Koban 4: Shattered Worlds

by Stephen W Bennett

  Four others of the destroyers, used as missiles, had solid hits on individual clanships on the opposite side of the planet. These impacts were all clustered in a relatively low, three hundred mile high equatorial orbit. That was where the Krall had expected to gather the fleet for a coordinated mass Jump to New Glasgow. With no reason not to follow the original plan after the human navy had withdrawn, many pilots stayed in that low orbit.

  Telour quickly gave the order for all ships in orbit to scatter more widely, to avoid the clustering that would draw the subsequent passes close to them. Passes, which he informed them, would be repeated. He certainly understood this mode of attack. It was a low mass version of a Hammer style of attack. A destroyer didn’t have the near indestructible structure of the collapsed matter of a Hammer, but they obviously were deadly, even if only good for a single impact.

  The Krall knew how to defend against this when the tactic was recognized. “The humans are using the tactic of repeated passes and Jumping back to pass again at high velocity. Spread out and change your vector between passes, so they will not find you in the same orbit when they return. At high velocity, they cannot adjust course very much to adjust to your change in movements. We will blast them as they pass though until there are no more.”

  There, he thought, let them fly through a shifting cloud of particles and hope randomly to strike any more of us.

  ****

  Mauss noted the dispersal of the clanships after the second pass of the old destroyers. “They have this one figured out Tet. Spreading out and changing orbits after a pass reduces the risk of a chance encounter when one of our AI guided rams return. Of course, they assume our D-Rams can’t receive position updates after their previous pass, which isn’t the case with us passively watching. It looks like all they did was angle away from their previous orbits, or boosted speed into a higher one. If they hold the new vectors until the next pass, Jakob can predict where some of them will be, and you can pass that along.”

  The old destroyers, proven too vulnerable to fight Krall clanships, had been slated for scrapping. It was Mauss’ idea to use them against the Krall in much the same way the enemy had used the Eight Balls against her second fleet. Mirikami’s contribution, to make them more unstoppable, was to have the otherwise empty AI piloted ships filled with dense iron rich asteroid material. That provided more momentum, and the pieces acted as scatter shot if the hulls were blasted open, releasing the high velocity pieces to deliver their damage over a wider area.

  Mirikami had also seen the orbital dispersal, and had the data from Jakob placed on a screen. The most confident predictions of future locations of a handful of clanships, those that had promptly altered directions and then held to the new orbit were better targets. “I’m sending these orbital parameters to Carol Slobovic, to relay to the AIs of the D-Rams before they jump back.”

  Carol was positioned out on the Oort cloud, where the D-Rams returned after a pass. There their AIs could receive updated coordinates for the next Jump inbound to Telda Ka, so they adjusted their exit into Normal Space better lined up with one or more clanships.

  The fifty-nine obsolete destroyers had already claimed twice their number in enemy ships, adding to the overall attrition, with nearly a thousand Krall craft either destroyed or seriously damaged.

  Mirikami shook his head. “If we’d had more of those Raspani Q-rupters, we could have let them finish loading all of their equipment, and then blow the majority of the clanships to hell once they were in orbit, ready to Jump. There’d be a dark equatorial ring around this planet for them to have to duck around for decades. The Krall don’t have any of those scavenger ships, like Poldark uses to clear up space trash.”

  Mauss smiled. “I’m happy your Raspani friends made as many as they did before your scouting mission, and thrilled they went unnoticed. What if the Krall had found them and they were removed. Then, instead of rupturing fusion bottles in their Dragons, trucks, and plasma cannons, they’d have had a couple of hundred new warheads for Worm missiles, to use against us.”

  “That wasn’t likely, Golda. We have the same standard Krall fusion bottles to test with, and our devices were colored and curved to look like the metal on the outside of a fusion bottle. They’re made to lie flat, instead of being mounted on a hand held handle. They attach magnetically to the underside of a bottle, completely out of sight. Those fusion bottles of theirs last for decades without maintenance, and only need fresh hydrogen fuel every couple of years.

