Koban 5: A Federation Forged in Fire

by Stephen W Bennett

  “If intimidation fails, their next mode of attack is to send one of the security forces to impose the Emperor’s rule. The Ragnar are physically the strongest and most ruthless of those, if not the most populous. In addition, their race is the one that enforces obedience in this third of the empire, because their home world is located here. If you fight the Empire, they might be the first opponents to attack your worlds, to capture your leaders to force your capitulation.”

  Mirikami disagreed. “The first attack on us was delivered by a Crusher. It killed every human in one city, over fifteen thousand people on a new colony world. They were unarmed and didn’t understand the messages. We don't call that intimidation we call it murder. It struck a second time, at a Torki colony, but they managed to escape with only one life lost on a ship that fled from them at first sight. The Empire didn’t use a surrogate for those attacks. It was the Thandol themselves, in that giant ship. They are the ones we intend to make answer for those attacks.”

  “That was their effort to awe you into surrender without a fight. Not the start of a war.”

  “They’re wrong! It started a war with us. There’ll be a price they have to pay.”

  “You truly are a brash and impetuous people. How will you make the Thandol compensate you for your losses?”

  Mirikami blinked at Prola a moment, before he recognized her misunderstanding. “I didn’t mean I would ask them for property or trade goods, to pay for damages. The human lives lost can’t be recovered. I mean they’ll suffer a similar loss in exchange. Something appropriate and precious to them, and it will happen where they won’t think we could strike.

  “Where will you do this?”

  “We have the coordinates for Wendal. Where the Emperor lives seems a good place to start.”

  “Will you gather all your forces to go there? They will see your wake through Tachyon Space, and be waiting for you. They will then trace you back to your origins and send forces there. We have seen their tactics before, and they work.”

  “No, we don’t need more than the five ships we brought with us to introduce ourselves. I don't think they’ve had the pleasure of facing anyone like us before. We’re tricky bastards in a fight, as a friend describes us.”

  “Please do not leave a trail back to here as you leave, but I wish you success. I hope we can spend more time talking, if you somehow survive this adventure. I don’t think you will have long to wait before the Ragnar visit your worlds. The Thandol are not a nice, tolerant, or patient people.”

  “Neither were the Krall, and the Thandol wisely avoided them.”

  ****

  The five Kobani ships were widely spread and in level one of Tachyon Space, dragging their butts for days at what seemed like a snail’s pace on the navigational displays of nearby star systems. They were honoring their promise to protect the Hothor and Olt’kitapi, by not leaving a traceable wake in the sea of low energy tachyons back to them.

  Finally, they had altered course at a right angle to their previous group track, and rotated to level two for an increase in speed. That would leave a more discernable wake. By originating so deep inside the Empire, they expected it to be ignored as probable traffic from some of the nearby colonies of member species. They could be cargo vessels, or the less frequent passenger ships. Only the Thandol and their security forces had T-cubed capable ships. All of those were built by the Thandol, and when used outside of direct Thandol control, they were sparingly issued to the three security forces of their enforcement species.

  There was rather a lot of T-squared wakes to be found, particularly so far inside the Empire. Unknown T-cubed travel drew notice, but so long as it was isolated, it wasn’t of real concern. A fleet or a squadron of ships in T-cubed travel would draw prompt attention. Entering a Jump hole, the mobile monitor stations could communicate instantly with stations that rotated in and out of Tachyon Space to pick up and then disseminate messages to planets in Normal space. The news would reach the Thandol Military High Command quickly.

  A wide, four-stranded wake, as from the corners of a large pyramidal shaped Crusher, was totally disregarded, since it could only be a Thandol operated ship, and therefore wasn’t subject to any questions or scrutiny.

  That particular tip, passed back to Canji Mot by the Hothor servant/spy network years ago, was about to see its first practical application. Assuming the trick worked.

