1. White Out

Mirikami watched dispassionately as the Navcomp display decremented through the final minutes in the Hole. Three and a half weeks made for a long damned Jump, and a bull’s eye reentry from over two hundred light years away was hardly probable. For the Captain to win a small bet with his First Officer, the Flight of Fancy needed to overshoot the White Out coordinates, computed by the ship’s Artificial Intelligence, Jake, and emerge on the far side of Newborn’s star by at least two Astronomical Units, or over 185 million miles beyond the star.

Noreen placed a little too much faith in Artificial Intelligence, in Mirikami’s opinion. As he anticipated, she had sided with Jake when the central computer predicted that the Jump would terminate shy of an optimum reentry. Optimum in this case was two AU’s short of the target primary star, sometimes called Mother in jest, but which had only an uninteresting catalog number for its official designation.

Small quantum uncertainties, when traveling within Tachyon Space, became magnified in Normal Space the longer a ship stayed inside the event horizon. Any Spacer had an even chance of predicting when a ten light year Jump might miss the targeted position by plus or minus one AU. So the game wasn’t to predict the exact White Out coordinates but rather if the ship would over or under shoot the target, and by how many AU’s. A 200 plus light year Jump made for a large error factor.

Tetsuo Mirikami had plied his trade for forty-seven years, certainly time enough to hone his intuition, although he never contested Jake’s prediction on a Jump of less than five light years. However, he was running seventeen percent better than even money on Jumps of ten light years or greater. By downplaying misses and jokingly exaggerating his skill when he won a bet with one of his officers, crew scuttlebutt had it that the Old Man beat the computer’s projections most of the time.

That small-added confidence served to offset an unavoidable drawback, which Mirikami’s personal background presented to the crew. The tag “Old Man” was the result of genuine affection for him, although it caused the Captain to cringe inwardly, since it had an uncomfortable ring of truth.

At sixty-nine, Mirikami was by far Interworld Transport’s oldest and most senior active flight officer, having twenty-three years invested in this one company, serving the last fifteen years as a Captain. However, his long service record was a distinction only within this small company. His seniority and age would be average for a Captain employed by one of the major Hub carriers.

Just reaching middle age, Mirikami expected to continue working for Interworld, or a similar small carrier, for perhaps another thirty to forty years. It struck him as ironic that his success and longevity at Interworld was entirely a product of discrimination. Otherwise, he would have moved up the career ladder years ago, leaving Interworld behind.

As with any male, of course, the top promotion opportunities in large or small companies would be limited, but gender wasn’t the roadblock it once had been for men. There was more serious obstacle than a glass ceiling in Mirikami’s path.

No, his inescapable stigma was recorded in his every cell, and in a huge genetic database shared by every settled planet. His actual birth world was a matter of record, open to anyone that wanted to crosscheck a sample of his DNA.

The DNA linked birth records showed that Mirikami had been born on New Honshu, and none of the major lines would risk their carefully built reputations by hiring him, no matter his outstanding record of competence. The passage of three hundred years, barely more than two lifetimes today, wasn’t enough to erase the scars caused by the Clone Wars, and the so-called Gene War that ended those wars.

The government and scientists of New Honshu had perfected cloned workers for labor poor new colony worlds. A significantly higher priced offering of soldier clones, intended for the ranks of small but capable colony armies was not finding a market. Therefore, New Honshu created a market.

They used a hundred thousand of their “stock” to invade several of their nearly undefended neighboring colonies in bloodless actions. They “urged” those governments to agree to certain trade arrangements with New Honshu. Subsequently they sold most of their Trooper clones to the defeated worlds for their own future protection; after all, clones would also fight other clones. Except by design, the new owners could not force the clones to attack New Honshu.

The New Honshu government didn’t fight with its neighbors anymore; it simply sold anyone soldiers to fight for their new owners. The invasion immunity factor no doubt made New Honshu the particular retaliatory target of vengeance. That revenge nearly wiped out the human race.

Bio-engineered soldier clones were the intended target of some anonymous world’s biologists and geneticists. Clone buyers were awaiting shipment from New Honshu when someone quietly triggered what later was called the Gene War.

The timing was exquisite. The buyers had just paid a nonrefundable purchase price, the soon-to-be delivered living goods rendered highly perishable, and the sellers themselves were financially ruined.

Just weeks before several large Trooper shipments were scheduled; a few dozen stealth missiles were released above New Honshu. Later, investigators found the small missile casings and their empty biological containers on the surface of the planet near their target areas.

It was a designed slow acting genetic modification virus. Six or seven months after the clones suddenly died like old Mayflies, a mutation in the human designed male-specific virus permitted the disease to jump from the targeted clones to the general population. Women were immune to the effects (having no Y chromosome), but any human could be infected and they became carriers. Every male became a target.

The plague had moved off New Honshu as they shipped clones to customers on over a hundred worlds, and its spread went undetected to normal humans, where it was harmless, initially.

One of the viruses designed self-defense mutations caused the infectious agent to lose track of a unique set of genes found only on the Y chromosome of a male clone’s common New Honshu derived template. Instead of killing only clones, the virus widened its scope to kill anyone with a Y chromosome.

The resulting loss of perhaps ninety-seven percent of the male population of the human race virtually wrecked society, and altered interstellar culture profoundly. The virus designers themselves probably died from the mutated pathogen, but no one knew. At least no trace of their work was ever discovered, and there certainly was no miracle cure or vaccine developed.

Universal panic and a violent backlash towards biological sciences hindered the development of advanced treatments, let alone a cure.

About six months after one hundred percent of the clones were dead; nearly ninety-eight percent of the normal male population joined them, within a single month of terror.

Citizens of New Honshu ranked highest on the “punish” list because the originators of the plague were never discovered. Unable to focus revenge on the plague designers, public anger fell on their perceived proxies. First on the laboratories and scientists that made the clones, and then anger fell on those biologists and geneticists that were studying the virus, to find a way to prevent or cure the genetic disease. The mobs lynched their potential saviors or drove them into hiding.

The scientists and doctors caught by the mobs were burned alive or torn apart by the infected male plague victims that had only days or hours to live. They rampaged in mindless mob justice, destroying the labs that might have saved others.

Even today for citizens from New Honshu, the sins of the Fathers lived on in the eyes of many, and three hundred years wasn’t enough to erase the memories completely.

Mirikami became aware that a lengthy silence had passed on the Bridge. With a twinge of guilt, he realized that he had been shamefully neglecting his guest, the only other person present on the largely automated command deck, at least until his First Officer returned from her pre reentry inspection.

Glancing over his right shoulder, he saw that his visitor appeared to be deeply engrossed in thought, staring intently at the forward view screen. The man (his gender itself had been a surprise) was a representative from the consortium of universities that had chartered the Flight of Fancy. He was present to observe the reentry and to furnish Midwife Station, their final destination, with a cargo manifest, personnel rooster, and unloading priorities. It was a prestige sort of duty, normally given to a well-connected young woman on her way up.

Probably his passenger’s rare bioscience specialty had subconsciously sparked the Captain’s own dark musings of the past.

Taking advantage of Martin’s preoccupation, Mirikami studied the man. Martin was quite tall, roughly two meters, with a large and muscular build. His features were ruggedly handsome, the neat dark brown hair trimmed in a fashion current on Ramah, the planet where they had departed. His stylish single piece form fitting body suit was of an expensive “Smart” Dalgonian stretch fabric. It featured a wide and flamboyant magenta stripe over an indigo background, running diagonally from left shoulder to right hip, front and back, with a hand-sized heart shaped red accent patch right over his groin. Definitely, a stud male, and advertising his wares, thought Mirikami.

Overall, Martin looked nothing like a bio-scientist, or at least nothing like those generally depicted in old Tri-Vid horror dramas of the Clone War. Those defaming old portrayals typically seemed to be of skulking, repulsive looking little men, often oriental, but never females of course. Mirikami felt a sense of ironic amusement as he realized that he had mentally expected the same appearance for this man before he even met him, as many might have anticipated for a wartime scientist from New Honshu.

The Captain thought he detected an aura of tension in Martin’s posture. The doctor’s broad shoulders were hunched forward, right fist clenched in his large left hand, his piercing dark eyes staring fixedly at the forward view screen.

Guessing at a reason for his visitor’s intense preoccupation with the view screen, Mirikami spoke in a reassuringly casual manner. “I certainly hope our reentry is within four or five AU’s of the primary star, Doctor. That would sure save us some time vectoring in towards Newborn and matching orbits with Midwife station. We can’t realistically expect to be any closer than that.” It was a subtle attempt to convey an impression that the possibility of actually hitting the primary star or a planet should be nothing to worry him.

Dillon Martin, his mind far from thoughts of disaster, had been engrossed in speculating on the research ahead of him at Midwife, the huge station orbiting around Newborn. The sudden awareness that the Captain had just spoken directly to him forced him to replay the words his mind had subconsciously registered. He noted the emphasis on “hope” and “expect,” as well as an awareness of the slight ache in his arms from isometric strain. He realized he had unconsciously assumed a tense posture while allowing his excited imagination free reign.

He replied, registering a warm smile. “Captain, I believe you have mistaken my eagerness to arrive for a fear of hitting the target. I’m not particularly versed on Jump physics, but I do work with probability in my work. I’d think the risk of hitting anything here should be exceedingly small.”

The grin on Dillon’s face and the refined Ramaian accent countered any trace of rebuke his words might otherwise have conveyed. Nevertheless, Mirikami was at a momentary loss for words.

Just before the exchange had started, one of the Bridge lift doors had opened behind the two men. Overhearing both of them, and correctly interpreting the Captain’s intention, the First Officer arrived on the Bridge just in time to save her superior from his minor embarrassment.

“Fine Sir, please understand that our Bridge guests are usually colonists, predominantly farmers and untraveled craftswomen making their first Jump, more fearful of the voyage itself than of the wild new world they plan to settle. A ship full of scientists is a refreshing change.”

As she spoke, Dillon pivoted his seat to face her. She was tall and stunningly beautiful. She was also the reason he had called in a number of favors to gain the purely token observer’s post.

“Quite understandable Good Lady,” Dillon flashed another winning smile. “The number of biologists, geneticists, biochemists; all of the various ‘ists’ of the life sciences on board is rare on entire planets, let alone aboard a single ship. We are exceedingly eager to study the emerging life of Newborn, which will likely be the culmination of our collective careers.”

Mirikami, with a small nod of gratitude to his First Officer, stepped in again, “Doctor, I apologize for misjudging your mood. Often our passengers are colonists, apprehensive about where the ship might White Out. A few hundred accidents each year, out of several hundred million safely completed Jumps, receive an undue degree of news coverage.”

“No problem Captain. I would hardly allow the Gracious Lady’s valiant rescue effort to fail.” Dillon gave a lopsided grin that made him seem boyish and he looked expectantly from Mirikami to his subordinate.

The Captain, deferring his superior rank for the social grace expected, extended his right arm and pivoted towards the new arrival, “Gentle Sir, may I present my extraordinary First Officer?”

Enfolded in his chair’s restraints, ship custom permitted Mirikami to make an introduction without rising for a full bow. “Gracious Lady, I am pleased to present for your approval, Doctor Dillon Martin, our observer.” Continuing, as he executed the slight bow his restrains permitted, swept his arm in an arc from his First Officer to his guest. “Distinguished Sir, I have the honor to present my very able and indispensable First Officer, Commander and Lady, Noreen Renaldo.”

Dillon’s preferred gesture of gallantry with a woman he was interested in, old fashioned as it was, would have been to drop to his right knee, then with eyes averted, offer his right hand palm down to be lightly held, or if fully successful, kissed. His own seat restraints thwarted such action now, and he offered an alternative greeting, almost as archaic and conservative as well. Averting his eyes, “On my honor, my Lady, it is my pleasure to be presented.”

Unexplainably, Noreen found herself pleased by his restraint. The absence of an overt sexual invitation or proclamation of fertility from a male with obvious breeding potential was refreshing. She decided this subdued approach was probably a calculated and successful technique for him, and yet this knowledge made it no less appealing.

She chose a suitable sexually neutral form in reply. “Gentle Sir, how noble of you to speak so. I am pleased to have you presented,” and she stepped past him with a light stroke of fingertips along his jaw line.

Circumstances compelled Mirikami to interrupt further social interplay. “Please excuse me Gracious Lady. Doctor we will able to view the Newborn system first hand shortly.” Then, abandoning formality, “Better strap in Noreen, we only have a few minutes. I’ve advised Ms. Willfem that I want to begin acceleration just as soon as we have our bearings.”

“Aye, Sir.” Noreen moved to her station directly to Mirikami’s right, with the observer’s chair between and a meter behind them. The Flight of Fancy’s command section was on the topmost deck of a three hundred-meter diameter elongated sphere, and four hundred fifty meters on the long axis.

Dillon watched appreciatively as Noreen, in her near skintight white dress uniform, eased her trim figure into the amorphous Living Plastic couch-seat. Sensing her presence, it promptly molded itself to her contours, folding the control arm smoothly down in front of her. Pseudo pod like appendages extruded from the sides and over the back to merge and gently but firmly secure the seated occupant.

Watching the seat fit itself to her body brought a vague tingle to Dillon’s mid-regions. Her Earth-Hispanic heritage was apparent in silky soft flowing black hair draped about her shoulders, as well as in her light olive complexion, full lips and dark eyes. He detected the scent of some pheromone-based perfume that accentuated the tingle he felt.

Noreen made a rapid entry at a keypad on her control panel and a long slender rod grew from the console, curving slightly toward her face. She spoke into it to address the ship’s Artificial Intelligence. “Jake, display status of all couches on screen three B.”

The auxiliary display indicated that eight hundred and seventy-four passengers were secure; eight other crewmembers were at duty stations, ten stewards secured among the passengers, and four off duty crewmembers were in their bunks. All eight hundred and ninety-nine souls, the three on the Bridge included were ready for the White Out.

Mirikami, also noting the all-secure display, keyed on the ship wide intercom. “Gentle Sirs, and Gracious Ladies, White Out will be in about two minutes. You may observe our reentry on your local viewers. Please remain seated after we enter Normal Space, as we expect to begin our vector towards Newborn promptly. You will feel a shift in ship attitude as we rotate and begin thrust. When we have established a constant vector at a compensated three-quarters standard gravity I will allow you to move about. Thank you, and enjoy the view.”

The White Out went as always. As the countdown reached zero, there was a barely audible ping along the hull. There was no other physical sensation, and the best evidence that the Jump had ended came via the sudden appearance of normal star filled space on the screens.

The term White Out was somewhat of a misnomer, and derived from the exit of the ship from an event horizon created via the capture of particles of enormous energy from Tachyon Space. There was a spray of radiation produced at a White Out, but it was directed away from the reentry point in the form of invisible gamma rays. The White Out was the antithesis of the Black Hole like event horizon formation that initiated a Jump, just before the ship rotation into Tachyon Space.

Noreen exclaimed. “I don’t believe it!” she spoke in exasperation, as she noted the star’s location. “Mother is on our aft screen. We overshot optimum reentry by at least four AU’s. I owe you another fiver Tet.”

With deadpan expression in place, Mirikami acknowledged. “Captains are always right.”

Then he added, “Do your sharp eyes have the second planet picked out yet? I see a large gas giant that Jake has flagged on the left side of our aft screen. If that’s the inner giant then we aren’t very far out. We might have a short vector to Newborn’s orbit.”

“Sir, Navcomp has our position fixed relative to three pulsars and a quasar and the primary star.” New data continued to appear. “Ah!… Jake now indicates Newborn is aft and to port of our position, at about two point four AU and we are sixteen degrees below orbital plane. We’ll be overtaking Newborn from behind and below. Maybe…,” she made a rough mental calculation, “thirty to thirty-five hours out if we can maintain fifteen g’s in Normal Space. The Midwife beacon will give us the exact distance, once Jake picks it up.

“Should I have the Drive Room use the last of the Jump tachyon to start vectoring towards the predicted position, or wait for visual confirmation Sir?”

Trusting computer accuracy completely in this situation, Mirikami didn’t hesitate. “Let’s get underway. The star itself is moving away from us, or we from it, at a hundred-ten kilometers per second. We can step up to fifteen g’s Normal and one g internal after we catch a couple of new tachyons.”

The transfer of the diminished Jump tachyon’s energy into the secondary field for Normal Space propulsion was completed. Noreen fed the course to the Drive Room and to Jake, the AI.

2. Newborn

Mirikami had a new wager ready when his First Officer had finished entering their course. “I’ll bet you another five Hub credits that we can trap a few more energetic particles and hold eighteen g’s all the way to Newborn.”

“No bet, Sir. You either majored in Improbable Statistics, or tinkered with Jake’s prediction logic.”

“Ah, well,” he sighed. “I’ll just have to get rich some other way.” He looked to Dillon, “Doctor, would you be a gambler by any chance?”

Dillon’s chuckle matched his deep voice. “Please Sir, both of you may call me Dillon. Doctor makes me sound too old. And I’ll wager on some games of chance Captain, but I need a better grasp of the odds than tachyon capture probabilities.”

“Well, might you be a practitioner by any chance, of the old Earth card game of poker?” Mirikami probed.

“As it happens, I am. I completed my Doctorate on Earth. Poker was practically a required subject in my social circle. I’m a bit out of practice, but if this is an invitation, I couldn’t pass up the chance to play against someone that might try to beat the odds and draw to an inside straight.”

Noreen gave him a friendly warning. “Don’t let his example today fool you Dillon. He chooses his bluffs as carefully as he navigates. Ms. Willfem, our Drive Engineer, has been learning some hard Poker lessons from our merciless Captain.”

“We would be honored to have you join us at one of our games,” invited Mirikami. “The stakes are low and the atmosphere friendly. We will likely have a number of sessions during our two-week layover at Midwife.”

Dillon promptly accepted. “Thanks, I would enjoy the diversion. Until our work crews have our equipment unpacked and our labs set up, I’ll have some spare time.” He was pleased to notice that Noreen had eased into the informal and first name mode of address with him. It was a good sign she had warmed to him. He visualized her naked, a warm fuzzy image, totally out of place of course, but one common to Dillon’s experience as he climbed the male social ladder.

“Excuse me Captain,” Noreen interjected. “Ms. Willfem has advised me that the transfer to the secondary is complete and the primary Trap is retuned.”

“Good, let’s boost. We’re losing distance every second.”

Dillon could see the diminished K class sun against the backdrop of stellar pinpoints on the aft screen. It appeared to be slightly more orange than Sol, and much more so than Ramah’s hotter and nearly white star. Their motion away from the star wasn’t perceptible at this distance, of course.

The acceleration gong sounded gently, followed a moment later by a slight twisting sensation and a mild push as the ship rotated and began a vector towards the still unseen planet, nicknamed Newborn. Dillon experienced a brief moment of vertigo as the star field swirled on the view screens.

“Noreen, give our passengers our approximate ETA and remind them of the Last Night party in the Main Salon after dinner. Jake’s short-range scan hasn’t found any rocks we need to dodge. Key their couches and allow them to get up and move about, normal routine.”

“Yes Sir,” she acknowledged, and then reminded him of another matter. “Jake had particle beam plasmas up to firing temperature before reentry. Should we let the chambers cool now since there are no nearby rocks too large for the lasers to handle?”

Nodding, Mirikami gave partial assent. “Cool number two; hold number one at sixty percent. We might want a quick reheat. This is an extraordinarily dirty solar system and, I don’t want to lose a lot of time avoiding all of the cometary tails. Contact the Midwife Bolide Watch Officer. Ask for any data they have on large debris along our trajectory.”

As Noreen began executing her orders, Mirikami resumed his interrupted role as host. “Doctor, I assume you wish to contact Midwife Station. The radio time lag would be awkward at this range, but we can set up a record cube to repeat your message until they reply.”

“The need was anticipated,” replied Dillon, as he dug a finger into a pocket of his belt. Producing a standard small black data cube, he passed it to the Captain.

“Is there any one individual you need to receive this?”

“Whoever is on duty will do. That contains our roster of personnel, as well as an inventory of equipment and cargo.”

Nodding, Mirikami made several rapid entries at his keypad. “Jake will repeat the message until they send a reply.”

In a change of subject, Mirikami broached a topic that had piqued his curiosity. “How long will your work here last, Dillon? I understand the Midwife research is rather short term, as large projects go.”

Dillon examined Mirikami’s features carefully before responding. There wasn’t any hint of hostility; on the contrary, the Captain seemed quite cordial. He recalled that on Earth some classmates claimed that oriental people had a reputation for being inscrutable. Was that the Chinese or Japanese people? He wondered. It wasn’t important in any event since he automatically gave an ambiguous answer.

“We only have budgeting for eighteen months.”

This was literally true, but omitted the publicly unpopular, if not outright hazardous, long-range project goal. The biological science Purge was over, now hundreds of years in the past, but fear and hatred of biological science often lurked just below the scars left by the last Wars. What some of their scientists intended to do on Midwife wasn’t death penalty level work on human genetics, but even plant and animal genetic modifications were subject to long prison terms.

Mirikami noticed the slight pause, and understood the avoidance of questions about their work. He didn’t want to press, but he had a personal interest since Interworld had, in an uncharacteristic show of fairness, allowed Mirikami’s seniority to win the company route bid on a charter booked by a Hub client. It seemed odd that the company’s shipping contract had an open-ended termination since the project was scheduled to end after a year and a half.

He worked logically, to see if he could draw Dillon out more. “The initial investment to buy a surplus orbital factory must have been expensive. Not to mention setting up the system wide Bolide radar net, and Midwife’s laser and plasma batteries to ward off small debris. Then add in the salary and upkeep for over a thousand scientists and support people. That’s a large investment for a short-term project, isn’t it? I personally hope for an extension of Interworld’s contract to supply you. The fat trip premium for the long Jump is welcome to me and my crew.”

With the Captain’s interest explained and seeing no polite way to avoid the matter, Dillon provided a more involved cover explanation. “Captain, you and your company are certainly aware of the opposition to the establishment of this laboratory.” It was not a question.

Mirikami was frank in his reply, “Yes, of course. After the contract award to Interworld, there were quite a few angry emails, and some threats aimed at Interworld interests. I’m certain that’s why the major Hub carriers refused to bid the contract. Rim carriers like Interworld have little to fear from a Hub market boycott, and Rim worlds can’t afford such gestures.”

“Captain, the pressure on your company was minor compared to that placed on the Universities that allied to sponsor this study of Newborn. It was politically impossible to obtain funding for a lengthier program. It was either go with what we had, or never get started.”

Mirikami doubted that so much effort would be wasted on so small a return, but seeing he couldn’t continue without appearing overly insistent, he changed directions. “I can see your problem, though the importance of Newborn in all this eludes me. Wouldn’t placing Midwife in some unused Hub area star system have saved you a lot in transport fees? There is primitive life on many worlds. Why Jump so far outside the established Human Sphere?”

Here was a topic Dillon could warm to, without evasion. “Two reasons actually. First, closer to the Hub we would present a more visible profile, providing a focus for the irrational fears of an experiment going bad and infecting other systems. Since we are engaged in pure observational and data collecting research, no such accident can occur.

“Second, and most important, is that there has never been a discovery of as pristine a planet as Newborn. The primitive life you mentioned on those other more convenient planets either did not originate there naturally, due to human contamination, or has been around for billions of years, erasing their beginnings, and are now stuck in an evolutionary dead end.

“Except that Newborn is different! Life there is extremely rudimentary, barely definable as living at all. This particular stage of development moves rapidly, even on a human time scale, not a long geological scale. The more advanced developing life forms will soon overwhelm the less developed replicating molecules, and fill their evolutionary niches.

“There has never been a comparable find. There should be only a few planets at this stage of development in our entire galaxy at any given time, and this one is practically on our doorstep.”

Dillon was suddenly aware of the excited rush his words had become. He stopped for a moment as a self-conscious and sheepish grin transformed his features into a visage of a schoolboy. “As you can tell, I have great deal of enthusiasm for this project. I tend to get carried away when I talk shop.”

Mirikami flashed an impish grin in return. “It’s quite all right Dillon, I’m really interested. Although I’m not particularly up on biology, I do work with life forms on a daily basis.”

Dillon let go an explosive laugh, then quickly recovered. “Touché, Captain. Now I’m the one who needs the rescue of a gallant Lady.” He decided that he liked the man.

Noreen, busy at her console, had nevertheless kept part of her attention on the conversation beside her. She came in on cue. “Alas, it seems to be my perpetual duty to aid hapless Gentlemen in extricating their foot from their mouths.”

They shared the laughter this time. Dillon thought his hoped for seduction of the Lady was looking rather promising. Events were about to make that optimistic future dangerously complicated, despite the current good humor.

3. Silence

When the laughter faded, Noreen turned to the matter she had been about to mention to the Captain, waiting only for a break in the conversation. “Sir, Jake says the beacon on Midwife isn’t sending. He’s tried all the standard Omni frequencies as well as the published one for Midwife. The distance isn’t as precise without the signal, though Jake now has a visual fix on Newborn. Thirty-two hours is a pretty close estimate for arrival.”

“No beacon, that’s odd,” Mirikami mused, his right hand pinching and tugging gently at his lower lip. “Even if they chose not to broadcast continuously in an uninhabited system, Midwife should have had the beacon on in anticipation of our arrival. Any recorded messages on the station’s docking control frequencies about a problem?”

“No Sir. But…,” she thought for a second. “Let me ask Jake to check something.” She turned to her console mike, but Dillon couldn’t quite make out her words. However, he had an idea of his own.

“Could Midwife be on the far side of Newborn in its orbit right now, and the signal is blocked by the planet?”

“Not with the repeater satellites to prevent that,” rebutted Mirikami.

“Oh, that’s right! Guess I’m still one foot in the mouth up on you Captain.”

“You could consider it removed if you can tell me if the Bolide radar stations are manned or automatic. My display lists a radio frequency for each, but doesn’t say if they are staffed.”

“Sorry, my foot doesn’t come out that easy. I have no idea if they are manned or not.”

“Noreen, do you have our radio distance in time from Midwife?”

“I just asked Jake for that Sir. We were twelve light minutes out from Newborn at reentry. There is something else strange though. Jake has been routinely scanning the full communications spectrum. He says it is completely quiet. There are no intersystem radio messages floating around.”

“We may have arrived during Midwife’s local nighttime,” offered Mirikami. “A lone watch stander might forget to switch on the beacon.”

Dillon shook his head no. “I wouldn’t think so, Sir. We intend to operate on three shifts and work around the clock. It should always be a day watch for a third of the support people.”

Mirikami resumed pulling at his lower lip in a pensive manner, “If they were expecting us today the beacon should be on, if not, our gamma ray burst will automatically trigger the beacon when it’s detected at Midwife or a relay station. We also started sending your radio message about two minutes after White Out. The homing signal should arrive here within twenty five minutes of our reentry, and a few minutes after that we ought to get a reply to your message cube.”

Touching a function key, Mirikami activated his voice Link and addressed the computer through the boom mike that appeared. “Jake, calculate the exact time we can expect the beacon signal from Midwife if it’s activated by our reentry burst, and remind us two minutes before that time.” The computer had a query, transmitted as usual to the Captain’s embedded transducer.

Realizing that Dillon, as an observer, might wish to hear both halves of the exchange, he added, “Jake, say that again on speaker.”

“Yes Sir” sounded a genderless voice from unseen speakers. “Do you mean an Omni beacon switched on in reply to our arrival burst of gamma radiation?”

“Yes Jake, and also advise us if the beacon comes on earlier than that.”

The computer acknowledged, and Mirikami disconnected and turned to Dillon. “I tend to assume our Jake can always infer my meaning from the conversational context.”

It was Dillon’s first opportunity to hear the ship’s central computer speak. The support system computers installed in the passenger areas were typical public service models, much like those in bars, taxis and restaurants. Obviously, Jake ran one of the newest parallel processing Artificial Intelligence programs. Dillon was impressed, and said so. “He’s well programmed. He actually chose the correct answer before he asked you to verify.

“Isn’t a JK model AI system rather expensive to install on a passenger transport ship? We couldn’t justify the expense for Midwife, and had to make do with a much older model in the J series.”

Noreen shook her head. “Not in our case. A deep space transport like the Flight of Fancy can make them cost effective since we can cut our crew needs by nearly forty percent. Jake, who was named unimaginatively from his series and model of course, can practically run the ship alone.

“That’s why there are only two command couches here. One watch officer usually monitors all the data and makes the important decisions. Direct human control, with standard computer assist, is still the most economical method on intersystem ships, and also on the shorter interstellar routes between Hub worlds and the Old Colonies.”

Mirikami had been thinking while they talked. He returned the subject to the curious radio silence. “Dillon, can you think of any reason why Midwife would not expect our arrival?”

Dillon shrugged his shoulders. “Our departure date from Ramah had not been precisely set when the previous supply ship Jumped here, and we left a day earlier than anticipated.”

Pulling again at his lower lip, an evident habitual gesture, Mirikami accepted the first possibility. “A mix up on arrival dates could explain the beacon being off, since we are a little early. However, the absence of extraneous communications is a real oddity. We should be picking up bits and pieces of radio traffic.”

Then, in a change of subjects, “Noreen, I have a clear panel, and Navcomp shows nothing around us we need to dodge. Since we have a little time to kill, perhaps Dillon would like a beverage.

Accepting her cue, she lifted her console arm and, when the couch withdrew its restraints, stood up. “There’s a fully stocked small galley just below, Dillon. I could bring you a cup of Evergreen Mist, genuine Earth coffee, Ramaian tea, or nearly any popular carbonated beverage.”

It was an opportunity Dillon had been looking for. “You have Earth coffee? That will be fine, Good Lady. I’d like to stretch my legs though. Might I accompany you?”

“Please do,” she replied, moving toward the elevator. “I want to talk you into giving me a tour of Newborn during our lay over. The Tri-Vid holo’s of the surface look awesome. All those volcanoes, the storm whipped oceans crashing upon jagged shores and the heavens rent by constant lightning and meteor trails. Despite its violence, it strikes me as beautiful and sexy.”

Spirits soaring, he eagerly seized the offered bait. “I would consider it a pleasure to share my first groundside sight of Newborn with so lovely a Lady.” As he signaled his chair to release him, he was thinking that he was going to have to hurry if he intended to beat her to the proposition.

Romance was not dead, it simply had learned to move faster in the post Gene War universe. Men were no longer overly scarce, but certain traditions, once established, lasted long after their reason for existence disappeared. He was no piece of meat, and liked to set his own agenda.

Conversation flowed easily as they sat at a galley table, drinking an excellent blend of genuine Earth grown coffee, made from a carefully hoarded stock. Noreen glanced at her thumbnail watch, “Dillon, are you free after dinner tonight? I’d love to continue our conversation, but it’s nearly past time for us to pick up the Midwife beacon.”

“How about at eight, in the lounge? We could have a few drinks and enjoy the Last Night mixer, then discuss your stay at Midwife in my cabin.”

“The lounge would be nice, but could we make it eight thirty, and in my compartment? I need to inspect our docking thrusters and airlocks right after dinner, then I’ll want to shower. Perhaps you could help me dry off?”

His heart and loins both tingled, “Eight thirty it is. However, you could arrive with smudges on both cheeks and still look radiant.”

“Not sure which cheeks you mean, but thanks for saying so.” She leered at him in her best seductive mode. “I want to dazzle you with the beautiful red gown I found on our stopover at Ramah. It has the most interesting lack of fabric.”

She glanced at his bulging red heart patch and smiled. With that tease hanging in the air, he followed her, walking somewhat stiffly, as she turned and entered the lift.

Mirikami, upon their return, said “I was about to call you. Jake gave me the time reminder. Still no radio messages, but I did make a wide electromagnetic spectrum check. The five long-range radar stations of the Bolide warning system were all operating when we arrived, but two on the far side of Mother have quit scanning, which I find odd. One radar station happens to be only six light minutes from us, twelve minutes radio round trip time. I sent it a call a couple of minutes ago and we could get a reply within ten minutes or so, assuming it‘s manned. I really want to know if they have tracks for anything sizeable along our path. Jake has used our Laser Defense System quite a few times on pea-sized gravel. There must be an enormous amount of debris orbiting even outside the planetary plane. Worse than in the Prophet’s Robe.”

“The Robe?” Dillon questioned. “Interworld certainly spreads out their routes. When did you serve there?”

“No, no. Interworld doesn‘t go there, that’s on the other side of the Hub area.” Mirikami explained. “I served inside that nebula courtesy of the Navy, shortly after I graduated from Navy academy, well before I went to the civil Space Academy. I was an ensign, and it was during the second Qaddafi Jihad, over forty years ago.

“The male fanatics and their self-styled Sultan had finally retreated into the Robe with their harem slaves, thinking they had escaped Hub laws. They were determined to restore an old defunct Earth culture, where each male virtually owed multiple women. Naturally, the President sent in our only combat capable squadron, which is where I was assigned. That was in Lady Morrisfem’s first term. That got her reelected too. It was the first Navy combat in almost three hundred years.”

He shifted subjects. “We should reach orbit around Newborn in thirty-one hours, eighteen minutes, then allow about twenty minutes to match orbit and dock with Midway. We’ll reach rollover in about seventeen hours.”

“Rollover?” asked Dillon.

“Ship jargon.” Mirikami explained. “We rotate the ship for deceleration at the halfway point. In this case, we are chasing Newborn, so we go a little past halfway. Rotating is not strictly necessary, but it’s more energy efficient for keeping our compensated internal gravity pointing in the right direction, always toward our feet, as we accelerate or decelerate. All we need now is for Midwife to answer us.”

4. Suspicion

The last seconds before anticipated reception of the beacon signal was counting down in a corner of the forward view screen. The timer reached zero, then indicated negative as it counted up again. There was no beacon signal.

“Jake, have you detected any communications of any type since reentry?”

“Yes Sir. From the five long-range radars, and two of those are still sending, a third one ended several minutes ago.”

“Why didn’t you inform me another one had quit?”

“Sir, you asked me to tell you if the beacon came on or of other new transmissions. That was not a new transmission.”

Mirikami sighed. “But no other sort of new transmission Jake?”

“No Sir. If you exclude the natural radio emissions from the gas giants and the star, as I believe you intend. There are no new intelligent signals”

They waited another ten minutes. There was no reply to the radio calls to either Midwife or the nearest radar station.

Mirikami issued new instructions to the computer. “Jake, advise the Bridge of any change in the pattern of radar emissions, such as entering tracking mode on us, and of any other artificial signals of any type.”

“Yes Sir.”

Switching off, Mirikami swiveled to face Dillon, a concerned expression on his face. “Doctor, I don’t know what is going on in this system but the silence is difficult to understand. There is too much redundancy to consider a simple equipment failure. Something is wrong.”

“I have to agree, Captain. What do you intend to do now?”

“Gather more information. First, how good is Midwife’s defense against a comet or asteroid impact? They certainly would have the means to make use of the data from the Bolide network, but lasers and plasma beams are barely flyswatters for a large rock or ice ball. This is a relatively young star system, there are billions of comets and big rocks left wandering around, and some pass through the inner system. What were you going to do to stop one from hitting Midwife?”

“Midwife has a heavy duty Laser Defense System, almost certainly more powerful than what your ship carries, as well as one large particle beam generator. As you noted, these are for the lighter stuff, a few tons or less. For big ones we intend to get out of the way, because Midwife is mobile of course, having Jumped here using Trap fields.”

Mirikami considered for a moment then seemed to make a grudging admission. “The station would seem to be protected from a collision accident. Anyway, there would be a flood of emergency transmissions if it had been hit. I’m forced to conclude that the radio silence has been imposed on them.”

This explanation had occurred to Dillon as Mirikami spoke, and his thoughts were racing in an unpleasant direction. It was premature to mention them, and he needed time to sort them. He asked, “Assuming you’re correct, what do you suggest?”

“My first obligation is to the safety of my passengers and my ship, but in the absence of any clear threat I see no reason not to continue. Midway might be in need of assistance. However, I want to meet with your Board of Directors and ask for their recommendations. They’re paying the bills.”

“Captain, I’m not on the Board, but in matters that might affect the entire project they have to hold an open meeting, with group discussion from the entire staff.”

“I understand. While I feel this information is better kept to as few people as possible, if the Board wants an open meeting afterwards it can be arranged. Jake can set up a two-way conference communication system for everyone.”

“That seems fair enough. How soon do you want to meet with the Board?”

“Right now, if possible.” He turned slightly. “Noreen, ask Jake to locate all of the Board of Directors, please. Then personally ask them to meet me in the large conference room on deck 8 in five minutes. Don’t explain why for now; just say that it’s important and confidential. Also ask the off duty crew members to report to their duty stations, and have Ms. Jorl’sn join you on the bridge.”

“Aye, Sir.”

“By the way,” he added, in an offhand manner, “we trapped several tacs as backup, and I was having Ms. Willfem step up the g’s gradually with the original Jump tac. We are nearly up to fourteen g’s now. Have her step back down to ten g’s and transfer the two extra tacs back into the primary Trap. That will give us redundancy and some more time to plan our approach. Reheat the second beam plasma too. We might stumble on some larger rocks in that debris out there since the Bolide stations aren’t talking to us.”

Noreen hesitated an instant before replying, with a sharp little nod. “I understand Sir.”

It was slight, but Dillon noticed her pause, and the way her eyes had briefly darted a look at Mirikami. There had been something implied in Mirikami’s instructions that Noreen had wanted her superior to know she had received. Moreover, they didn’t want to discuss it in front of an outsider.

The Captain’s next words were again for Martin. “Dillon, I know you are the bridge observer and not a Board Member, but I’d like to have you present when I brief your Board of Directors.”

Dillon had preferred to stay behind and see if he could pick up on whatever the Captain had covertly passed on to his First Officer. Therefore, he hedged, “I don’t know what I could contribute beyond your own recommendations, Captain.”

“Confirmation for one thing. If your group agrees to make a slow, circuitous approach, it could add to the transport fee. As I mentioned earlier, few companies bid on this contract. I want the Board to know that this is not some pretext for Interworld to run up charges on a hapless customer.”

Dillon couldn’t think of a plausible reason to refuse the request. He gave in, “Very well. I appreciate your position.”

“Thank you Doctor.” Then to Noreen, “Have you reached Ms. Jorl’sn?”

“On her way up Sir.”

“Good. I’m going to the conference room.” Mirikami raised his console arm and moved toward the lifts.

Pressing his own seat release, Dillon followed, his thoughts racing. The last operational instructions to his First Officer reinforced a sense he had that the Captain was considerably more concerned than he wished an outsider to know. There was no apparent risk for the ship, yet Mirikami’s actions seemed to indicate otherwise. He had alerted the entire crew and arranged for two officers to be on the Bridge, despite the fact that Jake could essentially run the ship unassisted.

The more telling item to him however, had been the order to reduce acceleration and shift the excess tachyons in the secondary field into the primary Trap. The one used for making a Jump.

One possible answer had been haunting Dillon. Had Mirikami reached the same conclusion? He decided to confront the Captain directly, but not on the bridge, not in the presence of a female subordinate. Mirikami was already in a socially awkward position of direct command over a number of women. A man simply didn’t undermine another man’s status in public, not if it could be avoided.

When the lift doors closed, Dillon began bluntly. “Captain, you appear to think that something more is wrong here than you choose to admit to me back there. If there’s been a disaster at Midwife, it can’t affect us here and now, and would seem to require us to make the utmost speed to bring assistance. Instead, you reduced speed and saved the excess tachyon energy for an emergency Jump. You seem to be preparing for a threat against this ship, and I want to know what you think it is.”

Mirikami listened patiently, concealing his surprise with a practiced poker face. He had again underestimated the man. He would try not to let it happen again.

“You have an astute mind, Doctor Martin,” reverting to a more formal mode. “But you are only partially correct. I did effectively place the ship on alert. Noreen understood my intent, of course, and like the good officer she is, didn’t ask me to elaborate with you present. However I have kept nothing from you, I give you my word. My sole motive for concealment was to avoid spreading alarm, through you, to my other passengers.”

He made a half bow to Dillon. “Allow me to offer my apology for the deception, and more so for having underestimated your perception.”

Dillon was still grim faced. “I’ll condition my acceptance on your telling me your reasons.”

“Agreed. In addition, I will repeat them for your Board members in a few minutes. They can then decide if my concern should be conveyed to everyone. Though my experience would recommend against that action, at least until we know more.”

“Fair enough.” Dillon’s face lost some of its hardness. “Why did you take those precautions? We are still well out from Midwife.”

“Several reasons, all tenuous. The total radio silence can hardly be accidental. The lack of communications is almost certainly an indication of some sort of problem or trouble. Then, three of five radar stations have gone dead since we arrived. Another reason is based on several scattered news reports circulating around this general side of the Rim, of missing or overdue ships, and of a number of mysteriously deserted small mining outposts in remote systems.

“An unexplained loss of twenty or thirty ships in a couple of years is an anomaly, but not a great one. Despite our technology, over two thousand ships are lost to accidents every year. There are a hundred and fifty million Jump ships of all classes in space, and some are going to meet disaster no matter how fail-safe we try to make them. What drew my attention was the fact that many of the ships lost in the Rim area were on the galactic core side of explored space, where we are now. Rimmers may have a ragtag reputation, but their equipment gets first rate repair, and they are very careful when operating in undeveloped systems with no hope of prompt rescue.”

Dillon wasn’t satisfied. “And now we are just outside the Rim region closest to the galactic center. How does that translate into danger?” With a mild note of sarcasm he asked, “So, are you afraid Midwife has been hit by pirates and they’re waiting for us?”

The pirate reference wasn’t serious, but the possibility of some sort of a raid had definitely been preying on Dillon’s mind. The Captain surprised him when he indicated the pirate notion had been given some thought.

“No, I considered pirates, but it doesn’t fit the facts. Pirate bands are very rare, and they don’t stick around to clean up their mess after blasting a ship or a station for its cargo. In their haste, they usually leave debris, and survivors that call for help. Anyway, few Rim ships would be carrying precious and easily disposable cargo, but kidnapping and ransom might be a motive. Some of the few thousand missing people in the news stories would have to be worth something to their families, governments, or their companies.

“Only I’ve not heard of any ransom cases recently, and that sort of story is never kept secret for long. Besides, we are discussing Midwife station. Your most precious equipment is still in our cargo hold, and is of limited value on the black market in any event. Your major resource is your people.”

He looked at the taller man before he spoke again, assessing his demeanor.

“Forgive me for saying this so bluntly Doctor, but how much ransom do you think a pirate would expect to get for a group of bio-scientists? Tossing all of you out an air lock for fun might prove to be their only pay back.”

There was no need to answer that. It would be hard to overcome the “Good riddance” attitude of many that were asked to pay a ransom for the Midwife scientists.

The lift doors opened and the two men entered the central common area. There were people around, but none within earshot.

Mirikami paused a moment, recalling a sense of déjŕ vu he had experienced on the bridge earlier. He tried to put it into words. I suppose the real reason for my caution is an itchy feeling in my instinct. I developed a keen sensitivity for that feeling, serving in the Navy during the Qaddafi Jihad I spoke of earlier. The Faithful Few in the Sultan’s service would dive suicide ships eagerly into any infidel vessel they could seduce into coming too close. My cruiser was nearly taken out twice while patrolling mining bases in the Robe. A favorite trick of the Few was to standoff behind a planet or moon until a Navy ship came so close that there was no time to trap a Jump energy tachyon before at least one attacker made it through the defenses and rammed.”

Dillon felt a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. “I take it you see a similarity here.”

“Slightly,” he admitted. “Once, the tip off of a possible ambush was a moon miner’s camp that didn’t answer our calls. In this case, though, there was a real possibility of radio failure in such a small operation. I was the communications officer but I felt uneasy about the situation. We had to go in close and visually check out the camp’s condition. I passed along my hunch to the Captain. She was a wary Old Lady.

“She set up a ballistic approach toward the moon, about a one-hour coast, and then tuned both our primary and secondary Traps to the minimum Jump energy. We had both fields charged when we were still twenty minutes out. That tactic saved us from a swarm of two man Martyr ships. Skimming the airless surface of the moon just meters above the crater rims, they arched around from behind the moon fast enough and in enough numbers that our point defenses would have been overwhelmed.

“We did a preprogrammed minimum Jump using our primary field, then a few minutes later, using the secondary field’s energy, we reversed the computation and Jumped back. The Martyr ships had passed our position of course, and were exposed and confused. We picked off nine before the rest scattered out of range. On the moon the camp had been hit, but there were survivors holed up in the mines, staying quite to avoid detection by the Few, who were out to kill the infidels.”

Shrugging his shoulders, he summed it up. “In a nut shell Doctor, the radio silence similarity of the two situations stirred my sense of caution. There is no reason to assume an actual parallel.”

Dillon shook his head. “I don’t agree. In fact I believe you are pretty close to the mark.” Why couldn’t the Captain make the final connection?

“Captain the most virulent opposition to Midwife came from the organized religions. All of them, so far as I know. Several acts of violence were committed against some of our universities by religious fanatics. They must see this as a Holy Crusade to prevent another genetic war.”

Mirikami gave him an appraising look. “I suppose you might tend to see events in that light, given your particular science background. Moreover, I share a background that tends to make me sensitive to the motives of others as regards myself. However, believe me when I tell you that no private group could have organized a secret attack on Midwife, not on the scale implied to silence every radio in the system.

“Only a planetary government has the resources, but it would be far cheaper for them to scuttle your program through propaganda. Even if a small private mercenary fleet was assembled by some organization, it couldn’t be kept secret from the Planetary Union. No civilized person wants war or the Purges to return. I think your perspective is distorted by your closeness.”

As a scientist, Dillon normally considered himself objective. In retrospect, he saw he had perhaps allowed emotional and irrational feelings to distort his thinking. He was highly annoyed with himself. “I’m forced to concede to your argument Captain. But…, damn it! That leaves us without any viable theory.”

Throwing a puzzled look at Mirikami, he amended his last remark. “Correction, I’m the one without any theories. You apparently fear a surprise attack or you wouldn’t be diverting energy into the primary Trap for a Jump. An attack by whom?”

Spreading arms wide, palms up, Mirikami shrugged again. “No one that I can think of, and that’s my point about not alarming the other passengers with speculative theories.

“Incidentally, I’m not prepared for an emergency Jump. The low-level tachyons we have will only give us reserve power if we need it for a boost in propulsion, and for the plasma beams; the tachyons we have fall far short of even minimal Jump energy. The dual fields provide redundancy, and I didn’t want all our tachyons in one basket, so to speak. I did have Noreen heat up both beam plasmas for a possible defense from debris, but I see no obvious threat. I don’t think this situation requires further precaution until we learn more.”

“Then you really have drawn a blank?”

Mirikami pulled at his lower lip. “I’d have to say yes. The situation defies an easy explanation, and I feel slightly uncomfortable due to an unrelated previous experience. Those aren’t substantive enough reasons to justify the concern that revealing all this would provoke. I use your own reaction as a case in point.

“As long as we stay alert and remain in open space, well out from any large bodies that could conceal an ambush, there’s no way anyone can reach us before Jake detects them. The primary tachyon Trap can be retuned for Jump energy in a matter of minutes, and probability gives us twenty-five minutes average time before we trap a tunneling tachyon energetic enough to make a tenth light year Jump. Jake can detect the fastest and smallest missiles I’ve heard of at about forty to forty five minutes out. I intend to give a wide berth to any moon, comet, or asteroid that is large enough to shield a particle beam, laser cannon, or small ship. I’m not about to blunder blindly into orbit around Newborn until we learn what has gone wrong.”

Dillon looked down the half meter to meet Mirikami’s eyes. “You have me convinced Captain. Whatever has happened at Midwife, we have to go in and find out.”

In retrospect, everyone aboard would look back and agree that the Gene War would become the second worst calamity the human race had ever faced.

5. Tiger Lily

Doctor Margaret Fisher was a wiry diminutive bundle of energy. At age ninety-one, her seemingly frail grandmotherly appearance and quaint colonial mannerism frequently fooled opponents into underestimating her. They often found themselves skewered by rapier sharp logic, her words twisting the blade as she smiled sweetly.

Fisher’s enemies called her “Tiger Lady”; her small circle of friends preferred “Tiger Lily.” Even her friends carefully avoided using the pet name anywhere within range of her legendary sharp hearing. This dainty looking “flower” had teeth, and she often enjoyed a playful nip at someone else’s expense. Dillon considered himself one of her friends, and she nipped him often in their playful give and take.

She had been the first scientist to recognize the importance of Newborn’s discovery, and that its remoteness promised a means to circumvent the chokehold on biological research. Unfortunately, her home, Ramah, was a relatively new colony in the Human Sphere, established shortly before the first Clone Wars started.

The old Hub world schools dominated the Joint Academic Council that controlled the most lucrative research grants, so Fisher arranged for her research proposal to be “stolen” by the Biology Department of Earth’s Harvard, one of the oldest and most prestigious schools on the home world. Then she had to make certain that the project took the direction she intended.

When Fisher was named Chairfem of the fledgling project’s Board of Directors, it was a highly controversial appointment. It was rumored to be a political compromise, forced on the Joint Academic Council by an unusually bitter struggle between several influential Hub Universities over project control. Having fomented the dispute in the first place, Fisher had seen to it that she was the highest placed, and most neutral, non-Hub university candidate available. As the only New Colonist on the project’s Board, and a presumptive rube, she deftly played the Hub representatives against one another. She frequently got the votes she was after, and some of her defeats were actually calculated token concessions.

The meeting with the nine Board members began politely enough. Mirikami gave them a concise description of their situation, including the precautions he had already taken, and those he would employ if they continued to Newborn. When he finished, he stood waiting for questions.

Four members quickly reached similar conclusions as had Dillon, blaming militant religious zealots as having a hand in sabotage, invasion, or whatever had silenced Midwife. Vicechairfem Cahill, joined by her usual three-member bloc of votes, was the most strident advocate of this viewpoint, demanding an immediate Jump back to the Hub. Two of her group speculated that the Planetary Union itself, or one of the individual world governments, might have intervened to shut them down.

Dillon felt his face flush with embarrassment, recalling moments earlier his own paranoid suspicions. Finding that he had aligned, however briefly, on the same side of an argument as that arrogant gasbag and her faction was acutely uncomfortable.

Fisher listened quietly, letting the diatribe and panic increase. When she decided Cahill’s pit was deep enough, she pushed her over the edge.

The Chairfem’s words cut through the caterwauling like a knife. “This is unacceptable Ladies! How can as distinguished a group of scientists as you, ignore logic and facts?”

Dillon cringed inwardly as he listened to Fisher rip into the theories Cahill and her toadies had offered. She skewered their arguments, making similar points as had Mirikami, but without any of his tact. Dillon decided then that males were truly the gentler sex, despite past wars to the contrary.

In a matter of moments, none of the other four neutral Board members would have admitted that they had ever seriously considered Vicechairfem Cahill’s fears to have any rational basis what so ever. The inevitable and only possible conclusion, they agreed, was that it was impossible for a private militia to have mounted a system-wide attack on Midwife. They agreed with the Chairfem that the notion of secret government intervention was implausible and ridiculous.

Two of Cahill’s weaker willed supporters changed sides and joined with those four neutral members. Neither of them considered themselves to have switched to Fisher’s side at all, but rather they were helping build a united Hub university coalition, and the rustic Chairfem just happened to be on the same bandwagon.

Cahill, bitterly resentful of Fisher’s appointment as Chairfem over her own candidacy, stung smartly from the seemingly irrefutable rebuttal. Unwilling to concede to someone she thought of as an uncultured and undereducated New Colony backwoods bitch, she played her vindictive trump card without hesitation.

“Well,” she sneered, “if our duplicitous Madam President and her Security Council wanted to keep a covert operation a secret, I doubt that the media or even Doctor Fisher’s provincial Senator friends would have learned of a plan to terminate Midwife militarily.”

With a gentle smile, Fisher prepared to twist the blade. She began softly. “So, now we are to place our suspicions on Madam President?” She shook her head in wonderment. “Dear Lady, just where do you think the Academic Council found all the grant money to pay for our expensive little project? Perhaps out of the entire pitiful Bioscience budgets of all our collective universities?” she added with sweet sarcasm.

Not waiting for a reply, her smile became predatory. “The Joint Academic Council moved to support this project only after I personally and privately requested President Stanford to intercede, and she agreed to provide covert government funding. Politically, she can’t openly back us, but the Lady is highly intelligent. She recognizes that regaining our lost biological knowledge is vital to the long-term survival of the New Colonies.”

Fisher was just warming up. “The President understands that alien worlds are inhospitable to our crops and animals” she went on, now tapping into an old speech she had once made. “Only genetic alteration of our crops and livestock can help them flourish in an alien ecology, and to modify them to produce safe food for local consumption and export. This is how every single one of the Old Colony worlds were settled hundreds of years ago. It was unregulated alteration of the human genome that hurt society. That made the Clone and Gene wars not only possible, but probably inevitable. If the New Colonies don’t become self-sufficient food producers, and even food exporters, then they cannot help support our expanding populations and economy. The risk of hunger and eventual abandonment of these worlds would be an economic disaster for the Hub worlds and Old Colonies.”

She paused, looking at each member in turn.

“No Ladies, the Government, particularly President Stanford, needs and wants us to succeed in our out of the way research station. If they had changed their minds and decided to terminate Midwife, simply cutting the purse strings would do the job. Stanford is not about to commit political suicide to use the militarily to wipe out a project she privately supported. What utter nonsense.”

Cahill seemed to be trying to sink into her chair. She’d had no idea Fisher’s influence ran so high. It surely explained how this little colonial witch had unfairly managed to steal the Chairfem seat from her. Politics instead of academic achievement, she grumbled to herself, wondering how her own political contacts had let her down. The irony of that thought was lost on her.

Seeing her main opponent thoroughly cowed, Fisher politely invited the other members to put any other questions they had to Captain Mirikami.

In response to concern of lurking ambushers, the Captain proposed to use one of the ship’s two shuttles to investigate Midwife at close range once they closed with Newborn. Alternatively, they could make the long Jump directly back to Ramah if they would accept minimal water rationing.

Wrapping the discussion up quickly, the Chairfem sidestepped parliamentary procedure and made a motion herself. She moved to approve Mirikami’s plan to approach Newborn slowly, and standoff at a distance while sending a shuttle to investigate. The vote was unanimous, since Cahill had decided to lick her wounds for now.

Mirikami’s next recommendation, to keep the full situation secret from the rest of the passenger contingent sparked another hot debate. In a compromise, they voted seven to two to keep the matter confidential until the Board of Directors met again in an open session in twelve hours. Perhaps they would have more information by then.

Mirikami conceded that their slower progress should become obvious in a half day to many passengers anyway. If they had not established communications by then, a genuinely grave cause would have to be assumed. The meeting adjourned, to reconvene in open session in twelve hours.

As the other Board members left, Dillon remained, intending to accompany Mirikami back to the Bridge. However, Fisher, lagging behind the others, abruptly turned and approached Mirikami.

“Captain, I understand your reasons for asking us to keep all this confidential for now, but I want you to appreciate how difficult it was for us to grant even that twelve hour delay.”

Mirikami bowed politely. “My duty is to preserve order and avoid a possible panic aboard my ship Good Lady. You witnessed the initial reaction of some of the other Ladies. I feel there is no need to risk an overreaction among the full passenger complement at this time.”

Fisher gave him a motherly pat on the arm. “Oh, I’m not questioning your motives Gentle Sir. In fact, I completely agree with you in this instance. I was referring rather to the distaste we felt at withholding facts from our associates.”

She explained. “Free access to information is an issue that deeply concerns any scientist, but more so to those involved in biological research. From the time the government legalized biological research again, subject to massive restrictions and controls of course, we have experienced over eighty years of censorship, not to mention outright suppression of some work. I’m afraid we will have our ears soundly boxed at the public meeting for giving in to you.”

Mirikami bowed again. “I hadn’t viewed my request from that standpoint Doctor. I apologize if it causes you any difficulty. Believe me, though, I have considerably more sympathy for your position than you might think.”

“Yes,” she nodded, “I thought that you might. I naturally conducted an extensive background check of Interworld before the contract was awarded, and of its active flight officers. You were my personal recommendation to be our Captain. I’m delighted you accepted.”

His bow was deeper this time. “Thank you for your confidence, kind Lady. I’m pleased I was granted the option. Now if you will excuse me My Lady, I should return to the Bridge. Doctor Martin, it was a pleasure to have you with us on the Bridge. Feel free to return as the official observer or my personal guest at any time.”

Dillon agreed that he would return to the Bridge, but then quickly added that it would be a bit later. He was left standing alone with the tiny woman as Mirikami strode out the door. He had been on the verge of accepting the Captain’s invitation and going with him now, but had felt a light restraining touch on his arm. Maggi Fisher apparently wanted to speak to him alone.

“Dillon, you were listening. Is there anything to add beyond what I’ve heard so far, that perhaps you considered too minor or sensitive to discuss with the Board?”

“Not much Maggi. The Captain was straightforward with you just now, but his first instinct was to conceal from me how jumpy this had made him, and to get me off the Bridge. On the way down here, I informed him that I knew he had practically declared an emergency, and hadn’t wanted me to know. I was satisfied with his explanation, the same one he offered you by the way. I rather like him, and I think he can be trusted, apparently you think so too. Why is that?”

“He was born on New Honshu. The guilt of the Clone Wars weighs on him and his world, and the blame for causing the Gene War. We may carry a little of the same burden by our choice of profession; but his heavier load is inherited and can’t be discarded. He’s likely to be predisposed to accept us as fellow outcasts, and to be sympathetic. That doesn’t mean I won’t double-check what he tells us.”

“He’s from New Honshu,” mused Dillon. “I heard a few people speculate on his features before departure, but I doubt that any of them thought it likely a male from there would be able to rise to the rank of Captain. You heard him describe some naval service, and combat experience from years ago. He must be a very good officer or he could never have gotten his own civil command, even within a Rim transport company. They sometimes carry socially sensitive passenger traffic to and from the Hub. That implies a high level of confidence from his superiors.”

“Quite a good officer, according to Navy records and Interworld,” Maggi added, “Though he was turned down for a higher commission in the Planetary Union’s Navy when that was formed after the Prophet’s Robe incident. Our good Captain was combat decorated several times, and eventually earned a command on a small scout ship with a crew of five. The first male to do so at that time.

“I suspect that the Captain learned that as a male from New Honshu, he was not going any higher in even the Rim Squadron of the Navy. He resigned to attend the civil Space Fleet Academy, graduated with honors, and then sought work with transport companies. In light of our present situation, his combat background is reassuring.”

She changed the subject. “I’m going to send you back to the Bridge, right after you have an early dinner. I’d like you up there all night if it’s permitted, just to keep an eye on developments.” She flashed him a wry grin.

Dillon’s heart sank. “An early dinner, Maggi? I could go up right now, then break for dinner at about seven, get a little sleep and be back on the Bridge in the wee hours.”

“Why?” she asked innocently. “Did you have plans this evening? Perhaps to let a certain tall dark and lovely Lady into your tights big boy?”

Damn, Maggi always seemed to know everything. “I’m just meeting First Officer Renaldo for a drink after dinner, to discuss our work at Midwife. Nothing more,” he ended defensively.

“Don’t pee on my foot and tell me it’s raining,” she chastised him in her usual crusty manner. “I know she was the reason you pulled strings to get that petty duty. I was having a little fun with you. It’s a shame I’m too old to bed you myself. Don’t pump yourself exhausted just to prove what a stud you are.”

Dillon feigned shock. He had known Maggi to bed a few men back on Ramah, and she had shamelessly flirted with him often enough. She was probably old enough to remember times when women still outnumbered men by a factor of five or more. The male population needed all of the last three hundred years to rebound. “Aggressive birds get the worm” was an enduring women’s expression that Maggi fully supported.

“Don’t waste the opportunity, Dillon,” she urged. “Find out if she knows something about this situation that the Captain doesn’t. Girls that work for a man sometimes keep a few things to themselves, maintaining that feeling of superiority. She might even brag to impress a big good-looking buck like you. I assume you have arranged to get her in the sack tonight, or was your plan to let her ‘seduce’ you?”

Dillon felt his face redden. “Uh, we…, I mean she hasn’t…” Maggi cut him short.

“Don’t play the schoolboy with me Dillon. You and I both know how you affect the Ladies with that retro manner you work so hard to cultivate. It will be a long sleepless night after that vigorous sex romp to tire you. You had better get a nap now to help you stay awake later. I was serious about you staying the night on the Bridge, but go up after the Last Night party, say by 0100? I’ll clear it with the Captain, for whoever takes the night watch with you.”

Not waiting for a reply, she patted him right on his bulging red heart covered package, and abruptly turned and was out the door.

Tiger Lily my ass, he thought, and she didn’t much behave like a Lady in the classic sense either, though he respected and admired her greatly.

With time on his hands, Dillon went to his cabin. He didn’t feel like taking a nap, so he spent a couple of hours calling up old news reports from the library. He found nothing to indicate that the Midwife project had stirred up more than moderate protests from anyone, except for a couple of religious sects, the ones responsible for most of the “don’t tamper with God’s work” hate mail his department received weekly.

Stretching out on his bunk, he decided to take Maggi’s advice. If he was going to spend most of the night sitting on the Bridge he had better catch some rest, because he certainly intended to let Noreen unwrap and stress test his “package” early tonight. He had been hoping he wouldn’t get a lot of sleep for the entire night, but he had anticipated Noreen would be the cause, not Midwife’s ominous silence. He popped a fast acting “sleeper” and set a bedside alarm.

6. Ambushed

That evening, after dinner, Dillon went to the main lounge on deck 8 to wait for Noreen. He found it more crowded and noisy than usual, the Last Night party getting into full swing, as it would be on several lower decks. It was going to be a long night, but not spent entirely with Noreen he thought mournfully.

There had been no break in the communications silence. Maggi had called his cabin and cheerfully told him he was expected on the Bridge at midnight, an hour earlier than before, to coincide with the change of the Officer of the Watch, whoever that proved to be. She seemed to be taking a perverse pleasure in screwing up his planned night of debauchery.

Suddenly the loud dance music cut off in mid song. Over the noise of the crowd, he could hear the gong of the acceleration warning. The packed room immediately grew quiet. A smooth, calm sexless voice came over the speaker system. He recognized the voice as Jake’s; it was the first time he had ever heard the AI, rather than a crewmember, directly address the passengers.

“Attention! Attention! We have experienced an in-flight emergency. All passengers and crew please secure yourselves in the nearest available chair, couch, or bunk immediately. Be prepared for accelerations of up to four standard gravities in five minutes. Please secure loose objects or place them on the deck if necessary. Thrust will begin exactly thirty seconds after the next warning gong.”

The message was halfway through a repeat before the hubbub went up in pitch as the revelers began to scramble for the few unoccupied seats in the lounge. The chairs would all morph into acceleration couches when occupied. The room had been overflowing, and people began jogging through the corridors, searching for vacant seats in the occasional alcove, or headed directly for their cabins. They hurried, and talked worriedly and loudly, but there was no sense of panic.

Before the soft-spoken voice had completed the first warning however, Dillon had been on his feet, dashing for the axial elevators. He was the official observer and he damn well intended to find out what was happening first hand, up on the Bridge.

Five minutes gave him plenty of time to reach the Bridge. Deck 8 was the highest a passenger could normally go. There were four more lifts at the sides of the passenger decks. The axial elevators required codes to access the highest and lowest crew decks. He had the code issued him as the Bridge observer.

Entering, he gave a verbal command to the auxiliary in AI, “Bridge, please,” followed by his code numbers. To his relief the elevator AI said “Thank you,” and the lift started.

He was shocked, when still several decks below the bridge, Mirikami’s voice sounded from an overhead speaker. “Attention, we have a critical situation. Expect four gravity’s of acceleration in forty five seconds. Remain strapped in until instructed otherwise. If you are unable to reach the safety of a couch or bunk, lay flat on your back on the deck now, no matter where you are. You have to do it now!” The last words were a shouted command. The acceleration gong began sounding, and the lift came to a sudden halt.

A quick glance at the telltale panel told Dillon that he was still two decks from his goal. The lift had automatically halted to lock itself against the shaft walls in preparation for acceleration. He dropped to the floor, lying flat on the spongy floor covering.

There was a twisting sensation that told him the ship was rotating. The intensity of the sensation, while not severe, indicated a more rapid attitude change than any he had noticed previously. The acceleration gong started again, but sounded only once, just as the rotation ended, and acceleration hit.

It wasn’t bone crushing, but it rapidly became damned uncomfortable on the now unyielding floor that seemed so soft a moment ago. Dillon couldn’t recall the conversion function to figure Normal Space acceleration and internal compensation, and he knew it was not a linear calculation anyway. They were really boosting hard if a residual of four gravities remained.

Whatever they were trying to avoid, it must be an act of desperation. Four g’s represented the maximum uncompensated acceleration the Flight of Fancy was designed to impose on its passengers. At least that was in the information printed on the back of each cabin door.

Seconds stretched into uncomfortable minutes and Dillon was compelled to try to shift his position repeatedly in an effort to ease discomfort as the floor pressed painfully against his spine, hipbones, shoulder blades, and the back of his head. Moving his arm required considerable effort when he attempted to check the time on his thumbnail watch. He felt foolish when he nearly smacked himself in the face as he brought his fourfold heavier hand up to see.

He had checked the time before as he ran from the lounge. Instead of the five-minute leeway promised by Jake, it had been barely two minutes before the Captain had initiated the course change. Mirikami had been forced to cut that promised safety margin. The ship had now been at acceleration for nearly four minutes. If it didn’t let up soon, some of the older members of the scientific contingent would be in serious respiratory difficulty, if not so already.

Almost as if his thoughts had been overheard, the acceleration dramatically reduced, providing instant easing of his own breathing. The relief, though welcome, was not total. The internal gravity was still more than the one g the ship had been maintaining since it had slowly eased up to that level during the day. Dillon estimated it to be about one and a half times standard. That would translate into a ship acceleration of slightly under twenty gravities, he thought. They still seemed to be on the run, presumably away from some threat. A Jump might even be imminent.

He was startled when the door chime sounded. The telltale panel indicated he was at the Bridge level, though the door had not opened. He had been unaware that the lift had resumed moving. Evidently, it could function at this lower acceleration. With slow deliberation, he climbed to his feet, holding firmly on to the handrail around the sides in the event the full four-g’s resumed without warning. If it did, he would hit the floor with the impact of about eight hundred eighty pounds.

He placed his palm on the door actuator. Nothing happened. Jake’s voice promptly issued from the ceiling speaker, not the lift’s simpler AI voice. “Please state your name and purpose of your visit. Stand at the center of the elevator so the video monitor may clearly…” The computer’s voice cut off, replaced immediately by Mirikami’s. “Come in Doctor Martin, quickly please.” The door glided open.

Dillon moved swiftly as he could to his previous chair, which now had transformed itself into a semi reclined acceleration couch. He gratefully sank into the soft material as it automatically adjusted to his contours. Mirikami was alone, looking up at a display screen on what had been his lap console earlier. A quick nod and hand gesture was the Captain’s only greeting. His gesture and attitude suggested that he was listening to something via his embedded com unit.

Dillon sat in impatient silence, quickly scanning each of the large view screens, which had partly rotated overhead, to be more visible from a reclined position. He saw nothing that offered him a clue as to what was happening. He heard Mirikami terminate communications with whoever had been speaking to him.

Mirikami immediately began to explain their situation. “Almost nine minutes ago Jake reported twenty-two small ship sized objects rapidly closing on us from the direction of Newborn. They are accelerating at an extremely high rate. Jake’s assessment, as well as my own, is that these are some type of new design large missile. They must have been fired from one or more ships between us and Newborn, but the ships themselves have not been detected.”

“Damn!” Dillon swore. “Midwife was attacked after all. Wait a minute…,” Dillon thought of something. “You said twenty two missiles. That’s a hell of an over kill for just one ship. Could they be small manned fighters?” He recalled Mirikami’s story.

“Not possible. They appear to be large enough, but Jake says their Normal Space acceleration is just over two hundred g’s.”

Dillon knew biology, not military hardware. “How does that fact mean they’re missiles and not small manned ships?”

“By eliminating the manned choice through the known physics of drive mechanics. The uncompensated internal g’s would have turned anyone inside into jelly.”

He had more. “Twenty of them did a collective rollover shortly after we picked them up and now are decelerating at a fantastic rate, but still rapidly closing with us of course. They are no longer my main concern, since they will get here ten or fifteen minutes after the other two. The two lead missiles are still coming at us with the same enormous acceleration they had when the others turned over. I don’t know what sort of advantage the other twenty would gain by slowing the rate of closure, except maneuverability. You don’t need much course adjustment for a large slow target like us. But twenty two missiles, as you said, is overkill anyway.”

Shaking his head, the Captain offered another conjecture. “Perhaps only the lead two are still targeted on us. The other twenty may have been sent in the event we were a naval flotilla.” He paused. “On second thought, our calls to Midwife have been on continuous repeat for hours, and our reentry gamma burst would show as a single ship. No, the bastards know we are alone, and a civilian passenger ship.”

“What’s the closest they’ll get before we can Jump, Captain?” He assumed they were running to insure that the primary Trap had ample time to snare a tunneling Jump energy tachyon.

Mirikami grunted and cleared his throat before he answered. “The two lead missiles will reach us in…,” he looked at his display screen, “six minutes, twelve seconds. Unless the tachyon Trap beats the probabilities, we are very unlikely to capture a minimum Jump energy tachyon in time.” It came out sounding like an apology.

It was a couple of seconds sinking in for Dillon. Something didn’t add up. “I don’t understand. Why can’t we keep running from them, stretch out the time to improve our odds?” Reducing acceleration for the Flight of Fancy now seemed suicidal.

Mirikami shook his head ruefully. “That was my first instinct, and the reason I made that course change and four g push. Jake ran a computation for me while we were trying to run. It was hopeless. We can’t significantly counter a two hundred g real rate of acceleration! I could still buy us a minute or so, but it would drain energy from our secondary Trap faster than we can expect replacement low energy tacs. We would lose our best performance maneuvering system once the Trap field was drained, leaving our fusion generator and limited thruster propulsion. We’d have lasers, but no plasma beams at all without Trap energy.

“Statistically we won’t catch a minimum Jump particle for an average of another fifteen or so minutes, that’s an average, Doctor. When they close on us, we can’t afford to be helpless, without full thrust, or power for the particle beams and lasers. That’s why I stopped running as hard, to conserve energy since they will surely catch us if we don’t get that miracle Jump tac.”

Dillon’s sat in stunned silence for long seconds. Then “What happened to our forty-minute warning from Jake, Captain?” It sounded more like an accusation than a question.

Knowing it was coming didn’t make answering the question easier. Nothing could quell the terrible guilt that consumed Mirikami. His arrogance and clearly demonstrated ignorance was probably going cost the lives of his passengers and crew.

He made no excuses. “The fault is mine. Neither our sensors nor Jake’s monitoring are to blame. The missiles were detected and reported to me at our maximum detection range. My previous military experience told me that I could stay out of range of any attacker for a good deal longer than the maximum time it would take to make a Jump. I was wrong! These missiles have some sort of new propulsion system that permits them to accelerate faster than anything I thought drive physics would permit.” He shook his head in dismayed amazement.

“A rocket engine on missiles this size, coming from Newborn, would have burned their fuel reserves out long ago. These have to be using Trap Drives. My promise of a forty-minute warning has proven to be worthless. They will have covered that detection distance in less than 10 minutes, plus the seconds I gained in trying to get away.

“I ordered the Drive Room crew to retune the primary Trap for minimum Jump energy just as soon as the threat was detected. When I saw there was almost no doubt they would catch us before we could Jump, I started conserving power for a final defense and maneuvering.”

As if waiting for that cue, Jake’s ever-calm voice intruded. “Particle beam plasma in chamber one is optimum; the plasma in chamber two will reach firing temperature in thirty-nine seconds. LDS one and two remain on line.”

Mirikami acknowledged, placing his left hand on an armrest that had extruded where he could reach it without reaching up to his now overhead console. Dillon observed two covered switches were under the Captain’s hand.

Dillon knew the ship’s lasers and particle beams, normally used to ward off occasional small interplanetary debris, were scaled down versions of military hardware. “What chance do we have of knocking out the two lead missiles?” he asked.

“Poor,” Mirikami admitted. “Even if we can stay locked on them. Our system wasn’t designed to hit targets that accelerate on their own. Rocks move on ballistic tracks at a constant velocity, while a missile is armored, and defends itself by being reflective and spinning, twisting and altering acceleration. Only our own ship’s acceleration is included in tracking computations of orbiting debris. Jake will attempt to calculate the needed adjustments as changes are detected and feed the corrections to the targeting computer. We have to keep the beams and lasers on track long enough to try to penetrate the armor that I assume they have, or damage something in their guidance system. Neither possibility is likely.”

“Can we dodge at the last moment? If they’re moving that fast, perhaps we can sidestep enough before they can adjust.”

“I doubt it, but I was going to give it a try anyway. With weaponry this sophisticated and expensive, they surely don’t need a direct hit. A small nuclear warhead would have to miss by over a kilometer for our hull to survive. I don’t know if these contain nukes of any size, of course. If we can’t disable them, I’ll try one final kick to push us as far as possible from their paths as they get close.”

“Is there anything I can help you do?” He was thinking of the fact that Mirikami was working alone. Dillon wanted badly to do something. Anything, besides waiting for fate to catch up to him.

“Pray to the quantum gods for a Jump tac” Invited Mirikami. He raised the protective covers and threw the two switches that armed the particle beam systems, the lasers having been in Jake’s control since reentry. “Jake has his firing command. I’ve just released the interlocks to permit automatic firing when they come into the range where we can achieve the sharpest focusing.” Referring to his display, “That will be in a little over three minutes.”

Mirikami keyed the acceleration alarm and switched on the intercom. “Attention, Please. Attention. This is Captain Mirikami. We are under missile attack by unknown forces. We are attempting to evade the missiles long enough to capture a minimum Jump tachyon, and leave the Newborn system. There will be a minute of much higher acceleration than the previous four gravities sometime within the next few minutes. If you have not reached a couch yet, or are not lying down, your life may well depend on your doing so. If you can, remove your shoes, empty your pockets, and loosen tight clothing. But do it fast. You have just two minutes to return to a prone position. The ship’s computer will inform you when two minutes have elapsed. Listen for the acceleration alarm just before we start thrust.

“That goes for us too, Doctor Martin,” as he kicked off his shoes and unfastened and dropped a utility belt.

Dillon was pulling off his second boot when a barefoot Noreen burst from the stairwell onto the Bridge. Looking winded, she barely gave Dillon a glance as she threw herself onto her couch. “Who are they?” she asked, between gasps for air, “Jake didn’t say.”

“Don’t know,” Mirikami spoke in curt sentences. “Made no transmissions. Impossibly fast. Clearly, the strategy is to hit us before we catch a Jump tac. Looks like it will work. Willfem’s installing a shunt on the second field’s regulator. If done in time, I’m preprogramming a last ditch max thrust right now. See if we can sidestep the first two, gain some time.”

“Thought so…, Jake told me most of it.” She was struggling to regain her breath, speaking between gasps. “Kicked off shoes in stairwell. … ‘Fraid I’d be there when you did it. …Couldn’t risk lift, …ran up from deck three. …Hi Dillon!” She tossed the words at him without turning.

He was about to offer details that Mirikami had omitted as the Captain punched in instructions. Then he recalled she would have been in contact with Jake and the Captain via her personal com unit. She was already busy at her console.

Dillon still couldn’t see anything on the large view screens other than the normal galactic sky. On a small display at the Captain’s console, and now Noreen’s, there was a tracery indicating what was taking place. There was a cluster of red symbols moving in from the top of the display, with two well ahead, moving visibly towards a single green dot near the bottom. There were a number of constantly changing characters near each of the symbols, which were too small for Dillon to make out from his couch.

“Nan says she has the shunt installed, Captain.” Noreen informed him. “We have power for fifty eight g’s of kick in our secondary when you need it, but Jake can’t yet account for fourteen passengers. They never made it to a cabin or a couch and are probably on the deck. Three others appear to be unconscious on their couches. Internal gravity will hit at least twelve g’s, this time,” she warned.”

Mirikami looked grim. “There were at least thirty or so on the deck when I overrode Jake on the first push. I hated to do it, but I had to at try to buy some time. Now I’m trying to buy their lives, and it may kill some of them even if the missiles don’t get us. Sound the acceleration warning.”

7. Captured

“Here we go,” said Mirikami. “Watch the screen. If we do get them we might be able to see the explosions.” He clenched his fists as four bright designator lines suddenly lanced out from the ship’s green symbol, two red, two blue, one of each color converging on the two nearest red symbols. The lines were only a computer representation, since in space the lasers and particle beams were invisible to the human eye.

Dillon finally had something on which to focus his attention. The lasers closed the gap at the speed of light of course, the particle beams arriving only a tiny split second later. The two points of convergence began to shift visibly on the screen. The targets were trying to evade.

Jake’s voice was as calm as ever. “All beams are off focus and off track. Both targets executing rapid lateral movements combined with complex nonlinear acceleration changes. Backscatter from the laser strikes indicate an increase in target surface reflectivity, suggesting a mirrored skin has been activated. No ablation vapors are observed, and continued active missile steering indicates there was no structural damage from the initial hits. I am attempting to re-establish a firing track on both targets.”

Mirikami spoke rapidly into the intercom, “Ms. Willfem we need to Jump now! Can we do it?”

“Negative, Sir. But we just picked up another low-level tac in the secondary. It will add a little power for that big kick you wanted.”

“Here it comes, now or never.” Mirikami warned.

With fantastic speed, the two lead missiles were closing the gap. The program to try to avoid a direct hit was ready. Mirikami hit the activate key savagely, feeding the authorization to Jake. Dillon experience vertigo as the ship rapidly rolled ninety degrees. A savage acceleration of almost fifteen gravities slammed into their bodies.

The terrible crushing pressure lasted only seconds when it was unexpectedly cut, and the lights and screens went out. Dillon uttered a grunt through clenched teeth as he was thrown painfully against restraints. He heard another gasp from Noreen’s direction, though he couldn’t see anything in the dark. This was followed by a stomach churning sense of free fall, frightening in the blackness, which ended in seconds as the lights returned. Quickly after that, gravity returned at what felt like three quarters standard to Dillon’s confused senses. An ear piercing claxon began shrieking.

Dillon felt an odd flash of relief at hearing the claxon. When the lights failed as the thrust quit, he had though his next experience would be hellfire and vacuum.

Mirikami, cursing loudly, slapped the alarm silent and studied the readouts and red telltale messages that were beginning to appear on his console. Noreen started calling up data from the Drive Room monitors.

Dillon glanced at the external view screens, they were restored but the drifting star field indicated the ship was making a slow roll. The red and blue tracers were gone. Checking the tracking display at Mirikami’s console, he saw the first two red target symbols had passed the Flight of Fancy, and were moving away. “They missed us!”

Mirikami looked up, a puzzled expression on his face. “I don’t think they missed. They just didn’t do what I expected, which was to blow us apart. We should have boosted for a full minute, but we lost all power from our Trap fields. One or both fusion bottles are always on line, and number one kicked in automatically for gravity control. That three-second surge barely moved us out of harm’s way, but there wasn’t any detonation. They apparently fired something at us as they passed, and knocked out all of the Trap field projectors around our hull. Every projector shows zero field curvature. I’m damned if I know how they did that kind of precision shooting at that velocity!”

Assimilating data as it was summarized on her screen, Noreen had to contradict him. “Captain, the power monitors don’t indicate that any of the projectors are actually gone. They are all drawing energy from the fusion generator now. The secondary field simply contains no tachyons. That’s why we lost thrust.

“Then there’s still a chance!” Mirikami cried. He was nearly shouting as he called the Drive Room. “Nan, Is the main Trap still on tune for a Jump tac? The lead two missiles have passed and the main body is at least twelve minutes away and slowing.”

A man’s face appeared on the screen, it was Chief Haveram. “Ms. Willfem is already checking on it now, Sir. The secondary field is up, but it seems to have dumped all its particles.”

“Damn the secondary field!” Mirikami snapped, “We still have a pretty good chance to catch a Jump tac in the next twelve minutes if our primary is still tuned correctly. Check it!”

There was the sound of another voice approaching the audio pickup. A young woman’s face replaced the Chief. She looked dejected. “Captain, both the primary and secondary Traps have broken down somehow. We show them tuned to their respective energy levels, but the field monitors indicate they have zero curvature now. The fields must have collapsed.”

Noreen signaled with her hand, catching the Captain’s attention. She pointed to a string of characters on her own display.

“Can’t be,” Mirikami said, hope still present, “we’re still feeding them a lot of power from the reactor, so the fields have to be there. The field monitors must have been damaged instead of the projectors. They did something to us when they passed. Get me a video damage report of the hull, and make sure that primary field stays on frequency!”

“I was already on it Sir. I’m checking out the control console for the field strength monitors now.” Speaking off to the side, “Chief! You, Gundarfem and Yin-Lee, do a fast eyeball check on the projectors and hull. See if the field samplers were hit, the projectors may be damaged too since the energy to them is going somewhere.” There was the sound of running feet.

For the moment all that could be done was being done. Rather than distract his engineer from her work, Mirikami asked for a status report inside of five minutes and left the circuit open. “Let’s find out what Jake recorded when those two birds passed us.” Mirikami selected the voice Link. “Jake, what did the two missiles do to us as they passed?”

The precise voice responded instantly. “We received focused bursts of N wave energy from each of them in turn as they passed.”

