Koban: The Mark of Koban

by Stephen W Bennett

They had not repositioned even once, surely knowing he had seen them. He formed his mental battlefield picture, and backed away from the third floor window. They were looking at that corner often, so he fired one explosive round down to that level, to give them a sound and flash to focus their attention in the wrong place. Then he ran and crashed through the third floor window feet first, firing at his designated targets in the order he had decided cleared the most dangerous enemy soonest.

  ****

  Captain Krysinski relayed another update from the city Civil Defense center, this time it was a more definite report. A Krall had just attacked a number of houses on the southern edge of Belgrade, and the caller said he’d wounded the alien.

  “Its ship was said to be in a quarry on the same road. Check your computer, I pushed the map coordinates.”

  He considered a moment. They had a single ship isolated on a roof, so a second one wasn’t as unique a prize. “The Krall disappeared in the dark, but if it’s wounded, it may be returning to the ship. If you get there first, blow the hell out its transportation. The quarry is a safe place for a large explosion.”

  Both shuttles altered course slightly and increased speed. They reached the site in a matter of seconds, banking hard to stay close overhead. A quick visual scan spotted a half dozen trucks parked near the front of the extensive property. However, in the back against a wall was a dark cylinder the right length and diameter. The third platoon shuttle came around in a hover and used its forward floods to verify that it was a single ship. Both shuttles pulled back and coordinated their missile attack. Each fired two brimstone missiles apiece from a mile away. The secondary detonation made them wish they had been farther away.

  Lieutenant Capers, third platoon, called in the results. “Captain Krysinski, the Krall ship is destroyed. I caution you to be careful before risking the same thing for the one on the rooftop. We were about a mile away and the blast wave hit us pretty hard.”

  “Roger that, we saw the flash from the other side of the city. Don’t assume the Krall was inside. Third platoon start at the quarry and search towards the houses where it was seen last. Fourth platoon land in the road near the houses for their protection, and see if you can pick up a trail.”

  After acknowledgements, he returned his attention to the situation below, with a Krall trapped inside an empty office building. Suddenly, the Krall was in the street and first squad, of first platoon, was fighting for survival.

  ****

  Sergeant Griswold shifted aim from the door as the third floor glass shattered outwards, the Krall firing with two hands as it fell, twisting in the air, pivoting for a landing in the center of the street. Griswold and Slade were firing, as was Trevor, the troop behind Griswold at the far corner of the building. Gomez, Castro, and Ackerfem were not shooting, despite having the most favorable angles. Two icons in his helmet turned amber for Castro and Ackerfem, Gomez was red. Three down, one fatal.

  The Krall landed and rolled towards the truck’s rear, where Griswold, Slade, Trevor, and Dill had no shot, and Ackerfem lay wounded. A shot rang out and Ackerfem’s icon went red. Everyone in the squad could see the icons.

  The damned alien had taken out three squad members best positioned to fire at him as he jumped into the street, and rolled behind the truck as the best cover from most of the other shooters.

  DiGeronimo had the only clear shot, and he had hesitated as the Krall rolled next to his now dead squad mate. DiGeronimo resumed firing, but ducked back as explosive rounds exploded on the wall next to him and one round glanced off his breastplate.

  Griswold thought Slade was hit when he suddenly fell to his right side, but instead he fired his 50KK’s under the truck at the Krall’s feet. At least one struck home, and others exploded in close proximity. The Krall roared its pain and anger, the sound fed to them through the external speakers. DiGeronimo must have hit it a time or two as well from the other side, and it rolled back to the street side of the truck’s rear wheels for added cover.

  The Krall fired under the truck as it moved, and Slade’s icon went amber. The man wasn’t hit so bad he couldn’t move, because he crawled around to the left front wheel for more cover.

  Griswold signaled Trevor to move out with him, and he started to move towards the center of the street to have a clear shot at the alien down the side of the truck. He intended to pin the Krall down with triple fire from himself, Trevor, and DiGeronimo to the rear. Dill, and possibly Slade, could cover the walkway side of the truck if the Krall tried to go back around that way. Only it did something else entirely.

