He referred to a hologram chart of Krall territory, projected in the air of the slightly darkened room at the end of the long conference table. As Mirikami spoke, Jakob highlighted the described stars for visual reference from Koban, which was marked by an exaggerated size teal-colored light.
“Because the method we’ll use to eliminate the shipyards on each of the two planets is similar, I’ll describe what my own raiders will be doing, and you can extrapolate that to the other shipyard, Noreen.”
“The Mark will go to CS1, designated as clanship production world number one. Not even the Prada or Torki know what the long dead species, called the Doloria, named their home world.” A white light flickered at the proper location, deep in the Krall volume of space. Noreen, you will go to CS2, a former Raspani colony world, nearer to us than CS1.”
A green light flickered for that star system, showing it was closer to Koban. “CS1 is roughly seven thousand light-years away on the far side of Krall territory. CS2 is three thousand light-years closer.”
He gave them time to look at the relative locations, and then resumed his briefing. “CS1 was the main home nest for the Graka clan for five thousand years and had vast mineral resources for clanship and weapons production. The seat of the Graka clan moved about six thousand years ago to a cleaner world, inside former Raspani settled space. They did that to escape environmental pollution, and to move closer to some other war at that time. CS1 is a worn out manufacturing planet, raped of much of its natural resources, and its environment ruined. I’m told it is unpleasant to look at or to live there.”
He dug into his newly organized mental notes for data on CS2. “The second shipyard is also on the coast of an ocean, on a warm and drier, almost one G gravity world that was the home of a race called the Piltcons, who never colonized another star system. The race’s name and world is only recalled because they are described with snorting amusement in Krall clan histories.” Humor made a rare and memorable appearance in that history of destruction, death and bragging.
“As K1 is a Krall base in Human Space, CS2 was also once a base for a long ago war with another nearby species, fought long after the Krall exterminated the hapless Piltcon people. Naturally, the Krall don’t remember the planet’s original name nor did they create one of their own. After the war of extinction of the next species, the Mordo clan claimed the right to maintain a clanship production facility on the former base. It had an agreeable warm dry climate, orbiting a slightly red star, plenty of untapped mineral resources, and the gravity was a bit higher than for an average habitable world. It has a rate of ship production and facility size similar to CS1, and its environment is now as bad as that of CS1.
“The following description of the CS1 facility is generic enough to CS2 that I’ll leave the specific details and minor differences to Noreen and her staff to sort through.” Mirikami saw Noreen, Dillon and Carson all nod. The family that fights together stays together, he thought dryly.
He continued. “Now that the biosphere has been polluted, the Krall don’t maintain a large warrior presence on either CS1 or CS2, counting on their faithful Prada slaves to toil on for them, and the Torki have no other option despite their lack of love for the Krall. Each shipyard typically would build, or repair, roughly a hundred clanships per year. That represented the normal Krall rate of waste, and a gradual population expansion. However, they could build at least twice that many clanships if the need arises. Humans have created a greater need. Because of losses in the war with us, they must be producing or repairing closer to a hundred and twenty clanships per year now, but well fewer than what they could build.
“The Navy briefed us that the Krall actually are still recovering from the thousands of clanship losses on K1, back when the PU Navy was willing to hit them there. They primarily moved reserves to replace losses. They apparently have increased production slightly, but not close to the maximum. After Rhama’s near destruction, they believe they have taught us to follow the proper pace of exactly the type of war they want. We will disabuse them of that notion.”
He looked around the room, picking out Thad and Ethan, who both would go with him to CS1. “Wister and his sister Nawella have never been to the remote CS1 shipyards, nor have any Prada they have ever met. However, it was told to them by Prada that migrated from near there, that Graka clan retains control, but never has more than ten thousand, in octal numbers, of warriors and pilots based there. That is four thousand ninety-six in decimal numbers. CS2, a Mordo clan world, maintains similar warrior and test pilot numbers. A thousand TG2’s should be able to hold them at bay while we demolish the yards and parts factories.
“Clanship construction is spread out for miles along the coastal area, to provide multiple lodge locations for the Torki technicians by the sea. As you know, they move after several generations have returned to the original lodge from the sea.
“The Prada live underground in three large factories and many others in a single high domed aboveground facility, where the polluted air and water can be filtered and cleaned. They grow edible plants and trees for grub bark worms, and have taller trees for aerial housing support as they built on Haven. Each of the three factories branch off from beneath that Prada dome. This is true for CS2 as well. The Krall don’t change things that work well for them, except for their own bodies, so that factory and dome arrangement should still be in place. We can push the Prada from the factories into the domes for evacuation to a migration ship, parked on the tarmac. The Torki will swim from their lodges to any nearby floating migration ship.
“The Krall inspect and test fly new clanships and single ships, and train novices from various clans that have completed combat training and have shown an aptitude to their parent clans as pilots. The Krall nearly all live in a single dome in an environmentally protected region, a two or three hour shuttle flight from the shipyards. The Krall train and test fly clanships and single ships at their own domes, and only go to the shipyards to take possession of completed craft after the Torki have installed the electronics and quantum controlled features.
