A lot more study would be needed to figure out the alien power system in the dome. But once they could ramp up the output from the second Trap field, the technical guys thought it was more a matter of time, than a matter of “if” they could supply the entire dome, and the electric fences it had once powered.
Jake, running on battery power, reported some irregularities in the power being fed to him from the new system. It was decided to keep him on steadier battery power, and use the less stable new power feed to keep those charged. There would be time to make adjustments later. For now, it was vital to keep the ship looking dark, so they killed all but a few low power lamps where they needed to see to walk, and stepped out into the open cargo hold.
It was still early afternoon and the sun was hot on their faces, its light streaming down between gray and white rain clouds in the intense blue sky.
Telour was standing alone next to his shuttle, apparently waiting for his warriors to exit the dome after their latest round of destruction.
Now he felt so adapted to Koban’s heat and gravity that Mirikami practically trotted down the formerly dangerous slope of the cargo ramp. He walked over to speak to his Krall enemy. He had Jake put him on full Link to his entire crew.
He spoke first. “I suppose you and the clans are satisfied with the death sentence you believe you have given us today.”
Looking down at the shorter human, Telour answered. “I did not sentence you to death or you would already be dead. We will keep the agreement the clans made, you are alive and we are leaving.
“I think that you, human clan leader, do not in truth believe that you and the other captives will die here. You said that I believe we have given humans a death sentence. You did not say that you believe it is. We will let the life here on Koban teach you what you need to learn about death.”
Nodding, assuming Telour had learned that gesture, Mirikami told him, “You Krall are starting the war you wanted. Are you ready to lead your warriors to attack an unsuspecting, unarmed planet, whose people have no reason to hate you or any desire to fight you?”
“I am eager to fight, to kill without the restrictions of the testing done here. We will use weapons no stronger than what humans use against us, we may even give you technology to make the fight more interesting, to help us walk our Great Path faster. When one of your hundreds of worlds makes the mistake of using forbidden mass killing weapons, it will be destroyed with a warning. They will learn after one or two end this way. We already have a radio message that tells them we will do this. Another idea from you, but recorded with my voice.”
“Thank you,” he replied, with no gratitude felt.
“Already we have many eggs hatching, to find the few great warriors we need. Those with speed and strength more like the animals that live on Koban. We will feed them foods with the same rare metals found on this world added. We know what makes the animals able to move faster here, and we will someday breed that into our cubs. Making humans angry is part of that plan. You will do what every race we have met has done. Fight us and kill our weakest and slowest fighters, yet you will lose as we grow even stronger.”
Mirikami felt more belligerent than was safe. “I hope we do learn how to survive here, Telour. If we can do that, when your children return to reclaim this world, our children will not give it back!” A head-rearing snort proved how humorous Telour considered this remark.
I still leave them laughing, he thought. This way I know they don’t take the threat serious. They really should.
The five other Krall made their exit from the dome on the run, as always. They entered the waiting open hatch without a glance around. Telour did look once more around the area.
It was not the rapid eye darting, with quick head movement as if searching for threats. He appeared to be making a mental image of his last handy work, of dozens of destroyed human ships, against the background of a world that he did not appreciate for its natural beauty, but rather its natural savagery and deadliness.
Without another word, or a second glance at the human standing in front of him, he whirled and entered the shuttle, the hatch quickly falling closed. Mirikami hurriedly backed up, away from the sudden rush of vertical thrusters, and watched as the craft rose, then angled up sharply and kicked in the full aft thrusters and headed for an orbital rendezvous.
Humans were alone on Koban for the first time.
Still watching as the shuttle dwindled to a dot, Mirikami said aloud “This world is ours now. We are Kobani.”
50. Home Sweet Hell
It had been three months since the Krall had left orbit. The power was nearly back to normal in the dome, and nine ships were now repowered. The dome and five ships were fed from power lines passing down and out through the Flight of Fancy’s former thruster tubes. The other four ships used their own bottles. More power lines were to be added with time.
After all of the cargo had been assessed, they found nine more fusion bottles in various containers, two of them large enough to power two more ships, the other seven being under powered to fully operate an entire ship. However, they were suitable to run machine shops and pharmacy equipment, which produced items that were in high demand.
Thad, Deanna, Frank Constansi, Clarice Femfreid, and Juan Wittgenstein had completed adapting to their first gene mods in the first week after the Krall pulled out. Noreen had joined them, saying Dillon was wearing her out.
Tet and Dillon had started the second round of mods to enhance their strength and endurance, and after some rough going for a first week of shots and nasty supplements, and almost three months of exercise, they were feeling the strongest and fittest they had in their lives.
Dillon was so adept now at his hand-to-hand training from Thad, that even with Thad’s new adaptation for heat and higher energy levels; he could no longer beat Dillon at anything he taught him.
Thad had approached Aldry a month ago, and had started his own second round of mods. The increase in fitness of middle aged Mirikami, and the even more noticeable increase in Dillon’s younger and already impressive build had encouraged many of the long time captives to apply for all of the enhancements.
