Koban 4: Shattered Worlds

by Stephen W Bennett

  She had been obligated to ask if he wanted to meet the other warriors, but the nature of the mission meant that the Tor’s only direct link was through her. If she failed him, that link was easily broken, as it was with Koldok. However, she would not fail. With a successful return, no matter what was discovered, her future was secure with the Tor. He rewarded loyalty and performance.

  Chapter 23: Discovered Check

  The Mark was standing watch in a Normal Space drive powered stationary position at two hundred miles, and not in orbit. It had been there alone for three days. Mirikami knew the round trip time between Koban and K1, and he had allowed for this margin of response time. He had the Mark constantly positioned on the side towards where the Krall would White Out if they came. They would use the most direct approach they always preferred, and he wanted them to sight the Mark immediately if they came.

  The remainder of the hundred thirteen Kobani ships had spent the same three days on Kratos, Koban’s moon, where they wouldn’t show on radar scans. The geosynchronous communications satellites were stowed inside one of the Orbital Based Only passenger liners circling Kronos, all of them placed where the Krall had left them twenty-three years ago.

  The com satellites over Haven were similarly hidden, even though Koban was where the visitors, if they came, were expected to look first. The Torki migration ships were sitting on several of the larger moons of the two outer gas giants. As decided, two of them contained key parts of alien and human technologies, and people from the four species that knew how it worked. Surprisingly few aliens had chosen to board the other migration ships, although several thousand humans from Haven had done so.

  Except for Kobani crews to watch after them, none of that portion of the fully gene modified population had elected to prepare for an evacuation. It was the non-Kobani that boarded, who knew they would only be in the way of a fight. The majority of them now considered Haven home, and didn’t want to leave. They understood that they were unlikely to be welcomed in Human Space anyway, and a new planet would have to be found to settle if they needed to flee.

  On radio frequencies, the entire system had been quite for five days, in case the Krall made a remote stop first in the outer system just to listen. With Comtaps, Olts, and mind enhancers, no group was out of contact for news. Their constant chatter via quantum entanglement, through Tachyon Space was undetectable so long as they avoided the electromagnetic spectrum for those devices in local mode.

  Impatience was growing after three uneventful days, even as Mirikami was saying patience was now most needed. He broadcast on the universal link, “Tell everyone that we are now at the center of the highest probability window for their return if they’re coming.”

  Maggi was sympathetic. “Keeping kids home and out of school for three days has to be wearing on parents nerves. I’m antsy, and all I have is you pacing around the Bridge every waking moment, checking sensors, making sure the damned sleepless AI is awake.”

  “I can’t shut my mind off, thinking of what we might lose. I don't doubt I need to relax and get my mind on something else.”

  “Then why don’t you watch an old movie with me? Perhaps read a damned book. Stop asking Jakob something every hour about things that you already know. I wish you’d had the boys stay with you here on the Mark, to play poker and swap lies. I’d rather listen to you four bicker and pick on each other than hear your feet clumping around the Bridge, while you address some minor detail or petty emergency with someone on the ground.”

  By boys, she meant Dillon, Thad, and Sarge, who were on Kratos waiting for something to happen. There was no one else on the Mark, and Mirikami had met “Tiger Lady” Fisher again when he suggested that only he had to be here, to act as bait if the Krall returned with a small number of clanships. When his backside healed from the chewing out, he appreciated how congenial she became when she got her way. Which, upon reflection, he decided was much of the time.

  If he’d misjudged Telour’s influence with the new Joint Council, they might come in force with a fleet. Although, he now agreed with Sarge, that they had probably busted the bubble of invulnerability that Telour had lived inside of as the Krall war leader. He’d had his nose repeatedly rubbed in setbacks since he’d taken on the mantle of Tor Gatrol. The last completely successful action for the Krall was the invasion of New Glasgow, and that had been engineered by Kanpardi, not Telour.

