Koban 4: Shattered Worlds

by Stephen W Bennett

  They reported to their waiting people what the future with their “no longer eldest” former rulers would have been, and it was eventual deliberate Prada extermination. When asked what the Krall thought of their thousands of years of loyal service and sacrifices? They learned they were considered detested, weak animals, which would do anything to survive.

  Trumdor added a final personal opinion, before they went to meet the next group of those seeking technological education. “The Krall will not be the galaxy’s only aggressive and arrogant species, bent on ruling others or bending them to their wills. There is no other species than humans that my people would want to ally with, if we meet a more sophisticated version of the Krall in the future.”

  Shivar darted his head forward multiple times in solid agreement, as Grass spread her arms in a gesture that showed she viewed the Torki position as reasonable caution.

  ****

  The four volunteers were in the newly constructed and only hospital on Haven, with the awkward name, proposed energetically by the ever forceful and influential Maggi Fisher. The Multiple Alien Species Hospital, or M.A.S.H., was her brainchild, one which none of those that agreed to the name realized that it was partially derived from a military description from a long forgotten era, over six hundred years ago. The original Mobile Army Surgical Unit’s function was vastly different than was this fixed-in-place hospital, designed for use by four species. Maggi had encountered the neat sounding acronym via her love of old entertainment shows and movies, of the pre-spaceflight era.

  The patients today were all humans, but they were gathered in the Raspani wing’s surgical theatre. It didn’t resemble a surgical ward to them very much, since the normal patients were not shaped very human and laid on long narrow couches rather than beds, legs hanging to the sides, with arm and headrests at one end. However, the automated chip insertion device in this ward had been reprogramed, to perform a different task than inserting a mind enhancer chip through the top of a Raspani’s skull and into the brain.

  Maggi was grinning at the four “experimental animals,” as she had called them. Mel Rigson and Cal Branson were experienced as medical technicians, although out of touch with even the current human technology, since they’d last trained for their skills on the old Flight of Fancy, before it was captured and taken to Koban. Joe Longstreet was a spec ops captain, and Alex Born was a physicist, originally from the Old Colony of Rhineland II, but a citizen of Koban ever since his passenger ship was captured by the Krall twenty-three years ago.

  The attractive little blonde sprite had lost none of her diabolical humor, which she had honed at others expense for much of her hundred and twelve years. She looked towards Grass and Coldar, the Raspani and Torki scientists, which were here to provide communication contacts for the experiments about to commence. “Gentle Men, our two distinguished guests are ready, and Grass has assured me this will be painless, despite cutting off the tops of your skulls for the Raspani insertion device to reach the prefrontal lobes of your brains.”

  She enjoyed the startled looks on the faces of the four subjects, who had never heard this was even a consideration, for what they anticipated would be a simple outpatient procedure. They had seen the Raspani receive their mind enhancers in mere minutes, and then walk out with a small bandage on their head.

  Grass made the sputter sound of a confused Raspani. “It was never proposed to open the entire top of their heads. The insertion device will use an entry through what you call the nasal passage, with a minimal opening by a needle, with no pain. There is no need to expose the entire brain. That would be unnecessarily dangerous.”

  She grinned mischievously, “Oh…, I must have just assumed that. Your way sounds much better Grass.”

  Rigson and Branson, long acquainted with Maggi’s sense of humor, had quickly realized she was pulling their legs, but Longstreet barely knew her and had looked acutely uncomfortable. Born had one of those science minds that took things said to him seriously, because he himself always spoke and thought deliberately, and honestly.

  With her joke revealed, but a wayward thought planted, Born now experienced some reservations about a machine implanting a device in his most precious tool, his brain.

  “Show me again the size of the needle, and the chip it will contain. Describe how the insertion is monitored, and how the proper placement is determined. I only brought just the one brain with me, you know.”

  Maggi, now a bit sorry for her warped attempt at humor, called on a presumably more “trustworthy” source to explain. “Rafe, you have studied the superconductor links in our brains, and the neuron connections the Olts and mind enhancers make as they automatically connect. Perhaps you should describe the process.”

