Pendor had earned high status as a Mordo clan large-hand unit commander, on the planet humans called Bollovstic's Republican Independency. The three names humans gave that world had incorrectly suggested to him that it would be a much more difficult conquest than proved to be the case. This world, with a short single name, sounded to a Krall’s mind like a lessor opponent.
Obviously, humans did not use a logical method to name things. Recently promoted to Gatlek, Pendor had earned his two-part name. Just as Kanpardi now had earned his promotion to Tor Gatrol, earning a third name and higher title, because of his success in forcing the enemy to fight the way the Krall most wanted.
Yet, this place, Poldark, with but a single name had provided the Krall with a more difficult series of battles than had Bollovstic. The Gatlek he replaced had discovered how deceptive and difficult the enemy here could be. Fortunately, for Gentda, the dead Tanga clan commander he had replaced, that planetary invasion commander had ordered his seed frozen for future use. His preserved seed could still produce cubs that potentially would grow into superior warriors and leaders for his clan. However, his command decision to personally lead a modest force after a smaller human group in panicked retreat, made his genes seem questionable. He had found a trap waiting, which he did not survive.
Thinking of his predecessor’s mistake, he spoke to his underling, “Bring the wounded human that killed Gatlek Gentda.”
This was an opportunity to test his skill with Standard here. The people of the last world spoke that language in a way he had found difficult to understand. The name of the language implied that it would be spoken the same by all, but each human world permitted changes to the sounds of many of the words. On Bollovstic, when he was new there, he had killed a number of potentially useful information sources when he assumed they were deliberately speaking nonsense to confuse him. They had almost made sense, as he “encouraged” them to reveal what they knew of enemy force locations.
After he heard another more experienced translator’s interrogation of an equally confusing captive, he understood that it was possible to learn the different sounds of the same words. The other warrior extracted what he needed from that subject, despite the inarticulate screams between questions put to the human. Most humans had a low tolerance for minor pain. Claw, ear, nose, and finger removal was enough to make many humans tell you anything you wanted to know. As punishment for their weakness, larger removals always followed for those cowards. After all, once they told you what they knew they no longer served an information need. It was efficient to study how the enemy might control themselves after receiving various wounds encountered in combat. “Not very well” often seemed to be the answer for any limb loss.
His temporary aid, Toltak was her name, brought the human to him at gunpoint. It was a human warrior based on his coverings, not what they called a “civilian.” Whatever that peculiar designation was supposed to mean; all humans fought back or died. The captive’s left arm was missing, and there was a bloody bandage on the stump, which extended a hand’s width below the creature’s shoulder. The pathetic human might die soon if he simply removed that bandage and let him bleed. It was amazing they survived any battle, as weak and fragile as they were.
Toltak extended her inner ears and used high Krall to speak. They knew that many warrior humans understood some low Krall, but they did not have the capacity to hear the ultrasonic language of high Krall. “Leader, I claim the right to kill this one. He speaks words of our low speech, and insulted me and stares into my eyes in challenge. I demand to claim and earn the point for his death now.”
This was the former invasion commander’s aid, a member of the same Tanga clan, of course. Pendor would replace her with a member of his own Mordo clan soon. However, he was in no mood to listen to her complaint of an insult, not when she had just slighted him by failing to address him by his title as Gatlek, nor even used his first earned name.
He used low Krall to reply. “You will demand nothing of me. You forget who I am. I will remember who you are because of that. Holster your weapon and leave the human with me. Did you need your pistol if a one armed human with no weapons attacked you?” He traded her insult for insult.
He watched with interest, as her lips wriggled briefly at the suppressed rage she did not dare speak. Her red eyes flashed away from his, avoiding a challenge that her lower status could not afford to meet. She whirled and swiftly left the commander’s post in the buried war bunker.
Surprisingly, the human male spoke up, “I think I pissed her off. Congratulations, you must be the new Gatlek. You should thank me for your promotion. I killed your predecessor.” The human’s voice was nearly as deep as a Krall’s.