Mirikami shook his head in a gesture lost on the computer. “Their own Trap fields couldn’t hurt us, particularly by pushing on our Trap fields. Those fields are not entirely in this universe, and there certainly would be no material connection to the ship from a Trap field in Tachyon Space. Jake, what about a laser or particle beam hit on the hull or the projectors? Our field sensors must be giving us bad readings because they show the fields down, but internally they seem tuned and drawing power.”

“Sir, there was no laser or beam activity detected.”

Mirikami had a question. “Jake, are there any unusual equipment malfunctions listed in your data base that can cause a spherically closed field to register zero curvature?”

The AI had a litany of negatives. “A closed field cannot change its curvature to become an open field; it would first require an infinite amount of energy to expand to essentially zero curvature. A closed field can only expand to the limit of energy furnished, or collapse. An open field must be generated from its origin as an open field, and can never become closed. An open field will also require a continual increase of energy input to support it as it radiates toward infinity. All open fields collapse when they reach the limit of their energy supply. It is extremely improbable that all of our independent sensors would have failed simultaneously, and virtually impossible for all of them to fail in precisely the way required to incorrectly register a closed field’s curvature as zero.”

“Jake, we are now feeding energy into all the field projectors, yet we measure zero field curvature. Despite what your physics programming says about a closed field, what purely hypothetical field configuration would allow these readings?”

The reply was not immediate this time. Several seconds passed as the computer re-evaluated the billions of bits of data recorded from the instruments, and information stored in the physics database.

“If both closed fields were actually changed to open fields, our field sensors would therefore register as zero curvature. Both fields would then tend to expand to infinity at a linear rate. However, our spherical fields could not become open, since they were not generated that way initially.”

Mirikami called the Drive Room again. “Ms. Willfem?”

“Here Sir” came a prompt reply.

“Nan, if the projectors were broadcasting open fields Jake says that we would see zero curvature readings. An open field will draw more power with time. Please check the power monitors for the field projectors.”

There was a momentary pause at the other end. “Captain, we do show a steady increase in power drain to the field projectors. I hadn’t noticed it before, nor did I expect any change. The circuits are tuned for the tachyon energy we want. Except every field mechanic knows that you can’t open a closed field.”

“Nan we only have another eight or nine minutes till company comes again. Tinker with whatever you want on the secondary to see if you can determine where the energy is going, and why. Don’t work on the primary Trap. I’m reluctant to tamper with it in case it’s still really up and closed, and we can either catch or already have a Jump particle and just can’t sense it.”

“I’ll do my best Sir. Wait a second while I try something…” There was the faint click of a switch followed by another. “I toggled a single projector off and on for the secondary Trap. No indication from the sensors of a field curvature change, but when I sent the shutdown signal I saw a slight decrease in the total power drain followed by a slight step back up, as if that projector is radiating into a field. Impossible as it sounds, Jake may be right.”

“Do what you can Nan, but don’t start anything that will take longer than five minutes to get results.”

“Yes Sir, I have a few things I can try, …Uh, hold a sec Captain, Motorman Johnson is calling me…” She cocked her head and listened on her own com unit channel for a few seconds, then looked into the video pick up again. “No visible damage to any of the projectors.”

“Right, that fits Jake’s picture too.” Mirikami replied. “Get hopping on those tests. Out.”

Dillon had been watching the tracking display on the captain’s console. “Captain, does it appear to you that the first two attackers are not falling away from us as fast as they were when they passed us?”

Mirikami studied the figures next to the two targets a moment and shook his head in amazement. “They are now decelerating at two hundred standard gravities.” As if to deny what the numbers told him, he added, “There is no way a ship that small can hold those drives.”

“Someone’s found a way,” Noreen countered dryly. “It looks like they’re turning around to close the back door. Not that we can run anywhere. We’re on a ballistic course out of this system into nowhere, unless they stop us, or we get our fields back in service. We don’t have enough fuel for our main thruster engines to make a difference at this high velocity. “

To Dillon the time seemed right to ask some questions without worrying about being a distraction. “I think we might be able to make some guesses about these people based on their technology. If we figure out who could possibly build missiles this advanced, we might have a clue as to their intentions. We can rule out the Planetary Union on grounds that they wouldn’t need to attack Midwife to eliminate it. Who else has their scientific know how?”

Mirikami gave his lower lip a tug, and then waved his hand. “I’m certainly no expert, but I have a decent foundation in Trap field mechanics. I’ve keep up with current literature on Jump drives. I’ve never even heard of theoretical possibilities for a drive mechanism that can generate the acceleration these missiles produce. Drives of that power should be far larger than our own drives, too large to fit in those little hulls.

“But that isn’t the most disturbing thing to me.” Mirikami continued, “The people who built those,” he indicated the red symbols on his display, “have done far more than build a faster, smaller drive. They evidently have a means to penetrate and open a tachyon Trap field with a similar field. I haven’t a clue as to who it could be, but they seem to want us alive, at least for now.”

Something else bothered Dillon. “If these are remote piloted missiles, then where’s the ship that fired them and controls them? How can they be remote drones if Jake never detected the control signals? If we have to accept that they have a better drive, why not a smaller manned ship?”

“You may be right Doctor.” Mirikami conceded. “What’s one more defiance of what I was taught as being the Laws of Physics?”

Dillon started to say something else but was interrupted by Jake. “Communication arriving, audio only.” This announcement was followed by a quavering voice, already in mid-sentence.

“….to escape or you will be destroyed! Any resistance will be dealt with savagely. Please believe me; if you run or fight you will die. Your lives depend on submission and instant obedience. For God’s sake, don’t try to Jump, they can sense your Trap fields. Obey them exactly! A moment’s hesitation can be fatal.”

There was a moment of silence, then the broadcast repeated. “Make no attempt to escape or you will be destroyed! .,.” The remainder was a repeat of the same message. On the third playing Mirikami told Jake to take it off speaker, but to continue recording and report any change in content.

Noreen was the first to speak. “I think whoever made the recording is under duress, possibly a prisoner, and from his voice he sounds frightened. Perhaps someone from Midwife?”

“If so,” Mirikami mused, “he believes our attackers to be ruthless and competent enough to make armed resistance futile. After the flying and firing demonstration just witnessed I can’t doubt their ability.”

Watching her own tracking display, Noreen saw that the twenty onrushing targets had modified their formation. “The main group is fanning out. They’re netting us like a fish.”

Mirikami muttered indistinctly then selected voice Link. He used the code phrase that placed the computer in dictation mode. “Jake, take a message.”

“Ready Sir.”

“This is Captain Mirikami of the Flight of Fancy, Mizzeran registry. Our drive fields are disabled and we require assistance. We will comply with your demands and will offer no resistance. We have eight hundred ninety nine souls onboard, and light cargo. Please identify yourselves.” He spoke the termination phrase, “Jake, end message.”

“Routing Sir?” was the automatic response.

“Broadcast it on the same frequency they are using, between their transmissions, and on all four distress frequencies as well. Advise the Bridge if there is any reply, or a change in their current transmission.”

To Noreen he said, “Play that incoming recording for the crew only, and let them hear my reply. Get our people on duty in passenger country into a privacy booth. Impress on them that I mean to do exactly as we are told. I’ll speak to the passengers myself and prepare them a little more gradually. I don’t want a wild-eyed panic, so they won’t hear the actual message just yet. To keep them in their seats I’ll caution them to expect additional acceleration for a course change. Make sure the crew understands that it’s only a bluff so that they know it’s safe to move about. Start a search for the four missing people, and get some medical help to those that need it.”

“Will do, Sir.”

Next Mirikami addressed the passenger decks. “Let me have your attention please. This is Captain Mirikami speaking. We are in no immediate danger at present, but we have been pursued and caught by a fleet of small unidentified spacecraft. They have ordered us to cease efforts to escape and to follow their instructions. In order to insure your safety I have agreed to their terms.

“I regret any injuries or discomfort you may have suffered due to the abrupt accelerations. Your couch monitors will have informed the medical staff of anyone requiring immediate attention. Depress the call button to request a steward only if you require immediate attention. Because we may be required to get underway on a new course without warning, I must ask you to remain seated for your own safety. Please remain calm. If our pursuers intended us harm, they could have already done so. I will keep you informed as I learn their intentions. Thank you.”

Mirikami waited for his First Officer to complete her crew briefing.

As soon as she switched off, Mirikami swiveled to face them both. “I want your comments and any observations that seem pertinent. Since you’ve been witness to all that’s happened, Doctor, you’re included. Noreen, you go first.”

“We haven’t any choice but to follow their orders for now. However, they neglected to tell us who they are and they didn’t send us video. I think that may be significant. They may be hiding their identity because we still have a chance to escape, or because they may intend to release us if we turn out to be as harmless as we seem to be. Right now we can’t tell anyone who they are.”

Mirikami voiced partial disagreement. “Escape is out. We can’t make a surprise Jump even if we could catch an energetic tachyon in the next few minutes. If we restored the Traps…,” he froze as he realized where the completed thought led. Instantly he was at the com panel and keyed the Drive Room speakers, shouting. “Willfem! Leave the Trap fields alone! Don’t try to restore them! Do hear me? Don’t do anything to them! Acknowledge!”

When her face appeared on the screen, it was that of a bewildered woman. “But… Captain, I was about to try to close the secondary Trap field again by shutting down and recycling. There’s about a five-percent probability we could catch a minimum Jump particle in time. It’s a slim chance, but shouldn’t we try?”

Mirikami explained why they couldn’t. “Nan, you heard their message. They’ll destroy us if we try to escape. The device used to tamper with our fields from the outside, from kilometers away, must be able to sense the presence of our fields. They know with a closed Trap there’s a possibility, however small, that we could catch a Jump particle within a few minutes. Restoring either field might be seen as an escape attempt and provoke a fatal attack. The odds against a Jump before they can hit us again are too great to risk.”

Willfem conceded reluctantly. “You’re probably right Sir. But I wish we had a little more time.”

“No more than I do Nan, but they are too damned fast, and too close to risk the attempt. Just stand by until we know what they want us to do.”

Killing the connection, Mirikami released a shuddering sigh. “I nearly missed the point of my own argument against trying to Jump. If she had reset either field we might have been blasted without further warning.”

The tracking display showed the twenty craft had ceased to fan out and were moving parallel to the path of their prey. The Flight of Fancy was about to be enveloped by an open bottomed hemisphere formation of ships. The trailing two craft, now having reversed their course would close the bottom. They were making no assumptions about the apparent helplessness of their victim.

“Your turn Doctor.” Mirikami invited. “What do you think, and how do you think your people will take this?”

“I have a theory now that I’m afraid is going to make me sound more paranoid than my last one, Captain. However, I’ve been examining all this analytically, not emotionally, and we know a few new facts. If what I’m about to suggest is really happening here Captain, we might indeed have a panic if we don’t prepare for it. I’d really like you to punch holes in my hunch if you can.” Dillon had the undivided attention of both officers.

For the last several minutes, he had been collecting bits and pieces of information, fitting them into the framework of a radical idea that had occurred to him a short time ago. It needed more pieces, but what facts he had fit the theory.

He began to outline his bits of information hurriedly, ticking them off like items on a shopping list. “First, the frightened man that made the recording is probably a prisoner. Perhaps he’s one of the people from Midwife. But, that’s a strange thing don’t you think? Our extremely competent aggressors passed on an ultimatum secondhand, via a clearly male voice, rather than from some authoritative female of their own?”

He moved to his next point. “Next, their message wasn’t a specific reply to our own broadcasts to Midwife; we were not called by ship name. The recording must have been prepared in advance, before they even knew who we were. To reach us this quickly those little ships must have started after us as soon as our reentry gamma ray wave front reached Newborn. If the message was recorded in advance, I wonder why they didn’t take time to prepare an ordinary video recording and add more detail.

“As you observed Captain, we had essentially no chance to escape once they had opened our Trap fields. They certainly knew they had us, and yet sent no images, nor did they identify themselves in any way.” At this point, he realized Jake hadn’t said where the message originated. He didn’t know if that detail might fit his theory or not. “Noreen, please ask Jake if the transmission came from one of the twenty-two targets he’s tracking, or from somewhere else?”

Noreen relayed the question to Jake, but in rephrasing the request, she asked for the “source and nature” of the signal. The computer proceeded to give every detail of the broadcast.

Dillon had merely wanted to know if the message came from Newborn, which was too far away to have even known the Flight of Fancy had been successfully disabled. To fit his theory, the signal had to originate from someone close enough to have known the prey had been caught. He got a lot more than he had expected.

“The transmission,” began the precise, smooth voice, “is radiating on a tight beam from one of the twenty ships that are approaching us from Newborn. The specific source is the ship directly at the center of the enveloping hemisphere. It is a radio signal with a carrier frequency centered on the interstellar hydrogen emission frequency of one thousand four hundred twenty megahertz, using frequency modulation to convey audio information. The

”

“Terminate, Jake.” Noreen ordered, not certain what Dillon had been after. She halted what was sure to be endless and pointless detail from the computer.

Dillon felt an icy chill crawl up his back, “That was more than I was expecting, but I think that just might clinch it. I’ll explain in a moment.”

He outlined the next point, “These small craft have shown us capabilities that outstrip the most advanced ships known to either of you experienced Spacers. Furthermore, they have a device that seems to violate the laws of physics of our field equations for Tachyon Space.”

He was nearly finished. “There also has been no indication that any of our messages have been understood. It’s as if they can’t improvise their communications with us.”

Now it was time for the final clue that had convinced him he had to be right, but he wasn’t sure it would loom as significant to the others.

“Their transmission itself is the single most revealing detail. I don’t mean the content; I’m speaking of the mode of delivery. They used one of the most significant frequencies available. The radio frequency generated by interstellar hydrogen clouds when the atoms in them collide. Every long-range Jump ship automatically records emissions on a number of so called ‘Magic’ frequencies. These are the radio emissions that occur naturally in nature and are important to radio astronomy.

“There is a very old, often forgotten reason why these frequencies are monitored by Jump ships.” He waited to see if this information would at last lead them to what he now thought was true.

Mirikami nodded his head slowly, but remained silent. He saw where Dillon was leading and was seeking a flaw in his string of evidence that would prove him wrong.

Noreen, seeing Mirikami’s nod, was still in the dark. “Dillon, what’s so significant about that frequency? The Captain seems to know but I didn’t know it was monitored. Why do we do it, and how did you know about it when it apparently isn’t common knowledge to flight crews?”

“It’s done, because we first heard the so-called Corrillians on that same frequency, nearly four hundred years ago by SETI. The frequency is one of a number of naturally generated radio signals that radio astronomers have studied for centuries. Searchers for intelligent extraterrestrial life believe that any culture with a radio level technology, such as the Corrillians had, might try to communicate with beings in other solar systems.

“I know about it because I’m a volunteer member of an old scientific task force, in the biology unit, that would respond to the discovery of another alien race. The ships that operate out near the Rim have recorders that are checked automatically for non-random patterns by computers at spaceports each time the ship docks. We anticipated discovering another intelligent race someday. One may have found us instead.”

She wasn’t buying it. “Dillon, isn’t it pretty farfetched to extrapolate the few facts we have here, into an attack by the Corrillians? Besides,” she added, “I recall some of the historical facts. It happened even before Jump ships. I believe the signal was picked up for only a few weeks and that it was apparently being aimed at stars randomly, not specifically for us. They didn’t even know we existed.”

“I’m not saying these are Corrillians.” Dillon responded. “That signal was beamed from a globular cluster over twenty thousand light years from Earth. They were sending in the blind, looking for someone to talk to. After centuries of studying what was in their message, we think their physics and mathematics was on the wrong path to stumble onto Jump travel.”

“Then you think we’ve been found by some other species?”

“It may seem unlikely, but it fits the facts better than anything else I can think of. In any event, we are about to find out, and I want us to be prepared for the shock if I’m right. One of my boyhood dreams was to participate in a First Contact. That wish may have pushed my mind into fitting the facts to a desired conclusion. I earnestly hope that we, here and now, are not in a First Contact situation. Not like this.”

Noreen appealed to Mirikami for support. “Tet, you don’t think this can be the result of an alien intrusion do you? How could a race with Jump capability be living close to us and go undetected?”

Dillon’s argument left Mirikami ample room to suffer the same doubts. “I don’t know. Unless they have been aware of us and have been hiding. These people here are certainly hostile, and they might possibly account for a number of ship disappearances recently. But that doesn’t uniquely point to an alien presence.”

Mirikami shook his head, and shrugged. “I don’t have a better answer, but I’m not convinced. Hell! I don’t want to believe. A species that knows about us but doesn’t fear to risk a war with the human race would have to be very powerful, or foolhardy. We haven’t had a war in hundreds of years, but we still have the resources and production of over seven hundred settled planets, and an enormous population. A foe would have to be damned confidant they would win before they challenged us. If these super ships are alien, then…”

Jake interrupted. “There is a new message.”

8. The Krall

The second message, delivered by another hurried voice, identified itself.

“My name is Mavray Doushan. I am, or rather I was, Poldark’s Deputy Ambassador to Bollovstic’s Republican Independency. I am making this recording in the hope I might save many lives.”

“If you are hearing this recording you are fortunate, though it is not likely that you think so at present. The fact that you are alive and able to hear my voice means you have survived the initial contact, or more correctly, an attack. Untold numbers of other victims have not.

“If your attackers have followed previous patterns, your Jump ship will have been disabled by small single piloted craft of remarkable capability. The danger of continued resistance is impossible to exaggerate. If all that have survived to hear this recording will follow my advice, further loss of life can be reduced. Not eliminated, I fear, but certainly more will live if you listen and follow my advice.

“As I speak, the Standard Date is 3, June, 2548. I have been held captive for nearly one year, and there are a few others with me that have been held captive for more than two years. If you listen to me, and do as I urgently advise, then more of you might survive to join us. We believe perhaps thousands of people in your present position have died needlessly.”

Although he knew the date, Dillon automatically glanced at his laminated thumbnail timepiece. The recording was a bit over two and a half years old.

“Heroics and panic or resistance must be avoided!” Doushan continued emphatically. “Only carefully considered movements and actions can avoid a violent death within the first few minutes of confronting your captors. This will be a terribly frightening time for you, as it was for me, and for many others. However, if you follow my directions and control your fear and emotions, you can survive. The thousands of fellow survivors and I are proof of that. However, the effort of self-control will be great. You have never faced a more unexpected danger.”

Here he paused dramatically, ensuring total attention. “You are about to be confronted by warriors in-training of a hostile alien race.”

Noreen threw Dillon a startled look. His stricken expression clearly showed he took no satisfaction from having his hunch confirmed.

Doushan, pausing again, allowed his unseen audience time to absorb his previous words.

Then he resumed. “These creatures call themselves Krall, and they have told us little of themselves. They have obviously studied us for some time, and have some knowledge of us, but they do not understand human nature and mannerisms at all. I can tell you they are a bit larger than we are, four limbs, broad chested with a humanoid form, a ruddy coloration, and a fearsome head and face. They have great strength and incredible lightning reflexes. The latter is a primary cause of so many deaths when humans first encounter them. Any move interpreted as threatening or contrary to an order given can trigger one or more of them into an attack. They will strike out almost literally faster than the eye can follow. Once triggered, the defensive reflex is very often fatal to the targeted person, and might also injure anyone else close to the person attacked.”

He place obvious added emphasis on his next words. “A serious injury at this stage of your capture, even if not disabling, is always fatal. I repeat! Always fatal! This is because the Krall never take injured prisoners with them and they never leave anyone alive behind. Prisoners that have an injury that you can’t conceal, or if they can’t move unassisted, are killed. It is vital to avoid injury, and to conceal it if suffered.

“Speaking to a low rank soldier is probably pointless, and extremely dangerous. You can’t reason with them in any way. For one thing, their soldiers on these raids are young novice fighters in training, and do not understand more than a few words of Earth Standard, if any. Even our natural hand and body gestures might seem threatening to them, or seen as a challenge. Don’t dare look them directly in the eyes; that is an invitation to a fight.

“One or more higher ranking Krall translators go on a raid. They will speak some Standard, and will tell you what they want you to do. They may or may not accept questions. Don’t press them too much or defy them, or else they too may kill you without warning. They will permit you slightly more latitude after you have been marked with a sort of oval tattoo, below the throat. This will release that person from instant unrestricted challenges to a fight to the death. This is a cultural thing for them, and there’s no time to explain what this means.

“I’ve been permitted to forewarn you, but not out of Krall concern for your well-being. We don’t know why yet, but they want a large number of healthy human prisoners. Some of us were able, at great risk, to communicate the idea that obtaining relatively undamaged ships and live prisoners would be more efficient if a warning is sent just prior to the first face-to-face meeting. For this reason, several of my fellow captives and I have been branded as traitors by many of the Ladies that are leaders within the prisoner ranks. Judge us when we meet, if you will, but remember, you have to survive the next few hours to do that.

“The only way we have found to modify Krall behavior toward us is to appeal to their obsession for speed and efficiency. My promise of a higher percentage of whole ships and live prisoners per raid has made this recording possible. If I’m proven wrong by their standards, I’m dead, along with those few who backed my assertions.

“I don’t want to appear to help the Krall but they will get what they need anyway. I’m trying to stop the bloody slaughters witnessed by so many of us. Alive you have some hope of rescue, release, or at least life. Death at their hands or your own is an available option at any time. Listen to me, and chose life!”

In a sudden move, Mirikami activated the voice Link. Speaking fast and low, he instructed Jake to start playing the second message from its beginning, for the entire ship. He realized if the recording were much longer, there might not be time to pass the warning to the passengers and crew.

The enveloping ships, now joined by the two original attackers, had arranged themselves in a spherical shell about the Flight of Fancy. The shell had begun to contract.

Doushan described the boarding process. “They will board you by burning a body sized opening in your hull. They avoid hatches and airlocks until the target ship is secured. The holes remain largely airtight, sealed even when the single ships pull away. Later, if your ship is capable of a Jump, you might be allowed stay on board with a sort of prize crew. If not, every able-bodied person will be moved onto a Krall transport. Those left behind, the dead and injured, along with the ship and equipment, will be dumped down a Jump Hole to remove any trace of the raid. I’m sorry, but that has been the pattern reported by nearly all the survivors here.

“Your personal risk,” the voice became strident again, “is in giving a Krall reason to believe that you are offering a challenge or threat. An innocent action can get you killed. Keep your hands in sight, very still, and out of your clothing at all times, or else hidden weapons are suspected. If anyone near you, even a family member, is struck or threatened, don’t make the slightest move to defend them or your own death is assured, as is probably theirs!

“Carry nothing in your hands other than infants, and if practical, small children should be stripped naked and held away from your own body with your hands visible. Hold the hands of larger preteen children, one adult on each hand. A Krall absolutely will not hesitate to kill a child, including infants.

“When a Krall indicates that you are to go anywhere or to do anything, you must obey them instantly, even if that order forces friends or family to separate. You will be reunited here later. Discard any weapons now, either makeshift or actual, since they will be essentially useless. Please believe me in this! You rarely can do enough damage quickly enough to kill a Krall before it kills you anyway, and then every other Krall around will accept your challenge! It has been tried many times, with the same fatal result every time.”

They heard an indistinct low-pitched growling voice in the recording’s background. Doushan’s words became very rushed. “I’m out of time, I’m sure they’ll move in fast once you receive this. Good luck.”

The transmission cut off. There was a deathly stillness on the Bridge.

Mirikami broke the silence. He spoke in a near whisper. “They seem to be following the described pattern. Those should be the boarding parties closing on us.” He indicated the external screens.

The twenty-two surrounding ships appeared as glittering pinpricks against the backdrop of stars. Eight ships had left the symmetrical formation and were moving toward them. They had apparently been waiting only for the transmission to end.

He queried Jake, knowing the AI could multi task. “Jake. Do you have any news record of this Doushan person; I forgot his first name, being reported as killed or missing in recent years? He was apparently a minor diplomat.”

The AI didn’t display a moment’s hesitation. “Yes Sir. A person by the name of Mavray Vilinkin Doushan was reported lost, along with a small diplomatic courier ship, on or about August 12, 2547. There were reported to be twenty six people aboard, three diplomats, and their families, with…” Mirikami cut him off from a sure-to-be longer reply.

“Thanks Jake, that’s enough. I’ll make a ship wide announcement directly, when that warning message finishes.”

“Yes Sir.”

Mirikami keyed on the ship’s intercom and listened until the last of Doushan’s warning was played. He began speaking the instant it ended. “This is Captain Mirikami. Eight boarding craft are approaching us now. I want everyone to do exactly what the man named Doushan advised. If you are in a hull side compartment I want you to move quickly toward the center of your deck area and discard anything an alien might consider a weapon. There are a couple of teenaged children among you, so watch after them carefully.

“As soon as I know where we have been boarded, I will attempt to contact a Krall translator. If permitted, I will keep you informed of their demands. Please, always think before you act, and remember the warnings. Don’t give them the slightest reason to harm you. An alien might think any unfamiliar object is a potential weapon, so throw anything like that away now. I order every crewmember to do the same. If others have gone through this ordeal and survived, then we can. Good luck.”

He switched from intercom to voice Link. “Jake, did you understand from the message that we will be boarded by having holes cut in the ship’s hull?”

“Yes Sir, by burning openings.”

“Correct, Jake. Do not activate the Sealer System unless there is an explosive decompression, and do not activate the foam units unless a serious fire is detected. The Krall might think we are using some sort of chemical defense and start shooting. Understood, Jake?”

“Yes Sir.”

“Also Jake, segment the forward main view screen into eight equal squares and show me the closest view of each anticipated entry point as any video monitors might permit. Adjust the views if the entry points shift. Do you understand?”

“Yes Sir.”

The forward screen immediately divided into eight views of large compartments and corridors, private cabins did not have cameras. Five hull side compartments and one small cargo area appeared empty of people, but two outer ring corridor views showed a press of confused and frightened people pouring from staterooms, streaming toward the centrally located lounges on each deck. Jake hadn’t been asked to furnish audio so the two scenes of pandemonium were silent.

A loud metallic sounding clang came from somewhere well below the Bridge deck. Mirikami jabbed his seat release. “Up! Get away from the controls” he ordered. He unsnapped and dropped his previously retrieved utility belt as he stood, emptying small uniform pockets as well. Noreen and Dillon hurriedly followed suit, moving away from the control consoles.

“Tet”, cried Noreen, as a though flashed through her mind. “Jake’s still on audio, do we want to let them know about him?”

“No. Good thinking”, he agreed.

“Jake, restrict your communications to crew transducer units or internal intercom calls off speakers until either I or the highest-ranking crewperson remaining on board tells you any different. Advise the rest of the crew of these instructions, and give them a brief summary, approximately one minute or less long, of what is happening on the ship every five minutes. Understand?” Both officers heard Jake’s acknowledgement through their embedded transducers. Dillon did not via the speakers.

A muffled whoosh was heard from below, followed instantly by a slight, ear-popping drop in air pressure. Dillon, his eyes glued to the segmented view screen, saw several compartments and the cargo hold silently and rapidly fill with some sort of black smoke or gas. One of the views was apparently from the galley area directly under them; the gas was coming up the axial stairs. The two corridor scenes were unchanged except for the rush of people. There was no sign of any smoke there.

Suddenly two hull-side stateroom doors, one along each of the two crowded corridors exploded outward, smashing through the throng, striking the opposite bulkhead in a splatter of red. Those unfortunate to be passing directly by the doors were battered aside, their crushed and broken bodies rebounding from the opposite bulkhead with sickening force. Billowing black clouds poured through the shattered doorways, and moving along the gray edges was a dimly seen figure on each screen.

Those nearest the explosions in the two corridors began clawing at one another, trying to stay ahead of the advancing darkness. The unheard cries of terror were clearly evident on their faces. The unreasoned panic was answered with gruesome finality.

The back of a woman’s head exploded in a spray of red, as the man running next to her spun wildly and struck the bulkhead, his left shoulder and arm dangling by connective tissue as he slid to the deck, blood smearing in a wide red streak. Others, also forgetting the warnings ran harder, and they too began twisting in violent contortions, as what appeared to be explosive projectiles tore out of the advancing darkness into their limbs and bodies. The black clouds swept along over the dead and dying in each corridor, obscuring gore spattered bulkheads and decks, where men and women, limbs missing or entrails exposed, were obviously screaming on the quiet screens.

Dillon, watching the carnage in stunned horror, drew in a sharp breath as one petite figure caught his attention. A woman was standing along one of the ravaged body strewn corridors, facing the approaching wall of black. She was standing still, her arms up over her head, palms forward, facing what was coming. Despite others dying violently around her and behind her, blood splashing her clothes, she appeared unharmed. Doctor Fisher’s grim face glanced at the camera’s bubbled dome, and then gazed into the approaching blackness as the cloud swept over her.

Mirikami, at the first shots, had also leaped toward his console, uttering a strangled cry. “My God, don’t…”, then he choked off the emotional reaction and watched both scenes with an agonizing intensity. He knew they wouldn’t hear any calming words he might shout over the din.

Doctor Fisher’s example gave him the thread of salvation he was seeking. He gave an order. “Jake, repeat the following message on ship wide intercom, high volume. Start! `People, don’t panic if you see black smoke, the Krall are hiding in it for their own protection. Stand absolutely still with your hands over your head. They are shooting anyone that runs. If you surrender with hands high, they don’t shoot. For your very life, don’t panic or run or you’ll be killed!’ End! Jake, repeat it three times, loud!” He could only hope that warning was a fact.

Jake’s voice, sounding incongruously calm, boomed throughout the ship, repeating the warning as ordered.

It was then that Dillon saw a few tendrils of gray rising to the Bridge from the axial stairwell. “We’ve got company of our own,” and nodded toward the stairs.

They were still raising their arms when a blurred figure erupted from the opening to strike the high ceiling feet first, rebound and flip upright to land almost silently, by the side of the adjacent two elevator columns, partially using one for cover. The Krall had two deadly looking pistol shaped weapons trained steadily on them. It uttered no sounds, and made no other threatening move, but its head was on a rapid pivot, and large black eyes were rapidly scanning the area. There appeared to be small red pupils set against obsidian black. They burned with an inner fire as they flashed about the Bridge, seeking something to kill.

Dillon viewed the alien with what he felt was surprisingly clinical detachment, considering what he had seen on screen, and might be about to happen to them. It was an exercise he had actually imagined often enough, dreaming of First Contact with the response team someday. It was more a nightmare now.

The creature was large, an upright bipedal humanoid form, much as Doushan had described, with hairless looking, faintly scaly skin that seemed stretched tightly on an over muscled frame. It wore a close fitting black V-necked body suit that did not fully cover the arms and legs.

Where visible, the skin was grayish red in coloration, except for a black outlined oval shape, blank inside, visible because of the uniform’s V-neck. Two utility belts were slung in an X across its broad chest. There were a number of sealed pockets, and many various attached devices, such as small and medium bladed weapons under straps. There were two holster-like devices at the hips for the pistols it held.

Standing over two meters tall, even with the leg crouch it was maintaining, it alertly watched them. The eyes were set wide apart under a heavy eyebrow ridge. The head, smallish for that big body, was on a thick elongated neck, and had a slight bony crest running from just above its brow to disappear over the top. The eyes were constantly flicking rapidly about the room, the head pivoting to cover every side. On a barely pronounced muzzle, a lipless slash of a mouth remained closed, though four vertical slits, in what would be a nasal location on a human face, flared open and closed as it breathed steadily and slowly. Its torso, particularly the chest and shoulders, was wider and thicker than a large man’s was, and tapered to a waist narrow only in proportion to that massive chest. Relatively short, stocky, and slightly bowed looking legs supported it all.

The arms and legs were jointed similar to a human’s limbs. Dillon noticed with surprise that its feet were bare, displaying four long, possibly prehensile toes, each tipped with a short talon.

The arms were thick as well, and actually longer than the legs. There were short sharp looking spikes on the backside of each elbow joint. It had large hands gripping the weapons, with three relatively slender looking fingers and a shorter opposable thumb, all tipped with short talons. Dillon couldn’t tell its gender, if it had one, though the skintight black garment showed no genital bulge where it would have on a man.

With an unnaturally swift, yet smoothly graceful motion, it suddenly slid both guns into the holsters. The Krall still made no sound and remained in a slight crouch, arms akimbo, clearly poised to spring. There was no sign that it wanted them to do anything. It seemed to be waiting.

Mirikami, wondering if this could be a translator, decided to risk communication. “I am Cap….” He instantly froze in mid word as the Krall, in a veritable blur of motion, drew the left gun and held it rock steady on a point between the Captain’s eyes.

It parted its lips, displaying numerous interlocking dagger shaped teeth, and snarled a string of low-pitched unintelligible words. Then in broken but understandable Standard, the words “You are to wait for Harzax Kopandi” was uttered in deep base notes, almost a growl. “Speak or move, you challenge me to fight!” The thin lips rippled in an odd fashion as it spoke, and was that a hint of an eager smile at the end?

Dillon was certain it was risky to anthropomorphize these creatures, but it seemed to be rather hopeful they would try to resist. It seemed rather lizard-like in some respects, so assigning human meanings to his expression was a wasted exercise at this point.

The Krall then holstered the weapon, in that same incredibly fast smooth motion, and continued its watchful stance.

The three humans continued to stand still, their arms raised. As several minutes dragged by, Mirikami risked a glance to his right to see the view screens. He desperately wanted to ask Jake what was happening beyond the eight views he had available. Unsure what he could do about it, he needed to know if the killing continued. He could see a lighter shade of gray smoke in the two corridors, so it seemed to be clearing. No more wisps came up to the Bridge.

He wasn’t certain how the Krall would react if he moved, or even spoke to Jake. A dead Captain was not going to be able to help his passengers, though he had no idea what he could do for them in any case. Waiting for Jake’s first summary report seemed like an eternity.

When it came, Mirikami and Noreen were sickened. The black smoke had largely dissipated, and Jake could count for certain forty-four bodies within sight of video pickups. He noted most were clearly dead, but others were alive and wounded, and said some were calling for help and trying to move. Six more passengers, outside the view of the eight selected cameras, were confirmed dead, two via biometrics because they were still on their couches, the others observed visually from cameras.

The initial flurry of shooting had slowed considerably, with only four shots recorded throughout the ship in the last minute. It was chilling to hear Jake’s calm steady voice report that four injured people, pleading for mercy, had been killed by the Krall.

The only good news was that the majority of passengers were alive and the killing had been curtailed. Their lack of even an appearance of opposition had perhaps saved many passengers. The Krall were herding the living into the eating and lounge areas, and their docility and submission may have tempered the aggression of most of the Krall. Jake volunteered no specific mention of dead or injured crewmembers because Mirikami had not asked him to do so.

The three on the Bridge waited in a helpless agony of frustration, wanting to do something to end the killing and terror for their companions, and to know what the Krall wanted with them.

Their upheld arms aching, the Krall still in its silent but alert stance, a long second five minutes passed. In the next summary, the situation remained grim, but not as horrible as feared. Jake reported only three more deaths. He described calmly how the fatalities had occurred. There had been no shots fired, and one killing was by a quick decapitating slash of a blade, for a woman who apparently had stared at a warrior. The other two were by a simpler and less messy expedient; a quick one-handed snap of a hysterical woman’s neck, followed by a fist’s crushing blow to the skull of the man who had dared move to catch her falling body.

They had sixteen “intruders” now, as Jake referred to them. Eight additional single ships had arrived, docking apparently with the original eight, and hadn’t needed to cut their own separate entryways. Ten Krall were now with the crew and passengers, bunched near the centers of the five passenger decks, apparently two Krall per passenger group. It was a casual display of confidence in their ability to control so many people with so few warriors.

Jake told them that individual “intruders” were on various decks, swiftly moving from compartment to compartment, collecting any additional crewmembers or passengers where they found them. If they found a door locked, a single powerful kick smashed them in, or were sometimes blasted apart with a single pistol shot. Made of a strong carbon fiber material, the kicking feats were proof of the alien’s strength.

From the galley screen, they glimpsed one new Krall coming up the axial stairwell, pausing for an instant to scan the galley area. Jake finished his short report to say that a larger radar target had come into range, and was closing rapidly.

There hadn’t been enough time to tell the AI specifically what to report, and the inability to alter his instructions or ask him questions was maddening.

Abruptly the Krall watching them stood stiffly upright just as the second alien sprang lightly over the top of the stairwell, clearing the waist high rail easily. There was barely a whisper of sound.

This warrior was marginally larger than the first, and it was wearing a bright blue body suit and similar weapons belt and pistols, but his skin tone was considerably redder than the first alien’s, much less gray tones.

He looked at the three humans. It lips rippled in that strange manner as it spoke broken but understandable Standard, showing a brief glimpse of a sharply pointed purplish tongue, behind yellowish shark’s teeth. “I do not need your death now, my enemy. Rest, lower your arms and relax.”

The Krall’s pronunciation was rapid, heavy on bass frequencies, but understandable. The three humans lowered their tiring arms with relief.

The new arrival turned to the other Krall. Each seemed to sprout a small shell shaped appendage on each side of their heads, located slightly lower than where human ears would be. The little appendages pivoted to cup towards the other warrior, rather like oval bat ears.

Dillon, who had been studying both aliens, while avoiding a stare, hadn’t seen any sign of external ears previously. Evidently, they had been concealed below an oval layer of different textured skin, at the sides where a human’s upper neck would be. He wondered why they had been recessed until now.

Both began mouth and lip movements, as if speaking, but Dillon couldn’t hear anything. After a few seconds of this, their ears instantly flattened or withdrew again, leaving a smooth textured oval surface. The original Krall warrior stiffened and raised his left hand chest high, fingers splayed, and for a brief instant the four talons extended farther, each about three centimeters long. Retracting his claws to the shorter talons seen before, the soldier leaped over the stair rail. He disappeared in a flash of quiet movement.

Their facial pantomime could have been some sort of visual signaling, but Dillon suspected the frequency range of Krall speech and hearing was considerably broader than that of humans. The external ears apparently extended when they used ultrasonic frequencies, because they didn’t use them when they spoke Standard, in a basso voce.

The second Krall continued to stand casually, his side to them, showing little of the caution of the other soldier. He continued to appear to ignore them as he inspected the Bridge area, walking toward the consoles and screens.

Despite stocky and slightly bowed legs, the Krall moved in an oddly graceful gliding motion that somehow conveyed the impression of strength and agility. Its movements reminded Dillon of Earth’s nearly extinct jungle cats, rather than the jerkier motions of a lizard or reptile, which their lightly scaled skin and facial features might have suggested. The alien appeared more interested in the control consoles and view screens than the humans on the command deck.

Standing between the two command couches, he finally looked over at the three humans. “Which of my enemies here is the…,” it searched for a word, “is called a clan leader of space ships?”

Mirikami answered. “I am the Captain of this vessel. My name is Tetsuo Mirikami.”

“Yes. The human arrogance of two names not earned. Your title for clan leader of a ship is Captain.” He continued to stare at Mirikami. “You are small, like a cub! You speak also for these clan members?” He pointed to the much taller Dillon, and even Noreen, who was also taller than her Captain was.

“I speak for every human on my ship,” Mirikami answered. “That is the responsibility of a Captain.”

“You hide your strengths well little human, to lead so many” he said cryptically. “Like a wise warrior. Perhaps I may test those strengths. I have the title Harzax Kopandi. I am told this means ‘Measures the Enemy’ in your language. I was spawned of great Tanga clan of Merkrall, and I am named Parkoda, an earned name, not a cub’s given name. Call on me when you are ready to die in honorable challenge.” He made it sound like a polite dinner invitation.

There was a clear sense of pride as Parkoda had identified himself. When he named his clan he had extended a claw to point to an oval shaped tattoo, with small-multicolored markings inside, placed on the upper part of his chest, at the base of the thick neck. There had been a similar marking, though less ornate, on the other Krall. Dillon suspected they were signs of rank, or perhaps of family identification, if the clan references were any hint.

Parkoda, noticing Dillon’s scrutiny, moved to within a meter of him. “You are near the size of a Krall before it becomes a novice, are you warrior trained?” Without warning, the left hand moved with blinding speed. A single razor sharp claw lightly raked Dillon’s right cheek.

Noreen sucked in her breath as Dillon was slashed, drawing a sharp look from the Krall, the red centers of his eyes boring into her. She carefully avoided making direct eye contact, looking instead at the view screens.

Startled, Dillon had managed to check his instinct to pull back, or even to raise a hand to the cut. He remembered Doushan’s warning. A small amount of blood began oozing slowly from the three-inch shallow scratch. It was relatively painless, much like a shallow razor cut.

Returning a cooler gaze to Dillon, “You may have trained as a warrior. You control good when to fight now means your death, or you may not know of war. No difference, you will soon show if you know how to fight. Most humans are like slaughter animals in battle, but some have small skills, and can learn to work as a pack. We may yet find your race worthy for use.”

Just then, Parkoda’s left internal ear extended alone, cupping downwards. He stood silently for a moment then touched a three inch blue disk on its left shoulder strap. Dillon had thought the disk was some sort of uniform decoration. Again, this time at close range, he observed the Krall engage in an undetectable conversation. It turned its head slightly in the direction of the disk, lips rippling rapidly, all but silently, except for a soft parchment sliding on wood sound as the lips moved over those teeth.

Parkoda finished and tapped a claw against the communications device, as the ear also folded away. He opened his mouth in an unnerving toothy grin. “I will rise higher in Tanga clan when I deliver you to Koban. There are many healthy enemies here, good breeding rights for me. Never has even eight raids captured so many.”

He changed the subject, “My Clanship comes. Will this ship Jump again, human?” The last was directed to Mirikami.

“We can Jump if we can restore our Trap fields and close them. I need all of my crew to assist.” That wasn’t true, but he didn’t want the Krall to think that any of his people were unimportant.

Parkoda seemed satisfied with the answer. “We will let you restore your ‘Traps’ as you call them. Your crew may work for you, if they still live. Many often die opposing us. All healthy humans will come if you can Jump your ship. My Clanship will carry only your strongest if not. The weakest and wounded stay and die.” That came as a flat statement of fact.

9. The Marking

“Tell your crew-clan to go to any warrior when I order, to be released from challenge. We give their markings as a novice.” He waved vaguely at his own tattoo.

Mirikami spoke up. “I am in charge of my crew, I would go first.” Whatever would be done to his crew, he wanted to experience it first.

Parkoda gave him an apprising look. Then, with his right hand, he removed a cylindrical tube dangling from his harness, flaring to an oval of several inches at one end. “This tool will place a mark on you, like a cub’s entry into testing for warrior status, as novice. A warrior will not offer challenge of humans marked this way. Refusing a warrior’s command is same as a challenge, and he may attack you if he wants. Without the mark, you are as a food animal, for slaughter as a Krall may wish without a reason.

“Hold arms down with hands open and come before me, but do not look into my eyes, or it will be as if you offer a challenge.” He ordered the Captain.

Mirikami, arms straight down, hands open, immediately walked to within a step of the Krall and halted, staring into his chest rather than higher, definitely not into the ebony surrounded red glow of his eyes.

Parkoda’s left hand flashed out a set of razor sharp talons toward Mirikami’s throat, then as quickly back. A flap of cloth fell from the captain’s tough uniform material, exposing an area of the chest just below the nape of his neck. There wasn’t a drop of blood, proving how deadly and accurate his slashing movements could be,

Parkoda made some sort of adjustment via small colored plates along the cylinder’s side. Speaking as if formally, he declared, “I mark you as unranked novice for all Krall to see.” He solemnly placed the cylinder against Mirikami’s upper chest, and pressed a small colored plate on the side. There was a hiss and Mirikami jerked slightly, but his poker-faced expression did not change.

When the cylinder was withdrawn, there was a thin black line, forming a near palm sized oval drawn on Mirikami’s upper chest at the base of his throat, slightly higher that it was wide. It was the same size as the one on the Krall’s chest, but was empty of color or markings.

“No warrior will kill you without your challenge unless attacked, or you disobey his orders. Fighting will wait for you on Koban, the testing ground.”

He next pointed to Dillon. “Come before me!” Parkoda apparently assumed all three humans on the bridge were part of the crew. It didn’t seem advantageous to correct that impression, so Dillon stepped forward.

He went through the exact same ritual as had Mirikami, followed by Noreen a moment later. The marking felt extremely cold as it was applied, and left a mild burning sensation afterwards.

“Now instruct your crew-clan to step before any Krall with both hands open and down. All who do so will be marked. Can you instruct them from here?”

“Yes, but I need to use the control console, if I have your permission to touch that. I also wish to instruct the passengers to follow the crew’s example. They are not my crewmembers, but under my protection. After they accept your marks they will be more willing to cooperate.”

“I must hear all that is spoken,” stated Parkoda, in no uncertain terms.

“Of course, Sir.”

Jake was just starting a summary report, and Mirikami needed him to setup connections for the ship wide broadcast. This led Mirikami to make a small mistake, one he didn’t realize immediately. If he switched on the internal intercom at the console Jake’s voice would be heard, he didn’t want Parkoda to hear anyone speaking, or even to suspect Jake’s existence.

“Do it now!” ordered the Krall.

Mirikami couldn’t hesitate, since he believed his passengers needed to receive the protection his crew received from being attacked. As Mirikami walked to his console, Parkoda mouthed an unheard message into his shoulder communicator, all the while watching the Captain intently at the control console.

Jake was early in his summary when Mirikami keyed up the intercom manually. Therefore, his first words were immediately aimed at the computer, trying to time it before Jake’s next words. He hoped the Krall wouldn’t understand to whom he spoke. “Jake, standby!”

If the AI continued with the announcement, and talked over the Captain’s words, it would probably apologize, or ask some question, which would come out of the small intercom speaker on the console for Parkoda to hear. Thankfully, the AI’s computer quick reaction instantly went silent at the command to standby.

Mirikami was free to make the announcement.

“This is a ship wide announcement.” That would tell Jake to relay the Captain’s voice to every compartment. “Attention passengers and crew. The Krall, the aliens that are our captors, have ordered us to prepare the ship for a Jump, or else to be transferred to a ship of theirs that is about to join us.

“We want to remain aboard the Flight of Fancy, so we will Jump to where we are instructed to go. I believe crewmembers will be permitted to return to work stations, perhaps under guard, but only after receiving an identifying marking, a sort of tattoo placed below the base of the neck at the top of the chest. Our captors have the means to apply this marking. This is very important for your safety, because it provides you a small measure of security from attack when in the presence of their warriors. After each crewmember has received this tattoo, I ask that every passenger do exactly the same, and for the same reason, your safety. Cooperate with every demand or instruction of any Krall, and I have reason to believe you will not be harmed.

“The tattoo is not painful when applied, and the Krall themselves wear one on their upper chest, in plain sight. First Officer Renaldo, Doctor Martin, and I, have all received the marking, and it is very similar to the mark on the chest of each Krall, but is a black ringed oval empty of any symbols.” He thought of the handful of youngsters aboard, none younger than early teens.

He looked to Parkoda, deliberately leaving the ship audio Link live and asked “May we hold the arms of our youngest children when this is done for them? They have no discipline yet and might fight and die wastefully.” Then he added, “But they can be trained if allowed to live and learn.”

He was slipping in a warning and instruction to everyone, disguised as a suggestion to Parkoda.

Parkoda didn’t hesitate, “It is allowed.” He again spoke into his disk.

Mirikami continued his announcement, “Exercise caution as you walk toward the nearest Krall soldier, and do it exactly in the manner I will now describe to you.” He told them what to do, and offered a reassuring comment.

“Observe the Krall’s own tattoo’s location because they will apply your tattoo in the same location. It will first feel cold, and burn a little afterwards. The Krall leader says the marking gives you limited protection from an unprovoked attack or challenge. Continue to be very careful at all times, and to obey their instructions.

“There have been a large number of deaths, and I’m deeply sorry to have failed in my duty to protect you. However, as long as I am alive I will do whatever is possible to see that as many of you as possible survive. All I know of our destination is that it is called Koban, as soon…” Mirikami was brutally smashed aside by a casual backhanded swipe as Parkoda took a step towards him.

The Captain flew several meters through the air before striking the deck with a grunt, then sliding to the outer bulkhead. It had been a mere flick of the Krall’s arm.

Feeling like he’d been hit by a truck, stunned and bruised, Mirikami rose on unsteady legs, his right arm momentarily numb. He courageously walked back to stand near the console, determined to show no injury. Facing the Krall, eyes firmly on his chest, he said, “I will obey your orders. I was trying to ensure a fast and efficient transfer of this ship and the humans on board to your chosen destination. Was that a wrong thing to do?” The mike was still open, so everyone could hear.

Parkoda seemed to consider for a moment before responding. “You spoke to warn and to protect weaker clan members. That is not efficient. The weak will die to leave the strong.”

Dillon saw that Mirikami was trying to apply Doushan’s strategy of appealing to the Krall’s penchant for speed and efficiency. He took a chance and interceded. If there were a risk to anyone in this tact, losing the Captain would certainly not improve chances for everyone else.

“Parkoda”, called Dillon. The Krall’s attention was instantly on him, so he looked slightly to the side. “I wish to help. Humans work faster when they understand what is expected of them. If a human causes a Krall to kill him only because the human does not understand what you want, the process of collecting live prisoners will not be efficient.”

Since the Krall hadn’t smashed him aside or killed him yet, Dillon continued. “These humans here know nothing of the Krall. If a human believed you will kill them, no matter what they do, then they will not do what you tell them to do quickly. There is no advantage for survival in that case. Do the Krall think different?”

The Krall seemed somewhat bemused. “If humans are told how they can survive, they will better work for the Krall? A Krall cub is not told how to survive, it learns or dies, and a Krall will never work for an enemy.”

“Humans are not as advanced as the Krall.” Answered Dillon, “They want to live, but must believe there is a chance to survive before they will work harder for you. To work when there is no hope of living is wasteful to humans.” Dillon didn’t know what Parkoda’s experience with humans was. Most people would do anything just to avoid serious pain, let alone claw and fight for the last breath of life. However, it was also true that some few people might react exactly as he had just described. He was gambling that Parkoda didn’t have much of a grasp of the variation in human nature.

The gamble worked. Parkoda wanted his prize catch bad enough to accept this logic. “Tell your clan mates how to survive, but they will repay me with instant obedience and hard work.”

Noting that the mike had been active, and hopeful the impromptu words were picked up, Mirikami finished his announcement. He assured the passengers and crew they would be safer if they received the tattoo, and to not provoke any warrior by directly staring at them. He switched off the intercom with his left hand, as feeling started to return to his right arm.

Parkoda again addressed the shoulder communicator disk, and the three humans hoped that the others would soon be safer, relatively speaking.

Noreen suddenly uttered a slight gasp. Dillon noticed where she was looking, and saw Krall walking along each of the two gory blood stained corridors, visible on the main screen. They were passing among the already dead, and the injured. They were killing the wounded, with casual neck snaps or thrusts of short knives to the back of the skulls, or cutting throats.

Noreen couldn’t hold her tongue. “Parkoda,” she blurted, “the injured people can be made healthy again, to work for you, let our doctors try to fix them. You said you want more of us alive if we can take them on this ship.”

The Krall looked impassively at the screens, where the brutal executions continued.

“Those humans have shown they are not fit to live, not able to defeat an enemy, or quick enough to submit to a stronger warrior. We do not need or want them for combat tests. They failed here. It would dishonor even a Krall novice to be sent to fight such proven worthless animals.”

Next, they heard a chilling future in store not just for themselves, but also for humanity.

“Humans, marked as a novice will have testing done on Koban as warriors, or to fight in packs, to measure how we can make better our bloodlines. When we know if you can defeat some warriors, or measure how many must work together to do this, then we slowly will take your worlds from you, we will force you to fight. As our best warriors prove their worth, and breed to make better, stronger, faster cubs, our weakest will die.”

Dillon tested the waters with a question. “Koban is your home?”

“It will be home when we walk our Great Path longer. The name we give it means place of testing, first for our warriors, and now where we test humans. It is an honor we give to you, more than for many animals we have found.

“You may prove humans are skilled enough to kill our poorest warriors. If you are good enough, we will use you to remove Krall blood that is too weak to own the galaxy. If you prove no good as fighters, then be slaves to make new worlds into good nests. Your meat is poor in taste so we will not use you this way. But in combat we eat what is needed for fighting.”

The three humans shared startled looks as Parkoda rambled through his boast, if boast it was. Not only was it ominous to hear what they planned for them personally, but worse were the plans for all of Human Space. People were merely bad tasting meat animals in a pinch, for the Krall.

Dillon probed another claim the Krall had made. “Parkoda, your people have found other species to fight in the galaxy?”

“Not so many good to fight as we found. One of a hand of new animals are only meat, two of a hand are mostly good for slaves. Good fighters are used until they are gone.”

Noting that the Krall had four digits, Dillon assumed a hand meant four. Parkoda’s claim meant they simply killed and ate one fourth of the races they had encountered, enslaved half, and fought to extinction the rest.

“We seek any that are good at combat. Humans do not seem very good for that, because we see no wars between you. However, other captives say you fight with yourselves at one time. We have found bigger and stronger animals than you, but you do have many worlds, and we see you can work together. There will be good breeding rights for our clans if you can fight better.”

“How many other races have you met and fought?” Dillon asked. “Were they as smart as you are, with a high technology like yours and did you defeat them?” He was trying to exploit the Krall’s apparent tendency to brag, and he really burned to know the answers.

Parkoda made a snorting hiss sound as he reared his muzzle sharply upwards. “We have met and defeated four hands plus one before you. Humans are

,” he paused, as he seemed to think. “You will be eighteen in your numbers, for us to kill, to eat, or to make slaves.

“We have explored only one part of eight eights of our galaxy. In time, we will own all, and our wisest breeders say we may find four to the eighth races to fight. Some we found before were much more advanced in science than you, or even more than us. Those races are now all dead, slaves, or food for our cubs.”

Dillon had already surmised the Krall used a base eight number system, since they had eight digits versus our ten. Dillon wasn’t an outstanding mathematician, but his rough estimate using Parkoda’s base eight numbers seemed unbelievably high. It sounded like the Krall expected to encounter over sixty five thousand intelligent races in the Milky Way galaxy. That seemed incredible.

Counting the Krall, we had now met exactly one, and had heard the weak signals from one that was far distant. Nevertheless, the sphere of Human Space, a volume barely five hundred light years in radius, was actually a tiny portion of the one hundred twenty thousand light year diameter of the whole galaxy. The Krall apparently held a large edge in the exploration department, and their finding eighteen races supported that conclusion. Humankind was in deep trouble.

Noreen, ashen faced, after witnessing the half dozen or so murders in the two corridors, had to speak.

“We humans have looked for other races for hundreds of our years, hoping to find them, to be friends, to trade with them, to learn about them. Why can’t humans and your people live in peace? We don’t need to fight, and waste lives and material. Isn’t that inefficient?”

Parkoda glared at her, stepping closer in a swift and gliding movement. “Combat is the only true way to follow the Path!” he growled deeply. “Already we followed the Great Path for twenty five thousand of your number of years. We will be the greatest predators in the galaxy. All others are animals for us to defeat.”

He pulled back from her a step. “We cannot breed to be strongest, fastest, most deadly warriors without the purge of death to remove the weakest of our genes. We breed only the best fighters in our race, and fight for the right to breed. We were once weaker than now, long ago, and for a time paid a slave’s price for weakness. We grew strong, killed, and ate the hearts and meat of the Olt’kitapi animals, who tried to dominate us, to make us be peaceful and weak. They showed weakness when they thought we were tame animals, ready to be used. They paid for their stupidity. We will be the strongest of any race. You humans are next to help us.”

Dillon considered the Krall’s statement that they had spent twenty five thousand years on this “Great Path” they followed. He couldn’t tell if that had all been as a space faring race, or if it included pre space flight on their home world. Perhaps having to breed to improve their gene pool forced a slower pace in their expansion.

Human recorded history up to now, including ancient early civilizations, was probably about fifty five hundred years. Whatever this “Path” was for the Krall, they didn’t seem in as big hurry as humanity had been. Despite a huge lead and long experience, perhaps we might give them a run for their money. If we could survive for long enough to get better.

10. Assessment

When well over five minutes had passed without a fresh report from Jake, Mirikami realized his blunder. He had interrupted Jake in mid summary previously, and had told him to “Standby,” which Jake was now doing. It probably wasn’t critical, because the worst uncertainty of the initial boarding action was over now. Moreover, they didn’t have the ability to change the situation anyway, but the reports had felt useful.

The novice marking they received wasn’t exactly a branding, because the Krall also bore partly filled variations of the ovals, and the process commenced with almost no complications. “Almost” consisted of merely two killings. One was a mother’s hopeless attempt to protect her teenage son, who had tried to push away the tool that was the source of the stinging coldness when triggered. The Krall novice had used just one hand, talons fully extended, to tear through the chest wall and rip the heart out of the fourteen-year-old boy. His screaming mother had lunged forward to save the slumping but already dead boy, and had her own throat torn out as her reward.

The Krall calmly cleaned its hand on the clothing of the mother, as she lay dying and gurgling blood bubbles on the deck. In a horrifying gesture, it used a long purple tongue to lick a sample of the blood dripping from the boy’s heart in its hand. It made what anyone could see was a sour face at an unpleasant taste. He tossed the heart on the floor by the boy’s mother.

The warrior stepped several feet to the side of the bodies, and held his tool up as he pointed at and glared at the next man in the line, waiting his turn.

Although shaking and terrified, that man and the others in the group stepped past the bodies and chose survival, permitting the markings without another incident. The other decks fared better and lost no one.

With the arrival of the Krall Clanship, more Krall came aboard the Flight of Fancy. Two more blue uniformed translators arrived. Parkoda proved to be the highest ranking alien on the raid. Rank was registered in their tattoos because the other two translators wore the same blue bodysuit, without any obvious marks of rank on uniforms, nor any on the black suits of the warriors.

The newcomer’s initial discussions with Parkoda, conducted in the ultrasonic range, ignored the three humans on the flight deck, except for a brief exchange in Standard with Mirikami, telling him the new translators would be stationed with the crew as they worked on ship’s systems. As the new arrivals spread through the ship, Parkoda seemed to exude a more relaxed demeanor. He proved receptive to their offers to “help” smooth the work before the Jump.

Mirikami asked if his Drive Room personnel could shut down and restart the Trap fields. Parkoda answered, “That is allowed, because the Clanship can prevent any Jump if you tried to escape. Even if you did Jump away, the warriors would kill all aboard. We also have brought a small Jump Hole machine that can destroy your ship. We will use that to hide your dead before we leave this star.”

Mirikami glanced at Noreen at this assertion. A portable Trap field to form a Jump Hole again demonstrated the Krall went well beyond human technology. However, that was already a given.

Dillon noted the Clanship, visible on a view screen, was half again as large as the Flight of Fancy, but how many Krall it carried was hard to determine. Parkoda had said they were able to transport captives back as well. That idea triggered a more important thought.

Dillon posed a question, one that he tried to form as a helpful suggestion, although he expected to hear bad news. “Parkoda, if permitted I can perhaps help you preserve more live captives at the Midwife Station, if I can talk to them first.”

The total radio silence when they first arrived had prepared him for the answer. Mirikami and Noreen looked at him, and wondered at the offer, since they were just as aware of the probable meaning of that silence.

“There is no station at this star now,” Parkoda stated. “It went into a Jump Hole. The same messages we sent to you did not convince them. They continued to fire weapons at our single ships, and tried to stop our boarding. The novice warriors were happy. All but two hands and three are dead now. Those are on the Clanship.”

Dillon had expected bad news, but only eleven survivors, out of a hundred and twenty or so support and construction people, plus at least a dozen University staff people. Their loss came as a blow.

He blocked out his feelings and made another helpful proposal. “If those humans are placed on this ship, it would make feeding them and guarding them easier for your warriors. That would reduce the chance they will lose their usefulness to you, by not forcing their deaths too soon in unmeasured combat with a novice.”

Parkoda gave him an apprising look, seemingly aware of Dillon’s probable real motive. However, he decided the offer had merit. He spoke silently into his communicator, then in Standard. “They will be sent here before you Jump. Two other captives were killed on the flight to this ship, by novices testing them. That was wasteful.”

Parkoda summoned a warrior to stand watch on the Bridge, and ordered the humans to proceed with him to the lower decks. They walked down the stairs, the Krall apparently considering the lift to be a lazy form of transportation.

They paused to see several of the burned entry points. They were told they would be permitted to repair the hull. Strictly speaking, the Flight of Fancy could do a Jump riddled with holes, and no internal air pressure. Noreen mentioned that a sudden decompression might kill some of Parkoda’s captives, and that she could supervise the repair work. Mirikami confirmed this, so Parkoda indifferently told him to have the work done.

Leaving Noreen in charge of a work team, Mirikami and Dillon followed Parkoda as he took them to a more disturbing scene.

On deck 8, Dillon and Mirikami turned a corner only to find they were in the body filled outer ring corridor they had watched on camera earlier. There were at least two dozen mangled bodies laid heaped upon one another, numbers that were hard to confirm due to detached limbs and heads. The stench of burned flesh, entrails, and released feces and urine were overpowering in the confined area.

Dillon spotted a woman’s face he recognized as a fellow scientist he’d met in a conference on Rama, preparing for this journey a month ago. He had thought Jeannette was attractive, and had spent a single but spirited night in her hotel room. Not a good memory right now, with the back of her head and one eye missing, gray matter splashed beneath the face up corpse. He retched, and added to the putrid atmosphere.

Mirikami managed to maintain a stoical face, despite his inner rage and revulsion.

Parkoda merely surveyed the gory mess and ordered the dead carried to the large cargo hold airlock, to be shoved out and into a Jump Hole before they departed. He told them to do it themselves or have some of the other crew do the work.

Mirikami, careful to appear cooperating, grasped upon the unfortunate example Dillon had presented. “Parkoda, the work would be faster and more efficient if some of my crew did the work in vacuum suits, or they may experience effects from the odor of body wastes as did my crewmember here, slowing the work.” Indicating the still hunched over Dillon, he maintained the earlier fiction that he was a crewmember.

With a toss of his muzzle in a snort of derision or humor, Parkoda confirmed vacuum suits could be used if that was faster. He told him to select the crewmembers, have them suited, and working immediately.

“Parkoda, when I tell my people to go to the cargo hold to get their space suits, will your warriors permit that?”

He responded with one of the ultrasound silent speeches at his shoulder button. Then he told Mirikami to order his people to go.

Mirikami stepped to a wall mounted com station and made an announcement for all ten Stewards to proceed to the cargo bay to don soft suits. He didn’t tell them what they were going to be doing yet, because he certainly didn’t want the passengers to overhear that missing friends or family members were dead, and being disposed of in so a callous manner. They had enough stress to manage already. No doubt some of the people who managed to escape the two corridors alive would have told others of what they saw happening, of those left behind.

“Parkoda, there will need to be more communications between crew members if we are to quickly prepare for a Jump. If I need to ask you to use your time to instruct your warriors in what to permit, this work will take longer.”

“True. And this is known to us from other captures,” He acknowledged. “But no large ships have been kept this whole. You have more crew and more spaces for them to work than I have found in other raids.

“If you are given free movement and you betray my trust, a price will be taken from your people. We can detect any Jump activity we do not allow, and our translators will listen to your talk. If we find strong disobedience, some will die, if any try to escape or to send a radio message for help, one in eight will be killed.”

Mirikami, hoping this wouldn’t be their undoing, agreed. “This is an offer of trust we will honor, and I will order all humans aboard to follow your commands. I will not allow one of us to endanger many of us, to bring us dishonor.”

Parkoda studied the little human a moment, gaining his respect in a small degree, for making such a Krall-like statement. It was the first such he had heard in his experience of eight raids. Not only had he captured many prisoners for testing on this single raid, with an operating ship, but also the animals might even prove to be cooperative pack fighters.

He had seen nothing to suggest that one on one, any of them would be a match for an experience warrior, though in limited cases an inexperienced novice might fall prey to a clever fighter, but more so to a pack of such clever animals. That would more effectively cull the weaker, slower, and more stupid from the Krall bloodlines. That would be an effective use for these animals, since humans had poor tasting meat, and there was no need for billions of slaves.

After a couple of seconds, about as long as they had noticed Parkoda pausing to make any decision, he gave instructions.

“All of your people will be able to talk together, to do work and repair the ship, to feed, sleep, and live together, as I have seen those already on Koban do. It took much time for Kobani humans to earn this, and many were lost in the teaching. Perhaps your clan learns faster.”

All of the people? Mirikami had actually thought he was asking this freedom for his crew, who were more disciplined. There was definitely going to be greater risks with the civilians included, but advantages as well.

“Parkoda, when I tell them they have this honor, I will explain their obligations and the full penalty if they disobey. Does talking include using the ship intercom, to talk to those in far compartments, as we need to do for ship repair, and to make it ready for a Jump?”

“They cannot use radio signals that leave the inside of the ship,” warned Parkoda.

“I understand” Mirikami acknowledged. “I will make an announcement to all, but if my crewmember here” indicating Dillon, “can use your granted trust of honor, he can go from deck to deck, and instruct the non crewmembers directly, to enforce a stronger form of discipline than they are accustomed to obey.”

Parkoda agreed, and spoke at length into his communicator in the same eerie silent manner.

Afterwards, he added in Standard “All of the other Krall, here and on the Clanship now know that I grant your humans the novice testing rights of Ra Ka Endo, which is the status you would be granted after landing on Koban. There you would not survive outside without our protection, and have no place to escape. Your clan is no more of a threat to us on this ship because you cannot escape. We want for more threat from you humans, in truth.”

That was interesting, but not the time to probe, not right after being given what the Krall considered an honor.

Turning to Dillon, Mirikami instructed him. “Go to every place the passengers are being held, and also speak to any crew you find. Tell them fully of our honor bound commitment, and emphasize the severe penalties if that trust is not upheld. The Board members in particular need to be included.”

Parkoda, listening, asked, “Who are Board members? What are they?”

Mirikami gave a partial answer. “They are spokesmen for some of the people we were bringing to live and work on the space station you destroyed. They were going to stay there to study the world below that station when this ship went home.”

“We looked at that world. It is dead and worthless. The captives from the station told me the same thing. I did not believe them. Why study that place? It is deadly to breathe, and hit by large stones and pieces of ice every day.”

“Many of the people I brought here are trained to learn new things,” Mirikami answered, “and one new thing on Newborn, the name we gave that world, was the first start of life there. They wanted to see how that worked.”

“The Krall have those that learn of the world’s we own or want to take,” admitted Parkoda, “how to build new weapons, better ships, learn the breeding mysteries. They help us grow stronger. The K’Tal of the Krall do not always fight as our best of warriors, but have value for what they know, and bring us strength. We took machines from other animals that we defeated. Some machines we did not know could exist, but our K’Tal learned to use them. Perhaps some of you humans are like K’Tal.”

Suddenly, giving Dillon a glaring look, “Your clan leader gave you an order, yet you stand there.”

Dillon, thinking fast replied, “Yes Sir, but you are superior to us all, and had not told me to go. Then you asked a question that I may have needed to answer because I am a human K’Tal.”

“Leave us; your clan leader can answer me.”

Relieved to get away, despite his desire to learn more about their new enemy, Dillon headed for the center deck area, to explain the conditions attached to their marginally increased freedom. He was also desperate to see how many more of his friends and coworkers may have died. His mind was filled with the last glimpse of Maggi, as that cloud enveloped her on deck seven.

Mirikami stepped to the wall com and announced the behavior code they were to abide by, and that Dillon Martin was coming to speak to the various groups, demonstrating by his actions the limited freedom they would have by his very movement about the ship.

Next, Mirikami exercised his freshly granted freedom, although the chill that came made him feel the hair on his still tingling left arm rise. This call was only to the crew he had sent to the cargo bay.

That they were all males was no coincidence, since they had been pulled from the ranks of Stewards, and those were never females. He had also wanted physically stronger people for the lifting, and virtually all of the low ranking service personnel were naturally men anyway. They were already in the hold, donning their soft textured vacuum suits, the worry on their sweating faces apparent on the small video screen.

When the Captain buzzed them, he called the senior Steward to the com. “Walter, I have to ask you and the other Stewards to perform a very unpleasant cleanup task. It isn’t in vacuum, as you may have expected, but you will be grateful for the suits. Please bring an extra suit for me, please, since I will do this with you. Also, bring four of the electric pallet cargo movers, and come up and meet me on deck 8. We will be going to the outside ring corridor A, close to cabin 840.”

“Aye Sir, the hold’s cargo lifts don’t go to deck 8, so we will have to use the central shaft.”

“I know, I’ll make both center lifts available for you, and I think two movers should fit in each. The warriors watching you are expecting this, so don’t be afraid, but also don’t stare at them, or pick up anything that looks like a weapon, just in case.”

“Captain,” Walter asked, “isn’t 8 one of the decks where a lot of people were hurt?”

“That it is Walter, except there are no wounded, only dead. It isn’t going to be pleasant, but removing those bodies are what you ten men are going to do. In addition, you’ll repeat that work on deck 7, same outer corridor, opposite side, and in a few other locations. Don’t speak to anyone as you exit from the lifts. The passengers don’t need to know what we have to do. That could prove fatal to them if they reacted too strongly.

“I’ll personally meet you there, and start the people gathered on deck 8 moving down to deck 7, for when you return loaded to the lifts. You’ll go directly back to the hold and lay the bodies by the larger cargo door. If you can find tarps of some sort, or opaque plastic covers, those will help cover them. Oh, and locate something absorbent to line the pallet movers, to catch drips. Also, bring some large basins or tubs. There are body parts.” He saw Walters shudder, and shared the sentiment.

“Aye Sir. We’ll be on our way as soon as we find what we need. How about cleaning bots?”

“Good idea Walter. There’s a lot of blood.” I’ll see you at the lift doors.

Parkoda was looking at him impassively. “I think you can do this on your own. I will return to the Bridge. The screen there shows this passage, and the other, and it smells better. Our warriors will watch.” With that comment, he left Mirikami in the death filled stinking corridor.

Alone, Mirikami stared with sick guilt at what lay before him for a long few minutes. Then suddenly, his mind and duty were clear again.

“Jake.”

“Yes Sir.” The prompt reply was gratifying through his transducer Link.

“Jake, limit your crew communications to transducers only, unless a crew member uses a com station. Even then, do not talk over any speaker system unless First Officer Renaldo, Ms. Willfem, or I order that to be done. Do not respond to any passenger communications at all, and never to any Krall, or intruder, as you called them. I believe our safety may depend on the Krall not knowing of your existence. Understood?”

“Yes Sir. Are my standing emergency broadcasts messages to be suspended if any of those situations arise?”

“Yes Jake. One of the crew should be made aware of the emergency and release you to broadcast. Do not send any radio distress signal for any reason, or permit any radio signal to be sent whatsoever. Please inform all of the crew of what I have just instructed you, and repeat to them that this is to protect your existence, as a resource that we do not want the Krall to be aware of.”

“Yes Sir.”

That done, Mirikami switched off, turned about and took a less fouled route to the central lounge area of the deck. He passed one woman’s corpse on his first turning. She had lost her lower right leg to an explosive round. Her body was slumped against the bulkhead. A Krall had nearly decapitated her to finish her. A gore-covered left hand was resting on her chest near her throat, her right hand pressed against her shattered right calf. It had been a fruitless effort to stem the flows ending her life. He recognized her, even with the contortion of death and fear frozen on her bloodied face. Her name escaped him now, but she was one of the Board members he had met with, in what seemed an age ago.

He walked past her, turned another corner, and just ahead, he could see people standing in groups, or sitting on the floor, but huddled together, in what he knew they believed furnished some sort of security. He knew they were wrong.

11. Clean Up

Dillon was still on deck 8 speaking to the group, explaining the situation, and obviously running into some resistance by a few women that didn’t want a typically over reacting male telling them what to do. Mirikami’s arrival promptly drew questions and demands directed towards him. He waved them down, and made pointed glances towards two Krall warriors, standing on opposite sides of the open area. They quieted down.

“Doctor Martin was present as the Krall instructions were given to us, and he knows all that I know about them. We must do some work for them, and you are all now well aware of the penalty of failure to obey them. More people will die. Some crew members are due to arrive by the lifts to move some…” he groped for a word, “equipment, using some cargo pallet movers.”

“You need to get out of their way, and if you will all file down the multiple stairways, Doctor Martin can brief more people at one time, down on deck 7. No questions right now, please. Go quickly!”

Grumbling, and shuffling, they started down the four stairwells at the corners of the lounge area, and the larger one that wound around the two central elevator columns. Two lift chimes sounded almost simultaneously, the doors sliding open to reveal the suited ten Stewards, some standing on the pallet movers because of the limited room. They slowly rolled them out into the shifting crowd.

Mirikami now permitted passengers to use the lifts to ride down to deck seven. He told them to stay there until the work on this deck was finished, that it would be dangerous to return. Dillon was guiding and cajoling them all to keep moving.

Mirikami motioned for the ten men to join him on the side of the lounge where he had recently arrived. Their faceplates were unsealed, so he spoke to them quietly, realizing as he did that he had forgotten another minor detail that could prove fatal. There were so many tightropes to walk!

“Gentlemen, I must order you to switch off the suit radios immediately. Tell me if any of you have transmitted, even if just to one another after attaching your helmets?” He sincerely hoped not.

The scattered assurances were a tremendous relief. He explained the Krall’s warning, and penalty for using radio. It turned out that Jake had mentioned not using a radio, when they were pulling on their suits, though at the time they didn’t understand the consequences if they talked to each other by suit radio anyway. Using them inside the ship would probably block any external signal leakage, but probably wasn’t good enough to risk lives.

Mirikami told them that they would want to close the helmets to avoid the smell, but would have to speak loud through the suit faceplates to hear and be heard. If later they were exposed to vacuum, they’d have to rely on hand signals, or helmet to helmet contact to communicate.

Accepting the stretchable suit Walters offered him, Mirikami allowed two men to help him pull the arms and legs on, as he explained where they were going and what had to be done. Then, leaving his faceplate open, and shutting off his own radio, he led the procession along the corridors until the isolated woman’s body came into view.

“Gentlemen, this is but a sample of what lies around the corner ahead. If you can stand the smell leave your helmet open. Otherwise close up and shout to be heard.”

“I want Rigson and Jakkobski,” he pointed to them, “to look around the other corridors and elsewhere on this deck, and inside cabins to find any other bodies. If you ask Jake for help in the search, use transducers only, and never around watchers.” He paused.

“Jake?”

“Yes Sir,” was the instant response.

“Respond only to crew when they are apparently unobserved by intruders, and warn them if you think they are watched, and if you can do so without revealing yourself. Understood Jake?”

“Yes Sir.”

“Rigson, Jakkobski, report back to this main group when you finish, where ever we are. The rest of us will be loading the pallets, as high as we dare, to move the dead as quickly as we can.”

After the “Aye Aye’s” they split up to complete the tasks. It took almost thirty minutes to load all the dead and parts in that charnel house of a corridor. Rigson found one more body in a cabin, where a woman had apparently tried to hide in a closet. Her skull had been smashed in.

Jakkobski reported two other dead, lying on chairs that had remolded themselves into acceleration couches in a small snack area. One elderly man was properly strapped in, and may have died from acceleration stresses. A younger man near him with his throat cut appeared to have fallen back on his acceleration couch. Jakkobski recalled that the younger man was the assistant to the older professor, and perhaps had refused to leave him when the Krall came.

The bins were soon full of limbs and worse, bodies were stacked, and concealing tarps were spread. Two cleaning bots were activated to clean the mess in the corridor, but it was evident that more were needed if they were to finish soon enough.

Except for the blood and excrement streaks, which they had been unable to scoop up, the worst was out of view, although the smell had not abated greatly. That was the moment Noreen and her repair team came into view around the curve of the outer corridor ring. They were looking for the compartment where the door had blown into the corridor. A Krall patch on the hull opening in that compartment needed to be reinforced.

They pulled up abruptly, seeing all the blood, and finally understanding why that vile odor had been increasing as they approached this area. Noreen had forgotten, or perhaps repressed, the memory of which deck and corridor had been on the grisly view screen.

Mirikami, popping open his faceplate, called out, “Commander Renaldo, we are about to remove the bodies to the main cargo hold, just as Parkoda directed. We have two bots working on the cleaning, and more are coming, but that may take some time. The air handlers here are on high filtration, but the odor is daunting. As you can see, we all donned soft suits to tolerate this. If you have other areas to repair, you can return to this later.”

He was aware that the smell was less powerful now, but he suspected the four new arrivals couldn’t appreciate the improvement.

Noreen answered, “Captain, deck 7 is next, and I believe it was also one of the places

, like this.” She gestured down the corridor and at the four covered pallet movers.” He saw her swallow, and even at a distance of thirty feet or so, detected the effort she was making to hold down the same reflex that had overtaken Dillon earlier, as well as several of his Stewards.

“Commander, There is a dispensary one radial companionway behind you. You can obtain light masks, and menthol or similar scented cream to detract from the odor. The bots and air filtering will have this area more passable in another fifteen minutes.”

“Thank you Sir, We’ll do that.” Gratefully they turned back to find the mentioned dispensary.

Repositioning the bots to first work on Noreen’s return path and the spattered wall opposite the blown compartment door, Mirikami led the men back to the lifts. He first confirmed that no passengers had wandered back to this deck. The loaded movers had to go singly, one per lift with just two men each. They activated the nonstop function to go all the way down to the cargo bay. After returning, the second two movers went down. Then the remaining crewmembers used a single lift, after Mirikami had ordered the other messy lift held at the cargo bay. It wouldn’t be a good idea to let some passenger see that.

Leaving four men to unload the movers, they obtained several more cleaning bots, and headed back for deck 8. This was no simple job, and Mirikami feared they were running out of time. A complete clean up, to ease the shock on the passengers, was probably going to have to wait.

Noreen and her people were busy at the patch job when they returned with the extra bots. Mirikami congratulated them on the ingenuity of using table tops as hull patches, and told them he was about to move down to deck 7 to remove those bodies. He recommended they work on even lower decks next. There were apparently just three remaining holes to patch.

Mirikami used a wall com set to call down to deck 7, and asked the woman that answered to please have Doctor Martin come to the phone.

Dillon must have been close. The “Yes Captain?” came back in a few seconds. He could actually hear an echo of his voice up the stairs.

“Dillon, this has been a horrible mess, and we need to work on that deck next. The lifts are too gory to let anyone even see them for now, and the floors up here will have to be cleaned before we allow anyone to return. We need to get the rest of the dead into the hold as soon as possible, or Parkoda may step in and push things. I don’t want our people to see what was done to the victims. It might cause a panic, and certainly will stir feelings that we need calmed right now. Can you head everyone down to deck 6 and 5, as quickly as possible? Tell them it’s an emergency, which it will certainly become if the Krall think we are stalling. It will be crowded, but there are no piles of dead in outer corridors, so they can spread out, even sit in the various cabins.”

“I’ll do my best Sir. I can try to get them to use the outer four stairwells, so that you might be able to use one or both lifts to get out to where you, uh

, have to work.” Obviously, other ears were close by.

“Right,” agreed Mirikami, “as soon as the area by the lifts are opened up, we can take the movers straight across to the first hall quickly and limit what they can see. Perhaps cover the movers with clean tarps. I’ll think of something, just get them moving.”

“Yes Sir and Dillon hung up.

“Jake?”

“Yes Sir?”

“Unlock all passenger cabins, and disable the locks. We need the room for people to spread out on decks 6 and 7, and even other decks. I don’t want people locking themselves in, and we will have to take inventory eventually of what we have for common use. Understand?”

“Captain, are they allowed to close doors?” Jake asked.

“Yes Jake. Closed doors provide privacy, but the Krall don’t have to blast them open if not locked, as I note they did on some evacuated cabins.”

Mirikami turned back to his men. “Ah, yes. I was asking about hiding what we are moving, in case someone takes a peek.”

One of the Stewards, Gioni Ribaldi, offered a suggestion. “Sir, we have linens and table cloths in storage closets on each passenger deck, and there are some just around the corner. The table cloths are Smart Fabric and proof against spills and stains.”

“Excellent, Gioni. A couple of you help him grab the tablecloths. We can cover the base of the pallet movers, and hang some on the cargo pad hooks on the lift walls, then lay some on the floors. At least the blood will not be as visible. There isn’t a lot to do about our stained suits, unless there are any more ideas?” He looked at them expectantly.

Gioni and Walter spoke nearly at the same time, both stopped and looked at each other for a moment. Walter, as senior Steward, continued. “The crew toilet on this deck has a three man shower, and a hose coupling for washing and rinsing. The warm water and hose might get us clean enough, if we don’t mind the wasted water. We were to refill at

”

Mirikami cut him off. “Let’s do it.”

Ten minutes later they were presentable enough for viewing from across a room, though not close up. The four movers had returned from the cargo hold while they sprayed off their suits in quick shifts.

This time there were fewer dead to collect, perhaps sixteen, the actual count as difficult as before, what with the gore, piled bodies and loose limbs. Mirikami recalled that this was where he had seen Doctor Fisher standing, as the black cloud had enveloped her petit figure, arms held high. She wasn’t here, so she evidently survived. Perhaps her cool and brave example had inspired others to do the same, possibly saving more lives.

They set to their task, more prepared than the first time. Two men went off to search for bodies elsewhere, and found the unfortunate mother and son, who had died during the markings.

Mirikami accompanied his men to the cargo hold, and felt a fresh bout of horror and sickness at two piles of bodies. The first stack, having risen too high for the men to pile them any higher, had become two piles, with bins and plastic tubs holding indescribable things that would not stack. Fresh spots of effluvium marked the places where his men had mimicked Doctor Martin’s earlier visceral reaction.

Mirikami, who had shared the unpleasant task he’d asked of his men, had fouled his just cleaned suit again. This time he was first to use the crew shower at this level, using hot water to clean off as much as possible. When he stepped out, he faced the gathered Stewards.

