Koban Universe 2: Have Genes, Will Travel

by Stephen W Bennett

  Koban Universe 2

  Have Genes, Will Travel

  By Stephen W Bennett

  Have Genes, Will Travel

  Text copyright © 2016 Stephen W Bennett

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover art designed by Misha Coutinho Richet,

  melissa_richet@yahoo.fr

  www.facebook.com/pages/The-Book-Cover-Realm/559333740763541

  This story takes place in the Koban Universe and is derived from the Koban series of books. Although it is not sequential with the actual series, the two Kobani and

  two other Koban characters of this story have appeared in the series books.

  You can review all Koban books currently available at:

  https://www.facebook.com/Koban.the.series

  and

  http://www.kobanuniverse.net/

  or my page at

  http://www.amazon.com/Stephen-W-Bennett/e/B008ZPQ12I/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

  This eBook is licensed for your personal use and enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the many months of long and hard work of the author.

  This book is written in “American” English, so there may be some differences in spelling and usage than in other countries use of the language.

  This is a work of fiction and all characters are fictitious or are portrayed fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

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  Again, my thanks to Paul Benkert for taking the time to perform proofreading, spotting multiple typos, odd phrasings, and story inconsistencies or deficiencies. I’m indebted to him for his willingness to stick with such a hard task. I wish you continued improved health my friend. There will surely be more errors than we both can find, even on a second pass by each of us, so I’m certain I’ll be posting new editions when that prediction is proven right (again).

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  Table of Contents

  Who are the Kobani?

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: A Lynching Goes Wrong

  Chapter 2: Your Partner is WHAT?

  Chapter 3: Enemies and Friends

  Chapter 4: Hired and Terminated

  Chapter 5: Kit Cat Maddi Whack

  Chapter 6: Friends in Need

  Chapter 7: Blood Bath Aftermath

  About the Author:

  The End

  Who are the Kobani?

  If you have been following the Koban series, you could skip this section and go to the Prologue.

  Koban is a planet with 1.52 times the gravity of Earth, and has an abundance of heavy metals and rare earths, which contributed to a unique and early evolutionary development in life there, billions of years ago, which apparently has been unrealized on any other planet in the galaxy. All animal life on Koban has inherited organic superconducting nervous systems, enabling them to react and think faster than animals anywhere.

  Furthermore, the high gravity and the metabolic energy available via superconducting nerves encouraged a different solution to musculature. They have incorporated carbon fiber tissues that are integrated with their muscle tissue, which greatly increases their strength, and takes full advantage of the speed available via their lightning fast mental processes and nerves.

  A large variety of dinosaur analogs also survived there, and one species, called a whiteraptor, evolved carbon nanotubes grown into their bones, giving them tremendous strength. This allowed them to execute the high leaps in attacks on prey, which these predators perfected in that high gravity. Their bones became nearly unbreakable.

  A smaller animal there, named a wolfbat, used their enhanced mental ability, in conjunction with their ultrasonic echolocation capability, to build sonic mental maps in three dimensions, for blind navigation and instant recall.

  Another class of predatory animals, having strength, speed, night vision, enhanced sense of smell, and of course the mental processing and nervous system of all Koban animals, underwent a one of a kind mutation. They acquired a new sense, which enabled them to become intelligent, yet without requiring language. They are able to share thoughts via physical contact between each other, and with any other lifeform with a mind and a nervous system.

  This was all in place on Koban when humans were unwillingly introduced there, as captives of the warlike alien Krall, who were fascinated by the dangerous planet’s lifeforms after they stumbled upon its existence. That was because they also wanted to become faster, and stronger. They were determined to conquer, enslave or exterminate every race they encountered in the galaxy. Humanity was next, and they chose to test human captives on Koban. They fought and killed them in staged combat, as they observed their ability to fight. When satisfied humanity would make an adequate foe, they abandoned the surviving captives on Koban, leaving them to die, as they went to start their war against human worlds.

  The Krall expected the violent and superior native life would soon kill the thousands of puny humans left alive on Koban. They failed to consider the human will to survive, their ingenuity, and the fact that left behind was an unpowered disabled human ship, which had held captives that were biologists and genetic experts. Their lab equipment was considered worthless to the Krall, with no military value to humans. They were wrong!

  The vengeful captives, and their lab equipment, most definitely had military potential. The scientists, recognizing the genetic value of certain local lifeforms, and aware of their own physical inferiority compared to the Krall, saw their only hope to survive long term on Koban, and in the galaxy, was to adapt genetically. By using the most promising genes of selected species, which provided survivability on Koban, the modifications, developed and applied gradually, gave the former captives physical and mental capabilities that the Krall couldn’t match. These self-changed survivors managed to find their way back into space, and joined humanity in the war on the Krall. They call themselves the Kobani.

  Prologue

  “Hot damn, Carson! I may have landed a combat contract on a Rim World. I told you Instellarnet would help us advertise and find clients. Now we can reach any planetary internet.”

