Koban: The Mark of Koban

by Stephen W Bennett

  Explosive shells and armor piercing rounds were striking the monster all across its front, as they sought a way to bring it to a halt. It clearly was going to try to ram and damage the Clanship. The huge black wheels seemed impervious to their fire, as indeed they were for the most part. They were solid carbon fiber matrix, and although chips were coming off where explosive rounds struck, the armor piercing slugs were simply absorbed.

  The plazsteel front windshield shattered, as hundreds of rounds sparked off the heavy hardened steel of the cockpit. The thick plate steel, there to protect drivers from collisions that would crush smaller machines, kept the bullets from damaging the electronics and the AI that steered the truck. However, it wasn’t a combat designed vehicle, and some serendipitous shots managed to hit hydraulic lines.

  The machine began to slow, it’s steering appeared to be drifting to the right. The engine even increased its roar, but the huge truck wasn’t picking up speed. It continued towards the Clanship, no longer centered on it, as the speed gradually slowed. When it hit, it’s mass, even at only ten miles per hour rocked the ship with a huge clang and a sound of crumpled hull plates.

  Several warriors raced up to the cockpit and emptied their pistols into it from over the edge of the shattered windows, in case there were living humans hiding inside.

  Daktor was no longer interested in the disabled truck. He needed to inspect the landing jack that it had struck. Calling the K’Tal on his com set, he met with him to inspect the damage.

  There was a hole in the hull from warped and torn plates, and the landing jack had bent slightly. This was not serious damage at all. The humans’ trick had failed. However, it was another clever use of mining equipment. Humans were good at improvising, he was learning.

  He sprouted his internal ears as he caught the sounds of ultrasonic calls coming from the direction of the collapsed human dome. The remainder of his new command would be here shortly. The damaged jack would not retract, but that wasn’t necessary for the relocation he would make, nor would this hamper Jump travel. The K’Tal returned to the command deck to prepare for the short relocation flight.

  With his superior infrared night vision, Daktor was able to make out the silhouettes of his returning warriors. Their bodies blazing with the heat of the energy they had been required to use by so much running, on top of the destruction of the human compound, and the slaughter of some of its inhabitants. Now it was time to find and kill the remainder of that hiding prey.

  Two new powerful engine roars suddenly sounded, from opposite sides of the landing pad. There were two more of the giant monster trucks! This trap wasn’t finished yet. Only this time Daktor knew more about their weaknesses. The hydraulic lines that controlled the truck’s steering and transmission were vulnerable to the Krall’s hand weapons. Now that they knew where to shoot, simple pistols rounds could stop them much farther out, before they could damage the ship again.

  The trucks were still only huge noisy infrared silhouettes in the dark, when the remaining seventy warriors arrived. There were only seventy novices because they left some trapped or severely injured warriors behind. They were of course aware of the command change, and as they were reloading, the new commander described the weak spots of the disabled truck the humans had just used to ram the Clanship.

  He pointed into the darkness, where the warm glow of hot engines revealed the two oncoming threats, explaining what they meant. He had time, so he led them to the front of the dead truck and fired several demonstration rounds into the exposed lines, so they would know how to stop the massive trucks.

  Instead of waiting for the trucks to get closer, he sent a band of warriors out to meet each of the enormous enemy transports. These would not reach his ship.

  The shooting commenced as the shadows approached, and as before, the engine sounds became louder as the trucks labored to keep moving as they lost the fluids that were their life’s blood.

  Except that the rumble and vibration of their approach had not lessened, it was increasing. As they came near, he saw that the outline looked different. At first, he thought these were a different kind of large transport. Then he realized the simple and effective thing the humans had done. The giant trucks were in reverse, a large pile of rocks in the back and the nearly indestructible tires were the only targets for their weapons.

  He used his com set to order them to run around to the front side, to shoot at the hydraulic lines he had told them to hit. However, it was already too late to prevent them from reaching the Clanship. They were not moving as fast in reverse as the first truck had been in forward when it had started, but they were going to hit straight on this time.

  Then, in a surprise action, one of the Clanship’s heavy lasers blazed across the short distance to one of the trucks. Daktor was elated; his K’Tal had obviously been preparing for the repositioning operation, and had seen the threat.

  The ravening beam vaporized several warriors that had climbed onto the vehicle in an effort try to change its direction. Those were acceptable and honorable losses. Except the beam merely shattered a few the rocks from sudden thermal expansion, slagged some dirt, and melted soft spots in the huge truck’s thick metal bed where the edges were exposed. It could not reach anything vital below that heavy deck.

  He realized they couldn’t stop them. Daktor was forced to step aside, firing his pistols without effect as one truck swept by him and crashed thunderously into the Clanship. That was followed a second or two later by an equal crash on the opposite side. If anything, the second impact may have prevented the toppling of the ship. The heavy laser cut off, as the K’Tal no doubt was rushing down to see the damage.

  Daktor didn’t need a K’Tal to tell him that the Clanship wasn’t going to lift after these more damaging double impacts. He could see damage to the main thruster column down the center of the Clanship. He ordered The K’Tal stop at the third deck and open the hangar bay for the stored shuttle. He would use that small craft to search out the humans, carry extra ammunition, and bring the fusion bottle powered, portable plasma cannons this time. His now grounded warriors would root out and savage any human they could find.