“Men, I sincerely thank you for performing a dreadful task, with as great an example of discipline and courage as I have ever seen under difficult circumstances. I anticipate that the Krall will have us eject these poor souls out the hatch soon, so perhaps cleaning your suits now would be a waste of time. I cleaned my own because I’m going to visit the Drive Room, and then I assume I’ll be returning to the Bridge to speak to Parkoda, the Krall leader. I’ll find out what we do next, and check on the progress for getting Jump ready.”

He came to attention, and saluted them, and they all returned it with a considerable feeling of respect. He had shared equally in the onerous work, when he could have simply ordered them to do it alone.

“I must ask that you standby here for a time, and a couple of you check on the progress of the cleaning bots. When a bot is free, have it clean the lifts and the floors in front for decks 7 and 8. When those are clean enough, I’ll let the passengers spread back up to them. I imagine decks 5 and 6 are quite crowded.”

Before he could leave, Walter had a question. “Sir, where are they taking us?”

“Gentlemen, all I have heard so far is the planet is named Koban, which is apparently where they have collected many other captives. They said its name means testing ground, testing what is anyone’s guess. I don’t know if that’s a captured planet, but the leader said it would become their home.

“Parkoda is a translator and described it as a camp that we can’t escape, but where they are needed to protect us if we go outside. Aside from that seeming contradiction, I can’t tell you any more about Koban. I hope to learn more, and to pass that information to everyone. As you can guess, probing them for information can be risky.

“From what I can understand, they are pleased to have caught so many humans alive in this raid, and intend to subject all of their captives to some sort of physical testing, once they have enough people. They have been conducting these raids for at least several years, and earlier prisoners were the ones that made the warning recording we heard. We may be in for an extended period of captivity.”

He didn’t see a reason to tell them it would be combat type testing, against their novice warriors. Time enough for that later, when the Krall’s killing efficiency wasn’t stacked where they could see the gory results.

Then he left them and went down the central stairs, not wishing to enter either of the still fouled lifts, passing through two crew country decks to speak with Ms. Willfem and her people.

The Drive Room hatch was open when he arrived, and a warrior was standing by the opening. Mirikami made a deliberate approach to the hatch, under the same intense scrutiny every Krall he’d encountered seemed to conduct of any human in motion. The black, red-pitted eyes were unnerving, but it made no move to stop him.

He looked through the hatch, and saw a second Krall against the far side of the compartment, also watching him. The warrior glanced in turn at Ms. Willfem, Chief Haveram, Gundarfem and Yin-Lee, as they worked at their consoles and instruments. They seemed comfortable holding things that probably would have gotten them killed by the original boarding team of warriors.

The Chief caught site of the Captain and called out to Ms. Willfem.

She looked up from her computer console. “Captain, I’m relieved to see you Sir. Noreen had said you were involved in cleanup, and hadn’t heard from you recently.” She noted his soft suit, and glanced at the warrior with fear in her eyes; she knew what he had been cleaning up. The warrior continued to hold his alert and slightly crouched pose.

“I have been busy with the Stewards, but I really should have tried to call her again. She was supervising a team repairing the eight holes in our hull, and I didn’t know exactly where she was after we crossed paths briefly. Our normal location method is somewhat limited.” He knew she was aware that talking to Jake was risky.

“Noreen is actually back on the Bridge,” she replied, “and has been performing camera shifts and audio pickups for the

” she paused, considering how to say what she meant. Mirikami helper her out, “She’s probably helping Parkoda observe what we are doing to get ready to Jump, I assume.”

Willfem, nodded her agreement, and added “Noreen coordinated to make sure we could actually use our tools and instruments, without fear this would be misunderstood by our guards.” He knew exactly what she meant.

“How are we doing? Have the Trap fields been reset?”

“Yes Sir, but not tuned to capture any tachyons. As best we can tell we have two empty but properly closed Traps. Noreen relayed that we were not to set for a Jump tac until we were told we could do so. The penalty to try that too soon was clearly explained to us.” She looked him in the eye, her fear again showing.

Mirikami nodded that he understood her meaning. “So we could troll for an appropriate Jump tac, once we have their coordinates?”

“All of our instruments seem to agree that we can, Sir. Though we have no idea how they were reversed

, the Trap curvatures I mean. Closing and restarting each one worked the very first time. If I had known…” She trailed off weakly.

“Ms. Willfem, only a miracle could have prevented our capture or destruction. We simply didn’t know how over matched we were at the time.” Laying a hand on her shoulder, he recognized the same guilt feelings he too felt. Comforting might ease that feeling briefly, but it would always be in the background.

“I know.” She accepted with reluctance. “Noreen told me that we will probably Jump soon, after the cleanup is done, and some survivors from Midway arrive.”

“Very well, since Noreen is on the Bridge, let me call her and find out what Parkoda says we do next.” He stepped to a desk com set, and punched the Bridge button.

Noreen answered promptly. “We were following your progress sir, and I was expecting your call.”

This let him know Parkoda had observed him for some time, and probably had listened to his conversations. He didn’t think he had said anything that could cause any trouble, nor had anyone else in his earshot. They’d have to make certain the civilians knew they could be watched and overheard.

“Please ask Parkoda what do we do now with the” he hesitated, “contents of the cargo hold, and when will the Midwife survivors arrive?”

He was surprised when Parkoda answered. “A K’Tal will bring our Jump Hole machine to remove your dead. That will need you to open the large door to space, and if gravity is off, the dead can go out easy. Soon after, a shuttle from our Clanship will bring the other humans.”

Mirikami explained that it was his responsibility to supervise the body disposal, and he would be returning to the cargo hold. He thanked Willfem and her “Drive rats,” as they proudly called themselves, and headed out the hatch and back up the stairs, still avoiding the lifts.

He reached the hold in time to see two warriors setting down a concave hemisphere set on a pedestal with a flared base. The whole thing stood about chest high to a man, waist high to a Krall. In size and shape, it rather resembled a deep birdbath, except that three cone shaped projections were equally spaced along the rim of the bowl. Accompanying them was a blue uniformed Krall, carrying a brown bag that appeared to be cloth of some sort, and another Krall in a brown body suit.

The blue uniformed one was probably another translator, and the brown uniformed Krall must be the K’Tal that Parkoda had mentioned. The latter was probably equivalent to a human technician.

The translator told him who he was. “I am Telour, of Graka clan, second to Parkoda. Before we remove air, all need to wear protection. Are your clothes what you need?” He gestured at Mirikami and then the other ten humans, all in their soft suits.

“Yes Sir,” Mirikami answered, “we are protected from Space if we do not do hard work, for a long time.”

“No,” the Krall replied, “the work will be short, and finished soon.”

He reached into the bag he carried and withdrew four soft transparent items like slightly beige clear plastic bags, and passed one to each of the other Krall, keeping one himself. They all held them out, with a wide opening at the top, and smoothly stepped into what seemed to resemble essentially a large gossamer bag.

They pulled them up by the opening, but deftly slid them under the crossed utility belts, front and back, using their unusually long and flexible arms. This covered their body suits up to their necks, and left their weapons and other devices outside the bag’s floppy looking wide open tops. There was a black oval patch several inches across, visible in the front at waist level. They each tapped the patches, using several claw tips simultaneously.

What happened next was difficult to follow, but the bag like pouches moved and shrank against their bodies, flowing around their torso and limbs, making a fully form fitting garment, with the top now forming a snug circular fit midway up their neck.

Telour picked up the fabric bag again, and removed what seemed to be similarly translucent smaller items, with gray objects on each side. The other three Krall slipped what proved to be smaller gossamer sacks over their heads, and the lumpy side objects appeared to be positioned where their recessed ears were located. Like the other sacks, these were somewhat larger than the heads they covered and were loose, falling below the base of the neck.

When they performed a short complex tap at black patch on the nose region, the head sack melded with the other one at the neck, and this time it seemed to inflate, or balloon slightly, around their skulls, so that the covering formed a slightly larger bubble over their heads.

The humans were amazed at what must be a Krall equivalent of a soft space suit. Mirikami saw no air recycler, such as the two-inch thick flexible backpacks of the suits his people wore. He noted that the Krall’s communicator disks, attached to their utility harness, were outside the suits, and would be in vacuum soon.

Telour gave them their instructions, “You will go to vacuum in this hold. Open the big door, close gravity here, and push the dead out.”

That was clear enough, but Mirikami had a problem. If they could not use the suit radios, coordinating the task would be complicated, and any other orders from the Krall could not be passed to the humans.

In the name of speed and efficiency, of course, he told the Krall about Parkoda’s order to them to not to use suit radios, but the human’s suits only used radio to talk in a vacuum. He explained that his crew would not be able to work as quickly if they could not talk or hear.

He didn’t mention there was a flexible plug-in cable that worked between suits. They were not standard, and kept in a locker where the suits were stored.

Mirikami’s hoped for exemption from the radio restriction in this case was thwarted, when in silent reply, Telour donned and sealed his own soft helmet, leaving Mirikami about to order his men to seal their own suits, and to be prepared to do this job without communicating.

Next, the Krall reached into his bag of tricks and pulled out a handful of flat black disks, with short fibers attached to their centers, He placed one pad, short stem protruding, against the left side muzzle of his own helmet, where it stuck. He then stepped to Mirikami, pushed his faceplate closed, and stuck one of the pads in front of his mouth. Even before the faceplate finished its seal, he could hear Telour’s deep growly voice, asking if he could hear. It was muffled sounding, as if he had pressed his helmet against Mirikami’s own.

“I can hear you Telour. Can each of my crew have one of these communicators?”

Telour responded, by showing Mirikami the remaining three devices. “I brought only these.”

The Captain, taking advantage of the still pressurized hold, loudly told his men to seal their suits; that Telour could talk to him via the black patches he had placed on his faceplate, but there were only three more to share.

As the men sealed their helmets, Telour swiftly stepped forward and pressed the pads on the faceplates of the first three men he reached at random. Mirikami had hoped to pick the men himself, but decided he would rather not test the creature’s patience.

With the patches, they found they could hear the Krall and one another, if slightly buzzy sounding. Mirikami ordered the other seven men to stand near the back bulkhead, and decided the four with audio could do all that was needed.

Telour ordered him, “Remove the air.”

Mirikami told Rigson, one of those with audio, to activate the pumps to remove as much atmosphere as possible, before they vented and lost the remainder to space. This normally took about fifteen minutes, but after several minutes, Telour demonstrated his growing impatience by telling them to go faster.

“Rigson, you heard him, vent the air; we need to get this done.” The Steward tapped several keys to enter the override code to vent the air early. It wasn’t an explosive decompression, because the system wouldn’t allow that, but they could feel their suits expanding much faster as the outer pressure dropped. The Krall suits also expanded a small amount.

Mirikami had his men with audio patches connect safety tethers with automatic retractors, attached to loops at their waist. The other end was clipped to recessed attachments in the deck. He noted with satisfaction that the seven men without audio followed their example. The Krall didn’t take any such precaution.

Mirikami then told Rigson to open the twenty-foot high forty foot wide door. It split down the center as its sticky seals separated, and began to slide sideways into their slots. As that happened, the Captain was disturbed to note the effect the vacuum was having on the human remains.

The bodies were slowly bloating, eyes, tongues, and other tissues swelling as they out gassed, trying to equalize pressure. The bins with assorted parts and intestines were silently bubbling, as the partially coagulated blood, at ship temperature, was warm enough to boil in a vacuum. It was too late to think now about how they could have foreseen this, and tied tablecloths over and around the remains. However, what sane person would be expected to think of such details?

Mirikami informed Telour that they would next switch off artificial gravity in this compartment, the only place on this passenger ship where they could do that by design. The translator’s stiff lips could be seen wriggling, but nothing came through that the men could hear. He must be using ultrasonic frequencies, talking to the other three Krall.

The other Krall had no black audio patches stuck on their helmets, but quickly moved to grasp reinforcing beams or other bulkhead-attached hardware, so it seemed they could hear each other via those bulges over their ears.

Mirikami warned the men to activate their magnetic boots, and pointed to his boot soles for the benefit of the other seven men out of the communications loop. They all slid the activators on their suits for the battery powered shoe coils. He felt his feet click to the deck with a sticky sort of sensation.

He ordered Rigson to switch off the hold’s gravity. Actually, Jake controlled the gravity but it did not require a direct order if the appropriate code was entered at the touchpad. Every member of the crew knew that code.

Instantly, Mirikami experienced the usual gut twisting as weight was removed from his organs, and the familiar feeling of falling came over him. Virtually every Spacer had to train extensively for zero gravity, and would never graduate from any world’s equivalent to Space Academy, let alone be hired to work in Space if they couldn’t easily handle the experience.

The corpses were lifting and separating, courtesy of the tissue swelling, and the revolting little random biological gas jets.

In a rare departure from the rigid rule of polite public conduct that Mirikami and most citizens chose to live by, he couldn’t restrain himself. “The Goddamned Krall probably see this sort of disgusting scene often enough, but I’m proud that we have become civilized enough to never have seen this.” He didn’t care what the Krall thought about his statement.

It was a sincere and heartfelt sentiment, but it ignored the comparable horrors that the human race had once inflicted on themselves, within the last three hundred or so years.

The Captain asked the other three men to join him in pushing the two body piles out the big opening. He was able to see a lot of stars out there, but not Mother, nor any of the Krall ships.

The four of them pushed the larger group of bodies towards the opening. They had no weight, but their mass resisted the movement, and Mirikami realized they should have tied the bodies together, or wrapped them in the tarps rather than cover them. They didn’t all move as one, and were spreading out from under the tarp as they drifted. At least they were going out. Next they grabbed the slowly drifting bins, and pushed them gently out as well, trying not to let their vile contents spread. Finally, the smaller collection of bodies was pushed out to join the first.

The dead men and women continued to drift away from the ship, spreading apart from one another. The Captain didn’t know how the Krall expected to gather them into a Jump Hole, even if that ridiculously small device had the ability to create one. He saw no heavy power lines for it to use if they were going to use the ship’s fusion power plant.

Staring at the drifting remains, he despised the feeling that they had just thrown the dead out like trash, with no ceremony or any other service to show respect, to allow time for their friends and kin to grieve and say goodbye.

Mirikami was agnostic, but not in the manner of most that doubted the existence of God. He felt at core that he was an atheist, but one that had doubts that there could ever be proof that God did not exist. However, some of those that had died here belonged to various faiths, even though an appreciable number of the scientists did not believe in any deity. Faith or not, there should be some words spoken on behalf of those that had died.

He mentioned this to the four men that could hear him, asking if any of them wished to speak a few word. He would do it himself if they declined. The gesture of decency was rendered moot when they were roughly shoved aside by the two Krall warriors carrying their device.

Three of the men, Mirikami included, lost contact with the deck, and but for the safety lines, would have drifted out of the bay. They quickly pressed the tether button and reeled themselves to the bulkhead attachment points, and stepped farther back into the hold.

The two warriors moved the device they had brought with them right to the edge of the deck. Their feet seemed to have a firm grip, though Mirikami couldn’t see an electromagnet in the translucent feet of the body suits. The K’Tal moved to stand next to the device, which also seemed firmly stuck to the deck now.

He held a six-inch oval object in his hands, with multi colored lights or buttons. He did something by tapping talon tips, and the dish on the pedestal suddenly tilted and pointed straight out into space from the center of the opening.

In a matter of several seconds, the three small cone projections on the dish edges began glowing dim yellow. Mirikami had often seen that shade of amber on N wave projectors on hulls of ships. It was a byproduct of a Trap field, but that low glow only started when a closed field had caught a passing low energy tachyon. The brighter the glow, the more energetic the otherworldly particle was.

This was a soft glow, so it didn’t seem to be enough to generate a Jump Hole, but the fact that it had started to glow so soon was startling. It usually took five or ten minutes to catch even a weak tachyon, and this seemed to have trapped one quickly, assuming the glow was due to that. He couldn’t guess what in the pedestal was generating the energy for an N wave powerful enough Trap a tachyon.

If they had already caught one, then the energy of that tachyon could be used in a bootstrap manner to increase the energy fed to the projectors, in an effort to deflect and catch a much more energetic passing tac for the next increase in energy.

He guessed only time would tell. However, suddenly the cones blazed with a brighter yellow glow that made him squint. It seemed impossible, but had they just caught a higher energy tac in only a few minutes?

As he thought this, he could see the drifting corpses, tarps, and bins, all start slowly moving towards an area directly in front of the dish, perhaps a couple of thousand feet out. This wasn’t how a Jump Hole normally worked, which formed a spherical shell around the ship generating the fields. Here this dish was behaving as if there were a strong gravitational field generated at a focal point in front of the three apparent field projectors.

The entire cluster of debris and bodies was now clearly drifting towards the invisible gravitational focal point. In a matter of several minutes, they had coalesced to form a lumpy spherical mass about ten or fifteen feet in diameter, with a few bits of plastic bins or bones jutting out in some places. The sphere was physically that small if his estimate of roughly two thousand feet out was accurate. However, the gravity was very far from being powerful enough to form a Jump Hole.

Telour told the four men to turn their backs, as all four Krall suddenly faced into the bay. The four humans quickly turned around. Mirikami looked at the other seven men, and made a fast rotating motion with a hand and down pointing finger, urging them to turn away, hoping they would understand. He also crossed an arm over his faceplate, squeezing his eyes shut.

Within a few seconds of turning around, Mirikami, simultaneously experienced an intense dazzling flash through his eyelids, and a brief jerk felt over his entire body. He also felt a bump through his feet, magnetically attached to the deck, demonstrating that the entire ship had also twitched.

It was fortunate that Gravity was about ten to the fortieth times weaker than the electromagnetic force; else, they would probably never have known what hit them. Clearly, the pulse was the result of an intense gravitational wave, generated by a collapsing Jump Hole right outside the hold. The energy had propagated and passed through them, the ship, and the fabric of local space-time itself.

Telour told them to activate the hold’s gravity, but to leave the cargo door open. When the humans looked out, all traces of the ball of human bodies and plastic bins was gone. Of the eight hundred ninety-nine souls that had been Mirikami’s responsibility to lead, serve, and protect fifty-six were gone. It might be difficult to keep all 843 others alive until they reached their mystery destination.

12. Jump to Koban

Within a few minutes, a slender nosed craft appeared from around the left edge of the bay door. Size and distance was hard to judge, but perhaps out by several thousand feet if it were small enough to fit into this hold, the ship’s largest. As it turned, angling towards them, it was clearly making its way to the cargo Bay, nose first. The slender looking shuttle revealed it was considerably wider than it was thick, and seemed like it was going to be a close fit.

Mirikami urged his men to move from the back bulkhead over to the side, as far as possible. The two Krall warriors moved the Jump Hole device out of the way, and positioned themselves on the same side, to watch the eleven humans.

The craft slid smoothly and deftly into the hold, with almost perfect clearance on all sides of the opening. It then came to a quick stop a mere few feet from the rear bulkhead, clearing the hatch opening to its rear by around ten feet, making it about seventy feet long, and larger than the Fancy’s two shuttles. It settled gently to the deck. The cockpit windows were darkly tinted, so they couldn’t see inside. If manually controlled, it had been a masterful job.

Again, at Telour’s order, Mirikami personally closed the hold doors, and when sealed, pressurized the bay as quickly as the system allowed.

It turned out that the small shuttle had no airlock, suggesting that it probably was designed for atmospheric use, but worked well in space. A roughly ten foot wide section, near the left rear, on the side where Mirikami and his men had gathered, raised high.

First out was a Krall warrior, without their version of a soft suit. He was followed by eleven unsuited and fearful looking humans, seven women, four men, and then another Krall in a brown uniform, who was possibly the pilot.

The people immediately noted the suited humans, but stayed clustered behind the Krall warrior that had preceded them, obviously afraid to speak or join the other humans.

Telour came around the rear of the shuttle, no longer in his soft suit. Mirikami opened his faceplate to ask him a question.

“Telour, are these captives now part of my ship’s clan, and my responsibility?”

“Your ship, human?” he spoke in rebuttal, “you no longer control this ship, and you do as we say, as do these animals.”

“Of course. Yet Parkoda ordered me to take responsibility for the actions of those humans aboard this ship, to guarantee that all humans obey your instructions. This will minimize how many will mistakenly give challenge and die before reaching Koban I was told. Are these people to join the prisoners here?” he asked.

“That is what Parkoda has ordered. Yet they have not been granted Ra Ka Endo, the training status we give to the youngest novice. I grant them that honor now, in Parkoda’s name. I will send a warrior to mark them.

“As their new clan leader, it becomes your responsibility to instruct them, and to enforce and honor the agreement with Parkoda. Send them to the rest of your herd. Parkoda said you are to return to him for the Jump, in your control room. You call it a Bridge. “

He spoke briefly into his shoulder com, while he simultaneously plucked the communication pads from the four human faceplates, then left with most of the other Krall and the Jump Hole device. One warrior remained, closing the shuttle hatch, and clearly guarding the craft.

Left to their limited liberty once more, Mirikami offered a quick welcome and introduced himself to his eleven new charges, followed as quickly by an apology that he had to leave immediately. He explained that his crewmembers would take them to the passenger decks, and would explain their situation and their new status under the Krall.

Not daring to make Parkoda think he was tarrying, he asked two Stewards to help him pull his soft suit off more quickly. He hurried to the closest lift, hoping they were cleaned of blood. The first lift to arrive had a clean floor, its cloth cover gone, but the spattered table cloths were still hanging, as they were on the other lift, arriving seconds later. He called over Walters and Rigson to take those down. Walters had to ride along with him to finish the job. He pressed in the nonstop Bridge code.

The chime announced his arrival, and Noreen turned to greet him. Parkoda had swiveled his head towards the lifts well before the chime, although Noreen hadn’t hear so much as whisper prior to that. It was another example of their keen hearing.

“Captain, Parkoda had me instruct Ms. Willfem to tune both Traps to the highest energy tachyon we can possibly catch in either one. That was done shortly before you started back up here.” She raised her eyebrow to indicate her puzzlement.

Mirikami faced the Krall. “Parkoda, we will be ready to Jump when either one of our Traps catch the high energy tachyons they are tuned for. However, this does not tell me how many days we will be in the Jump Hole, and thus how far we must Jump. The tachyon energy you ask for is the maximum that we can Trap, and is rare and could take many hours to catch. This is much more energy than we need to Jump anywhere that you order us to go.”

Parkoda had an answer ready, “Koban is a small distance more than you crossed to come here from your worlds. More energy makes you travel more swiftly.” He said that with a sense of finality, despite it being completely wrong. They would have to tread lightly here, to avoid appearing to contradict him.

“Sir, we will do as you order,” Mirikami assured him, “but my ship will only travel at one speed in Tachyon Space, and it requires only enough energy to move my size ship into Tachyon Space. The greater energy tachyons take longer to Trap and move us no faster. We required twenty three of our days to get to this star from half way inside the edge of human settled space.”

“And I ordered you to catch more energy, to go to Koban faster.” Parkoda reminded him.

“Sir,” he was sweating out this reply. “Once we enter any size Jump Hole we travel at the same speed in Tachyon Space. The tachyon energy you have ordered us to capture would be enough to enclose a much larger space than this ship needs. We will wait much longer to find such a very powerful tachyon before we can depart, and we will travel to Koban no faster.

The Krall glared at him for an instant, but decided ask a question. “A human ship does not go faster with more energy? My Clanship does this!” Then he reluctantly added, “I have not before taken a human ship that still flies. Other clans captured whole small ships, and they now sit on Koban as proof of their prize. But they do not share secrets to help other clans to earn breeding rights more quickly. I know all Krall ships Jump sooner than human ships but I did not know human ships were also slow.”

“Is the speed of our travel so important?” asked Mirikami. “We will still arrive where you order us to go, but not as soon as you expected. It is the fault of weaker human science, and not your fault. You could return on your ship, and your warriors and translators will brings us later.”

That was quickly negated by Parkoda. “I cannot go alone first! I need my prize when I reach Koban, but I will miss a larger raid if I do not return soon.” With an angry blurred slash of extended talons through empty air towards them, he showed the first sign of frustration they had seen in a Krall. He could have disemboweled them easily if he had chosen to do so, and it appeared he had considered doing exactly that.

The dejected Krall leader explained his personal problem. “Some other clans will like it if my new status is less, if my prize is made small or if I am late and do not lead a new raid.”

As his explanation continued, it revealed why the humans needed to care very much about his personal problem.

“I can carry many humans on my Clanship, as fast as I need, but it will not carry all my captives. We must send this ship and two of eight of my captives into a Jump Hole. My clansmen would speak more of my loss than my gain for this, my greatest raid,” he lamented. “I cannot go slow to Koban and miss a raid that strikes closer to your worlds. And with this large prize I will earn a right to lead a greater raid.”

Poor alien killer, Mirikami thought sardonically. He’s caught between a rock and a hard place. Travel slowly and miss a new raid to kill more humans, travel fast and have to kill some he had already captured. Tough call.

Regretting his ignorance when he had stupidly pointed out that their Jump Hole travel was done at a constant rate, Mirikami was furiously thinking about any reasonable alternative to their immediate problem. Only a remote possibility came to him, but it played to Parkoda’s ambitions.

“Parkoda, if you have a K’Tal that can describe your faster method of Tachyon Space travel, perhaps we can go as fast as you want us to go. Maybe it isn’t very hard to do. If we can do that you would keep all of your captives and the ship as a prize.”

Even a ridiculous long shot was worth a try, since the alternative was having the Krall kill over two hundred more of his people.

Instead of a direct reply, Parkoda was suddenly speaking silently into his shoulder com.

Fearful that Parkoda had just issued orders to kill two hundred ten people, Mirikami waited with a knot in his guts. He knew he could never accept his own survival and leave his ship under those circumstances. Noreen would have to assume command and continue without him.

They waited to see what had been decided for an agonizing time. Then a brown suited Krall suddenly sprang up the stairwell without a sound. Parkoda had glanced that way seconds earlier, apparently able to hear him coming. It was unbelievable how beings so large and heavy moved so quietly, and with that unnatural speed.

Their ears sprouted, and the now familiar pantomime of silent lip movements started for perhaps a minute. Parkoda translated, “Delktor is a K’Tal that knows of Jump Hole making. He made the Jump Hole for your dead animals.”

The uncertainty wasn’t over, but at least Parkoda was looking for a solution for his own ego-based problem, which would coincidentally resolve the human survival problem.

It seemed there was a third problem as well, one involving clan rivalry and the Krall command hierarchy. “Delktor is not of my Tanga clan,” Parkoda told them. “He does not want to tell me what I need to know, but I am leader on this raid. He cannot hold this knowledge from me or he will lose status, or I will challenge him and take his life. I will translate your questions.”

Mirikami asked his hopeful question. “Does Delktor know how to change our method of moving in Tachyon Space, to make us go as fast as your Clanship?”

There was a brief exchange.

“This K’Tal has studied captured human ships,” Parkoda told him. “He knows of differences for our ships and human. You catch same tachyons, but not as quick as we can, but they can give you the energy needed. But it is why you move so slowly when you leave this space that is my problem.”

Sure, it was his problem, of course.

“This K’Tal says a Krall ship makes something that is like second twist in space, or a turn. I don’t know the human word.”

Parkoda spoke to the K’Tal again. There were some animated hand movements, and apparent agitation on behalf of Delktor.

“He says it is almost the same as the change every ship makes when a Jump Hole is made, when you turn or twist to leave this Universe.”

Noreen blurted out “The rotation into Tachyon Space! The event horizon around the ship appears to get smaller as it rotates in a different dimension. The Jump Hole really moves into Tachyon Space! That must be the first turn the K’Tal means, and we call that a rotation.”

Parkoda made an effort to explain that to Delktor, who was obviously not happy to have to listen to what mere animals had to say, even when relayed by his superior.

Noreen made a sort of an open spherical shape with her two hands, and crudely rotated them as she tried to squeeze them together, interlocking the fingers, as if shrinking the sphere, and then, using one hand, she used thumb and forefinger to suggest a smaller circular opening that grew smaller.

The K’Tal spoke again, and Parkoda translated. “He says you know what he means, and you call that a rotation. The new twist is not a rotation to leave our space but a second one, inside a different space where tachyons live. All ships do the first rotation. Then Krall ships do another rotation, but I do not understand how. The new rotation makes Krall ships move faster than if you do not do that.”

He summarized, “Krall ships do a second rotation and human ships do not.”

It might be a sort of progress, but Mirikami couldn’t see how they could figure out how to do the second rotation inside Tachyon Space, when hundreds of years of human experimentation had not stumbled onto this.

However, as long as Parkoda was at least willing to consider how to have his cake and eat it too, Mirikami was willing to keep the discussion going. It gave them a chance to think of another way out of their dilemma.

“Parkoda, I also do not know details of Jump Holes or entering Tachyon Space, but will I ask the human version of a K’Tal that works in our Drive Room. That person is who was ordered to fix the Traps, and tuned them as you ordered.”

“This is taking long,” Parkoda warned. Clearly killing two hundred humans wasn’t his main concern, just the speed of the process that achieved his final goal of getting to Koban in time.

“Sir, if we can move our ship faster, then you will win everything you want. We have not yet caught the powerful tachyon we need anyway, so we lose no time as we wait.”

“Talk to your K’Tal,” he ordered.

Desperate times called for desperate and risky measures. Mirikami moved to his console, and punched for the Drive Room, but started speaking before anyone could answer. “Jake, just listen and reply only by transducer, I have some questions to ask and I need an opinion.” Just then, Ms. Willfem answered “Drive room, Willfem.”

It was a relief when Jake acknowledged him by transducer only, and not on speaker. He switched to speaker. “Nan, I have you on speaker for the Krall to hear, please listen to what I have to explain, and only then reply. Please share this with the Chief and your Drive Rats on speaker. A couple of hundred lives may depend on this discussion, and any one of you listening might have an answer we need.”

Relax, there’s no pressure here he thought, feeling sympathy for the burden he was placing on her.

He quickly explained the Jump Hole speed issue and the travel time problem and consequences. Then he described the two rotations that Krall ships made into Tachyon Space. It didn’t take very long to tell because he didn’t have any details to share.

As he spoke, the idea of somehow “fixing” the Flight of Fancy’s Field generators to do a second mysterious new space rotation struck him as very outlandish. Particularly for a ship’s drive crew to try to accomplish something that had eluded our own the best scientific minds so far.

When he was done with the verbal and visual descriptions, he gave them time to think about it and to toss ideas around. There were a couple of questions, which he asked Parkoda to try to explain to Delktor.

Delktor’s reluctance increased, and its true cause was only gradually revealed. It turned out that everything the Krall knew about Jump Holes, Tachyon Space, and the second rotation that was described, came from other advanced races the Krall had killed off or enslaved thousands of years ago. This was a fact that Parkoda nearly had to challenge Delktor to get him to admit. The math and theory behind it was beyond at least this K’Tal. He had hated revealing his ignorance to Parkoda.

Mirikami knew they were standing on the verge of defeat; his stalling was at an end. In desperation, he asked if anyone had any idea at all of how to get the Flight of Fancy to move as fast as the Krall Clanship did in Tachyon Space. It grew quiet as death.

Out of thin air, he heard “There is one possibility, Sir.”

It was a comment sent from Jake, via Mirikami’s transducer.

The Captain clutched at the straw in the wind and promptly parroted those words aloud, “There is one possibility,” and then added, “And I want both Noreen and the Drive crew to hear this so I’ll state it out loud as we go along.” To a human this phrasing would sound crazy. How else would they hear his thoughts? Noreen, having heard Jake addressed earlier, knew the AI was somehow involved.

“Let us please proceed with the proposal and I’ll repeat my thoughts aloud, a little at a time as I think.” Jake proved his worth as a top of the line AI as he resumed explaining to Mirikami, who awkwardly parroted him aloud after each sentence.

“Adjusting the software that controls the Trap field emitters is probably not something that can be done for the Flight of Fancy.”

Mirikami repeated the words, but thought where the hell is Jake going with this? They didn’t have much time, and this started with a negative.

“However,” Jake went on, “another solution may prove more practical.”

Mirikami repeated this, and couldn’t wait to hear what his mouth would say next.

“A Jump Hole’s event horizon, when created with high enough tachyon energy, can be large enough to enclose a much larger volume of space than the ship that generates the Jump Hole actually requires.”

As that was repeated aloud, Mirikami realized it was essentially what he had said to Parkoda, when questioning what use they would have for the ultra-high energy tachyon. Making a larger event horizon didn’t make them move faster. Jake was aware that Mirikami was repeating what the AI said, so it separated the sentences for the Captain to have time to say them.

“When a Jump Hole’s event horizon is rotated into Tachyon Space, everything that is inside the radius of the Jump Hole goes with it.

“Particles of dust near the ship’s hull, tools, and even docked shuttle craft have been moved with larger ships into a Jump Hole in the past, and arrived with the larger ship.”

Now the Captain thought he knew what his mouth was about to tell him.

“Perhaps the same thing happens when the second rotation is made through yet another dimension inside Tachyon Space.”

Mirikami parroted Jake’s words sounding a bit more assured.

“If the Krall Clanship can include the Flight of Fancy in a large enough radius Jump Hole of its own making, and performs both rotations, then it may take both ships to Koban together.”

Here was a proposal that might possibly work, assuming the Krall would give it consideration.

Damn, he realized Jake wasn’t done talking yet, “I cannot predict if the second described rotation will work as the first one does, if all of the contents of the Jump Hole moved into Tachyon Space will stay with the Clanship.”

When the AI paused for Mirikami to repeat his words, all Mirikami said was “I’m thinking this is enough information for us to discuss for now.” He damn well wasn’t going to parrot the AI’s uncertainty.

Looking at Parkoda, “Does Delktor know if this idea would work? Can your Clanship pull this ship into the Jump Hole with you and then tow us to Koban?”

Parkoda apparently described to Delktor what he believed Mirikami himself had thought of, and it was clear the K’Tal didn’t like an animal proposing something that the Krall themselves had never considered. They talked silently for some time.

It was Parkoda, who apparently ended the discussion. He turned to the humans, and seemed almost eager to tell of experiences he knew of first hand. He described previous raids he had been on, where single ships docked by inexperienced novice pilots were improperly attached to the outside of Clanships. They were not always stowed inside the Clanships, for faster release on arrival.

In one case, an empty single ship had become detached at some point, but still had arrived at the White Out, drifting nearby. Parkoda didn’t know at what point the empty smaller ship had detached.

In the second case, they found a luckless novice dead in his drifting single ship. He had not properly docked before the Jump Hole was initiated. By then the external docking ports were locked. He couldn’t exit his small craft in vacuum, and even had he tried to gain attention, he would not have been deemed genetically worthy of rescue.

Parkoda thought the incompetent novice probably took many days to die. He made a snort sound that seemed to show amusement.

From that point on, Parkoda was perfectly willing to roll the dice to see if the Clanship could drag the human ship along. Of course, he didn’t intend to be inside the Flight of Fancy for that experiment, since his position would be safely in the control room of the Clanship. Telour and three other translators would stay aboard, along with a hand of warriors. None of the eight was from Tanga clan, naturally.

If this piggyback trick worked, then everyone would live to see Koban. Mirikami wouldn’t learn what the coordinates were for Koban in advance, but Jake could figure that out when they arrived. He didn’t know what good that knowledge would do him, but there was always use for information.

In an effort to discover how long the trip might be, he asked Parkoda before he left if human rations would be needed to feed the Krall staying on the captured ship, and how many days’ worth would they require. Parkoda told him they already had four days of supplies onboard, and they would not eat human food.

Mirikami didn’t know if the four days were Krall home world days or Earth Standard days. Probably Krall days, of which he had no clue as to their length in hours. However, it didn’t sound like a very long time. The Krall speedier Jump method wouldn’t help him estimate the distance from Newborn anyway.

Mirikami and Noreen were on the bridge when Telour arrived to relieve Parkoda as their translator. He didn’t appear bothered to be staying aboard for an experimental ship tow that they had never deliberately tried.

“Use thrusters to get close to Clanship,” Telour ordered. “If we are too far away we will be cut open when the Jump Hole is made.”

That was actually the reverse of the normal human civilian procedure, where there was at least twenty miles between ships or between ships and a station before a Jump was initiated. The Navy allowed closer positioning, but not like this. Jake would have not have allowed this closeness for a Jump initiated by the Fancy. Clearly, the Krall accepted more risks. They slowly closed to within two hundred feet.

Mirikami checked with Telour. “How close am I allowed get to

, uh, what is the Clanship’s name?”

Telour answered, “We do not name Clanships. They are made by slaves, and are shared by all clans. I believe we are at a safe distance, but move closer.”

Telour’s previous apparent lack of concern for the never before tried towing was belied by that order. Mirikami allowed Jake to move the hulls to within twenty-five feet of touching. That was extremely close for two sizeable ships that were not going to hard dock.

Ms. Willfem had called Mirikami right after Parkoda had departed on the Krall shuttle for his Clanship. They had not caught even one of those high-energy tachyons yet, but the Traps were still tuned for that ridiculous high energy, and might still snag one at any time. The unstated obvious inference was that they might suddenly discover they had the means to escape into a Jump Hole.

“Thank you Nan. Our eight visitors are standing by for the Jump.” He knew she would understand his meaning. Unfortunately, with eight fully armed Krall aboard, dropping into a Jump Hole wouldn’t save them, not even with a hundred to one odds against the warriors.

At least with the overrides removed it gave them the means to destroy themselves along with the Krall aboard, and probably the Clanship. If they elected to give up and die, that is.

He certainly didn’t tell her to change the Trap settings. Those fields still functioned when a ship was in the Hole. After all they were used for reaching into Tachyon Space in the first place and frequently caught other tachyons while in Jump status. They possibly could catch tachyons even after the additional dimensional rotation that the Krall used. That could be worth knowing.

The Captain thought it proved interesting that Parkoda, distracted by his pleasure at keeping his prize intact, had not thought to order them to detune the Traps before he left the ship. Telour, who was now the ranking Krall aboard didn’t appear to care about this either, or more likely had not been briefed very well by Parkoda. The thought “more muscle than brains” came to mind.

It had been a long night for everyone. The ambush had happened at dinnertime, and as incredible as it now seemed, it was still early morning by ship’s time. His passengers surely needed rest, as did his crew. He didn’t know how much longer it would take the Clanship to catch the appropriate high-energy tachyon, but he was going to send them to their cabins or lounge couches early, to wait for the Jump.

“Telour, with your approval, I want to tell my people to return to their cabins and allow them to eat if they are hungry. Are we allowed to do what we normally do until we reach Koban? I have told them to obey any Krall.”

In the same near instant decision-making Parkoda had usually exhibited, Telour showed no hesitation. “You are under Ra Ka Endo. The human animals on Koban live as they chose until we take them for testing. If you obey and offer no challenge, I will not be your herd master. After we Jump you cannot stop or delay delivery to Koban, so you are your own herd master.”

“Thank you. I will release them to do as they would normally do. May I ask for a warning before the Jump, to also warn them and my crewmates?”

“There will be no warning. We Jump when we are able, no delay. That is not a Graka Clanship, but Tanga clan is not poor at this. My clan would be ready to Jump when the raid leader reached his position of command. Parkoda, arrogant as he behaves, is efficient. He should have reached his Clanship, so we will Jump very soon.”

“Doesn’t the capture of a tachyon with enough energy for your needs take a longer time?” Noreen asked.

As he started to speak, Telour paused as the ship vibrated an instant, a hull ping rang softly, and a soft alarm sounded on the Bridge. “We have Jumped” he concluded with simplicity.

The external view screens lost their images and were completely dark. They couldn’t even see the Clanship, nearly in contact with them before the Jump.

Startled, Mirikami moved to his console to silence the automatic alarm, and initially he thought the six external screens had been switched off because they didn’t show the fitful random snow they normally did in the Hole. Nevertheless, he could call up internal images and status displays on each of them. The Jump had apparently been as swift as predicted, and thankfully had been very smooth.

The absence of the customary countdown and a warning to all aboard went against routine, but he couldn’t deny it was efficient.

He checked with the Drive Room. “Nan, the Krall Clanship apparently Jumped and took us with them, as

”, he didn’t want to say Jake, “As I thought.”

“So I see Sir. My external sensors show us in the Hole, but the Traps of course don’t show that we created the event horizon, but” she paused, and a sense of wonderment filled her voice. “They do both indicate a sudden ‘event’ happened as I mentioned we were waiting for a few minutes ago. It was right after we translated out of Normal Space. That was very, very coincidental.” Willfem concluded.

Mirikami knew she could only be obliquely describing a capture of extremely high-energy tachyons. Probability was a fickle thing, but he had anticipated an hour or two more might pass before catching even one of the monsters they had been told to capture. Very coincidental indeed, that it happened exactly after they entered the Hole.

The second spatial rotation in Tachyon Space apparently gave them quick access to a much more crowded and energetic regime of tachyons. That was probably why the Krall never had to wait long to initiate a Jump.

“Thanks Nan. Just hold what we have for now. I’ll get back to you.” He switched off.

Telour appeared mildly surprised as he made a comment, “The towing of this ship by Parkoda’s Clanship worked as you predicted.” The explanation of why he was surprised came promptly.

“Delktor though this ship would be left behind, and would have to Jump slowly on its own to Koban. A late arrival for this prize would remove some of Parkoda’s arrogance. Without this proof, he could not gain enough status to lead one of the new larger raids, but he could go as a sub-leader. He would never wait for us and miss the first wave of new raids.”

Mirikami noticed that Telour’s Standard was now sounding more fluent and less accented, sounding much better than Parkoda’s.

“Noreen, please tell our passengers and crew we are in Jump Hole, where we are being taken, and explain they are free to do what they need to do, with the respect due and caution around every Krall kept firmly in mind at all times. Allow some rest for the crew that has worked hardest all night, all of the Stewards and your work crew first. Work out some watch standers.

You and I are as tired as they are, but we need to meet with the passengers before we rest. Grief counseling will have to be The Board’s problem as soon as we can tell them who was lost. We can get relieved here when that’s done.”

“Yes Sir.” and she settled into her command seat.

He then faced Telour, and fixed his eyes on the Krall’s chest. “Telour, will you permit me to satisfy my curiosity concerning how much improved your Standard has become, just after Parkoda departed?”

Telour answered indirectly and in surprising detail, his words clearer as his tone raised slightly from the gruff base notes he had used previously. “Parkoda is of Tanga clan, a very powerful and old clan. I am of Graca clan, great and old, but not quite as powerful. A raid leader earns status and breeding points by his success, as do all who join the raid. However, many clans join together for exploring raids like this one, where the raid leader picks those that do more important work.

“This raid was not true combat so more work for greater breeding points is work like I do now. The raid leader picks who does this work. If you do the task very well, you earn more points to compete with the raid leader and his clan. He will not want to give important work for earning more points to anyone like that.”

He concluded, “My position here is more important work than what the other translators do, and I will earn a larger share of the points awarded. I will never be led by Parkoda again anyway, because he would not accept me twice on his raids. However, I know your language much better than Parkoda, and he would not have put me here if he knew that. I have spent much time with humans on Koban, learning how you speak.”

Office Politics are universal, thought Mirikami. They would have to be careful what they said around Telour.

He also felt safer in further discussion. “I am a low rank leader of a race you call animals, so why am I allowed to know this? There must be an advantage for you to spend your time telling me this. Is there a mutual advantage to be found?”

“You are not like most humans I have talked with.” Telour admitted. “Your questions are like you have met us before. As you asked, there may be a possibility for mutual advantage.”

He explained with an example. “I learned Standard on Koban in two of your years because this helped me earn points, as I earn now as a translator. The humans on Koban that talked to me and helped me learn received better food, and I gave them immunity from combat testing.

“With my skill in your language, when I lead raids on human worlds I will have an advantage. Not all humans are willing to trade for the advantages I can give. Some other humans killed one of my protected humans in secret. Those that I discovered I challenged and killed.

“I let you know now of a possibility for your advantage. Other Krall may also offer you something in trade, but I will give an advantage that a human clan leader may want more. An advantage for your own clan.”

Mirikami knew he had to be diplomatic. “I thank you for the opportunity to serve you and to gain in return, so I will consider this possibility.” He could think of nothing that would make him personally want to strike such a deal. However, knowing deals could be struck was important.

The chime of the lift drew his attention, but only well after Telour’s head had already whipped around in that direction. Ms. Jorl’sn stepped out. Their Watch relief had arrived. Jake, if they could use him openly, would have served as watch stander while they were in the Hole, but they needed to keep him a tactical secret.

After Ms. Jorl’sn was briefed, she and Telour remained on the Bridge, as Mirikami and Noreen headed for the passenger decks.

13. Private Conversations

When the lift stopped at deck 8, the highest passenger deck, they were somewhat surprised to find quite a few people there. Clearly, they had moved back up from decks 5 and 6 once permitted. They found themselves surrounded by people begging for answers, or making demands.

He leaned into Noreen and spoke over the flood of questions. “Noreen, try to keep them talking to you, and ignoring me if possible. It’s vital I use this opportunity to do something I’ve needed to do.”

Not waiting for her reply, he walked several yards away, drawing some of the crowd with himself. Noreen gave him a curious look, but loudly began fielding questions, drawing more of the attention. The Captain looked about the central area, not responding to anyone.

There was one blue uniformed translator Krall on the far side of the lounge, near one of the side lifts and stairs, and a black clad warrior by another stair on the opposite side. Although they were watching the humans alertly, they were essentially unmoving other than their constantly shifting gaze. The humans maintained a wide arc around each, rarely looking at them, and then only a quick fearful glance.

Standing in the crowd, knowing his voice would be lost among those around him, he was confident that if Telour had ordered Ms. Jorl’sn to monitor this deck that he could not be heard. His shorter that average height made him barely visible to the two Krall. He angled his face away from them and down towards the deck, and said “Jake?”

“Yes Sir?” The AI’s prompt reply was reassuringly clear through the surrounding noise.

“Jake, I need to develop a way to communicate with you without calling your name each time. I know you can hear everything I say if that mode is activated, but do you hear what is said to me if there is no active audio pickup close by?” He was forced to ignore the jostling and crowd noise surrounding him. He closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to blot out the voices of people trying to talk to him.

“Sir, I hear conversations with you via your transducer, through the same bone conduction I use to pick up your words, and also through audio pickups if those are nearby.” Few passengers would have felt comfortable knowing how easily and often they could be overheard on an AI equipped Starship. A Captain had authority to ask to review what was overheard, but Jake would make an official log entry if that were done.

“Jake, I need to create an alternative method to ask you to pass me information I need, without my specifically calling you by name. I will furnish two example questions I want you to consider, but do not answer them now. Example number one; ‘I wish I knew where my First Officer is?’ Example number two; ‘I would like to know how many Krall are onboard?’ End of examples Jake. Could you accept these as questions directed to you even if I do not say your name?”

“I should be able do that, but perhaps not always consistently, Sir. There may be errors in understanding what data you are requesting, or if you intend the request for me or if it is for someone with you.” The AI advised.

The noise diminished a bit. He could hear Jake better now. After nearly being tripped once, no one was tapping him on the shoulder now or talking loudly at him.

“Jake, if you receive a data request, such as my two examples, always pass the requested information by transducer, or tell me if you do not have an answer, or if you do not understand the request. Can you do that?”

“Assuming that I understood your request was intended for me, yes Sir, I can do that.”

“Jake, if the information is not what I want, or is more detailed than I need, I will terminate your data feed by using a phrase similar to, but not limited to these three examples; example one; ‘never mind.’ Example two; ‘skip it.’; Example three; ‘disregard.’ Would you understand what I intended?”

“That too may not always provide the desired result, Sir. What if I need confirmation to start, to stop, or to change a data request?”

“Jake, if that happens I will repeat another request for data if I don’t receive what I need, or try again to have you stop a feed. If I start to talk while you are sending me requested data, you should stop speaking. The important thing is for me to receive information and to stop the data feed without saying your name when the Krall might be able to hear me. Do you understand?”

“I think I do, Sir. I will listen to you, and respond as I calculate you intended for a request of data. If there are mistakes in this process, I will modify or add to the phrases that produce results that repetition indicates you find acceptable.”

“That’s good Jake. Place this new protocol into effect for me only now. Other crew members will be included later.”

“Yes Sir.”

Mirikami raised his head and opened his eyes, only to find Doctor Fisher staring him in the face. Her arms were spread in arcs to either side of him, joining hands with someone on each side, holding people away from him. She smiled and winked at him. Clearly, she’d heard enough to understand what he was doing, and had done her best to give him a few moments free of distractions.

Actually, as he looked about, he found he was inside a small pocket consisting of Fisher and three other people. Unlike Fisher, the others had their backs to him, holding the crowd away. Doctor Martin was on his right, and he glanced over his shoulder with a nod and a smile. About twenty feet away he spotted Noreen’s tall figure, still surrounded by a press of people. They were mostly speaking over one another as they asked her questions. She was doing her best to answer, but seemed a bit overwhelmed, and looked his way in puzzlement.

“Thank you Doctor Fisher. I intended to find you when I came down here but this; gathering shall I call it? Was frankly the first and best opportunity I’ve had to

, let’s say arrange my private thoughts among my own kind.” He winked back.

“Captain, I know some of what you have been confronted with in the hours since the boarding took place, thanks to Dillon’s observations and briefings to me and the Board of Directors. What’s left of the Board, I mean. We have not been able to locate two members, and we now know what that probably means. All Board members were assigned to the larger ring corridor rooms on deck 8, close to that large conference room. I witnessed some of what happened as the Krall came aboard. Dillon said you apparently saw me briefly from a screen on the Bridge.

“Most of our people don’t know where the dead were moved, though Dillon has informed the Board of what Parkoda had ordered done.”

Mirikami grimaced, “Doctor, I regret you will need to search your ranks for grief counselors or perhaps ministers of various faiths. There can be no funerals or cremations, but perhaps a mass service. I need to inquire if any of my crew members have had any experience in that area, but this isn’t part of a Spacer’s normal training.”

Suddenly, Jake was speaking in his ear, causing him to pause. “Sir, there are no members of the crew with grief counseling listed in their records.” Then he quit speaking. The new protocol might need tweaking, but it certainly worked after a fashion.

Fisher had noticed the Captain had taken on an air of listening, his head tilted slightly. He rolled his eyes briefly, “Actually, my recollection is that none of my crew has such training.”

She acknowledged Mirikami’s statement with a nod, recognizing what had probably just happened. “Actually, Captain, we have started our own inquiries in that direction. But I do thank you.

She told him a few things he probably didn’t know yet. “The eleven survivors from Midwife have told their stories to us, and we know that we fared much better than they, no small thanks to your swift actions and timely warnings. Even without knowing of Dillon’s restricted information, most of our folks have now deduced what the Krall probably have done with our casualties.”

“Thank you for your kind words, Gentle Lady. I’d like to address your Board to tell you what little I know that perhaps you don’t. Then we can edit that information if you wish, and speak to your people in groups, or brief them all together in a mass meeting as we once discussed, a century ago it seems now.”

“That we can do Captain.” She answered.

Stepping towards the yammering crowd surrounding Noreen, Fisher bellowed in a voice seeming far too powerful in proportion to the size of its source, “Quiet! Find your civility Gentle Ladies, and Gentle Men.” The hubbub subdued immediately.

Continuing in a lower but still forceful tone, “The Board of Directors will meet in closed session right now with Captain Mirikami and his First Officer Renaldo. We will learn what he can tell us about our status now and of our future as prisoners of the Krall.

“Based on that meeting, the Board can propose a policy to the full complement of the consortium, which offers the greatest level of security for us all. I remind you that the Krall will hold us to an agreement that allows us free movements and action, as we just exercised in this room. However, that requires that we obey them and cooperate without opposition. If we abrogate that agreement, the consequence would result in one eighth of us being killed in retaliation. We cannot permit rash individuals to endanger so many. Be prepared to consider our proposals when we meet in open session later today.

“I ask that the Board of Directors convene now in the large conference room here on deck 8. I believe all members were present here a short time ago. If not, would the rest of you Gentle Folk please disperse to find them? Thank you.”

A more normal background level of conversation resumed, and the crowd spread out, some descending to other decks.

Fisher, Mirikami, and Noreen started towards the conference room. Maggi gestured to Dillon to follow along. Cahill and other Board members detached from the crowd and followed.

They convened in the conference room with the door locked behind them and sat down. No sooner had Fisher called the meeting to order, than Cahill jumped up and challenged Dillon’s presence, “Why is a non-member of the Board here?” She demanded. “I understand the Captain and his officer, but why is Mr. Martin here?” with emphasis on the ‘Mister.’

Fisher had actually anticipated the petty challenge, pettiness being all that Cahill had left in her arsenal. However, the Vicechairfem’s impeccable timing allowed Fisher to make a point early and put her in her place.

“He is present for the same reason he was present at the last meeting Doctor Cahill.” She spoke in an icy tone. “Doctor Martin,” she emphasized his honorific, which Cahill had deliberately omitted as a slight, “is the only representative of the consortium who was present on the Bridge throughout the boarding process, and who helped the Captain direct the movement of passengers in support of subsequent activities demanded by the Krall. He is a witness to events that none of the rest of us of the consortium saw.

“He may have viewpoints to offer that could be useful to us in our decision making. I learned from Commander Renaldo that Doctor Martin suspected that the attackers were aliens even before we received a confirming transmission. This was a profound and insightful deduction on his part. In addition, he is a member of a First Contact response team for meeting aliens. That is why he is here.”

Continuing in a sharp no-nonsense tone she added, “Secondly, let me say that although I intend to relax formal rules for this meeting for the sake of expediency, you were not recognized and given the floor Vicechairfem Cahill. You will not jump up like some anarchist shouting out of turn again, so please sit down!”

With a grumble, Cahill plopped back down, but looked around for signs of sympathy or support from the other five members, and found none.

Fisher noticed that sweeping look at the other members, and the lack of support reflected in their faces. The two dead board members had been part of Cahill’s clique, and Fisher felt genuine sadness at their tragic loss. However, she pragmatically intended to take full advantage of the shift in the center of power.

“Captain, please provide us with your briefing.”

Mirikami stood, but started with a warning. “Gentle Ladies, I must advise you that at least one Krall translator may be observing this meeting, and there are three aboard now. They have periodically monitored my own movements, and I’m sure they have observed others on the ship. This is to be expected because we are their prisoners, and our good conduct is subject to verification.” He could see this distressed several of the Ladies; Cahill in particular looked frightened and glanced at one of the room’s cameras. He wondered what she had been doing to feel so guilty. However, that led to an inspiration.

“I would really like to know if any Krall is watching us right now, or listing.” He stated, and paused as if considering a profound remark.

Jake got it right. “Sir, there are no Krall using ship’s systems to do so at this time. Should I advise you if any of them start to observe you there?”

“Yes, indeed, that would be good to know.” He glanced at Fisher. “However, I know the Krall have no interest in those of us in this room right at this minute.”

Then he launched into a detailed briefing, sparing only the gruesome cleanup details, but not the confirmation of how the bodies had been disposed. He explained the Krall’s technological advantage in Jump capability and Trap field use. That they were in effect under tow by the Krall Clanship at a much higher speed than the Flight of Fancy could have accomplished.

He explained they would go farther, in less time that a normal Jump, to a camp on a planet he only knew was named Koban. There were an unknown number of other humans already held prisoner there, and the Krall were seeking many more captives. The time of flight would be short, perhaps only four days, so they needed to prepare everyone mentally for that arrival. There was a short period of Q & A, then Fisher cut it off and invited Noreen to talk.

Noreen offered only a few other details, mostly about the repairs her team had made. Then came Dillon, and contrary to Fisher’s claim that he might have unique observations to add, exasperated his mentor when all he did was confirm the two officer’s statements where he could. Oh well, he was here for another reason entirely, after all, and it had little to do with the current briefings.

Fisher stood, thanked the two officers for their remarkable service, and explained that the board would discuss matters further on their own, perhaps for hours. They would make decisions on how they would present this information to the rest of the consortium, probably in a ship wide meeting so as to do it more quickly. She promised to furnish the Captain with any recommendations they might propose concerning regulating themselves concerning interactions with the Krall. The latter would be up to the Captain for final approval, as master of the ship.

Finally, Mirikami and Noreen stepped out and closed the doors behind them.

Walking slowly down the corridor, the Captain spoke first. “Noreen, this has been a terrible and tiring night and morning. I want you to eat something if you can, and go off duty for some very well earned sleep.”

“Thank you Sir, I will, but I’ll check with Ms. Jorl’sn, and make sure I’m called if needed. You need rest more than I do I think. That hideous cleanup must have been more horrible than the gruesome glimpse I saw. Please tell me you will do exactly what you just asked me to do. We need you rested and your mind as sharp as it was today.”

“I will, Noreen. Like you, I’ll check on a few things first. I also need to update you on what I’ve just arranged with Jake concerning communicating with him.” He smiled and fingered his lower lip, pausing a moment. “I wonder if we are still unobserved by the Krall?” Noreen looked at him oddly.

“Yes Sir. No change,” answered Jake.

“Excellent Jake. Please describe by transducer to my First Officer my conversation with you earlier in the lounge, or better yet play it back for her. I’m just too tired to do it myself right now.”

“Yes, Sir,”

Noreen had caught on. “Ahh, that was what you were doing while I was getting mobbed, wasn’t it? You were figuring out a way to talk with Jake when you want. You said it was vital.” Just then, she cocked her head as Jake followed the Captains orders, and started playing the recording.

Grinning as he saw her tilt her head, he knew literal Jake had followed through. He saluted her casually, and walked away without a backwards glance. He headed for a lift that would take him to a shower and a bed in his own stateroom.

14. History Lesson

Five hours later, Mirikami slapped his alarm silent, and felt refreshed if not fully rested. As he dressed in a fresh uniform, he casually talked to himself. “I feel refreshed and ready to face the day. I wonder if Telour is on the Bridge, or looking for me?”

“Yes Sir, Telour is on the Bridge. He has been randomly monitoring your cabin, but is not now. He has also observed Commander Renaldo, who is still asleep, he watched multiple passenger areas, and monitored crewmembers on duty. Telour ordered Ms. Jorl’sn to switch cameras randomly for the last three hours and twenty-four minutes. I believe she is demonstrating fatigue beca…” Here Mirikami interrupted with “That can wait.”

Jake cut off immediately.

Going to his com panel, he called the Bridge. Jorl’sn answered promptly, seeing it was from the Captain’s quarters. “Bridge, Jorl’sn.”

“Roni, I’ve had some sleep and will be up to relieve you within five minutes. Noreen is probably still asleep, and I’ll give her another hour of rest. Is everything secure?” Now that sounded stupid, he thought, with alien killers aboard.

“Yes Sir. I have been following Telour’s instructions as best I can.” She did sound stressed.

“Very good Roni. I’m on my way.”

He grabbed two energy bars and a cool fruit drink from his tiny galley supplies, and headed for the Bridge chewing and swallowing as he went. He needed to shorten the time spent on duty directly under the eyes of a Krall.

He was on the Bridge in less than four minutes, since his and Noreen’s quarters were close. The other crew berths were below passenger country.

As soon as the lift opened, Telour growled, “You die as long as all the other humans! How can you be the clan leader of them if you stay in the same pretend death for so long?”

It was a shocked few seconds before Mirikami thought he grasped what the Krall meant. “Excuse my stupidity Telour, do you mean the time I was in my cabin, with the lights out and asleep?”

“Of course!” He actually seemed angry. That was not something you wanted a Krall to feel towards you.

“You did the same as the other humans I watched, that do this wasteful pretend death. A true clan leader of human animals would not do this, or would do it less. How can you gain status to lead your clan if you are inactive just as long as any other human is? You cannot earn status laying down, pretending death.”

“Telour, all humans need what we call sleep, and do this normally about one third of the time. We need this inactive time to repair our bodies and clear our minds, to form permanent memories of what we have learned that day. Don’t the Krall have a need to do this?”

Telour made a sharp noise that Mirikami thought sounded somewhat like spitting. “I have seen the humans sleep like death with all of the weak animals I have studied on Koban. This is part of what makes humans inefficient and prey animals. The Krall never do this! We are always active because our enemies would catch us if we were as helpless as you were. I believed that if I found a human that leads his kind better, as you have done, that this human must have earned the right to lead because he did more and learned more, by staying active. You did not sleep as long as many of your kind, but long still, and was as helpless as they.”

“Telour I will try to explain to the best of my ability, but if this does not require my junior officer to be here, may I relive her and allow her to go below to eat?”

“Yes.” He snapped.

“Ms. Jorl’sn, I have the Bridge, and you are relieved and off duty. Please go below.”

“Aye, Aye Sir.” Then she hurried down the stairs not waiting to summon the lift. She was just glad to be off the bridge.

“Telour, you have worked with humans on Koban for two years, some must have acted as leaders. Didn’t they sleep the same as the other humans?”

“On Koban they were not leaders in truth.” He rebutted. “The false clan leaders on Koban were given that position by other humans. A true leader earns that right, or will take a position from another by challenge if he has equal status. Of the humans I saw on Koban, none lead because it was earned. They talk to convince others to give leadership to them. They have earned no more status, and often less than those who follow them. And when tested as leaders, they always fail and die.” He explained.

“Some of us believed, as I did, that it was because your best leaders had already died in combat when we first met, before learning to honorably submit to a stronger warrior.”

“I believed I saw a difference with you that told me you must have earned your right to lead humans. You made right choices when we disabled your Traps, you ordered your clan to properly submit before our novice warriors found reason to kill very many. You convinced Parkoda to offer Ra Ka Endo for your clan before you even reached Koban. This is different than has happened on other raids or that I heard from other raid leaders.

“My plan was to use your status among humans for my own advantage on Koban. Now I find that you become inactive the same as other humans, at a time you should be most alert! Leadership must have been given to you!” The contempt was evident in the accusation.

Mirikami, not wanting to lose any edge he unknowingly had gained, used reason in his explanation.

“Telour, I think you took the ability the Krall use to their advantage to always remain alert, and expected to also find that ability in human leaders. When you didn’t find it in me, you were angered. I think I can explain how our way, for humans, is not very different from your way, even if it exposes us to a weakness you do not have.

“Tell me.” He ordered.

“I just learned from you that the Krall never sleep, yet you are trying to gain an advantage over Parkoda, as he tries to gain advantage over you. You and Parkoda are both always awake. You both compete for status, and you have a plan to gain status from Parkoda’s own prize, even though he is awake as much as you are. There is no advantage to be found between two Krall if both are always awake.

“The need to sleep is no disadvantage between humans, because that is how nature made all humans. We truly are at a disadvantage compared to the Krall who never sleep, but that is obviously true in every respect.” Stroking their huge egos seemed to work before.

“There is a small piece of meat in this,” he reluctantly agreed.

“I assume nature made the Krall always awake, which humans cannot do. If all humans must sleep, then none gains status or advantage over other humans because of this mutual weakness. Our leaders gain advantage by leading better than other humans who would also be a leader.”

Mirikami’s last remark caused Telour to shift completely away from human deficiencies. Like Parkoda he couldn’t resist bragging, nor of correcting human misconceptions of how the Krall had made themselves powerful, despite evolution’s own random ways.

“We changed ourselves to always stay alert; nature did not give us this valuable strength. We have forced nature to give our bodies more speed and strength, to lose the weaknesses we had long ago. We see more, hear more, sense more than the ancients could. Only our oldest stories tell of when we were weak in body, when the Olt’kitapi believed their minds and machines alone were enough to rule us. That now dead race told us of how their science had helped nature make their minds great. They promised to give this curse to us as their gift.

“We knew their minds would not protect them if we were strong and gained their trust. We took their machines and weapons to kill them. We were used by them on all of their worlds, like strong smart animals they could train. Lying to us and calling us their friends, while planning to make us as weak as themselves.

“Our old bodies, even so long ago, could easily defeat their smaller and softer bodies. They were fruit and plant eaters that believed their brains made them more powerful than we were. When we rose up to attack everywhere at once, we lost our first home world to them, and many Krall died before our final victory. After that, we owned their many worlds and machines. We ate them all, like the food animals they were.

“Those warriors that survived to win the final battles were the best fighters, the strongest, and the swiftest. Those victors brought us new cubs, which also grew to be stronger fighters. The Olt’kitapi had told us there were other races, some that we had not met, that a few had hardly left their home worlds, and others lived on many worlds. They were to be our future friends, just as the Olt’kitapi said they were also our friends. We saw the Great Path set before us to follow, if we were to survive in the galaxy. We could never again be weaker than other races.

“We awarded the most cubs to the best fighters after we fought wars. These were no different from those wars we had always fought with our own clans before the Olt’kitapi ended our traditions. Now we only pick those for breeding when we find strength in our greatest warriors. Different clans breed for new strengths, so they can trade cubs with other clans for different strengths. We chose those new strengths that nature created for some but would not give to all, and gave them to every Krall as we walk the Great Path.”

He sounded almost as if he was reciting a litany, and perhaps he was.

“We slowly found the races we had been told existed. They were new prey to light our Path. When an enemy was defeated, we returned to fighting ourselves until we found new prey. We have fought ourselves for many breeding cycles now, testing clan against clan. However, finding humans with so many numbers, and many worlds, we are testing against you now.

“I think humans can be pushed to become a worthy enemy, but not every clan agrees. Some want to waste you for food animals, only they have never tasted your unpleasant sweet meat. There are too many of you to keep as slaves for making or growing what we need, and we already have good slaves now.

“We have not increased our numbers for many cycles, because we cull many weak warriors ourselves, fighting between clans. If we slow the culling we can grow to great numbers, but that is standing on the Path, not even walking. We need wars with a worthy enemy, so we can run on the Great Path.

“Graka clan does not want great numbers of Krall we want great numbers of wars, so we can speed along our Path. Our clans are all seeking a new strength, as Koban life has shown us exists. We will make new warriors with bodies that move as swift as animals do on Koban. My Graka clan may achieve this in twenty or thirty breeding cycles.”

Mirikami, soaking this in, was amazed at what Telour was willing to share with a proclaimed enemy they were planning to exterminate. He felt frightened by what he was learning, since their confidence appeared justified. He assumed breeding cycles was their equivalent of a generation, so they clearly took the long view, using selective breeding to improve.

He didn’t want to stop the flow of information by asking what he meant by becoming as swift as Koban animals. The Krall had distained the higher intelligence of that first race they exterminated, so getting smarter wasn’t their goal, it was stronger and faster they valued.

Despite Telour seeming to be brighter than Parkoda, Mirikami’s admittedly limited experience of this race suggested that they were not quite as smart as most humans. The scientists they had aboard could better evaluate that premise than he could.

The Krall bragged on, warming to the subject of how they had fought slow and steady wars many times. Mirikami mimicked a rapt level of attention, while essentially tuning him out, thinking beyond his own ship’s fate.

He was hearing the same philosophy spouted by Parkoda, the same description of what the Krall planned for the entire human race, using us to cull their weakest links, saving the best genes for their long-term selective breeding program. What we were seeing was their “Best in Breed.” Selected for specific traits, but intelligence wasn’t a top priority.

If deeper raids into human space were about to start in the more populated parts of the Rim or even New Colonies, there was a big influx of captives soon headed for Koban.

Mirikami knew with utter certainty that the Hub government, when they learned of the new threat, would first try to negotiate, to offer treaties and make concessions, though they certainly would increase defenses. Those defenses would be mostly limited to the Navy at first, because the Ladies in power would not like armies, necessarily composed mostly of males.

They would be slow to create a ground warfare capability until it was forced on them, and even then, it would rarely take on an offensive role. “Reason over rage,” was the saying that had prevailed after men had all but died off.

He had the wry thought that there were new guns in town, and the schoolmarms were toting rulers and erasers to hold them at bay. The boys were still standing in the corner, placed there by the women three hundred years ago.

He wondered how the Krall would respond if we went all out against them, as many individual governments would have supported three hundred years ago. Nukes, chemical warfare, and certainly biological attacks back then. We probably wouldn’t win that sort of war either. The technology Mirikami had already seen must be just a glimpse of what the Krall had available.

They claimed to have destroyed seventeen other intelligent civilizations, and Parkoda had said a few were much more advanced than humans were now. They had perhaps twenty five thousand years of fighting and weaponry development, or weapon borrowing to their credit. They might like their killing simple and personal, but they wouldn’t have to keep it that way.

Jake was of course recording this rant by Telour. The Captain was going to have to play this for the Board of Directors, to make them see how important it was to find some way to get this information back to Human Space.

They also needed some sort of plan, or strategy for themselves, to guide them when they reached Koban. A fighting chance was better than no chance. He’d have to talk with the Chairfem alone, she had a sharp mind, and he’d seen her maneuver the Board to get votes she wanted from them.

Telour had started to wind down. It must be grand to awe an intelligent animal with your exploits, but in the end, it was still just a contemptible animal listening to him brag.

“I am honored to hear you speak of the Krall’s history. If more of my people would learn from the Krall, we may find ways to become a more worthy opponent for you. We of course don’t want to lose this war, because that means death for us. But perhaps we can delay the end and gain honor if we learn new ways to fight you.”

Telour studied the smaller human a moment. “You may be the clan leader of humans I seek after all.”

Gee, Mirikami wondered. Was that flattery for a new pet?

“Facing honorable death in combat that you cannot win is a thing we respect, even of animals. If humans as a pack do well in the testing, we will have a measure of how to test ourselves when we fight you. Should one warrior face sixteen humans, or sixty-four of you? What weapons will we allow for our novices? What weapons will we give humans to use?

“We need such information to follow the Path more efficiently. Any Krall that finds a way to do this more quickly will earn many breeding points. I will become a warrior known for that.” He said that with assurance.

“When Parkoda departs on the next raid, soon after we arrive, I will remain behind on Koban so I can give rights over the human clans to true leaders. If the leaders will make humans fight better they will be rewarded. They must also meet some of Koban’s natural dangers in our tests, but they will always fail in that. It is expected, because even the Krall seeking the fastest Path have so far failed many of Koban’s tests.”

That revelation certainly caught Mirikami’s interest. They knew next to nothing about where they were going. It appeared the Krall themselves found the world deadly.

Well wasn’t that just great!

Prison breaks might be pointless, and fatal even if they succeeded. He remembered Parkoda had said we needed protection there by the Krall.

Telour renewed his earlier offer to Mirikami. “If I can make humans fight better than they do now, and the advantage is found in Parkoda’s prize, but discovered by me and not him, I will take a larger part of his reward points from him. This can happen only after he has departed on a new raid, unable to claim credit for my plan. A human leader that helps this happen will have advantages granted that only I will control.

“Because I will stay behind on Koban this is a risk to my future status. However, the tests go very bad now, because combat for a novice is too easy against you, and almost none have lost. If you humans can change how you fight, and prove you measure above slaves or meat animals, our Path will be shorter, and I will gain high status.”

Mirikami’s first though was, I may be about to step in it right now! Nevertheless, he didn’t think being classified as a slave race or meat animal by the Krall would improve human survival chances more than fighting them would. Moreover, going down fighting would be his choice.

“My people may not accept a single leader, and they might divide into separate clans as do the Krall. There will be some that follow a leader that will encourage cooperative fighting and some few individuals might chose personal combat. Those individual human fighters will not last very long, as you have seen.

“The advantages you offered me must actually be given to the fighters, more than to their leader, or they will not follow him very long. I tell you truly, that humans will think this way. They will not respect a leader who sends them to risk death, but keeps all of the advantages for himself. This must be a decision of those humans that fight as to what they will consider an advantage. Not even their leader can decide this for them.”

Telour wasn’t about to let an animal set terms for a negotiation. “I can send many humans against our warriors if I want these tests. I can use sixty-four, a hundred twenty eight, or even more humans per test if needed. This will be possible soon, when we have enough humans to waste this way. They will either fight or die. I seek a leader of them that tells them how to work together to fight better, to win more often. That leader will deserve the reward of immunity from combat.”

“Telour, I know we will have to do as you force us to do. However, let me explain how humans think and will act, because I understand my people as the Krall do not. I know that what I suggest can lead to more efficient use of human fighters.”

“I will listen. I can measure your words with those I heard from humans on Koban.”

“Thank you.”

Mirikami, pulling at his lower lip, considered briefly how to continue, hoping he could think fast enough while walking along this damned tight rope. It was obvious the Krall didn’t know much about what motivated humans and what didn’t. Perhaps he could improvise well enough to work out a deal Telour clearly wanted, but couldn’t lower himself to ask an ‘animal’ to make with him.

“Telour, simply telling humans they need to fight as a team will not achieve your goal in an efficient manner. Humans have not fought each other for more than two of our generations, so we need to relearn how to fight as an army. We do have a Space Navy, but it isn’t large and they do not fight on the surface of planets. It is a fact that we once fought each other with armies of millions. You must have heard this history from those on Koban. It is a part of our history that we have tried to change, to not repeat.”

“This they claimed,” Telour admitted, “But most of us believed they were lying. None could fight well now, and they died easily when we made them try.”

“My people have not lost the inner spirit to fight, which nature gave to us, and our last wars were not so long ago that we can’t relearn how to fight other humans. However, we need different ways of fighting against you. Human fighting against human was easier than it will be against the Krall. Human soldiers need training, as you give to your novice warriors. New tactics are needed to counter your physical advantages over us. Perhaps we find will ways to trick or trap your novice warriors, ways to get them to make mistakes so that we can defeat them.

“This is not something we can learn in a few days, but your Path is many thousands of our years old. Is it inefficient for you to give us enough time to make ourselves into the skilled enemy you want? Is it more efficient to kill us, as we are, not moving along your Great Path at all?” At least the alien was still listening.

“You know that you will ultimately win, but if most of humanity believes they can win, they will fight long and hard.

“I think humanity will become a resourceful enemy, fighting you for hundreds of years. Patience by the Krall would be rewarded, and my people will live longer, something that I want. The journey on your Great Path may be shortened if you allow us the time and knowledge to fight you the best way we can.”

Buying time was all he could think to suggest for humanity. Moreover, it may come at the expense of the captives on this ship and those already on Koban. They were probably as good as dead anyway.

Except, he reflected, who the hell am I to try to set this up for all of humanity? He was a male from New Honshu, already carrying the blame of his society for their last human disaster. Was he now setting the terms for the next? It’s a good thing I won’t be around to take the blame for this one, he thought.

The Krall considered his suggestion. “I can speak of this with my clan, but only my leaders will decide if Graka clan will do this. The other clans may accept this delay or not. If some of your fighters can defeat our novices soon, and perhaps even some of the more experience warriors, the decision would be certain.

“If you can do this on Koban, it will help us decide if humans are worthy of the honor of combat. But the humans and clan leaders on your other worlds will never know what you learned there.” He stated with finality.

Mirikami offered an alternative. “If we are successful, there is a way for humans on our other worlds to learn what we discover about fighting you.”

“Understand, none of you will ever leave Koban,” Telour told him. “That world will become our new home world when we are great enough to take it and make it so. We will never risk it by sending any captive back to tell your people where it is located.”

This sounded like a showstopper to Mirikami. “If the captives will all be killed on Koban they will never be motivated to do what you want. I would not try to lead them if death is their only reward from the Krall.”

Telour actually seemed bemused for an instant. “If you complete the task I ask, we have no need to kill those that are still alive at the end. Why would we dishonor ourselves and the agreement the clans already offered to the captives?”

“What have the clans offered them?” Mirikami asked.

“You do not know of this of course. The captives on Koban now select which humans face our warriors. The clans offered an agreement to leave them alive when testing ends, if they would make the selections of human fighters more efficient. Before, humans would try to hide in the compound, and we had to find them and force them to go fight.

“As a reward to the humans that fought, if they kill a single warrior on a Testing Day, all surviving humans for that test are given immediate immunity from facing combat again. It was intended to make them work together to kill at least one of the novice warriors. It has not worked as well as we want.”

“When will you leave Koban, and what happens to the surviving captives then?” Mirikami wanted to know.

“When we depart Koban to start our war, the captives will remain in the compound with what food your humans can grow there now. The dome is protected by an outer wall and electric fence, and you will have the same weapons you were given to fight us with in the tests. However, soon the animals of Koban will make ways to enter the compound, and you will start to die when they find you.

“Many herd animals will try to kill you if you are found in the open. They will treat you as a possible predator of their young. The greatest threat is from the real predators. You will not escape them. The walls we build last only half of a birthing cycle before needing repair. Only with weapons and repairs do we keep the Koban animals outside.

“We will return to Koban when we can live on our future home world without walls, and weapons always in our hands. This will happen when the Great Path makes our bodies as swift and strong as Kobani predators.”

Damn, Mirikami wondered. What in Hell are we going to do if even the Krall can’t live there safely?

Nevertheless, he said, “Although I know nothing about Koban, if we could repair the walls to keep dangerous animas away we might survive. What if humans live there a long time and you find us living on your world when you return?”

As he’d seen Parkoda do, Telour tossed his head back and emitted a sort of snort. Mirikami hadn’t detected a trace of humor in him or Parkoda previously, but his next words convinced him he’d just seen at least a snicker, if not a laugh.

“Then you would deserve our chosen world, and will probably make us leave.” He snorted twice again. Apparently, this notion was a real rib tickler.

Somehow pulling himself together, he added what for him must have been a hilarious punch line. “It will be many of your years before we return, many of our breeding cycles must pass. I think we will find not even a piece of human bone within the crumbled walls.”

Yes, Mirikami sensed, this Krall is a regular laugh riot.

“Now that you know we will not kill all of you that remain after the testing is complete, how were you going to tell those on your colony worlds the way to fight us?”

“Telour, you have already used a method that worked to preserve this intact ship of captives, which Parkoda said was a rare thing. We surrendered quickly and did not resist because of a broadcast radio warning of whom we were facing, and that we could not win because of your warrior’s speed and power. This was a warning recorded by a human captive named Mavray Doushan, already on Koban.”

That detail proved to be something Telour had not known. “This human helped me learn your language of Standard, soon after he was captured. He was not a leader but he had immunity that I awarded to him for helping me to increase my status. Eventually, some other humans killed him in secret because he spoke with me. I learned who they were and I challenged the humans that honor allowed me to kill.

“I did not know of this recorded warning. It must be a secret used by Parkoda and the Tanga clan to help them capture prizes such as this ship. This is good to learn. I believe you thought I did know this, so it was not offered as a trade for advantage. However, if I gain from the information I will return some advantage.”

“Thank you for your offer. I was proposing a similar radio signal, made by some human that other humans will trust and believe. It can tell humans of our worlds who you are, and that you are making war on all of humanity. It will not be trusted at first, but after time and repetition it will be believed.”

He remembered something said by Telour, which he should have asked about earlier. “You said there were great weapons we can’t use because it would damage your Path. What are they and what happens if humans use one?”

“We have faced great weapons many times,” Telour answered. “And we have used some of them against enemies. Our birth world was destroyed by a single Olt’kitapi bomb. Other humans that I told this story to thought that it must be what you call an antimatter bomb, which humans do not know how to make.

“We forbid any weapons that use radiation to damage our breeders. We also ban weapons that kill many thousands in a large area at one time, where many valuable breeders are lost no matter how well they fight. There are forbidden weapons that kill through biology that passes from warrior to warrior, or chemicals or gases that kill many.

“We have met beams that make atoms separate from each other to make dust and gas. One human on Koban said those could be quantum weapons that change how matter holds together. We have an ancient tool from another race that can do this on a small scale. Some of the captured weapons we cannot make ourselves, but have many old captured ones to use on enemies, and some great weapons we have only seen when used against us. We destroyed every world that used those weapons, and permitted none to escape alive.

“If a great weapon is used there will be a second chance for other worlds of that race. But we will destroy all life on the world that used it, and move to fight on a new world.”

That was just as bad as Mirikami had feared. Explicit warnings would have to be included in the message about weapons of mass destruction. However, it was inevitable that someone would eventually use nukes and suffer the consequence.

“Telour, I need to discuss these matters with the people aboard this ship, and soon after arrival with the people already on Koban. We need to learn what we can of your skills, to find ways to reduce your physical advantages, to win enough times to do as you intend, and enough times for humans to believe they can win. My people will hate you, so they will try hard to learn to remove the slowest and weakest warriors from your gene pool, and any other Krall they can kill as well.”

“Good! This is a thing other races have tried to do, but only some were partly successful. From those that fought well, many steps were made along the Path. I need to study our records, but perhaps this is the only time the type of weapons allowed was talked about before a war started. The most successful races learned what we permit in war as they fought us. It cost them whole worlds to learn, and that was inefficient for our purpose.

“Few enemies believe we are willing to allow them to try to kill so many of our youngest warriors. Like humans, they believed all lives should be preserved, even property and territory. However, we can make many more cubs than we need. This was why we fought clan to clan before we stole the stars and found the Path. We have always had too many cubs to feed and teach.”

Mirikami found it surreal himself. Nevertheless, learning how to kill Krall had just become his new life’s work, even if it was a short career. The Krall did love to boast, and there was a long history to learn. Even if they didn’t sleep, he doubted any of the translators would put up with questions constantly.

“Telour, to efficiently advance your plan, and so that your valuable time is not wasted by many questions, is it permitted for us to ask the other two translators about the Krall’s great victories, and how you have followed your Great Path?”

“I will instruct Kapdol and Dorkda to answer any questions from humans.” Then Telour extended his left inner ear only, showing he was ambidextrous, tapped on and spoke silently and briefly into his shoulder com button.

Afterwards, he casually reminded Mirikami what stakes he was playing for personally. “You will not tell any other Krall of how I plan to take advantage at a cost to Parkoda. The other two translators are not of Graka or Tanga clans, but all seek their own advantages. If they learn of this plan, and speak to Parkoda for a price, I will find a new human leader to use, and you will face a final challenge.”

“Of course.” Oh well. I knew this wasn’t low stakes poker.