  “Where is it? You didn’t say ‘we’ when you said there was a contract.”

  “On that cattle-raising planet in Human Space I told you about last week. They’re having some sort of local conflict there, and each side wants to hire people to fight for them. My secretive contact called it a range war, whatever that is. But apparently, there have been a great many killings, and many were suffered by the people on his side. Assuming he’s telling me the truth. Unfortunately, this man only wants to hire two of us. That’s only me and Kit.”

  “Swell. That’s not much of a contract, is it? What about weapons? I don’t think you need to waste time going to some tame human world where they don’t even allow deadly weapons or fighting, such as Earth was when we visited there.”

  Ethan blushed. “They allow projectile weapons there. But, I could only convince him to hire two of us. Because they don’t allow energy beam weapons, machine guns, or modern military body armor, our physical ability is the primary advantage we can take with us. I’m not risking anything financially, because they’ll pay us an advance to travel, and the Federation told us we could use the Wanderer for free transportation, unless some emergency comes up that threatens our territory, and they recalled all our ships.

  “The balance of the ten-thousand credits each for
me and Kit will be paid when we finish the job, assuming we’re hired after they meet us. That’s considerably more buying power than the Fed credits we earn here, if we escort a ship of our alien allies to one of their former colonies, or do some other flunky security job. Human Space is where we’ll find real jobs that pay well. At least where they need someone with our abilities to enforce their laws, face down criminals, or break laws if that’s reasonable and necessary.”

  Carson nodded. “Well, that’s the theory we had when we advertised our service and created our motto. But Have Genes, Will Travel has had some work here at home.”

  “Not very much. There’ve only been a few dozen Krall to kill to protect the recovered colonies, and often those abandoned worlds haven’t even been used by the Krall for centuries. We only get a hundred or so Fed credits for those trips, and the money isn’t accepted in Human Space. This man is paying us in Hub credits. Those are worth ten times what our Federation script buys, and are accepted everywhere.”

  Carson shook his head. “It only sounds like a toe hold for drumming up future business. The whole thing sounds rather tame to me. I don't see how, with only projectile weapons, that you can prove to anyone how dangerous and effective a Kobani can be. With just you and Kit going, I think you’ll be hard pressed to show them what we, as a group, are capable of doing.”

  Ethan felt overprotective of this first contract. “Somebody’s killing innocent people on Chisholm, even though both sides have guns. I think Kit and I can make a real difference. On a Rim World where they mainly raise cows and ride horses, I believe we can have a significant impact. Here on Koban, Hub worlds consider us a backwards culture, and we’re told we’re technologically undeveloped compared to Human Space. At least according to the military vets that come here to receive their final Mind Tap gene mods.

  “Yet we country bumpkins, as they jokingly call us, were responsible for defeating the Krall, which had kicked their military asses for twenty years before we finally managed to get off Koban and enter the war. It took less than three years to win once we joined the fight.”

  “Fine. Good luck running off to become a gunslinger, cowboy. Be careful you don’t get shot in the ass.”

  Chapter 1: A Lynching Goes Wrong

  The dozen men cautiously closed in on the dark ranch house from front and rear, guns ready. It was two hours after midnight, so the occupants should all be sound asleep. Bryce Danner wasn’t going to know what was coming his way this time, and he’d not be around to require another visit from these hired vigilantes.

  Travis Clampton, put in charge of this lynching by his boss, had a coil of rope with a hangman’s noose already formed, draped over the pommel of his saddle. Like the others, he was on foot, leading his horse quietly. The horses all had squares of cut up blankets tied over their shod hooves, to remove identifying marks in the prints, and temporary bootie covers for the men did the same thing for their boots. Chisholm was a backwards Rim World, compared to the older and technological Hub worlds of earlier human colonization, but forensic evidence collection wasn’t completely unknown here.

  With that said, there still wasn’t much risk of any evidence found ever being used against these men, but it was best to keep up the pretense that the big cattle outfits weren’t involved in these increasingly common and increasingly violent raids.

  On two past trips to this same ranch, the raiders had ridden in with pounding hooves in the dark, wearing bandannas as masks, and used ropes to pull down fences, rip open gates, and scattered Danner’s cattle with pistol shots fired in the air. The second time, they had also blown up the small dam that pooled creek water for livestock, right where it drained over the spillway to rejoin the stream flowing down to the river, two miles away. On that attempt to drive this stubborn small rancher off his land, the nightriders had been fired on by at least two shooters from the house, and one man had been wounded by a bullet through his right cheek, knocking out some of his lower teeth and breaking his jaw. That cowboy had spent several days in a med lab, a hundred fifty miles south in the town of Cayuga, being treated for a “riding” accident.

