There were enormous and immensely hot pieces thrown out from the core, trailing thick wisps of the atmosphere they had torn their way through, with gasses and smaller fragments following along in their wake like long streamers. The pieces of core material were slowly wobbling in and out, vast molten blobs of glowing red and yellow viscous liquid, their gravity and internal friction trying to dampen the waves induced in them at their violent formation. This was much more disorderly than the builders had intended for this process.
Constant flashes of lightning ripped through or slashed between different colors and compositions of multiple ten thousand mile wide blobs of gasses, which were spreading away from the center of the explosion.
Pildon had no idea how the ship obtained these images. From comments made by the more traveled and technologically experienced Krall warriors, they didn’t understand how it was done while in a Jump Hole either. Pildon assumed it was related to how the ship had been able to trace back to the world from which he had traveled, before he had even boarded this ship. He wanted to know, but the incurious Krall didn’t suggest that he ask, so he kept quiet.
The explosion was looking more asymmetrical as time passed. Huwayla had said the event horizon had been slightly off center in the core, because of the distance from which she was made to work. However, the side of the planet in the direction of its original orbital motion was expanding away noticeably faster than on the opposite side. The greater velocity of the jets of material ahead in the orbit was forcing those fragments farther out from the star, and therefore away from the real target of the Krall attack, the presumed inhabited inner planet.
Pildon was unable to draw comfort from the delayed destruction that would be delivered to the inner system from these faster moving pieces of death and annihilation, which would arc away for a considerable time before falling back. He was more concerned with the retrograde fragments that were already moving towards the inner solar system they had just departed. He needed to initiate the destruction of three more planets in other systems inhabited by creatures the Krall called humans, to ensure the survival of his own family. He also wanted to survive, but his mate, two young cubs, his parents, and two siblings and their families were his responsibility to protect.
The two aides to the Tor Gatrol had called humans a cursed and treacherous Worthy Enemy, which sounded contradictory. Pildon knew there had been many species fought and defeated by the Krall, most of which had not involved the Krall’tapi and the living ships. Just over a handful of races had been confronted by use of the living ships, controlled by the only people they apparently would respond to, the Krall’tapi. The first Krall use of the ships as weapons had been almost frivolous, and served to educate them on the limits of using a ship with a sense of morality. Their early use taught the Krall that they should conserve them for greater need than for casual punishment and the pleasure of destruction. This time the need appeared to be greater than for any previous enemy, suggesting their foe had offered greater opposition than had any previously faced.
Human opposition to another Krall conquest, whatever they looked like, whatever they did or believed, was something a Krall’tapi could appreciate and cheer. These creatures had somehow provoked an extreme Krall response against their species. It was unfortunate for them, but continued survival of the Krall’tapi was Pildon’s concern, and aside from cheering on human resistance, the preservation of his personal part of his people’s population took priority.
He suppressed his curiosity, and considered the next world to be disrupted. It was smaller, and shouldn’t take as long to detonate, and if fewer fragments of the shattering core were expelled with less force, the rain of debris into the inner system would be postponed longer, giving them more time to move to the next two targets.
Huwayla suddenly replaced the image of the last system with their destination star’s details. As before, the primary star was at center, and the greater brightness shown hinted at the slightly larger and hotter star than at Meadow. A large gas giant orbited close to the star, with two rocky planets widely separated from that one, then a dense asteroid belt that was shepherded by an ice giant, which Pildon knew was the next target. The colored rings that represented the full orbits of each planet showed that the largest rocky planet was ahead in its orbit compared to the ice giant, and on the same side of the star. Pildon wasn’t sure, but he thought this might provide for even more time before the debris reached the probable inhabited planet. The largest planet was so close to the star it probably completed it’s “year” in three or four days. Telour had ruled out its use as the target, despite its mass and probable heavy fragmentation.
