Koban 5: A Federation Forged in Fire

by Stephen W Bennett

  His mind went into the accelerated thought mode of an attack. This would happen as fast as he could possibly manage. Using the slight give and the non-slip texture of the Smart Plastic that only looked like polished marble, Telour shoved off with a powerful thrust of his bunched muscles in his thick left arm, as his feet came up, talons extending as they rose, his short legs bunched in close to his lower torso.

  He would simultaneously slash low with his left foot at the lower abdomen, to spill intestines, and go high with his right foot, aiming for the eyes and jugular vein on the side of his neck. His IR heat vision saw the vein on the right as the warmer and larger of the two neck veins, and the high Kobani metabolism revealed the heated blood coursing just below the fragile tissue.

  His foe had been looking at him as he lifted his feet, both legs fully bent, so he would know a dual kick out was coming. No Krall could successfully block both powerful attacks, but a warrior had the physiology capable of fighting on effectively if only one blow struck. In addition, a Krall had the natural weapons to deliver considerable damage as they engaged a foe. A human had useless nails, and blunt teeth.

  His experience with humans was that if either foot landed, that foe would fall to his second level attack, when his arms and hands reached out to gather in the bleeding body, and tore at the damaged area, while his teeth slashed at any exposed skin. Humans simply had too few natural weapons, counting too much on technology. He should have called for pistols again.

  As he approached his target, he saw Mirikami bending at the waist, leaning in towards him. The neck target was going below his high right leg kick, which he had already unleashed, and his leg was still extending. If lucky, he might rake down his opponent’s back with the lower two talons on that foot. His left leg kicked out slightly late since it had been the last to leave the surface, but it was on track to tear at Mirikami’s abdomen. Telour lowered the aiming point of his grasping right arm and hand for the lowering position of the man’s head, when Mirikami suddenly pushed off with both feet and left the ground, his shoulders and torso going horizontal to the surface as he sprang toward Telour.

  The man’s legs and lower torso lifted to line up with his upper body and shoulders, and started a twisting movement. He was now located between the former target points of Telour’s feet and talons. The Krall desperately tried to squeeze in his legs, but Mirikami was coming at him so fast that he nearly passed between his feet. Nearly.

  Telour felt the tips of two toes of his right foot talons tear down the back of his opponent as they passed above him, even as Mirikami’s right hand shoved Telour’s left leg down and away from his own legs. The man’s left hand moved up and over the back of his head, a place where he couldn’t possibly see anything, and unerringly shoved Telour’s grasping right hand back into his chest. He was somehow passing between the feet and legs intended to rip him to tatters.

  Now Mirikami’s right hand, no longer needed to deflect Telour’s lower left leg, flashed up in a blur, and grasped Telour’s approaching left wrist in a vice like grip. He used the Krall’s momentum to slide the length of the front of his body and past his head, making only limited contact, and pivoted around using the gripped left wrist, and twisted to land on his feet. The greater mass of Telour continued dragging the human several feet before the Krall hit the ground and slid to a halt.

  Mirikami still had hold of his left wrist, but Telour agilely regained his feet. It almost appeared that the human helped him rise, and then released his grip on the wrist. He remained easily within that arm’s length of the Krall, who had roughly a two-foot reach advantage.

  To Normal observers, it had happened so fast that it appeared like the two figures had nearly passed through one another, with the small man somehow coming out the other end after being engulfed by the long arms and muscular legs of his giant opponent. The short legs of a Krall were a matter of proportion. They were clearly longer than Mirikami’s legs, but were short in comparison to the Krall’s long torso, and his arms, which were a foot longer than his legs.

  Medford had been shocked initially at how quickly she thought Mirikami had been killed, and was amazed when he miraculously appeared out of the grasp of his attacker, and even seemed to help him up.

  Now that the Krall stood so close to the man, the size differential seemed more magnified than before. Mirikami was just over five and a half feet tall, with perhaps a half inch from the heels of his dress shoes, while the Krall, briefly out of its normal partly crouched, bow legged stance, stood just shy of eight feet. The red-eyed demon towered more than two feet over the man, and his thick muscled chest and arms, with massive shoulders, greatly out massed the man. Yet Mirikami stood there, looking calmly up at the apparition from a nightmare that glared back at him.