  This time the “gentle” treatment was over. Danner was now a local hero in this county, so he was going to be used as an example for the numerous small nesters and squatters up here in Calder County. The belief of the big ranchers was that his hanging would reverberate all the way into Bison, the town where the backers of and sympathizers for the falsely accused rustlers, thieves, brand changers, and sometimes labeled as killers, in this reportedly lawless county had their base of strength and support. At least, that was according to a well-planned public relations assault. It was propaganda, which the wealthy ranchers relentlessly presented via the major news outlets, which they controlled on Chisholm.

  A dozen or more presumed rustlers found hung, and their ranch or farmhouses burned, along with a few of their prominent supporters found shot, would soon cure Calder County of the managed news having to manufacture its reputation of being a criminal haven. That would end the intolerable example of how these small operators might strip the big outfits of their easy profits, and many decades of power.

  There was only a faint nightlight from the rear left corner bedroom window as Clampton and some of his men approached from the backside. From previous scouting, he knew it was a bedroom shared by the two Danner kids. His target destination, the window on the right, was completely dark and it concerned him the most. Its bottom frame was slid up a few inches, probably for airflow, but it could also be used as a gun port. The man shifted to put the flank of his horse more in front of him, in case Danner had them in his rifle sights.

  Cabe Wilkins, to the left of Clampton, was leading his horse, making himself a perfect target. The idiot didn’t even have his pistol in his hand. What? Did he think this was a social call? There were two men approaching from the rear at the other window, with the other eight men closing in from the front. There were no side doors or windows to cover.

  It was a moonless night, selected for that very reason, but there were too few clouds to obscure the faint glow of stars from the plane of the Milky Way, now halfway above the horizon. Danner was ex-Army, and had fought a fierce alien enemy in two campaigns on other colony worlds. Even without the military hardware he’d had to turn in when discharged, there was little doubt his rifle could pick some of them off at this close range, even in the dim light. Stealth, until they reached the shelter of the thick log walls was their main protection.

  The four men at the rear of the house gained the relative safety of the back wall, one man posted to either side of the two back windows. Clampton used his embedded transducer, located behind his right ear, to mutter to Jace Wilkins, his second in command with the eight men at the front, that the back was now covered.

  Jace was dumb enough to think it was an honor to lead the larger number of riders to the front porch, with its two windows and single door, each with gun slits in the heavy wood shutters and thick door. It was from there that Danner, and his wife, or possibly his preteen son, had fired on the riders on the previous two raids. The barn, the feedlot gate, loading chutes, the feed lot cattle, and watering hole were all visible from the front of the house, and they were the property Danner was determined to protect.

  It was a shot from the front of the house that had nearly killed one of the six men Clampton led the last time, two months ago. That time, all six riders were on the far side of the feedlot, moving fast on another moonless night, chasing the livestock through the torn down fencing, when multiple accurate shots struck some of them. Several torso hits were deflected by the partial old military body armor many of the hired guns wore. As foreman on the Double T ranch, Clampton could afford better and more comfortable upper body protection, such as his flexible and padded Smart Fabric penetration proof fabric. Not that a head shot wouldn’t kill him, as one had almost killed Frank Ballenger.

  The plan this time was to convince Danner to come out without a fight, in order to protect his family from
harm. He’d be asked to surrender as a practical response to a sheer fabrication, which Clampton had thought up when he proposed this plan to his boss, Nathaniel Egerton.

  Clampton’s main gripe was that Egerton had told him that someone else had to do the talking. Danner would recognize Clampton even in the dark through a closed door, from his nasal twang, due to past meetings in a court in Bison, when Travis had testified against him. The man would certainly refuse to surrender without a fight if he knew Clampton was present. That was the only reason Jace would get to bang on the front door and do the talking.

  Jace’s voice came back to him through the transducer embedded behind his right ear, but he was speaking a bit too loud in Clampton’s opinion. “We’re at the edge of the porch.”

  Stepping around the corner of the house and away from the partly opened window, he answered softly, “Get up on the porch, with men on each side of the windows and doors, damn it. You’ll be targets out there. And keep your voice down before you’re ready to bang on the door.”

  “We’ll have to tie the horses to his hitch and he’ll see them.”

  Clampton shook his head in dismay. “He ain’t gonna think you walked here dumbass. Eight horses will show him he’s outnumbered. Get your ass going, before he wakes up and has time to think.” Jace is smarter than his horse, he thought, but not by a lot. His saving grace, it that applied to Jace, was that like Clampton, he was a fast draw and willing to kill anyone for money.

  There was some muffled boot clumping from the front of the, house as eight men moved up onto the porch. As they moved away from the tethered horses, there were a couple of snorts and a nicker heard. Cabe’s horse nickered in reply, and Clampton tensed, in case Danner or his wife awakened. In afterthought, he wished they had left the four horses of the rear guard tied in the nearby trees with the three heifers they brought. He needn’t have worried. He’d overlooked the deep sleep that hard ranch work produced for a family without hired hands to help.