He glared at the human because he spoke without invitation, but respected his daring and defiance, despite his hopeless predicament. He might be trying to provoke him, as he had pushed Toltak, to trigger his own quick death via a typical novice Krall’s rage. Human warriors were familiar with how the Krall conducted most interrogations, and how they usually ended.
“I accept your false congratulations because you were the indirect cause of my coming here. However, my earned status qualified me to receive this leader’s position, or some other equal role in our war. This position on Poldark is more to my liking than many, because you have made the war more interesting here.”
“How, by us killing more of you bastards?”
“Yes, because our Great Path requires efficient culling of our poorest warriors. My understanding of your language has advanced in the years of this war, and I’m sure you know that every Krall you have ever seen is exactly a bastard. Perhaps doubled, because we do not know our mothers either.” He snorted.
“Glad I could make you laugh.” The man added sarcastically.
Pendor looked at the sergeant, as his clothing markings on his good right arm indicated he was. This mid to low ranking human knew more of the Krall than just a few words of low speech, because he understood Pendor’s rank, and recognized his rare gesture of amusement. How the human knew these small details about the Krall made him curious. That interested him, as much as the report the humans had taken the dead body of the former invasion leader, after an apparent attempt to capture him.
This human’s speech was more understandable than that of prisoners he had questioned on the other world, where he had fought. “Your words in your language, Standard, are clear to me. The humans on Bollovstic did not speak your own language as well.”
The prisoner shrugged, and winced from the pain that caused. “The Boll’s are…, make that were, an independent lot, and many of them used the native languages of their old countries when at home, and spoke Standard with a heavy accent. I don’t suppose it matters now what any of them used to speak. You pricks let only a few thousand refugees escape.”
There was a series of heavy thumps heard, and the ceiling and floor vibrated, which put Pendor’s curiosity on hold for a moment. That must be the human artillery projectiles arcing over the mountain ridges. This was such a simple and effective method of attack, but strangely it wasn’t one any of the races the Krall had faced before had used. Their previous high tech foes had used many types of guided munitions, but firing low-tech entirely ballistic projectiles wasn’t something any of them had used, apparently as too primitive and basic a technology. Dumb could be smart at times.
Pendor moved to the bunker’s control console to get a status update, and to speak to various hand-of-hand sub-leaders. The room lacked chairs, as usual for the Krall, so the one armed man sat on the floor, and he watched the various external screens used by the Krall leader with intensity.
Initially, human artillery had also used smarter steerable projectiles, but they soon learned that for some reason the Krall’s antimissile laser defenses were more accurate in knocking down the smart guided weapons than the “dumb” bombs.
When shells followed a pure ballistic path, atmospheric currents, air density, and friction, all combined to subtly alter projectile
courses, and a higher percentage of them made it through the defenses. The smarter munitions were better at countering random minor course changes and were definitely more accurate, except that fewer reached their targets. Somehow, guided precision made them better targets for the laser counter fire. The Krall used antimissile tracking computers designed and programed by an alien race, which had exclusively used smart weapons. The software didn’t appear to have as accurate an algorithm to track the primitive style human artillery, at least not precisely enough to hit them all.
Clearly, the Krall either didn’t understand the equipment well enough, or were unable to change the programming. The human’s AI systems were better at knocking down the Krall artillery, of the smart or dumb variety, and then directed counter fire at their source.
The Krall’s own return fire to destroy human gun batteries was quite accurate and very prompt, so human ingenuity had built mobile batteries on relatively high-speed all-terrain tracked vehicles, with multiple rapid firing tubes on gyro-stabilized platforms. They used computer steered rocket assist on the first ten percent of the projectile’s rise, to increase the range and accuracy, but reverted to pure ballistics on the final climb and arc, usually just before Krall detection equipment could see them. Even if only a couple of dozen shells per hundred made it through the counter-fire lasers, the damage delivered was worth the effort.