  “So much for a respectful salute to start our fight, Telour.”

  “That gave me the taste of first blood, human. It will not be my last taste today.” He was willing to let the loss of blood weaken his opponent while they talked. The man’s speed and strength had easily avoided an attack that he was sure would have left a Krall warrior far more debilitated than Mirikami was acting. His back must be ripped and bleeding from the upper shoulders down to his waist.

  Mirikami shook his head, knowing Telour understood the gesture. “I’m afraid you didn’t draw any blood, although my tailor will be unhappy. My jacked is ruined. I should have listened, and let him make it from Smart Fabric.” He tugged at his right sleeve sharply and, with a rip, the fabric at the back of his neck gave way, and the right side of his jacket was pulled off. He tossed it over to Sarge, and then pulled off the left side, keeping his eyes on his huge opponent.

  Tossing that away, he said, “Speaking of first blood, it’s already stopped flowing, but I did score the first status point as we passed.” He held up his left index finger, which was capped with a thimble sized artificial talon tip, which sometimes were used to insert into the activation slot of Krall plasma rifles.

  The Krall wasn’t wearing his customary blue uniform, and there was a three-foot long scratch up the front of his chest, which showed a thin line of coagulated blood. It had been delivered when Mirikami had grabbed his hand and pushed it into his chest while brushing along his front.

  “You carried a tiny weapon into what you declared was unarmed combat?” He snorted.

  “Well, you carried eight longer ones on your toes,” Mirikami gestured at the Krall’s feet, and snorted in return. “You also used the dishonor of a deceptive attack to start our challenge match, without the customary salute of respect.” Mirikami flipped the little talon tip over to Thad, who snatched it out of the air.

  “I don’t think you’re a worthy replacement for Kanpardi. Pendor told us how you conspired with him to kill your mentor, to obtain the title of Tor, without it truly being earned.”

  Again, without warning, an enraged Telour struck out at Mirikami, with a left hand turned into a bony fist swung at his head, and a kick from the right leg aimed at his midsection.

  Mirikami easily blocked the fisted hand coming around and down at him with his right forearm, where the portico’s surface provided him the friction and surface to oppose the blow without being moved back. The impact would have forced him backwards had it been delivered only horizontally, because sheer strength couldn’t overcome the laws of physics. The force of inertia from that heavy arm could only be opposed if he had secure footing.

  The kick was diverted rather than blocked, and knocked aside by Mirikami’s own kick. Then, Telour brought his other arm and hand to bear, but his opponent was so short that he mistakenly continued to hammer down at him. The rapid series of heavy blows were easily deflected or blocked, but Mirikami wasn’t going to allow Telour to continue to look as if he were the aggressive one in this fight.

  Slapping a punch aside painfully hard, Mirikami gained a fraction of a second to start a series of hammer blows into Telour’s abdomen. The eight punches, delivered in a veritable blur of hammer blows came from both han
ds, and sounded like a short bass drum roll.

  Telour felt like he was being struck with steel pile drivers, and was forced to back away, futilely trying to avoid painful blows that found their way past his best efforts to block them. He bent over from the pounding. It felt as if he was being shot with a full clip of soft-nosed slugs fired on automatic.

  Mirikami, short as he was, was still out of range of the Krall’s head, but frankly, he didn't want to bash his already scraped knuckles against those sharp teeth, and a knockout or killing blow wasn’t what he wanted. Nor did he want to break Telour’s kneecaps, elbows or arms. He needed to get higher, to reach the target he wanted. Having a giant opponent that appeared helpless against a smaller assailant wasn’t the image he wanted the Normals to see, even if it was nearly true.

  He paused for a moment. “For a great Krall war leader, carrying the title of Tor Gatrol, I expected you to put more thought into this fight. You should put your heart into the effort. Both of your hearts in fact. I’m going to slap you around until you get serious about winning.”

