The first two phases worked as planned, and they were soon moving along the weather front, embedded in the thunderheads and moving slowly and carefully on thruster power. They had ample fuel, and were unconcerned with the waste. The ride was surprisingly even, because the ship was massive compared to the force of the vertical and horizontal gusts, and the attitude thrusters were quick to adjust for dips or updrafts. Going from one storm to the next, the Mark had drawn to within a hundred and fifty miles of the mountain range.
The plan was proceeding perfectly. Until suddenly, it wasn’t.
****
The Darpot finger clan was at last receiving their hard won opportunity to fight humans in more than a two or three day raid. Their now experienced raiders would have use of mini tanks, command their own artillery defense, scout drones, armored transports for warriors, missile equipped single ships, and slave Prada to build underground bunkers for their training, to be conducted on the human world below. After practice in coordinated movements and attacks, and learning the new tactics used here, they could join with larger more powerful and storied clans, conducting weeks or months long assaults on the worthy foe.
First, Hortak, the senior warrior and a sub leader of the young finger clan, needed to deliver their new equipment safely to the rugged terrain they would use for training. Their two clanships would penetrate the enemy defenses on Poldark using the strategies described to them on Telda Ka. Hortak’s own clanship was transporting the equipment his warriors must master if they were to participate alongside the great clans in this still young and evolving war. The bulk of his more experienced cadre of raiders was on the second clanship.
Each ship would swiftly penetrate the enemy orbital defenses before they could react, and then separate to divide their attackers focus for in-atmosphere defense. This was the aggressive tactic most often used they were told, learned while listening to experienced pilots on Telda Ka, who had run the gauntlet many times.
After establishing a command post in a mountainous region, his young warriors would learn how to use the equipment on that terrain, following the advice of the experienced warriors assigned to them from other clans, as ordered by the Gatlek. This latter requirement, to accept outside leadership, would be harder to endure than mastering the equipment, subjugating their natural instinct to destroy the enemy to commands from other clans, telling them when to hold back.
The conditions they had to meet, to participate in the larger war, were to submit to the will of Gatlek Pendor’s overall strategy, who in turn was obeying Tor Gatrol Kanpardi edicts, handed down from the joint clan council. Hortak knew the chain of command had set this course for the war, that fighting was limited by design, as part of achieving the goal of following the Great Path with greater efficiency. However, knowing that, and feeling that it was right were two different things.
On past raids, he and his warriors had rampaged to their fierce dual hearts content, killing and destroying humans and their beloved objects with abandon. It felt glorious. Here, the goal was to bleed the enemy more slowly, allowing the clever and ever changing enemy to slowly eliminate the less adaptable Krall warriors from the lists of highest status breeders. The killing rampages could still happen in an assault, but just as the enemy line broke to retreat, they would be recalled, allowing their foe a chance to recover. That was a discipline they needed to learn, and which Hortak himself found repulsive to obey.
He entered atmosphere, ahead of the missiles and railguns that sought his ship, heedless of the flashing plasma and laser beams that could only find them by random chance. He was seeking the aid of weather or terrain to evade the next level of defenses, when he must proceed slower, and for which there was a measure of predictability for the enemy, if he was careless.
A large weather front was slowly passing over the territory the Krall had conquered, cutting across the very mountain range that was his general goal for a landing site. The tracking methods the clever humans had devised could see his back trail now, and he was changing track often and sharply as he descended rapidly. The heavy load of equipment made the clanship less responsive than usual, and his sensors had detected missile launches from human lines closer to the mountains, where he wished to go. Somehow, the humans could feed the information from his past disturbances of the atmosphere to the missiles, and they would aim for where he was expected to be next.
He remained on the tachyon powered reactionless space drive, despite the drain on additional energy available for plasma cannons, and the less precise maneuvering possible at lower speeds. The plasma cannons would have to make do with fusion power alone, because evasion held higher priority than beam power right now. The humans had recently introduced missiles that had a means to follow behind a clanship that was using thruster power, seeming to operate like a Krall on a scent trail. Staying on the space drive in atmosphere countered that innovation. At least until time to actually land, when only normal thrusters provided the fine control needed.
He dove into the storm clouds on a path away from the missiles and the mountains, and then, inside that turbulent concealment, sharply reversed course. The jolt of uncompensated inertia, from the sudden reverse acceleration, was a severe strain on his ability to hold onto his stabilization post by his control console. If the other warriors aboard, unaware of what direction he would turn next, were unprepared, slamming into a bulkhead could disable them, or even cause death if unable to flip to land feet first. Any lack of readiness on their part was of no concern to him, acting as pilot. As mission commander, Hortak had two flight qualified K’Tals with him, but their expertise was more with the new equipment than with pilot skills, and he had spent years as a K’Tal pilot, before advancing to sub leader. He trusted his own piloting ability more than theirs.
Racing through the storm, he checked his sensors for the missile tracks, and was satisfied that they had so far stayed outside the weather front, still on a vector towards where his last track suggested he was headed. He switched sensor mode to seek his other clanship, and found it hundreds of miles away, also using the two thousand mile line of weather as cover, but moving away from his own goal of the mountain range.