  It was a tribute to the new leader’s fierce desire to exact revenge that he initially ignored a question from one of his octet leaders. It was also a weakness in leadership. One which led to his downfall.

  Insistent, the octet leader repeated his question, as ammunition was unloaded to be placed inside the shuttle once it was out. “Where are the humans that drove these giant transports? There are no bodies inside the small control rooms.”

  “They must have jumped out,” Daktor suggested.

  The octet leader didn’t think so. “The transports changed direction to stay on track to strike the Clanship and they accelerated. They did this when they were close enough we would have seen humans leave. Where are they?”

  Daktor had an ugly premonition. He recalled the canyon ambush that he had only heard about. His premonition proved exceedingly accurate.

  ****

  Will, a remote control unit for a Big Dump still on his lap, was looking at a video image from the first truck’s cab roof camera. “I think all of them are next to the ship now Sir, unloading ammunition.”

  “Good!” Sanji had wanted all the rats in the trap. He pressed the radio detonator.

  All three trucks simultaneously vanished in a splatter of large heavy metal fragments that cut down anything the three immense explosions did not destroy directly. The rocks covering the explosive pallets blasted out of the concave truck beds as if from a shaped charge. Two of the trucks had backed up to the ship, and their boulders struck it squarely.

  The rocks and truck beds acted much like giant pellets from immense claymore mines. The high velocity stones and fragments tore through the heavy hull plates. The Clanship now resembled a sieve more than a Jump ship. Every Krall in sight had shredded or vaporized in the triple balls of flames and debris.

  Except for eradicating the handful of injured
or pinned Krall in the canyon, the people of Gem Town, what was left of it, had exterminated these particular vermin. At a terrible personal cost, however. After a rough head count at the Pipe, they knew these monsters had slaughtered probably fifteen thousand of their people. Moreover, there were fifteen other cities and towns still under attack on the Nook. There was no sign they planned to leave, and no way to make them.

  ****

  A day later, Telour calculated that his raiders had killed perhaps two million humans. The despicable creatures had proven adept at distractions, misdirection, creative ways of hiding, and in a limited number of cases, a startling ability to strike back.

  Other than the destruction of a Clanship, the counterattacks were trivial. That one anomaly was largely due to an incompetent commander, who was replaced in the field after excessive blunders left the ship vulnerable. Telour had randomly selected him from a pool of equal status sub leaders. He would not make that error again, no matter how much of a rush he was in to form a raiding party.

  Humans had only killed six hands of warriors on the rest of the entire planet. He had lost more warriors from recklessness, being careless, or simply stupid. They improved the Krall gene pool simply by their loss.

  They extracted nearly on schedule, although shuttles had to make numerous pickups of warriors too far from their Clanships to return quickly. Telour had been tempted to leave them to their fate. He was convinced otherwise when several ship commanders noted that the late returns were the warriors with the highest kill ratios.

  Overall, the raid accomplished what the clan had wanted, and the atrocities he had requested were common enough to spur the passive humans into greater preparations when they raided the next planet. Humans would have to be pushed hard and often, to make them increase their warrior kill ratios if they were to match Krall expectations.

  His report to the clan leaders noted that novice warriors would have to learn to fight smarter against humans. This was a different direction than had been the norm, where outright strength and speed were the only criterion for status increases, and proving breeding potential. It would take time. Something the Krall had in abundance.

  4. Hub City (Koban)

  “You don’t really have the time to do this, Tet.” Maggi repeated for the nth time.

  “Besides, going to meet Governor Cahill on her own turf is a mistake. That egotistical hack had the hubris to push her supporters into giving her that grandiose title. It’s a deliberate attempt to make her appear your superior.” This was another of Maggi’s pet peeves that Mirikami had heard repeatedly.

  “I’m not a politician Maggi,” Tet replied yet again, with a sigh. “I never will be. I’m uncomfortable because all of you started calling me Commander. I certainly don’t want to be Governor of anything.”

  Although it was essentially an uncontested election, the remaining five thousand six hundred residents of Koban Prime had in fact appointed Captain Mirikami, from the Flight of Fancy, as “Commander” of the former Krall compound. They foisted the leadership role and title on the unpresuming Spacer, who reluctantly accepted the position.

  The residents now were calling the former Krall prison compound Prime City, a change from Koban Prime, in reaction to the naming of the other larger Krall compound, Hub City. The term Kobani, for all humans living on Koban, was mainly restricted to use by the residents of Prime City. The nearly twenty thousand Hub City residents did not want to call Koban home or refer to themselves as Kobani, despite the near certainty they would all live here for the remainder of their long lives.

  Noreen backed Maggi up, “Tet, it’s true, Cahill could have called herself Mayor, as even her supporters first proposed. She suggested the title of Governor to them, explaining that they had the larger population, larger dome, and the moral high ground. A Commander should report to the highest authority on Koban, not the other way around.”