Pendor had learned that humans here on Poldark hadn’t completely dispensed with smart artillery munitions, and only their delivery was low-tech. There were considerable choices for what the shells did at the target end, after short lives in flight. Some would activate a booster rocket attachment, at low altitude, to increase final velocity for deeper penetration and bunker busting. Others would airburst at roughly head height, to blast thousands of depleted uranium pellets, cased in a hardened shell, to strike any upright Krall nearby. Others scattered small grenade-like bombs, which waited for an armored or unarmored Krall to pass near, and then exploded to spread their smaller load of dangerous pellets.
A new shell version opened at low altitude to spew insect-like mechanical spies, which flew to or climbed on, trees, buildings, armored Krall’s suits, or entered their vehicles and ships, collecting data to send in a compressed signal burst. Afterwards, they exploded like small grenades.
Both sides now used armored personnel carriers to send troops to new battle zones because, even with body armor, the warrior or soldier needed to get to the fight faster that they could run, and be safely shielded from body armor defeating munitions in transit. Once closer to the fight, they deployed to do as much damage as they could. Humans tried to match the Krall physically, but even powered armor, controlled by men, could not come close to the reaction time of a Krall warrior.
A test of purely mechanized AI controlled human armor (a step towards a fully robot soldier) failed to meet expectations, despite quicker response to an attack. The Krall had used electronic counter measures to hamper an AI’s ability to control the suits remotely, and prevented a return of intelligence on the enemy. Later, with onboard AI’s the suits could not receive human instructions and battle plan changes. Both versions of AI battle suits had another flaw the Krall were quick to exploit.
Warriors started strapping live captured civilians or soldiers on the front and back of their own suits. When an AI controlled suit faced a Krall with human shields, the computer software restrictions limited their response. The AI’s had been programmed against killing humans, and could be fooled by dead bodies attached to a Krall or to a vehicle, uncertain if the people were still living. One fateful field decision, made in an urban setting, had removed all restrictions on the AI’s actions. That fight, conducted in a large city, had caused roughly as many collateral civilian deaths by AI as the Krall had killed directly. A warrior would leap into a group of civilians and deliberately draw fire, racking up status points.
In response to the artillery, Pendor ordered two hands of the Krall equivalent of single-warrior light tanks to move to the ridgeline, to destroy the mobile gun platforms if they returned. The small fast tanks carried two fusion bottles, one for powering the electric motors, track system, and four lasers. The other bottle powered the medium bore nine-inch plasma cannon. A warrior wore armor inside the fifteen foot, low profile tank called a Little Dragon by soldiers. A Krall controlled the machine from a sitting position, head up inside the rotating gun turret, his helmet visor providing an external view. If the tank became disabled, the warrior could dismount and fight with his plasma rifle, and the usual assorted personal armament, per the warrior’s preferences.
An armored man or woman, caught in the open by one of these small tanks, had few options. Their suits had quick reacting IR temperature control to blend with the local heat background, and active visual electromagnetic camouflage that made you nearly invisible by looking like your surroundings, but both worked well only if you quit moving. In most cases, if spotted while still moving, you had better get to where a raging beam of star hot plasma couldn’t burn your armored ass off in 2.4 seconds of exposure.
An active tank defense was a hand held eighteen-inch long, two-inch diameter rocket launcher tube, nicknamed Dragon Killers, or DKs. Each soldier carried a half dozen or more, and the suit’s targeting system and power stability made accurate aiming possible. The ceramic sloping sides of the Krall mini-tanks would deflect these small weapons, and shrug off light to moderate laser and plasma beams, and 50 Caliber machine guns. However, at the narrow boundary between the sloping rotating turret and sloping tank body was a weakness. It was possible to “blow the lid off” if you hit that narrow one-inch high gap, and occasionally that was enough to kill the Krall driver.
On a screen showing the bunker’s underground parking area, the sergeant saw eight mini-tanks race out towards a high ridge several miles away. He hoped it was another trap for them. The previous Gatlek had led a similar group of sixteen Dragons into a trap, costing that worthy his life.