  “These are like much of the oldest designs of Krall machinery, and were designed by the Olt’kitapi to be failsafe. They knew the Krall would be careless and reckless, abusing any tools they were given. Nevertheless, even the best designers probably never anticipated our willful sabotage. Not when a four-inch hole suddenly appears all the way through their magnetic plasma containers. The Krall never bother to shut down fusion bottles on anything they fight with, so the equipment is always ready for use. They leave them on idle, fusing hydrogen to maintain plasma to power their own magnetic confinement fields.

  “We had a tamper circuit on our Q-rupters, designed by our spec ops troops. If one of the devices were pulled free for examination without being disarmed, it would have activated and opened a hole through the fusion bottle. The violent and sudden plasma venting wouldn’t leave much to investigate, since the bottle would largely melt from the plasma venting, and there’d be no one alive that saw it close up to ask what had gone wrong. The Krall aren’t very curious, and they don’t value life enough to worry about safety.”

  Mauss was listening, but she had also been observing Krall dispositions and debris fields that were near the equatorial orbits. “Tet, it’s time for a Return Ghost, with them raised another thousand miles higher over the previous planetary positions. The planet and its rotation have moved everything well away from where the five task forces are looping in Tachyon Space. Have Jakob give you an updated set of coordinates for the new White Out points, and wait for your signal. This will be the last pass by the D-Rams even if any survive this pass. They won’t be effective anymore.

  “I think the clanships that appear to have been fully loaded are returning to land. That preserves the equipment they hold, and they can defend the domes and parked equipment from the ground. I’d think they’d want only the most nimble and empty ships in orbit to face our threats. The landing ships will make good targets for Chatsworth as they descend. She has a hundred more Novas to use on the orbiting clanships, and your people still have five to use. Your ships should use theirs first, as a distraction. Here’s what I propose to say to Chatsworth, and my suggestion of what she might do after the next Ghost.”

  Mirikami nodded as he listened, and Maggi grinned wickedly, looking like the mischievous pixie she now resembled. “I like your devious mind, Golda. I hope Chatsworth appreciates what that’s worth against these linear thinking bastards.”

  ****

  Telour repeated his angry snarls of before, when despite the orbital dispersal he’d ordered after each pass, six more clanships were destroyed as the destroyers performed White Outs a mere three thousand miles north of the portion of his fleet he’d kept aloft. They reached the more spread out clanships in a second and a half. There were fewer of the enemy craft this time, but two of them self-detonated when it appeared they would narrowly miss their intended targets. The spreading debris accomplished their task for them, but the other four successful ramming destroyers actually hit their targets, as if they had known exactly where they would be. Only three of them were seen to Jump away intact, after three others were destroyed without doing any damage.

  He spoke to his aides. “I see clanships changing orbits, but the next pass will be a small threat with so few remaining. I believe the human fleet will return to resume their attack. Alert every clan to expect them at any time. I don't believe they traveled far. That is why we couldn’t track them to their base worlds. We can’t predict where they will reappear, so all of the one thousand eighty ships I
ordered to stay in orbit should conserve missiles until there are targets they can see. We wasted too many missiles in the preemptive launches when they arrived much closer to the planet than we expected.”

  He neglected to mention that it was his own instructions to the first clanships to leave atmosphere that they preemptively fire at points one thousand miles above their dome loading areas. Those missiles had all overshot the enemy when they did White Outs five hundred miles lower.

  “They are free to fire missiles at any suspected enemy activity, because some of them must be present in their new stealth mode for observation. Order sixty-four clanships to search for anomalies in radiation or star field displacements to learn if we can detect them. Inform all pilots that I recommend they rise well above the debris fields spreading around Telda Ka.”