  Rafe flashed a look of annoyance at Maggi, for triggering doubt in the volunteers, whom they previously had solidly on board for this procedure. “Maggi is known more for her ability to make herself laugh than for a good bedside manner. Doctor Born, I believe you have a communications transducer embedded behind your right ear, do you not?”

  “Yes. I’ve had one for almost a year.”

  “The Raspani designed chip is about the same length as that, but half the diameter, so the needle to make the insertion is correspondingly smaller. You will have a local anesthetic, administered by the insertion equipment as it goes in, similar to the infirmary equipment used to embed transducers. You will feel a slight pressure at the moment of insertion through bone, but no pain. We monitor the process on three scanners placed at right angles to each other, which can be moved where you can see the three dimensional image if you wish. The precise chip positioning is not very critical at all, because the smaller-than-a-rice-grain chip will be left in the bone of either your left or right frontal sinus cavity, and sealed off as we withdraw. Only the chip’s tip, with the linkage elements exposed will reach through the inside of your skull. You’ve watched the scans of the Raspani chips growing fine filaments to connect to their brains. This will do the same to the two sides of the prefrontal lobe. We will never even touch your brain with the probe.” He indicated the waiting scanners next to the insertion machine.

  “Who will go first?”

  Rigson beat Cal Branson by a heartbeat, and said, “Me. I’ve watched this type procedure before. I’ll go first. What do you call the thing anyway? Always saying ‘chip’ sounds too generic.”

  Rafe scratched his chin. “I hadn’t given a name any thought. It’s to facilitate communications with Olts and mind enhancers, data exchanges with them, and between those of us with one of these chips.” He looked to Maggi and the others for naming suggestions.

  Branson was faster than Rigson this time. “It will let us communicate by Mind Tap with other Kobani remotely, right? How about Tapcom as a name, or Comtap?”

  A few minutes of discussion later, and Comtap was chosen for the name and the purpose of the new chips, since it was similar sounding to “com link,” an expression already widely used.

  With computer guidance, the process was completed in less than five minutes, and the Raspani probe, choosing the most open nasal passage from scanner images, quickly and effectively navigated the path through that bit of human anatomy without difficulty, or needing any helpful intervention.

  As Branson took his turn on the tilted back human style seat, Coldar explained to Rigson that the chip linkage might require several minutes. Branson’s procedure shaved a minute from the first insertion, and Longstreet was already in the seat when Rigson made a comment.

  “I can feel the linkage I believe. Grass, your mind enhancement device appears open for connection, I think. I suppose I’d call it ready to communicate, and I sense those are your mental images, from when we Mind Tapped previously. I can recognize your thoughts even though we are not physically touching.”

  Grass’s normally slightly wrinkled forehead became flat, indicating if not a frown, at least confusion. “My device is open to you, although I have not yet sought to link with you, because it seemed too soon to
try. You are sure it is me you sense?”

  “Yes, because I sense Coldar is to my other side, and has suddenly closed off his device to me. Oh, there it is back. Yes, I can sense your thoughts Coldar. He just tested blocking me, and then opened his Olt to me. I think this works, at least with an Olt.”

  Grass made a deliberate effort to open a link with Rigson’s Comtap device, and was promptly overwhelmed with the intensity and volume of thoughts and sensations. She drew back physically, and had to close off the link quickly.

  “I’m sorry Grass,” Rigson apologized. “I felt your open link, and I hurried to greet you, and I think I was too enthusiastic.”

  Coldar confirmed the intensity of his own linkage a moment ago. “I needed to reduce the strength of your strong signal. It was more powerful than when my entire Lodge is with me and we have a group discussion. I believe it is due to your superconducting nervous system. I can attenuate the intensity without difficulty, but it surprised me.”