  With its right foot missing, it still managed to leap up and grasp the top edge of the truck and pulled itself on top. Gomez was still alive up there!

  Griswold screamed, knowing the suit AI would broadcast his warning. “Squad, it’s on top!” He dove into the street on his back, firing up at the Krall, seeing only its left shoulder for a target. His clip was empty after four rounds, and he fired his wrist pistol by bending his right hand down and squeezing his thumb rapidly. The six KKs struck home or at least exploded near enough, and they served to distract it from Gomez for the moment. The Krall flinched down as it spun around to see where the shots came from. Griswold was still inserting a fresh clip in his submachine gun when the Krall threw away an empty and shoved a fresh clip in his pistol so fast that Griswold knew this was his last view of the alien.

  He was wrong.

  As the Krall brought its weapon up in a blur, the front of its face exploded out in a splash of gore, and it collapsed forward, sliding limply down onto the cab of the truck. Griswold saw the back of its ruptured head was just as attractive as the front. He realized a second platoon sniper had made a kill shot just in time to save his slow sorry ass.

  ****

  Borkdol was less than halfway back to her ship when she heard the annoying high-pitched whine from the thrusters of two low flying human shuttles. She first thought they were passing by its hiding place, but they both turned back. One hovered high, as the other moved in low and slow, with bright spotlights stabbing down into the quarry.

  She briefly thought they had overlooked it, gray and sheltered against a similar color rock wall, because they both pulled up and moved back towards the city. She decided to get to her ship quickly and move to a different location.

  She was nearly back to the entrance when she noticed that the two shuttles had turned around again, causing her to suspect they had somehow seen her furtive movements. The four missile exhaust trails told her the single ship was actually the target. She knew what was going to happen when the anti-tamper device triggered. She raced back towards a low granite outcrop by the roadway. She had used it for cover before, now it would have to serve as shelter. She nearly made it before the blast slammed her into the rocks.

  A Krall is tough, bleeding stops quickly, healing and regeneration happens relatively quickly, and they can disconnect their mind from most pain. However, broken limbs, such as both legs and both arms, several ribs, and multiple deep bullet wounds do tend to weaken them a bit and slow them down. Her remaining pistol was nowhere to be found, despite some painful crawling around. All she had were her two skinning knives, ammunition clips, utility belt, and a com set.

  Calling the Clanship for recovery wasn’t a solution for her problem. She mentally listed the negatives. She had lost her single ship, lost her guns, was physically disabled by her enemy, had earned zero points, and would face an unsympathetic raid leader. She was certainly dead if she called for recovery, and the disgrace for her and her clan would be worse. When she heard one of the human shuttles return and land, she saw armored humans spread out to look around the quarry, and some cautiously moved down each side of the roadway. The sky was growing light and she had no cover, and could only crawl slowly.

  The humans would capture her alive unless she did something, and willing herself to die, stopping her two hearts, took time that she didn’t have. Cutting her own throat, something she wasn’t sure she could manage anyway with
broken arms, might not be fatal because her circulatory system would cut off the bleeding when she lost consciousness and quit sawing. She finally conceived a workable solution. With difficulty and considerable pain, she managed to get onto her knees by using a ledge and her shoulders for support. Positioning the knives with difficulty, she threw herself forward towards the rocks, mouth opened wide. The impact drove the two points through the roof of her mouth and into her brain, an organ with no redundancy.

  ****

  “Hank, your troops handled themselves well. They saved many civilian lives this week, and taking down eight warriors is no small accomplishment for the first meeting.” Governor Boldovic was trying to boost Nabarone’s spirits, who had been morose for two days.

  “Seven, my people killed seven. The dead Krall we found near the Belgrade quarry took her own life.” He was a hard man to complement when he didn’t feel very successful.