  “I am not reporting to Ana Cahill,” Tet emphasized. “I’m coordinating our mutual support, and offering cooperation in areas that are not related to the primary stumbling block in our partnership. I’m not asking them to support the genetic modifications we have used, and will use, in our plans to survive here long term.”

  Roni Jorl’sn, his usual shuttle pilot, was listening through the open cockpit hatch. As “Commander,” Mirikami always encouraged her to offer her opinions, so she offered one now. “We know that you are not ‘reporting’ to Cahill, Sir. However the perception that you are is just as damaging to your authority.”

  “Roni, I wasn’t elected to office in Hub City, Cahill was, and I really don’t have authority over her, or the residents there.” He felt outnumbered by his own people.

  “How did I manage to get myself alone on a long flight with three obstinate Ladies?” he complained. “I need a male’s perspective to back me up.”

  Maggi had a comeback for that argument. “Thad is a hell of a lot more adamant against your personally making this trip than we are.”

  “Dillon too,” Noreen chimed in, affirming that her lover’s opinion matched Thad’s.

  Groaning over his plight, Mirikami addressed his pilot, “Can’t you pick the pace up Roni? I’d rather face three ignorant Cahill’s than have to deal with even one of you three for two more hours.” He grinned to assure them he was kidding, but only slightly.

  “Sir, with one dressed moosetodon and two yaks in the sling, this is the best speed we can make. Frankly, despite the longer trip, I’m glad there wasn’t room inside for the meat this time. Yaks really stink when they aren’t skinned and dressed first.”

  “Glad I’m better company than a dead yak,” Mirikami grumbled.

  “The smell is marginally better, but you aren’t nearly as bright.” Maggi chuckled over her little zinger.

  The next two hours were going to pass very slowly for Mirikami.

  ****

  Meanwhile, back in the mad scientist’s den, Aldry Anderfem was speaking sternly to Dillon and Thad.

  “The Earth normal animal trials were satisfactory my Gentle Men so far as the physiological side is concerned, but if anything goes seriously wrong with your minds, we can’t just euthanize you and serve you for dinner.” The two men had just volunteered for a human trial.

  She was explaining to them that implementation of the most recent Koban genetic insertions had been physically successful in animals. The scientists had tested on pigs, cattle, sheep, goats, and of all things to find out here, kangaroos. The Krall brought along shipments of cargo when they capture Jump ships destined for recently settled Rim worlds. To the aliens some of the cargo consisted of humans; some was the livestock humans ate, or animals they wanted to have around, with only unimportant distinctions from the Krall’s point of view.

  Indifferent, they brought them all to Koban. Unfortunately, dogs did not survive capture because they didn’t like the Krall, and refused to control their aggression. The people on Koban had no house pets, as of yet.

  Dillon, a scientist with respectable, even exceptional genetic academic credentials, knew about the results. He had participated in the necropsies of the test animals, and had carefully examined and tested the parallel superconducting nerves. Those had grown in adjacent to the native nervous systems, after the gene insertion via man-modified delivery viruses.

  He told Aldry what he knew. “Rafe and his team are convinced, as I am after working with them, that the new parallel nervous systems functioned, transmitting and receiving nerve impulses as rapidly and strongly as we see in Koban’s native animals.”

  He continued, determined to prove to her he was making an informed decision, “The Earth evolved animals continued to function normally, in most respects, and grew and thrived until their unfortunate, for them anyway, demise for the necropsies, and the subsequent dinner table functions held in their honor.”

  “There is the catch,” she pounced. “I heard you acknowledge it. You said functioned normally in most respects! I’m aware of those particular ‘respects’ Dillon, and we
don’t know how the faster than normal nerve signal delivery affected the way they think.”

  “What does a cow, pig, or sheep think, anyway? We can’t know that.”

  “We know that they exhibited higher levels of stress hormones in the beginning, and also based on observing reactions to startling events we manufactured to test them. We found that when they did finally react via the original slower nervous system, they overreacted, much more than the same fear induced event caused in control animals.”

  Rafe, the scientist that headed the so-called Koban Gene Initiative, interjected his own comment now. “Aldry, Dillon and I are convinced that the initial stress levels, which diminished after a few days I remind you, were caused by the rapid delivery of fight or flight related impulses. The organic superconducting nerves send signals that their brains could not process in time to transmit useful impulses to respond to the threatening stimuli.

  “Both Margret and Jason in my lab hypothesized that the test animals recognized a need to react before they could make it happen in reality. Even sending a signal more rapidly back from a slow reacting brain can not make a slow reacting muscle system twitch significantly faster. That has to be a source of stress,” he suggested.

  “It’s probably something like a short term premonition that can’t be acted upon as soon as you wish you could.”

  He explained with an analogy. “Let’s say you spotted a deadly poisonous spider on your arm, and it took you five seconds to brush it away after you saw the danger, but you wanted to do it in the first second. Would you feel stressed about that extra four seconds? A roughly five times faster return signal reaches the muscles via the superconducting nervous system, but they can’t react because they are not properly connected. The normal functional impulse to activate the muscle to twitch arrives via the old nervous system, five time later than they wanted to act.