If the other ship continued in that direction, they might have to land and use ground transport to join up with him in the mountains. That would waste days in starting their training. The K’Tal pilot of that other ship might find herself performing some unpleasant maintenance duties, normally reserved for the Prada slaves.
That last thought immediately forced him to rethink his punishment detail for Gordok, the K’Tal flying the other clanship. She was carrying the Prada, and if he wanted them to arrive alive, she had to avoid the type of hard acceleration Hortak had just applied to his own ship.
He would simply have to shuttle his warriors over to his operations area two hands at a time, or request some ground transports from local Krall clans. Using a clanship for such transport duty was too wasteful of their value, when subjected to human missiles or artillery if they flew atmospheric operations. Hortak’s immediate ground transportation problem was that it was all on his ship, and he only had two small shuttles to move his 2048 warriors and 512 Prada on the second clanship. He only had 128 warriors and K’Tal on his own ship, due to the space required for the heavy weapons, construction equipment and bunker building materials.
Hortak wanted to look at what else was ahead of him, and before switching off the sensor mode he used to find his partner clanship, he surprisingly detected a second clanship, moving very slowly through storm clouds, closer to the mountains. The missiles fired at his ship had completely passed the other ship by, without any sign of detection. Changing sensor mode, he saw that the clutch of six missiles, rather than pursue his distant companion ship deeper into Krall held territory, had been fed the new turbulence traces of his last maneuver, and were turning to chase him. Two hunter-seekers had already entered the line of the weather front, and were no doubt seeking a scent trail of the ions left behind by any use of thrusters
, which he was not using.
With a flash of insight, Hortak remembered what his sensors had shown him of the other clanship. He checked again, to make certain it was still true.
Yes! That other clan had used a clever slow approach to slip by the human detection systems, which could identify air turbulence. However, they had switched to thruster control, perhaps for the finer precision it provided at low speed and in landing. Except that if a “sniffer” missile happened to pass near them in the clouds, it would then fly right up their slowly moving, ion-spewing rear end.
There was no way of knowing, without calling them, which clan that ship belonged to, and besides, calling them would spoil how Hortak intended to use their mistake to his advantage. He continued to jink left and right, up and down at random, but increased his speed in the direction of the mountains, and towards the other ship. He might draw more missiles after him by increasing his turbulent path, but he would soon divert their attention from himself. The adaptable warrior would live to earn higher status and breed better warriors, Tor Gatrol Kanpardi had said.
****
Mirikami had kept his console suite actively seeking human threats from missile launches by Poldark defenders. The dark, moisture-laden clouds made long-range plasma cannon bolts or laser beams unlikely to be effective and the space planes, from the Navy carrier, would generally not fly over Krall controlled territory.
Another console was monitored by Thad, who was looking for any Krall clanship or single ship activity below or around them, while Dillon looked at the orbital picture. Sarge had the task of watching the approaching mountain range for any possible fighting or activity there, Krall or human, which could interfere with finding the canyon they were seeking for a sheltered landing site.
Dillon was the first to report the White Out of two stealthed clanships at only one hundred miles out, already in the lower ionosphere and at the outer fringe of tenuous real atmosphere. The slightly lower gravity than Earth for Poldark allowed its mesosphere to extend a bit higher than a heavier planet’s upper wisps of gasses. The two ships promptly diverged and plunged right into the atmosphere at high speed, in a typical Krall aggressive move. Other than a lower than normal exit point, based on Mirikami’s observations over the last several days, it wasn’t highly unusual. The orbital defenses had less chance to attack the two ships, and it was now up to the atmospheric defenders to try to knock either of the stealthed craft out of the sky.
Mirikami tensed as he watched a half dozen missile launches leave the ground in human controlled territory, less than a hundred miles beyond the mountains he was approaching. Those would have to pass near them, enroute to intercept the two clanships. He waited to see if he would need sudden evasive action, or use his plasma and laser fire for defense. Both of those weapon systems were armed and ready if needed. The missiles passed by harmlessly, twenty or thirty miles away as they hunted the two clanships. Both of the other ships dove into the turbulent clouds for what cover they offered, the stealth capability making them invisible to radar, and like the Mark of Koban, they used the storms to diffuse or conceal their detectable turbulence paths after that.
Thad was the one to notice that the two ships initially went the same direction in the line of weather, directly away from them. Then he saw a change.
“Whoops! The clanship six hundred forty miles behind us suddenly pulled one hell of a reverse course, and is now moving our way, picking up speed.”
Mirikami looked over at his screen. “I see him on your display, and the missiles just went past him…,” he paused as he watched. “No, all of them are turning wide to follow him. The second ship must be too far ahead or too deep into the Krall defenses. All six of them are after him now.”
“He’s zigzagging, Tet, spreading his turbulence trail, but he’s also picking up speed. The Turb detection system will see him even better at higher speed. Those missiles are definitely on his trail now, and two have actually entered the clouds behind him.”