Sergeant Reynolds knew about that Krall leader’s mistake, because he had been part of the bait that drew him chasing after what he believed was thirty injured soldiers, apparently receiving emergency medical evacuation. The Dragons had pursued three personnel carriers into a dead end valley. The vehicles each transported ten busted up empty suits, all of which broadcasted false medical alerts, as if for seriously injured soldiers. There actually was only a driver aboard each halftrack. They drove down a concealed ramp and out of sight below a steep rocky natural wall at the end of the box canyon, clearing the way for an ambush.
Killing wounded soldiers was a favored Krall pastime, and thirty of them so injured that they required emergency evacuation was a tempting target. Half of the Dragons never made it out of the canyon. Reynolds and his two fellow drivers had leaped from their parked halftracks and doubled back to a smaller tunnel, which emerged as a shaft in a rocky outcrop the pursuing Dragons had to pass. This was a former human bunker complex, which had been abandoned as the enemy expanded their front.
The three drivers had two DK’s apiece ready, and fired on the lead mini-tanks in a maneuver descriptively called a “poop, shoot, and scoot.” A move where the armored soldier squatted to present as small a target as possible, fired one or two DK’s, then ducked for cover.
The closest tank, driven by that foolish lead-from-the-front Gatlek, had its “lid popped” by Reynolds. Not that the good sergeant knew the rank of his target at the time. Blowing turrets off four of the small tanks, the men immediately jumped back down the shaft as plasma bolts struck the rocks shielding them. Reynolds had called for the waiting artillery bombardment before the three drivers had even climbed up behind the rocks.
The first inbound high explosive shells, the dozen or so able to evade the Krall laser intercepts, were exploding on and among the Dragons as the three men slid down the shaft. The Gatlek had survived his turret’s violent removal, but not the shell that was self-directed once it reached fifty feet overhead, flying straight into his tank’s open cavit
y as he called for reinforcements on his suit radio.
The other three opened Dragons died the same way, and another four had one or both tracks blown off. On three Dragons that were still mobile, the ceramic coating on the turrets had cracked, from concussion impacts.
Once cracked, the turret often wouldn’t rotate around the precision grove where it mated tightly with the tank body, leaving the main gun stuck where it happened to be pointing. After that, the driver couldn’t properly aim the cannon, not without turning the entire tank. As the bombardment continued, the warrior now in charge ordered the eight mobile Dragons to withdraw, and told the drivers of the four de-tracked disabled tanks to exit, and get in between the retreating tanks, using them as shields. Those four Krall died when the next inbound shells, as prearranged, were very low altitude airburst shells. They spewed thousands of pellets, to riddle the exposed warrior’s armor.
The three bait drivers drove their halftracks back up to the surface, where Reynolds and his two corporals confirmed the eight Krall left behind were all dead. “Confirmation” consisting of plasma bursts through the faceplates.
There was one much more elaborate suit than normal, badly damaged, with external electronics and a larger com system package on the dead Krall in the Dragon the sergeant had ‘popped.’ The different equipment looked like it could be of interest to the intelligence people, so the sergeant threw the entire suited body into his halftrack. The three men then made a left turn as they departed the valley mouth, away from the eight retreating Dragons, which were still receiving intermittent artillery fire to keep them moving away.
That bit of enterprising equipment recovery, of advanced Krall suit technology, was Reynolds undoing. He received scant radio warning from his commander when eight single ships dropped out of orbit overhead, apparently headed for his small group. Reynolds immediately ordered the trucks to split up, each driver to seek cover. The move saved his two men, because all eight single ships came after his own halftrack. He drove into a woods but his suit visor played the relayed radar tracks for him, showing them all boring in on only him. A couple of missiles were closing with his wildly zig zaging halftrack, and his last thought, right before he lost his left arm and consciousness, was; “What the hell did I do to piss all eight of them off?”
Koban: The Mark of Koban Page 44