“As soon as a clanship is ready for delivery, it is ferried to K1, or wherever a clan had been allocated a replacement ship. They don’t store clanships in large numbers where they are built. That’s unfortunate, because we could knock a bunch of them out sitting on tarmacs or in orbit. We will go out with a maximum load of anti-ship missiles, over a thousand twenty-four each. Most of those are reloads, so if we get into a shooting match, some TG2s will be very busy refilling the four stack missile feeders on the thirty-two launchers.
“The Krall also maintain a physical presence in the Prada domes at the shipyards, right at the top levels, reserved just for them, as they once did in Prime City back when it was called Koban Prime. They will be our first target, to kill or capture the Krall we find there, Mind Tap any that wear gray or blue uniforms for information, and to try to knock out any communications they have. The latter may be a waste of time if the warriors have their own com buttons. Those com sets have enough range to call for help from their home dome. We’ll go in wearing our new armor in stealth mode, and presumably, they won’t even know we are there until they hear the shooting. They will see us land a ship close to the Prada dome, but when the portals open, it won’t look like anyone came out.
“While some of us rush to the top dome levels, dozens of demolition teams will go down to each underground factory to set explosives at key points. Coldar’s engineers have built carry boxes with the same coating as our armor when activated. The real risk is setting the demolition boxes down and forgetting where they are before you switch off the invisibility.
“There is salvageable vital production equipment in the factories that cannot be easily replaced that we need to specifically blow up. The demo teams will also destroy the computers and databases that are used to direct the automated machining, fabricating, and assembly equipment.
“One particularly easy and destructive step is to open the underground factories t
o flooding by seawater. We will blow open the cooling water pipes and use the circulation pumps to draw in water. That will finish off the factories for good with saltwater corrosion. We found that in the abandoned and sea flooded factory under Hub City, and even in the freshwater intrusions below Prime City. The water caused considerable damage. Of course, on Koban they sat untouched for at least sixty years. However, on CS1 and CS2, we hope there won’t be many workers left to recover anything, and pump them out. Possibly no migration ships will be found to bring more workers with new modular factories.
“Even when power fails to the cooling water pumps, Wister says the ruptured pipes will allow the ocean to continue to pour into the below sea level factories. This should completely flood all ten levels in a few days. That will ruin most of the machinery, instruments, and some tools. The factories are buried by designed, more protected from enemy missile and bombing attacks. However, the internal pumps to keep them dry will be destroyed by us. They can stand up to mild condensation with humidity control and Prada maintenance, but not flooding. Apparently none of their enemies were ever able to get inside to do what we plan to do.”
He looked towards Marlyn, who had Maggi, Alyson and Jorl Breaker with her as staff. He’d been unable to keep Maggi out of the fray. It was tempting to tell her she was now too damned young to go. Due to her small size and pixie face, wreathed in the blond hair she had shortened again, she hardly looked older than the now twenty-year-old Alyson. He knew that if he even suggested she stay on Koban, even if he was motivated by concern for her safety, that he wouldn’t be hurt physically (probably, I think, I hope), but his own twenty-five-year- old renewed urges would certainly take a serious hit tonight and for many nights to come. Therefore, she was going!
“Marlyn, your mission to the former Botolian home world, where the Eight Balls are made, involves fewer ships and people, and relatively few Torki to rescue. The Stodok clan, which controls that world and provides Eight Ball production, is one we have never encountered personally. It’s an old small clan, and apparently in decline due to major losses from bitter interclan rivalries and subsequent status loss. This is their last remaining bastion, since they captured this planet from the Botolians.”
A flash of blue light in the hologram map showed the planet’s relative location from Koban.
“However, your success has a greater imperative and immediate need. Each of the Eight Balls you find and eliminate has the potential of wiping out the life on an entire planet if they Jump them to human worlds, and use Normal Space Drive to boost them to an appreciable fraction of the speed of light. The railguns we brought with us from Poldark, and the diamond tipped uranium slugs, can destroy the Balls with a single hit provided you accelerate the Beagle towards them at eight hundred miles per second before you fire. The railgun adds the rest of velocity required, since these Eight Balls will only be at a relatively slow orbital speed where they are parked. Coming at you at near light speed would make any collision with them destructive, but being able to hit one coming from a random direction is a matter of chance.
“Coldar examined the slugs, and using his Olt and knowledge of the crystal structure of the collapsed matter, did a calculation that factored in the mass of the projectiles and the shearing angle of a diamond’s tetrahedral plane to determine the impact pressure if it occurred at the hardest part of the carbon crystal. It requires a dead-on hit by the diamond tip at over a thousand miles per second. The diamonds will always shatter on impact, but at a certain high momentum, the surface of the collapsed matter’s crystal structure will also shift very minutely in a tiny region.
“Even a few neutrons slipping out of place in the quantum mechanical matrix are enough to radiate a spider web crack through the entire crystal at nearly the velocity of light. It will release the enormous pressure that pushed it together over years of repeated gravity compression cycles, all at once. You need to shoot accurately from a safe distance as you approach, and then Jump the hell away before the slugs hit, and the atomic debris rips off the ship’s stealth and radiation protection skin. There will be penetrating neutron radiation if that happens, which would kill all of you within days or hours.”