The reception from some of the newest arrivals concerning the gene modifications was more than cool (read that as hostile), and they strongly opposed what was being done with the human genome. That faction was unsurprisingly led by Ana Cahill, who had never gotten over being upstaged by Maggi. She also knew that the good Captain had shunted her into a powerless committee organizer role to keep her out of his and Maggi’s way. She owed them some kind of payback.
Cahill had the scientific credentials to attract those that wanted to hear her knowledgeable sounding details of criminal research she had not actually seen. However, she could correctly state that what was being done here was in violation of laws enforced throughout Human Space.
The self-appointed opposition leader was overheard talking to some fervently religious new arrivals about a new Purge. She seemed to forget about her own scientific background. In the Great Purge of three hundred years ago, anyone with even passing knowledge of the biological sciences had been subject to being killed by the frightened women that filled the power vacuum. Scientists had often been literally burned at the stake. Who said the Ladies couldn’t be ruthless?
Thad pointed out that the objectors had not been witness to the thousands of bodies brought back from the outer compound over the years of captivity. They had never had to wait to see if they would be sent next week to die at the hands of the Krall. He predicted that after enough time on the unforgiving planet they would alter their viewpoint. Particularly if they saw others adapt to the conditions here better than they did.
Over two thirds of the crew from the Fancy had asked for the first set of mods. The Stewards had been first to do so. Those men had served as guardians on arrival day, and had served in that capacity often since then. They were better motivated than most.
A bit more than half the younger scientists and their m
ates, if any, had opted to apply for the gene mods. Many of the older people thought it was too late in life for the benefits to help them very much.
Maggi and Aldry, taking a dose of their own medicine; literally in their case, were going to go through all of the mods they had offered the others. They reasoned that if two older women did as well as they hoped they would, this might attract more of the older people that were having difficulty adapting to the gravity and heat. There were several deaths per month in the older population.
Improving animal security near the dome was one of the first issues they needed to address. They decided to go for a smaller protected compound as a start. A week after the Krall pullout, over a hundred heavily armed men and women drove twenty-five of the trucks out to the southeast section of the compound wall.
Out there, the terrain was largely red dirt and sandy dunes with almost no grass, mainly low underbrush. It was as far from the river and any water source as you could get within the walls. There they hoped, correctly, as it turned out, there would be fewer animals. They were able to salvage miles of wire and posts from atop the wall and at several wrecked gates.
Fewer animals didn’t translate into none however. A lone predator; it looked like a smaller tan relative of a ripper; pulled a screaming woman down from wire collecting at the top of the wall. Her companions saw it drag her into the dunes outside the wall. It had somehow scaled a thirty-foot smooth wall from where it had crept out of the dunes. It was labeled a Desert Panther, and after that, death riflemen were posted as lookouts. They went up the ladders ahead of each crew of wire collectors.
Despite all precautions, two other deaths happened on the wire scavenger hunt.
One came when a guard turned into a would-be hunter. He shot and brought down a man-sized gazelle that he spotted from the top of the wall. He had just climbed up the ladder and spotted several of the normally skittish animals browsing nearby. He shot one of the beige and blue striped creatures and it dropped in its tracks.
Excited, he went around through the closest ruined gate with a truck and a couple of companions, planning to bring the gazelle back for its meat. The inexperienced hunter jumped out of the truck, rifle in hand, and rushed up to the prone animal and took a knee near its back, just behind its head.
The instant he laid a hand on the top one of a pair of two foot long curved horns, the still breathing animal thrust its head sharply backwards over its front shoulders. Both horns tore into the man’s right side, driven in at least six inches. His two companions shot the dying animal several more times before pulling the screaming man off the impaling horns. The victim bled to death before they could get him to the first aid truck.
He had the posthumous honor of having that type of gazelle named after him, in a macabre bit of gallows humor. His name was Daniel Thompson, and the animals became the Thompson’s gazelle of this world, only with a different spelling than for the extinct animal of Earth.
The third death was actually less amusing than it was made to sound when retold by callous people, the men and women that had waited their turn to die in Krall testing, lottery after lottery.
Thelma Calderon thought a motionless, partly dug-in sort of armadillo analogue, was a grey boulder on the red colored soil. She sat on its armored back only to discover the “rock” had a four-foot muscular tail with a club-like knob on the end. It left a fist sized depression in the side of her skull, and a startled expression frozen on her face. Then the squatty animal rose on short sturdy legs and quickly waddled off into the scrub and dunes.
The same sort of rough humor made the new animal’s name Thelma’s Thumper. Aside from everyone’s desire to survive here, it became a definite goal not to stupidly get an animal named after you.
When they had gathered enough wire and posts, they headed back in a fast convoy, staying bunched together. A detour of several miles kept them far enough away from several hundred or so rhinolo, antelopes, and gazelles to avoid their interest. Jake had reported sighting several rippers casually prowling through the grass on the far side of that mixed herd.