  Mirikami ordered all five ships to drop to level one, move a few light years in untraceable motion, and then White Out in a region multiple light years from any star system. “OK, people, as we discussed; line up at the corners you were assigned, at the 1.2 mile spacing of an equilateral tetrahedron. The Mark will take the center point, and Thad your lead corner will point directly towards Wendal. I’ll line up directly behind you when we Jump. When our AIs say we are positioned properly, let them hold the positions for you. We need to leave a Crusher’s trail.”

  It was only a few seconds before they were positioned. “Now we use normal Space drives to match Wendal’s orbital speed, and we want to have our AI’s time our Jump and arrival, to place us almost directly above the Palace at three to five hundred miles. I don’t know if Farlol number 84 will be home, but I hope we cause him to drop a big lumpy pile of Thandol turds if he is.”

  When the AI’s agreed that within the limits of the uncertainty they had to work with, that the speed and positioning was optimum, the five ships performed a simultaneous rotation into the T-cubed level of Tachyon Space.

  “OK folks, we have less than thirty minutes. The Mark will be the only ship to White Out, and I’ll do it stealthed, but the package on our hip will be visible until it separates. You four stay ghosted and on station, to perpetuate the masquerade of a Crusher. After we do what we came to do, we’ll head back in the same formation, to the coordinates we just left from, then do a star burst departure in five directions at level one, then go to level two, and finally T-cubed to our coordinates closer to home. I have the package ready, docked at my side. All I need do is feed the AI a good coordinate, send my message, and then get the hell out of there before their Decoherence bomb launchers can come online.”

  Maggi made a suggestion. “Perhaps I’d better deliver the message, dear. You talk too long and might try to reason with them. We’ll be disintegrated before you can finish. At least we will be if you speak at your normal Socratic pace. Besides, I thought we wanted to give them four warnings, like they delivered to Paradise. We can’t hang around long enough to do that.”

  He tapped his lip a moment. “That AI can do more than fly to its coordinates. It has a transmitter. You record the message, we’ll tell the AI to transmit it four times after we release it, and have it take evasive action as it does that. Then it will launch itself. The Thandol won’t know your gender, but the Hothor said they don’t like having to deal with females of any species. It would be symbolic to have the message delivered by a female, even if we’re the only ones that know.”

  He snapped his fingers. “Hey, got an idea! Since it will be translated into the Thandol tongue anyway, have Jakob use the feminine grammar mode for you. That’ll piss them off.”

  In barely a half an hour, they arrived over Wendal, four hundred two miles directly above the sprawling palace of Emperor Farlol the 84th. The Mark of Koban performed a White Out, released an unstealthed object that quickly moved away, then reentered a Jump Hole, and the five-ship formation started to retrace their route.

  ****

  Thandol Sensor Specialist third class, Hebol Filpap, hesitated to call his supervisor this late in his night shift, Lord Monitor Rupen Blitforn, who was incessantly bugling directly into his ear or via his mind enhancer about Fippap’s job performance. He would have to wake him, which would not improve his mood.

  Besides, the movements of Crusher’s were not normally of interest to any monitor station, even one located inside the Emperor’s Pride, the Crusher that was regularly assigned duty in the Wendal system. After all, only Thandol were permitted a
board a Crusher, and they were completely loyal to the Empire, if not always to the current Emperor.

  The Emperor’s Military High Command monitored the movements of the eight giant craft, and decided their deployments. They spoke to them directly when they were in Jump transit as this one was now, and it was nearing Wendal, where it would discharge its huge complement of crew for shore leave, replenish consumables, and receive maintenance for the vast array of equipment within him. No Thandol thought of ships as a “she.”

  Except there were two curious things, even unusual, about the sensor detections of the tachyon trace for this Crusher. He wanted to report it, but if the matter was considered trivial or none of the civil authority’s business, he’d not be promoted to Sensor Specialist second class anytime soon.

  This was Filpap’s sole task in the cumbersome civil heirarchy of government. Monitoring movements of the subservient species shipping traffic. A dull occupation, but necessary if the Empire was to regulate commerce, and extract every Imperial Sovereign in taxes from those that engaged in trade in the realm. The peasant races were notorious tax cheaters when they did business among themselves.

