Koban

by Stephen W Bennett

  “They told us they are either immune or resistant to most poisons. Could you wrap that thorn carefully and pass it on to Aldry Anderfem to analyze in one of our labs? We are looking for any new weapons we can find, and poison laced bullets or arrows might be of use if those thorns are bad for a Krall.”

  “Sure, I’ve been talking to some of your machinists about gadgets I suggested they look into, or modifications to things you are already making. Aldry spoke to me a time or two when I visited the machine shop. You must have her doing something really sneaky, I couldn’t draw her out much.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d keep that observation under your hat, Thad. As we’ve learned today, not all of us humans can be trusted.”

  “Speaking of that, I know people are looking all over for Talbert Carltron and Arless Blythe. I hardly know him, but shortly after my two challenges, I had an ‘interlude’ with Arless in my quarters. She came on to me strong. I was more than willing, and she was talented. However, she was scared to death of Carltron finding out, and begged me to be a gentleman and keep it quiet. So I did.”

  “She told me she wasn’t worried for me personally because I had immunity, which I thought was an odd thing to say, since the two men I killed had immunity. That little mouse Carltron didn’t seem much of a threat. I now think she meant my immunity would keep me safe from being selected if he found out. Our liaison wasn’t repeated, despite my invitation,” he added.

  Mirikami shrugged. “I think she traded sexual favors with Carltron for her freedom from Testing Days, Thad. Perhaps she isn’t as guilty as he is, but that sure as hell won’t save her if that pack of wolves find her.”

  “No, it won’t,” he agreed. “About twenty of them searched my truck as soon as I pulled under the overhang, wanted to know where I’d been. I decided I’d not be my usual asshole self, and showed them my bag there. They had itchy trigger fingers, and because I was in armor, they wouldn’t let me get a drop on them. Not that I care about those two waste-of-air scum.”

  Mirikami pulled at his lip. “I’m wondering where they could hide? All of you must know every possible hiding place in the dome by now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m sure some of the people selected would choose to hide. I’d think you’d know where to check the hiding places for them before the Krall picked a replacement.”

  “The Krall would just go get them and drag them out and make them go or kill them. Why would we have to find them?” Thad looked puzzled.

  “Maggi just briefed us on how the early lottery drawings were done, about some people hiding and forcing replacements to be picked. The Krall killed the hiders outright when they were found, but hiding delayed their death and got someone else killed in their place.”

  “Oh, sure. But that was well before I got here, before the Krall implemented Ra Ka Endo and gave us these tattoos,” he hooked a thumb at his. “So they can always find you through those.”

  Mirikami felt a chill spread down his spine. He asked the next question with apprehension.

  “You’re saying The Krall know where we are because of these tattoos?”

  “You didn’t know that? It’s how they recover the bodies and our equipment after a Testing Day, unless a wolfbat tore out the throat and flew away.” He said this in a matter of fact way, totally unaware of the stone that had settled in his listener’s stomach.

  “Thad, this is important if you know the answers. How do they track us, and what capability do they have to hear what we say or to see what we do?” All he could think of was that twenty five thousand year old alien technology might be pretty advanced.

  Greeves noticed that Mirikami’s normally darker facial color had visibly paled. He turned serious as well.

  “Tet, I don’t know how it’s done exactly, just that it’s the device that injects the tattoos; they call it a Katusha by the way, and it can also home in on them when they change a setting. They scan it back and forth in front of them to get a signal light that increases in brightness as they get closer and they aim towards it.

  “What has you so worried Tet? What are you afraid that they can do?”

  Mirikami looked a little less tense. “The way you describe the search sounds more innocuous than I first feared, but I need to know more.

  “What I feared is that they have been listening to us all along, and could possibly see what we have been doing on the ship. If they can do that, then all of us here are certainly doomed, and possibly the human race if we fail to accomplish what we have been trying to do.”