The compound didn’t crowd as many animals as was often seen clustered together out on the vast open savanna, despite the relatively abundant grass, trees and brush on the west side of the small river. Perhaps it was the narrow openings they passed through, potential choke points. A pride of rippers might wait on the other side. This hunting strategy had already been seen several times, where they would pursue a herd to the narrow openings, where they had to crowd together and slow down.
Rippers would focus on calves and fawns, or the oldest or injured animals as predators always did. However, they had a knack for generating injuries by running alongside a rhinolo or antelope and bite or swat at their feet to try to trip them.
Other than repeated scouting near the dome at night, there had been no more successful ripper attacks. Infrared cameras on the multiple powered ships were always watching. The rippers learned that no matter how carefully they stalked, their prey had always moved inside the big den or into one of the not-live flying things well before they could get into position to spring. This prey was cagey, and the shared mind image from one kill proved they were smart and aware. Soon they found they were blocked from scouting close in by the growth of the not-live deadly gray vines.
The barricade was an electric fence, built around the compound with a radius of almost two miles, with ten heavy strands stretched between twenty-foot high posts. They used smaller gauge wire, from rolls they found in cargo containers, to crisscross between the gaps, with trailing wires that dangled just inches above the cleared ground. A cement plant was planned for making concrete, so they could pour a twelve-mile circumference strip below the fence to keep anything from digging under. A fence was less sturdy and much lower than the wall, but it was all they could manage for now, and to clear them of the most dangerous animals.
They made four motor driven wire mesh gates wide enough for trucks to pass through, but without using the more elaborate and safer double lock system the Krall had used. However, here they could easily see if anything lurked outside the fence, as opposed to a solid wall. They could cut the charge on the gates without killing the entire fence and Jake, or Jeb, the other AI, could do it for drivers so they didn’t have to get out of the now fully enclosed truck cabs.
The electrical barrier gave them a certain level of protection from a browsing rhinolo or other potentially dangerous grazers. However, an angered and reckless charging bull could tear the fence open for others to enter before it died. That had happened a couple of times in the daytime when bulls decided a human was too close for comfort. The bull died for its futile effort, but it just wasn’t smart to get near any rhinolo browsing close to the fence. You couldn’t tell when one of them might decide you needed a lesson in respect.
However, one major fence penetration was more troubling.
Jake alerted the night watch that three rhinolo, pursued by rippers, had charged into the fence with the second two animals passing through alive, the rippers had withdrawn. It was during a review of the IR recording the next day that something caught Mirikami’s attention. He invited Thad, Dillon, and two men and a woman that had become game hunters to maintain the meat supply. They gathered on the Bridge of the Fancy, where a large screen was available.
“I want you all to watch the rhinolo fence breach from about two thirty this morning. There was no moon, and it was cloudy, so there was little natural light for the rhinolo to see. As you know, normally they avoid getting very close to the fence, apparently being smart enough to recognize it as a danger.
“I’ve had Jake superimpose the fence digitally, which doesn’t show up very well on infrared after its cool at night. Watch the animal infrared images carefully, and offer your comments afterwards.”
Jake ran the recording. Mirikami watched the watchers, since he’d seen this multiple times. Thad was the first to lean forward and show signs of increased interest, followed shortly by Dillon and all three
of the experienced hunters. He saw Thad and Dillon both glance at each other at the midpoint, proving they had noticed what Mirikami had seen.
When it was over, he said, “Clearly, all of you saw the ripper images in the background, before the brighter large images of the rhinolo hit the fence. The first rhinolo cow was killed at the fence, as you know, since three of you helped drag the animals to the rendering pit and dressed them out. Who shot the other two that got through alive?”
The woman, Gloria, raised her hand. “I got ‘em. One of those was a cow too, and the other was her nearly weaned calf. They were afraid to charge at the fence to get out, and we had restrung the wire by first light to close the gap.”
“Being reluctant to approach the fence is significant, demonstrating that the rhinolo recognize at some level that it’s dangerous to them.” Mirikami noted.
“Anyone care to offer me an opinion as to why they recklessly ran into a dangerous fence in the first place?” he asked.
Both Yancy and Carlos, the two male hunters offered their opinions that the ripper attack had spooked them, and they simply didn’t know were the fence was in the dark. Thad and Dillon, familiar with Tet’s methods and observational skills waited. Gloria saw more to it than that.
“Cap,” using a nickname that had caught on lately, “Those three were running a hundred yards out from the fence, on a track to the left that would never have hit the wire, being chased from behind by two rippers. Then three rippers hiding ahead of them jumped out and diverted them, one came from their right, the other two in front. The only direction open was to their left, towards the fence. Then all five rippers bracketed them as they were chased towards the fence. They were driven that way.”
“And then?” Mirikami was pleased with her noticing that, but what else?
Gloria considered a moment. “The rippers stopped when the lead rhinolo hit the fence, and it stumbled and dropped in about ten feet and skidded another ten or twenty. The second two rhinolo came through the broken wire behind her untouched. All five rippers stopped, and then one strolled up close to the dead rhino, went around it and looked towards the two that kept running. Then it turned and went back to the other rippers and they all left.”
Koban Page 72