Surprisingly, the ship asked a question. “Pildon, are the original destination coordinates you provided required for my use, or may our arrival point be shifted slightly to avoid a number of objects?”
Pildon cautiously looked to the senior aide for the safe answer.
“That must be the four clanships waiting for us. Tell it we expect them to be there, but ask if they are too close, and if we should shift our White Out point for safety?” The term White Out didn’t apply to this ship’s exit from Tachyon Space, but it would know what he meant. This intelligent vessel wasn’t going to risk an intercept with another ship.
The question was repeated by Pildon, “Huwayla, we expect to meet four clanships here, as we did previously, but are they too close to your coordinates to safely exit? We can shift the destination point if there is a risk.”
The ship’s answer was informative and confusing, at least to Pildon. “There are four clanships waiting close by, two others are much farther away, and one is tumbling but is well clear. None of those occupies the arrival coordinates. However, there are metallic pieces expanding from three different locations near the intended coordinates, which are now passing through the destination position I was given. I have paused our travel. Should I wait for the material to move clear of the original coordinates, or do you want to change the arrival coordinates?”
None of the Krall warriors felt confused. When the snarls of rage subsided, with Pildon cowering at the command station, the senior aide told him, “Have the ship disrupt these enemy clanships. They have attacked our protectors before we arrived.”
Now the Krall’tapi was truly in a bind. He had an enraged Krall he needed to defy, and an intelligent ship that would refuse the order he’d just been told to relay. Worse, the ship might refuse and then cease to obey his future instructions.
“Sub leader, that order may terminate our mission if I pass it to the ship. The Tor Gatrol will blame us all.” It was worth a try, since the same ploy worked previously.
The second aide interceded, and coincidentally provided Pildon with the name of the higher status aide, who his status and rank aside was clearly the more stupid of the two. “Dolbor, these Olt’kitapi ships will not deliberately kill. To insist will make it unresponsive.”
“To take no revenge is dishonorable.” Dolbor slashed the air with his left talons.
That remark provided Pildon his safe way forward. “Dolbor, is the dishonor settled if we shift coordinates away from here, and complete the mission?”
Subsequently, following that voice of reason, Dolbor allowed Pildon to pose new questions to Huwayla. Then they Jumped several light hours ahead of the target planet. Again, the placement accuracy of the event horizon within the core of the planet destined for “disruption” was not precisely at its center from that range, but would be adequate for the purpose demanded. This world soon would generate thousands of large, and billions of small fragments, flying about the system for thousands of years to come, wreaking havoc on the other planets in the system. From their undetected position of isolation, it would require slightly less than fourteen uninterrupted hours.
****
“Tet, it hasn’t arrived. It’s well past the time we expected. I told the patrol boat Comtap specialist to repeat the warning to the Governor to start evacuations. The specialist had to link to the
Hub president and the navy, to get the encrypted authorization code to convince her to start the process. He told me President Medford has Carol Slobovic assigned to her office”
Mirikami sighed. “Thad, I don't know if the Krall figured out you were waiting for them, or if they have simply bypassed that system. You said you knocked out one of the four clanships, but it wasn’t destroyed. Could it have warned them somehow?”
“It appeared dead, with a huge hole just below the command deck, and open to vacuum. The Krall never play dead unless they are. We didn’t pick up any signals after we hit that one.”
OK. By the way, I did know Carol was sent by Bledso to be our contact with the president. I spoke through her to the president after Meadow was hit. The poor girl got an earful I’m sure, particularly when I cut Medford and Bledso both off, to focus on the real problem. Considering I pissed them off doing that, I still wasn’t very much help to you I’m afraid.”
“I don't think the Krall have a means to talk to the Olt’kitapi ship while it’s in Jump status.”
“I suppose not. Thad, I heard you say all of your team has active scans going, and didn’t you send your two fully stealthed ships closer to Melnor, to try and find that needle in the haystack?” They had looked up the official name for the ice giant.