The next hour passed with little conversation with Telour. However, there was crew to talk with concerning more frequent duty rotations, no more than two hours if directly being observed by a Krall. He considered doing away with some duties, since Jake could monitor, and advise them of problems.

These calls were made on a normal com unit, since it appeared the Krall were unaware of the transducers the crew could use, and those were often used crew to crew via Jake. The Captain could call anyone’s transducer from a com unit, but since this was the most secure system they had, and was a key link to Jake, he decided it was best that the Krall never suspect its existence. Smaller ships didn’t have this capability, and very few medium sized transport ships had an expensive AI. Interworld had introduced them on their newer ships as a personnel cost savings for Rim routes.

One of his first equipment checks had been to check the two Trap fields. They each held the maximum energy tachyons they were capable of catching. He didn’t know what they could do with them, but having them gave him comfort.

He tried contacting Doctor Fisher, but her com unit advised she had asked not to be disturbed. It was the same for Doctor Martin. They probably had a longer meeting after he and Noreen had gone to bed.

The hell with it, he decided. They weren’t under their own Jump control, and he could be paged anywhere on the ship. They didn’t require anyone on the Bridge most of the time. If Telour wanted to stand there twenty-four hours a day, he could do it alone.

“Telour, because we are under tow by Parkoda in a Jump Hole, and we have no control, it isn’t necessary for anyone to be here to run the ship. I have duties below that I should perform.”

“You are under Ra Ka Endo,” was all he said in reply.

Mirikami notified the Drive Room he was leaving the bridge unattended, left a com message for Noreen, deactivated the two command consoles and left.

15. Strategy

He took the lift to Deck 8, planning to add a hot meal to his power bars. He idly inquired aloud if he was being watched. Jake told him he wasn’t.

“Jake, I want you to brief all of the crew today, but only when they are awake, that the Bridge will not be manned most of the time, and they should page or Link to me if I’m needed. I know that you heard what I said to Telour as I left, so contact Noreen or me if we need to help you make a decision. I want you to play the same new protocol recording for the crew as you did for Noreen, after explaining it to them. Understand?

“Yes Sir.”

“In addition, inform each of the crew by transducer when they are being monitored by any Krall, and say when it ends, if they are awake. Understand?”

“Does that include direct observation as well sir?”

He thought a moment. “For now, yes, but if it becomes too redundant, I may change that.”

When the lift arrived, Jake promptly told him a Krall was standing off to his left. Before exiting, he amended his instructions, “Add the uniform color when you tell us this.”

“Black, Sir.”

He stepped out, glancing left as he did. Not a translator, a warrior.

An half hour later, his appetite satisfied, he was talking with several passengers, expressing his condolences over the losses of their colleagues, but deflected questions about what the Krall had planned for them next. He had learned from them that the Board promised to hold an open meeting later that day, to make an announcement and a briefing.

Noreen used Jake to Link with him while he had a second coffee, told him she was dressing and would join him shortly. As he waited for Noreen, Doctor Fisher walked into the dining area, arm linked with Dillon. She’d heard his com message to meet, so they joined him for coffee.

Fisher asked several scientists still sitting at the table if they would please excuse themselves while she shared some private words with the Captain, then waited for them to walk away.

“Captain, I hope you had a bit of rest. When I called the Bridge I was automatically routed to the Drive Room, and they told me where I could find you. I roused Dillon out of bed to join us. The Board has a bit of news from the consortium,” she patted Dillon’s hand, “and I wanted to speak to you in advance about our proposals.”

Just then, Noreen turned the corner of the alcove. Dillon’s face brightened instantly, and he waved her over. They exchanged greetings, and Dillon fetched a large coffee for Noreen. The Captain decided this small group appeared innocent enough not to attract Krall attention. They were alone in the sizable twenty-table room.

Nevertheless, Mirikami looked out to see if the Krall near the lift earlier had moved to observe the partitioned dining area. He wasn’t visible, but asked aloud “I wonder if that Krall I saw earlier is still in the main lounge?”

“Yes Sir, he is” was Jake’s reply.

Making an affirmative head bob so the others knew the answer, he added, “Good, let me know if he or any blue suited Krall moves near us.”

He looked grimly around the table. “I’m afraid I have things to tell you as well, and it’s more terrible news than I believe any of you might have expected.” They were about to ask, but he held up a restraining hand.

“Please hear me out, no interruption, because I know we are not being monitored, but that can end at any moment. This is bad not just for us as captives, but also for humanity. Our species has nearly recovered from the disaster of the Gene War. We may not survive what the Krall plan to do.

“Oddly, the information was given freely by Telour. Some of it is backed by what we heard from Parkoda. Their racial objectives are achieved best if we actually know that they plan to slowly wipe us out, because in that case we will fight them as long and as hard as we can. To understand the basis for their racial goal, I’ll find a way let you hear a recording of Telour’s rambling for you.

“The Krall have been disappointed at how poorly the Koban captives are at fighting, when forced to fight individually, as Krall warriors prefer to fight. Telour, when he learned to speak Standard from those captives, heard about our past wars. He wants us to organize to fight their warriors more effectively on the ground. Something we’ve largely forgotten how to do. Damned if I know how a Spacer like me can help us do that, but that’s one of the things we jointly have to figure out. I will tell you that if we don’t find group tactics to fight them better, we’ll all die as individuals in combat testing anyway.

“This has far more importance than our own personal survival. We captives, here and on Koban, need to prove we can learn to fight well enough to beat their youngest warriors, at least often enough to make a protracted war possible. That’s a counter intuitive concept you have to grasp, that the conquest cannot be too easy for their warriors, nor proceed too fast. They have followed what they call the Great Path for improving themselves as warriors through selective breeding, and they have done that for perhaps twenty five thousand of our years.

“There are two alternatives if we can’t prove we can fight them effectively, and both would be worse in my opinion. If we captives can’t demonstrate an ability to fight them well enough, their clan leaders are close to a decision where a small part of our race might be retained as slaves, to build things for them. They would kill off the excess population. Or, and this really shows how low they regard us to be, we could become cattle for them; fortunately we are bad tasting meat animals, as Telour complained.”

That produced a mixture of stunned and sickened looks.

“Of far less importance, Telour has a personal agenda to undermine Parkoda’s success deriving from our capture. He proposed an agreement with me to organize the captives on this ship so they will learn how to fight in larger groups. Perhaps to operate like army squads or companies were trained to do. We would also be expected to promote this tactic with the other Koban captives.

“If Telour achieved this goal, using someone aboard this ship, it would steal status from Parkoda because he would have overlooked the opportunity. Telour’s plan depends on Parkoda quickly departing on a new raid without learning about this project.

“Entirely on his own, I assure you, Telour has decided that I am the human he believes can lead the rest of you to do what he wants. He makes no distinction between a Spacer and a soldier. I don’t know how to fight battles on the ground, outside of what I’ve seen in Tri-Vid documentaries or read in old books. However, I am convinced that if we fail to fight the Krall better than we do as individuals, the alternatives for our species will be truly horrific.

“We need to learn everything we can about them, and we have perhaps just a few more days to do that here on the ship. An advantage we have aboard ship is that Telour told the other translators to talk to us about Krall history and fighting methods, and they do love to talk about themselves and their exploits.

“But be very careful. If word reaches Parkoda of Telour’s plan, I’m not going to see what happens after that, nor probably will anyone that allowed that information to leak. But considering what the Krall have in mind for every one of us, we all may have to fight or die one way or another.”

He placed his hands palm down on the table, and waited for their reaction.

Fisher shook her head in dismay, “I had a suspicion, Captain, based on what Dillon told us Parkoda had said, but it sounded much like a blowhard’s exaggerated claims of superiority. To be honest, they strike me somewhat like barbarians, at times not overly bright, despite the technology they control. If our species had twenty five thousand years of space travel and exposure to so many alien civilizations, I’d expect us to have left our war like ways long behind.”

“Captain, is it possible they have stolen or copied all of their technology?” Dillon asked.

“Dillon, I didn’t hear either Parkoda or Telour brag about what the Krall built or invented, just about the smarter species they wiped out. They took a lot of technology from a race they called Olt’kitapi, a highly advanced spacefaring species that appear to have actually found the Krall in their early history. Surely, they took more from other races they say they destroyed. I don’t know if they invented anything that we’ve seen them use.

Dillon had another point, Based on how you were able to convince Parkoda to relax movement restrictions on us so soon, and the JK’s unsuspected help, he preferred not saying Jake’s name aloud, they seem rather naďve in dealing with a race they openly plan to exterminate. Aside from being willing to kill any one of us for little or no cause, they have shown more latitude and less suspicion than any human captors would. Does that seem smart and experienced to any of you?”

Noreen had an observation. “Perhaps they are that confident because we’re clearly inferior physically, and they actually want us to fight back more effectively. Why worry about what we might try to do against them? If we kill off some of their weakest or slowest, it’s what they want anyway. I wonder about the dumbest warriors they have. Were those already weeded out and we just aren’t seeing the brightest on this raid?”

“I don’t believe so. The greatest achievements they claim through those thousands of years are their own physical abilities. They score breeding points to allow the best fighters to produce the most offspring. I don’t think they select for the smartest warriors, just the most deadly, and Telour’s history of his species described only contempt for the higher intelligence of the Olt’kitapi and other defeated races.

“An example, I think, is the fact that Parkoda made us catch a maximum energy tachyon, at least the most powerful that we are capable of trapping. At the time he didn’t know we couldn’t Jump in the same manner they do, into a faster higher dimension in Tachyon Space. I think they are now oblivious to the fact that we were never ordered to dump that energy, and we actually have two such tacs, one in each Trap. If we were suicidal, we could pull their ship with us into a Jump Hole, open our Traps and we’d both disintegrate in Tachyon Space.”

“You’ve spent more time listening and talking with them Captain. Do you think we can extrapolate from this group to most of the Krall?” asked Fisher.

Mirikami shrugged. “We’ve had too little contact with them to generalize, but the racial history I was told is consistent with how they act. We need to speak with Kapdol and Dorkda, the other two translators we have access to, while we can do that in isolation on the ship, then compare notes. However, the four of us can’t cover everything ourselves here and now, so let’s move to a different subject while we can. You said you also have things to tell me Doctor?”

Maggi nodded yes. “It will sound ridiculously anti climatic after what we’ve just learned, but the people that have to make decisions and devise a strategy are important at least for our near future. Last night we nominated and elected two new members to the Board of Directors. This not only restores the Board to nine, but rather helps shift the political center in a more liberal and open minded direction.”

Turning to her left, she smiled and placed her hand on Dillon’s shoulder. “Allow me to present our first ever male member.”

A blushing but grinning Dillon bobbed his head in acknowledgement.

“Congratulations, Gentle Sir,” beamed Noreen. She reached over and warmly took his hands in hers. A simple gesture, but it brought back the same tingle to his nether regions; proving that end of the species scenarios couldn’t subdue primeval urges.

“My congratulations as well Dillon,” added Mirikami, standing to shake his hand.

Then asking, as he sat down, “Who might the other new member be Madam Chairfem?”

Postponing her reply she said, “Captain, I doubt we’ll be allowed to stay aboard your wonderful ship once we arrive at Koban, yet I fully expect we will become a lot more conspiratorial in coming days. Won’t you please call me Maggi, as a friend?”

“Certainly I will Maggi, and I’d like in private conversations, such as this, if you would call me Tet. I think publicly you and I should remain Madam Chairfem and Captain, to enforce our positions of authority with one another’s respective groups, particularly after we reach Koban.”

She agreed. “I think we’ll each need as much authority as we can muster, Tet. However, to answer your question, our other new member is a remarkable Gracious Lady from Alders world, who I’ve known and collaborated with in my research for decades.

“Her name is Aldry Anderfem, a granddaughter of Claronce Anderson, the former President of Alders world, holding office when the Gene War came and ended his term and his life. Her wealthy family is descended from the founding fathers for the colony, and her first name is derived from the planet’s name.

“You might recall you’ve met her, she sat at the Captain’s table a time or two for dinner, once by my side.”

“Yes, I do recall the Lady, and of speaking with her several times. I told her I used to fly a route with Interworld to her home years ago, when I was a First Officer. I didn’t make the connection to her grandfather’s name, Anderson, when she said she was from Alders.”

Fisher chuckled, and raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Her grandmother joined the movement on Anders to remove the ‘son’ from old family names, just as women on other Hub worlds were doing then. Using ‘fem’ in place of ‘son,’ and adding it to other words. As if doing that would fix everything that had gone wrong, blaming men for everything.” She shook her head in wonder.

“Aldry’s family members are very well connected Old Colony world Politico’s, a factor that should hold sway with a lot of Hub members of our consortium. Not that anyone’s past influence should really matter now, not where we’re going. She and I agree on many things, both scientific and political.

“I think the Vicechairfem” she emphasized the suffix, “will find her clique’s voting bloc down to a single vote, her own. Her remaining toady, Lady Waldon, is a bandwagon type and I’m driving that wagon now. The good Professor Waldon will normally agree with what the most noted and influential person says; and that will be Aldry. Alternatively, Waldon will vote with the majority, and we have her anyway. Sycophants are tiresome, but it’s my turn to use this one.” She added cynically.

“Whatever we decide is the right course of action, I think we have enough objective, clear thinking people on the Board now. They will mostly vote their own minds; however, there are more open minds on the Board than previously. I’ll be accused of stacking the deck of course, but I think of it as having replaced some of the marked cards.”

“Maggi, did you consider any proposals of how to forcefully handle a situation where individuals or groups plan any actions that could get a lot of people killed?”

“Honestly Tet, we aren’t very good at that sort of thinking and planning, and Dillon reminded us that we probably have only a short time left on the Flight of Fancy. We expected to spend weeks traveling to this Koban place, and now it may be only another three days. We decided to leave it up to you, for the time left on the ship. I imagine we will find some organization in place among the captives already there.”

“Alright, I doubt anything will come up anyway. Nevertheless, I realize I haven’t given enough thought to how leaving the Flight of Fancy would affect us. If the Krall destroy her or power her down fully, or simply keep us too far from her, we can’t use Jake for information and communications as the crew can now. Noreen, you had some training on Jake’s hardware, any ideas on keeping in contact with him?”

“Yes Sir, but not good ones” she conceded. “Our transducer implants have about a three to seven mile transmission range outside the ship, based on if we are inside or outside. However, we can hear Jake a lot farther away than that, up to thirty miles line of sight. Except, outside the hull involves radio signals, which the Krall could detect and not allow. It’s possible but unlikely we could run a hard line from the Fancy to that dome, assuming they keep her in one piece. We need her essentially whole and close by, once we are on the ground.”

“I’ll make an ‘efficiency’ type suggestion to Parkoda when I can,” Mirikami proposed. “We may convince them the Flight of Fancy is useful for them, such as an efficient way to support their captives, providing shelter, or food preparation. They could land her at their camp, disable the Jump engines, thrusters, and radios for example, but leave the fusion reactor active to power her. This is Parkoda’s ‘prize,’ so keeping it for show might appeal to his ego.”

The meeting proceeded to discuss which scientists should approach the two other translators, and what they should ask them.

Mirikami suggested someone be tasked to inquire about Koban as soon as possible, because the Krall themselves apparently found it dangerous, and were unworried about a human escape attempt. He told them Telour said they intended to make Koban into their home world in the future, once they could survive there without weapons.

Just as they started talking about whom among the ship’s crew or passenger complement might have any military background, Mirikami and Noreen suddenly and simultaneously waved the discussion quiet. Jake’s ever calm voice sounded in their ears.

“Sir, a translator Krall in blue uniform has arrived on this deck from deck 7, by the central stairwell. He spoke with the warrior in black, and both Krall are coming towards you.”

“We have company, don’t look around.” Mirikami cautioned.

The two Krall silently glided into sight at the alcove’s opening, where the warrior halted, and the blue uniform approached them. Mirikami couldn’t tell if this was Telour or one of the other two translators. The typical “they all look alike” syndrome.

The Krall apparently had a similar problem. “Is a human clan leader one of you?”

Mirikami stood, and looked into the Krall’s chest. “I am Captain Mirikami, the clan leader of the humans on the ship.”

It tapped its shoulder com, and its lips rippled briefly in silence, one extended ear cupped towards the button. He pivoted and was about to leave when Mirikami called to him.

“Sir, am I to follow you, or to return to the Bridge?”

It turned back. “Telour asked where the human clan leader is, but did not order you follow me. What is the Bridge?”

“The Bridge is the human name for where the ship is commanded, and where Telour was located when I left there to find food.”

“I will know what the Bridge is now.” He seemed about to leave again, when Mirikami decided to test Telour’s instructions.

“Sir, may we humans know your name and your clan’s great name? We wish to learn about your history, your battles, and victories. Telour said we could ask you.”

There was a slight straightening of his legs, if in pride or offense, the humans couldn’t say. He answered readily enough, but sounded defensive. “I am Dorkda, of the Maldo clan. My clan is young, only but a finger taken from the Great Dorbo clan, our ally. The Dorbo found Koban. My clan history is less, but it grows and we made the first camp on Koban. We will return and claim our land when the Path allows.”

A new clan, though Mirikami. He was apparently sensitive about their short history. Perhaps a bit of fawning can keep him talking.

“We are honored to learn of your clan, and of what you can tell us. If we learn enough of the Krall and your Great Path, we humans may understand how you came to be so powerful, how you spread through the galaxy.” Was that butter enough he wondered?

Repeating the slight stiffening of his squat bowed legs, he boasted, “When Maldo clan completes the next leap on the Great Path, if it is hundred or thousand birth cycles, we are promised honor of first clan to return to Koban. We will meet it again and win, using only talons, teeth, and our new speed.” He was certainly staying true to the Krall stereotype seen so far.

Dillon, keying on the prideful remarks about Koban, sought to get him to say more. “We have learned that Koban will be the home of your race someday. What is wrong that you will leave it for so long?”

That produced an unexpected and nearly fatal reaction. For a moment Dillon thought he was about to die. Dorkda flashed black rimmed red eyes at him hatefully, arms reaching out with talons fully extended. Even the warrior behind him stooped into a lower crouch, talons extended.

However, his eyes locked on the tattoo below Dillon’s throat. He slowly lowered his arms and retracted the talons, but still glared with laser intensity. The words that followed proved his anger hadn’t really been aimed at the human.

“You are less than a novice and know nothing. I will see Koban kill you as it killed my cubs, my mates, and many in our finger clan. We leave because we are not ready for the world we want. If we take that world with weapons, and make it softer, this is not a victory. We will follow the Path longer. Then we will meet the animals there as they are. We will be faster when we return.”

He relaxed more as he spoke, and so did the warrior, who not understanding what was said had merely responded to Dorkda’s actions.

Dillon, sure he had come extremely close to not living to hear that reply, took a deep breath. “Thank you for explaining.”

The Krall abruptly spun around, and rapidly strode around the corner of the alcove, leaving them all frozen in place for a moment. The warrior Krall departed at a more leisurely pace, taking a final look back at them as he rounded the same corner.

Waiting a few more seconds, Dillon heard Noreen ask aloud, “I wonder if both Krall left us alone?”

When she nodded her head yes, they all relaxed again.

“Damn, Dillon,” Maggi remarked, “you sure know how to charm them. Let’s not ask that one about his Koban experiences again. I thought he was going to tear you a new asshole and make you eat the old one.” The remark garnered a few chuckles, but it had been a close brush with death.

“We’ll have to be careful how we ask the other translator about the place. Tet, did Telour seem that touchy when he talked about leaving Koban?”

“No, he seemed positive they would live there at some future date. I think he said many of our years, and many of their breeding cycles. That sounds like Krall generations, but we don’t know how long in our years a generation is for them. He sounded calm and assured that they would return, and not at all angry at pulling out for so long.”

“I’ll seek out the third translator myself,” Maggi promised. “I’ll ease into the subject of Koban. Dorkda and his clan evidently tried to live on Koban and got their heads handed to them by something native there. He said animals, but they call us that too, so I wonder if it’s intelligent life? Whatever it is, it’s tougher than they are. No wonder they don’t expect us to escape their walled camp.” She shrugged.

“Tet, do you have anything more to tell Dillon or me? I certainly don’t for you or Noreen.”

“Not right now Maggi. I think we need to spend a couple of days gathering all the intelligence we can, and compile a list of what we learn. I’ll participate in that open meeting you planned for today, and when you decide on a service for our dead, I’ll ask the crew to join you.

“Oh! Wait,” He added. “I do have something for you.” He’d let this slip from his mind for a moment.

“Jake, create a recording of me and Telour talking on the Bridge earlier today in the classical music audio section, labeled as ‘History Chat.’ “

“Yes Sir.”

“All of you listen to that and pull out any detail I forgot to mention. Before you share that recording with anyone, edit out the deal Telour is trying to make with me. I don’t want that dangerous information shared with everyone on board, and I don’t want other deals secretly made if they know one might be possible. We all have word to spread and questions to formulate, so I think we need to get started.”

They each assented, and parted ways, except not completely parted however. Mirikami waited for a lift to go down to talk to the rest of his crew. He noticed that Noreen had Dillon by the arm, saying something he couldn’t quite hear.

When his lift door closed, he wondered why they were going up. The Bridge or small galley would be uncomfortably near Telour. Then he realized Noreen’s quarters were the only reasonable destination. He hoped they didn’t forget entirely what they were supposed to be doing.

16. Heaven and Hell

Dillon knew their situation called for rational thought and actions that might help them find a way out of their predicament. However, a few minutes ago he had faced and survived a near brush with gruesome death. The effects of adrenaline still coursed through his body, and he felt more alive than he ever had.

Noreen linked her arm through his and leaned to whisper in his ear, “Want to play the Stud and the Princess game? I never got that long heavenly ride you promised.” Rationality was definitely no longer on his immediate agenda.

He flashed a lopsided boyish grin, and squeezed her hand, wondering how messy he had left his cabin when he had dressed in a hurry. He saw her press the lift’s “UP” call button. It would be her place then.

The door to her cabin had hardly closed when she was seeking the fasteners on his conservative gray two-piece body suit. He’d selected a sexually neutral suit that morning, expecting a much different sort of day. He expertly spotted her own uniform fasteners and had them well started before she had his top’s releases located.

Her upper uniform peeled away smoothly from her golden skin, revealing that the Smart Fabric wasn’t needed to support her beautifully proportioned breasts. He cupped the right one with his left hand as she pulled off his other sleeve. He placed a thumb on the large dark areola, moving it in a small orbit.

His detachable suit top fell away, and she looked up at him with a hot sultry look, a more serious than playful expression on her face. They paused in their undressing ritual for a time, to press their torsos together, her breasts pressed against his hard chest, kissing with fervent hunger.

Noreen loosened the waist front of his pants and slid her hand down. His gasp was gratifying, and she returned it with her own moan of delight as his thumb was replaced by his tongue. They separated enough to peel and step out of their remaining clothes, but skipped the fantasy game Noreen had suggested. At least for the first two times they made love.

It was nearly two hours before they had a moment for words other than passion or role-playing. A slight sheen of perspiration was all that clothed their bodies when they rested for time. Limbs entwined, they talked at first of trivial things, places they each had visited. Inevitably, reality tried to force its way back into their world.

“We have to start on our part of collecting information,” She sighed. “And it’s time to listen to that audio.”

Reaching down to stroke her lightly he suggested, “Listen to this idea first.” Then shared a little fantasy with her he thought she might enjoy. In reply, Noreen rolled to straddle him with a devilish smile. Apparently, there was time for another relapse from the real world.

A vigorous bit of exercise later and sated for the moment, Noreen tossed her head up, flinging her long hair away from Dillon so that it fell down her back. She dismounted her “slave boy” in their little fantasy, and she permitted him to roll her onto her side, his front to her back. He continued to make idle touches and caresses, lightly kissing her shoulders and neck through her long black tresses. This continued to stimulate her gently, though his hardness was gradually relaxing against her backside.

That was extremely nice, but she wanted to share with him how she had felt earlier, why she had needed him so urgently.

“Dillon, I was terrified when that damn thing nearly decided to kill you, for simply asking a question it found offensive to its murderous sensibilities. I can’t explain it, but after it was over I wanted to be with you more than just for the fun romp we had originally planned, and I wanted you right away.

“I was frightened for you and also for myself, and I needed more than casual social sex. Had you said you were too busy right now I’d have invoked my Lady’s Rights, ordering you to perform.” She laughed at the old joke. Laws had emancipated males from obligatory reproductive sex a generation ago.

Dillon chuckled as well. “I was just as needy. I think it’s a human quality that when confronted with your mortality, the reproductive drive takes over your mind and body. I might have been the first male accused of rape in three hundred years.”

“No danger there, my Gentle Sir. I was in no mood play the prim Lady. I was wet and ready to get naked with you in that alcove, bent over a table if you wanted. Hmm

, I believe I may experience that rape you mentioned.” She had noticed his erection had ceased its decline, and was clearly rebuilding its former splendor.

It was another thirty minutes before their consciences allowed that nagging sense of duty to intrude for good. Dillon pulled out, kissing her softly. “We had better shower and dress, before Maggi or the Captain sends Telour to remind us of what we are really supposed to be doing.”

“I suppose you’re right. We had better shower separately or we won’t get out and dried without another pleasant delay. You go first and I’ll see if I can find where we may have kicked our clothes when we were on the floor.”

Thankfully, Smart Fabric didn’t wrinkle or even stain, since they had lain on Dillon’s suit at least once. A damp cloth was all that was needed on the rapid dry material.

Noreen showered as Dillon dressed. While waiting for her he used a desk com set to locate the audio recording Jake had saved for them. When she had dried and stepped out nude, golden sleek and lovely, she chose a gray utility uniform from her closet. She dressed rapidly; noting Dillon’s appreciative eyes on her every movement.

“Noreen, you can listen to this through your transducer, but I’ll either have to use the handset or play it on speaker. What if a Krall checks on this cabin while it plays?”

“The Captain doesn’t think Telour cares if we learn more about them, but Jake made that recording without his being aware. You use the one handset, and I’ll have Jake synchronize it with my transducer.

“We do need a better way for you and Maggi to get information from Jake or from us. We have the means to replace malfunctioning transducers, at least some, but I don’t know how many replacements we carry.”

Picking out a possible question directed to him, Jake provided information on queue. “Mam, there are six spare transducers in stores.”

She smiled. “Thank you Jake. I understand we have six spares.” The last was spoken for Dillon’s benefit.

“I’ll bring this up with the Captain later today. It may not matter on Koban, if we can’t maintain contact with the ship, or keep it powered.”

Then they started the dual play back, Dillon on the handset, she by transducer, each paying careful attention.

****

By early evening, several of the braver passengers and crewmembers had accumulated several hours of rambling information from questioning the three translators, and even some information passed via a translator from a low ranking warrior. Once a story started, it usually went on at length, and when it wound down, a fresh question or awestruck comment easily initiated another in a different direction. Jake recorded it all.

For a species bent on conquering every other civilization in the galaxy, the Krall were astoundingly open as they bragged incessantly of their individual killing exploits, clan accomplishments, and racial triumphs. This seemed to be a universal trait displayed by every Krall, based on an absolute confidence that they could not be defeated.

It also helped that they held a low opinion of the technological threat offered by humans, and had been unimpressed by individual human performance against single warriors.

Mirikami spent some time with Telour. Telling him, “We need to find a way to use our numbers to offer a better fight for your warriors. We can discuss that on this ship without Parkoda being aware of what you want us to do. With no warrior or translator listening, the plan will remain your secret.” That last comment was to prod Telour in the right direction.

He took the bait. “You may meet in private, where only I can listen. You need no secrets from me, since you are following my orders. I will stay here on the Bridge, but I want a visual and audio feed of the meeting on the screen here.” He hadn’t quite taken all the bait, but it should be enough.

“Thank you. Our first steps will be to share what we have learned of your race, your history, and how you have fought in the past, and of what problems we will find on Koban. Knowing about the place where we will have to fight is important for us to make plans, and to decide how we will defend ourselves.”

Telour told him more about Koban. “The animals and plants there are too great a threat for you to meet and survive without our protection, so your testing against warriors will be inside a compound that once belonged to a small clan. We have protective walls around it that include a large open space of hills and rocks, with trees and plants of Koban. Some of the native plants and most animals are dangerous to humans. The air is better than what you breathe on your ship, with more

,” he hunted for a word. “What is your language name for the most important gas you need to breathe?”

“Oxygen,” answered Mirikami.

“Yes, oxygen is the word. Koban has more oxygen than on this ship. It is almost one third of the air there. The human captives say they like it because it helps breathing with the higher gravity to tire them.”

“How much higher is the gravity?” Mirikami wanted to know. “That might make it harder for us to fight for long periods.”

“Humans there complain that it is one and a half times what your original home world has. If your ship has been set for standard of the human home world, then Koban is half again as strong. That is even more gravity than the Krall lost home world had. We like this because it makes us stronger.

“The animals are in their home, so they are naturally strong, and all of them are very fast. Their speed can make them deadly for even a Krall. We will breed for that same speed on our Path, and return to this world when it can truly be our own. That will happen when our nerves become like those of the animals on Koban, when we will think and move as fast as they do. We find it strange that humans describe Koban as a bad place they call Hell.”

Holy shit, though Mirikami, this world just keeps sounding worse and worse.

The passengers would not be prepared for the gravity, but as Telour said, the higher oxygen content would help muscles in need of energy.

“We need to gradually start increasing ship gravity, and raise internal oxygen as well, to ease the transition after landing.”

“That could help,” Telour agreed. “We have seen newly arrived humans struggle to stay active in the days after they first land. However, it will take more days than you have left in Jump for these humans to become adapted. Most humans become stronger in two of your months. But some also weaken and die, or kill themselves.”

Mirikami stepped to his call station at his command console and called the Drive Room. Chief Haveram answered. Mirikami described the gravity issue they would soon face, and the increased oxygen level, and told him what he planned to do.

“Captain, the gravity won’t be a problem, although we’ll have to manually adjust the override to go fifty percent high. However, we can’t just jump up the oxygen that much without working on the scrubbers and breaking down the CO2 faster than normal. But we can get started on the oxygen as soon as you give the word, Sir.”

“You have the word now Chief, start raising the oxygen to about thirty percent over the next twenty four hours if you can do it that fast. Wait on any gravity increase until I make an announcement.”

“Aye, Sir.”

Mirikami signed off. Then called up a video feed of the large conference room they had used previously, and manually adjusted the audio so he could hear the slight sounds of the air circulator.

He turned to Telour. “This main screen is the room where we will hold our meeting, and I expect there will be multiple participants offering information about what we have learned from your translators and from you. I expect long discussions about what it all means.

“If you need to speak to us, or if we have questions to ask you that you wish to answer, press and hold this key” he indicted which one, “we will be able to hear you and speak together. Humans don’t make fast decisions like the Krall do, so we will probably come and go to eat, and take a break or use the toilet, therefore not everyone will be there all of the time.”

He was telling him this so his plan to carry out their more serious discussion would be able to proceed with more privacy, and conducted partly outside the conference room. Jake could furnish some data and com Links that Telour couldn’t hear.

Because of that, he had to look up one of his Stewards, Rigson, assigned the primary dispensary duties. They needed several small surgical procedures performed as soon as possible.

17. Under Their Very Noses

Dillon rubbed the tender red spot behind his right ear. Both Fisher and Anderfem had gone first, rank and privilege and so forth for the Ladies, and they were already listening to Jake via their newly implanted transducers.

“Thank you Mister Rigson. That was easier than I expected, and didn’t really feel like surgery. More like getting a shot.”

“You are quite welcome Sir, but don’t rub the little bump or it can get irritated the first day or two. Jake will be testing the connection and setting up your personal profile and then should explain the normal protocol for communicating with him and others on the network.

“As you know,” Rigson reminded him, “Captain Mirikami has also established a new protocol for more discreet contact with our ghostly friend, and I’m sure that same friend will brief you about it in more detail.”

“Right you are. I was standing directly behind the Captain in a crowd when he thought up that bit of genius. I sure hope we can keep this Link active once we reach Koban.”

Dillon was startled when a voice right behind him chose that moment to answer his implied question. He turned to discover no one was there, and then performed the typical unconscious head tilt when he realized what had occurred. That brought forth a knowing smile from Rigson, as Dillon listened to a voice he recognized as belonging to Jake.

“Sir, a Krall Translator told one of the scientists the ship will land adjacent to the dome where humans live. This proximity should keep the ship within the seven or eight miles of operational range for two way transducer based communication.”

“Uh, thanks Jake,” he uttered, feeling a bit foolish as Rigson, frowning, shook his head no and wagged a finger at him.

“Please don’t acknowledge him by name, and sometimes you don’t even need to speak at all. A head shake may be enough if you are in camera range,” he pointed to a small dome in the celling over the door to the dispensary.

“Or say something like, ‘Well I can ask about that later’ if you want the feed to stop. You won’t hurt his feelings.” Rigson was grinning again as Dillon blushed at having the obvious explained.

Maggi, who had just abruptly cut off Jake’s independent briefing on her own com protocols, said, “Are you finished looking dumbfounded Dillon? I know you had an ear bud phone you constantly used to woo admiring young Ladies at University. It isn’t as if you were raised on a Rim world using drums to communicate.”

“I know, I know,” he answered defensively, flushing. “But I wasn’t trying to hide those calls.” He smiled down at the feisty little tyrant.

“You should have,” she rebutted. “I overheard enough of that seductive old fashioned tripe you fed them. You were supposed to let them take the lead and proposition you first, as any well-bred respectable young woman is expected to do.” She grinned back for a moment, and then grew serious.

“I think the Krall are going to force another reversal in culture on us. Men are more naturally aggressive, and obviously stronger than are most women, so they will have to do more of the fighting and dying. I don’t think a lot of our pampered males will be all that grateful for their increased leadership roles, not if it means putting a gun in their hand and facing the Krall.”

“Let me test my connection and question asking,” Dillon offered, like a big kid. “All of us in this room would like to know what the current oxygen and gravity levels are on the ship at the moment, approximately only, and when they will stabilize at their final settings.”

Everyone heard as Jake informed them “Oxygen content is at twenty four percent, increasing two percent every four hours, and gravity is at 1.22 of Earth standard, and increasing by a tenth of a g every four hours. Oxygen will stabilize at thirty one percent in about twelve hours, gravity at 1.5 times Earth Standard in about eleven hours, which corresponds to an estimate of conditions on Koban.”

“I knew I was feeling heavier, and not just from my big lunch,” Dillon joked.

Maggi, never one to miss an opportunity said, “I’m sure it’s just your swelled head now that you are on the Board. Nevertheless, in those tight suits you like to wear you’d better watch out for a potbelly dear. I’d hate to see you lose sight of that impressive package you’re so proud of.” Maggi patted him on the aforementioned item, provoking laughs from the others, and another flushed face from Dillon.

“Now his face matches the accent color,” Rigson added, referring to the fashionable hand shaped deep pink passion patch, located at the crotch of his light gray dressy body suit. More laughs.

Crap! Dillon thought. I need to switch to my plain work suits, or find new friends.

Anderfem interrupted the fun at Dillon’s expense. “Gentle People, Captain Mirikami is holding down the fort in the conference room, keeping our nosey Krall leader occupied while we get equipped to be sneaky. Shouldn’t we go join in the charade?”

“Aldry, Gracious Lady, please lead the way to the show,” Dillon answered, with a flourish of his arm, determined to hide his embarrassment. “Let us go publicly gather the Intel we are expected to get, while we secretly plan out how we will use it.”

The four of them left the dispensary for the conference room, a short distance away. When they stepped through the doorway, they saw that it was nearly full, the chairs folded into the floor, and that tables now extruded from the walls, holding snacks and refreshments. Both passengers and members of the crew mingled, sharing stories they had gleaned from asking the Krall translators about their history.

Dillon promptly heard Jake’s voice, warning him that Parkoda was monitoring the meeting from the bridge, with audio and video. He could tell from his companion’s brief pause as they entered that they had received the same information.

Mirikami, expecting them, motioned them to stop where they were, and came over to greet them at the doorway, accompanied by Noreen. “I’ve been collecting a lot of the details our people have garnered from their questions over the last day and a half. I assume you are equipped to process these and think on them as we go?” The emphasis he place on “equipped” was obvious.

They all nodded, and Rigson said “Yes, Sir. I think we have the best people present, and well equipped to consider whatever information everyone has gathered.”

“Excellent, Mister Rigson.” He spoke overly loud, for Telour’s benefit. “Noreen and I will brief these Board Members on a summary of what I’ve heard so far, if you would be so good as to take charge and collect the people that have yet to pass on their information on the other side of the room. I’m sure you can arrange to pass along any vital new information if encountered.” He was trying to create a bit of separation from the rest of the grouping.

“Yes Sir.” Rigson turned to face the rest of the room and in a loud voice called for the people who still had information to share to meet with him at a podium on the other side of the room.

As he proceeded to the opposite side, a couple of dozen people headed the same way. The Captain added in a loud voice, “For those of you who have already given me, Commander Renaldo, or any of the Board Members the information you collected from your questions of the Krall, please discuss and share it among yourselves while I brief our late arrivals. Think of ways to organize ourselves to fight the Krall warriors.”

This reminder of the purpose of the gathering drew frightened looks on the faces of some, and grim determination on others. There would be some useful ideas from them, for sure, but the main purpose was to keep the room full of noisy discussion while the primary decision makers were able to talk in semi isolation, yet in plain sight.

Bulling her way through the throng, using her bulky body to force her way, Ana Cahill was making beeline towards them, determined to be part of the circle of power that she could clearly see forming near the room’s entrance. As soon as she reached them, she tried to assert herself in her usual forceful manner.

“Captain, I have been gathering the information you need all day, even before this meeting convened, which started over an hour ago I might add.” She shot a withering glance at Fisher, the Board Chairfem. The implication was clear that while some Board members were late arrivals, she was focused on the task at hand, well ahead of the game.

“I’m sure I can brief them on everything they missed by being tardy, releasing you for more important duties.” She thought she would like nothing more than to force Fisher and her two new groupies on the Board to have to stand and listen to her talk. She thought wrong.

Quickly, before Fisher could begin what would surely be a blistering reply, which might draw other Board members and unwanted attention, Mirikami boomed out an uncharacteristically loud and enthusiastic welcome.

“Doctor Cahill, I’m so happy to find you, just the Great Lady I was about to seek. There actually are vital things that need doing right now, which call for the organizational and social expertise of an experienced and accomplished Lady such as you. These are poorly suited talents for males such as me, a ship’s Captain yet only a Spacer by training. I know space craft operation and navigation, while you know people management, something we need right now.” She faltered, her mouth open, yet glowing in the unexpected praise.

Mirikami, still beaming a big smile towards Cahill, noticed with amusement that the Chairfem was caught with her mouth also open, her still formulating retort frozen on her tongue for the moment, as she looked dumbfounded at the Captain.

Grasping that delightful moment, Mirikami continued. “Doctor Cahill, while I perform the lessor task of briefing your fellow Board members on mere details you clearly have already grasped, I would like you to organize the people that are not with Mister Rigson, and gather them into the center of the room to form committees. You should explore various proposals to defend ourselves from, and to fight against the Krall warriors. We can always alter the committees later, once we know what ideas we have available to consider. I think this is a vital step for humanity’s effort to resist the Krall, early organization, a task which you are uniquely well suited to manage, don’t you think?”

As he expected, the flattery and seemingly important task was exactly the bait needed to hook her.

“Why thank you Captain. I will proudly step forward to do my part to help the human race take its historic first steps to oppose this horrible invasion. Do you have any committee names and members in mind?”

“Not at this time Doctor Cahill, but I’m sure there are a few people present with some military background that you can consult, some of my crew certainly, and you can use anyone’s input to devise exploratory committees. This is an area where I know you will excel. I’ll leave the first steps entirely to your discretion, so please start as soon as you can, while I brief our late arrivals.”

“You can count on me Captain.” As she turned away, a second withering look raked over the other three Board members, with a final smirk reserved in particular for Fisher. Raising her voice, she began calling the milling people to meet her in the center of the room, the force of rightful authority driving her once again.

In an undertone only the group of five by the door could hear, Fisher rendered her opinion.

“Captain, I’m damned delighted I didn’t have to fight someone like you for the Chair position on the Midwife Project. That was frigging brilliant!”

“I have my moments,” and he chuckled with the group, before looking to his First Officer.

“Noreen, since we are all directly under the overhead camera where I wanted us

, please don’t anyone look up to check,” he added hastily. “Will you tell them what has been arranged with our quiet friend?”

“Yes Sir. The cameras in this room have a switchable lens system, and the only one in use now is over our heads, using a sort of fisheye type lens that catches all of the room in a single view. However, there is distortion particularly at the viewing edges like where we are standing, because it is aimed at the center of the room and not down at us. We can be seen but only in a stretched sort of way at the rim, a highly distorted image but we are obviously inside the room.”

“Uh…,” Aldry began uncertainly, “we can still be heard by audio pickups Commander, right?” She wasn’t sure this was a safe question.

“Please, call me Noreen within our friendly group here, and no, we can’t be heard in isolation. The only mike pickup active is the one on the podium near where Mister Rigson is standing, and the mike overhead is off. I have manually confirmed that. Our friend will tell us if that changes.” As was their new custom, an unnamed friend was obviously Jake.

She continued. “Because the camera fisheye view is basically from the tops of our heads, our lip movements are not visible, and can’t be correlated with what we are saying, or even show if we are talking at all. The Captain had originally intended only to have Mister Rigson gather the information Telour expects us to gather, standing closest to the open mike. Now, in the center of the room is Lady Cahill, loudly organizing another impromptu aspect of our so-called ‘secret’ resistance plan Telour has ordered us to produce. I am confident that where we are standing is out of mike range, and covered by the background noise in any event.

“We know the Krall have much more sensitive hearing than we do, and over a much wider range. To counter this, our friend has modified ship mike sensitivity to enhance the upper ranges he is able to record, confirming they use audio ranges well above what humans can hear when they deploy those folding ear arrays. He can also adjust sensitivity to remove some frequencies or introduce distortion. He will do that for us if necessary, to cover our discussions where we are standing. We don’t know what the Krall are saying yet, of course, but a rudimentary translation table is under construction.”

Dillon asked, “You mean that so long as we stay below the camera, speak normally without looking up, Telour can’t hear what we say or even know for sure if we are talking?”

“That’s correct,” Noreen replied, and looked at the Captain, to indicate her explanation had concluded.

Mirikami started his briefing. “I’ve gathered a lot of the information from crew and passengers first hand, had some of it relayed to me from overheard exchanges during the day, and unlike our friend, I can discriminate between trivia and what I believe is important. I think I can provide a reasonable summary. Because I don’t know exactly how long we will have, please try to hold your comments and questions for now.” Then he simply dove into the story.

“The Krall have been in space an astonishing twenty five thousand Earth years. They overthrew and wiped out their early benefactors, the Olt’kitapi, within roughly two thousand years of that first contact. Krall records from that era were lost since their home world was destroyed in the revolt.

“The Olt’kitapi themselves had been spacefaring for at least twice that length of time before encountering the Krall. They are, or rather they were the most technologically advanced race the Krall have met so far. However, they obviously were also far too trusting and benevolent.

“The majority of the technologies we have seen the Krall use apparently derive from that race and little seems to have been independently developed or improved on by the Krall themselves.

“The space settled by the Olt’kitapi is now Krall controlled, and is about four thousand light years across and a thousand thick. This is over twenty times the volume we have explored!”

“My God, that large?” Aldry gasped. “But why only a thousand thick and not a four thousand light year sphere?” she asked.

“That’s because the galactic disk is roughly one thousand light years thick. They wouldn’t have been able to expand above or below the disk. We have yet to reach that limit.”

“But still, that much volume was added to what the Krall already had?”

“I doubt that it was added to what they already had. The Krall don’t appear to know much about what they were doing before the Olt’kitapi came. The earliest history they speak of came from oral stories passed down, that were recorded only after first contact. I don’t think they had even progressed off their planet of origin. That might explain why it took them so long to become inserted into a peaceful Olt’kitapi society, learning what they needed to know in order to take over.”

“In any case

” he paused. “Where did I leave off?” He tilted his head as Jake’s voice reminded him, and Aldry apologized for the interruption, promising to hold her questions. He picked up the narrative.

“It does get worse. They have increased that original volume in subsequent wars with other races. Except that they seem to live on and use only a fraction of habitable planets that humans find acceptable.

“Of the sixteen races they say they conquered after the Olt’kitapi, only two had apparently colonized as far from their origin as humanity has, yet both were spacefaring for thousands of years longer than we have been. They say a third much less expansive race had a civilization even older than the Olt’kitapi’s, but it also fell easily.

“Figuring out how much space the Krall actually control will be hard, because our friend suggests a number of these lost races were possibly included within the sphere of influence of the Olt’kitapi. Some were friendly with the Olt’kitapi, and were probably neighbors that were conquered by the Krall as they consolidated their hold.

“The total volume is complicated because the Krall shifted direction to grab whatever space any new race they found occupied. It would probably be lumpy looking if we could see it on a galactic map of the Orion Spur. An interesting trivial fact I learned from our friend is that an early space telescope, named after Johnannes Kepler, did a planet search in the Krall’s general direction.

“We presently are hundreds of light years off to the side of that old search area, towards the gap by the Sagittarius Arm and the much more distant core. Newborn was fairly close to an area where one of the now extinct races lived thousands of years ago. That side of our Rim world settlements would have expanded to touch on that space eventually, in a hundred years or so, so we were destined to meet.

“It doesn’t sound like the Krall do any serious exploring and expansion of their own volition; it’s more driven by their predatory instincts when they detect fresh prey in new territory.

“They don’t even use all of the subjugated planets, partly because the majority of habitable rocky worlds have lower gravity than the Krall like. They simply depopulate worlds they don’t need and move on.

“Individually, a few races made specific scientific advances that were new to the Krall, and which even the Olt’kitapi had not surpassed or discovered. Nevertheless, collectively none of their opponents was as advanced as the original contact race. The Krall take the better parts of the technology of defeated races, provided it has a military use.

“They employ part of two surviving populations, the Torki and the Prada, as slave labor to supply individual Krall clans with replacement war material, or to grow food or build domes. They did not care to describe them for us.

“A third surviving race is called the Raspani, and were defeated many thousands of years ago. They had been peaceful space faring herbivores with only a few dozen colonized worlds, occupying a relatively small volume of space. Their description sounds like a cross between a centaur and a hippo.

“That they described them at all was unique, since they didn’t do so for any other race. However, that race still survives because they taste extremely good to our big red devils. They are described as meat animals, raised on many of their worlds in herds. Part of the food stores they brought aboard are from that source, and herds are grazing now in a protected compound on Koban.

“There has been no experience with a ‘feral’ alien species for many generations of Krall. They don’t yet appreciate how tricky and deceitful humans can be. I think they are out of practice dealing with aliens, and will have to check their historical records.

“The Krall all seem surprised at how backward we are in technology, yet we have managed to settle many hundreds of star systems within a radius of about five hundred light years of our home planet. This is apparently a lot higher colony density than any of the other races achieved, in a smaller radius. It suggests to me that humans are perhaps more adaptable that the other prey races the Krall met.

“They assume humans have been in space and expanding for tens of thousands of years, as had the other races with a comparable volume of space. We strike them as scientifically and perhaps intellectually dim for that reason. They have not grasped that barely seven hundred years ago humanity had not mastered flight within their own home planet’s atmosphere. They are certainly underestimating us based on that assumption. We seem to be hyperactive galactic prodigies compared to the races the Krall have met, but we are still weak small kids in their schoolyard.

“They have the ability to increase population quickly by expanding breeding rights and by producing many more eggs. Yes, they are egg layers, and do not give live birth. They don’t nurture their young as we do, but the cubs are born with much higher levels of motility and physical capability, no surprise there. Females are also warriors, and lay clutches of ten to twenty eggs at a time.

“At about age five or six, they catch the little self-raised killers and start their education and training to enter novice stage, perhaps in their teens or later, depending on their individual progress. They continue to learn and study throughout adult hood, something we humans can do but apparently not to the Krall’s extent.

“If a large population increase is needed, they can provide simple prey to cubs and allow more of them reach age five. Then start them on mass combat training as sort of “cannon fodder” when needed for major wars. Some few of those novices prove to be successful warriors, and gain status and breeding rights.

“The maximum life span of a Krall seems to be roughly half that of a modern genetically enhanced human, about sixty to seventy years. When their breeding capability wanes with age, at about fifty years old, they often opt to challenge younger warriors just out of novice training to help weed out the weakest and least skilled. That continues until they eventually lose a death match.

“It is the mature Krall’s restraint and respect for the warrior potential within their cubs which is the slender protection we have now from challenge and random attack. It is a powerful cultural taboo against killing unproven cubs, and they rarely challenge a novice still in training. The blank oval tattoo we received is the marking for that novice-in-training status.

“Once humanity has been classified as suitable to be prey, food animal, slave labor, or useless, we will change status as a race. If we are deemed useless, they will exterminate humanity and take whatever planets they like best for their own colonies. If considered fit only as food animals, we would be treated like the Raspani. Luckily, we don’t taste pleasing to them, so we are only ‘rations’ in a pinch.

“The most optimistic option, and naturally this is from a Krall point of view, is to find us suitable as prey, and start a war of slow attrition. I happen to think this is our best option as well, since it delays extinction or enslavement, and leaves us hope for a long-term solution more in our favor.

“Koban is the world they most desire because the gravity is about fifty percent greater than most Earth sized planets, and contains a larger and denser iron core and higher percentage of heavy elements in its outer crust. The native animal life is not only adapted to the higher gravity, which is bad enough for us, but has developed a nervous system that is significantly faster reacting than even what the Krall have evolved. One of your scientists, Doctor Kraven, said it sounds as if Kobani animals have a nervous system based on organic high temperature superconducting material.

“I also have some hopeful observations to make. The Krall, in my opinion, are too arrogant and overconfident, and have relied so much on their obvious physical advantages and stolen technology that they display less intelligence, on average, than we do. They underestimate us, don’t appear to employ the same degree of sneakiness and subterfuge that we are capable of using. On the darker side, I’m sure that they could easily wipe us from the galaxy if they want.”

He looked around. “The floor is open for discussion.”

Aldry spoke first. “The Krall limit us on what we can do to them, no nukes, chemicals, disease, gas and so forth, but did anyone ask them about what we can do to ourselves?”

“Like what?” asked Dillon. “We can’t go gas or nuke ourselves and hope it hurts them as well.”

“No, No. Not like that. I mean what we can do to enhance our own abilities. Not better-armored suits and weapons, better us! Such as performance enhancing drugs, adrenaline boosts delivered at appropriate times to keep an edge or enhance strength and alertness.”

Mirikami had a contribution for this idea. “The Flight of Fancy is a long Jump ship, visiting backwater worlds. Because of that, we have quite a complex medical pharmacy that can produce many standard drugs, and it can be reprogramed for making others if we have the raw ingredients.

Noreen chimed in. “We should also ask the Krall to let us use our machine shop to improve the armor or weapons they will give us.”

“We can try to make some silent weapons they won’t think we would use,” Mirikami suggested. “Like crossbows for a quiet low tech ambush capability, or possibly explosives. The machine shop and pharmacy use may justify keeping the ship powered up in Telour’s mind. That’s an important factor, if only to keep our friend able to communicate with us, and we to one another.”

“Tet, you have a devious mind. I like it!” quipped Maggi.

“Thanks. I think. I’ve asked my engineering section to consider how we can permanently disable our ability to lift the ship, with as little destruction to the power systems and electronics as the Krall will find acceptable. As much as I hate to propose that step, I want to keep as much of our resources intact as possible.”

Dillon had been struggling with his conscience after Aldry had mentioned performance enhancements. He decided he had to broach a dangerous subject that the other members of Midwife’s secret inner circle would not like, so he rushed to get it out fast.

“Maggi, if we save the ship and its stores, we have equipment for multiple complete science labs. We would have power and space for the equipment and computers. We might be able to do some things to make a significant physical difference. Such as making ourselves stronger, faster, and needing less sleep. Try to narrow the gap, so to speak. In all of the human sphere of influence, the people here on the Flight of Fancy are the only people that know of this threat, and are also capable and equipped to do this.”

He saw that both Mirikami and Noreen were giving him startled looks, while Maggi and Aldry revealed tight expressions of their own. In the latter case it reflected the fear of a betrayal he appeared about to make.

Everyone knew Planetary Union law proscribed any recombinant DNA methods; the death penalty still applied if employed on humans. Yet gene control and manipulation had been one of the secret undefined goals of the Midwife Project’s inner circle. To apply forbidden technology to create hybrids of Earth evolved plants and animals. To produce inheritable gene modification for selected plants and animals on new colony worlds, where the next generation of those plants and animals would be better able to survive, even flourish in their alien environments. It was technology that was standard practice several hundred years ago, but not since the Gene War.

“I can see that the subject scares you,” He continued. “However, doesn’t extinction of the human race at the hands of the Krall, who have twenty five thousand years of self-modification behind their own genetic superiority, scare you more? We don’t have thousands of years to come up with any other technological solution.”

Maggi shrugged her shoulders and added a covering remark, “Assuming we can even relearn the science that was lost.”

Fisher wasn’t against Dillon’s surprise proposal, but she wasn’t prepared to let the Captain and his First Officer know that the knowledge needed was already contained in their carefully hoarded and encrypted databases.

Sounding more formal than he intended, Mirikami decided to delicately probe deeper, concerned how his First Officer might react.

“Doctor’s; and I address all three of you; is it at all possible that we might be able to do more than simply give ourselves adrenaline, or drugs, to temporarily boost our energy and awareness?” He had been careful to add the “we” to imply he was included.

“If we can’t convince the Krall that humans can fight back effectively on Koban, the rest of the human race may never get a chance to fight for their own survival.” Noreen indicated agreement with a nod.

Mirikami asked, “Is it possible to get results quickly enough to make a difference? Assuming we get the opportunity to do so?”

Aldry, who had been intimately involved with obtaining some of the old biological files and records from forgotten or hidden archives, was cautious in her own reply.

“Tet, we know, if only from the old Tri-Vid dramas, that it was possible to introduce genetic changes in animals that took effect within weeks, even in a few days if the story lines are believed.” She knew the stories were true.

“Those scientists used some sort of injectable biological carrier, such as a modified virus to transport the desired genes to implant, which then entered living cells and inserted the new gene in the cell’s DNA. There it would activate, and be passed on to new cells through normal cell division. To be of use, we’d have to learn how to do that again, and learn what changes were safe and quickly beneficial.”

Noreen, nervous, but anxious to show she understood the risk and danger of what was being danced around so delicately, had a question more to the point. “The lab equipment you brought with you, to study evolving primitive Newborn life. Is it refined enough to even do what you are discussing?”

“Noreen,” Maggi assured her, “the quality of our modern equipment is far superior to that of three hundred years ago. Even though it wasn’t purpose built for gene alteration, we certainly intended to examine the genetics of the emerging Newborn life forms. Equipment capability isn’t a problem, but know-how and technique are certainly things to overcome.”

“Gentle People” interjected Mirikami, “I think we need to clarify our position on this subject while we can do so in our relative privacy. Dear Doctor Cahill has tried to catch my attention twice now, and surely will join us soon for more ego grooming.” He studiously avoided looking in her direction.

“Let me pose a number of questions, and please be frank. I give my word to keep whatever answers I hear confidential, and just between us, unless we all agree to do otherwise in the future. Will each of you give your word to do the same?”

All murmured their agreement, quickly glancing around the room, making sure they were still isolated from the closest group discussion in the center around Cahill.

“Very well. First, do we have the actual hardware capability to do gene manipulation with your equipment?”

“Yes, we do.” Maggi answered.

“Second, if you learn how to make the genetic changes that might be desired, can you implement them, such as by injecting a modified transport virus?”

Maggi looked to Dillon, who she knew had done considerable study of the “forbidden” records.

He started this, so he couldn’t hold back now. “I believe we could. However, knowing what genes are worth enhancing is as important as how to introduce the change. It once was done easily.”

Mirikami resumed. “Third, could we obtain results quickly enough to matter on Koban if you can create the modified virus?”

Tougher to answer, but all three scientists looked at one another, and Maggi answered for them all. “A lot has to happen first, but probably the testing would last for a couple of months. So I’d say your question has a conditional yes answer.”

Nodding, Mirikami continued. “Fourth, is this a course of action that we want to pursue farther, and to implement if it seems possible and useful to our survival? I’d like each of you to state your position by a simple yes or no, and I’ll go first.

“Yes.” He stated firmly.

“Yes,” answered Maggi.

“Yes,” spoke Noreen and Dillon almost together.

Aldry’s own “Yes” made it unanimous.

“We are agreed.” Mirikami let out a breath he hadn’t quite realized he was holding. It was a slender hope, but he hadn’t even felt that much previously. They might convince the Krall to enter a prolonged fight with humanity, but he didn’t see how humanity could win that battle when they were both physically and technologically inferior to the Krall. New technology would come, if they could delay how quickly they lost.

He looked at them all. “I certainly know that I don’t have to tell you how dangerous this decision can be for us personally. The Krall would probably kill us outright if they knew we intended to ‘cheat’ and bypass the slow selective evolution on their Great Path. However, even more likely is our being condemned and exposed by some of our fellow captives. I believe we need to keep this information extremely limited, perhaps just to the five of us for now, though there may be other members of your scientific community you can trust to participate.”

Fisher bobbed her head. “There are a few others that I’m sure will share our viewpoint, but I don’t see a reason to risk expanding our small circle yet. We need to see if we even get a chance to set up our labs to explore the possibility. However, circumstances on Koban may well push others to think of this idea on their own, once the killing starts.”

Aldry gave them a heads up. “Ana is heading our way.”

They all looked up to see Cahill moving towards them, with a number of people in tow.

“Tet, I’ll speak with you about our last topic later. I’m sure our Vice Chairfem wants to discuss her committee selections with us. I don’t see why you need to be here for this, other than to butter her up some more, and I’m not sure I could hold down my gorge a second time. Noreen, this will be dreary infighting dear, I’m sure you can find better things to do as well.”

Mirikami grinned. “Maggi I’ll take you up on that talk and a meal when you have time. I will also accept the opportunity to leave while I can.”

Turning to Noreen, “Please see if Mister Rigson has picked up any significant new piece of trivia about the Krall while we were talking here. Then feel free to find some other duty and leave the meeting if you so wish.”

As she acknowledged him, Mirikami smiled and waved to the approaching Cahill, then quickly opened the door and made good his escape. Cahill’s brightening smile at the Captain’s cheery wave turned into a disappointed frown.

Shit! She thought. Now I have to deal with that Fisher bitch. Moreover, she noticed the glint in the Chairfem’s eyes, and her little satisfied smirk. At least Fisher couldn’t destroy the committee work she’d started, following the Captain’s direct orders. That was something for which she would be remembered for a long time.

18. Deadly Reminder

Maggi politely stood up as the Captain arrived for their lunch in the main dining room, pulling out his chair and waiting until he was seated to return to her own. She wondered how long the formal social customs would last, once they reached Koban.

“Good afternoon Maggi. How did your evening go with the committee work? I presume Lady Cahill had some proposals and committee heads to present.”

“Yes

,” She said slowly. “I do have to thank you for giving her that wonderful idea, Tet.” She gave him an accusing look. “I had to dismantle everything she thought she had accomplished.”

“We needed to keep her busy and out of our hair.” He said this contritely.

“Oh, I’m not being critical, and I know it was a spur of the moment notion. It was wasn’t it? Or did you intend to do things by committee?” She hoped he hadn’t thought that.

“Never. I’d sooner invite a Krall to just kill and eat me. It’s a dumb way to organize a war. But I knew it would be a job Lady Cahill would relish, and think important enough to jump on right away while she had a captive audience.”

“You can drop her ‘Lady’ designation with me. We came damned close to blows last night, and she showed real ‘balls’ fighting back, which I didn’t give her credit for having. In the end, I gelded her, of course. Oops. I probably shouldn’t say that in male company.” They both shared a chuckle.

Then, in a tone laced with her outrage, she started ticking off items with her fingers. “That dim witted ‘People Manager’ as you called her, proposed establishing committees for developing new advanced weapons, forming a diplomatic mission, designing uniforms, a code breaking and encryption section, a draft board, a ROTC unit for our surviving teenagers, and a group to draw up a military code of conduct.”

Fisher was shaking her head in angered amazement as she listed them, lifting a finger for each of them, while Mirikami tried and failed to choke back increasing laughter at each new committee description.

“Wow. I’m really

really

sorry

Maggi.” He managed to squeeze out, his face turning red with the effort of suppressed laughter. He had a mental image of her outraged expression last night. His shoulders were still shaking a minute later. Maggi didn’t help, what with her finger taps and sour look, waiting for him to get over his self-induced mirth.

He eventually slowed the shoulder shaking, his face recovering its normal Spacer’s pallor. Finally, he was ready to continue, trying to look serious despite his moist eyes. How long had it been since he last found anything so funny?

He took a deep breath to even his breathing. “I do apologize for that outburst Maggi. There has been little to find funny recently. But did you get any real help from anyone?” He patted her hand to show he was over his little fit.

“From two people, both were yours by the way, and veterans with limited military experience. Of course, Cahill had completely brushed off their ideas.

“One was Ms. Jorl’sn, previously in a Naval ROTC unit in College, before spending a few years paying back her education cost as a Navy flyer, working as a shuttle pilot for a Marine Unit. She proposed we study small unit actions by using ship library war documentaries, and search library records for old training films.”

Mirikami nodded, saying, “Roni is a good officer, and I knew of her previous shuttle pilot experience. That’s why she’s one of my pilots. However, I doubt she has much combat experience, if any, but certainly some training. I wish we could use her flight experience some way, but I doubt we get to keep our two shuttles on Koban. Films aren’t going to actually train anyone, but her idea has some merit.”

“I thought so too. She is now recruiting help for her record search. I hope you don’t mind my taking that prerogative.”

“Not at all Maggi. While under Clanship tow we have few shipboard duties, and even those will only last a short while longer, until we land on Koban. She knows how to use our friend’s resources; if the records exist in our huge library, she should find them. Who was the other crewperson?”

“Motorman Johnson had some weapons training in a militia unit on a New Colony planet; I forget which one. He had heard we would get pistols and rifles, something like what we saw the Krall boarding party carry and use. He thought we could start teaching weapons use, safety practices, and general maintenance procedures. Perhaps set up a few virtual firing ranges using game systems in the entertainment lounges. I doubt we’ll have much time on ship, but we might get a real firing range set up on Koban, if Telour is serious about wanting us to fight effectively.”

“Johnson is another committee head?” he asked smiling.

“Yes indeed.” She smiled back.

“There were about a half dozen people with martial arts training, which I doubt can be useful against the speed and strength of a Krall. Nevertheless, I set up a make-work group for them anyway, if only to keep people busy and to feel like we are moving in a positive direction. I created a larger exploratory group to find out what else we might do. I’m sure the people already on Koban have put some thought into this subject under the duress of facing actual fights to the death. I hope they have better ideas for us. We are slim to none on any sort of infantry experience.”

Mirikami was about to agree, when he heard Jake’s voice in his ear. “Captain, we have had a fatality in stairwell three, between decks 6 and 7.” He held up his hand to forestall a question from Maggi, as she saw his expression turn grim.

“I bet we both wonder if we have any Krall close by or listening to us,” He blurted. He knew they would have been warned of electronic monitoring or proximity of a Krall, but he wanted to alert Maggi, and reassure himself.

Both heard the reply. “There are two Krall on deck 8, located in their designated eating locker and not close to you. There is no electronic monitoring of your dining room.”

He had stood up quickly, but didn’t want to blunder into a situation blind. “We both want to know what happened, and who died.” It was an odd question to ask aloud, if overheard, but they weren’t under surveillance. The remark had the intended effect of galvanizing Fisher, who also quickly rose.

“Lady Isadora Bodkin was killed by a Krall Warrior on staircase three, as she was climbing to deck 7. A Krall warrior, named *****,” there was a noticeable blank as the ultrasonic version of the warrior’s name was spoken, “was descending rapidly from higher decks and struck her, causing severe injury to her left leg. The warrior then struck her again and crushed her skull. She has a severe head injury that I can see on camera, and which I predict was fatal. Her body has slipped back towards deck 6. The warrior continued its descent to deck 3

, and is now rapidly leaping up staircase 2, and has passed deck 4.., now 5.., 6..”

Stop, Mirikami ordered. They had heard the air swish faintly as the warrior passed, glimpsing him flash by as they ran towards the central lifts.

“What was the Krall doing before striking the Lady?”

“It has been rapidly climbing and descending the four side staircases in turn. It has done this six times, and has started another descent now in staircase one.”

Mirikami stopped at the com station between the lifts and pressed the code for a ship wide broadcast.

“Attention, all personnel, this is an emergency. Exit from any stairwell immediately. Do not use them and stay well clear. At least one Krall warrior is racing up and down them at high speed, and we have had one person seriously injured. Any available Medical trained crew should to report to the entry point for Staircase three, at both decks 6 and 7, but do not enter the stairwell. I’ll have more information in a few minutes when I arrive there myself. Mirikami Out.” Then he switched off.

“Are the lifts safe to use?” He asked of the air.

“Both are in use by humans at present, and I have never observed a Krall in one of the lifts,” was the reply. Mirikami realized Maggi hadn’t heard that.

“Maggi, we can use the lifts to deck 6. When we know we can get to her body safely, we can pull her off the steps.”

Mirikami used his override code to summon a lift. When they made their exit, a Steward could be seen trotting towards staircase three, with a medical kit in hand.

“Branson,” Mirikami shouted, as he recognized the man. “Be sure to stay away from the stairwell.”

The Steward turned, in confusion. “Sir, I can see arms hanging down the steps, and blood. Can’t I just lift him and lower him down?”

“It’s a woman Robert, and I’m pretty sure she’s already dead. Killed by a Krall. I don’t want anyone to join her.” He was also running to the stairwell as he talked.

“I wonder where that Krall is now.”

“Pardon, Sir?” Branson asked.

Jake’s reply came over Branson’s question. “The Krall has stopped racing on the stairs, and has gone to their eating area on deck 8. Telour spoke to him just before he stopped.”

“Never mind Robert, we can get her down now. I believe she’s dead, but let’s be gentle just in case.”

Multiple other people had arrived, and several crowded up the stairs to help them lift the limp form and carry her down. They laid her still body on a lounge couch, which Jake had leveled for that purpose. The AI would be measuring her biometrics, but the deeply depressed top of her skull and visible brain tissue made a diagnosis a forgone conclusion.

Mirikami saw that her left leg had suffered a compound fracture. That wound probably happened when the speeding Krall first hit her as it raced down the stairs. Seeing she was seriously injured, and thus worthless as a captive, it probably bashed in her head, and continued on its run.

Noreen arrived by the second lift, having also been advised by Jake of the events. Following close behind her as she got off was a short chubby man.

Maggi spotted him and quickly ran to him, calling his name, “Rafe. Please wait there.”

She stood in front of him and tried to prevent the man from approaching any closer. Maggi had seen the bashed in skull, the face where internal pressure had forced the eyes to protrude, gray matter and blood oozing through the woman’s red hair.

Rafe was Lady Bodkin’s consort. Maggi knew them both, having recruiting them for the Midwife Project. She was an agricultural crop scientist from Brussels, a New Colony. In addition, Rafe researched harmful genetic mutations in humans that were exposed to higher than Earth levels of cosmic ray damage on Brussels. They had been together for decades, unable to marry when they first fell in love due to genetic based laws; Rafe was born a victim of one of the random mutations he now researched. They were much closer than many married couples were with reproductive contracts.

Maggi was aware Rafe had been black listed when still a boy, blocked from reproduction due to a congenital heart defect he carried, among other unspecified problems, and thus Lady Bodkin couldn’t marry him back then. When the male population increase was deemed adequate, some of the restrictive laws were rescinded. Rafe and Isadora saw no need to make any change in an already full and happy life. A Krall had just made a permanent change for them.

Rafe suspected immediately, from a glimpse of short red hair he had seen that it was probably Isadora. Few women aboard had red hair. When Maggi intercepted him, he knew it was she, and knew that it must be bad. As he called his consort’s name he was about to push past Maggi, but Noreen also realized who he must be. She turned back to help restrain him, offering condolences, which affirmed his worst fears. He suddenly sagged to the floor, tears flowing, groaning as he began to sob in deep chest heaving gasps.

Speaking softly, as if to the group near him by the body, Mirikami asked, “Does anyone know where Telour is right now?” He ignored the negative replies of those around him.

“Telour is in the Drive Room.” The answer came from Jake.

He wondered how he was going to explain how he just happened to “find” Telour in the Engineering department so quickly. The resolution came when Branson shouted there was a com call for the Captain.

Going to the wall unit he lifted the hand set. “Captain Mirikami.”

It was Telour. “Come to your Drive Room.” That was all he said and disconnected.

He walked to where Noreen, Maggi and others were trying to comfort Rafe. After a few quiet words with Maggi about the man being Isadora’s consort, he knew enough to offer his own sympathy.

“Rafe,” he realized with a twinge of guilt that he didn’t even know his last name, since it wasn’t his wife’s family name of Bodkin if they never married. “I’m so sorry for your loss. As I understand what happened, this was an accident on the part of the Krall warrior, who was not seeking to kill anyone. It was apparently exercising at what we would consider breakneck speed, leaping up and down the outer stairwells. Isadora had the bad luck to be climbing the stairs as the Krall leaped down from deck 7, striking her with killing speed and force.”

He didn’t know if the accidental part was accurate, in view of a Krall’s lightning fast reflexes. However, he certainly knew a deliberate killing blow had come after the supposed accident. There wasn’t reason to hurt the man more by telling him his life’s love was indifferently dispatched, as damaged goods, merely because her leg was broken.

“I’m on my way to speak to Telour, the ranking Krall left aboard. We have to find a way to prevent such accidents in the future.”

As Noreen and Maggi quickly glanced up from the sobbing man, he felt like a huge hypocrite, knowing what the Krall intended for their future. He shrugged for their benefit, since Rafe was slumped on the floor, looking down at his clenched hands. It wasn’t as if everyone aboard hadn’t discussed their frightening prospects constantly, but pretending that this one death was entirely unintentional might help the poor man accept it easier.

He spoke to Noreen, and to Branson, who had come over as well. “Use ropes or tape, or whatever you come up with, but cordon off every stairwell entry and spread the word. The Krall never use the lifts, so we will stay clear of the stairs and use only the lifts. It will slow our movements between decks, but we aren’t going to be on the ship very much longer, I suspect. I’m headed to engineering now, where Telour presently is located, and who just summoned me.”

He took the lift down, wondering what Telour had been doing there. The watch stander there hadn’t called him.

When he arrived, Willfem, Chief Haveram, and two “Drive Rats,” Gundarfem and Yin-Lee, were standing on one side, with Telour apparently looking at the Trap control consoles, and the fusion generator’s monitoring panel.

Oh, Oh, He thought, he may have figured out we have our two Traps still holding those huge Jump energy tachyons.

Telour, who had of course heard him approach and enter, didn’t even turn around. “Clan leader, I have learned that you want to retain electrical power for your ship after it is parked on Koban. One of your non-crew clan mates asked your K’Tal here if they could use a machine making shop after landing. He said it would be to make the armor suits we brought to Koban better. To make them move easier under the gravity there. How do you know we have that armor there?”

It sounded accusatory, but at least it wasn’t about the tachyon Traps.

“Telour, I don’t know which Translator told that to some of my people, but we learned of it from answers to our permitted questions. We know that this armor will make us more protected, but also heavier, and I’m certain the higher gravity on Koban is a big problem for Humans there.

“We will be even slower and tire more quickly with armor, even if better protected. We once used mechanical assistance on some of the armor used in our past wars, and we think we may be able to add that ability if we want to fight like we once did. This is following your orders to fight more efficiently and effectively.”

Telour turned, as he deployed his internal ears, and tapped his shoulder com button. The usual silence, to humans anyway, ensued as his lip ridges rippled. After a moment, he tapped the button again, disconnecting.

“You did not tell Dorkda, who told you about the armor, what you want to do and why?”

Ah, that was the issue. Mirikami was somewhat relieved. “No Sir. We only gathered information as you instructed. My clan mates were not aware of all of my plans after our arrival on Koban,” he lied, “but I told them not to tell any Krall of why we were asking questions.”

He’d have to make sure none of his extremely bright passengers inadvertently let any idea they thought up on their own, slip out when around a Krall other than Telour. Preferably, not even around him.

“Then why did he ask your K’Tal about this plan to improve armor?” He was still probing him.

“Humans here know we will be fighting on Koban, and they now know of the higher gravity there. You were told we are preparing for that by increasing ship gravity, to be ready. My clan mate must have concluded on his own that power assisted armor would be a good idea, because it is an obvious conclusion.”

“Can you improve the armor?” Telour did show interest in that.

“We have not seen it yet, but we have copies of old human designs that we can follow, to attach support to the outside of armor. It may be possible to make what we need ourselves, and that must be done in a machine shop that my K’Tal here can operate. But only if we can retain power on this ship.”

“How long would this take?’

“Each set of armor must be done one at a time, because we do not have a factory to make many at once. However, we have other ideas to help us become effective fighters, and these need the machine shop to build special weapons. There are simple but quiet mechanical weapons that humans have used for thousands of years to silently throw small pointed projectiles, which we know how to make and use.” The term “use” was in theory only, since crossbows were not commonly found.

“Then you are following my instruction,” he conceded. “But why can you not move the machines to make these things away from the ship?”

“The tools used, Telour, are controlled by small computers that are built into the walls of the ship, and the different power settings of all of these things are already part of the ship, including power from the fusion bottle generator here.

“I also want to ask you if small poisoned darts are permitted. These are small projectiles that have a toxic chemical on them, that would perhaps kill or slow the one warrior touched. If we have power to the ship, and its medical computers and records, our equipment might be able to make this poison for us. It also can make drugs for humans to eat, to keep them awake longer, to help them feel stronger, to fight better. These are simple examples of what other humans will force your warriors to face and defeat, when the worlds you invade start to fight back.”

“I have made a good choice I think, for my human clan leader,” Telour admitted. “These are better ideas than I believed humans would have. Some are not very good ideas, because Krall are not easy to poison, and even mostly silent weapons make noise through the air, which we hear. I repeat our warning to not make any biological or chemical weapons that kill many warriors at once.”

“We understand this restriction, and the ability for that sort of weapon is not present on this ship anyway, because we are not a warship or a science laboratory.” No need to let him know that it held a bunch of biological scientists and their equipment, however.

“Parkoda will want to power down or destroy your ship after landing. Can your K’Tal make it impossible for the ship ever to fly again, as confirmed by our K’Tal, but leave it with electrical power?”

“I need to ask my clan mates here for this information, because I am not a K’Tal.”

“Do that.” He ordered, and waited to hear what was said.

Looking to his Drive Room crew, he started with their boss. “Ms. Willfem, how can we do this to guarantee to the Krall that the ship will never fly again, yet remain partly intact, with electrical power?” They had already discussed this, but Mirikami wanted it to appear fresh to Telour.

Knowing what Telour wanted to accomplish it might not be terribly hard to convince him. However, Parkoda couldn’t know about that plan, so they had to try to balance the two Krall’s diverse and conflicting ambitions.

“Sir, our three main planetary thrusters are the clear choice,” Willfem started. “We can disable or remove those engines, and then we cannot lift out of a strong gravity well to engage our Normal Space drives. Not without blowing ourselves and a big piece of real estate up with us.”

“Is disabling them without removal possible?”

“Yes Sir, by pulling out a number of irreplaceable modules, and control systems for each of the three main thrusters. The small attitude thrusters can’t begin to lift the ship, but we can remove those completely. We could do that quickly, within an hour of landing, and give those to the Krall for destruction. We can’t make replacements, and there won’t be any spare parts coming.”

Mirikami looked at Telour, the implied question obvious.

“This would not satisfy Parkoda,” He stated firmly. “There will be more human ships arriving with parts you might use, even if those ships are then damaged so they can’t fly. There are wrecked human ships at the port now, which might have parts you can use. The difference between those blasted ships and your untouched ship would be obvious to a novice.”

This was a bit of new information they hadn’t had, concerning existing wrecks, but that was just the first proposal. They had anticipated a hard sell.

“Ms. Willfem, how hard is it to completely remove the three main thrusters?” He asked the question for which they had prepared an answer. Painful to implement, but an answer they were depending on to work.

“Sir, without a port facility repair dock, we can’t remove them in one piece. They would have to be dismantled, but we don’t have a crane to do this without damage to them. The Chief here,” she indicated Haveram “says we can cut them into pieces and let the parts just fall to the ground between the landing jacks. There they can be dragged away by our two cargo movers we have in the hold.”

Mirikami saw the Chief wince as she described the destruction process for his three “babies,” but they already knew the alternative was for the Krall to fire on the parked Flight of Fancy and do worse.

“Chief, how long would it take you and your Drive Room crew to do this?”

“If we get some help from other crew members, and perhaps from the civilian maintenance folks intended for Midwife, I think it can be done in four hours. In only three hours if we open access panels, and cut a few redundant support braces while we’re still in space. We have eight cutting torches, and ten or so powered tools to loosen bolts or saw through fittings, if we have people to use them.”

“I’ll get you the people, and we need to start teaching them what their jobs will be right away, so we might even finish in two hours.” He spoke as if the decision had been made, and the job would be done even faster.

They intentionally wanted it to sound easier than it would actually be, so the Chief had been told to avoid mentioning the risk from the toxic and explosive fuel that would still be in the feed lines. He was to avoid discussing any problems due to the higher gravity. If they were permitted to start the work, then they might be granted extra time if it was needed to finish. It had never been done this way outside a scrap yard, and even there they were interested in salvage of reusable parts.

“Telour, do you think Parkoda will permit your real plan to survive if it takes us two or three hours to finish the work?” Mirikami deliberately phrased his question so as tie Telour’s success to theirs.

“It is possible that I can distract Parkoda by calling for a meeting of the combined clans. There I can say how successful his leadership of the raid was, and give him public credit. This will take from my own status because he will receive a larger share of the breeding points given for the raid. But my own plan grows even stronger when he leaves on the next raid; if your ship can make weapons that help you fight.”

It was odd to hear Telour speak like a human politician, scheming to undermine an opponent while apparently backing them. He was so invested in his own plan, that talking in front of the mere “animals” that were working for him didn’t faze him at all.

He still had a concern. “Even when your engines are gone, your ship will look almost untouched, which Parkoda will see, even if convinced by more than one K’Tal that it can never fly. A reason for this is needed, to prevent his order to simply destroy the ship and damage my own plan.”

He now was talking like a coconspirator with them, but it was a valid point. In addition, it was a point they had thought about, but the best they could come up with was more flattery and status for Parkoda, which might not set well with Telour.

“Telour, we learned that the compound area where humans live will become crowded, when we move in there and the new raids return with many more captives. This ship can be used to house not only us of course, but other humans as well, which is a more efficient use of resources. The Flight of Fancy can be displayed as an example of Parkoda having captured a large ship that can still be used to Krall advantage.”

He hurried to finish, before Telour could object to giving Parkoda anything more, cursing himself for reversing the order in which he had originally intended to present the final points.

“For you the advantage to your own personal plan will be that the number of humans you want to use to demonstrate improved fighting skills will increase as we teach them here. You will also have the chance to find other humans with military training to join us, which we can help you select. We will all be under your personal control in one place. No other Krall can then claim a share of the new success you create from Parkoda’s own prize.”

It had all been laid out now, even though the rehearsal Mirikami had planned today with his people hadn’t happened. It wasn’t what he had intended to speak to Telour about when he came down here, but this was far more important.

They all waited for Telour to speak; something that a Krall rarely delayed doing, and he didn’t disappoint now. “This idea will be included in the clan meeting I proposed. If it is my idea to save this disabled ship for the benefit of storing more humans, I will regain status if the clan leaders agree, and Parkoda will have to accept their decision.

He rehashed Mirikami’s proposal, as if it were his own idea. Seeming to say the words to see how they sounded when he said them. Perhaps he was mentally rehearsing his clan speech.

“The dome will soon be crowded, and some may need to live outside. Many captives will wastefully die when the insects and flying animals discover a new food source, even with the weapons we give you. The clan leaders will not keep humans in our compound. It would be like living with a stinking Raspani herd that you don’t like to eat.”

Flattering comparison Mirikami thought, in a sardonic mood.

Speaking without really thinking, “Or we might say ‘a wise man won’t live with hyenas.’ ” Luckily, Telour didn’t know the animal, or the contempt most human’s felt for the ugly scavengers. Mirikami was distracted when he received an urgent Link from Noreen. He had to keep his face impassive.

“Captain, a Krall warrior just came down and took Isadora’s body, slung it over his shoulder and leaped up the stairs. Our friend says he went to their deck 8 compartment. Because the camera there was destroyed by them, we can’t see what he did with her.”

Telour, having nothing more to say, had turned in their usual swift graceful motion and was through the hatch when Mirikami called to him.

“Telour, I had another reason to speak with you, but in private please.”

Motioning for him to follow, Telour went farther into the outer compartment. Mirikami closed the hatch behind him.

Now for the subject he had originally intended to talk about, but the body removal had happened while he was down here, so he shouldn’t know about that.

“Telour, a warrior killed one of my clan mates a short time ago. You have a responsibility to protect my people, which have been granted Ra Ka Endo and novice status.”

“I know of the event, I spoke to the Mizak clan warrior when I heard your words about the stairs. He was bored and exercising, but did not violate an honor code with a challenge when the female animal was damaged. I took a breeding point from him for failure to detect the presence of an enemy. The death blow after that was the proper result of the damage.”

Simply outstanding, Mirikami thought. I wonder how many points before these killer bastards start to feel a real sting. “Will this prevent more killings of the human novices?”

