pixie smile. “I think we can take advantage of this mutual paranoia, if we can secretly bring representatives of the security forces together, and via shared Mind Taps, show them a means by which mutual trust between one another can be guaranteed. That action, combined with our genuine disinterest in possessing the Empire’s resources, might help spark a triple revolt. As we all have learned, rippers are considerably less influenced by human…,” she paused a moment for the right words.