“We’ve hurt Maldo bad. However, when they control the fires, they still have Jump ships that can get off-planet and describe what happened. I want to take another thirty minutes to make sure they can’t do that any time soon.”
“Let me know if you need any launchers reloaded, Tet.” The grin showed that Thad heartily approved.
The Mark moved to a low orbit, just barely out of atmosphere so they would complete an orbit sooner, using thruster power to hold them low and fast. He quickly destroyed the clanships at the other three domes, and sent two missiles into each dome as well. Then in a pass back over the blazing main dome, he spent missiles on the remaining eight ships there.
Breaking orbit, Mirikami told Jakob to Jump them the half-day distance to the system where they would meet the other crews, kill any Krall that were inadvertently taken along, and clean up the messes.
“I also need to get this thorn out of my side,” he complained about the unexploded ordinance.
“Should I call someone from the infirmary, Sir?”
“Never mind, Jakob.” Every AI he’d met needed more work on their sense of humor. They simply didn’t have one.
Chapter 17: Migrating Headaches
The Beagle did a White Out at Toborkiti at a distance of nearly twenty thousand miles. This was the Torki estimate of the probable highest orbit of the most recently used migration ships. The passive scanners immediately began reporting the parked ship locations. All of the huge ovoid ships appeared to be in approximately circular equatorial orbits at different altitudes. However, they were naturally spread all around Toborkiti.
Those that were assigned long-range communications learned that the Mark had obtained eleven of the dozen clanships intended for resupply missions to the slow moving migration ships. However, they learned a ship had been lost to Krall missiles, with a loss of the flight crew and a spec ops team.
The Tachyon Space signalmen reported directly to Maggi, who was on the Bridge, and she passed the bad news to Marlyn and the other two watch standers. Alyson and Jorl were in couches on the Bridge, and like Maggi, they had Mind Tap training for backup piloting skills, but were primarily there for weapons control. Alyson had responsibility for the plasma cannons and Jorl controlled the heavy lasers.
They were told only that the loss of the ship to Krall action had cost the lives of five people that they knew. The message didn’t say who had died, but the loss demonstrated to the crew of the Beagle how risky a mission like theirs could be, even if not directly involved with intensive ground fighting inside a dome or an underground factory.
The Beagle was immediately maneuvered close to the nearest high orbiting ship, and a swarm of crewmembers in their pressure tight armor went across on repair scooters of human design, trailing docking lines, and towing a container of a heavy hydrogen mixture to top-off or fill the fuel tanks of the ship’s fusion generators. They attached the lines to maintain a fixed separation as the Beagle pulled away slightly, not budging the mass of the gigantic ship. The crew opened the hatches their Mind Taps with Torki told them were the correct ones to use. While some of the teams started refilling the main hydrogen tank, others uncoiled the power lines stowed inside a hatch close to the largest fusion generator. A scooter towed the connector end back to the open lower hold of the Beagle, and there it was plugged into a power jack on the converted clanship.
The migration ship’s hydrogen tank proved to be partly filled, and when it was quickly topped off, the fuel scooter started back to the beagle with the container. Avoiding radio communication, a woman posted by the fusion bottle waved her arm to indicate the circuit was ready on her side. The man at the power distribution panel on the wall inside the Beagle’s lower hold pushed the combination of buttons to send power to the now tethered migration ship. The magnetic field of the receiving fusion bottle quickly built up, as the superconducting magnets automatically focused, and passed a feed of heavy hydrogen ion plasma into the confinement chamber.
In less than five minutes, the heat and density of plasma reached the critical level and ignited the self-sustaining reaction when more energy was produced than the confinement field required. Several switches were thrown in well-practiced order, and although the control consoles and lights throughout the ship were inactive (an automatic protection feature at shutdown), the great ship only required their orderly activation. The Torki and Prada representatives and two Torki pilots were gently towed over by several scooters in a pressurized transfer module. It was equipped with a docking port for either a clanship, or migration ship, so the flight crew and alien liaison teams were already going aboard. They would handle the orderly warming and activation of the ship, and the startup of the other fusion generators. Five humans would remain aboard.
In barely eighteen minutes, the Beagle had recovered her boarding and startup crew, leaving those on the migration ship to retract the power cable and close the hatches. The Beagle moved to the second closest migration ship and repeated the process. This time the final detachment from the second ship, with TG2’s gaining practice, and Mind Tapping one another concerning what worked best and fastest, powered up that ship in fifteen minutes.
They eventually reached a plateau of performance and speed, so that it required only about twelve minutes to activate another ship’s bottle, and then move away before the ship was fully repowered, allowing the crew on board to finish more of the tasks.
It actually took more time to adjust orbits to reach the next ships than they had anticipated. After descending down to select several ships that were in quick and easy to reach orbits on the same side of the planet, they needed to step back higher to reach more of the newer construction ships in orbits ahead or behind them. They were averaging about thirty-four minutes to reach and leave ships. At that rate, they would require eight or nine hours to put crews on all fifteen they hoped to take.