  This was the only monitor station based on a Crusher, because the High Command wanted the Emperor’s personal transportation to have instant access to what the peasantry shipping was up to around him when he traveled. The Emperor’s ship sudden appearance in a visited system often stirred frantic transportation activity in the entire region. It was compared to activating the lights in a peasant home, and then watching as vermin scrambled to hide.

  This particular Crusher’s trail had initiated only a hundred forty eight light years away. At third level velocity, it was nearly on the doorstep when it started moving towards Wendal. That led him to wonder why the giant ship had moved to that point so slowly, thus escaping his notice. Why had it stopped there? Crushers were in too high a demand to let one sit still like that, and they were constantly used to display the reach of the Emperor’s power in his widespread empire.

  This one wasn’t listed in the schedule of returning ships, which always triggered the preparations for the rush of activity expected on arrival. Just the change of crews required a flurry of smaller transports to meet the ship, and a reassignment to visit a string of other worlds of subservient species that were deemed to need a reminder of why they should remain loyal subjects. The unannounced visits awed and intimidated the unarmed peasant species.

  This unscheduled Crusher return suggested, to Filpap anyway, that this ship had been sent to the new region the Empire intended to annex. Except its back trail didn’t point in that direction, or to any star system. In a short time, it would become the third Crusher orbiting Wendal. The next ship to deploy, The Empire’s Tentacles, was not expected to leave for two days. The Emperor’s Pride, where the Sensor Specialist was proud to serve in such a unique monitor station, orbited Wendal most of the time, unless the Emperor had official travel to conduct. Such as to participate in some political event like a high status wedding, notable birth, or important funeral within an allied noble family, where he would demonstrate his solidarity with that family.

  Filpap didn’t question that it was actually a Crusher, since no other ship in the empire would generate the same wide parallel tachyon trails, from the rounded corners of the huge ships. Enclosed within their hull conforming event horizon, they pushed low energy tachyons out of their way. This captain was a particular stickler for the perfect form of his trail. The leading tip of the tetrahedron was exactly centered in the face formed by the other three corners as it flew towards Wendal. The central cone of spreading tachyons was more pronounced than usual, perhaps because the alignment of the front tip was so precisely centered. Most Crusher captains were unconcerned about ship orientation, since it didn’t matter in the slightest to their speed of travel through Tachyon Space, and it took time they normally didn’t wish to waste by aligning the massive ships so precisely.

  In the final analysis, he didn’t call his perpetually irritated Lord Monitor. His supervisor’s concerns were always focused on travel detected in the second level, where he wanted to catch trading violations by the local species near Wendal. They seem to think their privileged positions, near the current Emperor’s throne world, granted them some leeway from regulations and taxes. It probably wouldn’t have mattered if he had been call. It’s unlikely in the extreme that Blitforn, a civil government functionary on a military craft, would have had the intestinal fortitude to call an alert to the Bridge watch stander. Let alone notify the off duty Captain at night, or bypass them both to notify the Weapons Control Center that an unscheduled Crusher was headed to Wendal, where all of them received servicing.

  The Weapons Center would have been the only call that might have initiated defensive measures soon enough to matter. The Emperor’s Pride was in a state of low-level alert, sitting in a parking orbit of the throne world, in the heart of the empire. In essence, a complete absence of alert.

  The Decoherence bomb launchers, even if online, would not have been able to target the small maneuvering target that appeared at the White Out coordinates. Instant-on lasers, masers, infrared beams, or intense microwaves would have had time to hit the target, but not the slower to activate powerful particle beam plasma cannons. It wasn’t there that long.

  At the center of the four corners of the presumed arriving Crusher, which didn’t make an exit into Normal Space, a smaller massed ship apparently triggered gamma rays in a White Out. However, the ship was never visible. A smaller object it left behind was clearly detected when the other ship promptly reentered a Jump Hole. The apparent Crusher then appeared to streak away in the direction from which it came. The Sensor Specialist quickly established the mind enhancer link to his boss, using an urgent access level that should awaken him, or interrupt any other link he might be engaged with at the time.