  This Tor had a blemish on everything he’d ordered done or tried to do, he was too arrogant and self-assured, convinced of his own brilliance, and he blamed his failures on poor performance of weaker clans, or of the random luck of his enemies. The billions of dead at Meadow and more to come at Bootstrap might label him a successful killer, but he’d missed his larger more vital targets. The roughly twenty billion additional lives he had intended to kill on Pittsburg II and Earth-Mars would detract, in Krall minds anyway, from what he’d said he would do.

  He was forced to abandon a third concurrent invasion after the K1 attack, then two large punitive raids were repelled with significant losses, leaving the original fleet half in ruins. The domes hit on K1 wouldn’t weigh too heavy on him. The habitats were unimportant property, and not considered tools of war. He probably had benefitted from a comparative increase in stature over other leaders, due to the loss of so many other high status clan leaders in those domes.

  Mirikami finally succumbed to prodding by Maggi, to go below and eat a hot meal rather than the sandwiches and snacks, and occasional plate she had brought to him on the Bridge for two days. He was ordered to take a hot shower, change to fresh clothes, and then he’d feel like a new man.

  Naturally, that was when the three White Outs were instantly reported by Jakob, to a Mirikami with an unclosed tunic, one leg in his pants, and hair still wet. He probably set a galactic record for a half-dressed man to leap twenty feet over the Bridge railing from the lower deck. He flashed an irritated look at his wife while swallowing the final bite of the rhinolo steak he’d rushed through for his lunch, as he slipped on his boots.

  Even before Mirikami could swallow that last morsel, Maggi had calmly initiated the Normal Space drive thrust to move them smoothly into what would look like a normal two hundred mile high equatorial orbit, and had already opened the four main portals on the lowest deck.

  That bottom level had been sealed off and in vacuum for three days, so there was no meaningful escape of residual atmosphere. Stealth wasn’t an issue either, because they had none activated. Not even the less effective stealth level that the three Krall clanships were using. If you were not expecting to be attacked at your secret base, you didn’t need stealth. The Mark was the proverbial sitting duck, and intended to be noticed.

  The clanships had arrived at about ten thousand miles out, spaced several miles apart, not so close that a single Novae missile could destroy them all at once, but close enough for mutual fire support. Before his bare feet had hit the bridge decking, a fourth White Out gamma ray burst revealed the arrival of the standoff clanship Mirikami had predicted. That burst arrived about five seconds later, which if they had all Jumped together, suggested the observer clanship was a little over nine hundred thirty thousand miles away.

  The Mark had no radar scans active, as befit a ship not expecting visitors, but Jakob, with the direction of the arriving gamma rays as his locater, spotted the first three clanships at about where they expected them if they had come from K1. Although, they could have come from almost anywhere in Human Space for that matter, since Koban was so far from there.

  Wide spaced Doppler spectrum pulses arrived in seconds from two of the clanships. It was the wide beam automatic scan mode for two of the ships, scanning the entire volume of space near Koban.

  The third clanship was using a narrower beam that was directed only towards the planet, checking for objects in orbit. It quickly shifted to a needle sharp beam of tracking mode, and Jakob told them it was now following them. It automatically narrowed to a tight beam for any targets it found. The Krall
tracking systems could have used narrow tracking beams for a hundred twenty eight separate targets, but the Mark was the only beneficiary of that close attention right now.

  Jakob knew to notify them if the tracking pulse rate suddenly increased for initial accurate missile guidance, as happened just before a launch. Missiles would employ their own radar tracking after launch, and the clanship could fire and forget if they wanted to Jump away. It was possible to fire a missile without that helpful initial course guidance, but the missile was subject to its own target selection in that case, and might not choose wisely. That also had a characteristic signal that Jakob would warn them of if detected.

  With their own radar tracking locked onto the Mark, and no radar from the Mark active, the Krall knew the unknown clanship wasn’t preparing to launch a missile. Even opening a missile port where it could alter hull reflectivity on an unstealthed clanship would alert them. The base portals were already open, so no changes would be seen from there.