Radio silence was maintained, and the lights in outer compartments with view ports were kept off on the still warming big ships. They were aware the Krall had sensors on the ground that would be able to see if the ships started to display internal lights through ports, or turned on navigation lights or activated electronics that sent any signals. The main control room or Bridge equivalent was internal, not at the nearly round bow, and used only electronic (and waterproof) view screens for information from the outside universe.
The air and surfaces inside the ships were so cold that the Torki and Prada wore what amounted to pressurized soft suits with oxygen refreshers as rebreathers. The Torki version was essentially similar to a large transparent bag that expanded very little in the ship’s own air pressure, but required care on the crab’s part, so as not to puncture the tough membrane. Not a serious concern with a surrounding atmosphere, even if it was icy cold. They kept their heavy claws tucked under the carapace out of the way, and wore padded foot covers on their relatively sharp feet. They walked with mincing small steps, but made a lot of them quickly. They moved faster than expected, when the humans first saw them don the gear.
There were small slender arm-like protrusions in front of their mouths and lower eyes for their manipulator limbs, to enable them to reach and operate equipment and controls. The main eyestalks were covered in a rigid tall bubble over the front of the carapace, so they could pivot them and look in any direction.
Unsurprisingly, the Prada soft suits were somewhat similar in shape to human suits, with a compartment along the back to coil their tails. Wister explained they hated the loss of tail use in the suits, but in a vacuum, a tail extension on a suit was too often pinched or cut, causing a leak.
Marlyn knew the Krall on the planet had to be aware of the Beagle’s White Out, and presence in orbit. They no doubt assumed some clan was interested in the communal property in orbit. Why they went from ship to ship, without activating them and leaving orbit must be cause for questions among themselves. The visitors could perhaps be looking for one or two ships already configured specifically for Prada or for Torki use. So long as th
e migration ships stayed looking inactive, the number of them quietly preparing to leave would possibly not draw interest.
Maggi noticed how the process was taking longer than they had anticipated, because the ships were in wider orbits than expected. She called down to talk to the waiting transfer crews as the Beagle moved to intercept another ship. After consulting with them, and making some suggestions, they came up with a way to speed the process, freeing the Beagle from individually having to visit each migration ship.
There were two Krall designed shuttles aboard, which could hold three of the small scooters inside the passenger area, and cargo stowage for a hydrogen tank. They had brought spare scooters and tanks, so it was possible to increase their effort if the two shuttles made the visit to some of the big ships.
It would be crowded inside the shuttles, because there would be three Torki, a Prada, and five humans to stay on the migration ship, as well as a pilot to return the shuttle. The humans sat two people in the second seat in a cockpit able to hold two Krall, and let the three Torki stand on some of the armored people in the passenger area. The aliens were already in their soft suits, so the shuttle was slowly opened to space to let the atmosphere escape. This way, a human near the rear hatch could get out with a scooter, manually open a shuttle compartment hatch on a migration ship, and slide the Krall shuttle into a space meant for a far larger Torki space boat.
When that was done, the aliens climbed out and went to their designated stations through a manually cycled airlock. The humans pulled out the scooters, and hauled the hydrogen tank to the proper hatch. The shuttle pilot backed out and went to the hatch where the coiled power cable was located. Using the same type of Krall power connection plug as on the Beagle, the smaller fusion bottle of the shuttle had barely enough current to initiate the magnetic field of the larger generator. However, it all worked, marking another success of human ingenuity and improvisation.
The two shuttle pilots had to chase down the Beagle to repeat the process one more time, but overall, they shaved a bit more than two hours off the task if the Beagle had needed to visit those same four ships, one at a time.
It was finished none too soon. The last two ships were still warming their insides and bringing consoles to life when the Beagle detected a clanship launch. It came from the dome where they knew the resident Krall were based on this undesirable and isolated outpost of ship construction.
It had taken the Krall almost six hours to decide to check out the orbital activity of this unknown clan visitor. Had each of the ships visited shown early signs of power activation, Marlyn suspected there would have been a much earlier “inquiry” and more inquisitors. There were eight clanships parked outside that dome, and one each at the domes by the shipyards for the Krall overseers on duty there. The lack of a radio call to them seemed curious by human standards, but the less-than-emergency acceleration didn’t indicate urgency on that ship’s part.
A visitor making radio contact to those on the ground, from a clan that needed a migration ship, or even two of them, was not required or expected per information from the Torki. This was based on observing past practices of minimal Krall social contacts when different clans were involved. All clans knew which particular clan had responsibility for ship building here, and if you wanted to stay aloof and choose not to talk to them, you didn’t have to do so.
The extended apparent ship selection could be the cause for interest now. What was wrong with the ships that they passed by so many? Switching on all fifteen Trap fields of the occupied ships could trigger hostile action, if the clanship pilot had bothered to set his sensors to detect those. If detected, that would surely provoke a strong challenge. Only a joint council decision could justify any clan or several clans appropriating so much of the race’s communal property at one time.