  Grass returned to the mental link with more caution. “That is better. I was as open to you as I would be to another Raspani’s mind enhancer, and it was as if you were shouting into my mind. I believe we could share communication and thoughts with considerable separation of distance. Perhaps even from orbit.”

  Rigson turned to his friend, “Hey Cal. I see you have just joined the club. I sense you as if we were touching hands. This is amazing! We can share Mind Taps across the room, like the Torki and Raspani do now.”

  Hearing this, Coldar offered a correction. “I do not experience anything with other Torki or Raspani like I do with a Mind Tap with one of you. When I use my Olt for communication with them, the experience is more like your transducer communications. When I receive a data transfer from another of my people it is not like our Olt conversations, and arrives without my knowing what it is, and then I can sense it afterwards as if it was an old memory. With you just now, a Comtap communication was much more than a conversation that I receive, it was mental sensations, your feelings and mental images. An Olt conversation is a remote, one dimensional form of your Mind Tap.”

  Longstreet, having completed the process by now, had also discovered he could link to the others, as if using his Mind Tap ability. He could exclude anyone or everyone, selectively, because he tested for that. “Coldar,” he asked, “we want to be able to learn things that you have stored on your Olts or mind enhancers by data transfer, as you do between Olts. What is some knowledge that I would not have that is stored on your Olt, which you can open to me? Let me see if I can receive the information, and understand what it is. Nothing too complex, I hope. I’m a soldier, not a scientist.”

  “For us Joseph, you need to know what you are asking to receive, and I must allow that.”

  “Call me Joe, please. I don't know what I don't know. Tell me what to request, and make it available from your Olt, then ask me what I learned.”

  “Joe, try to request landing procedures for a migration ship. I will open that memory storage for you.”

  Longstreet and Coldar held still for perhaps thirty seconds. Then Coldar asked, “What is the proper setting for a lower attitude thruster angle, for a water landing as you set down, and when do you open the water doors on the bottom for ballast?”

  Longstreet seemed to think for almost a minute, before finally giving an answer. “The water doors are opened one ship length high, just before a sea landing, to allow ballast water inside to prevent rolling, and they are never opened on a hard surface landing. However, the data tells me that the lower attitude thrusters are never used below three ship diameters high when making a water landing. That’s because they must not risk being submerged in cold water while hot. They’re retracted and the portals are closed. There is no standard proper angle for hard surface landings, and after they are shut down for water landings, they retract into the lower hull and their outer watertight doors seal shut. I searched all of what my new memory contained, and that’s all could find on lower thruster angles.”

  Coldar made a bow of respect. “You would need practice and a review of the entire file, but I believe you have received the basic information on how to land a migration ship.”

  Longstreet grinned. “It’s almost like I had a form of sleep learning. I don't recall learning the knowledge, but when I looked for it, I found it in there like a detailed memory. There is a great deal more available besides what you asked me about.”

  The Torki bobbed its body in agreement. “That is much like our experience when we transfer data between Olts. It is there like an old memory when we seek it, but not before, and we did not learn it over an extended time.”

  Almost unnoticed Alex Born had finished his procedure several minutes ago, and was sensing the new communication flow around him. He was eager to sample a particular information transfer. “Grass, I would like to request a transfer of data concerning the theoretical reasons for the short-range limits for certain quantum effects, such as the Q-rupters and Katushas exhibit. There must be a common principle involved.”

  This complex technical request nearly caused the other three volunteers heads to spin, and Maggi rolled her eyes as she stood out of sight, behind Born.

  The Raspani, an approving posture suggested by its stance, cautioned Born, “The transfer time will be very much longer than the data Captain Joe received from Coldar.”

  Longstreet interjected, “It’s just Joe, not Captain Joe.”

  Proving that both Grass and Alex Born had picked up a few idioms from Maggi, they responded simultaneously with the same archaic word.

  “Whatever.”

  Chapter 4: Not For the Feint of Heart

  Greeves and Reynolds were in Nabarone’s War Room, watching them implement the plans for the “Fighting Withdrawal,” as the anticipated Krall offensive appeared to be on the verge of starting.