  He then leaped up onto the center of Telour’s chest, holding on with his left hand over the right shoulder, and started slapping him back and forth painfully, across his muzzle at the breathing slits of his nose with his right hand. Telour had the chance he’d been waiting for.

  Maggi shouted “No, Tet!” Even as she did, she knew it was too late to change her husband’s mind.

  With a scream of savage satisfaction, Telour instantly wrapped his long thick arms around his victim, and locked his hands together across Mirikami’s lower back. His nimble opponent had become overconfident. He would now break his back, or at the minimum, bend him so far backwards that his spinal cord would be damaged. Then he’d hold him by his ankles and swing him overhanded to slam him to the ground until he was a bloody rag covered bag of dead flesh.

  The pressure of his death grip started mounting, and the little man must have recognized his plight, he wasn’t even kicking, or trying to strike at Telour’s head, which had been pulled back as Telour leaned away and it was farther out of reach. Mirikami grunted with the effort to breathe as he placed his closed fists on the Krall’s massive chest, and tried to push his upper torso back. This would be over quicker than Telour had wanted, but it would be a satisfyingly painful death.

  It was indeed a painful death.

  Mirikami shouted as he snapped his arms and fists back from the thick chest, the pressure of Telour’s arms and death grip holding him securely in place against the Krall’s lower chest. The small man knew what pain was coming for him next.

  Using Telour’s secure grip to his advantage, Mirikami slammed his fists back into Telour’s upper chest with all his strength, shattering the ribs on each side, tearing through the flesh of his enemy, cutting the skin of his knuckles on the bone shards, and plunged his fists and arms into the thoracic cavity up to his elbows. There, his memory of Krall anatomy guided him, and he opened his fists to grasp the two massive muscles he sought.

  With his eyes locked on the shocked and widening eyes of Telour, the black orbs with their deep red glowing pits staring back at him in disbelief, he spoke to him.

  “You were never a Worthy Enemy Telour, but you turned me into one. You have destroyed your race, because the Great Path ends with you tonight. Humanity will continue, but you and the Krall will not.”

  Pulling backwards, he ripped both hearts free, and pulled them still beating from the ragged holes in his chest, as he held them up where the dying eyes could see them. The body was dead but didn’t realize it yet, but the fully aware mind of Telour knew.

  “I’ll feed these to our rippers, if they want them.” Mirikami told him.

  He felt the grip on his back weaken, as the Krall, already tilted back from his effort to crush the nearly unbreakable Kobani in his grip, started to fall. Mirikami brought his knees up and shoved back against the arms, breaking the grip of the hands. As Telour toppled, Mirikami shoved again and managed to get his feet under him as the big body struck the portico with a massive thud.

  He stood on the corpse, still looking down into Telour’s eyes as they dimmed, perfectly aware of how melodramatic the scene looked, and how savage he must appear to the Hub citizens, covered in blood up to his elbows, more on his shirtfront, and the now stilled hearts hanging from his lowered hands. It was a barbaric death for a barbarian.

  He looked out over the stunned crowd, and the media, with their Tri-Vid cameras recording this for the ages. He stepped down and set the hearts on the chest of the corpse. “Citizens of Human Space, the leader of the genocidal Krall, the Tor Gatrol that ordered the destruction of Meadow and Bootstrap is dead. The war with the Krall is effectively over, and humanity has won.”

  There was a quick smattering of self-conscious applause. The army veterans mixed in the crowd were not happy with that subdued reaction at all. Loud cheers spontaneously broke out and spread, as the clapping increased. Mirikami was surprised, but pleased, and the cameras panned over the cheering crowd, which responded with more cheers and applause as they saw they were part of this historic recording. He walked over to Maggi, who stepped up and ripped a piece of cloth from the formal tunic he’d discarded, and wrapped it around his bloodied knuckles. The Krall blood had quickly congealed and was flaking off, so the fresh blood was from Mirikami’s cut knuckles and hands.