“Probably not,” he admitted. “We expected the journey to Koban to have ended before now. Towing this ship is slower than Parkoda’s K’Tal had said it would be. He may lose points. The young and low rank warriors Parkoda left with me are frustrated, they desire activity.”

Mirikami realized this certainly put their status back in proper perspective. Humans were potential entertainment for bored low-level warriors to ‘trip over,’ injure, and then justifiably kill.

“Telour, I ordered that the stairwells be blocked from use by humans. I have to protect my people to retain their trust as a leader, and to be useful to you. Are there other locations your warriors might exercise and waste some of the captives placed under your control?”

He was certain the sarcasm was undetectable by Telour, but the idea of losses in a valuable resource, which Parkoda had entrusted him to transport might register, even if only minimally.

“The warriors from other clans occupy themselves in ways I cannot predict. I am going to the Bridge after I eat the last piece of our Raspani. If we do not arrive soon, your dead clan mate will be our new rations. I told the warrior I would return the point if we use the meat. After he has a taste, he may refuse the point.” This ended with a snort, showing it was Krall joke.

Telour seemed to consider that punch line. “It’s too high a price for the bad taste, I think.”

On the other hand, maybe this death wouldn’t register as a loss at all for Telour, not if a cheap dead resource still had use.

19. Advanced Planning

The afternoon after Isadora’s killing, Tetsuo, Noreen, Maggi, Dillon, and Aldry were all participating in another information exchange, but this time they were in three different locations, distributed around the ship.

Noreen had worked out a method with Jake of conducting a video meeting, to replicate what they had attempted in the conference room previously. They needed privacy not only from Telour but also from their own people, particularly because they were discussing genetic modifications.

Maggi and Tet were ostensibly having a private meal set off from the main dining room for privacy, with a video screen inset in the table. Aldry was at her small cabin’s computer console. Noreen was with Dillon in his cabin sharing his screen. He had made no secret they were engaging in an afternoon ‘interlude’ as they were called. This was a common sexual pastime among the tense and otherwise unoccupied passengers.

“First,” Noreen spoke as the conference facilitator, “can every one hear me? Please answer only if it’s safe for you.”

Tet and Maggi’s voices were heard simultaneously, followed by Aldry’s affirmation. Dillon didn’t add his own voice until Noreen jabbed him sharply in the ribs, to remind him that the others hadn’t heard his nod.

“Captain, it’s your meeting,” so she turned it over to him.

“This was a good suggestion Noreen. Our friend can Link us, and he will warn us of intrusions.” As usual, Jake would advise them of potential eavesdroppers, including human this time.

“Despite the absence of her body, the memorial service for Isadora was broadcast ship wide. Its briefness was at Rafe’s own insistence. What you may not know is that her remains were placed in a cold locker on Deck eight.”

Maggi hadn’t known that, and she turned towards Mirikami. “Rafe didn’t choose cremation? He doesn’t want a burial on Koban, I hope?”

“He doesn’t know what I’m about to tell you, and please don’t tell him or any others. Let them think she was dropped into a Jump Hole like the others.” He looked at their faces on the monitor.

“Telour revealed that the trip to Koban has been days longer than they expected, despite their faster mode of Jump travel. This must be because the Clanship is towing our larger ship with them. The rations the Krall brought aboard are running out, and he frankly said that human meat would be used to fill their needs.”

Aldry’s shocked look spoke for the other two civilians. “Then you have to cremate her body at once!”

“That was my first impulse,” he acknowledged. “But the cold locker is the one inside the compartment the Krall commandeered. Who do you propose will go to take the corpse away from them?

“Remember that the Krall basically consider us to be talking animals. Something that they can use as needed, despite granting us Novice Status. This marking,” he hooked a thumb at his tattoo, “is simply a cultural pretext that they are using to keep their young warriors from killing us on mere whim right now.

“Telour deducted only a single breeding point for the killing of Isadora, which will be restored if they use her for rations. When I say he was reluctant to have her eaten, it was only because of the poor flavor of the food. After we get to Koban, they will get sanctioned chances to kill us, where they can earn breeding points for kills. We better hope we get there soon, because I don’t know how much they eat per day.”

With that sinister warning delivered, silent nods were the only replies.

“I have fewer things to brief you on this time, and most concern how the Krall fight. There are some surprising lapses in their tactics that we might exploit. Let me list them, and then we can talk about them.” He noted their agreement and continued.

“In hindsight, I should have realized what questions a bunch of scientists were likely to ask. We got useful information about their society and history, but almost no practical data on what we will face when we have to fight them.

“Ms. Jorl’sn and Motorman Johnson were particularly productive in this respect today, and Noreen and I added questions of our own. We avoided asking any questions of Telour. I’m not sure he won’t share any ideas he learns from us with members of his own clan’s warriors. The other two translators are from different clans, and don’t know what Telour has asked us to do.

“We discovered that the Krall prefer small unit raids in most cases. Eight warriors with a senior leader on a small raid are common, and with a sub leader for each octet if there are more units in a combined larger raid. They generally fight until their unit’s losses reach about forty or fifty percent. Then they call for retrieval, so that their performance can be evaluated, breeding points awarded and enemy tactics and weapons reported.”

“Oddly the Krall don’t appear to use sea or water assaults, since they can dash in and land where they chose. A warrior can stay underwater longer than we can, holding their breath, but are far too dense to float without assistance. I’ll bet they can swim only with considerable expenditure of effort to stay at the surface. We might be able to use that as a tactic if we have water where we are supposed to fight.

“They were asked about artillery and mortars. The concept was learned from one of their opponents, but apparently never improved upon and isn’t used. They aren’t very inventive and don’t improvise much until they observe a tactic to emulate.

“Another advantage for us, if we can make the weapons, is they have never heard of anything like hand grenades. I think that past opponents were peaceful and civilized when they encountered the Krall, and didn’t possess such weapons. Therefore, the Krall didn’t copy them.

“If their opponents had stellar societies tens of thousands of years old, then violent tendencies of their early civilizations may have been long forgotten. If so perhaps they wouldn’t think to employ ugly weapons like these, and the Krall didn’t copy what they didn’t see. I’m only speculating, but why would an old genocidal species not know about so many ways to kill that we, in our short history, have already used?

“Humans have been quite inventive in the past, and if we can make them we can try mines, booby traps, grenades, and mortars, none of which seem to be Krall-like notions. No doubt, they will adjust, and even incorporate what we show them, because they certainly are not squeamish about killing or stealing ideas.

“And perhaps most encouraging for our experience to come on Koban, Noreen and I confirmed independently something about the compound where humans live.” He let them hang on his words for an impatient moment.

“I’ll kill you myself dear Mr. Captain, if you don’t stop this damned habit of making us hold our breaths, waiting for your shoe to drop,” groused Maggi, giving him a threatening look.

“Ok, Ok,” pretending to draw back in fear, hands warding her off.

“The Krall don’t live in that compound where we will stay. It’s a small one recently abandoned by the Maldo clan. Remember the question Dillon nearly was killed over, when he asked Dorkda why they were leaving the planet they wanted to call home? That compound is where his small clan once lived.”

Dillon, remembering that moment vividly, asked, “Where do the Krall actually live, and how do they control their captives? Telour said he spent a lot of time with them.”

“The main Krall compound is quite some distance away. They only maintain a few guards and some living quarters at the human compound. However, the guards are primarily there to keep out local animals and maintain the walls and electric fences. Ironically, this is so their human prey is safe until the Krall have a chance to kill us. We might have more autonomy than we expected, once on the ground.”

“What do they name their own compound?” Dillon asked.

Mirikami shrugged. “Apparently it’s like their ships. They don’t appear to name them, just identify which clan uses them. They aren’t particularly into aesthetics.”

“How is the fighting conducted?” Maggi wanted to know. “I had assumed they just stuck some people with guns in an arena with warriors and watched what happened.”

Noreen had that answer. “That wasn’t far from the truth in the beginning, Maggi. Per what Kapdol described. But now it’s done more like the Krall apparently expect to fight us on our planets.”

“And how is that?” Dillon asked.

“They send out a group of armored and armed humans into the large outer compound, with weapons, and tell them to find positions to defend, or places to hide. Then, after a few days for the group to prepare, an octet or more of Krall novice warriors fly in without knowing anything in advance of what they face, and hunt them. They kill anyone they can find, and expect the humans to fight back, trying to kill any warriors they can.”

“How many people are sent each time and how have they done, did you learn that?” came from Aldry.

Mirikami gave her the bad news they anticipated. “The Krall send out anywhere from eight to sixteen, even thirty two humans of any gender. Four to eight warriors hunt them.

“As to how well the captives do?” He shook his head. “Up until Dorkda left on this raid, only a couple of warriors have ever been killed, and a few seriously wounded. Although one was killed later, by his own octet leader, for allowing himself to be shot in the back, not a fatal injury otherwise. Dorkda displayed what I think was a mixture of amusement and contempt over the executed novice. If you’ve seen them snort and throw back their heads, you’ve seen their equivalent of a belly laugh.

“The sad news is that not many humans ever make it back alive, yet the hunt only lasts one full day. For incentive, a human receives immunity from all future testing if they simply make it through that day and night. The whole group is awarded immunity if any one of them manages to kill a warrior.

“People that is all I’ve got concerning actual fighting. Any comments?”

“It’s grim, but don’t you think the captives there should have had a bit better luck?” asked Maggi.

“I wonder about that too,” Dillon agreed. “Do they get any training or have any strategy before they go out? I’d think some of them would set up an ambush and try for a kill, no matter what the risk if the entire group gets immunity after that.”

Mirikami shook his head no. “Neither of the other two translators were aware of any planning the captives have done. But Telour implied that there was no human leadership on Koban now.” He reminded them of the recording Jake had made of that conversation.

“I suspect that any leaders the captives may have had were expected to lead them in fights, and probably wouldn’t have survived the experience. Eventually no one would take the job. It may be an every man or woman for themselves mentality now.

“Telour seems to be the only Krall that has thought to try and use humans to train and organize other humans. He is essentially offering immunity for those organizers. I told him people would not respect or follow leaders that were never put at risk themselves. I still think that.”

“Tet,” Maggi warned, “don’t let us hear you say you are going to get yourself killed before we develop all these fresh ideas that are giving us hope.”

Looking at her then the other three faces on his screen, he shrugged. “I don’t relish dying uselessly, so if Telour will allow us a little time to build our weapons and come up with tactics, I’ll wait to go out with our first prepared group. However, I’ll never be a macho leader. I’m middle aged and hardly imposing as a would-be warrior.”

“Captain Mirikami,” Dillon spoke forcefully and respectfully, “I promise to follow you whenever you’re ready to lead such a group. We need your leadership and ideas to carry us through this.”

Startled, and embarrassed at the unexpected turn of events, he merely mumbled, “I thank you for that support and trust. I hope it isn’t misplaced.”

Aldry took this opportunity to bring up a topic she had been considering since yesterday. “On the matter of who goes on these missions, and who Telour will exempt, I think this needs some painful and uncomfortable discussion.” They gave her their attention, Maggi having already talked with her on the matter.

“We have a lot of smart and technically capable people with us, but many are old and will hardly make fighters. If we expect to do the genetic work we discussed, and for others to make the weapons we think up, we can’t afford to lose those valuable people in risky fights before we get the results we need.”

“What are you proposing, Aldry?” Mirikami asked.

“I went back over that taped conversation last night, the one you just reminded us about when Telour was left in charge. When you didn’t accept his offer of what must have included immunity for yourself, he didn’t reject your counter proposal to allow ‘advantages’ to go to those who help you organize or fight. I think we can use that, don’t you?”

“Aldry, I don’t want immunity, nor be the ‘King’ that grants immunity to his favored friends!”

“Hear her out Tet, Maggi asked. “There is something to this, and she and I talked about it. Please let her continue.”

“I’ll listen. Go on Aldry.”

“The Krall respect their K’Tal class for their knowledge and special skills, so why not establish that class for the humans you need to do the preparations? Ask for immunity for your engineers that will make our weapons, for our best minds that will attempt the genetic enhancements. We need those people to stay alive for an extended period.” She paused for his response.

“That is probably necessary, but I will not make those decisions, choosing which lives to protect from risk, leaving others fully exposed. What I told Telour was accurate when I said my orders would not be followed or respected if I did that, and I will not do that.”

“But…’ started Dillon, but he was interrupted by Maggi.

“So! You are not opposed to the concept, you acknowledge that it can help more of us to survive this, but you will not make the immunity decisions yourself. Simple solution here Captain. You won’t make them.” Her hand slammed the table.

“A damned committee can spread that responsibility around, making it clear that you have no say in their decisions. You said we can’t fight a war by committee, but that doesn’t mean committees have no use.”

“I…, uh” Mirikami faltered.

“I second that!” said Dillon.

“Me too,” Aldry chimed in.

Both conveniently overlooking that this wasn’t a meeting of the Consortium’s Board of Directors, that two participants weren’t even on the Board, and Maggi hadn’t framed it as a motion.

“Captain, it’s a practical solution.” Noreen tentatively offered to her superior officer, showing her own support.

“How would we convey the selections to Telour, and explain why those particular people?” he answered, letting the rest know they had won their point.

Aldry said, “Telour should hear it from you Tet, because we need him to see you as being in charge, but the people will know you followed the committee’s selections. The committee will take any heat or complaints over grants of immunity. Assuming Telour agrees.”

Mirikami had a point to make of his own. “If this doesn’t produce the results Telour wants the committee and I will be in an armed fight, if we are lucky. Or found dead in our sleep if our own people get to us. Who would serve on such a committee?”

Maggi was ready. “When Aldry spoke to me about this, I gave it some consideration. I think it should involve between five to nine people, an odd number to avoid ties, and have a rotating membership that lasts a month, to be decided by our people as soon as Telour agrees to the proposal. The committee members themselves would not have immunity while serving, so no advantage to volunteers. What do you think?”

“It sounds like you and Aldry have given it more thought and detail than I could have. In fact I feel positively ambushed!” but he laughed.

He conceded, “I’ll approach Telour as soon as we break up here. I only know of one more item from my side, the ship I mean, and Noreen will talk about that.” He looked at her image. “Noreen?”

“Thank you Sir. The first practice run-through for the engine drop went as expected. Screwed up and confused. But Chief Haveram noted the problem areas for the next one in

” she looked at her thumb nail watch, “about twenty five minutes.”

“The Chief personally is supervising the cutting of as many supports as he thinks are safe for landing. Our silent friend can adjust for the higher gravity to put us down as easy as possible, feeding the information to the Navcomp and Engine control system.

“All told, we have forty-two people, fourteen on three teams. Enough to rotate them for breaks on the jobs that don’t involve cutting.”

“That’s good,” agreed Mirikami. “I think higher gravity will be a greater hindrance than we anticipate. We are living with it now, but we can sit down when we get tired. We are not close to being acclimated, and a mistake due to exhaustion could blow us up, or start a fire we can’t control.”

“And concerning that Tet,” Noreen added, “when I asked the Chief how we could safely drain those fuel lines dry, I inadvertently phrased the question to him so that our friend suddenly offered a solution. It’s idea that we didn’t think of, never having had the need.

“Our friend will calculate the precise cut off time of the fuel feeds just before we set down, using up what’s in the main lines, and switch some emergency valves to send the residue to burn in the ten attitude thrusters that are normally cut off as we settle on the landing jacks. “The lines will be bled essentially empty before we ever light a cutting torch. The Chief says, and I quote, ‘It’ll be hell on my pumps and lines,’ followed by comments unsuitable for our guests.” She laughed.

“Hmm,” hmm’d the Captain. “We better not need a last minute drift correction. However, that isn’t any more risky that a hell of a lot else we are doing. My compliments to you, Willfem, Jorl’sn, the Chief, and his Rats. Particularly to our civilian volunteers.”

Shifting focus, Mirikami asked, “What’s new on the dirty tricks side Dillon?”

Dillon had a report he was eager to give. “I spent last night and part of this morning with your cargo specialists, Chack and Ricco, and scoured through our invoice that I had you send to Midwife. I also talked with the two machinists about what they can make and with Mister Rigson and Mister Branson about your pharmacy supplies. Naturally our friend helped us all with research, chemical names and processes, blueprints or pictures of devices.”

“Dillon, a lot of what we are planning depends on making what we need the soonest.” Mirikami felt his chest tighten with apprehension. This was key to a fast start, and critical to their basic plan.

“It looks promising.” Dillon stated firmly.

“Bob Campbell and Neri Bar; the Fancy’s machinists” he added for the benefit of Maggi and Aldry, “looked at the designs for crossbows and darts, air guns, remote actuators and trip wires, mine fuses and casings, and says they are possible to make by the automated equipment if it’s programmed correctly. A friend can help there greatly!” Jake was central to their plans.

“Fragmentation grenade cases are easy to do, they tell me, but trigger fuses seemed tricky to me unless we can find some detailed design as a guide.”

“What are we going to use for an explosive?” Mirikami asked.

“That was part of what I was doing in the cargo hold,” Answered Dillon. “I was looking for some supplies we brought for Midwife, verifying ingredients I was told to check for in some cleaning compounds that seem harmless to me otherwise. I was startled to see how much we have around us every day that can become dangerous if you know how. You really do have a huge library,” he added.

“That friend says we can get quite a bang out of several mixtures of material we have aboard. Some is almost like soft clay to be shaped as we want. The description says it can be burned or dropped and not blow up, but a small detonator makes any size hunk go off with a big bang

“Mister Rigson discovered that the pharmacy can be programed for manufacturing small quantities of more volatile fusing materials with the raw materials we have, so we can make the triggers. We also have remote radio control devices that can be converted to use as actuators to make things go boom at a safe distance.

“A mortar tube is child’s play to make, I’m told by your machinists, because the smart part is in the shell and propellant, which we don’t have solved yet. Baby steps, I guess. These would seem to be dead give-away devices when fired, so those might require remote triggers and be pre-aimed.

“Land mines and booby traps, I am told, are easy to make and fill with explosives and shrapnel, and can be formed out of metal or plastic. This is the list so far, on things that shoot or go bang. The Defense Rests,” he concluded with a pun.

“That’s a good start, Dillon. Is that it for your report?” Mirikami asked.

“Nope, now for drugs.” He answered with a grin, and continued.

“Mel Rigson and Cal Branson checked your existing supplies, and I fed the computer the invoice of all of the lab supplies and chemicals we brought with us. We can make some compounds that rev up your metabolism and promote mental acuity, some others that regulate lactic acid and oxygen transfer when you run or exercise for an extended period, and let you do it longer and faster than normal.

“Koban has high Oxygen levels, so that last drug may allow us to make even better use of that. I think we’ll have to find out the hard way. All of these are detrimental to your health in the end, but so are the Krall.

“The good news is that we can turn out all of the drugs, and in quantity. It’s more efficient to make one type for a while and stockpile it, rather than switch back and forth. Nevertheless, we can make enough doses of most of the human drugs for everyone aboard, many times over. We’ll have to see which ones really help by trial and error, no matter what the medical records say, because we aren’t using them as prescribed. But that’s it for me,” he concluded again.

Everyone congratulated him on the depth of his review and quick results.

“Dillon,” beamed Maggi, “I think that I finally believe that we might actually be able to put up a real fight.”

“Let’s not get too excited. All we have is untested theory.” Mirikami cautioned. “And we can’t be the only race that had bright and unexpected ideas that went up against the Krall.”

“Tet, you sure as hell know how to bring a Lady down,” she complained. “Let’s not display that level of pessimism for our people, OK? We want them motivated and positive. Let’s not start out sounding defeated.”

“You’re right Maggi. My apologies to everyone. That was an encouraging list of things we can work on. Was there anything else?” He looked at each of them.

“Tet,” started Aldry tentatively, “the long range process to boost human physical capability was touched upon in our last discussion, beyond what drugs can do. The genetic approach.”

“You have something to tell us along that line Aldry?”

“We do,” she emphasized. “Maggi, Dillon, and I, plus almost a dozen other people we brought along with us to Midwife have something to say.” She had talked this over with Maggi late the night before.

She explained. “For two decades there has been a quiet need expressed by parts of the Hub government, and certain Colonial Agencies, to find a way to solve a crisis that has been slowly building on the New Colonies, and delaying establishing colonies on promising worlds.

“Human settlement on so many alien worlds had only been made possible because we had genetically modified our crops. Adapted our livestock to filter out toxins in the new environments, to enable them to eat and digest native vegetation.

“Genetic modification has always paved the way for humanity. Reckless tinkering with human genetics caused our downfall. We came to Midwife for the stated purpose of the project, but we also were sent there to use the remoteness to do the research and work needed to reinvigorate our failing colonies. Research that was essential to humanity’s future, but publically and politically unmentionable.”

“I take it that you are, to use an ancient phrase, ‘coming out of the closet’ now?” Asked Mirikami with a smile.

“Yes and no” Maggi responded for her. “Aldry made some discreet inquiries of our recruited group of scientists. We have a mixed result, but I’ll let her explain.”

“Each of them agree that what we discussed is not only possible, but that we can do it with the information and technology we brought with us.

“Most accept that it might even be necessary for long term human survival against the Krall. However, down to every woman and man, none wants it made known to even our fellow scientists and technicians at this time. I have their support, but only if we retain the secrecy that had been in place from the start. They worry that word will leak out to nonscientists, and some sort of miniature version of the Purge will rear its ugly head here. I can’t blame them”

Mirikami pulled at his lip. “There isn’t any assurance that I can offer to protect them, so what’s the consensus? Will they work on this if we have the opportunity?”

“They are fearful of being discovered by humans to be working on human genetics, but are far more afraid of what the Krall will do to us. As a race that is. They already know what they plan to do to us on Koban. So every single one of them are onboard.”

Shaking his head slowly, Mirikami had to ask a question. “That’s a fine and dandy commitment, but folks, what can you actually do for us? You know what I mean. For the poor bastards stuck on Koban and facing a fight to the death next week! Can you do anything to impact those outcomes within a time frame that we will find practical?”

Aldry was grinning and nodding her head, but just as she was about to speak, all five received a simultaneous warning from Jake.

“Telour is now monitoring the Captain and Doctor Fisher, using both audio and video from the bridge. As previously instructed I have closed the video Link to their table, but they can still hear the other participants and you can hear and see them.”

Sure enough, the other three saw Tet and Maggi look away from the still active camera pickup embedded the table monitor, as their own video feed went blank. Mirikami promptly lifted his wine glass, took a sip, and asked Maggi how she liked the wine. She smoothly took a sip of her own wine and made small talk about its flavor, how it complemented the fish, which they had been ignoring until it grew cold.

They set to eating their cold meal slowly, silent as they chewed.

“Well, are we done for now?” Aldry saw Mirikami shake his head negatively in a small gesture.

Noreen was more at ease with Jake’s capabilities. “No. They can hear us, but can’t see us, or risk talking to us. The Captain knows we see and hear them. It’s why he set up our friend this way, so we can share information. Please go on Aldry, they can offer comments or questions later.”

“Good,” she stated. “I may not deliver the instant gratification that Dillon’s new ‘toys’ will deliver, however we can test useful ideas within a couple of weeks. Assuming we actually get one or two of our most automated labs set up and working.”

Feeling a bit rattled by Jake’s reminder that their privacy could suddenly be interrupted she rushed to get her own report done quickly.

“The trick is to have the data bases with the specific human genes identified as targets for modification, and knowing what those mods should be. We have the information for this, because these details were extensively studied in order to retrofit human clones with new traits or abilities specifically ordered by customers, added well after mature clones had been decanted.”

She hesitated when she observed Mirikami suddenly stiffen, and saw a shocked expression appear on Noreen’s face. Dillon and Maggi had already known the basics of what had been coming, but they seemed distressed as well.

Aldry realized she had perhaps been a bit clumsy in mentioning clones, and didn’t really know why she had used that as an example. Perhaps subconsciously thinking no one would consider them actually as human, thus less concerned about how they acquired the knowledge. It was a stupid thought, since people they knew would become their test subjects if they tried this.

Aldry didn’t know of Mirikami’s New Honshu’s heritage. A past, which might make him sensitive to discussions about clones and modifying their genes. Maggi had not shared that bit of deeply personal research she’d done on the Captain.

Mirikami covered his surprise by taking a sip of wine, and calmly resumed eating. Noreen still looked concerned.

Aldry was aware she had probably committed a faux pas, but why Maggi and Dillon acted shocked as well was a puzzle. They certainly knew the data they had was obtained from work with clones. Deciding that with Telour watching and listening to the Captain, this wasn’t the time to apologize or inquire. All she could do was continue, aware that her pause revealed she knew she’d stepped in something.

“It is because of these records that we know what can safely be done, what works, and how quickly the benefits can be realized. We can cause muscles to increase strength or speed, by promoting fast or slow twitch muscle cell growth, and even increase both types. We accelerate metabolism, so that physical results occur within a few days, combined with exercise and proper dietary supplements.

“This isn’t going to come close to matching a Krall warrior in speed or strength, but narrows the gap a little. If we had gorilla genes in us, we could come closer, but that would require being born with the right genetics built-in, and then enhance those. That is probably what the Krall have done over thousands of generations to themselves.”

“Can we improve nerve reaction times, hearing, or sight?” Noreen asked. “They also have us beat in those departments, and tougher skin, faster blood clotting, wound healing, and infection fighting.”

Aldry looked at her with one eyebrow raised, wondering how a Spacer came up with those sorts of questions.

Interpreting her expression correctly, Noreen grinned. “Dillon has been talking to me, telling me some questions he asked of Kapdol, about what the Great Path has done for the Krall.”

Smiling at that, Aldry had some answers ready. “Significantly improved hearing and sight probably need the sort of born-with genetics I mentioned, but tougher skin is a possibility, as is increased blood clotting ability if wounded. Increased reaction times might be possible by neural genetic mods, and perhaps aided by drugs.

“We don’t have all the answers yet dear, there are over two hundred years of records to parse, from when this research was legal and also advanced enough to be of use to us now.”

She leaned back from the cameral on her screen. “And I need to get back to those searches, since I’m rather out of specific information to share right now. Noreen, Dillon, do either of you have anything else to add?”

“I don’t.” Noreen spoke up. “I’d like to rejoin the three teams rehearsing the main engine removals. If we can’t do that fast enough, Parkoda might solve the problem for us with a missile.”

“Then I think we’ve completed agenda we set ourselves for this meeting,” Dillon concluded. “At least as well as we can with Tet and Maggi under Telour’s microscope. I think we should leave them to their meal, while we get back to our individual projects. Agreed?”

Noreen and Aldry agreed, and Mirikami and Maggi managed small nods as they ate in silence.

As soon as they closed their Link, Dillon said, “Actually, the pharmacy has already made some ‘pep’ pills to boost our energy, and is still producing more of those to enhance our oxygen use for a test.” He showed her a small vial of pills.

“The ship oxygen levels are up to twenty nine percent, and gravity has passed one point three g’s, and I’m sure feeling the effects. But I have these samples of the new pills with me.” He had a scientific proposal to make.

“Before we are forced to test their potential combat benefits, how about a safer trial run right now?” He sported a mischievous grin as he said this.

“I believe you mean we should turn our pretend ‘interlude’ in to a real one, don’t you?” Noreen accused.

“Uh

, only in the name of science.” He finished lamely, looking crestfallen.

Glancing down and sighing, she remarked, “I suppose I really should test that massive bulge I see down there for its high g endurance.” Her return impish grin was rewarded when he quickly presented her with a gift. Two small pills and a glass of water.

Forty-five enthusiastic minutes later, the two new drugs had proven their value, at least for some purposes.

20. Koban White Out

It was well into the seventh day of the Jump, and the repeated run-throughs of the engine removals had been paused to give the three teams some rest. The Oxy and Pep pills, as they now called them, had proven their worth by keeping the teams moving despite the tiring effects of the higher gravity. Nevertheless, they needed some recuperation, combined with higher food intake.

The two first prototype crossbows had been tested, and were being reworked for greater range and modifications to make them a lot quieter. Telour, in a demonstration for him, had said they would instantly give away the position of the user to any nearby warrior. Telour was able to hear the flight of the bolt through the air.

He was more impressed with the explanation of what a grenade would do, and had held a couple of the empty casings in his large hands. He admitted that a warrior could be seriously injured by them, but probably would survive to kill the human that threw the device.

Mirikami had described only part of what they were planning to Telour, but what they chose to reveal was enough to maintain his support for saving the ship as a base of their operations. There had been no farther mention of declining Krall rations, nor mention of Isadora’s corpse, but they were now three days past the original predicted travel time.

Most of the Krall now regularly exercised on all of the stairwells, and several warrior pairs had been conducting mock-unarmed combat in the cargo hold, leaping from walls and floor in impressive and powerful jumps, particularly considering the one point five g’s now on the ship.

They would snarl and scream, grapple with and strike one another with loud smacks and heavy meaty sounding thumps, tossing an opponent across the hold when they were lifted from the floor with no purchase for a hand or foot. Except for the tips, their talons were kept sheathed, but their limbs moved in flashing thrusts, slashes, and blows that were hard to follow for the humans, who watched only by video. It was like watching giant red cats fight, with the bouts lasting perhaps two to three minutes.

They ended with no clear victor, and with seemingly mutual respect. The pair would face each other at the start, about thirty feet apart, suddenly stand more stiffly upright on their bowed legs before a scream and leap to start a straight ahead attack. When a bout ended, they faced off again, usually bloodied, straightened again, and made a chest high left-handed salute to each other, talons extended. Then picked up the arms and equipment harnesses they had brought with them, and departed.

These mock fights were intensely studied. Krall blood was a deeper red than a human’s, and samples were collected from the floors for study after the labs were set up on Koban. Despite long scratches and shallow punctures from even retracted talons, the blood flow ended quickly, and later the same day the undressed wounds on the warriors appeared to be healing. On the following day, the scars were fading.

Watching the exercises it was obvious that humans, powered armored or not, did not want to come to grips with one of these powerful whirlwinds of death. However, the people with martial arts training all offered the same comments. They said the Krall didn’t seem to use any sort of specialized training in hand-to-hand fighting. No two warriors fought the same way, or appeared to employ any leverage or blocking methods. They fought an adlib sort of personal combat, the technique unique to each warrior’s individual style.

The Koban Committee, what the five conspirators had unofficially started calling themselves, did a bit of rethinking concerning martial arts training. No-way-in-hell would a human survive an unarmed engagement. A Krall could simply tear your limbs off, or peel you out of your armor for a nasty tasting snack.

On the seventh evening of the Jump, Mirikami was talking with Willfem, Jorl’sn, and the Chief. They were discussing steps they might take to shave off some more time dropping the engines.

“Chief, if we cut more supports before landing, don’t we run a risk of the engines breaking loose as we set down? It could be a harder landing than we expect. If any engine tears loose, we probably won’t live to wonder what went wrong.”

“Sir, I didn’t mean to cut any more of the struts all the way through. I meant of the remaining uncut struts, to cut them all one third to halfway through now. That will take off ten to fifteen minutes per cut after we’re down

“OK, Chief. I bow to your expertise. Get your cutters working as soon as you can.”

“Aye, Sir.” Then he rushed off to talk to the three crews, all kept posted near their workstations, awaiting arrival at Koban.

“Sir?” asked Jorl’sn. “Were you able to speak to Telour about delaying passenger disembarkation while we drop the engines?”

“I did this morning, but once we White Out, Parkoda resumes direct command of us, and Telour will have no leverage to delay an order to off load our people. He can’t spring the bright idea to preserve the ship to Parkoda until the clan meeting. He says that we can bring our people back to the ship later.”

“But there’s a risk to anyone on the ramp or near the ship when we drop the engine parts. Those crashes could send pieces flying about like shrapnel.”

“Telour isn’t concerned about us once he has turned us over to Parkoda. Other than Isadora’s death in transit, his delivered captive count is complete. Losses on the ground count against Parkoda.”

“Bastard,” Willfem blurted.

“True,” Mirikami agreed. “But we might do something to reduce the flying debris risk. Rather than using the narrow two abreast personnel escalator, as we’d use at a Rim world port, we might send everyone down the wider cargo hold ramp. Its added strength and width gives more protection from flying debris, and its hatch is lower down for a short descent and quick exit away from the ship.

“People will have to guard against tripping on the anti-slip corrugated surface, but we can send them down at least six across, holding hands for support, rather than two abreast on that slow escalator. The two cargo haulers will already be out of the hold and down before they even get there.”

“I guess that’s the best we can manage,” Willfem agreed.

“I’ll speak to Mister Walters; have him brief the Stewards on the alternate evacuation route. We can

” he forgot his next words as he heard a familiar ‘ping’ sound from the hull.

White Out!

It was instantly confirmed by Jake’s announcement to every crewmember, via transducer. “We have completed an unannounced White Out. I will start a passive scan of the region, as directed.”

Mirikami didn’t need to instruct any of his crew as to their new duty stations. That had been set for two days. He started running for the lift. He asked aloud, “Is Telour on the Bridge I wonder?”

The answer came back. “Not yet Sir, but he is on his way up by the central stairwell from deck 8.” Jake always knew where every Krall was.

“Right. Link me to Noreen.” He knew Telour wasn’t monitoring him right now.

“Noreen, I’ll meet you on the Bridge, I’m leaving engineering on lift one, take lift two.”

“Aye, Sir.” She came right back.

When Mirikami stepped onto the Bridge Noreen was just taking her seat. Telour, standing behind the command chairs watched him arrive with his usual laser like intensity. He was obviously engaged in a conversation with another Krall via his shoulder com unit because he’d deployed his internal ears. Mirikami took his own chair, his control panel extending up and over his lap as the smart seat formed to him.

“Do not move the ship yet. Parkoda has not given an order for that. He is communicating with his clan leader on Koban,” advised Telour.

As previously arranged, Jake’s voice followed shortly. “The ship is approximately two hundred sixty four thousand miles from what appears to be a terrestrial type planet, with clear signs of a living biosphere. There are considerable radio and radar signals originating from the surface and from multiple points in the near space around the planet, including a large moon off to our port. The radio transmissions all appear to be in the Krall language.”

Out of the corner of his right eye, he caught Noreen glancing his way. She obviously had the same thought as he did. This was a damned close White Out to a planet, and considering the Krall’s Jump technology, was surely not a coincidence.

“Noreen and I wonder if that might be Koban?” Mirikami asked aloud. Telour ignored him, but the question wasn’t for him anyway.

Jake gave a tentative answer. “The radius is slightly greater than Earth’s at four thousand one hundred twenty miles at the equator, and the surface gravity, based on the orbital characteristic I observe of several ships, is probably one and one half times higher than that of Earth. This implies a greater density than Earth. There is only the one large moon visible.” The AI continued.

“On this hemisphere of the planet there is a moderately sized ocean visible, and the one ice cap we can see is small, as Koban was described to have. I believe there is a high probability of this being Koban. There are

” he was obviously going to continue, so Mirikami spoke, which caused Jake to cut off instantly.

“Noreen, could you inform our passengers that we have completed the White Out, and to get to the nearest couches or bunks in the event we start to vector for a landing.”

“Yes Sir.”

Crap! He naturally had expected to spend many hours vectoring in from some greater distance, giving them a bit more time for passive scans of the system and analysis.

“Parkoda is returning by shuttle to make the landing standing on his prize,” announced Telour. “Have your hold depressurized and the hatch opened.”

Mirikami immediately called down to arrange that. Next, he told the crew and passengers, by general broadcast, that they had arrived at Koban and that Parkoda was returning to the ship.

Telour again reminded them of their need to keep his agreement with them secret. “Parkoda may ask you about my period of command here. Do not let him learn of what I plan. I would survive my disappointment. Those of you who reveal my plans will not.” That was plain enough.

“We do not want to lose the advantages you have offered,” Mirikami stated firmly. “We will honor the agreement. Will you be remaining aboard?” Mirikami was concerned that Telour might be sent to the Clanship.

“Parkoda is within his right to order me off his prize, but that would create friction with my clan if this was done without a good reason. When he comes aboard, do not show surprise if I speak Standard with you poorly once more.”

“Telour, I have people in place now, prepared to start removal of our engines as soon as we land on Koban. What if Parkoda notices?”

“Parkoda will come to the Bridge to take command as soon as he arrives. He has no reason to look inside your work compartments. He will leave with me on the shuttle soon after we land because I spoke to my clan to ask for a meeting of clan leaders. The larger raids are almost ready to launch, I told them I have useful information for them. Krall do not talk all day as you humans do. Be quick to remove your engines.”

“Will the other humans meet us after landing?”

“They have not met new arrivals outside of the dome in the past. The Clanship will park a safe distance away, weapons aimed at you, and there are many ships in orbit. They will fire if you attempt to liftoff. You have no safe place on Koban except the compound that we give you.

“If you see warriors near the ship as your people leave, be grateful for their protection while it lasts. Any ship landing draws interest from flying creatures, and there will be two ships landing today.

“Animals here learn quickly, and new human arrivals are not very observant or fast. Some die traveling between a ship and the dome entrance. All our warriors will return to the Clanship as soon as Parkoda’s shuttle leaves, after that you have no protection except speed to enter the dome.”

Mirikami asked, “Who will be in charge of us when you and Parkoda leave, before we have all left the ship, and the engines are not yet disabled? Can’t the warriors and translators here provide protection?”

“I said all warriors will return to the Clanship. None will remain aboard in case you disobey and we destroy the ship. Warriors and K’Tal may return later, to verify the ship can never fly. Unless I fail to convince Parkoda and his clan not to blast the ship.”

“We will not disobey, and the ship will be disabled.”

“I think that is true, but nothing will change. Think of your arrival as your first test on Koban. You all must reach the dome on your own. However, you have no reason for concern. Only a handful or two will not finish that short journey to the dome, though you do have many to move. It will be interesting for us to watch.”

Fine, we are their damned entertainment, he thought. Screw them.

“You said we will receive weapons in the compound. Can we have some now for defense?”

“The clans here did not know you had been granted Ra Ka Endo before arriving, this is not standard. No other human arrivals have had that status or were given weapons. There will be weapons available only after you are inside the dome.”

“Will you inform the Krall in the compound and on the landing pad that we have been granted Ra Ka Endo? If some of my people get weapons inside the dome, they can return to protect those that stay behind to remove the engines.”

“I will do that before we leave.” He conceded. “But weapons in the human compound are not stored close by any dome entrance, and I do not think you can expect those humans to come out to protect your people. You are new, and few will risk their lives to protect you farther away than from the shelter of a dome entrance.”

Thinking quickly, Mirikami asked, “Can we use our own weapons from the ship for protection? Before we get the ones you give to the other captives?”

Telour made the Krall snort of humor. “Of course, any weapons you have, if you think you can kill fast flying things with them, and not kill yourselves.” He snorted again, proving how much confidence he had in their chances.

Well, the Captain thought with slight satisfaction, he thinks I meant the crossbows or the few grenades we showed him. Good. He’d have to speak with Walters, the Chief Steward, at the first opportunity, and with Dillon.

Parkoda arrived on the Bridge within minutes of his shuttle’s arrival. As before, he sprang up over the stairwell railing with barely a sound. Having raced up almost the length of the ship, against one and a half g’s of gravity, he didn’t even appear to be breathing hard.

Telour straightened as he arrived. Both Krall’s internal ears sprouted like flowers, as they spoke in the usual eerie lip wriggling silence. Parkoda spoke Standard to them when they were done.

“Telour says you able to take this ship to Koban without wait for tachyon. That you have engines to use to land at **********,” which was apparently spoken ultrasonically.

“I’m sorry Parkoda but we could not hear where we will land.”

Parkoda looked to Telour and they had a quick exchange. Telour said two words in Standard. “Koban Prime.”

Parkoda looked back to the Captain. “The humans call where they stay Koban Prime. You see Koban on screen. Go closer and I tell where to land.”

He was obviously referring to the beautiful blue green world, which Noreen had placed on the main screen. Koban it was.

“Should we start accelerating now, Sir?”

“Yes. Go close now, and orbit near so I can show where to land. The Clanship will follow.”

With a mixed sense of relief, Mirikami realized that by using the thrusters they didn’t have to reveal they had Traps already holding high-energy tachyons. Nevertheless, it meant the trip would take longer, and at even higher gravity as they accelerated. He wondered why the Clanship detectors hadn’t revealed what their Traps held. Perhaps with Krall onboard, they were unconcerned. One more example of lax security, or supreme confidence.

He called the Drive Room and told a surprised Willfem to start a vector towards Koban using only the main thrusters, and not the Normal Space propulsion system. He manually fed the Navcomp coordinates he had read off the main screen to vector them closer to the planet. He wasn’t about to talk to Jake to have him do anything. Nan already knew how to signal Jake to take over the landing sequence once they had coordinates.

The acceleration warning sounded as the ship changed orientation, rotating the nose towards the planet and then the main engines kicked in. The short trip would be slower than the Normal Space propulsion system could have provided, and the mass of the ship had to be overcome with more effort, throwing a lot of reaction mass out the rear as plasma. However, with such a short distance to travel and no future use for the fuel, Mirikami was practically throwing away the expensive fuel so the ship could reach orbit sooner.

The career Interworld Captain had an amusing thought. This final little trip was more costly in fuel than Interworld would ever have tolerated. He would be fired!

He made a call to Chief Haveram, using a handset. “Chief, I assume you have gotten the information about where we are, and the length of time to reach close orbit?”

“Yes Sir, a friend told me.”

“Right. Will your teams be able to do their jobs as planned, in that time frame?”

“Absolutely. We are finishing the final partial cuts right now, and the three teams will all take couches near their assigned work areas before we drop out of orbit. The engine compartments are a bit hot right now but they work in soft suits anyway, so they have cooling. Unless you call it off, we will jump right to it as soon as we land.”

“Thanks Chief, Out.” He was pleased they were able to work under the extra thrust. However, something nagged at the back of his mind. He couldn’t quite place what it was, but he needed to get off the Bridge for some privacy, so he pushed it to the back of his mind.

“Noreen, please keep watch while I get a bite to eat. I didn’t know we would White Out when we did and I’m hungry.” He released his restraints and stood up, and then it hit him.

The added acceleration was being automatically compensated by Jake, he realized with surprise. That was what had been nagging him. He hadn’t felt heavier than one and a half g’s, and neither did the work crews. At least not more than the tiring fifty percent heavier they had experienced for about two days. The almost full g of reaction thrust wasn’t adding to that, it was being compensated.

He had not told Jake to do that specifically, but the literal minded AI had been told to increase and hold gravity at one and a half g’s, so he was doing exactly that. Except gravitational compensation could only be done with the huge energy taken from tachyons caught in a Trap field. Apparently, Telour and Parkoda had not thought of that, or not being K’Tal didn’t know. Their ships would likely always compensate.

He hoped if Parkoda had brought a K’Tal back with him, that he wouldn’t think to mention a commonplace process like inertial or gravitational compensation.

Parkoda spoke to him as he passed him on the way to the lift. His first words, following behind Mirikami’s previous thought briefly sent a chill down his spine.

“We needed bigger tachyons for this jump, like I told you. My K’Tal said we could be caught forever in Hole, when we did not arrive when he expected.

“Now I know I can take whole human ships with me, even if slow. I will gain status to share this with all clans.” How convenient to forget that the credit for the idea came from humans.

Mirikami assumed the remark was intended to gall Telour, since he surely didn’t think the human animal needed to know that. Damn, that little jab might make Telour less willing to inflate Parkoda’s status even more at the clan meeting.

Mirikami decided he needed a little damage control. “This ship is a great prize for you to show to all the clans. It will forever be an example of what you did, when other clans see your perfect prize sitting on Koban. It will be an efficient use of a place to store humans as the dome becomes crowded.” That was to fertilize the seed that Telour was supposed to plant in Parkoda’s mind, and to remind Telour of why he needed it planted.

Taking the lift to deck 8, he bypassed the small galley below the bridge. The Krall’s super hearing would have overheard him that close.

As he stepped out, he saw a black clad warrior he’d not seen before, who must have arrived with Parkoda. In fact, he realized just then that he was able to tell them apart much better now, and wasn’t sure exactly when that had happened.

As he walked to the snack bar, he nodded and spoke reassuringly to the people he passed using the lounge couches, most of them with anxious faces. He asked that they remain seated and strapped down unless they had need of a toilet break, or a quick snack as he was getting. The snack area had no couches, and was around a corner from the Krall warrior’s view.

After the usual question and answer, he knew he was unobserved. He selected a sandwich from the automatic dispenser, and a drink. “I’d sure like a Link to Mister Walters right now, if he is unobserved by anyone unfriendly.”

“Mister Walters is near several passengers, but no Krall are monitoring his dinning alcove on deck 6.”

Knowing his voice would be recognized, Mirikami spoke without any preliminary conversation.

“Nory, if possible don’t do more than acknowledge when I ask, but you are presently unobserved by anyone large and red. I expect us to land on Koban later today. I’m asking you to organize an evacuation through the cargo hold, not the usual passenger escalator ramp. We need the wider ramp for speedier disembarkation, and for greater protection from dropping engine parts. Understand?”

“Aye Sir.” was all he said softly. Good man.

“After you instruct the other Stewards to line people up for the evacuation, don’t start anyone down until Noreen or I give the order. We will be using the stairs to descend as well as the lifts. All of the Krall will be off the ship by then. Before that starts, I have a special duty just for you, and don’t mention it to anyone.

“I want you to go alone to the locker in the corridor near mine and Noreen’s quarters, and use your code to open it, which I will authorize, and remove all ten of the objects and accessories, placing them in the black soft sided carrying case also stowed inside. Take that bag to the cargo hold and stow it where we can get to it in a hurry. Tell just Noreen and me where it is. Understand what I’m speaking about?”

“Aye Sir.”

“Excellent. Captain Out.”

“I’d like Mister Walter’s emergency access code to be enabled for opening any and all compartments.”

“It is Done Sir.” Jake responded.

He then called Maggi, Aldry, and Dillon, on a com line conference call rather than a Link via Jake. All of them had gone to their cabins as arranged after the White Out. Jake confirmed they were not observed.

When they all had picked up and acknowledged him, he said, “Folks, listen to me first. Telour says after landing we will have to offload everyone into the dome then bring them back to the ship later. Frankly, it is their first test for us on Koban, and we will be running some sort of gauntlet, unprotected from Koban life.

“To do this quicker, we need to use the ramp from the cargo hold where we can evacuate faster, and with a larger ramp to shield against engine parts falling out of the Flight of Fancy’s bottom. Parkoda and Telour will be leaving almost immediately on Parkoda’s shuttle, as will every Krall onboard.

“Any Krall outside the compound are going back inside the Clanship then, and we will be exposed to native Koban bugs, birds, bats whatever the hell they are as we dash for the dome. They are drawn to landing ships, and might attack and kill anyone spotted outside. Telour tells me we can’t count on the humans from the dome for covering fire before we get inside. They apparently don’t risk their asses for strangers. Dillon, is that idea Neri dug out of the war records yesterday ready for use?”

“Ah

, Sir, you know we couldn’t test them here inside, didn’t you? We have three of them built, but not loaded or pressurized. When do you want them?”

“Right after that cargo hatch opens. As soon as the Krall shuttle leaves and the cargo haulers roll down the ramp. I already told the two drivers, Chack and Ricco, to wear hard suits, despite how clumsy and heavy they are. They aren’t as strong as I hope the armor will be, but the haulers also have the roll bars and metal cages over them for extra protection. Have your gear ready then.”

“I’ll go see Bob and Neri as soon as you finish with me. I don’t think we need very long to load and pressurize them, but who do we want to use them? They are pretty damn heavy, even if simple to operate.”

“Look for big strong volunteers. In addition, stick them in soft suits with faceplates closed if necessary for protection. More from themselves than the animals, I think. We have a lot of those suits in all general sizes in the cargo hold. You had better get going. I have a hunch we will need those operational soon after we land.”

“On my way Captain,” he clicked off.

“Ladies,” he shifted focus. “I’ll need you to listen to our friend’s recording of my conversation with Telour and Parkoda on the Bridge after the White Out, and then use your network of contacts to impress on your people the need to rush like hell to get to that dome when they get off this ship. Please gather up the drugs we have produced from the pharmacy, give everyone that wants them a Pep or Oxy pill to take when we break orbit. And they can carry anything they can use as a weapon, like a walking stick, umbrella, or anything like a club or knife.”

“Tet?” asked Maggi, a puzzled look on her face. “That’s the exact opposite of what they were told when the Krall stormed aboard. Weapons like that are useless anyway.”

“Oh, sorry, you haven’t heard the recording yet. This has nothing to do with fighting the Krall. We’re worried about the native life. The Krall are making this our first survival test. Unfortunately we don’t know anything about what we might face.”

“Actually, we do a little bit,” Aldry interjected. “It wasn’t related to our survival strategy or Krall defense tactics, but a few of our biologists had questions like that. We know which flyers are supposed to be the most dangerous, like the wolfbat, as the other captives call them, and the scorpion skeeter.”

“What? Are you flipping serious?” Mirikami demanded. “Why the hell didn’t I hear about them?”

“Uh

,” she stammered. “I.., I wasn’t aware you hadn’t heard the stories. Sorry Tet. The Krall don’t even consider them to be very dangerous.” She ended lamely.

“Tet, I’m guilty too,” confessed Maggi. “I heard the stories over lunches and never thought to mention them to you, or asked if you’d heard them. You have been so focused on our real survival problems, and bugs and bats seemed too trivial. They were something we could learn about after we met our co-captives.”

“Ok. Then make sure no one else about to face them is as ignorant as I am! I need to get back to the Bridge, so you’ll have to ask our friend for that recording. I’ll get back to you when I can.”

He switched off abruptly, piqued that they hadn’t told him these things. Then as he headed for the lift, he considered the little things he didn’t always tell them about each day. Like what he had planned with his Stewards after they landed. Ahh nuts! I owe them an apology.

As he stepped off the lift he bit into the last half of the sandwich he had saved, just to demonstrate what he had been doing while off the bridge. He knew both Krall would have their blazing red pits boring into him when the door opened.

He resumed his seat. The two Krall continued standing silently and patiently watching. Considering they never slept, he wondered again, what they did to occupy the longer days they were so proud of not sleeping through. They loved to brag to the humans, but didn’t seem have a lot of conversation when they were together. Perhaps they talked more with fellow clan mates, and as far as he knew, none of the Krall aboard came from the same clans.

Noreen filled him in on minor happenings while he was away, as if he wouldn’t know. Such as arrival time to orbit, fuel consumption, relaxing the acceleration restrictions for a couple of hours.

The latter was to let people eat, go to the bathroom, and learn about and prepare for the landing and evacuation.

In the lift Mirikami had spoken to her by Link to let her know what was being planned, and then instructed Jake on what to report, to himself, Noreen, Willfem, and Jorl’sn, just as soon as his passive scans were complete.

That report came about ten minutes after Mirikami had returned to the bridge.

“I have completed a preliminary survey of this stellar system, and of Koban” Jake announced, “and I have located our galactic position relative to the Hub. As instructed I will compare Koban to Earth and Sol system, in the order of information requested, and I will attempt to be brief and concise.”

Sure you will, each of the crew thought.

“Koban is the second planet from the G class star, and is in an orbit slightly more elliptical than Earth’s with an average distance close to one astronomical Unit. A year here is slightly longer than standard, at 371 Earth days. The length of a day is just over twenty-two and a half hours, which results in 395 days in their year.

“The planet has an axial tilt of roughly twenty five degrees, compared to 23.44 degrees for Earth. The planet will therefore experience greater seasonal variation than does Earth. I have identified a strong magnetic field, and the northern hemisphere is in late summer, the southern hemisphere in late winter. On this side of the planet there are two continents visible, unless the observed land mass extends all the way around the planet. There are four continents reported by the Krall, and the relatively narrow ocean between the two coasts seen on this hemisphere is one of three seas Koban is said to have. Heavy forestation, possibly jungle, is visible away from the coastal plains of both visible landmasses. There are nine active volcanoes observable, and two are in eruption. Three mountain ranges are on the western continent, one range on the eastern land mass.

“The single moon is two hundred four thousand miles from the planet, closer and larger than Earth’s own moon, and it is denser, as is Koban when compared to Earth. The tides will be significantly higher, and nights with a full moon will be brighter. There are fewer large craters on the moon, which might be explained by the observation that there is no apparent asteroid belt between Koban and the first of four Saturn to Neptunian sized gas and ice giants in the outer system.

“The inner terrestrial sized planet is on the far side of the star and not easily observed. It has an orbit that lies within the habitable zone. It appears to be only slightly smaller than Earth, and I detect signs of a biosphere. However, the star’s glare makes this difficult to be certain.

“This system is just over eight hundred ten light years from Earth, and almost two hundred fifty light years from Newborn. A galactic map is available when you wish to view that.”

With that, Jake surprisingly quit talking. Mirikami was getting better at instructing the AI on how to limit his frequent endless data streams.

Noreen and he looked at one another. Now they knew a bit about the place they were going, and where it was located from home. Neither knew what they could do with the information, but it felt comforting to have it anyway. It made them feel they had some measure of control back, even if it was illusory.

21. Landing on Koban

They were orbiting three hundred thirty miles above Koban nearly aligned with the equator Jake informed them. However, they still didn’t have landing coordinates.

Mirikami knew the two Krall were speaking ultrasonically without turning around to look. Even if he couldn’t hear their words, he could pick up the sounds made by their lips as they rasped slightly over the small dagger like teeth.

Mirikami had said as they entered orbit that he needed coordinates for Koban Prime to enter into his navigational computer for the landing. Parkoda told him he would point to where they should land on the screen. Then to descend until they could see the dome and land near that.

With difficulty, he convinced Parkoda that the Flight of Fancy couldn’t operate like an aerodynamic military or explorer ship. It was a fat shaped passenger ship, and never went to places that didn’t have traffic control and detailed landing coordinates.

Evidently, neither Krall knew the coordinates, assuming the ship could operate by seat-of-the-pants control, just as Krall ships did. When they asked the Clanship for the planetary coordinates of Koban Prime, a K’Tal gave them numbers that they didn’t know how to translate for the Humans. That was apparently the discussion going on now.

“Human ships land at Koban Prime before now,” a clearly agitated Parkoda informed them. “They had no numbers as you ask us to give. I will not lose my prize for you.” He growled. There was clearly a threat implied there.

“Parkoda, I think the ships your warriors captured before were smaller ships, designed for some atmospheric flight capability. They were not large passenger ships like this one. We need to enter more gently, and set straight down without much adjustment in our course. This ship does not fly like your shuttle, or the Clanship in air. However, I have a solution to the problem that will let us land safely.”

“Then do that and not waste my time,” he ordered.

“Sir, I need to have you show us where on the planet the compound is located. This will let us search for the buildings, and we can use our telescopes and radar to find exactly where it is. When we know that, we can calculate our own coordinates for landing. However, your orders were that we are not permitted to send out any radio signals or you will kill one in eight of our people. Radar is a kind of radio signal.”

The signal part was a valid issue, but Mirikami had been stalling a bit because he wanted to make sure they completed one full orbit, to give Jake a chance to see the planet in more detail.

“Telour will point for me. He has been with humans many times. I do not fly there myself.”

Oh, so that was the true root of the sore point, Mirikami realized. Parkoda had to admit that he didn’t know exactly where the compound was located, and needed his underling to help.

Telour strode swiftly to the main view screen; in that graceful motion bowed legs implied were impossible. “Make picture big here,” he demanded, back to using pidgin Standard. He pointed to a place they were now passing, but at mid-latitudes in what Jake had said was the northern hemisphere.

Noreen obliged, zooming the image where he had pointed.

“This not where compound is, but as we go around we see it pass here.” Mirikami had to admit, Telour was putting on a good show for Parkoda, pretending he couldn’t speak Standard better than his temporary boss could.

They continued along their orbit, and another coastline appeared at the eastern edge of the continent they were passing over.

“The land we look for is after the ocean passes,” Telour told them.

“Parkoda, do we have your permission to use our radar and laser altitude sensors to look for Koban Prime when we are close? The Clanship will know we are transmitting, I think.” He didn’t believe the following Clanship would fire on them with the raid leader aboard, but there were other Krall warships and raiders in orbit with them.

“I will tell Clanship, and they will tell other clans.” He tapped his com, and started talking. Mirikami wondered what range that little unit had. It wasn’t just a short-range device, since the left small view screen showed that the Clanship was several thousand miles in trail. Another Krall technological advantage he thought, in a thin package only two inches across.

They waited several minutes, as the deep blue of the ocean started to pass below them.

“You can use ship for scans,” Parkoda told them, “but no radio signal sent away from here.”

“Thank you. I’ll tell my crew to switch on the radar and laser altimeter systems.”

He picked up his rarely used small handset, and dialed a code that actually connected him with the AI. “Switch on all of our active ship scanners, but keep them directed at the planet. The specific area to search will be indicated shortly on the main screen by Telour, when he will point to the general location of Koban Prime, our landing area. We are looking for an enclosed compound, with a domed building inside. When we have a possible identification, I will ask that it be placed on the main screen for verification.”

Jake acknowledged only by transducer with “Yes Sir.”

A second coastline soon appeared, proving this sea wasn’t very wide either. Telour stood close to the screen waiting. There was a small coastal plain, then a low mountain range. Beyond that was a tan area that yielded to light green then the deeper blue green of forest or jungle they had previously seen on the other landmasses.

Telour touched the screen in an area where the tan, light green and darker blue green colors converged, near what appeared to be a river. “Look closer to this place.”

Mirikami had the handset still in his hand when the image zoomed in to the indicated area. Noreen had not done that, and he had not told Jake to do it, but obviously Jake used the video feed of the Bridge let him see where Telour had pointed. Neither Krall appeared to notice, but he didn’t want that to happen again.

“Fine, now just follow my instructions for the image zoom, to find what we are looking for. If the radar detects anything like buildings or walls let me know.”

He heard via the transducer, “Radar detects a circular thirty foot high wall near that spot, with a large building at the center. The wall ring is fifty two miles in diameter; the central building is circular and over three thousand feet in diameter, and at least five hundred feet high at the center.”

Into the handset, “Zoom the main screen in on that radar target please.”

The image flashed in to show a ring like structure with a squashed dome at the center, seen at a low angle from the southwest. The angle slowly shifted as they watched.

Parkoda wasn’t certain. “Other clan compounds look the same.”

Telour was sure. “A small river on one side, there is very dry land on south side; small mountains, grass, and jungle on north are all inside the wall. This is where we test humans, with many kind of places to hide. There are dead human ships near the dome. This is what the humans name Koban Prime. It was once home of a small clan.”

As the image improved with closing distance, a gray circular apron surrounded the dome, perhaps a mile wider than the structure. Even at this distance at least a half dozen crumpled or burned ships were visible. Passing well south they could see a Krall shuttle, identical to Parkoda’s, parked on the Dome’s east side.

“Is that where we need to land?” Mirikami asked. “We need to calculate the coordinates when we can still see the building.”

“That is Koban Prime,” affirmed Telour. “How soon can you land?”

Parkoda interrupted, “That is for my command, not yours translator!”

“I did not give your captive an order Parkoda; I asked only how soon he can land.” He sounded irritated, and apparently slipped and used better Standard than he had been displaying since Parkoda had arrived.

“Turn us to land now!” Parkoda ordered the Captain.

Shit! Mirikami thought. He wants us to land right now, to show he commands and not Telour. I’ll be caught in their pissing contest unless I’m careful.

“I am having the coordinates calculated now, Sir.” Speaking to the handset, he asked, “Do you have the landing coordinates?” Of course Jake did.

“Yes Sir,” the AI confirmed. “They are on the main screen at bottom right, and in the Navcomp as well.”

Still pretending to listen on the handset, “Perfect. Feed those numbers into the computer, and adjust our orbit immediately for the landing at Koban Prime on the next pass.”

All of that was said primarily for effect, except the part about changing their orbit immediately. The orbit change could have come later, but he wanted to demonstrate some sort of positive response to satisfy Parkoda’s order.

Fortunately, everyone below was on his or her acceleration couches until touchdown. Except for the Krall of course, who never seemed concerned about such things, and probably counted on their strength and reactions to adjust to any forces the weak little humans could tolerate.

The ship rotated about ten degrees and the main thrusters did a short burn, to adjust their track to pass directly over Koban Prime on the next orbit.

Turning to Parkoda, Mirikami stated, “Following your order Sir, we are shifting to land at Koban Prime as we complete this final orbit. We should be landing in

” he looked at the countdown Jake had placed in the bottom right of the main screen, “sixty three minutes of the human clock.” He pointed at the display, figuring that Parkoda probably wouldn’t understand it, but the changing seconds were visible.

“Good,” was his only response.

Noreen then made a ship wide broadcast, and placed the countdown on every monitor on the ship. Everyone below had been watching the image of the planet on nearby monitors since well before they had entered orbit.

The Stewards had worked out the order of evacuation and the routes to the cargo hold. The passengers knew whom they were to follow. The first ones to get up would use only the central lifts, at least until the last of the Krall had departed the ship. Those people would gather in the area at the bottom of the lifts, outside the hatches into the cargo hold bay, waiting for Parkoda’s shuttle to leave.

The cargo Hauler drivers would be in their machines, also waiting for the shuttle to leave and the ramp to finish extending to the tarmac. They would have the dubious ‘honor’ of reaching the surface of Koban before the others. They had also been given a secondary job to do, before hauling away the engine parts. It was passenger escort duty, with smooth pallets tied on their front lifting forks, to carry tired or injured people or equipment. Mister Walters had talked with each man and explained what the Captain wanted them to do.

The engine dismantling would start almost as soon as the ship settled on its six landing jacks. Nevertheless, nothing large would be falling out the bottom of the ship for the first twenty minutes or so, just bits and pieces such as nuts, bolts, connectors, and strut pieces.

The final orbit gave them the hoped for bonus of gathering more information on the planet. Jake was scanning and recording the view of as much of the planet as he could, using the radar and laser ranging systems, and external camera feeds. Again, this was of no practical use at the moment, but good to have.

With about thirty minutes to go, both Parkoda and Telour apparently received nearly simultaneous com calls. Telour was still standing close to the main screen and off to the right side. They saw his internal ears extend and he tapped the com button. His glance back at Parkoda caused Mirikami to turn his head that way as well. Parkoda too was receiving a com call.

The two human’s curiosity was short lived. Parkoda gave them the news. “I am called to meet with clan leaders at different compound. When we land, open door to let out my shuttle. I will fly there instead of to Clanship.

“The Clanship lands with us to watch and be sure you not start engines again. The warriors here will go there. If you disobey they will kill this ship.”

“I understand.” Mirikami answered. “My clan mates will leave the ship as fast as they can to go to the dome, but there are many of us, and it will take much time. You caught a large prize Parkoda.” Another ego stroke couldn’t hurt.

A glance towards Telour revealed the normal red-pitted glare from black orbs that they had grown accustomed to seeing from every Krall. No clue as to his feelings, either satisfaction or anger. However, a slight ripple of the lips almost resembled an imitation of a human smile. Never having seen one on a Krall, Mirikami couldn’t be sure.

Telour suddenly stood upright, extended his left hand towards Parkoda, talons extended in one of their salutes. He started towards the stairwell, but turned his eyes on the two humans as he passed. “I will see you in training soon.”

Next, he flashed over the railing and silently down the stairs. Mirikami wondered, don’t they ever go down them by the opening, or at a leisurely pace?

Parkoda had his own comment. “You must anger Telour. If he will see you in training you will be fighting him. It will not be swift.” He tossed his head and snorted.

These guys were a regular laugh riot, he thought.

“Is Telour also leaving the ship when we land?” Mirikami inquired. He was seeking confirmation that things were on track.

“Yes. I send him to take our machines to my shuttle, and tell warriors and translators wait there for me. He is also called to meeting of clans. He will see me get status, and does not like this.” He had another snort, promptly followed by bragging.

“My clan demands I lead a raid to human worlds. I proved able to bring back many humans for testing. We can be ready for war soon and on the Great Path.” He stiffened briefly, clearly pleased and proud of himself.

Mirikami asked Noreen to bring up the closest telescopic image they had taken of Koban Prime on the previous orbit. He wanted to look again at the landing apron.

The image showed three destroyed ships close together on the south side of the dome and three others clustered one quarter the way around to the west. The Krall shuttle was closer to the dome than the human ships, alone on the east side. The south entry showed a wide dark shadowed area under the dome roof, but he could not see what was in the recess.

He had a question, “Parkoda, how many entrances are there to the dome?”

His answer was prompt. “Domes are all made same. One hand of large entry places, and many hands of small doors.”

That meant four large entryways, and probably many smaller personnel sized doors. The human ships were clustered near the large openings, with the Krall shuttle at one by itself.

“Is there only one door where humans are allowed to enter, or will any door be open for us?”

“The large openings have a hand of small doors, and a hand of big doors to go inside. In the big doors we drive our machines to carry warriors, and to keep from the eyes of flying things that bite.”

That sounded like covered garage entrances with four big and four small doors inside them, with overhead protection from things that bite! However, he hadn’t really answered his question.

“Parkoda, can my clan mates get inside the dome from any of those large openings, or must they use only one?”

“Any of them, they are all the same.”

“Noreen, three of those entrances has disabled ships blocking us from landing very close to the dome. One is on the south side, closest to us in this picture, and I see a deep shadow of the recess. The other two appear to be east and west side openings, but we can’t see the north side in this image. Show me the first shot we had when Telour pointed it out and we zoomed from farther away.”

She brought that image up. It had less detail, but the long-range view angle from the west revealed blotches that appeared to be least two damaged ships on the north side. Only the east side was clear of wrecks, and had only a single Krall shuttle parked close to the dome.

“Go back to the other image Noreen,” he asked.

Mirikami studied the image for a moment. “I think we can land closest to the dome on the east side, giving our people a shorter run for that opening, and possibly use that shuttle for a bit of cover along the way. What do to think?”

“If we can pick the spot we want, and all things being equal, the shorter distance seems safest to me, Sir.”

He pretended to call and talk on the handset again. “We need to minimize the distance our people have to travel to get inside the dome’s large openings, so we want to land on the east side of the dome where we can get closer. Do you understand?”

“Yes Sir” was Jake’s instant response. “Should I also rotate the ship so that the cargo ramp will be towards the dome entrance, to shorten that distance more?”

“Yes, that would be best.” He hadn’t thought to ask for that.

They were down to twenty minutes, and the reentry burn would start soon. The ship was longer than it was wide, four hundred fifty meters long and three hundred meters across. The rounded tail was broken only by the now open three main thruster ports. In the Jump Hole or using the reactionless drive, the ports would be closed.

The ship, computer controlled all the way, would enter atmosphere rear first, starting its braking from about three hundred miles high, thrust at maximum to slow its momentum, and then to make a moderate speed atmospheric entry that shifted to become near vertical at about thirty to forty miles, nearly over the target. Then ride the torch all the way down, slowing as it dropped.

There was not going to be a plasma streak across the sky, which less powerful ships produced when using atmospheric braking. However, a vertical drop sucked up a lot of fuel. That was why the Fancy most often docked at a station, transferring people and cargo for smaller shuttles to take to the surface.

At a height of five or six miles, the ten attitude thrusters took over more of the braking, stabilizing the ship, and allowing the main engines to start to throttle back. Within the last mile, the big ship was only partly held up by its three weakening legs, but had ten strong thruster arms reducing the blast directly below the ship.

At roughly a thousand feet, the six landing jacks extended accompanied by a delicate shift closer to the dome, and a small rotation to align the cargo hatch correctly.

The Fancy settled towards the tarmac, the main engines throttling farther down as the attitude thrusters surged to take more of the load. The ship set down lightly, the main engines cutting off a bit earlier than usual, as soon as the first jack touched.

The side thrusters reduced their lesser roar as the ship settled on the jacks, but were not shut off, as they normally would be. The fuel feed had been cut to all thrusters, but the residue in the lines was still being pumped to the smaller thrusters until each flame flared out, draining the lines of liquid fuel and fumes. This screwed up the fuel pumps and collapsed many of the fuel lines. Just as expected.

The Flight of Fancy had finished its last flight, and Koban was its final home. The sounds of cooling and creaking joints were the only sounds, for nearly a minute. Then there were distant calls heard, coming from different parts of the sky.

22. Welcome Party

Parkoda, without a sound, leaped and disappeared down the stairwell.

“Humph!” Noreen grunted. “Not much for sentimental goodbyes are they?”

She shut down a number of systems, but kept the main engine and thruster monitors online, watching for fires or other issues as the engines cooled. Willfem, Jorl’sn, and Haveram had all reported their teams were picking up their tools and cautiously looking inside access panes, checking on heat or toxic fumes.

Mirikami had Stewards watching every stairwell. They needed the stairs for evacuation, but that wasn’t going to happen until the reckless aliens were off the ship, or at least down in the hold.

He had a side screen observing the cargo hold, and saw the double hatch sliding open. He could see three blue-suited Krall, which from the back he assumed were the three translators, including Telour, a brown suited K’Tal that was likely the shuttle pilot, and about twelve warrior uniforms. This meant Parkoda had brought more than the one with him that Mirikami had seen on deck 8.

Then sooner than he had expected Parkoda burst into the hold. The other Krall all stiffened in respect, their fragile looking inner ears blooming like ludicrous little gray flowers on those big reddish reptilian heads.

Moving in their usual swift and graceful feline-like manner, all of the warriors and two of the translators promptly went to the edge of the deck, each glancing skyward first, and leapt the thirty-four feet to the landing pad, despite a g and a half of gravity. The tarmac was still blistering hot from the landing, and the Krall were sporting bare feet and talons as they normally did. Another demonstration of their toughness, but the cautionary glance to the sky by each was noteworthy.

Parkoda, followed by Telour and the last two Krall in sight entered the open shuttle hatch, which swung down and closed. In only a few seconds, the craft lifted from the deck several inches, backed straight out of the hold, and as it pivoted sideways, darted out of sight.

Mirikami selected the full array of external cameras for the main screen, and observed in one of the frames the shuttle lifting away to the southwest. Most of the Krall on the wide tarmac were running towards the Clanship, which Mirikami could see had landed a half mile away, with a clear field of fire at them that would not risk the dome. A blue clad Krall was headed for the dome, passing the nose of the other shuttle. He quickly entered the shadowed interior, where several wheeled and tracked vehicles could be seen parked.

The fact that they were all running could be the normal gung-ho attitude they demonstrated in anything physical. Mirikami hoped that was the reason.

Checking the sky images, he didn’t see anything other than very ordinary looking clouds, a deeper blue sky than Earth, but about the same color as on New Honshu and some other worlds with G type stars. He thought he saw a few specks in the distance, but wasn’t sure.

However, it wasn’t time for sightseeing no matter how curious he was. “I wonder if there are any Krall left aboard.”

“No Sir, they have departed.”

“Ship wide broadcast.” Without waiting for a reply he started. “Attention! This is Captain Mirikami. All of the Krall have left the ship, stairways are usable for evacuation, but please watch your footing in this gravity.”

He glanced at a camera image. “The cargo hold ramp has deployed, and has a non-skid surface with small corrugations that can catch your toes. Tripping would cause a nasty fall on a fairly steep slope. Be extremely careful and watch the sky before you step out, look for native animals, and use any weapons or shields you could find for protection if attacked.

“Hurry at your best pace to the dome. The opening is perhaps three hundred feet straight out from the ramp, with a deep recessed area for cover. A Krall shuttle is parked partly in front of that opening. One of our two cargo haulers is at the bottom of the ramp with a wide pallet in case anyone falls or is injured and needs to be carried. The other hauler has a pallet as well, but it went to the dome, to ensure we have access as we were told. It will return to the ship. Your Stewards will be with you as escorts along the short distance you need to travel. Good luck.”

He had debated on what to say, and decided his warnings were redundant, because they should have already been spoken by the Stewards. He had other things that needed doing, and they were now sitting at the top of a permanently grounded ship.

“Noreen, let’s go down to the cargo hold to watch the evacuation, and see who Dillon found for his toys. I hope we don’t need them. Was Mister Walters standing by with our bag of goodies?”

“He is Sir, and the hauler drivers each have a different type. From the protection of those cages we can find out if they work or not if anything comes after them right away.”

“Ok. As soon as a lift empties, we’ll call it and ride down.”

Using a lower priority code, they called a lift as one emptied, and selected the cargo deck when it opened.

“Link me and Noreen to Chief Haveram, Ms. Willfem and Ms. Jorl’sn.”

“Done Sir.”

“People, Commander Renaldo and I are descending to the cargo hold to monitor the evacuation. Ms. Willfem, any problems to report from your team?”

They heard a grunt, then “No Sir, but it’s going to be damn hot work, even with the suits. Pulling things apart with brute force will be tough in this gravity, but we are on schedule. The Chief already hit a snag though.”

“Chief?” Mirikami inquired, knowing the four-way let them all hear one another.

Haveram was breathing heavy as well. “One of the collapsed fuel lines ruptured at a coupling before it was pumped dry, spraying the upper engine compartment. We can’t light a torch or risk a sawing spark until we blow the fumes out. The only airflow path is out the bottom. I have blowers running, but the fumes also pass through the lower work areas. We’re opening compartments and panels at the top to get a side air path out of the ship. That’s close to done, and the portable blowers will send the gases that way.”

“You need more help?”

“No Sir, more time. My people that can’t cut on the engine are helping to open the side panels. We already cut the hull open, and will start blowing that way in a few minutes.”

“OK, I’ll check back. Ms. Jorl’sn?”

“Making good progress Sir. Dropping small parts out our bottom like crazy.”

“OK. Mirikami Out.”

The lift opened on the backs of a crowd of chattering and excited sounding people. They heard Maggi’s surprisingly strong voice over the hubbub.

“Go through the inner hatches single file, and then link hands with other people to make six single file chains, not a line across! Then walk with your chain to the ramp and support each other as you walk carefully down. Don’t try the horizontal line of six. If one person falls, they can take the whole damned line with them. We don’t need any more broken bones.”

Oh, Oh, Mirikami thought. My initial idea must not have worked very well. Hope Maggi didn’t break any of my Steward’s bones just to make them change my instructions.

“Make way,” he shouted,” Captain coming through.” The people near him promptly turned around, recognized him and squeezed aside to give him and Noreen room to pass.

As they stepped through the hatch nearest the lifts, they saw Maggi, Aldry, Cahill, and three other Board members near the top of the ramp. They were organizing chains of people to walk down single file. If anyone slipped, the person behind could help hold them up.

Mirikami was too short to see over the heads of people. “Noreen, you giant, can you see Mister Walters or any Steward over by the ramp?”

“Got Walters, Sir. Left side of the main hatch.” She pointed.

“Good, stop to thank Maggi and her folks for having the good sense to change a bad plan. Then join me with Walters.”

They each excused themselves as they cut through the lines of people making their way to the head of the ramp.

When Walters spotted him coming, he smiled and held up the bag shaking it, showing it was obviously lighter now.

“Good to see you Sir. I suppose you heard we hit a snag on the fourth line of people to go down. A lady wearing heels tripped and pulled the two on each side down the ramp with her.” He talked in an excited rush, out of character from his usual unflappable nature.

“Actually Nory, I didn’t hear, but it appears a better way was thought of. Was anyone hurt? Where are our people we were going to have on the top of the ramp?” he asked.

“When Doctor Fisher arrived, just after the accident, she

,er, sort of took over, and her folks listened to her. She had a pretty good idea, so we changed your plan. Sir.” The added ‘Sir’ sounded like a sheepish sort of apology.

“Nory, staying with a bad idea would be stupid. Moreover, her folks are doing fine. But where are our guys?”

He partly answered his own question by simply looking out the open main hatch. Branson and Rigson were bending over the pallet the hauler had on its front fork, tending to three people lying there.

“We had just started the evacuation when the fall happened, Captain. The screams brought the first people already down back to the ramp to help, despite our insistence they keep going.”

“How bad are those three hurt?”

“Scrapes and bruises for two, but the lady in the red dress probably broke her kneecap when she fell. She wouldn’t take off her medium heels because she heard the first ones down say that the ground was pretty hot.”

Mirikami saw that there were about fifty people now walking steadily away from the ship in a ragged line, with several Stewards along their length. One more Steward was at the bottom of the ramp directing people to keep moving. The air was sweet smelling, mixed with the scorched scent of their landing. The temperature was very warm, and the air heavy and humid. The sun, almost overhead, broke through puffy white clouds. It was a beautiful day on Koban.

“Heard from Chack Nauguza?” he asked Walters. That was the driver of the second hauler, and he should have gone directly to the dome. In hindsight, again Mirikami thought, he could have carried some passengers on his own pallet to save them the walk in heat and high gravity.

“Yes Sir, he reported back by transducer a few minutes ago. Under the overhang of that big parking area are eight doorways, four are almost wide enough for three people to pass at once, and four with what seems to be retractable doors must be for large vehicles to pass through. All were closed, and he said there was some sort of control panel at each, and with mechanical looking latches. There was a Krall looking out a window. Chack got one of the smaller doors to open, and went inside. That was two minutes ago.”

“Link me to Chack Nauguza,”

“Done Sir.”

“Chack, how are you doing? Anybody home inside?”

“Yes Sir. A Krall was looking out a window in one of the large doors when I drove up. A warrior class in black and he didn’t approach me. He’s still looking out the window at the ship. I made sure my tattoo was showing for that guy before I tried to get inside. I had to remove my helmet and open the suit top for that, but I’ll button up when I get back to the hauler.”

“Smart precaution,” Mirikami complemented. “We don’t know what he was told about the new arrivals. What do you see inside?”

“There seems to be a large maintenance area in here, probably for the trucks parked under the overhang. There were no humans to see at first, but two have peeked in from windows along a back wall. They dashed off as soon as they saw me.”

“Do you think you can open the other doors, at least the smaller ones like you went through, and leave them open for our people? Let’s get our folks inside and worry about hellos later.”

“I left the door in the middle wide open, and I’ll do the same for the other small ones if that Krall lets me. The doors look like they can be electronically locked, but mine had a simple manual lever and latch system that worked smoothly.”

“If you can get the small doors open, we probably won’t need the big vehicle doors. As soon as you have them open go back to cover the evacuation line. Ricco will be bringing a few injured people on his pallet.”

“Mister Walters told me. I just unlatched a second door and swung it open. I’ll have to go past the Krall to do the others, so I prefer to walk along the outside to get to them Sir.”

“Fine,” he appreciated his caution. “Call Mister Walters if you have a problem or if any human shows up to talk to you before you start back. Mirikami Out.”

So far, it looked like Telour’s prediction was accurate. Their noisy landing had to have been heard, and yet there was no human present to welcome them or to offer help. Just a curious Krall watching animals.

His thoughts were disrupted when a shout, followed by a scream of pain sounded from out on the tarmac. There were other warning cries from the bottom of the ramp.

As Mirikami looked out, there were people pointing up in several different directions, and a man in the vanguard of the evacuees was down on the ground writhing in pain about halfway to the dome. A Steward was headed for him from about fifty feet away, but he was also looking up at the sky, his hand shading his eyes from the bright afternoon sun.

Noreen had joined Mirikami, and she had seen something, grabbed his arm, and pointed at a spot in the sky. He saw several gray and blurry looking objects rapidly shifting position in darting motions. Up down and to the sides, visually hard to make out.

Then he finally realized the blur was their wings, and the bodies looked long and slender, like an Earth dragonfly or a dartfly from New Honshu. He thought they were close because they looked small, but then they all flashed down towards the injured man. That’s when he realized they had actually been over the dome and must be at least two feet long.

The three landed on the back of the now weakly moving man, and each stabbed out with a black proboscis five or six inches long. The man jerked, but made no sound. The three people nearest the man were making ridiculous shooing motions at the insects, but stayed ten feet from them. The bugs ignored them.

About then several more of the insects swooped in from the side of the line of people on the tarmac. They made a low pass over the shouting and screaming people, but many of them had things to swing at them.

They each curled their long tails forward under their bodies as they swooped, deftly dodging the swats made at them. They were apparently trying to sting anyone they could reach in passing. They were all lightning fast they passed over and weaved through the group. An umbrella suddenly popped open as it looked like one was about to strike a woman holding only a short table knife. That insect instantly darted straight up and away in a blur, apparently startled by the object that had suddenly grown large in its path.

One of the other two insects managed to strike the arm of a man close to the woman that had popped open the umbrella. He dropped his hammer and clutched his bicep bellowing in pain as he dropped to his knees.

Mirikami heard Aldry shout that these were the scorpion skeeters. He had learned their sting was reported to be temporarily paralyzing to a human, and caused excruciating pain. They sucked blood from their prey, and if there were a lot of them present and you had no help, you died. Multiple stings could kill too, if your respiratory system shut down.

A second two insects from another direction came in low towards the crouching people. Many of the terrified people were trying to look everywhere at once, and a lone man was standing with a walking stick raised, but with his back to the oncoming insects.

They both had their tails curled forward, only ten feet from a double strike, when suddenly there was a buzzing sound, and one dropped instantly to the tarmac amid several panicked people. The other turned aside, in an erratic path, but disappeared around the curve of the ship’s hull. Several people stomped and swatted at the still form of the one on the ground.

Alfon Hanson was holding a small black Jazzer that he had just used to good effect. There were cheers from those he saved.

Another buzz was heard farther away, near the man with three of the bloodsuckers on his back. Steward Javier Vazquez had reached the now motionless first victim. He too had a small black Jazzer in his hand, and all three insects had collapsed on the man’s back. He tore them off and threw them down with disgust, stomping on them. Blood splattered from their bodies as he crushed them. They had only been on him perhaps ten seconds.

Walters shouted out, “Jazzers out, they work!” Rigson pulled another of the short range little nerve scramblers from under his uniform tunic, as did Walters himself. The hauler driver, Ricco, had one as well. There were eight in all.