  Major Caldwell described part of the plan, “The civil evacuations are finished, thanks to the advanced planning to move them back early and gradually. The roads, rails, and airways won’t be clogged with refugees, so our forces will be able to pull back quickly as needed. We’ve planted mines and explosives to do as much damage as we can without risking our troops. We even set the automatic home timers in thousands of residences and apartment buildings, to keep lights switching off and on, and to power some human shaped figures placed in front of windows, to draw warriors to the supposed kills.”

  Greeves and Reynolds, both natives of Poldark, had the same question.

  “Where did you find artificial human figures?” Thad asked.

  “Well, vaguely human shaped, mostly.” Caldwell laughed. “We stripped stores, people’s attics, garages, and basements of Christmas figures. Some are complex computer animated displays, some are simple inflated Smart Plastic shells that play songs or music, and wouldn’t fool a person into thinking they were live humans, even at a distance. How many automated Wise Men have you been fooled into thinking were real people in a Nativity scene? Have you ever thought a singing snowman was plausible? Poldark’s Christian heritage is almost as commercial as Earth’s. We expect Santa Claus to place a lot of Krall on his naughty list.”

  “Your purpose in doing this is nefarious, I presume?” prompted Sarge.

  “Of course. For example, at Novi Sad we have Krall sensitive proximity charges in about a third of the first block of houses near the river where the Krall need to cross, and in all of the tall apartment buildings. For the high rises, animated figures are placed at upper floor windows, to draw multiple warriors up to them.”

  “Sarge,” Thad quipped, “I’m sure your former stock of inflatable lady friends will finally achieve their own climax.”

  “Very funny, grease man,” he answered, playing off Greeves last name, using a nickname he’d learned Thad once had, and disliked.

  Not rising to the taunt, Thad had another question for Caldwell. “The dummies won’t fool them long, and I was told your retreats will be faster than in past Krall attacks. We weren’t in on your planning af
ter we left, what’s the deal Howard? Using delay tactics or just giving away territory?”

  “More than that. The Krall will suffer some early losses, proving we have fought back, but we intend to conduct a fighting retreat to conserve our forces for the counter attacks when they start their own partial pullback. If we didn’t expect that withdrawal, we wouldn’t give up the ground so easily. We think we can take most of it back.”

  “Where is Henry, if the Krall assaults are about to begin? We assumed he was here when we landed this morning.”

  “Both you and Tet said he needed to suck up to his Lady bosses. I used to do some of that for him as his navy liaison. He’s off planet right now, watching what’s about to unfold with Navy Chief of Staff Admiral Bledso, on the Invincible, the dreadnaught flagship of the fleet elements in the outer system. Bledso wanted to be here, to use this to show the president her involvement beyond purely naval matters. She wants to be Chairfem of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when the present Chairfem retires. If the assaults don’t happen as predicted, Henry might have to do more than eat his words to keep his job.

  “To back Bledso in having Henry fired, if he proves to be a ‘chicken little’ and the sky doesn’t fall, is Lieutenant General Cadifem, Henry’s immediate superior. The Invincible is poised just behind our moon, where the general is within communications range if we need a command decision to alter our plans. There’s no need for him to stand in this room physically, while the assault unfolds halfway around the planet. By being with them, he can pepper his commentary with items that boost his prescience in predicting the Krall action.”

  With Mirikami’s predictions still holding sway, Nabarone was earning capitol with the Lady Generals and the Lady Admirals ranked above him. It was against his nature, but as suggested, he was taking the credit when he presented evidence for both an upcoming enemy offensive, and the clues there would be a subsequent withdrawal by some Krall forces from Poldark. He warned them that the withdrawal would be for initiating an invasion on another human planet. His early predictions seemed more plausible when the atypical pattern of enemy behavior was pointed out to his superiors, in detail. Once the unexpected Krall behavior was suspected, the evidence was there.