  He knew experienced pilots and commanders would consider this pointless novice level advice, but a high percentage of small clans lacked experience in space warfare. Smaller clans operated the majority of the still unloaded clanships up here, since more of them were forced to wait for the more important clans to load first. The least experienced pilots would now face the enemy. The Krall didn’t have many detailed histories of past space battles to educate ship commanders of some of the consequences. The histories would have a great deal more to teach on the subject after this.

  The widening debris fields now reminded Telour of the argument he himself had used against Parkoda, of Tanga clan, to avoid leaving the wreckage from destroyed captured human ships orbiting Koban. That point had originally been raised by the small human clan leader, Mirikami, also long dead, that the trash would complicate navigation. His argument was to save his people, but the orbital garbage aspect had helped Telour make his rival appear wasteful and inefficient to the Joint Council. Not a single Krall had cared about the twenty or thirty thousand human lives that would be lost. Now, thanks to human attacks, Telour controlled a base world that would be inconvenient to use, because of the Krall fleet’s own debris in orbit. It was a bit of irony that he didn’t appreciate in the slightest.

  He’d have to secure another base world, after he proved to the animals that being a worthy enemy didn’t mean they would be allowed to disrupt this Tor Gatrol’s plans again. He had a far harsher lesson in mind for them than Kanpardi had proposed. When the human fleet suddenly reappeared, he didn’t know if he should be pleased that his subordinates would see his predictions were accurate, or angered the humans dared return.

  ****

  Mirikami gave instructions to the ten other Kobani ships, five of them with Novas ready to launch. “The navy is going to White Out two thousand miles above the same five coordinate sets as before. They’ll launch a hundred Novas at orbital clanships, perhaps a thousand anti-ship missiles, and hundreds of ground attack missiles at domes. Then they’ll quickly Ghost again. They’ll pop out at 0835 Hub Standard Time, by your navy clocks.

  “Exactly thirty seconds before that time, I want the five of you with Novas to launch them from your portals, With the AIs set to Jump to whatever the predicted coordinates are of the five orbiting clanships I’ve just designated for each of you. Shadow them until then. We tracked seven of them that escaped from the Joint Council dome. They probably all carry high status clan leaders, and I frankly doubt we caught Telour in that blast, since the Krall still seem to have a well-coordinated central command system, and he was their Tor Gatrol. If so, we have another chance to get the bastard. You other five ships, approach the two other clanships out of that seven, and you will all fire several anti-ship missiles at each of those two, and do it just when the five Novas flare. Those distractions may help you catch them watching the others.

  “After that, all of you get back into full stealth, and accelerate hard away from your attack points. Be ready to Jump if needed because you are going to draw serious return fire when they spot the sources of so many missiles. If you do make a local near-planet Jump, you’ll have to activate your IFF to keep the navy from targeting your White Out coordinates, which will then also light you up for the Krall. Try not to Jump and stay concealed. Good shooting and good luck. Mirikami out.”

  Mauss asked the question any outsider would consider obvious. “You speak as if you know this Krall named Telour. Do you have some sort of personal history? I know you told us you were captives at one time.”

  Maggi fielded the question. “Not all of the captives became as directly involved with him as those of us on the Flight of Fancy. Tet used Telour’s personal rivalry with the Krall leader in charge of the raid that captured our ship, and traded our help against his rival for advantages granted to us. Tet found a way to use that inter clan friction to create our core of resistance, which on the surface helped Telour win status, but also saved our scientific equipment and technology, which we then used to work towards our real goal. To find a way to modify humans to be able to directly fight Krall warriors.

  “Telour was completely confident we’d all die within a year when he and the other Krall left us alone on a savage and extremely dangerous world, with animals we had little defense against. His last act was to destroy every power source he thought we had. The Krall pulled out and left us to our fate. Telour then led the first major raid, the one on Gribble’s Nook, because we had helped him win enough status to earn that privilege. Yes. We want him dead.”