Another skeeter dived towards an isolated woman, and a Jazzer buzzed from a Steward. The insect was too far away at twenty feet to be dropped, but it turned aside with less speed than it had started its dive.

Mirikami saw that people had quit going down the ramp, and nobody was moving towards the dome. “Get the hell moving,” he shouted. “These Jazzers have short range, and the power packs have charges for five or six shots. Get to that damned dome now!” They only had four spare power packs.

Those already on the ground moved towards the dome with more purpose and speed now, but clustered near Stewards for protection. More people reluctantly started down the ramp.

“Walters,” he ordered, “have Rigson look at the man down out there, and use the hauler to move all of the injured to the dome now. Ride along as another guard.” He pulled the black bag off the Chief Stewards shoulder.

“Yes Sir.” Walters went carefully down the ramp alone, walking between two human chains.

Maggi walked over to him. “Did we make these?”

“I wish,” stated Mirikami. “These are from our small arms locker. Only nonlethal, non-projectile weapons are permitted on civil transports. They are almost certainly useless against a Krall; they are nearly harmless to a lightly shielded human soldier. I was worried about how a trigger happy Krall might react to seeing a strange weapon in our hands.”

Reaching inside the almost empty bag, he pulled out two larger bell mouthed pistols in holsters, with belts. He handed one to Noreen, and kept the other.

“These are Sonics, multi-frequency audio stunners to repel or subdue rowdy or rioting passengers. On humans, they are less effective than the Jazzers are, but they have twice as many shots per power pack, depending on the intensity setting. These are also short range, perhaps fifteen to twenty feet to subdue a person. We have just three of these. The other hauler driver, Chack has the third one.”

They heard another scream of pain, and saw a flying skeeter flashing around the side of the ship, which it had used as cover to sneak in and sting the neck of a tall man. He let go of the hands ahead and behind him, and dropped to the ramp clutching the back of his neck. He rolled down at an accelerating speed in the heavier gravity, legs flailing and kicking people below.

When he reached the bottom, he was still, limbs and neck at awkward angles.

Those with Jazzer’s were now at the bottom of the ramp or spread along the tarmac, out of range to protect those at the ramp top. Mirikami pulled his weapon, set the Sonic at high intensity, and stepped onto the ramp between the chains of people. He turned to his right, braced with left leg extended down the ramp, watching where the insect had started its dive. He had noticed that they flew in twos and threes, so another one might be looking for its chance.

Two of them were hovering there, and they flew higher and away from the ship when they saw him looking at them. They were clearly more aware than most insects.

“Noreen cover behind me, and give warning if you see any,” he shouted.

Noreen, her gun in hand, took the ramp one chain of people over, and faced the other way.

They promptly were warned of a skeeter coming from Noreen’s front by someone out on the tarmac. It was hugging close to the hull, as if it was using it for cover, and she barely had time to see it and pull the trigger as it appeared around the side. The Sonic’s noise hurt the ears of everyone to her front, but the sound’s focus was along a narrow cone directly in line with the raised barrel, the effects falling off rapidly to the sides.

The bug flew directly into the cone of sound, and rather than drop, it shifted direction and nearly stung another woman in the line behind Noreen. It missed only because the woman ducked as the loud sound startled her.

Mirikami saw and heard it buzz by below him on the ramp. Keeping his eyes on his side, he asked, “Did you hit it?”

“I think I hit it dead center Tet. All it did was shift direction. These Sonics may not work on the bugs as well as the Jazzers.”

The Hauler platform now also held the man that just rolled down the ramp. Mirikami carefully went down the ramp to check on him.

“He’s dead Sir,” Branson said in a low voice, as the Captain approached. “Broken neck.”

He looked at the hauler driver, “Ricco, load this man, and go pick up the two men out on the tarmac and get all of them inside the dome. We still have almost eight hundred people to move, so someone else will have to look after the injured inside. You come back here and send Chack back

,” He looked towards the dome and saw the other hauler was half way back. “Never mind, he’s on his way.”

“Branson, get halfway up the ramp and use your Jazzer for cover. These Sonics may not stop the bugs.” As he said that, he spotted a flight of two skeeters diving towards the hauler and its load of injured.

He shouted a warning, aimed his gun at the close pair, and fired. The ear splitting sound diverted them, but one darted sideways and was hovering next to the shelter of the hauler cage. It looked about to go after the still form of the dead man, who was closest. Mirikami had no shot without risking his driver.

A buzz sounded, and Ricco had seen it too and shot it through a hole in the cage. The insect dropped to the ground, fluttering weakly. Mirikami ran over and stomped the thing. It had a surprisingly resilient body, but he managed to crush the stinger and head flat. The translucent wings definitely resembled those of five-foot wide dragonflies or dartflies. Convergent evolution on multiple worlds had replicated a good design.

Branson climbed carefully up the ramp because the human chains had broken apart. Maggi and her group were getting them organized again. They had to keep people moving down the ramp and away from the ship. He checked his thumbnail watch. It had been nearly fifteen minutes since the evacuation had started, and the first few people were only now reaching the Krall shuttle.

Mirikami, seeing Branson’s time check glanced at his own watch. Every time anything happened, people quit coming down the ramp or stopped to see what was going on. This had to stop.

“People,” he shouted, “If you don’t move like your lives depend on it, and get to that damned dome, more of you are going to die out her like those two men.” He pointed at the dead man on the pallet, and the hopefully only paralyzed man on the tarmac.

Those on the surface started walking in earnest, but running was hard when you weighed fifty percent more than your muscles were accustomed to moving. It was hot and humid as well, so everyone was sweating profusely.

“Link me to Vazquez.”

“Done Sir.”

“Javier, how’s that man with you doing? It looked like they were sucking blood already.”

“He’s dead Sir!”

“What? You got them off of him in seconds; they can’t have drained that much blood.”

“When he was stung, all three of those hit him together. I don’t think it was the blood sucking that killed him. I also shot him when I shot them. Sir, I may have helped kill him. I’m so sorry.” The man sounded miserable.

“Mister Vazquez, stop that sort of thinking. You were trying to save his life, and we were told that multiple stings are fatal. It was already too late to help him.” He couldn’t let the man blame himself.

“Ricco will pick him up on his way to the dome. He has another dead man, and some injuries, so help him load your guy since his hard suit makes it hard to bend over. Mirikami Out.”

“Link to Hanson.”

“Done Sir.”

“Alfon, your sting victim OK?”

“He’s in pain, and his arm is paralyzed, and it’s spreading to the shoulder. But he can talk and stand. I see Ricco coming, so I assume he’s going to ride sir?”

“Yes. And Javier’s victim died. Too many stings. Stay where you are along the line to protect people. I’ll try to get guns spread along the line, but their range is so short we can’t cover the whole route. Mirikami Out.”

“Sir,” Jakes voice was in his ear, “There are some larger animals flying towards the ship, from the north.”

“How many, and how far?” he asked.

“Ten groups, Sir. Only two are close, the rest are ten to fifteen miles away. One contains five animals the other has eight animals. They are two miles away, but they are flying fast. They will be here in several minutes.”

“You said animals. These are not more insects like we have had attacking us?”

“No Sir. These are larger, and are the size of a medium sized dog or a toddler human. They are the same blue or green color as the forests to the north, where they all seem to have originated.”

“Jake, find a picture of an Earth bat and tell me if these have a similar shape.”

The reply was instant. “The general shape is similar Sir, but these are larger, with bigger heads and ears and have wide wings.”

“Everyone,” he shouted, “we have wolfbats coming from the north, two miles and closing. Over a dozen of them in the first wave and they are a lot bigger than the bugs. We can’t stay on the ship, so you have to get to the dome.”

Now suddenly the people already on the ground really found their legs, and managed a sort of trot or faster shuffle towards the dome. That was the best many of the flabby scientists could manage in the gravity and heat.

At the top of the ramp he now saw Dillon and two other large men, all three in soft suits with faceplates open. They each had two green oxygen tanks strapped to their backs, with a couple of coils of thin black rubber hose over their head and resting on opposite shoulder.

They tossed several thick ropes down the ramp, which were apparently tied off back in the hold. Using those lines as support, they started backing carefully down the ramp, letting the ropes pass through their gloved hands. They were between the now reformed chains of frightened and now hurrying people. Noreen and Cal Branson moved down off the ramp to give them room.

One of Maggi’s organizers for the human chains, Zulma Krat, if Mirikami remembered her name correctly, let out a shout and pointed over the right side of the dome. “There they are!”

Five winged creatures were just passing over the right edge of the dome, about a thousand feet high, and had obviously sighted their potential prey because as one they started a dive, pulling their wings in closer to their bodies.

They didn’t flit about as did the bugs, but they were clearly more massive, and pointed ears were standing up in the wind stream and cupped forward. They had gaping jaws with long yellow looking teeth. These were certainly predators.

Everyone with a weapon, whether Jazzer, Sonic, or club, had them up and ready to use.

As a pack, the five flyers chose a man at the edge of the line of people closest to the dome and arced to swoop down on him from behind, knocking him face down. Two went for his head and shoulders, one on his back, and the other two went for his legs. The man screamed and kicked, and was able to knock one of the animals back when he hit it solidly, but it was back on him in an instant, tearing at the arm that struck it.

The people closest to the man were rapidly backing away from him, and a Steward wasted a Jazzer shot from twenty feet as he ran clumsily to his aid. He snatched a shiny long object right out of the hands of a woman backing away. It turned out to be a long handled steel kitchen ladle with a heavy dipper.

Yelling and swinging the ladle in his left hand, he cracked one of the animals in the back of its head, and fired the Jazzer at the one that was tearing at the man’s exposed right hand.

Mirikami recognized the Steward even from behind, it was Mel Rigson. The wolfbat he jazzed went partly limp, and it was struggling to flap its wings to escape. The one on the victim’s back that Mel had struck in the head shook off the blow and instantly turned on Rigson in a fury, leaping directly at his face, forcing him to raise and cross his arms to hold it back from his eyes. He was barely fast enough to do that, despite the solid hit on the creature’s skull.

The three other animals glanced at the human behind them for a moment, but continued biting and tearing at their screaming victim on the tarmac. The man was keeping his face buried in the crook of his right arm. The one at his left shoulder let go of his hand and snapped at his eyes when he looked that way.

Rigson shoved at the wolfbat attacking him, trying to throw it off to the ground. However, it had hooked claws on its four short limbs, and it had sunk them into his forearms. He couldn’t shake it loose, but it had focused its biting attack on the offending ladle, apparently not aware that what had hurt it wasn’t part of the arm that held it.

Rigson, twisting his right wrist and hand down, despite the tearing of the sharp claws, fired the Jazzer again, almost touching the short teal fur of the thing with his gun’s muzzle.

The animal instantly went limp and would have fallen to the ground, except its claws were embedded in Rigson’s forearms. He dropped the ladle, more because the Jazzer had also grazed his left arm than because of the wolfbat biting at the ladle handle.

Unable to remove the limp creature on his arms without taking the gun out of his good hand, or able to use his dead left hand, Rigson kicked hard at the animal at the man’s right leg chewing at the back of his thigh and buttocks. It squalled loudly as it lifted into the air from the kick to its ribs, but it managed to turn in midair in an impossibly fast reaction to bite Mel’s ankle below his pant leg. Its inch long yellow fangs tore through his flesh down to the bone before losing their grip. Without even hitting the tarmac, it straightened and flapped its wings in a blur of motion and climbed away.

Two people had regained their courage, and now came back to help. One followed Rigson’s example and kicked the wolfbat snapping at the downed man’s left leg directly in the side of its head. This stunned it apparently enough that its answering instant nip missed the man’s foot by a fraction of an inch. It too flapped into the sky with extremely rapid and blurred wing beats.

The final wolfbat, muzzle bloodied from nearly chewing off the man’s left hand, was struck hard on the back by the second rescuer, using what looked like an extruded white plastic table leg. Something she had somehow cut free from a dining table. With a scream and instant backwards snap, the wolfbat caught the table leg in its jaws before the blow had rebounded. It put scour marks on the hard plastic surface.

Seeing several people near it now, the animal released the bite on the club and lunged the other way in a blur of motion that grasped the ragged bloody hand. With a savage twist of its jaws, it tore the scrap free then flapped furiously to get away with its prize, looking over its shoulder at its attacker. A second swipe of the table leg missed its hindquarter by six inches when it pulled them forward at the last second. It was too fast if it saw the blow coming.

Both people then clubbed at the still struggling wolfbat that Rigson had partially stunned with his Jazzer. It wasn’t completely helpless, but couldn’t reach them with its nervous system impaired. The woman hit it with the table leg, the man banging away with the ladle he’d picked up after it fell out of Rigson’s hand. They beat it well after it grew still.

Rigson felt a helping hand steady him, as he staggered, feeling lightheaded from the exertion in the heat and high gravity. A woman helped him sit, but she wasn’t about to touch the unconscious wolfbat still hanging from his left forearm.

The Steward had managed to pull his right arm free, but he had no feeling in his left arm. He could see the other two sets of claws were hooked in his flesh, through the uniform sleeves, but they didn’t hurt. With alarm, he noticed the damned creature appeared to be slowly rousing, moving feebly.

He yelled for the two who were still beating on the now dead animal to help him get his live one off, before it came fully awake. They more or less gently pried it free and dropped it for a repeat of the clubbing they had just administered to the other wolfbat.

Suddenly Branson was there, and he turned over the wolfbat victim, and saw that he was conscious as he clutched at his left wrist, the man only then realizing his hand was missing. Starting first aid, Branson placed a medium smart bandage over the stump of his left wrist, which promptly activated and flowed to seal the wound and stop the bleeding. It would also administer painkillers and antibiotics. The other hand was nearly as bad, missing two fingers, and it received the same treatment.

Branson recalled the man’s last name was Naguma, but he didn’t recall his first name, only that he was always called “Doctor,” as were more than two thirds of the passengers.

“Doctor Naguma, I have stopped the bleeding on your hands, and sprayed a sealant on the wounds on the back of your head until we get you inside. Are you hurt under your jacket or pants? I could see them biting at you everywhere but I don’t see any blood there.”

In shock but aware, the man shook his head no. He mumbled, “Suit protected me.” Branson noticed for the first time that his patient was wearing an expensive Smart Fabric suit. Only a few of their geeky scientific minded passengers followed fashion enough to spend the money. Of the crew, he thought only Noreen and the Captain did so, using a company uniform allowance. They were required to have considerable social interaction with wealthy passengers, and so they were part of the company image.

The uniforms of the Stewards and other crew were made of sturdy durable synthetic fabric, but he could see that Rigson had suffered some penetrating wounds on his uniformed arms from just one animal, and that Naguma had no clothing penetrations from five. He’d have to mention this clothing benefit to the Captain.

Rigson was being helped, and he needed to get his man into the dome and out of the sun and heat. The hauler had arrived, with Walters with it, so he called for some help to get the man over to it. The pallet was crowded now, limbs over laying one another. Another woman had been stung on her thigh as she had watched the wolfbat attack and ignored her own safety.

Walters stayed behind as the hauler continued on to the dome, with Rigson now sitting on the pallet’s edge, adding his nearly depleted Jazzer to the driver’s gun as cover for the injured. The dead men no longer cared.

Mirikami and Noreen helped Dillon and his two volunteers get their feet firmly on the tarmac and upright when they stepped off the ramp. They had a heavy load to bear under this damned gravity. All three were sweating despite being kept cooler by the soft suits. He had sent Branson to help at the site of the wolfbat attack.

Chack had returned with the other hauler, and was now going to carry some of the older passengers to the dome on his pallet. Dillon stood on the step-up on the side of the vehicle to ride along in support.

Mirikami positioned his two other volunteers on either side of the Ramp, facing out, to offer some protection as people made their cautious way down the ramp.

Noreen was puzzled, “Sir, I heard Jake say there was another group of eight wolfbats close, and ten more groups behind them. Those five that attacked were the smaller bunch. Where are the others?”

“Mam,” Jake replied to her question, which he assumed was intended for him, “The eight flew to the Krall Clanship, which parked south and west of us at the edge of the landing area. They circled there for over six minutes. Next, they flew east, but stayed well south of our position before turning north. They have just turned west towards the ship, and are one point eight miles away.”

Mirikami pulled at his lip in thought. “I’ll bet they were waiting for someone to come out of the Clanship, because they would have had a longer distance to get to the dome from there. They’re clever little bastards. Now they are after new prey. How soon will they get here? I can’t see them.” He faced east looking around the sides of the Ship.

“Sir, they are coming from directly opposite the ramp, so the ship is blocking you. They are increasing speed now at just under one mile, and they are low to the ground.”

Damn, they really are smart! He realized. “Noreen they are using the ship as cover to get close before we see them.”

“Link me to every transducer outside the ship.” Without a pause, he said “Break; eight more wolfbats are approaching from the east, behind the ship, which they are using for cover to sneak up on us. Be ready, they are less than a mile away.”

“Noreen, tell the guy on your side of the ramp and I’ll tell mine. They have their faceplates open, but they were told not to use the radios.”

Mirikami got right up to the big man on his side before he recognized the older man. He was the husband of one of the scientists, and he had eaten dinner with them a few times. He was probably even older than Mirikami. To hold up the tanks, he was leaning forward, hands on his upper thighs.

“Ray watch your side of the ship, eight wolfbats are trying to sneak up on us from behind the hull. Step away from the crowd and get ready to pull the trigger if you get a clear shot. We might get a chance test those things and see if they work.”

Just then, there was a tremendous crash below the ship, and debris ricocheted off the bottom of the ramp and the jacks. Several people, startled by the sudden noise and vibration, screamed and ducked. They looked relieved when they realized what had happened.

The lower part of engine number two had just fallen, as the work inside the ship cut it free. That part of the plan was apparently going well, but Mirikami hadn’t heard a warning from them.

“Sorry Captain,” he heard Jorl’sn say in his ear. “That lower unit pulled free sooner than we expected under this gravity. I was going to warn you before cutting the last supports. Is everyone OK?”

“Fine Roni, we have a lot going on, I’ll get back to you.”

As he said that, wolfbats flashed out from below the ship, three to each side, climbing with furious wing beats. In a bit of good luck, the falling thruster control nozzle and plasma chamber had accidentally disrupted an attack that had been intended to go below the ship and come out within the crowd of people near the ramp, or possibly hit those coming down. If anyone at the top fell they could knock another half dozen people down. A two hundred pound man weighed three hundred now, and everyone was already tired from holding that extra weight up for the last couple of days.

If not for the Pep and Oxy pills, a lot of the older or out of shape people might be wheezing and sitting on the ground before reaching the dome.

The flyers quickly regrouped over the top of the ship, where they circled. However, Mirikami only saw six. Where were the other two?

He had his answer a moment later when a woman’s scream came from the opposite side of the ramp. Noreen was hurrying that way, but Mirikami couldn’t see the woman so the ramp must be blocking his view.

Noreen’s Sonic sounded, and two wolfbats quickly darted away, clearly in a rush of wildly flapping wings, twisting and turning their heads like a dog shaking off water.

“The Sonics work on these damned bats Tet,” He heard Noreen yell with satisfaction. Then her tone changed. “I have a lady with some serious bleeding from her throat, face and arm bites. We need one of our medics with a smart bandage. I think she’ll be OK if we control the bleeding.”

Leading the woman back around the side of the ramp, several people took over tending to the woman, and Noreen walked over to Mirikami.

She glanced briefly up at the circling animals. “The poor woman’s probably going to be deaf for the next half hour from the Sonic. She said she was after a bar of metal that flew off the engine to use as a club.”

“I wish we had more than three of these Sonics if it hurts the bats.” Mirikami replied. “Hell I wish we had more guns of any kind.”

Chack, about a third of the way back to the dome, with a load of exhausted older scientist, shouted another warning. “Heads up, they’re diving!”

The six wolfbats had quit circling, and suddenly folded wings and dove towards the hauler’s pallet as if it were a food platter. Chack had his Jazzer aimed through one of the small holes in the protective cage, but he wasn’t close enough to the pallet for it to have maximum effect and his aim was limited by the cage. The six wolfbats were going to swarm over a half dozen worn out elderly men and women.

When they were no more than fifty feet up, they were literally six teal streaks in a deadly dive. Suddenly a translucent gray mist blossomed in front of them. Their momentum took them into the leading edge of the pale mist, when it exploded in a whoosh of red and yellow flame.

Six flaming and screeching pieces of flapping shrapnel scattered out of the fireball. The flames died quickly, radiating heat painful on bare skin below them, but gone in seconds. Four of the wolfbats dropped to the tarmac, writhing in agony, and snapping at their own burning fur. One fell close enough to nip a woman on her calf, but it wasn’t a determined attack, and it seemed to be blind.

The two flyers that had been trailing slightly in the massed dive used their fast reactions to avoid full immersion in the fireball. They managed to fly erratically away, trailing smoke from singed fur.

“Yes,” Dillon shouted, pumping his left fist up and down several times. “The damned thing worked!”

A stunned quiet lasted a few seconds, until everyone realized that the fireball had been made by one of them. For a horrifying moment, those that didn’t know what Dillon was carrying had thought the little horrors had turned into miniature fire breathing dragons.

Hot and tired as they were, another ragged cheer rang out. Several people called out to ask Dillon what he had done, what were those tanks?

He was delighted to tell them about the three homemade flamethrowers the two machinists had cobbled together. One tank held a flammable thin gel that could be sprayed using compressed air from the other tank, pushed through the hoses and out a hand held nozzle. It made a thin stream that squirted thirty to forty feet, spreading as it went. When set on fire it was supposed to make a steady jet of sticky flame.

In theory, the spark igniter on the end of the nozzle should have lit the gel, but a laser set with a short focal length was a backup ignition source. Dillon had needed the backup laser, because the jet of material had completely ignored the spark system and had atomized into a ball of droplets and vapor. The delay actually seemed to have worked to their advantage. The gel had formed a more dispersed cloud than intended before it caught fire, and had enveloped the wolfbats in a large ball of scorching heat and flame.

The people that had been reluctant to get down the ramp were more willing to try it now, and there were over a hundred people off the ship. At least twenty or thirty had passed under the shadow of the dome’s overhang, and the rest were strung out along the path that went around the nose of the Krall shuttle.

It had been nearly a half hour of screw-ups and terror, but with the armed escorts to guard them, and the medical triage using the haulers and their pallets to move the injured, they all felt safer.

Scorpion skeeters could still be seen hovering off to the sides, looking for an opportunity to strike. Jake reported the other groups of wolfbats had arrived in the area, but now the evacuee’s knew they could be repelled. The bats circled high above them.

People continued to trudge across the tarmac to the dome. After another five minutes, Jorl’sn called to warn that her team’s lower engine unit was ready to drop. A warning was shouted around, followed shortly by another thunderous crash, with bits of debris hitting the ramp bottom.

Ricco was back from his first trip to the portico under the dome, and said several others of the captives had finally arrived. They were helping to carry injured or weak people inside. However, they were afraid to come very far outside, saying the wolfbats often hid in ambush behind or under the trucks. He had brought Rigson’s Jazzer back, and Mirikami directed him to give it to Noreen.

“Before you make another trip back to the dome Ricco, I need you to start dragging the engine pieces from under there. Don’t go under the ship yet, but play out the winch cable with enough slack that we can connect it quickly when we can get under there safely.”

“Link me to Chief Haveram.” He told Jake.

“Chief, how is your team doing?”

“Captain,” he was huffing as he talked. “We are a bit behind the other teams, but we will drop the lower unit in another five or six minutes. Willfem and her team are well on their way to cut loose the midsection of their engine, but the scrap is still in the way. Are we going get those cleared soon, Sir?”

“That’s being arranged, but we were waiting for your first piece to drop. I don’t want anyone hurt by falling parts. But if we hadn’t been using haulers for ambulance service, we could have been ready sooner.”

“So I heard, Sir. We lost someone?”

“Yes, two men. A flying sort of bug stung one man when he was at the top of the ramp. The previous captives here call them scorpion skeeters. The man fell, and gravity did the rest as he rolled down the ramp and broke his neck. Another man died from multiple stings, but the damned things landed on him and were sucking blood.” Mirikami felt an involuntary shudder.

“We’ve other falling injuries, stings, and bites; with some pretty serious damage from those things they called wolfbats. Those ugly bastards weigh about twenty to twenty five pounds, and really do remind you of a blue or green Earth bat. They are unbelievably fast, and extremely vicious. They seem to a lot stronger and smarter than you’d expect. However, we can brief all of you this stuff later, before your crews have to cross to the dome. I’ll tell Ricco to standby for the next drop.”

Five minutes later, after a warning, the third engine’s lower unit crashed to the tarmac. Ricco dashed to the first unit that had fallen, attached the cable securely, and started the task of trying to pull it away. It was too heavy for one hauler to drag with a steady pull, but with repeated jerks, it moved several feet at a time. It was tricky to avoid the landing jacks and pass between them, so he had to tug at different angles to do that.

Finally, Ricco used his Link to call Chack for help, who said he was halfway back from the dome. The haulers working together easily drug all three lower units several hundred feet from the ship. They were now over an hour into the engine removal and evacuation.

Maggi called down to the Captain from the top of the ramp. “We have just over three hundred down, Tet, but I thought we’d be half done by now.”

“I did too Maggi,” he called up from the chair he’d had brought down for him. He was starting to wear out doing so much walking and running around in the heat and gravity. Everyone needed exercise and conditioning to handle this planet. It could have been worse, if they hadn’t started acclimatizing the ship days earlier, and without the Pep and Oxy pills. He was on his second dose.

“If we are still moving people and Parkoda returns,” he pointed out, “that might force him to allow us more time to finish pulling the engines. We need to keep this ship in one piece.”

“Hey, that gives me an idea. Let me ask our friend if he can figure out how far that shuttle had to travel to their meeting.” Knowing Jake was always listening, he stated his question aloud.

“When Parkoda’s shuttle left, did you see where it was going, and can you estimate how long it might take to travel there and return? Put Maggi in the Link.”

A half dozen nearby people, just stepping off the ramp, glanced at him after hearing the question, displaying curiosity. He was tired, but it wasn’t smart to be careless with this precious Link.

“Sir, the shuttle departed towards a larger compound that I observed from orbit, which is the only one in the direction they took. It is located on the south west coast of this continent two thousand six hundred forty four miles from here. Before they flew over the horizon, the shuttle had reached a constant velocity that I can use in my estimate. If they did not lift to suborbital altitudes, something that shuttle is capable of doing, and then I estimate they would take between two and one half hours and three hours for a round trip. Any time spent at the destination would increase that time.”

Looking around, he turned his face away from the people shuffling away, and murmured in a low voice. “So, we have three hours at a minimum, perhaps four hours.” Mirikami pondered, lip tugged as usual. “We will surely have everyone off by then, and only the engine crews might be onboard if they hit any snags. I think we can finish.”

“Well,” Maggi offered a caveat, “we are going to have to rest some of our hardest working people before then Tet. I’m about to collapse in this gravity and heat, even sitting up here in my own chair, with a little of the ships’ cool air reaching me. I swapped out my five volunteers up here and let them get inside for cool air and drinks, and all we did was stand and boss people around.

“Our folks inside and your three remaining Stewards, have mostly been sitting in cool comfort waiting their turn on the lifts or stairs. Your Stewards out here have walked to and from the dome several times now. It isn’t very far, but the gravity, heat, and stress makes that strenuous.”

She offered another observation. “Those damned bugs stay close for any careless person they can sting. The bats are up there too, I can see them circling. The ones we killed are still lying on the tarmac, so that display might be keeping them at bay. But passive isn’t how the Krall said they normally act. I’m worried they will overcome whatever fear is keeping them away.”

“You’re right, Maggi. Keep the people coming at a steady pace, and I’ll send some of mine back for a rest, and bring out the fresher people. Do you think any of the passengers could handle a Jazzer?”

“They handle complex scientific equipment, so yes. It’s their steadiness under pressure I question. But if their lives will be on the line in a few days anyway, the sooner they learn the better.”

Mirikami agreed. He called Noreen and explained what they needed to do, and told her to take a break, and to tell Dillon and his flamethrower squad to sit in the shade of three tarps that had been raised for them.

Their soft suits might also need new power packs soon in this heat. People coming down the ramp could bring fresh packs. He had decided the escalator might have been useful after all, just to get back up into the ship.

“Jake, deploy the passenger ramp. Activate it for two way use when deployed.” A tall hatch opened about fifty feet up the ship’s side. A longer steeper personnel escalator started extending down, forty-five degrees around the side from the cargo ramp. He didn’t plan to use it except for crew, and he could coordinate that use with the engine work to avoid debris.

“Link to Willfem”

“Nan, how’s it going?” He asked as soon as Jake made the connection.

“We are well on the way to a second set of drops in about six to eight minutes, Sir. We plan to do them all together this time. We have a third of each team resting right now, and we rotate through the hardest jobs. The gravity is taking a heavier toll than we expected, but despite that we are ahead of schedule.”

“How’d you manage to do that? I expected you to fall behind, not shave off minutes.” He was pleasantly surprised.

“We can work faster than we anticipated,” she explained. “The Chief’s team, using his expertise, caught up with us and gave us some shortcuts he thought of as they worked. We all unconsciously built in extra time to be more delicate with cutting up machinery that we’ll never use again.”

“That’s good to hear, but don’t take any more risks than necessary. You are doing better than we are. We don’t quite have half the folks off yet. We are going to use the passenger ramp after all, but only for crew use, so we can rotate people in and out for a cool rest. We can also bring you people out the easy way. It’s ridiculous how dangerous that cargo ramp feels when you weigh fifty percent more and you’re tired. A fall here can break limbs or kill you.”

“Very good Sir. One of us will give you a couple minutes warning before we cut the next sections loose. These are larger pieces, so you want to get people farther away if you can.”

“Right. I’ll pass the word now, and we’ll be ready when you are. Mirikami Out.”

He gave the update to Maggi, just as she was briefing her own relief, and then told Noreen. She advised him that the three remaining rested Stewards were heading down to the ramp now. All six remaining Stewards on outside duty were going in with her. Rigson had been sent to the dome after his injuries.

Mirikami checked with Chack and Ricco, telling them about the impending next drop. They both said that the hard suits had kept them cool and hydrated, and driving the haulers wasn’t tiring. They didn’t need a break.

The returning tired Stewards handed off some of their guns to younger fresher members of the university people, who would stand watch along the line. They kept two Jazzers to pass to two of the men coming out, and Noreen would give her Sonic to the third man.

Coverage along the line of evacuees would be lighter for a few minutes. Therefore, Mirikami gathered the Jazzer and Sonic from the two drivers, who had hard suits and cages for protection, and planned to pass them to passenger volunteers. Branson walked over as he did this, and mentioned to the captain how the Smart Fabric had protected Naguma’s body from punctures.

“Well, damn,” Mirikami swore. “Noreen and I’d look like showoffs in our dress uniforms, but I wish we’d worn them now. I didn’t think about fashion also being protective.”

Then in a sudden after thought, “Cal, when you get inside ask some passengers to gather up all of the table cloths and bring them down with them on the central lifts. Those are a cheaper grade of Smart Fabric, but just as tough as what clothes are made of. We can use them as a protective cover over people walking to the dome.”

He gave the guns to two freshly descended passengers. Their operation was simple. Slide off the safety, get close to the target, point and press the stud inside the trigger guard. The “get close” was the hard part.

Mirikami moved his chair around to the center of the cargo ramp, to be clear of the spray of junk expected when the next three engine sections fell.

Noreen and the six Stewards had briefed the other three men, and were now riding up the escalator ramp when he got the warning of two minutes to the next parts dump.

“Link to all crew.”

“Done, Sir.”

“Captain speaking, start the final cuts for this engine drop on my mark. I need to get some people clear first. It should only be a moment.”

He called up to the people in the six human chains. “Hold up the lines. Let the people already on the ramp make their way down. The last person on each chain be extra careful, you won’t have anybody holding your other hand. We need to drop some more engine pieces as soon as you are down.”

In thirty seconds, everyone on the ramp had made it down, a lot faster than was safe, but were off the ramp, milling with a dozen others that had been told to stay near the shelter of the ramp.

The three newly armed Stewards positioned themselves around them, looking up and around nervously for bugs and bats. The practice had been for each person coming down to have the visible threats pointed out, and to pass that information on to the next person behind them. This way, the circling bats and hovering bugs were always being watched by multiple pairs of eyes.

“Everyone is off the two ramps,” he told Willfem. “Start your cuts now.” Noreen and the other six crewmembers had just reached the hatchway.

“Aye Sir,” he heard from Willfem.

After an impatient minute and a half, he heard her shout, “Here they go!”

The sound of metal screeching and tearing was earsplitting, and then the large cylinders of metal parts thundered down onto the landing pad with three separate rapid thuds and crashes. They hadn’t all hit at exactly the same instant. Pieces of metal, plastic and ceramic went flying in all directions, and the loud clatter from the underside of the two ramps proved a lot of material had shot out from the triple impact.

More dust than the first three wider separated drops created rose off the tarmac, due to the larger and heavier segments. Despite the advanced warning, several people screamed or shouted out at the deafening sound and heavy ground vibration. However, there were no cries of pain, so it had gone safely.

Still on full Link, Mirikami said, “Nice work. We have beautiful pile of scrap. Give the teams a break Nan, while Chack and Ricco hook on and drag the junk clear. Mirikami Out.”

Virtually every set of eyes had turned to watch as the engine parts fell with a thunderous crash and the dust rose. Every human set of eyes, that is.

23. Odd Prey

The Flock had seen their attacks thwarted and members of the Flock killed or injured. They now circled high above, observing this odd behaving group of prey with growing frustration. New prey such as these was predictably stupid at first, with the first kill or two being easy.

The Flock had always been able to bring down one or two from smaller herds, and this was a very large herd. The red herd protectors always stayed away to let the Flock feed on the tender sweet meat of the first of their animals. Then the big dangerous ones came to protect the rest of their animals.

The Flock would be forced to leave their kills, and it was risky to bring down another one of this herd while it was being protected. It was frequently fatal to attack one of big red prey. The big herders had things that could kill from a distance. Flock Leader had learned to call his squadrons away when they came.

This time the herd animals behaved differently, and they had their own herders that watched and protected them. However, they only appeared to have things to attack a squadron when it came very close.

The big red ones could somehow kill members of the Flock at long range, and they didn’t wait for the divers to come near. They could apparently hear the flock talking as it approached because they looked up, and they obviously heard the even higher pitched echo calls when a squadron dove to attack.

At first Flock Leader thought the big ones had no ears, but saw that they could grow them when needed and, like the Flock, could point them at oncoming flyer calls.

Sometimes a red one could hurt a flyer’s hearing with loud screams, if the flyer flew close or made a silent dive to strike-and-go from behind. The small prey didn’t appear able to use their tiny ears to hear the Flock at all when they talked or used echo calls, and so were easy to attack from above or behind. This was like most of their usual prey, who also couldn’t hear the Flock.

As few as three flyers could bring down one of these animals from behind, but five made it more certain. If the prey knew the attack was coming, a squadron of eight was a more favorable number to bring one down.

It took many squadrons working together to kill a red one, and even then the cost was too high for the value of the tough dry meat. The smaller prey was usually easy to bring down, at least until they learned to watch for divers, or the red ones came out to protect them.

Flock Leader had still been some distance away when the first squadron of five attacked, and did not see how those two flyers were killed because the large nest blocked his view. However, the dead flyers did not look burned, and the three returning flyers had bruise type injuries.

That fireball from the small prey had really been a shock to the Flock, eliminating a squadron of six. It was something Flock Leader had never seen, and had killed and injured more of his Flock at one time than big red ones did. The red ones had killed many flyers singly from far away, before the Flock grew cautious.

He watched four of that doomed squadron die as the herd animals beat on their smoking bodies, their cries of pain filling the sky. Both flyers that flew away from the fire would die tonight, because they were almost blind and could not breathe well.

The two other squadron flyers, of the eight sent, were there to strike at animals that tried to help a fallen herd mate. Those two had hidden around the side of the giant hard flyer. They found their opportunity, and attacked an animal that separated from the herd and walked almost under that hard flyer.

The kill was spoiled when a small herd protector made both of them deaf with a black “loud shouter,” which was worse by far than the noise the red ones made from their mouths. It was heard by the Flock Leader from high above, where he circled.

He could clearly see at least three of the bigger black “shouter” objects. The two flyers were unable to hear the Flock at all when they returned, and would eventually die if they could never get back their ears.

The red herders were much faster and stronger than their slow animals, but not quite as fast as the flyers, or even as fast the usual prey the Flock hunted. Yet the smaller herd animals this time had cost the Flock great loss. Flock Leader wanted revenge, but was waiting for the right opportunity.

His flyers had attacked this herd multiple times today, and even saw the little biters bring down some animals. They had killed one of the herd before the three drinking biters were killed in turn, by a prey animal protector. It used a black object, smaller and quieter than red protectors used, and the “loud shouter.” Nevertheless, the protector still waited to get close to kill with that, as had the other protectors.

Whenever the little biter’s made a kill from a heard, the Flock eventually claimed that prey too, but only after allowing them to drink for a time, as reward for the easy meat. This time the big red ones had not come out to protect this large herd, even after two kills and several damaged animals. They always gave these first kills up without argument, but then protected the rest of the herd.

Expecting red ones to come was why Flock Leader had called a retreat, and they flew high to stay away from their ability to kill from a distance. It was confusing when they didn’t appear after several attacks. Was this to trick the Flock? It had happened before when they used tied prey animals to draw a squadron near, just to kill them. They didn’t eat any of the flyers they killed, which made no sense. At least the Flock could reclaim their own dead for food, to offset their loss.

In the past, the red herders permitted the Flock to keep and eat what they killed or hurt, but not to feed while the herders were present. After they took the herd inside their nest, they let the Flock eat what they had killed or crippled.

Sometimes the red ones released herd animals in hard dark shells, and killed them later themselves, leaving the peeled animals for scavengers. The Flock had once killed two of these before the red ones found where they were hiding. However, the flyers were shocked to discover that the prey now could also kill at a distance. They had the same objects the red ones used to kill, but the prey did not kill many flyers with them.

The hard shell was also very difficult to open, and they could not bite through except where it had cracks. These shelled prey animals were sometimes claimed from the little biters, and the smaller gracks, which could get through the small openings in the shell to kill.

That the red ones did not eat from their own herd bothered Flock Leader. This was somehow “wrong” with the world in Flock Leader’s mind. They killed herd animals that they did not eat, and killed flyers they did not eat. Few animals ate biters, but they also left those.

This was the first time in Flock Leader’s experience that the small prey itself had defended a new herd from a hard flyer. They had even taken the kills and the crippled into the big nest, where the Flock couldn’t feed on them.

Frustrated and growing angry, it looked like all they would be left to eat were their own dead, and the foul dead biters. The Flock would be weaker tonight, not stronger. Flock Leader might have a squadron leader challenge him for his position.

However, more animals kept coming out of the giant hard flyer, he might yet lead the Flock to more kills. Flock Leader decided there must be many more animals still inside. He called to his squadrons to stay high but keep watch. The Flock didn’t have a true language, but they had many complex calls that conveyed many meanings, warnings, and ways to coordinate an attack.

The entire flock was now waiting for any careless mistake, for any unprotected animals to walk too far from the other prey that guarded them. The herd’s protectors were obvious to the Flock. With their excellent vision, they could clearly see the small black objects the protectors had used. They were different from those of the big red ones, but had proven able kill or disable a flyer or biter that came too close. Three of the herd protectors were to be completely avoided. They had strange objects on their backs, and one of those protectors had made the deadly ball of fire.

The hard flyers that brought new herds here in the past were dead now. They were killed by the big red ones after they were empty. Two living flyers of the red herders were close, but one had been asleep for days by the nest, and the other one had gathered red herders from the giant flyer today. Nevertheless, no herd animals came out, as the first on the scene and now dead squadron leader of eight must have expected. That prey would have had a very long trek to the big nest, and would be open to easy attack.

The giant flyer might be dying, or perhaps it would be killed when it was empty of herd animals. That was what happened before. However, a strange new leg was seen to grow from it a short time ago.

Flock Leader watched as the first protectors gave most of their deadly black objects to new protectors. Then suddenly three herd animals came out of a hole above the new leg of the flyer and climbed down the leg in a strange smooth motion.

Flock Leader almost gave a call to dive on those three, but held his squadrons because the old protectors were not far away and went to meet them. Three of the old protectors still held black objects. He gave a scream of frustrated rage, which the deaf animals ignored as always.

The three black objects were given to the new animals, now making them protectors, and all seven old guardians somehow climbed the peculiar leg, again without moving their limbs. The new protectors waited for the defenseless prey to almost reach the nest hole in the flyer, and then they rushed to protect the herd still coming out of the lower hard flyer nest entrance. He recognized now that another black opening on the other side of the hard flyer was also a hole into the nest area, but without a leg sticking down.

Gnashing his fangs in anger at another lost opportunity, Flock Leader considered the fact that the prey animals that went back into the flyer had given away all of their black objects. He once had led members of the Flock into dead hard flyers when he was a squadron leader. There was little food found in them, but there were empty small nests inside were prey had lived. The thought formed that this giant flyer must have many nests, and it still held prey.

Then an event happened that completed his half-formed idea. A lower flying risk-taking young squadron leader called an alert, just as more of the insides of the hard flyer fell to the ground. It was definitely dying!

With a thrill of excitement, Flock Leader saw that none of the prey or their protectors was watching the Flock! He screamed a cry to follow, and the two squadrons he called instantly folded wings and dove in the direction he led. He took them to the opening above the leg and called for the larger squadron to enter the nest. Eight flyers opened their wings for braking, and flashed through the opening.

Flock Leader flapped hard around the backside of the giant to the second opening, and without hesitation led the squadron of six following him inside.

24. Inner Turmoil

Jason Sieko was relishing the cool ship air as he pulled off his sweaty Steward’s jacket and slung it over his shoulder. Trailing the others, he was eager to get to crew country and take a refreshing shower. They all had stayed in full uniform, with the light white jackets, just to be a visually reassuring presence for their passengers that their crew was still looking after them.

“Hey, Alfon,” he called to his friend, a few steps ahead. “After a shower and change, let’s have some ice cream in the day room. We may never get another chance after today.”

“You’re on,” his buddy answered, also craving a core cooling treat. “How about in fifteen minutes, because

,” His glance back over his shoulder froze in place, and his eyes widened. “Look out! Bats!” he shouted.

The flyers had just overshot their own side corridor as they flew down the wider main companionway the passengers used. Jason spun around, and saw nothing. “Not funny, Al. It’s been…,” and his voice trailed off as he heard the fluttering and scuffling as the flyers reached a set of closed double doors, and reversed course towards the voices they now heard behind them.

The others had heard the warning, and now heard the flapping sounds as well. Noreen, at the head of the group shouted, “Run for the next fire door!”

As one, they found strength they thought had been drained from their bodies, and managed to start running for the automatic door just thirty feet ahead of her. If they reached that, they could hit the emergency button on the other side and seal the door behind them.

“Jake,” Noreen shouted, “wolfbats inside, make a broadcast.”

The flyers slowed just enough to make the right angle turn at the junction, and hit the opposite wall feet first, one going high one low. Pairs of them were shooting into the corridor in a move that looked choreographed, since all eight executed the maneuver in near perfect-paired unison.

In a calm voice that seemed macabre under the circumstances, the AI announced, “Attention, eight wolfbats have entered the ship and are in the main promenade. Correction, they have turned into staff corridor B6.”

That was a detail the seven racing crewmembers didn’t need to be told. They could hear them quite literally flying down that corridor behind them. Noreen shot through the door opening and clawed at the door’s frame to stop her as the first three men ran by her, bumping her along the way. She tore off the protective cover, her fist poised to hammer the close button.

Looking back for the other three men, she was trying to remember how fast the door closed. Jason and Alfon were last, and the Chief Steward, Nory Walters, had paused to wait for his men. It was obvious the first bats were going to catch Jason.

“Use your jacket Jason,” he screamed at his last man. He also saw he couldn’t make it. “Throw it at them.” It was all he could think of, and it almost worked.

Jason had pulled his jacket off his shoulder when he started running, and he still had it in his right hand. Without looking back, since he knew by the sounds of their wings they were about to catch him, he threw it straight behind him as his arm pumped that way.

The move surprised both flyers, not knowing how the prey had shed this skin. Worried it was another trap they dodged sharply aside. This allowed the jacket to land on the face of the flyer behind them with no warning. It rose up in fear, blinded, and hit the flyer above it, causing both to tumble and impeded the rushing attackers behind them.

The lead flyers recovered and both struck their target high, as usual for this prey type. However, there were no flyers to take the legs and the prey kept running. Because their momentum wasn’t applied to a stationary animal, it didn’t fall, despite their biting at its shoulders and upper limbs.

Then the target passed two other prey animals. Without the immediate assistance of the rest of their squadron mates, these prey animals started striking at them and ran along with their target. This was completely different than this prey had behaved in the past.

It wasn’t a serious concern, because they heard the call of their squadron mates as they resumed their pursuit. They would soon have help for this kill and perhaps the two other two animals as well. They simply held on with their claws and snapped viciously at the weaker prey hitting and trying to pull them off.

Then they passed more prey, and these weren’t running away as usual either. The calls of their squadron was growing weaker, and almost cut off as a flyer screamed in pain, a cry that cut off sharply.

The two of them realized they were alone with all seven of the prey they sought. Using their superior speed, they bit and snapped at the limbs that struck them. They rotated their feet to unhook their claws in an attempt to escape by flight.

This was a final but inevitable mistake, because it permitted the animals to throw them to the floor. There they could be kicked and trampled. Where was the squadron?

The Squadron leader looked where he had last heard his flyers. He saw the head of one of them, strangely sticking out of the side of this terrible nest. From that direction, he faintly heard cries of his squadron, raging because they could not help them. He died, thinking something was “wrong” with the world when prey didn’t behave like prey.

“Noreen, can you hear me?” Mirikami repeated for the second time. He had heard sounds of shouting and screams of pain through the Link. He feared the worst when no one answered and all he heard was labored breathing.

“I hear you Tet. Sorry

,” he heard her trying to catch a breath. “We got away

, with some bites…, but we’ll live.”

Then, as proof her last statement was true, he heard her laugh, soon joined by six other voices. It was the sort of nervous release after a narrow escape people sometimes shared.

“I’ll ask what’s so funny later, I guess.” The group laughter finally subsided.

“It isn’t really funny Sir, but Mister Walters just held up a bat’s head when I said that, and it struck us all as funny.”

“How did you cut its head off?”

“We didn’t, the fire door did when it closed on it as it tried to get through the crack.” Her breath was coming back, and she used some of it for another round of laughter with the others.

She then briefly explained what had happened, and said that all of them needed some patching up.

“Are the bats still on the other side of the fire door?” Mirikami intended the question for Noreen, but Jake answered.

“Those wolfbats have departed, Sir, and I have closed the Promenade hatch. However the other seven bats are in the lower corridors above the Drive Room.”

“What?” Mirikami shouted. “Ship wide broadcast.” Not waiting for the acknowledgement, he started talking.

“Seven more wolfbats are in the ship, in lower corridors near the Drive Room. You teams working on engine removal be alert. Don’t open any doorways or enter any corridors until we find exactly where they are. Crew should Link to Jake for details. Mirikami Out.”

In several minutes, he had a Link call.

“Captain,” It was Chief Haveram’s voice. “I’m sorry, Sir, I let those fucking things in. It’s my fault, and they came in the hole I had cut after landing, to get the fumes out. I forgot about it, Sir.”

He sounded less apologetic than sorrowful, to Mirikami’s ear, and tinged with anger. Haveram was normally a crusty individual, but rough language with his Captain was way out of character.

“What’s wrong Chief?”

“Bolinda Carter is dead inside a crew cabin. They must have trapped her there, or she tried to get away by hiding. Jake says all seven of the fucking bats are in there feeding on her.” Now there was outrage in his voice. Carter was a volunteer on his removal team, and she was one of the few Midwife survivors.

“Can you isolate them or lock them in?”

“Yes Sir, I suppose, but it’s risky to go into a corridor to close hatches

. Just a moment Sir. Jake.” Mirikami heard him call the AI.

“Yes Chief?” Haveram had taught him long ago not to “Sir” him.

“You know where that cabin is, can you cut them off so they can’t escape the ship, and also not be able to reach anyone else on the ship?”

“I believe you mean to trap the wolfbats within a small volume. Yes, I can activate fire doors to do that Chief.”

“Do that Jake.” Haveram ordered.

“The three fire doors have been activated and are closing.”

Mirikami asked a question. “Are all of the bats still in the cabin?”

Jake told them one bat had left the cabin when the fire doors were activated, and was flying along the corridor from the direction they had arrived.

Then Jake said something that surprised Mirikami. “The wolfbat found the fire door closed and has called to the others. They have all left the cabin.”

“How do you know he called to the other bats? We haven’t heard anything but snarls from them.”

“I heard him Sir, through my audio pickups in that area. They amplify ultrasonic frequencies in the same range that I adjusted to listen to the Krall. The wolfbats talk between one another quite often, and use even higher frequencies that match descriptions of sound echo location of Earth bats.”

“What are they doing now Jake?”

“The other six wolfbats have separated and appear to be searching for ways to escape Sir. They have been to all three fire doors and are entering open cabins and compartments. They are talking or exchanging many calls. The pattern of sounds they make does not match that of known languages, and is

,”

“Stop.” Mirikami ordered, to keep him from continuing.

“Captain, we have them trapped, but I don’t want to risk anyone’s life trying to kill them. I have a suggestion, Sir.”

“Go Chief.”

“We can use the fire suppression system. On this high oxygen world, a lot of CO2 should be fatal pretty quick, and we can clear it out safely in minutes.”

“OK Chief. Your idea, you give the order. Let me know when it’s done. Mirikami Out.” He thought Haveram should give the order, since he and his team deserved to feel a sense of retribution.

****

In the small nest, Flock Leader was pleased with this kill, but he needed more kills like it to replace jut the mass of the flyers lost today. There was a strong scent of more prey nearby, but his flyers needed food right now. They had spent a lot of energy today, and like him, needed food before making new kills.

Soon he could send sated flyers out to guide in fresh squadrons to continue the nest hunt. Then with whole squadrons with full stomachs, and their store sacs full, the flyers could return to the home nest to feed their mates and pups.

There were already too many flyers missing. Some small pups could die if the mate-less mothers needed to leave the home nest for long periods to hunt. Flock Leader could still end this day without one or more challenges for leadership, particularly if the other larger squadron made kills from the seven certain prey animals they saw enter the nest.

His stomach now full of the high-energy rich fatty flesh, he filled his own store sac, despite having no mate or pups to feed. He could help secure his position by feeding fatherless pups, gaining the loyalty of those mothers.

Their cries of support in answer to his call for that would add more voices for potential challengers to hear in home nest. If loud enough, the challengers would wait for another more favorable day. Just as Flock Leader had once waited to challenge the previous Flock Leader for this position.

There were noises heard from elsewhere, and several loud clicks and thuds sounded from outside this small nest. Flock leader, distrustful of how this prey had behaved, went to scout the cause.

He smelled no fresher scents than before, but there was a change in the echo’s that returned from his ranging calls. It was as if there were walls present now that were not there when they entered the hard flyer nest. He flew along the passage that his mind’s map said was the way they had chased the prey to its small nest. However, the echo now said there was a wall where there had been a longer passage.

When his eyes saw the same thing his ears said was there, a wall closing the passage to the outside, he instantly called to the squadron and its leader. He gave the scatter and retreat call used when they hunted in nests of other animals or other flyers. If any of his flyers found a way out, a ranging call from that one could be used to backtrack along the echoes to his location.

However, there were other new walls that the mind maps of other flyers said were not present in the remembered sound image when they entered this large nest. Seek as they might, there were no echo returns that pointed a way to the outside, or even far from where they had just fed.

The prey had trapped them! How could these weak, slow, stupid animals do this? Flock Leader had never hunted live ones inside a nest before, but this particular prey did not behave “right” even when outside the nest. They acted more like the same prey after they lived in the world for a time, and learned to be wary. These were wary now, and many were acting like herd protectors.

Flock Leader called for his flyers to be alert; that the enemy would come soon. He signaled enemy now, because that’s what the prey had become. More like marauding flyers from another nest than like prey. Like other flyers, they were able to plan, and change what they planned while hunting.

An enemy would not trap them without a reason. They would attack from some direction, perhaps by opening one of the new walls they made. His command call was for each flyer to land and be still, to listen for changes in hard echo patterns, then signal to the entire squadron to attack as one at a point where that pattern changed, or where motion was detected.

Instead, what they all heard simultaneously, was a soft hissing sounds well below normal talk or ranging call sounds. More like how the world “talked” when wind or water moved, or leaves rubbed.

A stronger movement of air was also felt, and the air grew whiter near the roof, like when flying just below a cloud. The pale white air drifted down, and Flock Leader remembered with alarm the cloud that had come before a squadron had burned to death in a ball of flame. However, this did not burn, it was cool, and did not hurt at all.

He soon became very tired, and he heard the other flyers talk-calls soften. They all had settled onto the floor or ledges in order to listen quietly, to make no movements that could confuse the echo’s that made pictures in their minds.

Flock Leader knew he should be more alert, that he needed to be more alert. But he was more tired now than before he fed. He was not having trouble breathing in and out, but he didn’t feel like he was breathing enough air. He didn’t know how they could do this, but he had the thought that the prey was stealing the air. It made him more angry and ready to fight at this trickery, but he could barely move his wings. They had beaten him without a fight.

His last thought was that at least there would be no challenge waiting for him at the end of this day.

25. The Other Captives

After two and a quarter hours, all but about eighty passengers were off the ship, plus the three engine removal teams, down now to forty, after one volunteer broke a couple of fingers. Engine removal was behind because of the wolfbat attack and fatality, but they still expected to finish in less than three hours, shortly after the last passengers crossed the tarmac.

Skeeters were still a threat, but simply keeping eyes on them held them at bay. They were just smart enough to know when they were being watched.

The wolfbats had virtually disappeared, slowly leaving in small groups after losing another ten members of the flock in the unproductive raids into the ship.

The humans naturally didn’t know that they had killed their leader, and some flyers waited for a time in hopes that he would reappear. They also waited to see if they could claim the flesh of their dead on the tarmac, having decided the risk of further attacks on this prey was too high.

The Flock itself was weakened by the loss of so many members, and a day of high-energy expenditure with no return. Eventually the last squadron departed for the home nest, or some to hunt elsewhere. Their rate of metabolism required them to hunt every day.

The humans did not reduce the number of armed escorts, though three of the Jazzers had charges for only a single shot, and the four spare power packs had already replaced dead ones. Only a few skeeters had suffered from the recent shots taken. The four fully depleted power packs were charging, but the ship would be evacuated before they had full charges.

The removal crew would get the four highest charged Jazzers and one Sonic before the remaining escorts followed the last of the people into the dome.

Rigson had reported to Mirikami by Link that the Flight of Fancy people were not being well received by the earlier captives. They claimed they weren’t prepared to feed so many new mouths, which was quite plausible.

One man told Rigson that they didn’t have enough sleeping mats and bedding for them all, which also sounded plausible. Until he learned from a woman that they once had housed three thousand six hundred forty nine people here.

That was a rather precise number, but she now said there were “about” twenty seven hundred surviving captives. It sounded as if there should have been a bedding surplus, and a better head count. They essentially had little organization, or inventory of materials.

Until learning what hardships and terrors they had endured in losing so many people, the Captain advised there was no reason to be critical. Besides, they had bedding on the ship if it proved necessary to bring any across. For the one night, the self-named “Koban Committee” decided that some bedding and selected materials would be sent over.

They hoped the entire ship complement could return to the ship the next day, after resting overnight. There was no intent to send other than a skeleton crew back before sunset, after a Krall inspection of the ship. Assuming that was allowed by Parkoda.

Rigson reported most of the captives he saw walked around with holstered pistols or slung rifles of Krall manufacture. Not only did they not offer the Flight of Fancy weapons to defend the people still crossing the tarmac, they claimed new arrivals were not allowed to have them. That didn’t correspond to Telour’s description of how things were supposed to work here.

Leaving Noreen in charge at the ship, Mirikami decided it was time for him to introduce himself, and find out what was what going on over there. He took the liberty of riding with Ricco as he took a load of bedding and thirty of the Smart Fabric tablecloths to the dome.

They picked up an older limping couple as riders along the way. They sat on the edge of the pallet. Mirikami was on the driver’s step-up, holding onto the cage top.

It was only about three hundred feet to the dome, but it had proven a surprisingly long distance for some of the out of shape passengers. In hindsight, the days of increased ship gravity had produced mixed results. Some, particularly the crew and younger passengers found it to have been of value, but older passengers had not handled it as well. They had arrived much more weakened than anyone had expected.

Noreen had sent Dillon and his two volunteers, whom were all now amusingly named the “Fireball Brigade,” over on an earlier hauler trip once it was obvious that the wolfbats had departed. The extra weight of the tanks and lack of bug treats negated their usefulness.

Mirikami asked for a Link to Dillon. “Don’t answer unless you are alone, this is Mirikami. I’m on my way over.”

There was a delay of a couple of minutes then Dillon answered. “I was with my fellow Fireballs Sir. I stepped to one of the garage doors for privacy, what’s up?”

“Rigson isn’t really in shape to help unload the pallet I’m bringing, and I’d like you to pretend to see us coming, and meet us under the overhang with a few of our people to carry stuff inside. I have some bedding, and a bunch of Smart Fabric tablecloths we might use for bedding. We might shelter under them to return to the ship tomorrow.”

“I’ll get some people. I do see you from around that shuttle nose.”

“One more thing while you can talk freely. Did you scout the area and pump for information we can use?”

“Sure did. That’s what I was discussing when you linked. I can fill you in when you get here. Tricky to get privacy guarantees when our friend can’t see us.”

“We’ll fix that later. Any idea where that translator went that I saw running to the dome after landing?”

“The Krall maintain a full level for their private use at the top of the dome. There are thirty two levels here, an even octal number.” Meaning it was the fortieth floor in the Krall number system.

“This place could house perhaps eighty to a hundred thousand people, if it had the right facilities to support them. Humans aren’t allowed on that top level on penalty of death. The best I can tell is that the translator went there. I wonder which one it was?”

“It was Dorkda that went to the dome from the ship.” Jake supplied, as if the question had been directed to him.

“This was Dorkda’s clan home at one time,” mused Dillon, “so that makes sense. If you want to speak to him, perhaps the other captives know of a way.”

“That can wait, I suppose, but I’d like to know what’s happening at that clan meeting, and when Parkoda and Telour will be back. I think we need to find out if there is any semblance of real authority here among the human population. There has to be, if only to control the weapons they won’t give us, and the limited food they can’t share.”

As he finished that statement, the hauler left the bright afternoon sunlight, and entered the slightly cooler shade of the overhang.

The wall under the overhang was as much as fifty feet back at the center, with alternating large and small doors for entry. Dillon stepped out of a smaller middle door as they pulled in, and waved them towards one of the big doors, which started to lift as they approached.

Driving right into the maintenance bay, Ricco stopped when a group of six people with guns pointed the hauler’s way confronted them. The door started back down behind the hauler, but neither their two riders, nor Mirikami or Ricco made any move. Mirikami hadn’t expected a hostile greeting.

However, as soon as the door clanged shut, the half dozen people facing them lowered their weapons and most turned away, talking among themselves.

With a flash of embarrassment, Mirikami realized they had merely been covering the open door against entry by wolfbats or skeeters.

Dillon walked over from the door control accompanied by two other big men. Mirikami recognized Ray, and knew the other man’s face from the ship, just not his name.

“Captain, I didn’t get a chance earlier today with so much happening outside, but these two gentlemen are my fellow Fireballers, Ray McPherson and Jim ‘Jimbo’ Skaleski.”

Mirikami shook their hands, “I’ve had dinner with Ray and his wife a few times. I’ve seen you around on the ship Jimbo, but we actually never had a chance to meet. I really appreciate all of you being willing to go out to test those homemade flamethrower contraptions my machinist’s slapped together.”

“I’m glad I didn’t need to use mine,” Ray answered. “Turns out that not only would my spark igniter not have worked any better than Dillon’s, but my backup laser was set to the wrong focal length. I might have lit a cigar at two feet, but not the vapor cloud farther out.” He made a rue little chuckle.

“Some of those folks on the pallet would have died while I tried to hit the bats with my nozzle.”

Jimbo had his own tale. “After the bats pulled out, I tested mine out closer to the Krall Shuttle, aiming away from the line just to see if would work after Ray’s test flopped. The igniter lit the stream, and it shot out about twenty or thirty feet, dripping flaming drops on the ground. That would have coated the bats and the people.

“Plus, when I cut off the flow the process was too slow. The fire drew back down to the nozzle, which was also wet by then, and caught that on fire. Luckily, I could use my gloves to smack out that flame. Those gadgets need more testing and adjustment before we ever try to use them again.”

Mirikami nodded agreement. “I hate to say we were lucky today, but there was some luck on our side, because things could have gone much worse. I thank all three of you for being there, and taking on a larger and longer share of the risks.”

Some of the Fancy’s complement had gathered around them to listen, and more were making their way inside through a smaller door off to the side.

Rigson sat on a box there, covering the doorway with a Jazzer. He waved over to his Captain, but continued to watch the door. The Smart Bandages apparently were still feeding his wounds painkillers.

Seeing the expectant chattering faces around him, he realized these were all “his” people, but that the majority of his passengers weren’t in the large maintenance area, nor were their dead or injured. They must have gone deeper into the dome.

He saw there were ten dirty faces he didn’t recognize. From their mismatched clothes and sullen faces, they were obviously the previous Krall captives. None of them would make eye contact with him, looking away quickly when they saw him glance their way.

Mirikami raised his arms, hands out, to quiet those near him. “Well done Gentle Ladies and Gentle Men, this was a hard dangerous day and you came through better than I think the Krall expected. But not better than I expected, because I knew you were prepared, and could do what had to be done.”

“We suffered some losses and injuries, true, but less than we could have suffered if not for advance preparation. However, we have harder days coming, so please try to get some rest when night comes, and we will have some simple foods brought over shortly. The pallet here,” he pointed, “has boxes of pillows and blankets, and a dozen and a half table cloths we can use as wide blankets. More will come if we have the time.” He added.

“Keep secure control of the table cloths, they are Smart Fabric, and we know now they will protect us somewhat from bites and stings. Until we can make coverlets or some sort of outer clothes from them we can use them to hold over us when we go back to the ship tomorrow.”

At that comment, he saw most of the ten dirty faces look sharply in his direction, then away when he returned their looks. Some shook their heads, and a few smirked knowingly. The wrecked ships outside the dome entrances proved how skeptical they were of that happening. He hoped Telour would help him prove them wrong.

“I’m going to have Doctor Martin and his Fireballers show me around a bit, so help distribute the bedding so Mister Balduchi can make another run.” He no longer needed Dillon’s people to unload, so they may as well help show him around.

Dillon and his volunteers made a lane through the press of people by the hauler, and Mirikami went with them towards one of four doors out of the maintenance area into the next part of the dome. He saw the windows Chack had mentioned earlier, and saw a lone warrior on the other side, watching the humans.

As they went through the door, the warrior approached in their typical fast smooth strides. Mirikami was careful to look at a spot at the center of his crossed belt harnesses.

Although he was dressed in black, he surprised them by speaking in crude Standard. Mirikami noticed that his throat tattoo was slightly more elaborate and colored than those of the novice warriors he had seen on the ship, but less so than for Parkoda and Telour.

He spoke in a bass growly voice, “You human ship clan

,” he sought for a word, “boss? Is human word or not?” he demanded.

“The other translators say ‘clan leader’ in our language, but ‘boss’ is another word that means almost the same thing.” replied Mirikami.

“You clan leader, or not?” He wanted a straightforward yes or no answer. He had picked up a new word on one hearing. They had previously noted the Krall had an extremely quick ear for learning new words.

“Yes, I am the human clan leader from the ship.”

“I Train be translator, for high status,” He explained, something a Krall didn’t seem to do often. Perhaps this was the best brag he could manage in Standard. He added “Dorkda comes speak you soon.”

Then he smoothly turned on his bowlegs and glided back to watch through the window again.

“That solves the problem of contacting Dorkda. I guess he’ll seek me out.”

Looking around, he saw the room he had entered was sort of an open storage area for a mix of Krall made items he could not place a use for right away. Some were human made things, like collapsible tents, assorted military cooking stations for troops in the field, stacks of metal pots, pans, utensils, tubs or basins, and cafeteria bench-tables stacked on one another. It looked like a supply ship with kitchen equipment had made its way to Koban.

Dillon, seeing him look around, said, “I was told one of the early ships they captured was a transport, headed for a mining outpost that had bought military surplus equipment from before the collapse. There’s more stuff like this near all of the main entry points. It got stacked like this until it has a use.”

“Living quarters for humans are normally several more rooms and doors into the interior, in case a bug or bat gets inside. There are living areas we can use on almost every level but the top. Some levels once had large spaces reserved for Krall exercise and training, crčches where eggs were laid and hatched, and the young raised themselves there I hear. These are locked off from human use, but can be seen from interior windows. I haven’t been there, of course, except for what used to be a Krall garden area. That has Jimbo excited. He let the other man explain.

After hearing about this from the original captives, we went up to level twenty one; they have a lot of elevators here by the way, which we can use. They’re huge.” Realizing he had jumped off subject he promptly jumped back.

“Anyway, that floor was their equivalent of a garden that must have held plants that may have been native to their home world. It’s all dead now, but the exciting part,” he almost gushed, “is that it is almost ideal for a hydroponics section. It has the light, water, and soil we could use to have an indoor supply of fruits and vegetables. All of which we brought on the ship for Midwife. That was my department!” He was ready to start right now.

“Jimbo, that’s great news, but,” Mirikami butted, “we have a lot of things we need to have established before we can devote time and resources and manpower for that. We might need Krall permission, for one thing.”

“It isn’t off limits to us Sir. We could walk right inside and look. Couldn’t we guys?” He appealed to the other Fireballers.

“He’s right captain,” Ray agreed. “The other captives go up there and use a small part of it. However, they had no way to take full advantage of it except for a modest vegetable garden in one corner. That was started by a captured farmer headed for a Rim Colony, before he was killed in testing. It’s neglected now, despite their need for the fresh food.”

“They mentioned they didn’t have food to spare. The Krall hasn’t let them starve, and they presumably have some food. I recall they had farm animals.”

“I asked about that Captain. They didn’t all want to talk about it, but there is a heavily protected covered corral. There they have a few cattle, goats, and pigs, and even some kangaroo. They feed them grass from Koban, which sometimes makes the animals a bit sick, and feed them scraps from their own food, and the garden leaves from upstairs.”

“But what do the people eat most of the time?”

Dillon had that answer too. “A lot is frozen military rations from a stockpile the Krall raided. One of the ‘collaborators’ as they called him, led the Krall to where there was huge stockpile on a Rim world’s moon base. Naturally, there were no human survivors from that raid. That particular collaborator had an ‘unfortunate accident’ later, as apparently all of them have had. But the people here manage to ‘choke down’ the food he obtained for them.”

“It appears to be a sensitive subject for them,” added Jimbo. “The Krall sought out and killed anyone they thought caused the accident. Except for two that were killed by another human. They wouldn’t say why or who killed those two. Seemed afraid to do so.”

“Telour described something like that.” Then Mirikami was discussing food again, “So frozen military rations is it? That must get old.”

“Sir, they do have one more source of meat, but they’d almost rather die than go get it. Or it almost amounts to dying just to go.” Dillon added mysteriously, letting the statement just hang in the air.

“Son, you are starting to talk just like Doctor Fisher accuses me of doing. How about you just tell me what you are talking about!” Mirikami complained.

“Buffalo meat,” he announced with a huge grin on his face. Which quickly switched to serious when he saw the look the Captain gave him.

“That’s the closest Earth analogue Sir, honest. However, the captives here decided to call them a rhinolo. They’re grass and leaf grazers that roam the plains in big herds, and sometimes show up near the compound.”

“We can eat their meat? And not get sick, I mean?” the Captain asked skeptically. “I can believe that the Krall might have been bred to eat almost anything, but we haven’t.”

Alien animal meat often contained things toxic to people, or were indigestible. At least they were inedible before they received gene modifications to correct that.

“It seems we can eat most animals here, despite higher trace levels of certain heavier elements or rare earth minerals. But notice that the wolfbats and skeeters seem able to eat humans, or drink our blood, so it isn’t too surprising.”

“Then what’s the problem? Kill some and eat them, right?” Mirikami hadn’t yet learned much about Koban, and should have recalled that even the Krall found it dangerous.

“Nearly half of the people that have gone hunting haven’t come back,” Dillon told him. “Part of the reason is how the warriors force them to hunt. The Krall make the humans that go with them on hunts do so on foot, as the warriors do. One of eight warriors might not come back either. And the humans only get to keep what they kill; no charity from the Krall.”

“The humans are armed with rifles, I presume?” Mirikami asked. “I see them carry pistols and rifles here. If they watch out for wolfbats and skeeters, they should be able to kill a Koban buffalo easy enough. Only you said they call them a rhinolo. Sounds like basic hunting, so what’s the catch?” Mirikami still was puzzled.

“It seems a bit hard to grasp to me too Sir. But, the rhinolo are said to run at over fifty miles an hour, and look something like a pale blue humpbacked three or four ton rhinoceros. They have a thick armored hide and skull that’s bullet resistant, and sport three horns, one long one like the extinct rhinoceros had, and two shorter sideways horns on the nose like an Earth wart hog has, whatever a wart hog is. I didn’t look up what that looked like.

“They told me the bulls will attack Krall or humans on sight, and come to the defense of wounded or killed members of their herd.”

However, he wasn’t through describing the whole problem.

“Except the rhinolo aren’t the only danger on a hunt, they tell me. The herd will eventually abandon a dead animal, or they can be driven off by a shuttle flyover, so it’s mainly a matter of patience once you bring one down.

“It’s one of the predators that normally hunt the herds that can even kill an armed Krall. They called it a ripper, a sort of giant teal colored lion equivalent, and they hunt like lions in a pride. If you see one before they sneak up on you it’s a distraction; there are at least five to ten more you don’t see behind you. They come to take away your kill, or for the hunting party itself if there’s been no kill. You had better get your ass to the shuttle or you are dead.”

“Why don’t guns scare them or hold them off?”

Dillon shrugged. “The only human survivors of a trip that experienced a ripper attack never actually faced them. Those two said they barely managed to get inside a shuttle before the last warrior leaped in and locked the other two people outside to die, with several rippers roaring and thudding against the closed hatch. Those surviving men and women were later killed in combat testing so we won’t hear that story first hand.” He concluded, sounding skeptical.

“They claimed an armed Krall warrior ran from these things?” The image of a frightened Krall appealed to Mirikami.

“The Krall always scout a heard from the air first, so usually the only risk is from the rhinolo, which is significant in its own right. The people here are free to try to hunt them if they want, but without a shuttle to scout for them. They would have to drive one of the truck-like vehicles parked outside to get out onto the plains to the south.

“There are thirty-two double gates in the thick outer walls and outer electrified fence, but they aren’t guarded. You have to manually open and close the gates one at a time, much like an airlock system. It isn’t the Krall that keep us here it’s the dangerous animals that keep us inside the compound.

“I think we’ll have to ask a Krall if we want to know more about rippers,” Dillon concluded. “But if they run from them, I’m not doing the asking. When I asked Dorkda why they were leaving their beloved Koban, I nearly got my heart ripped out. I’ll let someone else ask why they run away from blue-green kitties.”

“OK, you found out some useful information in a short time. How about introducing me to some of the captives I saw walking around here. Ten isn’t very many out of thousands. Are they spokespeople for the rest? They didn’t even want to look my way.”

“They made it clear they were not in charge,” said Ray. “It was one of the first things they told us. Each one of them told us separately in fact. They claimed they were only making sure that ‘newbies’ didn’t let in the pests.”

“That’s so,” confirmed Ray. “I think they were making a point of ‘not being in charge’ here.”

“I remember your speculation Captain, that leaders here don’t live very long,” Dillon reminded him. “I don’t think they want to even be associated with a new leader. His presumed followers might be sent out to fight with him.”

“So show me to their living areas. I guess that’s where most of our people are, right?”

“They have a sort of auditorium and cafeteria they call the Great Hall, right over this way,” and Dillon led him deeper into the dome, crossing a number of wide corridors that appeared to curve around the dome, much as ship corridors did.

When they passed through a final wide set of double swinging doors, they found themselves in a large open area at least three levels high, based on the balcony walkways ringing the circular room. There seemed to be fifteen feet per level for those. Human made table-bench sets were arranged in multiple rows in the center, with perhaps two thousand people standing or sitting and talking.

The distinction of who was who was clear. The clean, neatly dressed Flight of Fancy people were mostly seated close to the door the four came through, and more were seated towards the center of the large room. Around the sides were the more ragged looking, sometimes dirty long time captives. There was some interaction going on, but not exactly an excited welcoming of the new arrivals.

“Tet, Dillon, over this way!” A familiar voice called to them. It was Maggi, standing atop one of the tables closer to the center of the room. She had heard from Jake that the Captain was on the way over to the dome.

Walking down a wider center row between tables, several of the people off the Fancy had a few complaints for the Captain.

“They won’t help us with our wounded, Captain.” Pleaded a middle-aged man, cradling the back of the woman who had broken her kneecap in the first minutes of the evacuation. Her leg was stretched out along the attached bench of the table, a smart bandage wrapped around her injured knee.

An overweight man asked, as Mirikami passed, “What are we going to eat? They say they can’t share their rations with so many new mouths.”

“I asked for a gun, I wanted to go back to help. They wouldn’t let me have one.” Complained a woman.

Mirikami only nodded an acknowledgement to each as he passed them, holding his palm out, indicating they needed to be patient.

When he reached the center, he discovered Maggi, Aldry, Ana Cahill, Zulma Krat, Rafe Campbell, and Motorman Andrew Johnson clustered at a four tables pushed together.

The grouping was significant because these people had volunteered to be members of the Immunity Committee for the Flight of Fancy’s complement. There had been no open discussion with the Flight of Fancy people yet; there couldn’t be until Telour was placed in charge of them. It wasn’t known yet how many would be on the final committee, but the entire ship’s complement would be made part of the decision.

As originally outlined, the group could not have any immunity offered by Telour for themselves, but would select those that did receive combat immunity from testing. No one knew how the previous captives would react to this. The thinking was to extend the immunity to people with knowledge or skill the Fancy could use in building weapons or devising tactics.

From the angry looking armed people standing around the tables, it seemed likely that some sort of discussion had taken place that they didn’t like. Mirikami sincerely hoped the subject of immunity or cooperating with Telour had not been leaked. He had emphasized that until they knew where they stood with respect to organizing that effort, that it be kept secret from everyone.

Motioning for the Captain to climb up and join her, Maggi whispered in his ear as she pretended to lean over to give him a hand up. “They think so many of got here alive because we collaborated with the enemy.” That explained the looks he was receiving from them.

Maggi spoke out in her normal commanding manner to the crowd around them, a voice so at odds with her small figure and grandmotherly appearance.

“Gentle Ladies and Gentle Men, this is Captain Mirikami of the Flight of Fancy. The man that I told you saved us from slaughter on first contact with the Krall, and who negotiated our receiving Ra Ka Endo while in transit to here. That is why we have the same throat tattoos you bear, despite our new arrival.”

Wondering if that was the only subject that had the others upset, Mirikami bowed formally in each of four directions. As he looked around the room, he saw there were at least two thousand new faces looking back at him now, and no longer avoiding his gaze. Then he saw others on the balconies above the perimeter of the large room. It seemed possible that nearly all of the surviving captives were watching him.

A man somewhere in the crowd shouted out “Is that true? You kept the Krall from slaughtering any of your people? What did you get in trade for that?”

The accusing voice remained anonymous, hidden in the mass of faces when Mirikami looked that way.

“We lost fifty six people in the first hour, and that was certainly a slaughter, so no, we did not save everyone. We had no idea who was coming after us, or what would happen to us. Until we received a recorded warning message. That warning deserves more credit for saving lives than anything my crew or I did. A human was responsible for the message, and it gave us vital information just in time for us to avoid the mistakes that surely would have caused many more deaths. You probably know who that person was.” His eyes scanned around the room, waiting for a response. None came.

“A man who identified himself as Mavray Doushan told us what we were about to face, and what we needed to do to improve our chances of survival. All I did was tell my people to follow his advice. Midway orbital station, our intended destination, had not heeded that same advice, and only eleven people survived its total destruction the day before we arrived in the system. I think we owe many lives to his warning. I for one would like to thank him.” Some of the faces looked surprised, uncertain now.

“That collaborator is dead!” Another anonymous man’s voice shouted out.

“His message told us that some of his fellow captives called him a traitor,” conceded Mirikami. “Perhaps that might be true, and I don’t know everything he may have done to offend or harm any of you here. Nevertheless, the people from our ship, the Flight of Fancy, can state without question that his explicit warning led to decisions by us that spared many of our lives. He even told us about the tattoo I see that we all bear.” He had noted that everyone had a blank oval like his own.

“The marking was first offered by the Krall to only a few members of my crew, so they would be free to prepare for a Jump to come here,” he told them. “But because of the slight protection Doushan told us it could provide, I asked it for every single one of my passengers and crew.

“It wasn’t exactly free, it came with strings attached.” He looked around the room, seeing distrust on many faces.

“It required that I promise good behavior on behalf of every soul on the Flight of Fancy, on pain of death for me and one eighth of every person on my ship if even one person violated that promise.” He again scanned the room, now hanging on his words.

“As you can see, I clearly arrived here alive, as did those one hundred random people the Krall would have killed. That apparently means all of us on the ship must have ‘collaborated’ to stay alive.” Now he pointed a finger, right arm extended, in a sweeping arc around the room.

“Just as every last one of you here with markings like ours also collaborated! It was a means to improve your chance of survival, not a sign of cooperation with what the damned Krall have planned for the Human race and us. I for one plan to fight back!”

“Hear, hear!” was shouted out by many of the Fancy’s people, followed by swelling applause and cheers from members of the new arrivals. It lasted for almost a minute until an obviously embarrassed Mirikami waved them down.

As it quieted, Dillon shouted out, “A lot of us owe our lives to Captain Mirikami. His leadership has helped protect us at every opportunity. Where are your leaders? Have they done as much for you?”

A voice from the top balcony shouted out, “They all died. Like your Captain will die if he tries to lead this ungrateful rabble.”

There was a murmur from the long time captives as everyone turned to look for the speaker. Mirikami caught a name repeated several times. “Colonel Grease,” it sounded like they were saying.

“And who might you be, Gentle Sir?” Mirikami called back to a man standing in isolation on the third tier balcony.

“I’m who those cowards are muttering about Captain. I’m Colonel Thaddeus Greeves, formerly head of a Diplomatic Security detail from Poldark. I was captured with Mr. Doushan on the same diplomatic courier. I’m now the sole survivor of that group. We need to talk.”

26. Colonel Grease

There were eight sets of large elevators set equal distance around the auditorium as they had decided to call the large assembly and dining area. Dillon let the way, having used an elevator earlier. He stuck a fingertip into an unmarked slot next to a wide closed door, and they waited a moment as movement could be heard.

Only Maggi and Dillon were selected by Mirikami to go with him. It didn’t seem advisable to show distrust by bringing along many other people. They were invited by Greeves to meet on the third level. The single elevator door opened with startling speed, rising straight up to make a nine-foot high opening, and twice that wide.

On a right side panel were the controls. The numbering system was probably in Krall script, but Dillon said it worked much like a human system. Small slots with some script next to each ran vertically in two parallel columns. There were thirty-two such script-slot pairs. The slots were intended for a talon tip, but he said also activated when a human fingertip was inserted.

Dillon, warning them to stand clear of the door, stuck a fingertip into the third from the bottom left slot, triggering the two-piece door to slide down swiftly. Then the elevator shot upwards so quickly that Maggi nearly slipped to the floor. With a stomach lifting stop, the door swished opened almost immediately on the third level.

Shooting a dagger eyed look at Dillon, Maggi let go of his arm, which she had reflexively clutched to save herself from a dangerous fall to her backside. She stepped out of the twenty foot wide elevator and looked back at him with one eyebrow raised, clearly assessing him.

Stammering, Dillon said, “Uh

, I’m.., I’m sorry Maggi, and uh

Tet. I forgot to warn you before I inserted my finger. It goes fast,” he ended lamely.

“Humph,” was Maggi’s only reply. From that simple sound, Dillon knew with certainty from personal experience that some sort of embarrassing verbal dart laid in his future for that little omission.

Mirikami had been no better prepared, but his knees happened to be straight when it shot up, so he was spared the indignity of having to grab onto anything to stay standing, or perhaps even falling painfully on his butt. All he said in response to Dillon’s apology was, “Typical Krall speed and efficiency. No wonder they didn’t like our lifts.”

Colonel Greeves was waiting for them. He was as tall as Dillon was, but stockier. He had short black-to-graying hair, which in modern society was rare, since the human genes that had lengthened life and vitality had eliminated most gray hair. It didn’t often appear until very late in life after about a hundred thirty or forty. Yet Greeves looked in good health, and extremely vital. Sun tanned with rugged features, he wasn’t classically handsome like Dillon, but probably turned the heads of many a gene shopping Lady.

He was also armed, very heavily armed. There were a pair of Krall made pistols in holsters slung low at his hips, two human made projectile pistols under his arms in holsters, and what looked like a Jazzer clipped to an ammo belt across his chest that also held multiple ammo clips. He had a short rifle slung over his back, which looked like a modified Krall weapon. In addition, a machete handle protruded from a pouch behind his left shoulder. There was a large sheathed hunting knife strapped to the outside his lower right leg.