“I sent them, Tet. But, if there’s no gamma ray burst we won't get a delayed notice of an arrival even a light hour away, so we don’t have a direction to start looking first. That’s a huge volume to search. An active scan requires six hours in round trip time out to three light hours. I sent two more ships and had them all try micro Jumps and do active scans from a one light-hour radius out from Melnor, ahead, behind, and to the top, bottom and sides along its orbit. I’m personally checking near the hot Jovian, and our sixth ship is looking near the mars sized mining world, just in case.”
Mirikami sounded dejected. “Hindsight is perfect. If we had known from how far away the destruction could be triggered, I could have had a hundred Kobani ships searching with us.”
“Tet, until you figured out which four planets were targets, there were hundreds of worlds where we could stand guard. Even a hundred of our ships weren’t enough, and they can’t travel fast enough to get ahead of this damned thing.”
“Well, I think I’m already ahead of it now, and I know very closely where it will appear, if I only knew better when it would appear. Obviously, killing the clanships in advance didn’t work for us, so my group has to try to be close enough to micro Jump onto it soon after it arrives. If it bypassed you, it could be here any time. I need a better estimate of travel time. Jakob thinks he can calculate to within thirty minutes of the time from Bootstrap to here if he knew it had moved on promptly after apparently detecting the ambush.”
“Hell, we don't know if it did move on, Tet. If it only repositioned, it has had over a half day to work. I had the patrol boat play the canary in the coalmine, by Jumping thirty light seconds from Melnor. If it sees anything happen there, we will know it has just left the system, since at Meadow it departed as soon as the explosion was triggered. That was when the four clanships were free to Jump in and attack Noreen’s squadron.”
They didn’t have long to wait for news. Sixteen minutes later an excited link was made from the patrol boat. “Captain Mirikami, Colonel Greeves, Melnor is breaking up!”
This news initiated the same panicked activity as at Meadow, which would quickly involve Thad’s squadron in woefully inadequate rescue attempts of three point six billion people. That rescue would need to be completed within weeks, perhaps a month, depending on which way the faster moving fragments went first. As with Meadow, it was an impossible task, even with in-system shipping and any Jump ships that came from outside.
Like he had done with Noreen, Mirikami wished Thad’s squadron luck and was about to break the link to consider his own next moves. Just before he signed off, he heard a hurried report from one of Thad’s group.
“Captain, this is Frank Constansi, my ship the Spider Hole had earlier picked up a radar return of something about two light hours from us, directly ahead of Melnor in its orbit. I was stationed one light hour out in the same direction. We were using continuous scans, and it was there a few minutes then it disappeared. It could have been a reflection from a rotating space rock, and we each had a number of those false alarms. I didn’t think it mattered at the time since it was gone, but it vanished almost exactly three hours before the warning from the patrol boat that the explosion had started. We just Jumped out here and don’t see any rocks at all that could have been what we saw. I looked at the recordings again, and it was alone, and had about the right size of a return signal before it was gone. It seems a good candidate target, now that we know the bastard stayed near Melnor.”
“Frank thanks for the time information on its probable departure. If it was three light-hours from Melnor, and the explosion started three hours later, the signal to trigger the explosion was either electromagnetic or gravitational, and it took three hours to reach Melnor from the Dismantler. We now know almost exactly when it departed for Pittsburg II, three hours before the blast started at Bootstrap. Jakob will have a better estimate of its arrival time here. That helps old friend, good luck.”
Maggi, who had been on the Mark’s Bridge with her husband, boosting his morale for the last week after leaving K1, said, “The Spider Hole combat team comes through again.”
Mirikami both nodded and shrugged, wearing a weary and sad expression. “Frank’s information is vital, but how well I’ll come through using it remains to be seen. I’m not leading a fight against a Krall hunter killer octet this time, with only a handful of lives in the balance.