Marlyn checked with Kap, the AI, to ask him when all fifteen migration ships were projected to be ready for compete systems activation, and tuning Trap fields for a minimal Jump. A roughly half light-year Jump was what the Torki claimed was the quickest tachyon energy that could be caught that would produce a large enough event horizon for the big ships, to do a rotation into a Jump Hole in safety. The probability for the time needed to snare a tachyon of that energy was an average of twenty minutes. It could be an hour and twenty minutes if you were unlucky. The fifteen ships were not going to be able to go all together. The Beagle could Jump in seconds if it was only going a half light-year, but she intended to be the last to leave, covering the back trail of the large ships.
Kap told her, “All of the migration ships should have powered up to the point where they can generate the required Trap fields. The previously designated time at which they all would do that is still two hours and twenty-two minutes in the future.”
They had cut more than two hours off the time needed to occupy all of the ships and get them ready, but because of radio silence, no new Trap initiate time had been set. That was actually a good thing for the moment. The clanship coming up, if it was going to approach the Beagle, would not be suspicious and wouldn’t become that way simply because time had ran out for waiting, and all the Trap fields turned active.
She made an internal ship’s announcement. “All hands. A clanship has launched from the main Krall dome habitat, which was on the retreating limb of the planet from our orbital location. It isn’t in any hurry, there is no targeting scanning of us, and it has not even started an arc towards us, assuming it’s out here to ask what the hell we’re doing.
“Per Krall standard behavior, they may be unwilling to give offense to a ship from a potential major clan that is looking over migration ships. Other than some heat that is starting to radiate from the cold hulls, I don’t think they could know we put crews on the ships we visited. The high moisture content of the atmosphere down there will have absorbed most of the weak infrared radiation from up here. However, those heat signatures will be noticed soon. I want the Krall to get closer, and if I moved towards them, they might find that move to be on the aggressive side of the equation, and take a defensive posture. I want to keep them relaxed and comfortably on the toilet, their pants down by their ankles, if they wore pants that is.
“All launchers are loaded, and we have weapon consoles active, with tracking in passive mode, no scanning to alert them. If I suddenly need to move fast, I want you all secured. There are no aliens on board now, so I don't plan to be gentle. Suit up if you don’t have your armor on yet. If I go to maximum acceleration without warning, you need to be well secured, so stay secured unless you check with the Bridge first. Captain out.”
Maggi had noticed the clanship’s track had adjusted course, but not towards the Beagle. “Hard to be certain without active tracking, Marlyn, but are they headed for that migration ship? It’s one of ours, and in a middle orbit. Our crew has to be fully powered and ready to activate their Traps, because they’ve been on board for two hours. It looks like the Krall may want to know what was wrong with that ship that we looked at, and then evidently abandoned it to look at another ship. They’ll see the heat increasing, and a sensor sweep will confirm the fusion bottle’s magnetic field is active.”
Marlyn shook her head. “I wanted them to march right over here to us and ask us what we were doing. If I try to intercept at that distance they’ll know something’s wrong when we charge over, and we can’t get a missile there fast enough to surprise them. Plasma bolts and lasers are instant, but we can’t hurt them seriously enough to disable them from several thousand miles away. We need to draw their attention away from the defenseless targets, and they’ll remember exactly which ships we visited. If one powered itself on, they’ll figure they all did. They don’t even need to destroy them to make them useless for our immediate needs. A few laser hits on the Trap field emitters and they can’t go anywhere, and they can always call for more clanships to launch.”
Alyson offered a comment. “Sarge is down below, with the transfer crews. On the way here, he told us stories about the attacks on K1
by the PU Navy, and how the Krall broke into their defensive formation on the second raid. I think he said they micro Jumped in, from close range, instead of boring in from the outer edges of the globe of ships and bypassed their concentrated defensive fire.”
“There are just the two of us up here,” Jorl pointed out. “There’s no defensive globe defending either side.”
“I don’t think that’s her point,” Maggi said. “Alyson, you mean us micro Jump over there, right? Good thinking.”
“I’ve never tried one so short.” Marlyn sounded doubtful. “In test Jumps for training at Koban we would go to Haven, or to the Ort cloud.”
Maggi reminded her, “We did dozens without moving at all, to test long range Tapping for communications.”
“Yes, but we applied no vector for those, or moved a significant distance in Normal Space. This is really a short hop. Even if I zoom in maximum on the console, there is a small uncertainty in destination coordinates. We might White Out as an intersect!”
Intersect was the term Spacers occasionally used to describe the extremely rare occurrence of a Jump terminating within a material object, fatally and explosively so.
Maggi, temperamentally disposed to make daring or aggressive moves, argued for the Jump. “The alternative is to let a single clanship destroy or disable our fifteen occupied ships before we can catch and stop them. We’re faster in Normal Space drive than a clanship, but they can get off plenty of missiles and plasma bolts while we chase them. What if we fire multiple rockets as we come out, and let them self-seek?”
“Self-seek will go after any target. These are Krall missiles, not smart munitions.”
Koban: Rise of the Kobani Page 66