  Mauss had listened with a sympathetic ear. “I relish hearing your full story, when you feel comfortable telling us the details. I can see that this Telour, in his current position and having the knowledge of you that he does, is a threat to your safety and you need to eliminate him.”

  Mirikami spoke now. “Not just for our safety. We know how ruthless and ambitious this Krall is, and he is one of the most dangerous to all of humanity. Telour is far smarter than the average Krall. He was handpicked for advancement by Kanpardi, the former Tor Gatrol and another impressively smart and ruthless leader. Those two leaders recognized human potential for innovative warfare, but neither would ever allow us to gain the upper hand over them. Particularly by using the shortcut genetic improvements our scientist were trying to relearn. An extinct human species is preferable to a species that might slow their progress in breeding their warriors to be the best killers in the galaxy. We Kobani have beaten them to that goal.”

  An eyebrow raised, Mauss gave the small man an appraising look. “Forgive me, but you don’t look all that deadly for a man.”

  He smiled gently, not at all offended. “You of all people should know that looks can be deceiving. Aside from my genetics giving me the physical strength and speed to outfight any individual unarmed warrior in hand to hand combat, my greater value is that I have repeatedly out thought them. I seem to understand how they think. I’ve had to do that when failure would have doomed me, and those that followed me.”

  He looked back at her and shrugged. “You for instance, as a short and stout older woman, don’t look like the best strategic mind in the navy, but you’ve proved that you are, in fights where your force was vastly overmatched. For example, we have yet to lose a single ship today, and a sizable part of the credit is due to your advice to the Fleet Admiral.

  “However, I warn you that Telour will pull out all stops to take extreme measures to hurt humanity after this. Even if we lost a sizable portion of our force here, that would not restore the damage that has been done to Telour’s greatest possession. That is his high status among all Krall. Since we will not lose that many ships, he will definitely go after what we value most, at the first opportunity. He will attack our populations, and the worlds where they live.”

  She looked skeptical. “They have taken a considerable amount of time to complete a takeover by invasion on Poldark, and had a tough time establishing their foothold on New Dublin. Now that we are gearing up for a larger war, it’s much harder to defeat our armies and to supply their own. You have helped in this, so you know that’s true. This particular invasion force has a questionable future on even an under populated Rim world.”r />
  “The retaliation will not be done by invasion. The Eight Balls we destroyed were not their ultimate weapons. They have a greater weapon, in limited numbers we’re told, which we have heard about from one of our alien allies. We don’t know how many of them they have or how they will be used. We understand they are some sort of advanced mining machines, which the ancient Olt’kitapi, who gave the Krall their start in space, intended to use while constructing enormous stellar habitats. Apparently, they planned to build a huge structure, or structures, which multiple civilizations could share in a single solar system. Possibly something like a Dyson Sphere. I believe we’ll soon find out what the machines do.”

  “My God, Mirikami. You let us stage this attack knowing they have another super weapon?”

  “Admiral, if we allowed them to exterminate us slowly, the way they preferred to do, humanity would never live to see it used. I assumed you and the navy believed it was better to fight them with the goal being our eventual victory. Space warfare appears to be the Krall’s weakness, because they have forced all past wars to take place on planets, where their physical capability was clearly superior, and enhanced their breeding program. However, if our victory ever appeared likely to happen, through any means, they would certainly use that weapon.”

  He glanced at the sensors and the time. “The next phase of this day’s battle is about to start. My people on the ground are about to go in harm’s way.” That ended the discussion for now, but he knew Mauss would certainly resume the discussion when the fight was over.

  ****

  Reynolds had had “ants in his pants,” as he phrased it, for over an hour. “It’s bad enough to be parked right next to the damn enemy, but having to defend against our own side is too frigging much. Now the navy’s coming back to shoot at us again? Let’s do some attacking for a change, and blow hell out of the clanships inside our perimeter. Then lift off in support of the Shadows.”