“Pittsburg II and the Earth-Mars coalition have eighteen to twenty billion people between them, and so far I haven’t helped the six billion people on Meadow and Bootstrap that will die.”
Maggi grabbed his hand and looked him firmly in the eye, sharing her deepest feelings through that Tap. “Tet, if you had died on that Testing Day on Koban, twenty four years ago, there would not be any Kobani around to resist the Krall. You are not responsible for the evil the enemy does. You are certainly responsible for giving humanity a chance to fight that evil, and perhaps hold it back long enough that we can find a way to win.”
Encouraged by her unflagging support, he smiled. “I don’t have any tricks planned out in advance this time, but I’ll think of something.”
“Love, you’d better leap out of that spider hole again, jump on them and kick some ass. I’ve been betting on you for too long to let you lose now. I’ll smack your package if you don’t get your butt into thinking gear.” She kissed him, and stopped only when there was an uncomfortable shuffling of feet and one snicker from the other two control consoles.
Jorl Breaker, who had snickered, asked, “You two want to get a room?”
Fred Saber was red faced and embarrassed, to see the two eldest people he knew and admired, acting like love struck teens. Even if they did look young, he knew them from before, and couldn’t visualize them as having a private life.
“Oh, get off it Fred,” Maggi told him. “Did I act embarrassed when I caught you playing finger puppet with Katelyn Martin in her bedroom, when I housed her while her parents were on a raid last year?”
More blood than you’d think could rush to a face proved he was definitely more mortified now. “I’d have preferred you to be embarrassed than what you did. Offering us contraceptives was humiliating. Besides, we did try to keep it private. You simply barged in on us.”
She grinned sweetly. “I’ll bet you two were a lot more careful after that, weren’t you?”
Jorl didn’t make it easy on him either. “You and Katelyn? She’s way too glitzy for you man. Outa your league.” She was Noreen and Dillon’s daughter, and took after her mother’s beauty and figure.
“Oh yea, well when you…” Fred didn’t get to finish his retort.
Mirikami, his conservative New Honshu upbringing leaving him sexuall
y suppressed compared to most Human Space cultures, cleared his throat.
“Hurumph. Let’s focus on ideas with the rest of the squadron to intercept this killer ship, shall we?” Perfectly aware that it was he and Maggi, especially her, that had pushed them off onto the amusing and lighter topic. She’d probably done it on purpose to change their moods.
Only Maggi had just said something off the cuff, about jumping on the Krall and kicking their asses, which had him tugging at his lower lip. He’d do exactly that when the ship arrived. “Jakob, the Dismantler ship Jumped from Bootstrap three hours before we received the report that Melnor had exploded. With the previous guess of travel time from K1 to Meadow, and then Meadow to Bootstrap, and the known distances between each system, I want an estimate of its arrival time here in this system.”
“Sir, Tau Boötis is 51 light years from Earth, and Eta Boötis is 37 light years from Earth. However, they are not on a perfect straight line towards Earth, and are nearly 16 light years from each other. If the ship traveled at the same rate as estimated from Meadow to Bootstrap, its travel time from Bootstrap to this system would indicate it arrived approximately two hours and fifty six minutes ago, with an error bar of…”
“Shit!” That sounded from two voices nearly simultaneously.
Without attribution of who shouted the profanities, Jakob summarized, as if the two exclamations had not confirmed full and shocked comprehension. “It is here now if this was its destination. I estimate its equivalent Normal Space rate of travel is between 250 and 255 light years per hour of sidereal time.”
Jorl and Fred glanced at one another, wondering if their elders would have chastised them for foul language. Then they both expanded their views of the four clanships that were two light hours from their own position near Poseidon, the presumptive target planet. After their initial examination of the four clanships when they arrived, observing they weren’t doing anything but waiting, everyone had focused attention on the action at Bootstrap, where they knew the Dismantler was. It hadn’t seemed possible for the ship to reach this system yet.
Koban 4: Shattered Worlds Page 76