  “What is it…, Specialist?” Blitforn, just wakened, clearly couldn’t even think of the name of the low-level sensor specialist he’d put on duty for this evening.

  “My Lord, an unscheduled Crusher just arrived, but instead of conducting a normal exit in a standard parking orbit, there was a sudden gamma ray White Out burst of a smaller ship, appearing too close to the surface and well into the prohibited level above the palace. It then quickly reentered a Jump Hole, and according to trail traces, the Crusher is moving back along its original approach path.”

  Blitforn was fully awake now, and feared some sort of internal revolt against the throne. “I’ll call Weapons Control, while you start a full sensor scan near the White Out, make it available ship wide. The Palace defenses will be active because of the gamma rays.”

  His boss abruptly disconnected to make his link to Weapons.

  Filpap started a sensor scan of the White Out region, barely two thousand miles away, and quickly detected a moving object that was changing direction and velocity in a random manner. The object was a fraction of the ship’s size the energy of the gamma rays suggest had emerged. If that was a missile set to attack the Palace, it didn’t display a linear track down towards that or towards any other target. Instead, it appeared to be evading an attack, although none had been initiated on the object. Not yet, anyway.

  His computer flagged a signal coming from the object that his sensors had revealed. The readout indicated a frequency reserved for military communications. He tapped the icon with a tentacle, and the computer promptly fed the broadcast to his mind enhancer. It was a spoken message in Thandol. From the mode of grammar used, it was a female speaking!

  What manner of foolishness was this, using an official frequency, in a prohibited area over the Palace, broadcasting from an unauthorized object? This thing soon would be a patch of ionized vapor, when the Weapons Control Center saw the sensor feed he had made available.

  Then he listened to the message, apparently intercepted near the end of the transmission. It quickly started again, the words saying it was repetition number four. The computer would have the first thre
e iterations recorded, but if this were a formal delivery, as the number implied, all three of the previous messages would be the same except for the number at the start of each. This might be the last transmission, so he wanted to hear what was said now, without waiting for a playback, despite his outrage at the insulting manner of delivery.

  This was being broadcast as a strong Omni-directional signal, so it was being received down on the planet. Just the thought of the offensive modulation reaching and penetrating the Emperor’s palace was enough to make him tremble in anger. He wouldn’t let his mind even think about the invisible, defiling radio energy reaching and touching the Emperor himself.

  He also couldn’t believe the insufferable tone of the offensively delivered message, or the threat it implied.

  “This is repetition four of this warning. The Thandol Empire must stay outside the boundaries of the Galactic Federation. We claim all of the stars formerly controlled by the Krall, including the volume the Olt’kitapi lost to them. Surviving members of any species that fled from the Krall plague are welcome to return to any world they once inhabited, to join us as equal members of our federation of species. We claim these stars by right of our conquest of the Krall. Today, we will exact a penalty from the Thandol Empire for sending a Crusher to attack and kill peaceful colonists. Be grateful we show you greater mercy than we showed to the Krall. You will not be warned again.”

  Per Thandol protocol that should have been the end of the message, but the sender deviated from the formality of four identical messages, to add a uniquely human expression.

  “Attention Thandol in the Crusher. Check if you can bend your trunks around to stroke your ass goodbye.” Apparently, there was no Thandol equivalent of the word “kiss” for an accurate translation.

  The Novae missile, its coordinates previously set, entered a small Jump Hole, and nearly simultaneously made its exit. Right in the heart of the Emperor’s Pride, where the Jump Drives, back up fusion generators, Bridge, and Weapons Control Center, were densely clustered for protection during space battles. It required nearly a second for the blast wave to travel the distance out to the corner extremities. The monitor station, being located in one tip, provided a third class Sensor Specialist a brief opportunity to realize his next promotion wasn’t coming.