  Greeves leaned back, giving him a penetrating look. “Tet, I’ve always assumed everyone here is doomed anyway, but what the hell are you doing over there to save the human race that might fail?”

  “That part you actually know, fight them well enough on Koban to convince them not to stamp our species out like bugs. However, we have projects underway that I’m certain would get every human presently on Koban exterminated, so they would need to restart with fresh ignorant humans. I think instead of a fresh start they’ll kill our worlds and move on to search for better prey. They have almost decided to do that anyway.”

  “Damn. You sure think on a grand scale, Captain. You also put a lot of necks in the same noose with you. But as I said, I’m convinced our necks have been in a noose all along. It was just a matter of time before they grew tired of their games and killed us all.”

  “Maybe not. If we pull off the ‘fight better’ thing, Telour, Parkoda, Dorkda, and Kapdol, all translators from different competing clans say on their honor we will be left unharmed and on our own when they leave Koban for many generations. They will go off to fight humanity for as long as they can make that last.

  “Then, one day in the far future, they will come back to claim Koban as their new ‘Home World.’ After breeding and improving to face the animal life here on equal terms. They don’t like not being the fastest things alive. They also fully expect humans left here will be dust motes on a rhinolo’s butt by then.”

  “Well Tet, I think I can reassure you on the range of potential surveillance technology embedded in these tattoos. The Katusha tattoo gadget can’t find corpses much more than a hundred feet away. But I must say even solid rock and our armor doesn’t seem to block them when the body is in a cave.”

  Mirikami was about to say something, but Greeves held a hand up to have him wait.

  “I know this because I’ve used them several times. When higher status warriors are too proud to do recovery work, they send us out in trucks to recover armor and guns. You aim the things like a flashlight,” and he demonstrated with his hand.

  “Whew, that does relieve me a lot Thad. I don’t think they’d hand those over if they had intelligence gathering value. After all they wear those same tattoos.”

  There was almost a ‘Bing’ sensation in Mirikami’s mind just then. “We need to steal one of those!” he blurted. “If it can see humans through walls it can see them too.”

  Greeves shook his head. “Good God man. What’s it like thinking like an amusement park thrill ride? From end-of-life as we know it, to let’s hunt down the Krall and kill them.” He laughed, making his armor creak.

  “They will ask for the Katusha’s back, so I don’t know what would happen if you told them you lost one. That might prove fatal.”

  Changing gears himself, he went back to something Mirikami had said. “I know you have secret projects under way. What are the deadly ones the Krall couldn’t tolerate?”

  “Thad, I give my word that I intend to bring you in on those projects when and if they prove out, but they could face opposition from humans as well as Krall, so please excuse me if I hold back for now. However, when you walked up a few minutes ago, I was thinking of some things that I haven’t resolved in my mind yet. I’d like to explore those because I need to make a decision today on a matter important to me personally, and you can help.”

  “Sure. I have some time before that meat starts to smell, so go ahead.�
�� He leaned back against the table with a grin.

  “Ok. Here’s my first question. No one that actually knows from firsthand experience ever told me if that stuff,” he tapped Thad’s armor, “is any good when a Krall comes after you.”

  “It’s Krall made, following a human pattern of some armor they must have found in an old outpost on the Rim. However, it’s much lighter that our own best armor, just the way their guns are lighter, and it seems even stronger but I’m not sure. I wish they’d found powered active camouflage armor to copy, with high tech sensors. This antique solid brown color crap stands out against any background here except dirt,” he complained.

  Mirikami reminded him, “The Krall see into the infrared, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they see into ultraviolet. Your heat would give you away in infrared.”

  “Well, temperature can be controlled with low tech means at times, like wet mud.” He didn’t elaborate further.

  “This stuff,” he patted his chest with a thump, “protects against any of the buck shot rounds and probably the incendiaries which are slower flying. Even from the soft-nosed slugs if they hit at a glancing angle or from long range. For the explosive or armor piercing rounds, you may as well be naked if they hit you. The Krall always carry multiple types of rounds with them.”