Tet swore. “Damn, it’s bringing them closer to us. I don’t know where they intend to land, but with those missiles chasing them, the mountains are their best bet to duck below detection. If we slow more and hover where we are, we might see them all go right past us, except that leaves us sitting ducks if we are detected. If we run for it, our turbulence will definitely make us another target.”
He thought a moment. “I believe that bastard in the clanship is deliberately leading them towards us. He can see us as easily as we see him, and he speeded up once he turned in our direction. That made him a better target to track. The Krall don’t have much loyalty outside of their clan and to the race in general. That ship commander is perfectly capable of letting us take the hits so he can escape.”
“What if we fire on him first?” asked Reynolds.
Tet shook his head. “Of course he would shoot back, and the Krall forces on the ground might not like the clan in-fighting and come to investigate, particularly if we knock him down. We don’t want that scrutiny. What bothers me, if he’s diverting the missile attack onto us, is that he seems to expect the missiles to detect our ship, even though we are making very little turbulence, and are cloaked from radar. Those same missiles passed us by five minutes ago, but were outside the storm clouds. I’m worried our tech people have found another way to home in on a clanship up close, even if stealthed. Any ideas anyone? We only have a few minutes to decide to stand or run.”
In the pregnant moment as everyone thought, Jakob, instilled with the program instructions Mirikami had given Jake, the “parent” AI it was cloned from, employed a communications protocol established years before. The AI didn’t wait for a question to be directed specifically to him if it had pertinent information to offer.
“Sir, we are using thrusters, and the approaching clanship is not. Could our exhaust ions…,” Mirikami, not waiting for the sentence to end, acted without hesitation.
He switched on the Normal Space reactionless drive as he cut the reaction thrusters. The interval before the tachyon-powered drive altered the gravitational field to support them, allowed them to start a free fall causing everyone’s stomach to flutter, and to instinctively clutch at something even though they were all secured in acceleration couches. Everyone grabbed on except Mirikami, who not only expected the sensation, but also had spent a career in space. They fell for a time.
Mirikami shouted a warning as they dropped. “Jakob says the clanship isn’t using thrusters. I think our ion trail will lead the missiles up our tail pipe. The Normal Space drive will slow our drop…,” he grunted as it did just that with a jolt.
He rapidly tapped some recently practiced navigation instructions as he talked. “I’m programming in a hard series of turns and high acceleration, to put some distance between us and that clanship, and to distance us from the missiles after him. We need to get our butts down into that canyon before they can home on our turbulence trail. Carson grab my hand, Ethan take Sarge’s and don’t let loose. Here we go.”
Mirikami tapped the console a final time to activate the course he’d laid in, and he barely made it back to a horizontal position when a stunning kick slammed him sideways against the restraints with nearly rib cracking force, before the axis of thrust rotated to deliver the thrust from under their bodies. He grunted in pain, as he heard other cries and whooshes of air as breath was knocked out of the others. He didn’t black out, but it was close, and the acceleration pressure wasn’t letting up yet. Acceleration couch or not, this was grueling pressure, even for a genetically enhanced Second Generation Kobani.
He forced himself to concentrate on the details of the landing, the sequence of actions he’d have to take to descend rapidly and safely into the canyon, to remain clear of the high walls and miss the huge boulders Sarge had said littered the ground. This is what he’d have to raise up to do when the ship reached a point vertically over the box canyon and halted. The next surges and turns would be progressively more brutal, because of the speed they were building.
The rapid stop at the end might literally be a killer.
The next turn threw them to the other side of their couches, with more grunts of pain. The Smart chair’s self-molding contours were not designed to adjust so quickly, unable to react to such extremes of forces applied so suddenly. Mirikami did briefly lose his vision for a moment, his sight dimming as he lost peripheral vision, and he seemed to be staring into a darkening tunnel. This was despite the pressure he exerted internally by bearing down with his chest and abdominal muscles, to force a higher blood flow to his brain, fighting to stay conscious.
He lost out to that effort on the next even harder switch back, and blanked out for five or ten seconds. He regained his senses as they accelerated the last five miles to the target point. He knew the next kick would come from what would feel like below him, as the ship rotated to fly rear-end towards the direction they were now traveling. The Olt’kitapi designed navigation system was waiting to apply a final maximum thrust, which would rapidly slow and halt them over their target point.
The couch would provide the most cushioning possible from the bottom directed counter thrust, but Mirikami now knew without a doubt, based on the previous forces he’d just experienced, that he would be unaware of the world for some time after that, if ever again. He would feel nothing when the ship dropped to the floor of the canyon.
****
Hortak gnashed his dagger teeth together and his red pupils blazed like hot coals on an onyx orb. The cursed other clanship had started moving, their thruster engine cut off, replaced by the tachyon-powered drive. His own ship now had no choice but to continue through the cloud of spreading ions the other ship had just vacated. The pursuing human missiles would continue after his ship, although they would likely spread out a bit as they encountered the exhaust fumes the other ship left behind.
Koban: Rise of the Kobani Page 3