  “Your shuttles destroyed the Krall’s single ship, and that blast crippled her, she had no choice if she was to avoid death or capture by your men.” By now, an autopsy had confirmed it was female Krall.

  “That quarry worker gave her the bullet wounds and the anti-tamper device provided the big bang that broke her.”

  “Damn it Hank, we came off better than any planet has on a similar raid, we lost hundreds, not thousands of lives to so few enemy. It was the first real resistance they’ve met, and you will learn from what didn’t work, and improve on what did.” If his pessimistic friend didn’t acknowledge some gains, he’d toss his depressed ass out of his office.

  Nabarone saved himself from the unceremonious ejection. “My troops showed the Krall we have guts, and capability. I’m extremely proud of them. Nevertheless, we seriously underestimated the value of concealing our heat signatures from the Krall. Active camouflage for human vision isn’t protection enough.

  “Combat recording show they made accurate shots at troopers that were virtually invisible to the camera, sometimes doing so while looking elsewhere. They seem to have a mental picture of the surroundings before they explode into action, and know exactly where they will shoot in advance, no need to look again. Just watch that action in Belgrade. That warrior jumping through the third floor window took out the three most dangerous positions to him before he even hit the ground. A thirty-foot drop in .97 g’s without powered armor.

  “It then went to the best possible cover after that wild leap, which blocked fire from four other squad members. They may not be intellectual giants, but it doesn’t take a genius to see we have to perform better on the battlefield. I lost seventy-three troops versus seven of theirs. No, Mike, I’ll not accept credit for my people on the one at the quarry. However, you should, indirectly at least. ” He looked smug now, which was better than morose.

  “Mind explaining that, and why you are trying to reverse my congratulations for you into credit for me?” He couldn’t help chuckling.

  “Easily explained. It was your Civil Defense measures.” He held up his hand to hold off the Governor’s follow-up question, and pulled a slip of paper out of his pocket for reference.

  “In the person of Branko Berzinski, the blue collar ‘everyman’ that bought one of the guns the government offered, and prevented that Krall from killing a single person. Funds from those gun sales paid for one of the shuttles that blew the hell out of that same Krall’s single ship. So there! You deal with success.” His grin was back, a good sign.

  With a deep sigh, Boldovic made a partial concession. “You didn’t know this Hank, but there is an award presentation for Mr. Berzinski this Saturday, in Belgrade. His fiancé, whom he saved, will be present, and his story will make him the poster boy for arming our citizens.

  “Initially, his home pillbox idea sounded like a militia nut going overboard, but he’d be dead without that. Civil Defense intends to offer plans, possibly kits, for constructing a variety of low cost home defenses.

  “I learned today that Mr. Berzinski was offered a position in the office of Belsouth Quarries, designing and selling other granite block versions of his pillbox. With widely spaced raids and so few attackers in each, those may seem excessive. However, we know that as military forces like yours improve and expand, that the Krall will match us, or even raise the ante. What are you planning to do to address the problems you found?”

  Nabarone considered the question a moment.

  “I can break it down into local resolution and Hub resolution items.”

  “Locally we need to revise our tactical thinking on what constitutes having a Krall ‘trapped’ since they so frequently broke out of them. We also want to find ways to draw them into a firefight that looks more favorable to them than it appears.

  “They have a huge ego, and if we can learn how to ‘hurt’ that, knock a chip off their shoulder so to speak, they seem to make brash attacks. We have to conceal our IR signatures better. That will be a HUB item in the end, by the way. We need to program some suit AI control of our weapons firing, because we waste too many rounds that are not on target. The Krall manage with semiautomatic pistols against submachine guns because they are their own high speed fire control system.”

  “One of the toughest things we’ll need to instill in our troops is that they have to be more ready to risk collateral damage to friendlies when they have a shot at a Krall. Multiple times my soldiers held fire briefly, when a warrior moved in on fellow squad members. None of those troops survived the meetings anyway. AI control of weapons fire may help there, and prevent friendly fire incidents. We’ll see.”