  “Do they fight us with anything other than projectile weapons like the pistols or rifles? No lasers? How are those against the armor you have? I understand they don’t wear armor.”

  “I know they have lasers, but I haven’t seen them in hand weapons for them. Just the lasers I’ve seen on shuttles and Clanships. They are usually content to put bullet holes in you as they close with you, and they rely on speed and dodging rather than armor. Remember, a serious wound to us might only be an inconvenience to them.

  “They do have a love for up close and personal fighting. Naturally, they can pull an arm off you by springing the armor joints, or bend you in ways a human and armor can’t go. I studied a lot of the armor brought back, before me or any of my people ever went out.

  “The lower rank Krall warriors sometimes carry armor back like a trophy, or send us out to find it in trucks, as I told you. We then repair what we can, and they give us new stuff when we run low on parts.”

  He described the types of damage. “Some have holes from armor penetrating projectiles, wide rips from explosive rounds, or deep dents from straight on soft nose impacts.

  “I found indications that they slipped blades into joint crevices or where they can force an opening between overlapping plates. Some armor appears to have been removed reasonably carefully, and they finished the job slowly by hand or with knives. Some of them are sadistic that way. Speed and efficiency be damned!”

  “You ever see indications of larger explosives, rockets, mines, grenades, booby traps, artillery, mortars, and so on. You know the kind of stuff we are working on or thinking about.”

  “No nothing like that, Tet. I’ve told most of this to your people over there, and in particular to Dillon, who drinks this stuff up at every opportunity. I don’t think explosives are available here because it isn’t given to us, but no doubt they have that and higher tech weapons.”

  Leaning back against the post and listening to them, Dillon looked rather placid now that the tingling had subsided. Leg movement made it return so he stayed very still.

  Greeves, the professional soldier part of him, continued. “Dillon has even been getting hand to hand combat instruction from me, and asked for knife fighting lessons of all things. It started out as a request from Maggi, to suggest the training to him. She almost begged me the first day I met her.

  “I suspect from a comment Dillon made when I offered to teach him, at her request, that it might have been a joke on him. Nevertheless, he agreed, and he has taken to it with a will. For a brainy scientist he has shown a surprising ability to pick up physical skills, and he keeps his head in a scuffle. He has a built-in athletic ability and calm assurance in tight situations that I wasn’t born with myself. It took a lot of years of experience for me to get as good as he might become naturally.” He paused in reflection.

  “For instance, he’s sitting there calm cool and collected while surrounded by a near rabid pack of gun toting people out searching for two criminals that can’t possibly escape anyway.”

  Mirikami glanced over at Dillon, and the diversion briefly brought a smile to his lips. “Maggi zapped him with a Jazzer in the…uh, legs,” he amended his word, “thirty minutes ago. He’s still recovering.”

  Lifting an eyebrow Greeves asked, “Why’d she do that?”

  “Another exchange of wisecracks and retaliatory pranks between him and Maggi. It happens often with those two mismatched book ends. Dillon is a smoother walker than he is a smooth talker when it comes to getting the upper hand with his petite mentor.” He smiled again, briefly.

  “Humph,” grunted Greeves. “Anyway, as I was about to say, he reminds me of another brash young man from my detachment that moved that well, even better.” With a shrug, he added, “Randy died trying to cover me, after he blew off that damned Krall’s arm.” It was obvious the image still haunted his memories.

  Mirikami shifted the conversation from Thad’s old pain back to his own worries. “In combat, have the Krall done anything surprising that you know of, so far as field tactics or weapons go?”

  “No. I’ve watched dozens of hunter-killer teams from as high up in the dome as I could go. Our people decide where they will hide or fight. Sometimes they split up to use different terrain, or just to divide the hunters. They go out a day or two before, sometimes even earlier to scout, pick their spots, dig in, hide, whatever they decide.