Mirikami shook hands and introduced his two companions. “Colonel, I would like to present the gracious Lady, Doctor Margret Fisher, and Doctor Dillon Martin.”

Greeves, rather than following the social niceties of a hand kiss with a Lady, simply offered his hand to Maggi to be shaken. It was a courteous and firm shake with Mirikami, gentle with Maggi, and bone crushing with Dillon.

Dillon was surprised, after seeing the other two perfunctory handshakes, but responded in kind. He didn’t have Greeves’ Koban adapted grip, but was satisfied to see a return look of surprise.

“Doctors’ you say.” He had a rich resonate voice, with a provincial accent that sounded similar to what they had heard in Doushan’s recording. Poldark was a New Colony, but considered more backwoods than most New Colony worlds, having been settled just a decade before the Collapse.

“I heard that the majority of you new arrivals claimed to be biologists. My dear Lady you might fit that description, but Mr. Dillon here does not. It’s a strange collection of people for the Krall to find at the outskirts of civilization.” He wasn’t actually saying he didn’t believe them, but his skepticism was apparent.

Maggi took the lead, “There are a lot of Doctors in our group, Colonel, and all of them really are in the biological sciences. The Flight of Fancy was chartered by a consortium of Universities to transport our staff to an orbital research station named Midwife.

“The station had the misfortune to be orbiting a world called Newborn, well beyond the Rim worlds. We were planning to do research on the rare emerging primitive life there. The Krall had already stumbled on our station before we did our White Out. I’m sure you can piece together what they did when they detected our emergence and radio calls.”

Mollified for the moment, he replied, “Yes, that particular sequence of events has been repeated at least a hundred times.”

“A hundred?” questioned Mirikami. “I don’t think we spotted more than a dozen wrecked human ships on the tarmac as we landed.”

“Most ships aren’t even flight worthy after capture, let alone Jump capable. If they aren’t close enough to Koban they don’t bring them anyway. They have faster Jump capability than we do, and no patience. But we can discuss this in my quarters, away from these spineless pricks.” He waved at the crowd below and the hundred or so people standing well away from them along the wide balcony.

“Please, follow me. It isn’t very far.” He preceded them to a corridor opening and turned in to that. It was wide, a radial corridor that appeared to lead all the way to the edge of the dome. There was light coming in windows at the end.

The hallway was well lit by continuous glow strips along the ceiling. They passed several other wide cross-corridors that circled the dome. There were closed doorways spaced periodically along all the corridors they saw, with some sort of script on the doors, and at intersections.

As they walked Greeves didn’t speak, and only occasionally glanced back to see if they were keeping up with his moderate pace. Mirikami suspected he was taking it slow for people not yet adapted to Koban’s gravity.

Maggi tapped his arm, and Mirikami looked over at her. She didn’t speak, but gestured at her tattoo, and pointed at Greeves just ahead, then at her tattoo again. Dillon also saw what she did, but both men shrugged and shook their heads to indicate they didn’t get her message. She made a small wave as if to say it wasn’t important right now.

When they reached the end of the long hall, they could see there were large windows, almost floor to ceiling. They allowed them to see the Flight of Fancy in the afternoon sun light, off to their left, with people still coming across. The windows apparently went all the way around the dome, forming the outside wall of each level.

Greeves turned left again at the end of the radial hall, and taking a few steps said, “This is it.”

He stopped at a closed door with a small panel inset next to it. Shielding the panel with his body, he entered a series of taps or presses. There was an audible click, and Greeves pushed the door inwards.

“Welcome to my personal fortress,” and he waved them to enter.

As they walked in, Mirikami noted that it was furnished sparsely with a mixture of salvaged ship chairs and couches, and a bunk. These were not Smart furniture, as used on commercial ships like the Flight of Fancy, which had to consider the comfort of its paying passengers on long Jumps. These were items probably taken from some of the older and smaller wrecks outside. A number of things were homemade, and clearly made from local trees and plants.

There was a strikingly attractive wooden table with blue and yellow streaked wood, four matching chairs, and a few baskets made of woven teal fibers. However, the size of his quarters was the greatest surprise. It was perhaps one hundred feet long by fifty wide and a fifteen-foot ceiling with glow strips. The long walls followed the gentle curve of the outside corridor. A second door to the outer corridor door was at the far end, and two closed doors were on the opposite wall. The furniture was all clustered near the door they had entered, making the large room look nearly empty.

As Mirikami passed Greeves, he glanced at his V-neck shirt. The latter was a human fashion concession to ensure the Krall could see everyone’s tattoo. The Colonel’s tattoo had a small splash of color. One blue and one red, at the top of the oval. It was similar to the multicolored dots and blobs inside the Krall’s own tattoos.

Greeves pulled chairs away from the table, in an obvious invitation to sit, so they did. Reaching into a basket by a table leg, he pulled out four green plastic bottles and placed them on the table. He took the fourth chair.

The bottles turned out to be standard looking transparent water bottles that only looked green because of the translucent liquid inside.

“These are better served cold, but I don’t have a refrigeration unit in here like the standard living cubicles do. But those cubicles don’t lock, and this one does. The fruit for this juice is local; it grows close to the forest on low shrubs, and has a combination flavor of sweet and tangy at the same time. I don’t know of an exact match from any world, but it is citrus like. It can be an acquired taste.”

He unscrewed his obviously reused container, and took a deep swig to show them it was actually drinkable. His guests tried theirs with a bit more caution, with small sips. Then all three demonstrated approval by taking larger swallows.

“That really is tangy,” agreed Dillon. “But the aftertaste is sweet. I think I’d agree it seems like it has a bit of citrus flavor. But of course, that can’t be true. Are a lot of fruits, plants, and animals digestible here? That’s highly unusual.”

“I’m not all that familiar with what should or shouldn’t be safe to eat on different worlds, Doctor. Some of the people here were surprised, however. Like any world, there are fruits and berries here you should not to eat, as we learned the hard way by trial and error.

“This particular plant is deadly if you aren’t careful, but not from its fruit, it has natural defenses. The leaves seem to be toxic to native animals, though we never tried them. It’s the thorns that will flat kill you if you don’t expect a plant to actively swat you.”

Maggi said, “Swat you?”

“Yes indeed. They have a trigger mechanism in a number of tightly coiled branches that cause them to uncoil faster than you can pull away if you pick a fruit. When you get a thorn in a hand or arm, the only thing to do is to amputate in the first minute. We haven’t saved the life of anyone when we didn’t do that. Even the Krall, who like the fruit won’t reach in and pick one.”

“How do you get the fruit?” Maggi wanted to know.

“Unlike a lot of things here, people are still smarter than plants. We use a mechanical picker that you need to wash off the handle after using. The thorns are coated with a paralyzing neurotoxin. Fortunately it hasn’t evolved to throw the thorns or I wouldn’t go pick the fruit.”

“What do you call it?” Mirikami asked. “It seems worth the effort for the flavor.”

“I’ve heard it called ‘Sweet Agony,’ but I preferred ‘Death Lime’ after I tasted it. The fruit is fist sized and green, and its pulp tastes just as good.”

In a change of subject, Dillon had also seen what Maggi had tried to get them to notice about his tattoo. He came right out and asked. “Colonel, your tattoo is the only one I’ve seen here that has anything inside it, at least on a human. What does that mean?”

“It’s partly what has kept me alive, and at the same time nearly got me killed earning them. The red one represents my immunity, although that’s actually just its effect rather than what it stands for.”

“And what do they stand for, Colonel?” Maggi asked.

“The blue mark I received from the Krall when my hunting party completed a rhinolo hunt with a kill, and we were able to bring back the meat. Three other people with me on that hunt earned the same mark.” He pointed towards the door they had entered. Over the top was mounted a set of three teal horns on a plaque of wood like that of the table.

There was a three foot curved central horn that went from a thick oval base to a thin tapering point, and two shorter horns to the left and right of the big one. These were perhaps a foot and a half long each, and tapered to points that looked a bit blunted or worn. The small horns were set almost at right angles to the large one, and slanted a bit towards the floor. If the normal position of that array on a live animal were with the large horn more or less vertical, then the eighteen inchers would stick out to the sides, and forward.

“Deadly looking,” stated Mirikami. “I imagine they are truly impressive on a herd of live animals. I understand they are very fast and hard to bring down.”

“That they are. This one brought down a fifth person with us on the hunt. Because of its preoccupation with her, the other four of us had side shots that managed to take out a front leg. We killed it with belly shots under its armored hide, after it fell over.”

“You said ‘preoccupation with her’ Colonel,” said Maggi. “I take it that is a euphemism for it killing her, isn’t it? You said only four of you earned the mark for the hunt.”

“Euphemism

,” he repeated slowly. “Yes, you are quite correct. It’s still difficult to say it right out, to describe how it attacked her and what it did to Valerie.” The pain was evident in his eyes and his voice.

“I’m sorry, Colonel. I didn’t mean to be insensitive. Was she a friend?”

“She was one of the four surviving members of my security detachment; we went together on that hunt. She was my responsibility, but also a friend and companion in this alien environment.”

“I heard you say you were now the last survivor of the humans captured from your ship,” noted Dillon. “If the other three people with you were part of that detachment, what happened to them, if you don’t object to my asking?”

“I don’t object. This is part of the reason I invited you up to talk. To warn you of how things work here.” He took a swallow of his drink.

“All of them are dead now. Two died in the action that earned me the red mark that provides my immunity from future combat. They worked together with me to set up an ambush to lure and kill a warrior out on the testing grounds. I’m the only one of the three of us that survived the day.” He said this all without any sound of pride of accomplishment.

“There were six others in that combat test group with us, who all chose to hide rather than participate in the ambush. Without their guns to help us, that wounded warrior, even missing an arm still managed to kill my two companions before I could finish him off with a head shot. My survival always seems to be connected to my friends providing a ‘preoccupation’ for me.” He sounded bitter as well as sad.

“And so you don’t feel the need to ask,” He added, “My final detachment member was killed in another combat trial, trying to organize an ambush as my team had done. Except his support team turned and ran, so they all died on that Testing Day.

“By the way, Testing Day is what we call any day a human team is sent out to face a Krall hunter-killer team,” he explained.

“Is what we were told accurate, that surviving a day’s combat when a warrior is killed earns immunity for everyone on that team?” Mirikami wanted to know this.

“Oh, the Krall, bloody bastard killers that they are, honor their few promises to us. The other four surviving cowards on my team’s Testing Day were granted immunity as well. A fifth person, a woman, died from a skeeter attack while hiding, another woman was stung and eaten by kants. She was hiding in the back of a cave she crawled into, unaware of the nest.

“Kant’s are small underground colony builders, the equivalent to ants or termites on Earth I’ve been told. I’ve never been to Earth, but these are as long as your first finger joint.” He put a thumb at the crease of his index finger’s top joint.

“They have six legs and are tan instead of the blue or green of so many of the things here. It takes four or five stings to put you down, unlike a skeeter sting, but they have mandibles that can cut right through skin and cloth, and each can sting multiple times. They will swarm over you through the joints in your armor. Often when we get a kant attack victim back to reuse the armor, the bones are picked clean in a day, and even the bones themselves are eventually eaten. Everything but our teeth.”

“The survivors with you that day got immunity even though they didn’t fight?” Dillon asked.

“Yes, and the immunity granted is supposed to be immediate. The test ends as soon as a warrior is killed by any of us, so those four ass wipes that ran and hid never had to face another Testing Day. Not that two of them enjoyed immunity for long,” he ended ominously.

“Did the Krall find some way around their promise?” Mirikami asked.

“Oh no, they leave every survivor from a team alone after you kill a warrior in combat. It’s exactly what they want from us, you know. The immunity offer is an incentive to fight harder, to kill one of them on a Testing Day. Damnedest idea you ever heard, but I swear it’s true.” He sounded defensive, not expecting newcomers to believe him.

“Colonel,” Mirikami reassured him, “we had a week to pump information from the three translators on our ship while in transit here. We learned the same thing you have about them wanting us to be more successful when we fight them. In fact, they hope to use war with entire human race as a method of improving generations of new warriors.”

“Huh? What do you mean the entire human race? They only test people here I was told.” He was clearly shocked.

“They test us here, yes,” the Captain agreed, “but did you wonder what they were testing us for? They intend to invade our worlds slowly, to select the best warriors on a much grander scale. They allow only the most successful fighters to breed for the next generation. They call this the Great Path, and have done this for twenty five thousand years with other races. Before we even came out of our caves on Earth.

“Humanity is the eighteenth race they’ve found, in a series of conquests of other civilizations that they have wiped out. They intend to rule the entire Galaxy as a super race.”

Greeves shook his head in amazement. “Holy shit! I had thought it was just for their sick amusement, or something. I’ve never had more than a few words with any of their translators,” he admitted.

He explained why. “Doushan learned the hard way that people here don’t like you receiving what they see as preferential treatment from the enemy, not without risking your life to earn it. Like earning the immunity you get from a combat kill. Doushan and a few others got immunity just by teaching them Standard and human history, making them very unpopular.”

“I wasn’t fond of Mavray as a person, and disliked his willingness to describe our worlds and people. Nevertheless, I respected his actions to try to save as many people as he could, to find a way to reduce the slaughters during capture. It was the diplomat’s training in him, to find a way that didn’t involve violence and killing.

“When I heard you say he had succeeded in your case, I felt pissed again at what some of those cowards down there did to him.”

“What was that?” Maggi wanted to know.

“Someone ‘accidentally’ locked him outside the north dome entrance after dark, all eight doors that face the Jungle side of the compound. He never made it to another garage entrance. His drained body was found where the skeeters left him. Cowardly bastards!” he repeated.

“I found out who had the balls to do something that might piss off the Krall. Two of them had immunity it turned out, but some participants without immunity were challenged by a Krall for some reason. They don’t normally care a damn what we do to each other, but Doushan was valuable to them.

“They were honor bound to respect their own Krall granted immunity, but it was no protection from me. We all have the right to challenge any Krall or any human. Two of the pricks that left me and my men to die, that allowed us to win their grants of immunity were two of those that shoved Doushan out the door.”

“You said they didn’t enjoy immunity for long. You killed them?” Mirikami asked.

“Not the way they killed Doushan, sneaky and in the dead of night. I faced them and called them out in front of everyone. We met in the old testing arena upstairs, which the Krall use now for exercise. They used to fight humans there, but that proved a waste of their time. I gave those men the opportunity to kill me if they could, their choice of weapons. Both knew I was a dead shot, so they picked machetes and knives. Another mistake they won’t repeat.”

“The Krall had no objection, I take it?” Dillon asked.

“Hell, they wanted to award me marks for the kills. I was repelled by the offer and they were bemused at my refusal. But it has made me basically immune in two ways, from the Krall and from my fellow captives.”

“Couldn’t someone just jump you and shove you out a door too?” questioned Maggi.

“You have no doubt noticed Good Lady that I walk around very well armed. I have had little to do with most people here for the last year, since the duels. I earned this ‘luxurious’ secure compartment because I have the highest status among the humans. If some vengeful backstabber caught me asleep I suspect Colonel ‘Grease’ might get greased.”

He shrugged. “This dome has a large amount of living space, so the main thing this room offered was a locking door and proximity to our food lockers.

“But frankly, I’m looking for someone to talk to, and you might be the folks I can do that with. I’m not going to be offended if you prefer to keep your distance. There are a lot of you, but three times as many of them if they worry you. However, I can offer you some tips on survival here, and you may want to hear those.”

Looking at his companions, Mirikami saw the subtle hints from their body language and expressions that he had learned to read when they were under Krall scrutiny. He felt certain of their opinion, and made a decision.

“Colonel, I’d prefer you call me Tet, short for Tetsuo, rather than Captain Mirikami. The latter is far too formal for what I hope will become a working relationship, and hopefully a friendship over time.” He offered his hand one more time.

“Tet, I believe I will like having someone to talk to again. Please call me Thad.” He accepted his handshake again.

“Thad, time is short right now, but let me give you a quick outline of what we know of Krall intentions, before I have to get back to my ship, assuming I get to keep it in one piece at all.”

“OK, shoot.”

“We learned directly from the Krall that they have been undecided whether to simply kill off humanity, make slaves of a few of us and kill the rest, or if testing here proves we can actually fight them, they’ll employ a slow attack strategy to weed out their weakest warriors. We don’t like any of these options, but proving we can fight gives our worlds time to try and find some better option.”

“I’d chose the fight option, which I suspect you figured out just now,” he grinned.

“We have some plans concerning how those of us from our ship will organize and fight the Krall here. They require some things to fall in place, the most important of which ought to happen before this day is done, keeping our ship intact as a base of operations. We are not at liberty to discuss what we have planned yet, or how we will do this, because it carries a risk beyond just those involved.”

Mirikami looked to his friends, “Maggi and Dillon can outline some of our ideas to try to outsmart the Krall warriors, but I need to return to the ship. I have no doubt you can improve on those ideas. I’m a Spacer, and we have no professional military in our entire complement, so your advice should prove invaluable.”

“I’ll be glad to help you. Except I have to warn you that anyone showing leadership here shortens their life expectancy. I wasn’t blowing smoke about that. There are some people here who will be sympathetic and wish you well, but few will follow you.”

Mirikami was about to say something, but Jake’s voice sounded in his ear. From their listening attitudes, he was speaking to Maggi and Dillon as well.

“A Krall shuttle from the south west has been detected. It is on a course to arrive at this location in thirteen minutes forty seconds, unless it changes course or speed. It

” he cut off as Mirikami spoke.

“Maggi, you may want to brief Thad more on some of our ideas and ‘toys’, but I need to get to the ship right now and I may need your help Dillon. I’m wearing out.”

They excused themselves, and their host opened the door for them to leave.

After they were gone, Thad said, “So my Good Lady, what can we talk about? Besides those neat implants, which the three of you have. You all got an important call from somebody.” He grinned.

“You will bear some watching Gentle Sir,” she grinned back. “The Krall didn’t catch on after a whole week of watching us. Only please call me Maggi, Thad. I suspect we will be learning a lot from each other and working together, so we may as well be friends.”

With an impish grin, she asked, “I assume you know some unarmed combat techniques?”

“Sure, but it has limited use around here. You can’t kick a Krall’s butt with what I know.”

“Oh, I’m just concerned about Dillon,” she said sweetly. “He’s a brilliant scientist, and keeps fit, but he doesn’t know anything about self-defense. I’d consider it a great favor if you would offer to teach him a few things. Like throws, and such. He just might find himself up against one of your vindictive fellow captives, and the dear boy is like a son to me.”

“Certainly, as soon as you get settled in we can start. All of you will need exercise to build the muscles Koban requires. The Krall allow new arrivals some time for that but they are impatient.”

“Good. Now I don’t want you to be too easy on Dillon, a few bruises are a small price to pay for learning a skill. He likes to please me, so be sure to tell him I said to do this for me, won’t you?”

Her grandmotherly smile was at odds with the twinkle in her eyes. Yes indeed, she thought this would definitely be more fun than a verbal harpoon for the elevator incident.

27. Ship Shape

As Mirikami stepped out of the stomach-wrenching elevator, he asked for an update from Noreen. He and Dillon started a jog around the edge of the large hall to the door they had entered through, drawing some curious looks.

Noreen told them “The last of our evacuees are already under the dome overhang, and the escorts are heading back with the guns. The final drops should happen in the next five or six minutes, at least five minutes before that inbound shuttle gets here.”

Puffing with effort, Mirikami said, “Dillon and I probably can’t make it back before the drops. We were able to sit briefly and cool our heels for a bit, but I for one can’t manage better than a trot. Dillon is being polite and staying back with me.”

Feeling winded, he glanced over at the big man, jogging so easily at his side. “He’s positively irritatingly fit.”

Also in the Link, Dillon had a rebuttal, “Don’t let him fool you Noreen he’s saving himself to drag away those last engine parts himself.”

“Hey, one of the haulers just started over with more food, drinks, and bedding. If he drops the pallet and lets someone there unload, he can drive you back.”

“Good,” was all Mirikami could manage.

When they reached the big maintenance room, Mirikami was so winded he could barely speak. One of the large doors was open, and the hauler was backing away from a pallet it had set on the floor.

There were seven people covering the dangerous open door with guns ready. The two men startled them as they brusquely shoved past. Mirikami muttered a winded excuse.

Chack waved them on, obviously expecting them.

As Mirikami went to stand on the step-up, Chack opened the cage door making room for him to sit on the floor of the cab and rest his feet on the step. Dillon, breathing heavier but not winded, stepped on the fork and held on to the rear brace.

Chack had his faceplate open, “Hold tight gentlemen, I’ll goose this baby and show you what it can really do.” He swung the machine around and it trundled away at a pitiful fifteen miles per hour.

“Hey Chack,” called Dillon, “try to avoid blowing my butt off, OK?”

“You could always walk, Commander Fireball,” he answered back.

Noreen was standing at the top of the ramp, having collected four of the guns from the volunteer escorts in the black bag. The eight men and women were headed back to the dome for their final trip, holding four of the guns for their own protection. The hauler was passing them at the midpoint.

“Noreen,” sounded Willfem in her ear, “are we all clear for the last drop?”

“Hold it a minute Nan, the Captain and Doctor Martin are almost back, and the last escorts are halfway to the dome. The ramp should shield them all, but I’d rather not take a chance.”

Chack, noting his Captain’s sweat and heavy breathing, simply drove up the ramp when he reached the ship, and stopped next to Noreen.

“Welcome back aboard Sir.” Mirikami merely nodded and made a halfhearted salute.

She shouted to the eight people halfway to the dome. “Dropping the last engine parts, watch out for pieces.” Then, “Link to Willfem,” and barely pausing, “Cut ‘em free Nan, we’re all clear.”

After barely thirty seconds wait, the screech and snapping of metal could be heard and felt as the last three sections of the main engines fell the length of the tubes where they had been mounted. The thuds on the chipped tarmac weren’t as heavy this time because the remaining components were less massive than earlier pieces.

His breathing nowhere close to regular yet, Mirikami felt compelled to congratulate the three crews responsible. He requested a ship wide broadcast through Jake.

“Brave Ladies and Men, I sincerely thank and congratulate you on an extremely tough job very well done. You beat the optimistic schedule we set ourselves. If we are able to save this ship, it will be because of your work and great sacrifice. Mirikami Out.”

Every one of the three teams thought of the terrible sacrifice Bolinda Carter had made for this effort. Her ravaged half-eaten body was still where she had died, with the dead wolfbats nearby.

“The shuttle on its way here is probably Parkoda’s, but we don’t know that. We should learn shortly if our plan to use the ship as a base of operations has worked, or not.”

“Sir,” Jake’s voice spoke, “There are Krall warriors leaving the Clanship but they are not moving towards this ship. The arriving shuttle is apparently landing near the Clanship.”

“I’m not sure I like that,” said a still puffing Mirikami, but spoken softly.

“Why’s that Captain?” Chack, sitting right next to him, was the only one to hear.

“Broadcast to entire ship,” he said, instead of answering Chack directly. “People, I want all of you to get down to the cargo hold immediately. The shuttle landed by the Clanship rather than next to us, leaving it in the clear if they decide to fire on us. We may need to get off in a hurry.”

“Damn, do they even know anyone is still here?” It was Chief Haveram’s voice.

Noreen said, “The Clanship must have seen the engine drop we just did, and the Hauler’s return. They know some of us are aboard.”

“Doesn’t mean they care,” said Dillon. “Perhaps we should send someone over to explain that we have completed Telour’s orders.”

“If Parkoda’s in charge,” said Mirikami, “that wouldn’t help matters. However, perhaps I can play them off against each other. We have to try something, so I’ll go over there.”

Then via transducer he heard, “Sir, Eight warriors are running this way, only one is from the shuttle.”

“Any of them in blue uniforms?”

“No Sir,”

“Then we probably can’t talk to them. I wonder if we should put all our guns in the bag?” Mirikami mused.

“We have novice status like the armed people inside, just different guns. Very useless guns against them anyway.”

“You’re right Dillon. Slip of the brain there. I’m tired.” Mirikami sighed. He finally realized the price he was paying for the three doses of Oxy and Pep pills he had popped this day.

The Krall covered the half mile in well under the time the hauler had taken to cross the three hundred feet from the dome. Four of the warriors leaped into the hold, deflecting in from a single jump onto the center of the ramp. The other four took positions facing out and watching the sky on either side of the ramp at its foot.

The humans stood still, watching the four but avoiding direct eye contact as usual. One especially large warrior, in dark gray, stepped forward and in nearly perfect Standard asked, “Is the human clan leader on the ship?”

Mirikami gathered his draining reserves of energy and boldly walked right up to the warrior, who towered nearly two feet over him. “I am Captain Mirikami, clan leader of the humans from this ship.”

A Krall rarely displayed much of an expression that humans could easily recognize, but this unusually large warrior looked down on the smaller than average human with what could only be described as incredulity.

Mirikami noticed that the tattoo he bore was far more filled with colored markings and dots than had been Parkoda’s. It was nearly three quarters full compared to less than half filled for Parkoda or Telour. He took a stab in the dark guess.

“You are a leader of one of the Great Clans,” he stated.

“I am Gatrol Kanpardi of the Graka clan, yes. Telour told me you were different, and understood us better than most humans. You are a new capture, yet you face me correctly without fear, and you smell as if you have come from combat.”

Well, Mirikami was thinking, I fought gravity all day, so the stink comes honestly.

Another thought was that this was a Krall with two names. Parkoda had bragged that Krall warrior names were earned, and not like those first given to their cubs. Mirikami wondered how many names they could earn.

“You also recognized I have considerable status. I have the highest status for Graka clan in this sector, a rank that humans might call ‘General’ if you still had armies.” It could be Krall bragging, but it seemed more like a simple statement of fact.

“Telour has claimed that he can gain status for himself and for our clan if he is allowed to use you to teach humans on Koban how to fight.”

He looked him over again, leaning from side to side for a slightly different perspective. “You do not look like you could fight a cub.”

“In truth, I am not a great warrior.” No need to try a bluff, or to disguise his intentions. “My role will be to organize my people here to find weapons, strategy, and tactics that will help humans find ways to kill your strong but foolish young warriors.”

A head toss and snort proved he had hit another Krall funny bone. Perhaps I should be a Krall standup comic, he thought sardonically.

“In fact we too want this,” the Krall confirmed, “but after years of watching your worlds in secret, and observing and testing many of you animals here, I found only a few that can fight well, and none ready to do this more than once.”

Mirikami needed to counter this idea of human weakness, “You speak our language very well, better perhaps than Telour, yet your long study of us remains incomplete. You still doubt that humans once fought wars and killed millions of our own people?”

“Captives talk of these wars, but you have no armies now and you have not fought any wars in the lifetime of any I questioned. Some clans think you have lost the instinct to fight, and say we should kill you quickly, or make you our slaves. Your primitive race is able to make many things, but we have makers now of all things we use for war.” This repeated the same story they knew.

“We have not had large wars for three hundred of our years, that is true

,” Mirikami paused. “You have two names, and I do not know the proper way to speak to you. Do I use one name or both?”

“Kanpardi is my first earned warrior name, that is acceptable,” he answered.

“Kanpardi, I participated in multiple small fights in space when I was young, and there have been a number of small battles on rebellious colony worlds in my lifetime. However, my race had a great war that nearly killed all of our males, only two or three of each hundred lived.

“We have avoided new wars that could end our race. Now the number of males has almost returned to what was lost three hundred years ago. My people will relearn the skills of war, if given time to do so.”

After a brief moment of consideration, all the time a Krall ever seemed to spend thinking, Kanpardi had a response that seemed to reconcile Mirikami’s statement with the Krall’s own worldview.

“We have found that the Great Path is slow to make us stronger, so to lose the ability to fight wars should also not happen quickly. Our other enemies took many thousands of your years to forget how to fight. They believed their smart machines could fight for them and protect them, and they all lost to us when we used the same machines with better warriors.

“Your people live long compared to us, and only two of your generations have passed since you last made war. You should lose the love of war more slowly than that. It should still be in your hearts.”

“Does that mean you think we can learn to fight well enough to help you on your Great Path?”

Another brief pause by Kanpardi. A deep thinker for a Krall. “Telour was correct. You say the right things to us. And why would you want to help us reach our goal to rule the galaxy?”

“I don’t want to help you, and my race doesn’t. We would prefer to have peaceful relations. But failing in that, we would rather destroy you totally than to be defeated by you.”

Damn! Another snort. So far that was the only way he had been “killing” them. With laughter.

“We are realistic enough to know our possibility of winning a war with you is very low. Nevertheless, as long as we are alive, and can delay your victory, we can hope for a miracle that can save us. So we will fight you, even if poorly at first.”

Proving he really had studied his enemy, Kanpardi rippled his lips at the corners of his muzzle, as Telour had once done, clearly mimicking a human smile. Then he went farther by stiffly nodding his head in another human gesture.

“I once told Telour when I encountered him as an intelligent young novice that we needed a worthy enemy. We fight with ourselves, and make slow progress on the Path, but we fight in ways we all know. We need an enemy that will fight in ways we do not expect, that will fight smart and unpredictable. Telour thinks you will find a way to prove that this is possible with humans. He may be right.”

“We will prove him right.” Mirikami asserted.

“The watchers on the Clanship expected the small Kobani animals to kill many more of you. The first test of captives on this world is for them to reach the dome as the smallest killers teach you why you cannot escape from this compound.

“When enough died, the waiting warriors were to come to protect you. You had many to cross, but you were prepared to defend yourselves. Your small guns we have seen before, but did not expect them to be useful on even the small animals.

“When you used a fire weapon that you built yourself, it surprised more that the flyers. This helped by making the larger flyers cautious, and they have always been the greatest killer of humans on the first day. You even saved all of your injured, and picked up your dead so the flyers would have nothing to eat later, and they left.

“But remember, before you think to leave the compound to hide. This is a protected place on Koban. There are dangerous animals we do not let interfere with our testing of you.

“You are the only captives that have not received or needed warrior protection in your first test. You did not pass the test with glory because some died or were hurt by the smallest killers of this world. However, you did not fail badly. In addition, the wreckage under the ship proves you completed disabling the engines. That too was observed.” This was as close to a compliment from a Krall that Mirikami had heard.

“Will Parkoda return here?” Mirikami’s hopes hung on the reply. He feared Parkoda’s more influential clan would maliciously thwart Telour’s plans, since the ship was actually his prize,

Kanpardi swung around so swiftly that it startled Mirikami into flinching. He was gliding towards the hatch when he tossed the words back casually.

“Parkoda is the leader of the largest of three new raids. He has already left Koban. I know of your agreement with Telour. He will return with warriors from Graka clan so only we will see what happens here.”

Then he leaped from the ship and began running back to his shuttle, followed by the other warriors.

Mirikami watched them run the entire distance, and had a tired idle thought. I’d pay a hundred Hub credits just to watch a damn Krall simply walk somewhere one time. However, tired or not, he felt satisfaction.

Telour had been given his chance, and humanity had been given theirs.

28. Setting up Shop

There was no need to complete the evacuation with the ship safe for now. When the three teams burst into the cargo hold ready to race off the ship, they found the First Officer hugging the Captain, with Chack and Doctor Martin pounding him joyfully on the back.

As soon as they heard the news, the entire forty of them also got in on the congratulations. Mirikami felt like he was likely to die of celebratory backslapping before the Krall even got their chance at him.

“People, please! I’m too damned exhausted to stand up to your misplaced enthusiasm,” he complained with a smile, as he tried pushing them away.

“Misplaced how Sir?” Noreen unwrapped her arms and backed away. “We kept the ship intact; we have a chance to turn our ideas into action. This work wasn’t for nothing.”

“No, not for nothing,” he said tiredly, “but this was merely an opening move in a very dangerous game we are playing. Regardless of how many ideas we have, whatever tricks we play on them, the Krall warriors are going to kill a lot of us in the process, even if we succeed.”

That sobering thought put a damper on the celebration, but not completely. With the ship as a base for operational planning, they could work on weapons and tactics largely out of view of the enemy. Telour and his clan mates could of course come aboard to see what they were doing anytime, but the novice warriors that would face them in combat would not know what to expect.

“Noreen, you have the ship, I’m going up to my quarters to clean up, eat then sleep. Nan, Roni, Mike; excuse me, I mean Chief,” he grinned. Haveram preferred being called by his rank rather than his first name.

“You and your teams worked spectacularly, and I know you must be more exhausted than I am. Everyone will stay aboard the rest of the day and tonight. Button the Fancy up and leave Jake on watch when you’re ready to sleep. I have found my personal limits for Pep pills, and if you haven’t yet, you will. Good afternoon and goodnight, I’ll see you all in the morning.” He stepped back and proudly saluted his crew and volunteers, then headed for the lift.

They watched the exhausted “Old Man” of the Flight of Fancy walk away, and they worried about him. His mind and will power had been their salvation thus far, and they needed him.

Dillon found himself comparing Mirikami and Maggi to the Krall they had met. Smaller and weaker than average, those two humans had thus far matched up well against their enemy’s thinking. They couldn’t physically fight their way out of the proverbial paper bag compared to any Krall, but had proven more than once that they could out think them.

He had been more impressed with “General” Kanpardi’s intelligence. Like humans, Krall intellect probably varied between individuals, though the physical aspect was more their racial focus than mental ability.

From what Kanpardi had told Mirikami, Telour might be sort of his protégé, because he described meeting him when he was a novice and he considered him intelligent. Parkoda didn’t seem especially bright, but Telour might bear closer watching if he were one of the above average specimens. Smart and ruthless would be a bad combination in a Krall.

Dillon had only taken one dose of the Pep/Oxy combination so far, and that was only when he’d been toting around the flamethrower equipment and the weight of the soft suit. After removing the equipment he had stayed active, but wasn’t tired.

Before settling down for the day, he had some planning to do, and some Links to make. Noreen had followed the rest of the crew up for food and showers, after retracting the big cargo ramp. The normal personnel escalator would be used until the bulk of the passengers returned.

He’d heard a number of them say they might stay in the dome rather than run the gauntlet to return. The risks were probably less now, since the other captives said the wolfbats and skeeters were drawn to the noise of loud landings or takeoffs. The Krall shuttles were much quieter, and seldom drew attention.

“Link to Doctor Fisher.”

“Done Sir.”

“Maggi, can you talk?” He heard her shortly, obviously still speaking to Colonel Greeves.

“Thank you for your hospitality and information, but I had better see what my crowd is doing downstairs

,” a pause, then “Certainly. I’ll mention it to Tet first thing tomorrow. Goodbye.”

He waited for her to have time to get clear.

“Hi Dillon, you dear boy,” was the first thing she said. Uh oh, she’s done something I won’t like was his first thought.

“I know Noreen told all of the crew the word about the ship being safe for now, and I assume you were Linked in as well?”

“Yes, that was excellent news. I wish the damned beasts would have made that decision before we lost those good people crossing over.”

“Maggi, you know that was part of their testing of new captives, and an object lesson as well. Staying aboard with everyone was never an option.”

“I know, but now we have to make them walk back. I don’t think all of them will want to leave the security of the dome. Perhaps they will after firearms familiarization tomorrow. Anyone that wants one will get a Krall made pistol scaled to human hands. That helpless feeling outside was unpleasant.”

“Possibly. I didn’t think about that, and I want as big and fast firing a gun as they’ll let me have. As many as Thad carries, or even more!” He chuckled.

“You had better learn how to use one first, hot shot. The only pistol you’ve ever fired is between your legs stud boy,” she cracked.

Now that was more like the “normal” Maggi, he thought.

“The ship is locked up until morning, so you will have to stay over there. How are you feeling? It’s been a long day.”

“For an old Lady you mean?” she asked, in a dangerous tone to Dillon’s ear.

“For us all. Tet was on his last legs when we finally learned the ship was spared. He’d been out in the heat all day, up and down the ramp multiple times, and then the trip into the dome followed by the race back to the ship. He took three sets of those booster pills. He’s put out a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on his door.”

“Three doses? I’ll have to talk to that man. We warned everyone to limit themselves to two doses unless there was an emergency

Well we did have some emergencies, but they were mostly early on, in the first hour or so. No wonder he’s having such a crash. Someone had better check on him later. Perhaps Noreen has the authority to order our friend to monitor him?”

“I’ll ask her when you and I are done, Maggi. However, I wanted to find out if we have a secure space over there to set up our labs, or if we need to find somewhere on the ship to do that? The cargo hold will be busy, and the common areas and conference rooms are too open for outside access and monitoring. Assuming the Krall will post anyone on board.”

“Thad says there are quite a few secure rooms like his on various levels, but power would be a problem. There are power distribution points in every room or compartment, but they are incompatible with our systems, and the rooms are probably subject to even better monitoring over here. I don’t know if the Krall peeked in on their own kind or not, but I’ll bet they can on us.”

“That was sort of along my own thinking, though I think the power issue there could be solved. We would have a lot of room here in the storage areas if most of the Midwife supplies were moved to the dome, except for the lab equipment. We could solve the power needs and security at one stroke,” he suggested.

“Tet will have to approve that,” Maggi replied, “but I doubt he’d see it as a problem. What I do see as a problem is with pilferage of any of our supplies stored over here. These folks have had few comforts or nice food, for years in many cases. A lot of things here are considered communal property.”

“Food is an area we can trade with them for cooperation I think, and we can perhaps get Jimbo to start work on setting up a hydroponic garden. Providing fresh safe food would make us more welcome. And if we can get Thad to tell us more about rhinolo hunting, we might try to boost their fresh protein,” he proposed.

“Have you lost your mind Dillon? We barely held our own against the wolfbats. And we would have to hike twenty five miles to just reach the fence and then hope a herd was close.”

“No hiking in mind Maggi. The Krall have wheeled and tracked trucks the captives can use if they want, but I wasn’t even considering driving. The major risk is going outside the walls scouting for a herd, and watching for rippers from ground level. It’s safer from the air.”

“Well sure, but you don’t think the Krall are going to just give us one of their shuttles, which have orbital capability? Hunts were deadly even with the Krall along.”

“Nope, no Krall help involved with my idea. Captain Mirikami would have to find out what sort of restrictions we have on our own equipment, but you do recall that the Flight of Fancy has two small shuttles of her own, right?” he asked.

“Oh, I’d forgotten we had those, I never saw them. But aren’t they capable of orbital flight?”

“Yes, but the planet is ringed with orbiting Krall ships, and besides, without Jump capability the only place to land is on Koban. That’s why I was proposing that Tet ask about our using them for hunting.”

“Only a handful of successful hunters ever returned alive with a kill, who would want to go?”

“I’ll go, if we can do it without taking any Krall with us. Moreover, I’ll bet that Thad would go under that circumstance. I think Krall ego is what makes it so dangerous. They insist on making their kills from the ground. Forcing us to hunt their way gets us killed,” he pointed out.

“Why not play it smart and shoot rhinolo from safety, like from the air? I read in a library manual that the shuttles can hoist cargo on pallets slung under them to help offload equipment on Rim worlds. If we can lift a carcass back over the wall, we can safely carve up the dead animal for fresh meat.”

“Dillon, for a city boy your idea might work. I’ll bet fresh meat would boost our acceptance here really fast. The main thing I’ve heard them repeat is how our arrival will cut into their food supply, and how soon they can put our names in the lottery,” she told him.

“What lottery?” he didn’t know what she was talking about.

“Didn’t you wonder how the Testing Day candidates were chosen? Thad said at first that the Krall simply grabbed the closest people at hand to make up a combat team. One of the early leaders here, even before Thad’s ship was captured, had established a lottery system. Now, when a translator tells them how many people are needed, they draw random names from a list. New arrivals go on that list after a month to six weeks of acclimatization,” she told him.

“Oh. I guess that works for simply meeting the numbers the Krall demand, but it doesn’t allow much opportunity for putting together a prepared team. I’ll bet volunteers can replace someone selected. After all, Thad went out with three others of his security detachment, so that couldn’t have been random selection.”

“That’s right, I didn’t think of that. I’ll ask Thad about it tomorrow. When we’ve asked several people here how many captives there are, they act as if they weren’t sure. How could you make a fair lottery selection if you don’t know exactly who is here? I smell some sneakiness about who’s on that list.”

“How often does a Testing Day happen?” he wanted to know.

“It varies from eight days to thirty two, but the longer waits only mean that more people go out. It’s been grim, and they are naturally terrified of being selected. Depression is rampant and suicides are frequent. A team of eight went out three days before we arrived. The Krall brought back their guns and armor for reuse and repair the next day.”

“It brings home the sort of sheltered captivity we’ve experienced so far, which is about to end. I’ll be up late tonight, I think. I’ll be talking with Noreen and the other officers to get the machine shop and pharmacy going full time, and decide how we can protect our most vital people from the lottery.”

“Dillon there can’t be any manipulation on our side, like I suspect they have already had here, and our immunity committee will have to select some of the original captives that have skills we need. There will be a revolt of armed and frightened people if we aren’t careful.”

“Then we had better be ready to fight our first fight in a month, perhaps sooner. Tet has said he will not allow himself to be excluded. I told him I’d have his back, and I will.”

“Then I’ll get some of our people digging into where the fighting takes place,” she proposed. “We need to know what they know about the compound. It’s roughly a fifty-two mile diameter circle, and has a varied terrain. I’m certain our friend made some detailed recordings as we set down.”

“Yes Mam, I have those Images,” volunteered Jake.

“Damn. I forgot you are always listening. I guess you know you are the ‘friend’ we keep referring to I guess?”

“Yes Mam. I asked Commander Renaldo to confirm that for me.”

“Then you can provide images of what the compound looked like as we landed?” Dillon asked.

“Yes Sir, or live images if you wish.”

“Really? How far can your cameras see on the ground?”

“Koban has an average radius of approximately 4120 miles at the equator, but less so at the poles. A simple equation predicts the distance of the horizon at the surface. My highest three hundred sixty degree scan camera is on the nose of the ship, at four hundred fifty four feet above the ground plus the landing pad. That translates into twenty-six or twenty-seven miles to the horizon. You can see most of the area inside the compound’s wall, except where hills, forest, or the dome blocks the view. A higher camera would improve that range. The equation is D squared

”

“Stop!” They didn’t need to calculate it themselves.

“Maggi, we need to find out if we are allowed to radio information between people in the field when they are being hunted. Koban is hundreds of light years from human space, so a damned field radio isn’t going to give this planet’s location away. See if Thad knows about that. If not, we can tell the Krall that humans normally communicate in battle, and to simulate real war conditions we should be able to do that here.”

“Ok. We aren’t going to answer all these questions tonight and I need some rest, even if you don’t. I’ll bet you need some too and won’t admit it. When you speak to Noreen, don’t get in the saddle or you’ll never get any sleep.”

“Hell Maggi, you think I’m just some government controlled gonad driven buck, like just after the Collapse. I have my priorities.” He sounded offended.

“I’m sorry. I just know how you used to behave. But life will be completely different for us from now on. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Goodnight Maggi.” Good. Now he could go talk to Noreen, catch a quick shower, and discuss whatever came up as he helped her dry off.

29. Koban Dawn

An hour after Dawn, early but nevertheless refreshed, Noreen and Dillon had ridden over to the dome with a load of supplies on Ricco’s hauler pallet. Noreen had a freshly charged Jazzer, and Dillon carried a Sonic.

Once in the maintenance area, they handed their weapons to Mister Rigson and Ray McPherson so they could help cover the unloading crew. There were several armed Primes there, as the Flight of Fancy people had started calling the long-term captives in Koban Prime.

The Prime’s weapons were longer range and more deadly than the Sonic or Jazzer, but also were risky to use if a skeeter or wolfbat got in among a group of people. In addition, the smaller weapons never had a ricochet.

Thad met them to lead them up to the indoor target range.

“Good morning Colonel Greeves. May I have the honor to present the Gracious Lady Noreen Renaldo, the First Officer of the Flight of Fancy. Noreen, it is my pleasure to introduce you to Colonel Thaddeus Greeves, of Poldark.”

The Colonel kissed the back of her offered hand. “I have not had an inclination to follow the social graces since arriving here, but you surely have altered my position. I’d be delighted to demonstrate my Koban trained stamina to the Lady.” He openly leered at the tall beauty in her form fitting uniform.

She replied smoothly to his perfunctory solicitation, “Colonel, in other circumstances I’d be tempted to honor your offer, but I have an interest in another Gentle Man at the moment. Perhaps another time?” This was less overt than she might have encountered from a male on a Hub world, but Poldark was a bit backwards.

“Certainly my Lady, I rather expect that the Gentle Man you mentioned is here to learn how to be less gentle isn’t that so Doctor?” He smiled at Dillon.

Without the slightest rancor at the near proposition of his companion, Dillon returned the smile. “That I am Colonel. And I know you spoke with Maggi at length yesterday, and I welcome your help in convincing the Krall that humans can fight.”

“I definitely have an interest in any plans that might assure me another good chance to kill some of those bastards. As with your two chief conspirators, please call me Thad.”

“Dillon,” he reciprocated with a handshake.

“Noreen,” and she extended her hand again for him as well.

As the day before, he was armed to the teeth, carrying a heavy looking satchel this morning. “I have some weapons here that I’d like to have you try out on our range. These are well balanced and modified to fire singly or on automatic. They were used before, and I’d like them to be used again to kill Krall. There are other weapons in the armory, but these have a sentimental value to me.” He patted the satchel.

“These four belonged to two of the people in my detachment, and Sargent Medford was the man that modified them for full auto and balanced comfortable human hand grips. The ammo clips are larger than standard, and the holsters are like mine, low slung with leg ties for a faster draw. The belt has holders for extra clips. You aren’t going to outdraw a Krall, but this isn’t the old west. Shooting them in the back is more than fair.”

“Thad, I hope we can honor their memory. Thank you for considering giving them to us. I’m eager to learn.”

“It’s that attitude Dillon, which I’ve sensed from many in your group that has me hopeful that you will make a difference. You have ideas and a willingness to try them. Follow me.” He walked them to an elevator.

The lift did its speed run to the sixteenth level, and the door whisked up and out of the way. Noreen had been forewarned, but still was startled at how fast it all happened.

Thad led them through several staggered heavy doors that he explained were designed to prevent wild shots from passing into the outer corridor by accident. Before he opened a third door, they could hear firing on the other side. There was a heavy transparent window with a few nicks. It was a bit high for a human of less than six feet, but the three of them could see in easily.

There were six Fancy crewmembers and passengers there, with backs to the door. They were firing on a range that mimicked an outdoor Koban scene. Observing them were three Primes, giving them tips and helping them with loading and handling the weapons.

The range could easily have held fifty people without crowding. At the opposite end, about a thousand feet away, and at various distances midway were large boulders, tree stumps, logs, and what looked like dead bushes. There were grey-red square rectangles that were apparently targets positioned close to or partly behind the simulated cover.

Dillon spotted the tattoos on two men acting as instructors that showed a single red dot. The other was a woman with a single blue dot in hers.

“Thad

,” Dillon was about to ask him a question, but it was anticipated.

“Yes, two of them are the other survivors from the Testing Day where my men and I earned immunity for them. The woman is Elvira, or El, and she survived a successful hunt with a rhinolo taken by her.

“El was already a decent shot before her hunt, and made it a point to get better after that. She has survived the lottery for two years, and is one of the few people I will occasionally talk to. We talk about weapons and guerilla warfare, but she isn’t a fan of mine since the duels. She helps new arrivals on the range.”

“How do you get on with the other two?” Dillon asked.

“Except for calling them cowards for not helping us on our Testing Day, I’ve had almost no words with them since. Had they helped shove Doushan out that door, either they or I would be dead,” he stated flatly.

“After the machete and knife fight losses of the other two, they made it a point to become good shots in case I ever called them out. In fairness, they have become good shots, and one is a fast draw to boot for a human.”

“Will you call them out?” Noreen asked. Dillon had told Jake to play back their first conversation with Thad before she met him, so she knew the history.

“No. Why would I? They didn’t help me and my men out there, but neither would most of those here. Their fear that I might call them out has made them better shots in case I did. They now teach new arrivals to shoot. It isn’t complete restitution in my mind, but I was never going to challenge them without greater cause anyway.”

He reached into a side pouch of the satchel and handed them two sets of earplugs, then pushed through the last sound-deadening door, unleashing a brief loud sound of firing.

Inserting the ear plugs Dillon and Noreen pushed open the doors, entered the cacophony of gunfire, and shouted instructions. Surprisingly, the loudest noise wasn’t from the guns firing, it was from the impacts down range. The swoosh sounds from the guns weren’t as loud as expected, but every hit down range produced a gray puff with a loud report. The shooters were all aiming at the closer targets so the noise was loud. A miss sent one round down range where it puffed with a lower report.

The Fancy’s people paused a moment to acknowledge them, Motorfem Macy Gundarfem, and Motorman John Yin-Lee made token half salutes that Noreen returned in kind with a warm smile. She and Dillon went farther down towards the far left side of the range, where Thad had set the satchel on a small table, like those placed behind the other shooters.

As they approached him, the firing behind them resumed with the instructors calling out instructions and naming specific targets to hit. Thad had pulled out two pistols, with handgrips that looked too small for the rest of the weapon’s size. There were two ammo clips on the table, and they were longer than what the other shooters were using.

Then he placed two black boxes beside the clips. He lifted the top of one box and pulled out a grey three-inch long, finger thick cylinder. It was flat on both ends and looked about the diameter of the gun bore. There was no tapering at either end of the slug.

“These are the Krall pistol and rifle rounds. The black end,” he showed them one end was grey the other end black, “is the pointy end, the part that you aim down range. If you load it backwards in a clip, it won’t fire, and it’s kicked out for the next round. However, the loss of a single shot might be fatal against a fast closing target.

“These modified double clips will hold thirty two rounds compared to the sixteen of the standard clip, but they stick out about a foot below the gun butt and can get snagged in tight quarters if you aren’t careful. On semiautomatic, the gun will fire as fast as you can pull the trigger.

“Full auto fire will empty you in about three seconds with these big clips, for close to 600 rounds per minute when eighteen or twenty prepared fast clip changes are ready. I can’t imagine many circumstances where a Krall or rhinolo will give you even fifteen seconds. There is almost no recoil to speak of because this is caseless ammunition.” He held up a cylinder round again.

“These are basically little rockets that are spin stabilized coming out of the bore. They keep accelerating for a short time out of the muzzle of a pistol or rifle. This gives them high velocity and a flatter trajectory than some projectile weapons you may have used. They don’t have a terribly hard kick leaving, but arriving they are a sledge hammer.”

“I only brought you target ammo that will shatter in a puff of dust and not ricochet, but there are rounds that are armor piercing, explosive, soft nosed expanding rounds, incendiary, and two gauges of buck shot; large and larger. The latter isn’t spin stabilized of course.

“They all feel the same when you fire, but are color coded for recognition. I’ll cover those later,” he added.

He handed them the clips and slid closer the two boxes of sixty-four rounds. “You don’t have to fill the clips, but leaving yourself shy of ammunition isn’t a good idea. I want you to fill them and unload them a couple of times. Notice the feel of the two ends of the rounds, so you can do it in the dark by touch.”

“Which way is which on the clip? Oh

,” Noreen answered her own question when she noted one edge of the clip was black, rough on one narrow side, and smooth on the other. The black end of the slug had the same roughness. Only one end of the clip was open and had a small plate recessed inside. They shoved slugs in until no more would fit.

“Now, let me show you how to unload them fast.

He took the clip from Noreen, and pointed the open end down into the satchel and pressed on two small flanges at the open end. The shells all slid rapidly out of the clip into the bag.

“Make sure you don’t do that when swapping clips,” he grinned.

“I’ll have you reload again and then let you shoot to unload. By the way, there are clips that are color coded to match each round type, and with practice you can feel the different textures in the dark.”

After they had each refilled their clips, he had them lay those down and handed them the two guns, holding them by the barrels as if with some effort.

He enjoyed the surprise on both of their faces when he released the heavy looking black things.

“Hey, these are light!” Dillon exclaimed. “Even here they must weigh only about half a pound.”

“The ammo in these large clips is actually slightly heavier than the gun. You won’t get tired holding them fully loaded.”

He pulled out a second gun from the satchel and another empty short clip. “Obviously the clip’s black edge goes forward, and to insert the clip you push this flange on the pistol butt and insert to hear a click like this. It won’t go in backwards.” He demonstrated several times how to seat and release a clip in smooth fast motions at first, then slow so they could see what he was doing. The smaller twelve-inch clip protruded a couple of inches below the gun butt, which was almost long enough for two human hands.

“There is a safety that is pushed on as the clip is inserted, and you release that like this once you are ready to pull the trigger.” He demonstrated that several times as well, and lectured them on standard range safety practices.

“Ok. Face down range, and if you are left or right handed hold the gun in that hand, and insert the long clips with the other hand as I showed you.”

That was done, and he checked each of them individually. “Keep your finger out of the guard, and slide the double safety forward with your thumb. Note that you have the safety available to thumb with either hand.”

“Plan to squeeze one off when I say so. As a first shot, I’d like you to each pick your square target at the far side, and try to sight it in. The sights will take some explaining later, but I want you get a feel for the slight recoil, and where your round goes based on how you think it was aimed.”

“Now move your finger inside the front of the trigger guard, then holding your aim, slowly bring your finger to the triggers and squeeze slowly.”

WOOSH-WOOSH, BLAM-BLAM sounded almost together, followed by “Damn!” and “Yipe!”

“Easy pulls aren’t they?” he laughed.

“There was so little kick I can’t say that scared me as much as the unexpected sound,” Noreen told him.

“I’ll have to agree,” Dillon echoed. “I was so focused on holding my aim that I was completely unprepared for the shot.”

“Then that might explain it.” Thad said.

“What?” Dillon asked.

“You didn’t notice? You hit the square just off dead center on the back wall, at roughly one thousand feet. Noreen hit just barely left of her target. Good flat trajectories with the right height.

“The first shot with these particular guns is often highly accurate because the shooter doesn’t flinch in anticipation when the gentle pull activates the round’s ignition. The trigger pulls are a modification that you can adjust if the easy pull bothers you. But an easy pull helps your accuracy for that first shot or burst.”

Noreen asked, “How do we switch to full automatic?”

“There is a selector on the back of the pistol you rotate left or right, but you aren’t ready for that yet.” Thad cautioned.

“Next, I want you to check out the targets in front of you, and notice that they are scattered in a staggered line in front and to the left and right along the lanes where I had you stand. Simply count from the closest to you out to the back wall and you will find eight of the red-grey squares in each lane.”

“I’ll call out ‘one,’ or ‘five,’ and you need to fire at that target until you see a grey puff hit anywhere on the square. You may have noticed that the gray-red colors are about the same shade as a Krall novice’s skin. We have redder ones to simulate a mature Krall.

“On the right end of these lanes we have moving targets that are motorized and shaped like a Krall silhouette, though usually partly hidden, and with selectable uniform colors as well. In between are different numbers and placements of targets, and some are pop-up, some fixed, and most are partly concealed. That’s where your shipmates are firing right now.”

“Why are we way over here then?” Dillon wanted to know.

“They probably started here earlier this morning, and then moved down. As soon as you show familiarity, we’ll move down as well. However, you have a capability they don’t. Full automatic fire selection, and that needs a bit of separation just to avoid startling them. Believe me they will want that, and it takes a skilled machinist and gunsmith to safely modify these. Sgt. Medford was the only person here that had the skill to do it by hand, and he’s gone.”

“Thad, we have machinists’ aboard and a machine shop.” Noreen informed him. “I suspect they could duplicate what your Sgt. did if we let them look at these.”

“Probably so, but full automatic needs to be carefully restricted in a fire team. Or else you’ll find you’ve blasted through all the ammo you carried, and a knife just won’t do the trick.” He had a grim smile.

“The larger clips were how we managed to fool a dumb Krall novice into charging our ambush positions when he thought we were all changing clips. Even so, we barely managed to hit him on full auto as he dodged and flipped into cover. He lost his lower right arm and the gun it held, but used his left arm and gun to continue after us all alone. It was a near thing for any of the three of us to kill or disable him before he got to us all.”

“We learned they can control bleeding and ignore pain, or don’t feel it perhaps.”

“They ignore the pain, but they feel it.” Thad said with extreme satisfaction. “The scream I heard when his forearm blew off wasn’t of anger it was of pain, quickly followed by snarls of anger that the dumb animals had done that to him.”

Noreen asked about wounded warriors. “It doesn’t sound like there’s a home for crippled veterans, what happens to a Krall that loses a limb? Do the team leaders kill them for being clumsy? We heard that one did that to a novice.”

“A stupid or poor warrior isn’t tolerated long in combat, apparently. I’ve heard of a couple of executions or death challenges after a Testing Day mistake by a novice,” Thad replied.

“However, the loss of an arm or leg in the randomness of combat isn’t necessarily a sign of poor skill as a warrior. Particularly if they complete the kill or performed well otherwise. And that limb loss isn’t a lifetime debilitating injury for them, since they will regrow a limb in three to five months of our time.”

“Wow,” Dillon was impressed. “We’ve seen that ability in lower animals, and of course we can do it in a hospital setting, after about a year or more of slow growth. How did you find this out?”

“It has happened a few times, and the injured warrior is unable to engage in normal training, exercise, or raids, so they get assigned guard duty here. Protecting the animals that damaged them is a sort of penance. You try not to approach those ‘protectors’ before they get rotated out after recovery.”

He switched the subject back to training. “We can talk about how to blow legs and heads off a Krall later. You need to learn how to use their weapons first.”

Standing behind their positions on the line, he shouted “ONE!”

Dillon rapidly turned and fired three rounds at the closest target, missing the first shot then hitting it twice.

Noreen was a bit slower and fired more deliberately, hitting the target twice with both shots.

“Noreen, accuracy is important, but the huge advantage the Krall have on us is speed and strength. By the time you fired, the warrior would have seen you and leaped or twisted aside, and not only would you have missed, but the final trigger pull would have been your death spasm as he killed you.”

Thad didn’t let Dillon off easy either. “Better reaction time, but still too slow for the Krall, and your first shot at short range missed that big square, so you would never have lived to make a second or third shot.”

“But don’t be discouraged, we have effectively unlimited target practice ammo, and you have about a month before you should even find yourself at risk of a lottery selection for a combat team.”

“Thad,” Noreen inquired, “how long before Dillon and I are good enough to walk around armed with these?”

“I gave them to you, so you will leave this range with them strapped on, including a second set still in the bag, with belts, holsters, and ten clips apiece; five long and five standard length.

“The only ammo I brought you is the practice stuff, which can be deadly depending on where it hits you, even if it breaks apart easily. I’ve worn our armor and trained against my own people using these rounds. It can be dangerous, and it stings like hell if hit, but it’s the best practice you can get before you face the Krall.

“When we finish here you can go to the armory on this level and get some ‘real bullets’ if you like. Whoever drew the short straw to be the master at arms today probably won’t give you armor piercing, explosive, or incendiary rounds unless you are going outside, such as for combat, hunting, or scouting.” Dillon and Noreen noticed he said “probably.”

“Most people load the smaller buck shot rounds for wolfbats and skeeters that might sneak into the dome. Less collateral damage that way if they miss or if an accident happens. We could sure use more of those nonlethal Jazzers or Sonics for that reason. You don’t want to swat a skeeter with a sledge hammer

,” he considered that comment a moment. “Well for these skeeters use a sledge hammer, but not a cannon,” he amended.

They continued their gun range practice for a couple more hours, as more people from the Fancy trickled in from time to time.

****

Mirikami came awake as Jake’s voice softly penetrated into his awareness.

“Captain, it is three hours after dawn. Sir, it is the time I was asked to awaken you.”

Then a bit louder, but still gentle, “Sir, your First Officer asked me to let you rest until three hours after dawn. That time has just passed. Do you wish to have breakfast sent to your room?”

With a bit of a groan, Mirikami rolled over, feeling sore leg muscles tighten, and a moderate headache throbbed behind his right eye. Jake was on his third more insistent effort to arouse him when he responded.

“I’m awake, I think. Give me a couple of minutes to get my thoughts organized.”

He slung his aching legs over the edge of his bed, and used the null gravity handhold over the headboard to help rise to a sitting position.

“What time did you say it was?” His mind was waking up.

“Do you want ship time from before our landing, or local time, adjusted for a twenty two point six hour day, divided into twenty four fifty six and one half minute hours for this world?”

“Ok. I’ll use the local shorter twenty four hour clock, and I heard you say it was three hours after dawn?”

“The local time is 10:20 AM, with sunrise at 7:20 AM.”

“How did you manage to ‘forget’ to awaken me at dawn, no matter what clock you were told to use?”

“I did not forget Sir. Your wake up order was countermanded by Commander Noreen Renaldo, First Officer of the Flight of Fancy, per regula

”

“Stop.” He ordered. Considering how he felt three hours later than he intended to get up, he wasn’t about to chastise her for her consideration.

Noreen had already laid into him before he went to sleep, about how he had risked all their lives by risking his health by popping so many pills to keep going. She was like the daughter he’d never had. The thought actually brought on a nice feeling about how she had watched out for the “Old Man.”

“Where is Noreen right now?” he asked.

“She and Doctor Martin went to the dome an hour after daylight, and were intending to meet with Colonel Greeves for weapons training. They requested this via a Link to Mr. Rigson, who relayed the request for them.”

“Are there any Krall on board us now?”

“No Sir.”

“I had not thought about this before, but when you Link to us in the dome, you have to use radio signals that leave the ship. I don’t know if the Krall intend to let us do this. Is the Clanship still parked near us?”

“No Sir, it lifted off six hours and forty one minutes ago, and appeared to enter orbit.”

“Has a Krall shuttle returned to this compound, possibly bearing Telour?”

“No Sir, no shuttle has returned.”

“What would we need to do to provide you with video and internal links inside the dome without use of a broadcast radio signal outside of the ship or dome?”

“There are two portable repeater modules for extending transducer range, and they are in storage near my processors. They have not been used since my activation. They are capable of providing long-range radio links with crewmembers that remain within five to seven miles transducer range of those units. They have the ability to connect to a city’s communication grid if you do not want to send broadcast signals to the repeaters. A fiber optic line into the dome could provide a non-broadcast Link into the dome. The metal framework of the dome will limit leakage of their signal. I have had to boost the signal strength slightly to Link to transducers inside the dome. It is

”

“That’s enough for now.”

He wasn’t sure if the Krall were aware of the signals or cared, but if they did monitor them, even overconfident killers might get curious as to what was being discussed by their talking animals.

“Are either Mister Rigson or Branson back on board this morning?”

“Yes Sir. Both are in the dispensary.”

“Link me to both.”

“Yes Sir.”

“Good morning gentlemen. I hope your wound is healing well Mister Rigson.”

Both men returned his greeting, and Rigson added, “I’m letting Cal replace my bandages, and we brought Doctor Naguma back on a hauler pallet just after dawn, covered with a table cloth. With a missing right hand and two fingers gone on his left, we were afraid to let him be seen by any Krall.”

“Good idea. I suspect he might be killed on sight. How is he doing?”

“He’s very depressed and aware of how dangerous his injuries are if the Krall see him. Besides changing his bandages, I’ve given him an Oxy and Pep pill combo; to see if that will boost his energy and rev up his system for healing.

“The damn Primes that saw him say injured or not, his name goes into the lottery next month. I can’t understand how they can be so heartless.” The nickname for the early captives seemed to have stuck, and Rigson used it almost as a swear word.

Mirikami needed to try to temper that anger. “Mel, some of those people can seem rather uncompromising and selfish, but we’ve not been faced with relentless violent death as they were. They’ve had to watch helplessly as friends or family was randomly selected for certain death every eight days for two, three, or more years.”

Thinking on that for a moment, Rigson softened his stance. “I may find myself changing as we face the same pressures, Sir. But I hope our attitude of ‘fighting-back’ brings some humanity and spirit back to them. They might relearn that from us.”

“Let’s hope so Mel.” Then to Branson, he asked, “Cal, do we have anything in the pharmacy that can help me with a headache and body pains, and perhaps purge me of over dosing on the Oxy and Pep pills yesterday?”

“I think so Sir. We have a couple of hangover remedies that act fast on many drug and alcohol after effects, and they will clear away the headache. A mild analgesic should help with leg and body pains.”

“Please have someone send whatever remedy you chose to my cabin, with a hearty breakfast. I hurt and I’m starved. I can’t recall consuming more than a couple of sandwiches and lots of fluids yesterday.”

Before he faced Maggi or Noreen again, he wanted to be well fortified. The Krall were nothing compared to the weight of guilt those two women could lay on him.

While he waited, he called the Drive Room to see if anybody was home in the now mostly gutted division. They had no main engines and no Normal Space drive, no Jump capability, so the fusion bottle was their major item for maintenance, and it didn’t need much. Then he remembered the two tachyon Traps.

It took a moment for anyone to respond, time Mirikami used to splash water on his face, leaving the com set on speaker. Chief Haveram answered after a minute or so, giving the Captain time to dry his face and hands.

“Captain, can I help you Sir?” was his query, when he saw the call’s origination point.

“Good morning Chief, late though it is. I wasn’t sure I’d find anyone there. I wanted to find out what was going on. I feel a bit out of touch while I’m dirstside. I’ll have to get used to that.”

Relieved to hear his Captain’s voice sounding stronger than when he limped away yesterday, he filled him in on the morning’s activities.

“Captain, me and the three Drive Rats are shifting and sorting cargo, picking out what we need to send over to the dome, and what stays here. Doctor’s Fisher, Anderfem, and Martin gave us the numbers of the packets that have the lab equipment to keep here. Chack and Ricco take over the supplies we plan to share with the Primes, and we are holding the rest for now.”

“Are any of the passengers coming back yet?”

Before the chief could answer, Jake chimed in so both could hear.

“None are crossing to the ship yet per Doctor Fisher’s request, to give the crew time to sort supplies and equipment for delivery to the dome, which requires use of the cargo ramp and haulers. She also said it was because not very many of the passengers have had the weapons training they need before they receive a gun from the armory there.”

“Ok. What else do you have for me Chief? Are the Traps still holding our two giant tacs?”

“Ms. Willfem checked them, and we still have those two monsters. She said they won’t go anywhere unless we deliberately open the Traps.” That was because after capturing one of the particles, they furnished the power the Trap field generators required to keep the fields curved and closed.

The chief added in a dismissive tone, “Not that we can use them down here in this gravity well to Jump anywhere. I suppose we could use them to adjust internal gravity, or for power to restart a fusion bottle, if both failed.”

Haveram wasn’t a Jump engineer and had loved his destroyed main engines more than the untouchable and ephemeral Trap fields and the tachyons they could capture. These things didn’t seem instinctively ‘real’ to him if he couldn’t touch or even see them.

Nevertheless, he had an appreciation for how they might help him with the ‘toys’ he could touch and see. “I guess if we had to shut down or repair the dual fusion systems we could shunt energy from a Trap through the emitters into a power converter to restart the plasma confinement of a bottle. Without a second bottle available we’d never get ours restarted otherwise.”

Just then, there was a knock at his cabin door, and he heard Hanson’s voice outside. “Captain, I have your breakfast Sir.”

Telling the Steward to enter, he finished his conversation, “Chief, I just had breakfast delivered, I’ll talk to you later.” He disconnected, reaching for a hot buttered piece of toast.

****

In the dome, Dillon and Noreen were feeling like old time gunslingers, with two pistols each on their hips. Besides the Krall pistols, Dillon had one of their rifles slung, muzzle down on his left shoulder, and his Sonic was now rigged as a shoulder holster at his left armpit. Noreen had her Jazzer’s holster rigged the same way, but hadn’t wanted a rifle at this time.

Greeves had left them at the third level as he headed back to his ‘hermit’s’ cave, as he called his quarters. He chuckled as he looked back at them just before they selected the ground floor. “You look dangerous as hell, but don’t get overconfident,” he warned. “Kobani creatures aren’t easily impressed.”

They stepped off the elevator in the Great Hall, and got immediate notice. From the people of the Fancy without guns it was envy, because these two were now well armed. The new arrivals were almost all eager to get their own weapons. There was a waiting list for the firing range, and the volunteer instructors now asked for what to them were rare food items in exchange for lessons.

The looks they received from the Primes were more measured. Many had heard who had certified these two at the range, but if not, they could see the two distinct low-slung modified pistols, just like the ones Colonel ‘Grease’ wore.

There were four of the short clips in their belt holders. Based on color codes, two were filled with large caliber buck shot, one with small shot, and one with soft-nosed slugs. The inserted fifth short magazine in the pistols on their right hips each held small buckshot. You could tell based on the brown color code of the bottom two inches showing on each clip. The left hip guns were not loaded. Dillon carried the satchel with the remaining loaded ten large clips, and additional ammunition, including practice rounds. The bag was over half-full but probably weighed less than ten pounds at 1 g, and felt like fifteen pounds on Koban.

Maggi spied them before they reached the doors that would take them toward the east garage, nearest the Flight of Fancy. “Dillon, Noreen,” she called out.

Hearing her voice, they turned, waved and joined her at a table close to the doors. She was sitting with the Chief Steward, Nory Walters, and two Primes that were unfamiliar to Dillon or Noreen.

“Deanna, Stavro,” Maggi rose to her feet to face her friends, “May I present Commander Noreen Renaldo, the First Officer of the Flight of Fancy, and Doctor Dillon Martin, a fellow scientist and a Board member of the University consortium I told you about.” She turned back to complete the introduction, and noticed the other two had remained seated.

Pretending to take no notice of the breach of manners, she finished the introductions. “Noreen, Dillon, I’d like you to meet Stavro Bock and Deanna Turner.”

That’s weird Dillon thought, Maggi leaving out honorifics? He noticed they made no effort to stand or offer their hand in greeting. He managed to hold his own hand back, to avoid an awkward moment, but Noreen had automatically started to extend hers, so he smoothly reached over to grasp her right hand with his left.

“Here my Lady, please allow me to help you,” as if she had needed help to step over the bench seat at the table.

Quickly understanding what he’d done and why, Noreen replied in kind, “Thank you my Gentle Man.”

The formality was in stark contrast to the two motionless Primes, who hadn’t even nodded their heads in acknowledgement of the introduction.

Maggi frowned slightly at the rudeness, but explained why she had asked them to join her. “Mister Walters and I were discussing the safe storage and security of the supplies we will be sharing with everyone here.” The emphasis on ‘everyone’ was apparent.

She continued, “Mister Bock doesn’t think anything we brought with us should be put in a locked or secure area, but rather placed on the easily accessible storage racks next to the garage maintenance area. Miss Turner agrees in part, but concedes that some of our scientific equipment and special nonfood supplies may require more security.”

Looking to the two, she asked, “Did I state your positions accurately, if only in a general manner? Or do you wish to clarify what I said?”

Obviously, there was a dispute arising over the bounty of supplies the Flight of Fancy had brought with her, and how available they would be to those already here.

Bock used a threatening tone. “Anything that captives bring with them belongs to us all, and needs to be put where any of us can use them.”

“And I repeat Mister Bock,” Maggi replied forcefully, “that food, drink, clothing, and bedding will be shared equally. However, we will not place them where individuals can grab the lion’s share of what they want. That’s what would happen if we followed your suggestion!”

In yet a more threatening tone, Bock got louder. “You had better grasp the change in your new lifestyle woman; this is survival of the fittest here. If you don’t take what you need to stay alive, you get weaker and die. The sooner you newbie’s learn this, the more of you will live through the next year.”

Dillon sat still and kept his hands below the table. He spoke up before Maggi exploded all over Bock’s insulting mode of address to an older Lady.

“Bock, who put you in charge of anything here? We were told that there were no leaders among you, so are you saying that you are a leader here, that you set the rules and policy for everyone?” His tone was just as harsh.

Bock had a snide reply, “If you mean have I survived by doing what’s needed to stay alive then yes, I follow the rules we have been forced to use. This is the Krall policy and their rules. You had better learn them fast or you won’t last long, and it won’t be the Krall you have to worry about if you cross me newbie.”

He leaned forward half rising, as he placed both hands on the table as if about to leap over. He was a big man, stocky, and his muscles were adapted to Koban’s gravity. He was sure he could take this scientist, who despite looking fit, wasn’t about to match up to a real man.

Dillon didn’t pull back a centimeter. “The Krall apply their rules to us, but we don’t have to do it to one another. I think you had best sit back Bock, so we can talk reasonably about your future here, if you have one.”

“You feel brave now that you have a gun?” He taunted. “I can take you any day before you can pull it out of that shiny new holster.” His own gun was in a holster slung over the center right side of his chest.

“You have two hours practice with dummy rounds on stationary targets. I’ll blow your head off if I don’t break your neck first.” He looked ready to move if his threat didn’t force Dillon to back down.

“Bock, I don’t have to out draw you. If you make a single move I don’t like, your balls will splatter all the way to that far wall.”

Bock quickly raised his right hand from the table to go for his gun when a blast from under the table caught him in the lower groin, knocking him backwards over the bench and onto his back. His lower abdomen was torn open and blood was pouring out. There were startled shouts from around the room.

Bock screamed loudest, partly from pain but mostly in rage. Still on his back he moved his hand towards his gun again, as Dillon stood, aiming his pistol down at his face from the opposite side of the table.

“Don’t try it!” Dillon warned.

Ignoring the warning, Bock grabbed his pistol butt and had it half out of the holster when his will power, along with his face, disappeared in another whoosh-blam, and a spray of brains and blood as the buck shot struck.

The Turner woman had jumped away from Bock as he flew backwards, and had her left hand on her pistol butt in her hip holster. She was looking at Bock when he died, and as she looked back to Dillon, who was focused on the man he’d just killed, she discovered she was looking at three other barrels aimed at her.

Maggi, Walters, and Noreen had their guns out, covering Dillon. Maggi was also looking around the room for anyone that may have taken exception to Dillon’s act of self-defense.

Turner raised her hand well away from her gun, and none of the other Primes seemed inclined to argue the matter, but they were watching them warily.

Dillon, the image of the dead man’s exploding face etched in is mind, belatedly noticed Turner’s hand movement away from her gun, and realized she could have killed him while he was frozen for that brief eternity. Then when Maggi spoke, he glanced left and saw he’d had plenty of back up with their three guns.

“This was self-defense,” Maggi shouted. “Bock threatened us, and when we didn’t back down, he was drawing his gun when he was shot. He was given another chance after that, but still pulled his weapon. There are more witnesses than just us four.”

Surprising them, Turner spoke out. “She’s right. Bock was trying to force them to let him take as much as he could get of the new supplies. Just like he always does

, or did.” She added.

They were surprised no one seemed to question the reason for the shooting. Four men came over cautiously, hands held up clear of their guns.

One man said, “We don’t doubt your word. Bock has been a bully for a long time. He isn’t the only one, but he didn’t have any close friends.” The other men nodded agreement.

“You’re new here, so we’ll handle the recycle for you, since you don’t know where it is.” Each man took a limb and lifted the limp dripping body and carried it out through the closest double doors.

Feeling sick to his stomach Dillon asked of no one in particular, “Recycle?”

Jake’s voice answered, “There is an organic recycler in the covered corral on the north side of the dome. It will

”

Dillon cut him off. “I don’t want to know.”

Maggi, who had heard his rhetorical question, realized that Jake had provided him with some sort of an answer. That was interesting, and she did want to know, so she made a mental note to ask Jake about the subject later.

A small human made cleaning bot arrived from somewhere. It started cleaning up the mess on the floor. It was the first one they had seen, proving that some human automated equipment had made it here.

Turner, seeing that none of the guns was pointing at her now, told them “I despised Bock, and I wasn’t with him. He simply came up and joined us when he saw me talking to you two.” She meant Maggi and Nory Walters.

“That’s true,” confirmed Walters. “We were already talking with Ms. Turner when Bock simply walked over and sat down.”

“I was taking a chance,” Turner told them. “You have so much more to share than any new captives have had. I wanted to convince you to divide your foodstuff fairly. Bock was one of the greedy ones. He knew I had complained about how things disappeared here, and he probably guessed what I was going to say to you. I was petrified when he sat down next to me. He’s killed before in a fight over property.” She explained.

“I wasn’t going to defend him, but I wasn’t sure if either of you,” she pointed to Noreen and Dillon, “might make me a target.”

Maggi replied loud enough that many people could hear. “We will share the food supplies and items such as replacement clothes and shoes that I see are in sad shape for many of you. The Krall spared our ship, so it will be available to meet many of your needs. We have some pharmacy items, limited medical supplies, an automated surgery, a machine shop, and if we get fresh food, an automated kitchen to prepare cooked hot food.” She paused.

“But as Bock just discovered, we will fight and kill to protect ourselves from anyone that tries to take what we are willing to give!” She said that in her best Drill Sergeant voice.

As the buzz of conversation spread around the large hall, Maggi walked closer to Turner.

“Young Lady, I think you have a bit more guts than a lot of the people here. I would like to ask you to help us set up a fair distribution system, with a place we can use like a commissary to pass out supplies. Are you interested?”

“I am if you can make people here comply with that. It may take more than what happened here this morning to make it stick,” she warned.

“Well, I think we will have Colonel Greeves around to support us, and more backbone in our group than people here have been used to seeing for some time. If you can find us a place to store our supplies, we will see that they are protected by not only us, but by people like yourself, who can oversee fair distribution.”

“Then I’ll help, and I know some others that think like I do, who may also be willing to help. A lot of us have given up hope of making things better. It seems like every time anyone tries, they are sent on the next Training Day.”

“You know dear, that’s not the first time that notion seems to have reared its head. We may need to do a little snooping to discover how the lottery really works. However, don’t worry about that for now. All I ask is that you spread the word to people you trust, and ask them to wait.”

“I’ll do that Doctor Fisher. Thank you.” She disappeared into the crowded hall, looking for the people she had mentioned.

The four of them were in relative isolation now, so Noreen had to ask.

“Dillon, how the hell did you outdraw that thug from a sitting position?”

“I didn’t,” he answered, with the first glimmer of a smile.

He untied the bottom of his holster and raised it to show the singed mark at its end, and the short flash burn along the side of his pant leg just above the knee. “I simply pointed my knee at him and pulled the trigger when he made his move. Glad I had Smart pants on, that would have burned.”

Maggi said, “Cowboy, it ain’t noon yet and you already had ta kill a man. Yew better get some chow afore yew get a posse on yer tail.”

They all looked at her as if she’d lost her mind and now spoke gibberish.

“What?” She asked. “None of you ever watch those flat screen things they used to call movies? The ship’s library has thousands of the old things. I got bored.”

Before they could say more, a general Link was established, as Noreen had arranged as a warning last night. Jake’s voice was in every crewmember’s ear.

“A shuttle has landed near the Flight of Fancy. Telour has just made an exit, and it appears he is going to the ramp for the open cargo hold.” As instructed, the announcement ended without his usual added trivia.

As the four of them started hurrying towards the dome’s east garage, one of the elevators on the opposite side of the hall swished open, and a blue suited Krall rushed out. The people in the hall got out of his way as he moved along one of the lanes formed by the tables, gliding towards the same set of doors on the east.

“That was Dorkda.”

“Are you sure?” Walters asked Dillon.

“Oh yes. I won’t forget the Krall that came close to ripping out my heart. He sent a warrior to say he would meet with the Captain yesterday, but it never happened. Perhaps he’s looking for him now.”

Dorkda passed right by them without a glance and out through the double doors. They followed, and when they reached the maintenance area, a woman on door guard duty was closing one of the smaller doors.

Dillon called out to her. “Did Dorkda just go out to the Fancy?”

“I don’t know where he was going, but that was Dorkda. He never closes the damned doors behind himself. He leaves anything lurking under the overhang free to sneak inside.”

“Maggi, are you going over to the ship too?” Dillon asked. “Noreen and I were going back when you called to us. I don’t know if a Shuttle landing will draw skeeters and wolfbats or not.”

Hearing Dillon, the woman volunteered information. “Wolfbats ignore shuttles since they always mean Krall, which they avoid. But skeeters will head for anything they see moving if they’re close by. Personally, I don’t go out alone without armor, but with two or more eyeballs, it’s pretty safe.”

Considering the options, Maggi said “No. I can go over later. I need to work on organizing over here and make some more contacts.”

Walters told them he was going back with them. As they were opening the door, drawing their weapons and checking through the small window, the woman asked them a question.

“You keep sending people back and forth, and unloading stuff. Why didn’t the Krall just blow the ass off your ship like all the others out there? I heard one of your hauler drivers say that a lot of you were going back to stay there. What’s the deal? You make friends with those red bastards?”

“Hardly,” Maggi answered for them all. “We plan to use the ship to make different kinds of weapons, which the Krall didn’t give to us, to use those in fights to try and surprise and kill them. Some of the Krall know exactly what we plan, and they approve. They are going to permit us to keep the ship as a base of operations.”

She thought on that a few seconds, then nodded her head.

“Colonel ‘Grease’ always says they want us to kill their new warriors if we can. That damned Telour wanted us to do that too, according to what Doushan said. Right before he was killed as a collaborator.” She gave them a pointed look as if in warning.

“If they want us to kill ‘em so bad, why don’t they just send ‘em unarmed when we have the guns?” She didn’t think it made sense, and shook her head.

Dillon whispered to Maggi, “Careful what you tell her. We need to confirm Telour is in total control here, and if he’ll stick to the agreement.”

She whispered back, “The ship is still there, so I think we know. However, I’ll be careful. Link to me and tell me what the new Sheriff says.”

Shaking his head in mock dismay, Dillon replied louder “Get that Old West crap out of your head Maggi. Watch something contemporary to your own life, like World War Two movies.”

He leaned backwards as she swatted at his too-high head, and he laughed at his diminutive foe. Followed by a louder cry as she connected, only half again that high.

Noreen, in mock sympathy said, as he bent over clutching the injury, “Got your pistol bent taunting a Tiger Lily did you?” She winked at Maggi.