  Maggi was already secured in her acceleration couch, and Mirikami settled into his, as it automatically formed around him. “OK, Jakob, time to shoot our pop guns at them.” Mirikami ordered.

  “Is that the .50 caliber machine guns Sir, or the railgun?”

  “For the two machine guns that can bear on their general positions, a short burst of fifty slugs each. Don’t rotate the ship to bring other portals to bear. I just want to get their attention.”

  Maggi was confused. “Tet, they’re ten thousand miles away. These are completely wasted shots. They’ll be long gone before those slugs can reach them.”

  “Oh, we’d never reach them if they sat still, even if we were on target. These are slow ballistic slugs. Koban’s gravity will slow them and they’ll eventually fall back.”

  “So why do it?”

  “To start them analyzing what we fired at them early, before they get closer.”

  “From that range can they see the bullets?”

  “We tested, and the tight tracking beam they have on us will see the metallic reflections of the hundred or so slugs coming up that beam, causing Doppler shifts. The slugs will soon drift out of the beam but they’ll have seen them on their sensor suite. I want them to see them more times if I get the chance, so they know what they are, and ignore them.”

  “Why would they ignore .50 cal bullets in space? A hole is a hole, is it not?”

  “Not to a clanship’s armored hull. The machine gun slugs might nick the stealth coating is all. A massive rail gun slug, at orbital velocity plus several more miles per second when fired can penetrate. However, at Poldark with hundreds of railgun platforms like the one we have, they probably have never seriously damaged a clanship. They were designed to send a signal on impact, to locate where a stealthed clanship was for directing more powerful plasma and laser fire. Sometimes a pilot will change course to avoid the heavy slugs for that reason, or simply because they don’t want a hole in their ship. Our railgun might be used to shift them to where I want them, in the path of the smaller slugs.”

  “When will that happen?”

  “Soon, they’re accelerating inwards towards us.” He spoke to the AI again.

  “Jakob, fire a few hundred rounds along our general back track from each of the four guns and release the Railgun.”

  “Yes Sir.”

  “Frankly, I didn’t expect them to be so cautious. I thought they’d micro Jump behind us. That’s why I just sprayed or back trail. In case…, Oops!” He saw a sensor reading change.

  Jakob said, “A single White Out behind us Sir. Rail gun was released, and is firing.” Internal inertial compensation jerked them around as the AI maneuvered the ship.

  It followed that report with, “Railgun is firing behind the trailing clanship.”

  Both Mirikami and Maggi morphed their chairs into couches for acceleration. A video repeater of the console display was extruded nearly overhead, so each could see while semi reclined. “Jakob, they shifted closer to move away from the railgun slugs. That’s the one that had us track locked earlier, right?”

  “Yes Sir. The other two clanships are still accelerating as before. The trailing clanship is locked on us again but it’s too close for a missile launch. It could fire plasma cannons and lasers.”

  Mirikami was surprised it was as close as it was, but excited as well. “Taking attitude and gun control.”

  “Yes Sir”

  Mirikami used reaction thrusters in the bow to kick the ship’s attitude sideways, while maintaining the Normal Space drive thrust vector in the same direction, still accelerating along the same equatorial orbit Maggi had initiated. In vacuum, with a reactionless drive, it didn’t matter what profile the ship presented as it raced ahead. He could as easily have accelerated facing the opposite direction of their motion.

  Mirikami sighted in the clanship by use of the joystick on his armrest, and started firing. However, only two machine guns started blazing away in silent vacuum, aimed at the silhouette of the pursuing clanship located less than a mile behind and slightly lower than they were. The other two guns couldn’t bear on the designated target and were holding fire.

  “Depress the barrels Sir, you are aiming too high.”

  He quickly pushed on the joystick the guns were slaved to on his armrest, doing as the AI instructed, watching the targeting symbol move below the clanship’s image. He quickly said, “Take over firing and navigation Jakob.”

  It may be too late, he thought, angry with himself after drawing them in close where he wanted and missing his shots.