  Nabarone shrugged now, when he shifted to the second list of items.

  “Our armor is proof only against fragments from exploding shells or glancing hits from the armor piercing shells. Those last mentioned rounds have a near diamond hard sharp tip that gets through too easily. I already described the suit’s IR signature problem. The Hub military needs to put some money into redesign of personal armor, but my recommendations have not met with favorable responses.”

  “No reasons given?”

  “Not directly. It sounds more as if the Hub wants to spend money first where it will do the most good. I’d accept that, except I hear hints of big new ship building projects, and I don’t quite see how more ships can keep the Krall off our backs on planets. There may be some breakthroughs. I know they were happy to get that single ship we pulled off the roof in Belgrade, and they got one from Bollovstic. I’m sure the returning Krall ‘mother ship’ would have blasted it if we hadn’t hidden it underground.

  “That mother ship did a White Out only two hundred miles out, already in stealth mode, and spit out thirty two single ships in under thirty minutes. How can the Navy block landings like that? Not a single Navy ship has been lost on these attacks, or even been involved, and we’ve lost one planet and over eighteen million people on the ground, none in space.”

  “Hank, I’ll pass those larger concerns on as if they’re mine, through political channels to the Hub. I know you and every Planetary Defense commander want the same things. It’s tough for everyone.”

  10. Small Premonitions (Koban)

  “Well, it isn’t as tough today as yesterday. At least I’m not flinching as often.”

  Dillon was referring to the dual signals his brain was receiving from the two independent nervous systems he now had. One, his normal neural pathway, was primary and operational but slower than the new secondary parallel organic superconducting nerves. Those would deliver “early warnings” to his brain that he could not act on, except via the slower pathways.

  Maggi, sharing the breakfast table with him and Thad, was present in part to observe how well the two men were adjusting to the first stages of Koban gene mods. Another part was to have fun at their expense.

  She observed, cheerfully but unhelpfully, “I find it entertaining to watch you flail like morons at a fly that has already departed your nose. Of course, I need a rain parka to keep Dillon’s cereal off my clothes if a rat crosses the table.”

  S
he chuckled, reminding Dillon of the embarrassing event of yesterday morning, when a Koban rat dashed across the table like a little blue streak, targeting rhinolo bacon on Noreen’s plate. Dillon had smacked his hand down where his enhanced senses predicted it would be. However, his muscle reaction was too late, and he overcompensated by swiping his hand sideways to smack at the annoying pest. His supplement laden cereal bowl had gone flying, coating Noreen with the goo.

  Reddening, Dillon told her defensively, “Rafe has measured our reaction times and says the forewarning really does increase our response time slightly. Our brain starts the return signal to our muscles a couple hundredths of a second sooner than it normally would have.”

  Grinning like the mischievous sprite the small woman resembled, she turned to Noreen, “Is he just as premature in bed, dear? Only scientific curiosity, of course.”

  Noreen, a product of their sexually open society wasn’t the least discomfited by the question. Nevertheless, she knew that her lover would be sensitive to her reply.

  “It appears to sustain a longer climax for him,” she answered almost clinically. “It lasts nearly as long as mine.” She smiled warmly at Dillon, who appeared grateful for her support. After all, he did splatter cereal on her clothes.

  “So, we can mark that down as a positive change, I suppose.” Maggi acted as if the answer were a datum of scientific interest.

  Thad, sitting on the other side of the table had more than scientific curiosity. “Really, Dillon?”

  “Yes, it’s true, but it wasn’t exactly something I felt like sharing with everyone.” He sounded mildly irritated.

  “Are you kidding me? I’ve had some offers I put off until I knew what effects this mod would have on us. I damn well won’t put them off any longer.”

  “I think we’ve found our motivation for gaining more male volunteers,” Maggi concluded, with the same grin as before. “Rafe might call this the climax of his career.”