  “The Krall novice warriors always land by shuttle here, then either take trucks or go out on foot, and start looking for us. The higher-ranking warriors fly the shuttle out to get a head start on the novices.

  “I’ve never seen a hint that the Krall in the dome help them in any way, and they do not use that tattoo tracker to find where we hide. That’s against their nature anyway to use gadgets to track us that way. The first warrior contact or any shooting usually draws all the rest if they are close, wanting a share of points for kills. If it was only a part of our team they found, they spread out again and search some more. They have excellent noses, and they can track a sweaty human really well.”

  “Are there favorite places for our teams to go, to try to stage an ambush or hold them off?

  “The low mountain ridges and cliff caves are favored the most for their high ground, hard cover, and defensive opportunities. That’s why the Krall usually look there first.

  “Ambushes, when you do manage to spring one on them will not contain them or drive them to ground. They briefly duck towards the closest cover but keep right on coming at you in a fast series of jinks from rock to tree to bush, always closing with you and shooting back with great accuracy while on the move.

  “Next is the forest slash jungle, appealing because of its cover and opportunity to change location. But don’t climb a tree, once spotted you can’t retreat. That damned squirrel analog, like the one I shot, will give you away with its chatter, and birds and insects are a greater nuisance to us in there. It’s hard to avoid drawing attention to yourself if you move around.

  “The marsh has been used, but there is no hard cover such as rocks, and very few trees. A crab like thing will try to bite pieces off if you lay down, and there are bunches of itchy biting things your armor can’t keep out. Dig a hole and it fills with water in short order. You won’t like their leach equivalent, because they are a foot long and remove a plug to get at your blood. There are big fierce looking eels, but the armor keeps them out.

  “The section of plains to the south and west have high grass, but the Krall can follow your trail through that at a dead run, and apparently spot your heat signature at some distance, even when you are lying down in the tall grass in a swale. Southeast are dunes and less vegetation. Not very good cover.

  “On t
he river you have no cover except for a few small mostly flat rocky islands with shrubs and spindly trees. The riverbanks are steep sided in places near the hills and in a canyon near the end of the ridge. But they are open to view from the opposite sides, and they will patrol that in pairs, one on each side.

  “The Krall sink like rocks in water, so a couple of teams dug pits on the islands after rafting over. The damned warriors can hold their breath and walk over on the bottom. The river isn’t more than twenty feet deep most of the year and the current isn’t very fast. When the water is higher and swifter, the islands are almost covered.

  “We also don’t know much about what lives in the river. There are normal looking fish in it, but all of them seem to have teeth. Some two or three footers have been caught and they fight hard, taste like crap with a lot of bones, and will chomp at you even out of the water. A couple of times someone has insisted their line was taken so hard they couldn’t even turn the fish and the line or pole snapped. The water is often muddy and red tinted from the silt so you have poor visibility. The water flows fast after rains, and it can freeze almost to the bottom in winter.

  “There are heavy mesh screens at both ends of the stream where it passes through the walls, but small things might swim through and grow up. I’d assume those unknown things are as dangerous as most life here. It hasn’t been nice to anyone that chose the river area for his or her terrain. But nothing out there is very nice for us.”

  “Thad, what keeps someone from going over the compound wall and waiting them out?”

  “The reason is that the top of the wall and the gates are heavily electrified to keep carnivores out of the compound. There are a lot more animals outside than I have seen up close. Rhinolo are simply the largest grazers and a preferred Krall prey because of the danger if they see you. You don’t want a rhinolo to spot you.

  “I think most of the other herd animals are probably even faster than rhinolo, which is hard to believe after you see one of those in action. It seems like all of them have horns, and they might attack you if you look threatening to them. Of course, there are rippers and their smaller cousins out there. There is actually a range of large and small predators and scavengers out there, and I don’t think we are a match for any of them. Not even armed and in armor are we safe.