  Just then, a plasma bolt flashed on his screen and he assumed invisible laser fire was also beamed their direction. However, the ship started rotating rapidly to distribute any heat, and the four machine guns continued to fire as each portal came to bear. The AI kept the display image steady for them despite the spin, but the feeling of spinning was disconcerting despite the inertial compensation being applied.

  The Normal Space drive’s thrust vector suddenly changed, and savage acceleration slammed against them at near black out levels as the spinning Mark, still moving sideways but with its nose pointed away from the planet, shot away with a huge thrust vector along its tail to nose axis. The Mark rapidly shot away from the planet. The two passengers were pressed deeply into their couches, the crushing and unexpected extreme pressure coming up against their backs from their couches.

  The pressure quickly eased, and Mirikami fought his way back to full awareness. “What happened?” his eyesight had briefly gone to tunnel vision, and he’d not been able to see his screen. Unprepared for the burst of g’s, he’d not used his legs and abdominal muscles to force blood to his brain as he’d normally do for a boost like that. There was no clanship on his screen and the guns had ceased firing.

  Jakob explained. “The chasing ship suddenly backed off, despite the railgun slugs aimed behind it, and I detected a missile prelaunch signal from their tracking radar. Our axis at a right angle from our direction of motion allowed me to apply maximum thrust to try to avoid the missile.”

  Maggi, proving she was alert and part of the Comtap exchange said, “You got Nav control back just in time then.”

  “No Mam. It was too late.”

  “Wait. What?” Mirikami sure felt alive.

  “Sir, the missiles were not launched, and the clanship has continued along our former course, which is well below and beyond our former position now.”

  “Where are the other two clanships now?” He asked quickly. He didn’t know what happened to save their butts from his mistake, but he wasn’t going to repeat it again.

  “Both remain on Normal Space drive and are descending towards us, but are still thousands of miles away and higher. They apparently were waiting for the ship behind us to fire their missiles. I believe there were four missiles selected, based on the number of open launch ports I detected.”

  “Why didn’t at least one of the four missiles fire?” Maggi seemed to be questioning their survival, as had Mirikami.

>   “I cannot say Mam.”

  “Jakob, when either of those two clanships reaches us or Jumps close, you have full control of weapons and navigation. I’ll just Comtap my instruction to you. I nearly got us killed, just like some damned Krall warrior’s ego would do. Don’t forget to keep firing the machine guns when they’re chasing us, range doesn’t matter much. Is the rail gun too far behind us now, to fire on the next two ships?”

  “The railgun can fire on them Sir. Should I do so?”

  “Be sure to fire where they will be, not where they are, like I did with the machineguns.”

  “Yes Sir.”

  Maggi asked, “Tet, what did you meant by that?”

  “Jakob, controlling the railgun, fired to fill the space several miles behind us with the heavy slugs. They moved up close behind us to avoid them. If not, the railgun slugs would reach them. Up close, the machinegun slugs could do the job.

  “I took attitude control to rotate the ship to let the guns in the hold bear on the chase ship, since we can’t shoot an object directly behind us. Only we were under lateral acceleration by the Normal Space drive. I stupidly shot where the clanship would be if we were both at a constant velocity. The acceleration moved him past the spreading field of slugs I sent their way before they could reach him. They were in a perfect position and I missed. I’m faster than a Krall, but not as good as the AI. I could have gotten us killed. Should have, actually. I wonder why they held fire with the missiles.”

  Maggi, not grasping all the Spacer mechanics of orbits and accelerations, asked a series of questions. “Remind me again why we’re shooting what you called pop guns at them? Wasn’t that the point of all this crazy crap? To apply our discovery that one of the Mark’s keypads was close enough to receive the untrusted DNA code list from Huwayla’s nearest airlock hatch?”

  “Well yes, but…” He was interrupted.

  “Then that list propagated through all the locks on this entire ship? And we let that list infect new chips we installed on all the bullets? Did I understand the point of all this?”