  As she bound his cuts, she told him, “I was ready to kill you myself when you let that big bastard grab you. I didn’t know what you had planned, but I knew you could have avoided him if you wanted, and then you let him wrap you up.”

  “I needed leverage to punch through his ribs and chest without a running start, and I wasn’t wearing protective gauntlets. I got him to hold me where I wanted to be.”

  From behind Maggi, they heard Secretary Oswald speak softly. “Ambassador Fisher, Captain Mirikami, you might not have achieved what you came for on this visit, but I’m confident that public sentiment will turn in your favor after tonight. I doubt I’ll be our chief diplomat by tomorrow at this time. It’s a tossup between my being fired or my resignation as to which happens first, but I’m positive the PU will be exchanging envoys with the Federation eventually. I’d shake your hand Captain, but it looks like you need some med lab time first.”

  Maggi looked at him gratefully, but glanced around. Much of the press had apparently moved down the Capitol steps away from them. “Where’s the President?”

  Oswald gave her a wry grin. “She finally listened to her Special Agent in Charge and started back to her limo. The cameras followed her, questions flying in case she had any statement before she left. She only waited to see who came out alive, I think hopeful it would be Telour. We’ll only have a few moments before the press comes back up here.” He smiled and offered an observation.

  “Captain, I rather suspect that fight wasn’t as close as you made it seem. That was quite a dramatic finish, demonstrating you easily had the strength to do what you did. I think you frightened the hell out of the President.” He looked at Mirikami with a quizzical expression.

  Mirikami misread the man. “We’re no personal threat to her, no matter how she feels about us! On the contrary, we half expected her to threaten us.”

  Oswald waved that notion off. “Oh no, even with all the armored and stealthed Kobani you cleverly revealed at a strategic moment, I don’t believe she thought she was at personal risk either, or she’d have left when Agent Ferguson first asked her to go. I was referring to how you decisively dispatched Telour. No ordinary human could have done that or moved so fast. It was the entire fight, with your victorious unarmed David versus Goliath image, which frightened her. I can’t wait to see the slow motion Tri-Vid replays when I get home.”

  “Ah, that. I’ll admit I could have beaten Telour without the dramatic extended fight, or the gory show at the end, but I thought I needed to play to the cameras and let everyone see brutal justice delivered to a brutal enemy. The military has seen us Kobani fight, and they have rec
ordings to study, but the public has never been shown those confidential videos of us in action. Proving our claim that we really are capable of beating a Krall one on one seemed like a good idea, and none of them deserved to be a part of that object lesson more than Telour.

  “We don’t want there to be some miscalculation in the future about our ability to defend ourselves and our vast new territory. We want a friendly relationship with the PU and eventually have them as our trading partner. We’ll be doing business with the independent Rim Worlds in the meantime, and any New Colony that wishes to do so.

  “Tonight, I had to make damned sure that Telour admitted duplicity in the secret dealings with the President. She thought she could trust Telour’s offer to hold back their attacks, by sacrificing Koban for a deal to save Hub worlds that he never intended to honor. My offering him a death match challenge was a way to get him to speak about that publically. Otherwise, he didn’t feel a need to explain anything to us useless animals. I frankly knew it would damage her image to have that contact with the enemy revealed, which might offer a counterweight to her hatred of our very existence. We had a Kobani as a Comtap link inside the Presidential Palace, and that young woman knew of Medford’s unspoken intense dislike of us because of our altered genetics. We didn’t reveal Mind Tap for that very reason, because it really is possible to block thoughts once a person is forewarned.

  “It should be obvious now that our gene mods have saved the rest of humanity from those self-bred killers. The delivery of that software virus couldn’t have been done as fast, as effectively, and as widespread by regular military forces. Certainly not before the Krall discovered what was wrong and had time to apply the obvious counter for the software attack. They could have their slave labor remove the quantum locks on all of their weapons. Like we have largely done on our captured ships. Finally, Telour had to pay for the billions of deaths he ordered in the PU. On more of a personal level for us, he needed to answer to the Kobani for the thousands that died on Koban, and while fighting the clans.”