“Damn, Tet. Why don’t you sugar coat it for us?” Maggi complained.
“I did. You need to blow the gravity projectors first, and evacuate as many Torki as possible from the orbital station to the Migration ship. The Krall will probably have one or more clanships coming after you before you can find and take out all of the Eight Balls. You will have to fight them off while you search, and you don’t want Prada and Torki aboard to slow you down as you maneuver.
“Coldar can’t say how many of the slow to create objects have been stockpiled in orbit, how many have been used, or have self-detonated over the roughly thousand-year half-life of one of the collapsed matter crystals. He said that in roughly eleven hundred orbits, half of the objects will have spontaneously exploded.”
Marlyn nodded. “He told us that previously and also that the sensors on our ship can detect the mass concentration of the Eight Balls pretty easily. We should be able to find them in orbit quickly.”
“Assuming they actually left them in orbit near the planet. Remember, they spontaneously explode sometimes, so they may be spread out in the system. When you eliminate the Krall garrison on the orbital platform that guards the gravity projectors, you can ask the Torki where the Balls are. They can probably tell you where they were moved after completion. Coldar says there is only one lodge on the planet below, as far as he knows. Perhaps there is also a Prada village and factory. Neither he nor Wister has that answer. The Krall also maintain a small dome there. If you can complete a rescue mission on the ground without an extended fight, fine. The Eight Ball destruction is your priority. No more of them can be made within the next twenty years or so anyway. Blow up the gravity projectors, even if you have to leave some Torki behind, and they will never make any again.”
Marlyn told him, “I’m sure we can handle it, Tet. I don’t want to leave any Torki or Prada at the mercy of the Krall if we destroy their ability to make one of their most powerful weapons.”
“OK. It’s your mission.” He told her.
“After we have the migration ships in our control, and clanships for their resupply, they will divide into three groups. Ideally, into two main groups of four or five migration ships each for CS1 and CS2, with two or three clanships for resupply. The migration ships will promptly Jump to the three planets where we should be attacking when they arrive. When the fighting is under control, and the workers are free, our Torki and Prada representatives can land and talk to them.
“As I said, Marlyn, you’ll have a smaller number of migration ships, possibly only one if we can’t get enough. You will have a clanship for resupply. Two if possible. They will meet up with you near the moon of that former Botolian world.”
“Yes Sir.”
“OK. That wraps up the mission outline. You should break out into groups to plan your own mission details, and then we can have another group meeting in a few days to coordinate between us by Mind Tap. All of us will then know what everyone else will do. If there are questions or problems, come to me ASAP and we will find a solution. Let’s get to work.”
Chapter 16: Ship Shape
Mirikami was honoring a request for one of his captains. “Marlyn, since the orbital Eight Ball mission has no planned surface action to suppress Krall opposition, your team of TG2s can also take on the mission to deliver and protect the flight crews that will steal the migration ships from orbit. There is ample time to do that first, destroy the ships we can’t use, and perhaps rescue some Torki and Prada to place on one of the stolen ships. That craft would need some supplies right away, which you can take with you.
“As we discussed, the capture of those ships has a high priority for performing the other rescues, even before you try to rescue any of the local Torki that built them. If you do attempt a local rescue there, you have to measure the risk carefully. Yo
u can’t sustain damage to the Beagle that might prevent you from Jumping to the old Botolian home world, your primary raid site.
“To give the migration ships a head start, you’ll have the earliest departure from Koban to capture them. Those big turtles of ships will be slow to reach the other raid sites. Particularly to CS1 which is deepest into Krall territory. You will be transporting the Prada and Torki representatives for the rescue missions, including Coldar and Wister. Don’t let yourself be drawn into a clanship fight involving stressful maneuvers before they are off loaded to a migration ship. Dead allies are poor allies.” He grinned.
Chuckling, Marlyn answered him. “I’ll try to keep that in mind. My crew will be thrilled to have more to do. I almost called them ‘the kids,’ but half of them are adults that have finished upgrades just this month. The real kids that went to Poldark are Mind Tapping with them every day, teaching them what was learned from their spec ops instructors.”
She actually laughed as she described the activities she was seeing on the Beagle now. “It is positively harrowing to move up or down the damn stairs, with all of the running, flipping, and pretend shooting going on. It’s like those that have absorbed the experiences from Poldark by Tap, refuse to believe they have these new abilities until they test them out for themselves. I was scolding a reckless individual, whom I thought was one of the Hub City kids I didn’t know very well, when it proved to be old Max Hallow, from Prime City. The age regression made him nearly unrecognizable until I heard his voice. He was about to sass me back before he realized I was his age regressed captain. We all look like kids again, and the older we were when we changed, the more childlike we seem to behave.”
Mirikami joined her laughter. “I’m seeing the same reckless older generation activity on the Mark, although I have a higher percentage of the youngsters with me that went to Poldark. Noreen mentioned the same effect this morning, with a social twist that at first shocked me, for some puritanical based reason I suppose.”
Koban: Rise of the Kobani Page 61