On the Flight of Fancy Mirikami had finished his breakfast, and the hangover remedy had helped purge the effects of the pills from the day before, after copious fluid consumption.

He put on his Smart Fabric formal uniform for its protective benefit rather than formality. Not only was it proof against fang and stings, but it had a natural cooling effect by allowing perspiration to evaporate.

Mirikami was thinking of having the tablecloth material fabricated into some basic work outfits for people. Provided they could find a suitable means to cut and sew the tough stuff. He’d have to find out if the cloth could be colored. You would sure be easy to see anyone dressed in glaring white, and that would draw predator attention.

He had just left his cabin when Jake’s warning about Telour’s arrival came. He quickly went to the nearby lift, and with no hesitation selected the bridge level. That was where he would expect Telour to look for him, or he would use the monitors and com system there to find his human “clan leader.”

“Where is Telour now?” he asked, as the lift rose.

“Passing deck 4 Sir. On the central staircase. Deck 5

”

“Enough. How many Krall can you see that came with him? Uniform colors by numbers.”

“Telour has a blue uniform and Dorkda, in another blue uniform, is coming from the dome. There are eight black uniforms, and two brown uniforms.”

The lift door opened. He told Jake to activate the consoles, and put the external cameras on the main screen the same as they had been on the day they landed.

The images flashed on quickly. He had one more question for the AI. “What are the brown uniformed K’Tal doing?”

“One is under the ship looking up the inside of the thruster tubes; the second is looking at the discarded engine pieces on the tarmac.”

Mirikami sighted the K’Tal looking at the nine pieces of their destroyed engines on the pad. He didn’t turn around at the slight swish of air behind him. “Welcome Telour.”

“You were expecting me, it appears.”

Mirikami turned to face him and bowed. “I hope your plan has remained intact. We are working to honor our part of the agreement.”

“What was that move you just made, when you pointed your head at me?” He sounded suspicious.

“On my home planet a custom of respect is to bow to a superior or to show gratitude. It is not a human custom on most of our worlds. I think it may be similar to the gesture I saw warriors make to you and Parkoda when they raise their left hand with their talons extended. Humans have another gesture called a salute.” He demonstrated that with his right arm.

“We sometimes use a salute on this ship from crewmates of lower rank to those of higher rank, and the custom is for the higher status person to return the salute. But it is not expected outside of a military organization, which we are not, so we do not use it often.”

“You should do this salute more, because you will become more like military here if you complete your agreement.”

“If we had military experience among these humans that would be true, but very few of them have that tradition. I would prefer to teach them to shoot fast than to salute fast.” He answered.

A snort.

Well I’m back to being a comic, he thought. I hope I make some of them die laughing.

“I could smell that most of your clan is not here. They must be in the dome. I thought you would bring them back to work to make new weapons and train them. Why have you not started?”

“We have started training them. The first task today is in progress. My people are learning how to use the Krall made guns at the firing range in the dome. We will make different weapons, but they will need those you give us as well.”

Before they could continue Dorkda arrived, his silent approach to Mirikami’s ears was clearly detected by Telour before he vaulted over the stair rail.

The ear blooming thing happened as they talked ultrasonically for a short time.

When done, Telour looked at Mirikami. “One of your crew killed one of the other captives a short time ago in the dome. There was a disagreement between them.

“Dorkda observed this from our section of the dome. Because he had not been relieved of his control of the people in the dome by me, and I had control only of the people of this ship, there is a question of who has responsibility for the loss of a status point for this.”

Mirikami had no idea what he was talking about, but thought he might have a way to find out.

“Which of my people was involved in the fight, and what caused it to happen?”

Jake started talking at the same time as Dorkda, but Mirikami strove to focus on Jake’s words.

“Doctor Dillon fired twice at a man called Stavro Bock, killing him. The man was said to be trying to take some of our supplies by force or threat. I do not have video but I can play

”

Dorkda had already ended his shorter length statement, saying only that one of the ship’s crew had shot and killed one of his animals when that animal tried to shoot the crewmember.

Mirikami interrupted Jake. “If my clan mate was challenged by another human from the dome captives, is it not his right to answer that challenge Dorkda?”

“The challenge and victor are not in question and does not matter. The charge to me of a single point by another clan for the loss of an animal I controlled does matter. I can recover the point loss with a challenge of the animal that caused the loss, and regain the point.”

Oh, damn! Mirikami thought. Dillon may have signed his death warrant when he defended himself. The Krall book keeping for status points might force this issue. He glanced at Telour, but he appeared to be watching this with interest.

Mirikami asked, “Who owns the rights to the captive that was killed Dorkda? Do you know what clan claims each of the many captives?”

“I do not know the clan,” he answered, “but if that clan claimed the point, I would have to pay. I do not want that debt waiting, because your clan mate may die in testing before then. I will collect now, if Telour agrees.”

This bastard wanted to kill Dillon just in case he might be charged a damned point in the future, after Dillon was already dead? This was insane.

He had a thought. “Telour now has control of the captives of the dome, he was sent to relieve you so you should not be charged a point.”

“That could be so.” Dorkda agreed. There was a brief ultrasonic exchange between the two Krall and then the internal ears retracted.

Dorkda stiffened and extended his left arm to Telour with talons extended, then leaped over the railing and was gone.

“Telour, where is he going?” Mirikami asked with trepidation.

“Dorkda has been relieved and will take his warriors and the shuttle to our main compound.”

“What of his concern for the small debt?” Mirikami would somehow warn Dillon if Dorkda were on his way to kill him.

“We agree that it is not his debt. You were clever to find a way to show him this.”

Mirikami felt relief wash over him. It was short lived.

“It would be my debt.” He stated. “We agree that because I had advised him I was about to land here that control had passed to me. Therefore, I controlled the dome and those from Parkoda’s prize ship when the challenge occurred. Both captives were my responsibility.”

“And you would settle the debt by killing my crew mate?” Frying-pan-to-fire was Mirikami’s thinking for Dillon’s predicament.

A snort.

What the hell is it with me and Krall humor? He wondered. I’m not even trying.

“If I kill him in challenge for his killing another human in a challenge, two points are lost by two clans, and they are both my responsibility. I regain one point by killing your clan mate. That is still a loss of one point for me. If I do not challenge him, I gain no point for his death, but I still lose a point for the man he killed. Still a loss of one point for me. My status does not change either way. I can always kill him later, without penalty, if he fails to serve me well.”

“Wasn’t the arithmetic the same for Dorkda?” Mirikami despised these creatures for casually pricing human lives in their confusing damned status system.

“No. He could lose a point for the animal already killed, but to regain it by killing your clan mate, who was already under my responsibility from Parkoda, would cost him the point he gained when he paid me the point I must pay to Parkoda. By accepting that I had control of both animals removed all of his responsibility.”

That skewed logic apparently made sense to a Krall.

“I think Dorkda had a dislike for your clan member, but he was not worth a point for him to kill.” He added.

Dillon would be so proud when he heard that news.

“Telour, we have found at least one human in Koban Prime that has military experience, and who appears willing to work with me to provide advice. Am I able to ask him to join us, and explain what we plan to do for you?”

“And you want immunity for him from me?”

“No, he has immunity already.”

“I know of that human I think. Unless there are others that have had a successful Testing Day while I was on the raid. He would be one of those captured with Doushan.”

“Yes, it is Colonel Greeves.”

“Then he needs nothing from me, though he has served me indirectly. He challenged two humans that had immunity and killed them. It was believed by other humans that they had played a part in Doushan’s death. I was honor bound not to challenge them myself, even if I knew for sure.”

“There may be others there we want to join with us,” Mirikami explained. “But my question is can we tell them what we are doing, about your plan to make humans into more effective fighters? They are more likely to join with us if they know this.”

He got a short lesson in Krall politics.

“My clan now has control of this compound, and Parkoda has Jumped with his ships on a long raid. Before he returns, in one hundred Koban days or less, I will have proved my plan and win great status, or my plan dies with those that knew of it in Testing. There is no risk to my status but I have no gain if my plan does not make better warriors of humans. So I will succeed.”

Mirikami had a sudden chill.

“Do what you need to do to serve me. What animals may learn of my plan and what you tell those animals no longer matters, because Parkoda and his clan will never hear of it if you fail, and they can do nothing if I succeed.”

He was no longer risking his own neck and that of his coconspirators. Every human currently on Koban could be doomed in the next one hundred days if he failed. That had not been part of his plan!

After a few more brusque exchanges, Telour granting every request Mirikami made, the Krall left for his quarters in the dome, pulling all of his warriors with him, and both K’Tal.

He left a small Krall transceiver so he could call Mirikami if he wanted him, but cautioned him not to waste his own valuable time with minor details.

No sooner than Telour had departed, Noreen Linked to say they had been waiting to see him, but had wanted to be sure that he was alone. They were on their way up in the lift.

As they stepped out, Mirikami’s eye’s widened at the sight of his two pistol packing friends.

“Jake said you were at a firing range this morning. I hadn’t considered the implication you’d come back packing so many guns. Are those ammunition clips I see?”

“Yes Sir,” answered Noreen, with a grin. “Thad took us to the range himself, and furnished us with these specially modified pistols. I’m honored he gave them to us. These belonged to two of his former security detail, and he clearly considered them friends as well as subordinates.”

“Modified how? Those look about like what I saw the others carry. The butts look a bit smaller around, I think.” He told them.

“They are better balanced Thad told us, although Noreen and I aren’t proficient enough to feel the advantage of that yet, and they are extremely light weight. The grips are an easier fit for our size hands, and the guns can be set to fire full automatic or single shot. We also have some double sized clips. I don’t think anyone else has these gun modifications.”

“Well you say you aren’t proficient,” Mirikami told him, “but imagine my surprise when Dorkda arrived to tell Telour that one of my gun slingers killed one of his, and he needed to take revenge!”

“Uh

, What?” Dillon’s manner changed from cocky and lighthearted to serious in an instant. He sure as hell wasn’t ready to fight a Krall.

Laughing at his expression, Mirikami told him what happened, and just how little value his butt had for Telour.

Then he grew serious himself. “We want to make friends here, how did you manage to kill one of them no sooner than you got a gun?”

Dillon and Noreen filled him in on the circumstances, and made certain that the Captain was aware that Maggi and Walters were not the only witnesses, since it happened in the Great Hall.

“So you don’t have any of his friends or fellow thieves out to get you?”

“From what the Turner woman said, he was a bully that often took what he wanted, and had killed someone over a property dispute previously. He didn’t seem to be well liked.”

“You know, Dorkda told Telour that he saw the fight, and knew the other guy had either challenged you or was drawing his gun. However, he was up in the Krall level. That means he was definitely watching you somehow.”

Thinking of that, he asked, “Is there any unfriendly presence here on the ship?” He knew from coaching that the AI understood that he meant any Krall. He wasn’t expecting what he heard.

“No Krall are aboard, but would active transmitters of theirs be considered unfriendly?” He asked blandly.

Like an animal caught in a hunter’s spotlight, the Captain froze. Then glanced at the transceiver Telour had given him, laying on his console. He quickly looked away, in case it had video as well.

Gathering both of them by their elbows, he suggested Noreen and Dillon go down with him for something to drink in a snack bar, pushing them towards the lift.

They hadn’t been in on Jake’s Link to the Captain, but from his expression and mannerism, they knew the answer had startled him. They stepped into the lift and Mirikami selected deck 6, for its small snack bar.

Shortly after it started down, he pressed the stop button between decks and entered his override code so it wouldn’t sound an alarm buzzer. “We all wonder if an unfriendly person can hear us in an elevator?” he asked.

Linking to all three of them, Jake said, “There are no Krall listening outside the elevator shaft or on board the ship and none of their transmitters are close by.”

Seeing their alarmed expression, he explained. “Telour handed me a small transceiver in order to be able to reach me anytime, but he didn’t want me to call him unless it was important. It apparently is ‘hot’ all the time, and was sitting on my console.”

“Damn, did we say anything we might wish we hadn’t just now?” asked Dillon.

“Could you clarify what

” started Jake.

“Stop.” Mirikami cut him off. “I don’t think any of us did. But let me get some more out of our friend.”

“We want to know if there is more than one transmitter, and were they are located.”

“There are two active Sir, one is on the bridge that Telour gave to you, and one other is in the Drive Room, given to Ms. Willfem when Telour arrived.”

“Are both transmitting all of the time, and can you say if the signal is audio or video, and how far away it might reach?”

“Both have been transmitting continuously since brought aboard, and I detect modulation that appears to correlate only with audio that I can also sense from my own microphones. The signal range will partly depend on receiver sensitivity, but range should be at least ten miles through the hull.”

“Is there anyone speaking in the Drive Room near the other transmitter?”

“Yes Sir. Ms. Willfem and Motorfem Macy Gundarfem are talking, about ten feet away from the transmitter.”

“Connect me to the Drive Room via com line on the unit farthest from that transmitter.”

It took only a few seconds for someone to pick up. “Drive Room, Willfem speaking.”

“Nan, don’t speak just listen.” He knew she’d recognize his voice.

“The device Telour gave you is a transmitter and it’s hot all the time. Get everyone there out of the room quietly, and I’ll Link to them to explain. Just say ‘goodbye’ and hang up and Link to me after you put a couple of doors between you and that gadget.”

“Goodbye” and she disconnected.

She Linked a couple of minutes later, the Motorfem with her. “I’m sorry Sir, I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t know either Nan, and Telour gave me one on the bridge. Do you think your conversation after he left could have given them anything we don’t want them to know?”

She paused while she thought back to when Telour had given it to her. “Well, after he left I wish I hadn’t said I hate the bastard and I’d like to shove a grenade up his ass.”

Mirikami laughed. “I don’t think they care if we hate them or want to kill them. I was thinking more of anything about our Traps and contents, weapons development, labs being setup, or other dirty tricks.”

“No Sir. Macy and I were discussing how to partition the hold and storage area for working in there, shifting around supplies we will keep, expanding the machine shop, those sorts of things.”

“Ok good. That’s what I do want Telour to hear. Pass the word about the devices, and I’ll put our friend to work on finding out how sensitive they are, and how far away is safe enough to talk freely. We can use these devices to feed them information we want them to hear. Mirikami Out.”

“Jake,” It was safe to say his name for the moment. “I want you to report to any ship’s officer or our three civilians with transducers if you detect secret monitoring of any of us by any means. Let me know if you think our internal communications are being compromised, and if the Krall seem to have detected our Link capability. I don’t know what that evidence would be, but ask us if you need to do so. Understand?”

“I may require guidance in this Sir.”

“That’s why I said to ask us if you are unclear.”

“Yes Sir.”

“Noreen, I want you to work with Jake to find out how sensitive these devices are, and if we can even block the signal if need be.”

Then he flipped off the Stop switch. “Let’s go get those drinks. Is before noon too early for a stiff shoot of saké?”

30. Second Week

“Tet,” Maggi was on the Link. “We have a problem over here.”

“What’s wrong?” he came back quickly.

“The first Testing Day since we arrived has been announced. There are sixteen names posted on a list in the Great Hall. Eight are people that are working with us, either here or on the ship.”

“How can a random selection from two thousand seven hundred forty one names produce eight people that we recruited?”

“Now you see the problem.”

“I thought you told me the names were picked by a Krall supply computer that simply selected people at random?”

“That’s what we were told, and it seemed to be a method outside of human interference. But obviously not from Krall interference,” she pointed out.

“I wonder,” Mirikami considered, “if Telour is trying to force me to ask for immunity for those we convinced to join us. None of the Fancies names is entered yet, and won’t be for another four weeks.”

“Well, it will create a huge amount of bad feeling over here Tet, if you got immunity for them, because somebody else would have to replace them, to die in their place. Nevertheless, my scientific mind says it has to be cheating in the lottery.”

Exasperation was clear in her voice. “A few of the morons here are saying we did the cheating, even though we aren’t in the lottery yet. Why would we try to kill off our volunteers? I wish we had managed to avoid the ‘them and us’ divisiveness.”

“Maggi, they don’t trust us and the necessary secrets we have to keep. The fact that they must be ‘invited’ to live on the ship also makes us seem aloof and elitist. I don’t entirely disagree.”

“We have shared an awful lot of things with them, Tet. Their standard of living is improving a great deal. They get hot showers from the ship, hot meals in exchange for a frozen ration, better medical care than they ever had here, and literally, the shirts off our backs. We also do their damned laundry now.”

Mirikami shook his head in a gesture Maggi couldn’t see. “Listing those things for them isn’t going to endear us to them. We need to get to the bottom of the lottery problem, and do more than heat their frozen rations. Saving their lives will be a big step, but we aren’t ready for fighting yet.”

“What do you propose for the immediate issue, that lottery list?”

“I’m coming over, and I’ll bring some armed support. We only have about fifty of us living in the dome regularly, and they are mostly the Midwife support folks that were never comfortable with you high brows or us Spacers.”

“Ok. I’ll meet you in the Great Hall. The list is posted at the center, on a wood column. I’ll see if Thad is in his room. I’d like his advice, and the rough necks here fear him and respect him at the same time.”

“See you there in about fifteen or twenty minutes.”

As soon as he was off the Link, he asked Jake to Link him with Noreen, Dillon, Chief Haveram, Ricco, and Chack. Those would be his armed support. All of them had become proficient with a gun, and Dillon had the added bonus of a “reputation” now.

After they had acknowledged Jake’s call, Mirikami told them the problem.

“I want you go over with me to investigate how the lottery system has been rigged, and to actually see the computer that’s used. As soon as I strap on my gun, I’ll meet you at the hold ramp.”

They left the cargo hold open a lot now. With Jake on watch, not a single skeeter had made it inside without warning, and prompt extinction by a Jazzer and a stomp. The wolfbats had harassed a few people over by the corral of Earth animals, but left the heavily armed humans mostly alone.

When he stepped into the hold, his people were waiting for him. Everyone had two loaded Krall pistols except the Captain, who had one. The Chief also had a rifle slung and a Jazzer, and Noreen had a Jazzer.

Feeling more like a bandit leader than a Spacer Captain, he led his little troop down the ramp and towards the dome. In the last two weeks, pills, diet supplements and exercise had improved their strength and stamina a great deal. The trip down the ramp didn’t feel the least bit risky, though a fall would still be dangerous.

The three hundred feet to the garage entrance now was just a stroll in the heat for all but the oldest of the Fancy’s complement. The six kept their eyes and heads on a swivel, even though Jake had told them he detected no threats.

Maggi estimated most of their people would be a couple of more months getting acclimated to Koban’s pull, unless Aldry’s three labs managed to produce some way to enhance that process. She claimed they were making good progress.

Looking around the Tarmac as he walked, Mirikami asked, “Where’s that fiber optic cable Chief? I know it’s thin, but it isn’t invisible.”

“We didn’t run it straight over Sir, it runs a bit south then arcs in to the left of the garage overhang about a hundred feet around the side. You can’t see it even standing on it. It’s been set into a grove we cut in the tarmac. Then we swept up the dust and made a paste with a bonding material and smeared that over the top. It’s the same color.”

“That signal repeater connected to it yet? Or will Jake have to boost his signal to Link to us?”

“We don’t have it in final position, but it’s connected. We only run the fiber when nobody is around and we want it centrally located and as high as we can get, which is level thirty-one, under the Krall’s feet. We’ll finish in a day or so I think. We’ll have a low power Link anywhere inside the dome, and we can splice in cameras and audio for Jake.”

The shade was welcome as they passed under the overhang. Telour’s shuttle had parked far enough out that Jake had an unobstructed view of the entrance now, but they didn’t relax their protocol. Three people in the last week had been stung by skeeters that darted from over the dome. Jake saw them coming but couldn’t warn the people without transducers. A crewmember was always on door duty with some of the Prime residents. At least the Jazzer they carried wasn’t lethal if the victim were also hit.

They met Maggi at the center of the Great Hall, where some resentful glares were directed their way. Thad wasn’t with her, and she said he hadn’t answered his door.

Mirikami noticed that the people no longer avoided his return gaze, and had apparently accepted that even though he had taken on a leadership role, he wasn’t trying to force them to follow orders, or even suggesting what they should do.

Maggi led them to a two-foot diameter six foot high post that looked like it was a tree trunk section of the blue and yellow wood.

The list pinned to it was on a foot wide strip that looked more like fabric than paper, and had a color between red and tan. It had sixteen black Krall scripts in a column down the left side, followed by sixteen printed names in black lettered Standard of the people that had been selected.

The top name drew his attention. It was Deanna Turner, their first recruit from the Koban Prime population. She now helped staff the supply commissary they ran, located in a secure room that happened to be directly above Greeves quarters. It turned out that every level had sixteen lockable rooms in exactly the same locations, at the ends of radial corridors. They had needed Telour’s permission to get a door code.

Twenty-one volunteers from the dome were working with the people from the Fancy. A dozen others were waiting for positions they could fill. The volunteers didn’t receive any special privileges that other dome residents didn’t receive, with one exception. Only volunteers were allowed to sleep on the flight of Fancy if they chose.

Mirikami stood directly in front of the list, and snapped a picture of it on a small camera he had brought over. When he pressed the send button, it sent the image to the repeater unit inside the dome, and thus to Jake via the fiber optic cable.

Looking around he noticed the Primes were giving them a wide berth today, and there wasn’t anyone within easy hearing. The Testing Day announcement only reminded them that the new people weren’t at risk.

To his group he said, “All of us including Maggi would like to know if there is some pattern to these numbers and names.”

He had mentioned Maggi’s name to be sure she would be added to the Link. They waited for a reply from Jake and it came quickly.

“Sir, the black characters on the left are in Krall number script, in various octal values. To the right of those numbers are human names listed in our files as residents of Koban Prime from before we arrived, although two now live on the ship.

“Eight of those are names presently listed as volunteers working for the Flight of Fancy, or perhaps it is more accurate to say working for Captain Mirikami. Two other names on the list have submitted applications to volunteer but are not presently working. One name is listed in our records as a companion of a working volunteer. The other five names have no record entry available to me, other than that they live in Koban Prime.” He paused.

“I do not wish to exceed your previous instructions concerning brevity, Sir. Should I continue?”

“I see the numbers and names, but does their selection appear random out of the population of Koban Prime, or is there a pattern?”

“Ten names have completed volunteer applications for working with ship personnel, and an eleventh name is correlated with a volunteer. Those eleven are unlikely to be randomly selected, to a very high level of probability. The other five names could match a random distribution.”

Just when they thought he was following his brevity restriction, he added, “The ten names on the Testing Day list are on the first ten applications submitted to Captain Mirikami, of thirty two applications.”

Now that’s way more than intriguing, Mirikami thought. “I reviewed those applications two weeks ago and they were not approved in the order submitted, some have not even been approved at all. You said the first ten applications, but we had more. Where were the applications stored?” He had never see a list, only the application data on a computer screen before he did interviews.

“Sir, the first ten volunteer applications were entered into a portable computer by Mister Rigson thirteen days ago in the morning, and five additional applications were entered that same day in the afternoon. The probability that only the first ten names appearing on that posted list is due to random selection is close to zero. The actual numerical

”

“That’s enough.” This silenced Jake, and Mirikami’s expression was clearly one of anger.

He looked at Noreen. “Is Mister Rigson still on limited duty here, or is he working back at the ship?”

Maggi looked stricken. “He wouldn’t have done that Tet! Mel risked his life for us.”

Now Mirikami was surprised. “Damn woman, he’s not under suspicion! I’ve taken too much of Mel’s poker money for too many years to think he has a sneaky bone in his body!”

“Oh, I am truly sorry,” she turned red with embarrassment and stammered, “you…, I mean…, when you asked about him you looked so angry. I assumed you thought

” her voice trailed off.

Seeing his normally unflappable mentor embarrassed and at a loss for words, Dillon made a slight humor miscalculation. “You get the rope Maggi and we’ll string him up, Old West style.”

Leaning against the post and grinning at her discomfort, Dillon’s chuckle suddenly strangled in his throat. Tiger Lady demonstrated the difference between one feared persona and that of sweet old Tiger Lily.

Calmly returning her Jazzer to her small holster, she smilingly asked Mirikami, “Tet, you were inquiring as to the location of that nice Mister Rigson?”

Numbly sliding to the floor, his back against the wood post, Dillon mumbled that he couldn’t feel his legs, and that he thought he might have wet himself.

Stepping over his outstretched legs Maggi said sweetly “Let’s all sit over there so this boy’s silly comments won’t interrupt the adults when they talk.”

Despite the serious reason for why they were there, each of them had trouble choking back their laughter. All except for Chief Haveram, who had no trouble at all, because he made no effort to hold back anything.

“Right in the balls!” he howled. Roaring with laughter he had to add, “It’s Fireball Brigade for real when his feelings return.” Tears started running down his cheeks.

Dillon was most distressed when he saw that Noreen had not only turned her back, but her shoulders were shaking up and down. They all were laughing, except Maggi, who merely smiled sweetly at him before sitting with her back to him.

It was a few minutes before a semblance of peaceful sanity returned to everyone but Dillon, who would begin to tingle painfully in about five minutes. He was muttering under his breath about grouchy oversensitive old ladies.

“Maggi,” said the Chief, “I sure don’t want on your bad side.”

“Why, I’m just a frail elderly Lady,” she answered. “How else could I teach a tough young gunslinger to show respect for his elders?”

Mirikami was still smiling despite his best efforts to be serious. “There goes that reputation I was counting on to intimidate the locals.”

“Poor Dillon,” Noreen lamented. “I’m so ashamed of myself for laughing so hard.”

“Well, he’ll be happy to hear that this was his best zinger ever on me. If it hadn’t been, he would have gotten off with just another whack on his package.”

She fluttered her hand towards him, “But enough about that boy’s over used groin. Tet, are we going to speak to Mister Rigson about who could have gotten that list? If we know who, we might figure out how they tampered with the lottery.”

“Mel’s on his way from the ship. Between the Chief’s gales of laughter, I asked him to get a hauler ride and join us. He’s bringing his pocket computer.”

When Rigson limped in five minutes later, they were serious enough to start solving the mystery, despite Dillon’s occasional complaint and asking for a drink.

“Ankle getting better Mel?”

“Yes Sir, but the torn tendon isn’t healing as fast as I expected. I think the extra Koban weight is slowing the process. He looked over at Dillon, sitting on the floor rubbing at his thighs.

“Don’t mind Dillon,” said Maggi. “He suffered a slip of his tongue.”

Before the conversation drifted again, Mirikami asked, “Did Jake fill you in on what we learned about the names of our volunteers showing up on the Training Day list?”

“Yes Sir. Moreover, I have an idea which two people might have had a chance to copy a partial list of applications. On the day I made those entries into this,” he pulled out the pocket-sized computer from a left vest pocket.

“I was on door duty in the maintenance bay, keeping my sore foot propped, sorting through the paper applications. I’d removed them from the lock box we put over there,” he pointed by the double doors they used most often. The hard copies never left my possession, and I destroyed them one at a time as I entered them into my computer.

“I had fifteen forms and I entered exactly ten before I took a lunch break. After lunch, I did the other five. It was at lunch in here that I think two people probably got hold of my unit and made a copy of the active folder. Only the ten names on that list were entered at that time, and I confirmed the file creation times while riding over here. That was the only time just those ten names were grouped alone.”

“How did they get to your computer, and who do you think it was?” Mirikami asked.

“Two people came over to join me for lunch, something Primes don’t do all that often with us. A man and a woman, and they sat real friendly and close. The man’s first name was Caltron, if I heard it correctly, and he talked and acted like a studious geek type, like those we have walking all around the Fancy. No offense Mam,” he added looking to Maggi.

“We are geeks, and proud of it, so don’t worry about it.” She patted his arm.

“Anyway, the woman had probably been really attractive before Koban worked on her, and still looked pretty good. She said she had been here over four years, and her name was Arless.”

“How do you think they did it?” The Captain asked.

“They sat on each side of me, and the woman got flirtatious. The social standards here have slipped a lot, but she was acting just like some women do at home when a Spacer comes to port. Fresh male genes, no attachment or contract, you know the type Sir.”

“I do.”

“My pocket comp was in my left pocket of my vest, sticking out slightly, like this,” He used his uninjured left hand to slide it into the pocket, where an inch protruded. “I’ve been carrying it like that because digging it out of my right leg computer pocket is awkward, not being a lefty.”

“The woman got more physical, rubbing the inside of my right thigh, and suddenly asked to see my bandaged hand, which had been used to ‘fight off the wolfbat’ she said, like it was heroic instead of self-defense. You know, flattering me. That means she knew something about me already, so I guess I was set up.

“The man made a comment that sounded like he was jealous of the attention I was getting from her, and jostled me as he stood up to leave. The woman also pulled my face over and kissed me on the cheek just then, which I now think was to distract me from feeling him lift the computer.”

“Obviously they got it back to you.”

“Yes Sir. Several minutes later, the man returned with three of those green fruit drinks for all of us. He apologized for his bad manners, saying being away from polite society had changed everyone here. I don’t know where he found those drinks so fast now that I think about that. That juice is hoarded so it must have been ready for him.” He shrugged.

“In hind sight I think he returned the computer then, and must have copied the folder I had in standby mode into another unit he probably had with him. They left as soon as the drinks were gone, and I’ve not seen them since, so they may be avoiding me.”

“Mel I think you narrowed down who could have done it, and when.” Thank you.

Maggi shook her head. “Why does anyone want to get rid of people working with us? The list tampering probably has gone undetected for some time, and this clumsy move has only revealed it.”

Noreen said, “Survival instinct can explain trying to save oneself. But choosing whom to send is the same as murder. They weren’t content to let random picks fill in the blanks, leaving their own names out of the list. They arranged for names to be picked.

“Maggi, who told you how they get notified of a Training Day, and how are names selected and printed?” she asked.

“Multiple people told me,” she replied. “The Krall computer is in the north maintenance bay. No one knows for sure what it was originally used for, but a couple of years ago a Krall programmed it to randomly sort through a list, and pull up however many names are selected when the program starts.

“There are Standard characters pasted on the computer keys that were reprogrammed to display in Standard on the screen. New names are inserted in the list at that keyboard, and once a name is printed for a Training Day list, it is removed from the computer. After that you either have immunity or you are dead,”

“It is supposedly set to randomly run through however many names are in the computer file. They print two lists of selected names. They post one here and give one to the Krall so they know which humans are going.”

“We can’t absolutely rule out Krall involvement, but it seems farfetched they’d hide that or care if we knew. There has to be at least those two humans involved, since that’s the only way Mel’s list could be copied.”

Noreen wanted to know how the Krall computer method even started. “Why not a human made computer that juggles the names? We have a thousand simple AIs on the Flight of Fancy that can do that. There must have been some pocket computers like Mel’s that made it to here.”

Maggi had already inquired. “Originally the Krall grabbed one or two random people a day out of just a couple of hundred, and took them to the arena upstairs, handed them a weapon, and then basically killed them. The other poor souls had to clean up the bloody messes.

“When a lot more captives arrived, the outdoor hunts were devised, with eight or more taken at a time each week or two. Everyone started hiding to avoid being grabbed. It pissed the Krall off, so they killed the hiders when they found them, and picked someone else. Twice the carnage.

“Those early prisoners decided a lottery was better, so you could have some degree of order in your life until you were picked. At first they didn’t have any computers because the first thousand or so captives came here completely empty handed in Clanships.

“The first lotteries were drawings out of a container of names on paper. The drawing system wasn’t trusted after a cheater replaced his name with someone else’s. All of those original people are dead now, but the current Krall computer system was considered tamper proof by humans because it was Krall made. That has been disproved today.”

“What a mess,” the Chief said. “How do they know how many names are in the complete list, and how many the Krall want selected?”

“There is a scroll, or printed list, of everyone’s name made anytime new names are added to or removed from the computer. You can bet that scroll is checked thoroughly. Today a warrior announced they wanted ‘four hands’ to fight in four days, and announced it right here in this hall. Sometimes a translator makes the announcement. The Krall don’t much care about the selections, except those with immunity, like Thad, are excluded.”

“Maggi, Telour granted some people immunity in trade for their help,” pointed out Noreen. “Like he did for Doushan, which the other people here called collaborators. Who takes those names out of the list?”

“I spoke to Thad about that. His name was not removed from the list originally because he volunteered to join two of his men when they were selected. I’ll bet none of you knew that.” She looked around.

They shook their heads. Thad wasn’t the type to advertise something like that.

“Anyway, after he returned alive he told me his name did come up months later. That time they called for one more random name to replace his, without much dissent. They also selected new names when it happened for those given immunity by Telour for their help. Those replacement folks raised a ruckus, because unlike Thad, Doushan and the others had never faced death by combat.

“The names don’t come off of the main list until they pop up on their own, when used.” She had a thought.

“If the Krall tinker with the list, why wouldn’t they simply pull out the name of anyone they gave immunity right away? Maybe they aren’t involved.”

“Valid point,” Mirikami conceded. “In addition, it might explain why resentment would have built so high against Doushan when his name came up and someone else had to be picked to replace him. It’s a problem we need to consider before we ask Telour for immunity for anyone.”

“Who do we tell about the lottery fix?” The Chief asked.

“Before we announce that the lottery is rigged we need some evidence. Let’s take a look at the computer at the north entrance.” Mirikami proposed.

“And find Caltron and Arless,” Rigson reminded them.

“We can check what we have now in our records. Any names like Mister Rigson said in the list?” Mirikami asked.

Jake said, “Sir, there is one man with a last name of Carltron that is similar, and none with a first name similar to that. His name was listed as Talbert Carltron. There are two women with Arless as a first name, and none with a similar last name. Their names are listed as Arless Blythe, and Arless Moffet.”

“Do you have more information on any of them, such as a picture or their ages, or a physical description?”

“No Sir.”

Maggi reminded them, “We got all of the names from the long printed Krall scroll, which has no other details. We have added details from time to time when we learn them, as we did for our volunteers.”

“Alright Mel,” Mirikami said, excusing him, “head back to the ship. And thanks for your information. The rest of us will go see the magic box.”

He paused as he stood up and added, with a mischievous grin, “Except those of us that can’t walk and need Noreen to babysit them.” Mirikami looked at Dillon still sitting on the floor, looking annoyed and embarrassed at the same time.

The Chief, Maggi, Chack, and Ricco followed Mirikami to the north entrance to take a look at the Krall computer.

Noreen helped Dillon sit at a table when he regained some motor control of his lower extremities. He told her the pins and needle feeling was like when you cut off circulation for a time and a limb “goes to sleep,” but far more intense.

“I need to think of a really clever way to get back at her,” Dillon said brightly, as he hobbled to his feet.

“You had better not try to top this last one,” she warned, shaking her head, smiling. “We don’t have a full surgery ward you know. I for one would miss that overused groin,” and for some reason her laughter wasn’t quite as delightful to him as it was normally.

The Chief was right, Dillon thought, my balls do feel like they’re on fire. Right then he wasn’t sure if he was grateful Maggi carried the smaller Jazzer, or if it would have been more merciful if she packed the standard Krall pistol. He was going to have to get an athletic cup or give up being a smart ass around her. Considering her Jazzer, getting pants with mesh shielding might be another good idea.

31. To Catch a Cheat

They were looking at the Krall computer keyboard and screen in the north entrance maintenance bay. It was on a chest high table (for a human), in a back corner. There was a slot in the wall where printed material was extruded. Hard copies of data had also never been fully eliminated by humans. People sometimes “liked” a printed version, or a bound book. Apparently, the Krall also preferred that option sometimes.

The bay was nearly full today with subdued discussions in isolated pockets of people that couldn’t help but think about a time when their own names would be spit out. They watched the group from the Flight of Fancy with a mixture of resentment and suspicion as they briefly looked at the discarded old full list of names, and briefly glanced at the new list that was always generated after a Testing Day.

It would be another four weeks before the Fancies had their names added, per Telour’s orders. Six weeks was not an unheard of wait for muscles to adjust, but some Krall left in charge of the compound had chosen four weeks, or even three in early years.

The keyboard’s Standard characters were hard plastic overlays, apparently taken from some human equipment, which were glued over the original Krall characters. They included the alphabetical letters, numbers, space key, with an enter key, a print key, a backspace, and some possible function keys whose use wasn’t obvious at a glance. Someone had modified an alien system for human use. That required knowledge of the Krall and human technology and language.

Mirikami was told by some of the assembled people that there were always extra people on door watch here because of its more frequent use, at least until the Flight of Fancy had arrived by the east door. Moreover, because they also watched over the computer like it was some kind of oracle. It actually was the herald of who would face death next.

With a few objections voiced, they were told that they would be permitted to watch the computer as it was activated, but all they could request was another copy of the full list of names. They had already sent that list to Jake via the Captain’s camera. Deciding he didn’t want to create any more tension or suspicion than already felt from the hundred or so people watching, Mirikami politely declined.

The human residents used the north entrance the most since it was closer to the animal corral holding Earth origin animals taken from Rim worlds. These were carefully protected from Koban wildlife. The north side was also used to reach the edge of a forest area five miles away, where they drove to collect native fruits and berries, and sometimes hunted small animals.

Motioning the others to follow him back into the corridor for privacy, Mirikami asked, “Maggi, are there other keyboards and screens like this one in each of the maintenance bays? I never noticed when I was there.”

“I was told there aren’t, but I actually looked for them after I saw this one. The Krall seem to follow a common pattern repeatedly in construction and equipment. There were high tables in the exact same locations with dirt or dust outlines where the keyboards or screens had been. There are slots in the walls in the same place as here, for printer paper output.”

“The Krall could have removed the computers when they left, since they didn’t leave a lot of other stuff behind, like furniture.” Mirikami guessed.

Maggi told him, “Could be, but there is Krall furniture left inside a handful of their old quarters, but it isn’t comfortable for humans; high tables and no chairs, a few wide slots instead of drawers, and no beds naturally.”

Cocking her head in thought, “They must have taken most of that when the clan moved out, so they could have taken the computers as well.” She acknowledged.

Mirikami scratched his head in frustration. “This hasn’t given me a clue of how the list could have been manipulated by a human. The one in there is pretty well watched. Chack, Ricco, you’ve both been seeing and hearing the same things we have, but I’ve heard no comments. Do you have any? Don’t hold back.”

The two cargo specialists had been largely quiet, except when describing with amusement Dillon’s goofy expression when Maggi had zapped him.

Chack shook his head no, and shrugged. However, Ricco made a tentative comment. “I’m not one of the big brains on the ship Sir, and I don’t know squat about computers unless I can tell ‘em what I want, like we do with the AI’s.” He hesitated a moment, then said what was on his mind.

“I wonder who worked with a Krall to set this computer up in the first place Sir. With computers, even for humans, it’s only a technician or a programmer that works on them. Why would any Krall care enough to change one of their own computers do something like this for people? This machine picks who goes out to fight them. I’d think a Krall would expect us to pick the strongest or the best fighters, not just anybody at random. What kind of advantage is there for one of them to go to this trouble?”

Midway through Ricco’s remark, Mirikami had started tugging at his lower lip. Maggi and the Chief recognized that gesture. The Captain had an idea he was mulling over in his mind.

“Ricco, I don’t have the answers to the things that struck you as odd, but your questions may have cut to the heart of how the tampering is done. What indeed would be the advantage for a Krall, probably a K’Tal, to do this for humans?” He liked the idea better, as he repeated Ricco’s question.

“A Krall won’t do anything for us, so far as I can tell, unless it offers some gain to their personal breeding status. Exactly like Telour offered me advantages in exchange for increasing his status if I can make his humans fight harder. He doesn’t care about me or any of us in the slightest, just what we can do for him, and he offered me what seems valueless to him in exchange.”

He pointed at the keyboard through the window. “The agreement for that could be to teach a Krall some of the human numbers and alphabet and probably information about our computer use, and our technology. That particular Krall would gain a specialized advantage in learning about an enemy that employs much wider use of computers than the Krall seem to do.

“What would be his offer to the human that has no value to a Krall, but might be priceless to that person? I’d think it would be to shield the person’s name from ever being selected for combat, a hidden form of immunity. It would be kept from the other Krall, just like Telour hid his agreement with me.”

Maggi said, “But there were two people that worked to pick Mel’s pocket. In addition, there were ten people deliberately put on the list today. It’s more than providing just hidden immunity for one person. They can manipulate the list, add or delete names.”

The Chief expanded the idea some more. “Could that K’Tal have let a human learn enough to figure out how to alter the program, or use it better than he expected? We already know they don’t have a keen sense of security when it concerns humans, and we may have an edge in computer use since they prefer to do more things manually. The guy may have outsmarted his teacher.”

He looked at his Captain with a wink. “It’s been done before.”

“Chief, I’d put my money on it. When we talk to those two pickpockets, I’ll bet that at least one of them knows software, and that they have been around for quite some time, staying ‘lucky’ with the lottery. This computer has been in use for at least four years, longer than most of the people here have been held captive.

“Mel said the woman mentioned spending more than four years here, there’s a lot of luck involved in that feat. The man was also a ‘studious geek type’ as he described him. He’s probably the programmer, and she perhaps gets protection if she sleeps with him.”

“Tet, let’s go back to the Great Hall. Our volunteers will know everyone here, and perhaps their backgrounds and longevity. Certainly no one has more incentive to identify them.”

“Noreen and Cal are already there. I’ll Link to them as we walk, to see if they can gather them up for us.” He tactfully didn’t mention Dillon, who was probably just feeling his legs again.

Once back at the Hall they found six of the dispirited volunteers, gathered at tables to one side. Noreen, Dillon, and a few other people from the Fancy were assuring them that the Captain was trying to find a way to help them.

Mirikami asked, “Where are the other applicants, and that companion of one of our volunteers?” The question spoken softly to Noreen.

“They didn’t think we’d help them Sir. Some of them stayed on the firing range practicing, or looking for the best fitting set of armor with the fewest repairs. We haven’t even found one of them yet.”

“We have to make certain they all know that I’ll do my best for them, even if they were not accepted as active volunteers. They were targeted because of some connection to us, even the companion probably.”

Walking over to the group of six, Mirikami tried to look reassuring.

“By now you’ve heard that we are certain that the selection was manipulated. All of the names of the first ten people that submitted applications to work with us were on the list. There have been rumors of cheating before, but this is blatant, flagrant, and clumsy.”

“What can you or we do about it?” Deanna Turner demanded. “Nobody will tolerate erasing our names and having a new drawing. Any one of them could be chosen in our place. There could be shooting.” She warned.

Maggi told her, “Dear, our first step is to identify the people responsible. That information might cause a change of heart. Please listen as Captain Mirikami tells you who we want to locate.”

“We first need to find a man named Talbert Carltron, who we think took your names from a pocket computer he stole from us thirteen days ago. Do you know him?”

All of them knew the name, and several knew where he slept. Mirikami sent Ray McPherson and Jimbo Skaleski with one of the male volunteers to check Carltron’s compartment. The three of them were armed of course.

The Captain continued. “We have two possible names for a woman that was with him that day, but we don’t want to tarnish the name of the innocent woman. One of the names is…,” he was cut off by two people at once.

One man, Roger Singleton, deferred to Deanna with a hand wave, who had blurted the same name as he had.

“It has to be Arless Blythe.” She repeated. “They are a long time noncontract couple, and they have adjoining cubes.”

Mirikami quickly swung around to Noreen and sent her to join Ray and Jimbo, to warn them and add a fourth gun. The other two men didn’t have a transducer, but they had not reached an elevator yet and heard her shout.

“Gracious Ladies, Gentle Men,” he addressed the five remaining volunteers. “We suspect those two have been keeping their names off of the Training Day lists for a long time, and one or both of them have knowledge of computers. They have likely been here for quite some time, since Blythe told Mister Rigson she had been here over four years.”

Suddenly from behind him, a woman who was following the discussion volunteered information.

“Carltron used to be a programmer, or something like that for a mining company. He told me once he was on his way to set up an automated Rim world mining operation when his company ship was captured. He was here two years ago when I was captured, but he had already been here for at least two years, I think.”

“Thank you

Lady

” he waited for her to give him a name.

“I’m Penelope Daniels.”

“Thank you Lady Daniels.” Other Primes were starting to gather, as the rumor of list tampering spread.

“Remember,” Mirikami cautioned the growing crowd. “We don’t have any more than circumstantial evidence against these two people yet, but it is absolutely certain that there was tampering!” He looked at the faces all around him.

“All ten of the very first ten people that offered to volunteer to work with us were put on that list today. Whoever did that undoubtedly keeps their own names off of every Training Day list, and could have put any of your names on that list!” He raised his arms and waved down the voices to suppress the noise.

“We believe a Krall set up and taught a human how to use their computer in the north maintenance bay, possibly done in exchange for teaching the Krall our letters and numbers or how human computers work.”

A woman shouted out “A K’Tal, the brown uniformed type, set that computer up before I got here three years ago. I heard that from Captain Phillips, he was a leader here then, just before he was selected. He said a man had showed the K’Tal how to make the display show Standard characters for our lottery.” Another outcry followed that revelation.

Realizing he had a large crowd around him now, Mirikami stepped up on a table. “The companion of Talbert Carlton is Arless Blythe. Does she have computer training as well?”

A couple of snickers resulted from that question.

A man volunteered. “Her only training is more of the bedroom type. She was a Tri-Vid sex star on vacation with some important holo producer when she was captured. She has been here forever it seems like. I never understood how a homely little recluse like Talbert Carltron held onto her. She’s attractive and flirtatious and could have had a lot of stronger, better looking men.”

While others in the growing crowd were discussing how the Blythe woman manipulated men, Noreen Linked with Mirikami.

“Sir, I know you can’t answer. I’m on level two looking at you. The two compartments are empty, but we found a Krall thin panel flexible computer screen stuck to the bottom of a low table in Carltron’s cube. We’re searching to see if there is a keyboard hidden somewhere. Renaldo Out.”

Raising his hands again to quiet the loud discussions springing up all around him, Mirikami sought some other information. “How portable is that computer at the north entrance? We saw that there was a place for similar computers at each entrance.”

He had to select just one person of the dozen or more that spoke up. A man had actually worked with the one in the north entrance.

He told them, “That system is bonded to the table, and the screen bonded to the wall to make them permanent fixtures. I helped to do that several years ago with some resin we scavenged out of a wrecked ship outside. The other three computers were just as movable and they had all disappeared. We wanted to make sure the one we used stayed put. We assumed the others had been taken by the Krall.”

“There were no cables or power feeds to them?” Mirikami asked.

“Not that I saw. You could simply pick the keyboard up, which I understand also holds the processor, and the screen had a sort of sticky side that clung to the walls. There were no holes in the table top or in the wall, except for the slot for printed copies of data, so I guess they would work any place you took them.”

Noreen Linked in again. “The keyboard was hidden in a wide slot built under a table in the woman’s cubicle. I guess I need to know what you want me to do, Sir. I’m at the balcony railing just to your left if you want me shout out to you so we can talk openly.”

Mirikami nodded his head twice as if listening to conversation around him.

Noreen called out loudly, “Captain Mirikami!”

Turning towards the caller, as did the faces around him, he called back “Were they in their cubicles Commander Renaldo?”

“No Sir. But there are two half-empty water bottles and two unfinished ration packs on Carltron’s table. It looks like they left suddenly.”

“I assume you did a search of their quarters?” Mirikami asked his leading question. “Did you find anything?”

“Yes Sir. We found a keyboard and a computer screen like the one in the north entrance. They were hidden in the two cubicles under table tops.”

There was an immediate explosion of outrage, and dozens of people headed for the nearest elevators. As Mirikami intended, they went to look for themselves. The word would spread, and it would not be simply an unfounded allegation from the people of the Fancy.

Shortly a crowd of angry Primes returned with the two parts of the second computer. Now everyone in the Great Hall could see that it really existed.

A woman that knew how to run the north entrance system pressed the equivalent unlabeled keys on the second keyboard and pressed the “Start” key. They watched as the nearby-but-detached screen instantly lit with lines of Standard characters preceded by Krall scripts. They were menu items. The lines were:

Add Names

Testing List

Full List

Block Names

Select Names

The woman cursed and instantly clicked the character key in front of the line that read “Block Names.” Two names appeared. They were Talbert Carltron and Arless Blythe.

Then she chose The Select Names key, which merely presented a line that read “Enter names here” with a cursor lit below that. She hit the back key and tried the second menu.

The Testing List item repeated the sixteen names already posted, and had two menu options. New and Exit.

The Full List selection showed Krall numbers and names one screen at a time, in three columns per screen. Painstaking scrolling showed that the sixteen names posted that day were missing from the list, as expected, and the two blocked names were shown.

The woman, who had been whispering with some of those gathered around her, stood up and told everyone that the last two menu items were extra on this computer, which anyone that had ever observed the selection process already knew.

She looked up at Mirikami, still standing on the tabletop next to her. “It looks like they could enter a list of names that could not be selected, and it only contains Carltron’s and Blythe’s names. The other new menu is to add the names they want to be selected. The top three menus are the same simple ones we have used for years.” She shook her head sadly.

“My husband was killed six months ago. I wonder if he was selected by them or just unlucky?”

At least a thousand people were already searching for Carltron and Blythe, and hundreds more of those in the Great Hall went to search as well, checking their weapon loads as they went.

However, Mirikami was no longer concerned about those two, dead or alive they were irrelevant to the problem he had to solve now.

32. Put up or Shut up

The Captain had eight volunteers who were now officially “his” people, facing what was tantamount to a death sentence in three more days. Moreover, there were two other applicants he felt equally responsible to protect. He was certain they were targeted simply because they had applied to join his volunteers.

The more he heard comments floating around, the more he doubted that the rest of the captives would accept a second selection list from the compromised Krall computer. There was no way a new selection system was going to be agreed on and implemented in the interim.

Fair or not, over twenty seven hundred people were fully prepared to send the sixteen unlucky people out to face their fate. Just as they had sent so many other unlucky, and largely forgotten names before them.

To appeal to Telour to force a fair selection or grant immunity to his volunteers would turn all of the Primes against him. However, to allow the ten volunteers to die despite a grossly unfair selection would destroy his credibility as a leader. He needed to retain that credibility if they were to implement their greater plan.

He asked Maggi and his other friends to leave him undisturbed for a while and let him think. They went to the other side of the Hall to talk and hear news from the search parties.

He was sitting there alone, pulling at his lip and considering a fateful decision when a heavily armed Thad Greeves abruptly walked up in brown armor, his helmet off. He dropped a stuffed shoulder bag on the table and sat down with a creaking sound and a bang as he set his helmet down.

“Hey Tet, I leave for a morning hunt and come back to find you’ve overturned everything Koban Prime holds holy.” He clapped him on the shoulder with his gauntlet. “Congratulations, man. I didn’t think that could be done.”

“Thanks, I think,” Mirikami responded. Looking at Thad’s armor, and the bulging bag, he asked him where he’d been.

“I head out to collect some of the Death Limes when I think the easy to reach bushes have ripe ones, and a bit deeper into the woods if someone already got the easy pickings. Plus I like fresh meat in my diet.”

“Rhinolo?” Incredulity was apparent in Mirikami’s face and tone.

Thad laughed hard. “Do I look suicidal? Hell no, I shot some of Koban’s rabbit dash squirrel dash bird dash anything edible equivalents. All of those live inside the compound.”

He pulled the bag over and lifted the Smart Fabric seal tab. A combination tangy odor and smell of animals and blood wafted out when he folded the top flap back. Reaching in he lifted out a deep green colored fruit that did slightly resemble a large lime.

Mirikami started to reach for the fruit when Thad pulled it away with a cautionary hand wave.

“It might be safe to touch without a glove, but I haven’t washed the skin or confirmed no thorns broke off in the fruit. If you touch any fresh toxin I’d miss you a lot, or you’d miss the hand that touched it.” He dropped the fruit back into the bag and wiped his gauntlet with a chemical laden rag from the bag.

Mirikami stood up and looked down into the bag. It was divided into three sections by dividers. The green fruit filled one section, and there were pale green grape sized berries on stems in the center, along with some sort of thick brown tubers. The third section held one teal furred animal with six legs and a two-foot long torso. Another was bushy-tailed skinny blue-gray colored animal with four short legs, and what looked like tiny hands for feet. At the bottom was a radiant green looking animal he couldn’t see very well.

“Are all of those things dangerous to touch?” he asked.

“Nope. Not the berries or roots, and not the animals and the bird when they aren’t alive. The six-legged things I always have called ground hogs because they dig burrows, but they forage above ground for the berries and for those roots underground. They are also fast as hell and those six sets of digging claws and their gnawing teeth will tear a man up something awful if you pick up a wounded one. When I spot their burrows, I know there are these edible roots near them, and probably a few berry bushes.

“That skinny blue thing with the bushy tail is a close analogue of an Earth squirrel I think, or a Poldark tree skunk without the smell. That guy is really fast in the trees and I don’t see them often enough to have a special name for them, but I hear them a lot. I have no idea what they eat, and they don’t have much meat on them. They can ruin your hunting with their loud chatter to warn everything close by. That was just a lucky shot through some leaves to hit him. He gave himself away with his big mouth.” He grunted in humor.

Reaching to the bottom, he lifted out a long necked green bird that also had tall spindly legs. The bill was long and thin at the end, but right at the mouth it flared much wider. The feathers were a beautiful iridescent green. Thad pulled the wings out and they were not as wide as Mirikami expected for the size of the body, and he said so.

Thad shrugged. “The denser air helps support them better, I guess. This is a Dagger bird, which is a very appropriate name. They hunt in marshes and at the edge of water. They stab small prey with the beak, toss it in the air, catch and slide it towards the wide part of the beak to swallow it whole.

“If you get too close to their nest, you can get a flying dagger beak thrust in an eye. Like every animal here, you don’t touch it until you are sure it’s dead. The most innocent looking creatures can be dangerous, possibly venomous, always stronger than you’d think, and much, much, faster than you expect.”

“What did you shoot them with?” Mirikami welcomed a distraction just then, and happened to be interested.

“The small buck shot, fired from a short Krall rifle.” Pointing at the one slung on his back. “The shot starts to separate a few feet from the muzzle and gives you a wider coverage.

“I killed another ground hog, but a wolfbat had been in a high tree watching me watch the burrow. It seemed to know better than to come after me in my armor. But as soon as I fired, it flapped madly down and dived right on the dying animal. It latched all four sets of hooked claws and flapped off easily with the extra weight. Its lack of hesitation at the sound of the shot makes me think it was waiting for that. It could have dived sooner when the animal cleared its burrow opening, but I think it waited for me to shoot it.”

Thad returned the animals to the bag, but as he shifted things around, Mirikami spotted a loose thorn laying on one of the two dozen or so Death Limes. He pointed that out to Thad.

“Sometimes the defensive swat from the plant breaks off a thorn when it hits the handle of the picker. The waxy surface of the thorn is sticky. I don’t know how long the toxin lasts but lucky for me it does degrade with time. My rhinolo horn was covered with the dried stuff. I had touched it before I smelled the scent from the plant. I handled the horn when I removed it and then later mounted it.”

“How did it get there I wonder?”

“The Rhinolo like the fruit too, and I’ve heard that on a couple of hunts a Krall warrior used the scent of a crushed fruit in the grass to draw an animal away from the herd. I suspect they use their thick hide and long horn to shake or knock a fruit safely out of a bush when they want one. That could leave waxy residue on the horn. Plus, for a time I bet it makes the horn that much deadlier to anything they stick with it.”

“You told us that the Krall like the fruit, but won’t reach in to get it. How do you know this?” He’d just had an interesting thought.

“I’ve watched them go out in a truck on perimeter patrol and stop to get some on the way. I used binoculars and from a higher level of the dome, I saw them run over Lime plant and spin a wheel to rip the bush out of the ground. Then a warrior used a tool from the truck to pull away the fruit.”

“Do you think the toxin works on them like it does on humans?”

“I never gave it any thought. Humans finally die of total muscle paralysis, in great pain until then. I don’t know what it does to a Krall, but they obviously don’t like it. Why?”

“They told us they are either immune or resistant to most poisons. Could you wrap that thorn carefully and pass it on to Aldry Anderfem to analyze in one of our labs? We are looking for any new weapons we can find, and poison laced bullets or arrows might be of use if those thorns are bad for a Krall.”

“Sure, I’ve been talking to some of your machinists about gadgets I suggested they look into, or modifications to things you are already making. Aldry spoke to me a time or two when I visited the machine shop. You must have her doing something really sneaky, I couldn’t draw her out much.”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d keep that observation under your hat, Thad. As we’ve learned today, not all of us humans can be trusted.”

“Speaking of that, I know people are looking all over for Talbert Carltron and Arless Blythe. I hardly know him, but shortly after my two challenges, I had an ‘interlude’ with Arless in my quarters. She came on to me strong. I was more than willing, and she was talented. However, she was scared to death of Carltron finding out, and begged me to be a gentleman and keep it quiet. So I did.”

“She told me she wasn’t worried for me personally because I had immunity, which I thought was an odd thing to say, since the two men I killed had immunity. That little mouse Carltron didn’t seem much of a threat. I now think she meant my immunity would keep me safe from being selected if he found out. Our liaison wasn’t repeated, despite my invitation,” he added.

Mirikami shrugged. “I think she traded sexual favors with Carltron for her freedom from Testing Days, Thad. Perhaps she isn’t as guilty as he is, but that sure as hell won’t save her if that pack of wolves find her.”

“No, it won’t,” he agreed. “About twenty of them searched my truck as soon as I pulled under the overhang, wanted to know where I’d been. I decided I’d not be my usual asshole self, and showed them my bag there. They had itchy trigger fingers, and because I was in armor, they wouldn’t let me get a drop on them. Not that I care about those two waste-of-air scum.”

Mirikami pulled at his lip. “I’m wondering where they could hide? All of you must know every possible hiding place in the dome by now.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m sure some of the people selected would choose to hide. I’d think you’d know where to check the hiding places for them before the Krall picked a replacement.”

“The Krall would just go get them and drag them out and make them go or kill them. Why would we have to find them?” Thad looked puzzled.

“Maggi just briefed us on how the early lottery drawings were done, about some people hiding and forcing replacements to be picked. The Krall killed the hiders outright when they were found, but hiding delayed their death and got someone else killed in their place.”

“Oh, sure. But that was well before I got here, before the Krall implemented Ra Ka Endo and gave us these tattoos,” he hooked a thumb at his. “So they can always find you through those.”

Mirikami felt a chill spread down his spine. He asked the next question with apprehension.

“You’re saying The Krall know where we are because of these tattoos?”

“You didn’t know that? It’s how they recover the bodies and our equipment after a Testing Day, unless a wolfbat tore out the throat and flew away.” He said this in a matter of fact way, totally unaware of the stone that had settled in his listener’s stomach.

“Thad, this is important if you know the answers. How do they track us, and what capability do they have to hear what we say or to see what we do?” All he could think of was that twenty five thousand year old alien technology might be pretty advanced.

Greeves noticed that Mirikami’s normally darker facial color had visibly paled. He turned serious as well.

“Tet, I don’t know how it’s done exactly, just that it’s the device that injects the tattoos; they call it a Katusha by the way, and it can also home in on them when they change a setting. They scan it back and forth in front of them to get a signal light that increases in brightness as they get closer and they aim towards it.

“What has you so worried Tet? What are you afraid that they can do?”

Mirikami looked a little less tense. “The way you describe the search sounds more innocuous than I first feared, but I need to know more.

“What I feared is that they have been listening to us all along, and could possibly see what we have been doing on the ship. If they can do that, then all of us here are certainly doomed, and possibly the human race if we fail to accomplish what we have been trying to do.”

Greeves leaned back, giving him a penetrating look. “Tet, I’ve always assumed everyone here is doomed anyway, but what the hell are you doing over there to save the human race that might fail?”

“That part you actually know, fight them well enough on Koban to convince them not to stamp our species out like bugs. However, we have projects underway that I’m certain would get every human presently on Koban exterminated, so they would need to restart with fresh ignorant humans. I think instead of a fresh start they’ll kill our worlds and move on to search for better prey. They have almost decided to do that anyway.”

“Damn. You sure think on a grand scale, Captain. You also put a lot of necks in the same noose with you. But as I said, I’m convinced our necks have been in a noose all along. It was just a matter of time before they grew tired of their games and killed us all.”

“Maybe not. If we pull off the ‘fight better’ thing, Telour, Parkoda, Dorkda, and Kapdol, all translators from different competing clans say on their honor we will be left unharmed and on our own when they leave Koban for many generations. They will go off to fight humanity for as long as they can make that last.

“Then, one day in the far future, they will come back to claim Koban as their new ‘Home World.’ After breeding and improving to face the animal life here on equal terms. They don’t like not being the fastest things alive. They also fully expect humans left here will be dust motes on a rhinolo’s butt by then.”

“Well Tet, I think I can reassure you on the range of potential surveillance technology embedded in these tattoos. The Katusha tattoo gadget can’t find corpses much more than a hundred feet away. But I must say even solid rock and our armor doesn’t seem to block them when the body is in a cave.”

Mirikami was about to say something, but Greeves held a hand up to have him wait.

“I know this because I’ve used them several times. When higher status warriors are too proud to do recovery work, they send us out in trucks to recover armor and guns. You aim the things like a flashlight,” and he demonstrated with his hand.

“Whew, that does relieve me a lot Thad. I don’t think they’d hand those over if they had intelligence gathering value. After all they wear those same tattoos.”

There was almost a ‘Bing’ sensation in Mirikami’s mind just then. “We need to steal one of those!” he blurted. “If it can see humans through walls it can see them too.”

Greeves shook his head. “Good God man. What’s it like thinking like an amusement park thrill ride? From end-of-life as we know it, to let’s hunt down the Krall and kill them.” He laughed, making his armor creak.

“They will ask for the Katusha’s back, so I don’t know what would happen if you told them you lost one. That might prove fatal.”

Changing gears himself, he went back to something Mirikami had said. “I know you have secret projects under way. What are the deadly ones the Krall couldn’t tolerate?”

“Thad, I give my word that I intend to bring you in on those projects when and if they prove out, but they could face opposition from humans as well as Krall, so please excuse me if I hold back for now. However, when you walked up a few minutes ago, I was thinking of some things that I haven’t resolved in my mind yet. I’d like to explore those because I need to make a decision today on a matter important to me personally, and you can help.”

“Sure. I have some time before that meat starts to smell, so go ahead.” He leaned back against the table with a grin.

“Ok. Here’s my first question. No one that actually knows from firsthand experience ever told me if that stuff,” he tapped Thad’s armor, “is any good when a Krall comes after you.”

“It’s Krall made, following a human pattern of some armor they must have found in an old outpost on the Rim. However, it’s much lighter that our own best armor, just the way their guns are lighter, and it seems even stronger but I’m not sure. I wish they’d found powered active camouflage armor to copy, with high tech sensors. This antique solid brown color crap stands out against any background here except dirt,” he complained.

Mirikami reminded him, “The Krall see into the infrared, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they see into ultraviolet. Your heat would give you away in infrared.”

“Well, temperature can be controlled with low tech means at times, like wet mud.” He didn’t elaborate further.

“This stuff,” he patted his chest with a thump, “protects against any of the buck shot rounds and probably the incendiaries which are slower flying. Even from the soft-nosed slugs if they hit at a glancing angle or from long range. For the explosive or armor piercing rounds, you may as well be naked if they hit you. The Krall always carry multiple types of rounds with them.”

“Do they fight us with anything other than projectile weapons like the pistols or rifles? No lasers? How are those against the armor you have? I understand they don’t wear armor.”

“I know they have lasers, but I haven’t seen them in hand weapons for them. Just the lasers I’ve seen on shuttles and Clanships. They are usually content to put bullet holes in you as they close with you, and they rely on speed and dodging rather than armor. Remember, a serious wound to us might only be an inconvenience to them.

“They do have a love for up close and personal fighting. Naturally, they can pull an arm off you by springing the armor joints, or bend you in ways a human and armor can’t go. I studied a lot of the armor brought back, before me or any of my people ever went out.

“The lower rank Krall warriors sometimes carry armor back like a trophy, or send us out to find it in trucks, as I told you. We then repair what we can, and they give us new stuff when we run low on parts.”

He described the types of damage. “Some have holes from armor penetrating projectiles, wide rips from explosive rounds, or deep dents from straight on soft nose impacts.

“I found indications that they slipped blades into joint crevices or where they can force an opening between overlapping plates. Some armor appears to have been removed reasonably carefully, and they finished the job slowly by hand or with knives. Some of them are sadistic that way. Speed and efficiency be damned!”

“You ever see indications of larger explosives, rockets, mines, grenades, booby traps, artillery, mortars, and so on. You know the kind of stuff we are working on or thinking about.”

“No nothing like that, Tet. I’ve told most of this to your people over there, and in particular to Dillon, who drinks this stuff up at every opportunity. I don’t think explosives are available here because it isn’t given to us, but no doubt they have that and higher tech weapons.”

Leaning back against the post and listening to them, Dillon looked rather placid now that the tingling had subsided. Leg movement made it return so he stayed very still.

Greeves, the professional soldier part of him, continued. “Dillon has even been getting hand to hand combat instruction from me, and asked for knife fighting lessons of all things. It started out as a request from Maggi, to suggest the training to him. She almost begged me the first day I met her.

“I suspect from a comment Dillon made when I offered to teach him, at her request, that it might have been a joke on him. Nevertheless, he agreed, and he has taken to it with a will. For a brainy scientist he has shown a surprising ability to pick up physical skills, and he keeps his head in a scuffle. He has a built-in athletic ability and calm assurance in tight situations that I wasn’t born with myself. It took a lot of years of experience for me to get as good as he might become naturally.” He paused in reflection.

“For instance, he’s sitting there calm cool and collected while surrounded by a near rabid pack of gun toting people out searching for two criminals that can’t possibly escape anyway.”

Mirikami glanced over at Dillon, and the diversion briefly brought a smile to his lips. “Maggi zapped him with a Jazzer in the

uh, legs,” he amended his word, “thirty minutes ago. He’s still recovering.”

Lifting an eyebrow Greeves asked, “Why’d she do that?”

“Another exchange of wisecracks and retaliatory pranks between him and Maggi. It happens often with those two mismatched book ends. Dillon is a smoother walker than he is a smooth talker when it comes to getting the upper hand with his petite mentor.” He smiled again, briefly.

“Humph,” grunted Greeves. “Anyway, as I was about to say, he reminds me of another brash young man from my detachment that moved that well, even better.” With a shrug, he added, “Randy died trying to cover me, after he blew off that damned Krall’s arm.” It was obvious the image still haunted his memories.

Mirikami shifted the conversation from Thad’s old pain back to his own worries. “In combat, have the Krall done anything surprising that you know of, so far as field tactics or weapons go?”

“No. I’ve watched dozens of hunter-killer teams from as high up in the dome as I could go. Our people decide where they will hide or fight. Sometimes they split up to use different terrain, or just to divide the hunters. They go out a day or two before, sometimes even earlier to scout, pick their spots, dig in, hide, whatever they decide.

“The Krall novice warriors always land by shuttle here, then either take trucks or go out on foot, and start looking for us. The higher-ranking warriors fly the shuttle out to get a head start on the novices.

“I’ve never seen a hint that the Krall in the dome help them in any way, and they do not use that tattoo tracker to find where we hide. That’s against their nature anyway to use gadgets to track us that way. The first warrior contact or any shooting usually draws all the rest if they are close, wanting a share of points for kills. If it was only a part of our team they found, they spread out again and search some more. They have excellent noses, and they can track a sweaty human really well.”

“Are there favorite places for our teams to go, to try to stage an ambush or hold them off?

“The low mountain ridges and cliff caves are favored the most for their high ground, hard cover, and defensive opportunities. That’s why the Krall usually look there first.

“Ambushes, when you do manage to spring one on them will not contain them or drive them to ground. They briefly duck towards the closest cover but keep right on coming at you in a fast series of jinks from rock to tree to bush, always closing with you and shooting back with great accuracy while on the move.

“Next is the forest slash jungle, appealing because of its cover and opportunity to change location. But don’t climb a tree, once spotted you can’t retreat. That damned squirrel analog, like the one I shot, will give you away with its chatter, and birds and insects are a greater nuisance to us in there. It’s hard to avoid drawing attention to yourself if you move around.

“The marsh has been used, but there is no hard cover such as rocks, and very few trees. A crab like thing will try to bite pieces off if you lay down, and there are bunches of itchy biting things your armor can’t keep out. Dig a hole and it fills with water in short order. You won’t like their leach equivalent, because they are a foot long and remove a plug to get at your blood. There are big fierce looking eels, but the armor keeps them out.

“The section of plains to the south and west have high grass, but the Krall can follow your trail through that at a dead run, and apparently spot your heat signature at some distance, even when you are lying down in the tall grass in a swale. Southeast are dunes and less vegetation. Not very good cover.

“On the river you have no cover except for a few small mostly flat rocky islands with shrubs and spindly trees. The riverbanks are steep sided in places near the hills and in a canyon near the end of the ridge. But they are open to view from the opposite sides, and they will patrol that in pairs, one on each side.

“The Krall sink like rocks in water, so a couple of teams dug pits on the islands after rafting over. The damned warriors can hold their breath and walk over on the bottom. The river isn’t more than twenty feet deep most of the year and the current isn’t very fast. When the water is higher and swifter, the islands are almost covered.

“We also don’t know much about what lives in the river. There are normal looking fish in it, but all of them seem to have teeth. Some two or three footers have been caught and they fight hard, taste like crap with a lot of bones, and will chomp at you even out of the water. A couple of times someone has insisted their line was taken so hard they couldn’t even turn the fish and the line or pole snapped. The water is often muddy and red tinted from the silt so you have poor visibility. The water flows fast after rains, and it can freeze almost to the bottom in winter.

“There are heavy mesh screens at both ends of the stream where it passes through the walls, but small things might swim through and grow up. I’d assume those unknown things are as dangerous as most life here. It hasn’t been nice to anyone that chose the river area for his or her terrain. But nothing out there is very nice for us.”

“Thad, what keeps someone from going over the compound wall and waiting them out?”

“The reason is that the top of the wall and the gates are heavily electrified to keep carnivores out of the compound. There are a lot more animals outside than I have seen up close. Rhinolo are simply the largest grazers and a preferred Krall prey because of the danger if they see you. You don’t want a rhinolo to spot you.

“I think most of the other herd animals are probably even faster than rhinolo, which is hard to believe after you see one of those in action. It seems like all of them have horns, and they might attack you if you look threatening to them. Of course, there are rippers and their smaller cousins out there. There is actually a range of large and small predators and scavengers out there, and I don’t think we are a match for any of them. Not even armed and in armor are we safe.

“People that go out one of the gates, which the Krall permit us to use, are seldom heard from again unless they return within an hour or less. You might think that they just drove into the sunset and escaped to live happily ever after. Except the empty and sometimes-gory trucks are brought back by the Krall. They’re retrieved provided a rhinolo herd hasn’t torn them apart for play.”

“They would need extra fuel for an escapee to go very far in any case.”

“Oh, you haven’t been in a Krall truck yet, have you? They have the smallest fusion bottle I’ve ever heard of, or perhaps some equivalent technology. They seem to run forever unless they have a mechanical breakdown or a rhinolo gets to them.”

After that, both men were quiet for a time. Thad shook his head as if dispelling memories of what he’d seen of hunts from the dome over the years. Then he suddenly felt curious, and for some reason, apprehensive about Mirikami’s series of questions.

“Tet, I see you probably as do your people from the ship, as a ‘Big Picture Guy’ that is trying to direct a gang of geeks, Spacers, and demoralized mentally defeated misfits into a semblance of a guerilla ground force against an overwhelming enemy.

“You motivate and inspire people, and maneuver for advantage where nobody saw room to move or any advantage to take. Normally you focus on the direction to go, not on the small steps needed to get there.

“You seem different to me right now. Why are you asking me about these small details of weapons, armor, and terrain?”

Coming to a decision, Mirikami gave his answer calmly.

“Because Thad, in three days I’ll be out there with weapons, wearing armor, and using that terrain.”

Greeves had somehow sensed that was coming. He looked at the smaller man, assessing him professionally, seeing him as he would a man he would have to share a foxhole with and count on in a physical gunfight. It wasn’t comforting.

“Tet, I don’t have to tell you that you aren’t prepared. You obviously know this. You getting killed will not restore the life of any of the names on that list. They are going out anyway because you can’t replace a single one of them, the Krall don’t permit that. So why?

Mirikami shrugged. “I had told Telour when he offered me ‘advantages’ as he called them, and I told my core people that I would not accept immunity without earning it as anyone else did. I need to earn that if I expect the Koban Primes to join with us.”

“What if you waited until next month, when you place your name in the lottery

, Oh. You don’t think there will be a lottery system do you?” He realized that was a highly probable outcome.

If the system in place had been corrupt from the beginning, things could revert to every man or woman for themselves. The Krall grabbing whomever they find first, pulling victims from hiding.

Thinking of how it could change now, Thad said, “Without any organized structure there will be anarchy, and you would lose the cooperation you needed to give us a chance, not just a chance for those of us trapped here, all of humanity. Are you that much of a Big Picture Guy?”

“Crap Thad. You make being scared shitless sound noble,” he complained.

“Scared shitless but going anyway is bravery. But, if you are dead is there anyone in your group that can pull this off without you? Keeping you around seems smarter than losing you.”

“I have to earn the Prime’s respect, and preserve the trust the volunteers have placed in our goal. In three days if I do nothing, both of those are gone.”

Mirikami elaborated. “I believe that if we can’t convince the Krall clan leaders that humans are worth their time fighting, they will take the expedient efficient step of quick eradication of an animal pest. We don’t even taste good to them, unlike the poor Raspani that they only keep alive for food.”

Greeves suddenly looked horrified.

“Thad, you heard this Krall strategy story before.” He didn’t understand his reaction.

“Raspani meat is from a race the Krall defeated? Oh my God!” He seemed revolted.

The explanation quickly followed. “I’ve eaten that spicy meat, so have a number of us. It’s what the Krall take for rations on hunts! You’re gone all day so they feed us what they eat. It was like beef jerky in their field ration version. Dorkda said he liked it raw or lightly roasted. Those are intelligent creatures they eat?”

Tet repeated what the translators had told them. “Thousands of years ago they were a star traveling race. I think now they may only be semi-intelligent. There’s supposed to be a herd here on Koban, and I thought it might be located here, but it must be at another compound.”

Thad told him “Dorkda claimed his clan had some here once. But the wolfbats and skeeters killed them if they were let out to graze. That’s where the corral we use came from, it was built for them. Hell I never knew they were anything but cattle.” He shivered visibly, and shook his head rapidly from side to side in disgust.

“To a Krall any other living creatures are animals, Thad. To be used for their best advantage. As cannon fodder, slaves, or food. I was actually aiming for cannon fodder for humanity, the highest category they have for aliens.” He looked at his hands and clinched them.

“I fear we are on the verge of failing unless I do this.”

“Tet, I get that, I understand what’s at risk. But will you getting killed reduce that risk?”

“No, I don’t think that. But I don’t plan on getting killed.” He answered.

“Most of us that go out don’t plan on that either. That’s why the smart ones spend so much time getting ready. You are a smart one, but you are not ready!” He was emphatic.

“Tet, ten or twelve trips to the range certified you to carry a gun, and proved you are a better than average shot. On silhouettes that don’t shoot back and dodge like a mad dervish.

“You haven’t come close to complete Koban acclimatization, despite the better diet and food supplements. You won’t have the stamina and mobility you need. None of us really do, but the other captives can at least run a little faster and dig a fox hole or climb one of those ridges.” He wound down, sensing the futility of his arguments.

Mirikami was grinning. “Wow! You sure know how to give a pep talk Colonel. I’ll have to remember that technique.” He chuckled, his humor fully returning now that he’d made his decision.

“Ok, Ok,” conceded Greeves. “You don’t plan to get killed. That means you have a plan to survive the full day and night, or kill one of them. How can I help you do one of those things?”

“You mean help us Colonel. I’m going with him.” Dillon had walked gingerly up to them, ignoring the annoying tingle in his legs and feet, and some a bit higher.

“You started to get louder there Thad, as you argued with Tet and lost. I heard you guys.”

“Dillon, you are closer to ready that Tet, and you are not ready either! In fact you can hardly walk because a nice little old lady almost gelded you.” He laughed as Dillon wobbled when an ankle nearly gave way.

Dillon had a rebuttal. “I’d rather face eight straight forward Krall killers than that little smiling terror. At least they’ll attack me simply because I’m a human, not because I say funny things.” He settled carefully on the bench beside Mirikami, relieved to ease the tingle in his legs.

“Son, I don’t need you to hold my hand. If what I plan works, I won’t even get tired.”

“And I promised that I would be there to cover your back Sir, when you informed us you would never accept immunity if you sent others out to fight. You told us you would lead our first team, and this is the first. You meant what you said, and so did I.”

“Dillon, I appreciate your loyalty and bravery, but I want you to reconsider, as a favor to me.”

“Captain, I owe you loyalty, but you laughed when Maggi zapped my balls, so I owe you no favor. I’m going!”

Thad laughed again. “He’s got you there Tet. I think he’s going.”

Their conversations had been overheard. By several of the nearby volunteers who had drawn closer, and a number of Primes. The word was spreading by whisper net.

Deanna led all the active volunteers over, the others having gathered for mutual support once word of the tampering had accompanied the searchers for the criminals.

“Captain Mirikami, we overheard enough of your conversation to understand what you plan to do. All of us know that there isn’t any way we can get out of this, that we will have to form a team. We also know that it isn’t your fault that we were put on the list by those two bastards. You two aren’t even eligible for the lottery yet. We agree that you ought to take your chances like we all do, but only when it’s your turn.” The others nodded their support, or murmured their agreement.

Touched, Mirikami stood to face them.

“Gracious Ladies and Gentle Men, I sincerely appreciate your thoughts and consideration, despite the fear I know each of you feel. However, this isn’t a mere whim on my part to show solidarity with you, although I do feel that solidarity.

“I have a larger more important goal in mind. We need to try to heal the divide that exists between those of you that have lived here in these conditions for so long, and the large number of new faces that have just arrived with big and secret plans to oppose the Krall.” He looked at them, and saw their eyes light up a bit.

“Yes, I know you’ve heard some of those rumors. They are not all rumors. Moreover, if the Krall raids that are under way right now are successful, as I expect they will be, there could be many more captives joining us. I’ll fight alongside you in three days not as a mere gesture, but to demonstrate we can work together, and I hope to prove we can succeed together.

“You eight will be included in what I plan, as well as everyone on that list. I invite you to work with me, or you are free to go your own way. However, let me get the wheels rolling before I show you the surprises I have for the Krall. Now, please excuse me while I return to the Flight of Fancy to make some arrangements and get the surprises I promised underway. In the meantime, you should continue with your own preparations.”

He parted company with Thad, but carried away the thorn in a plastic vial Thad carried for collecting samples when he was in the field. He arranged to meet him in the afternoon for a scouting mission then started for the ship with a still unstable Dillon in tow. Maggi and Noreen saw them leaving and intercepted them from the far side of the Great Hall as they cut across to the doors near the east entrance.

Dillon promptly told them what was up, so a repeat argument became a rolling battle all the way to the ship’s cargo Ramp.

At the bottom of the ramp, Mirikami verified with Jake the sky was empty of threats and had the hatch opened halfway for them. They walked up the ramp, with Noreen and Maggi still losing the battle but not giving up on the war.

33. Dirty Tricks Bag

Once inside the hold the Captain put it to them as simply as possible. “Either you help me prepare, or I’ll do it alone, but it will happen.”

He ordered the hatch reclosed. “I’m going to the machine shop first, next meet with Aldry in the labs, go find out what’s new in the pharmacy department, eat lunch, and confer with Thad to arrange a first scouting mission. You are not welcome to follow me if I’m going to hear any more objections, is that clear?”

Cowed, the two women backed off, but stayed with him. In the newly expanded machine shop, they had used the automated machines to make more machines, and now had enough equipment to run multiple production lines. They were using scavenged metal and plastic from the nearby wrecked ships first. There were a dozen people on assembly lines assembling various items.

Bob and Neri had reprogrammed the machines with Jake’s assistance, and they had taught people how to feed stock safely to each type device, and were now cranking out a variety of weapons and explosive casings. They had also discovered there were quite a few salvageable remote actuator devices in the old wrecks that they could use.

Mirikami told them several of his highest priorities, and asked they be made ready today, or by tomorrow morning by eight AM Koban clock.

He walked to the concealed doors in the back of the cargo storage area, out of view from passersby, disguised by what looked to be padded packing materials and shelves of cleaning supplies on the front of the buried door. The whole lab area was under what appeared to be a large pile of nonfood supplies. He Linked to Aldry to tell her the self-named Koban Conspirators were coming in for a visit.

On command, Jake unlocked the door for them, and they entered the first lab, which looked neat and much like laboratories at any university. The other two labs were “clean” rooms, required special clothes and sterilization procedures to enter, so they were not going to pass through those airlocks today.

Tet gave Aldry a brief hug, formality having gone by the wayside between crew and passengers, even between men and women for the most part when on the ship.

“Here Aldry.” He passed her Thad’s vial. “This is one of the deadliest gifts I have ever given a Lady, so don’t dare touch it bare handed, and watch for the tip of that thorn.”

He explained where he got it and what its potential might be. She passed it to one of her assistants for analysis, and then they sat at a small work/conference table they had brought down from higher decks.

“Aldry, you have kept me posted on your work in general, but I admit that I don’t grasp the technical details. I’d like to know where we stand on fast genetic changes, what they are, and how long they take to manifest themselves. Tell me about those that might be effective for the recipient to boost their performance in, let’s say several days after introduction?”

“My goodness Tet, this is sudden. We have some trial viruses and targeted genes, but there have been no live tests at all. The viral agents and gene mods we are working on, that are ready for testing, were originally designed for

.” She stopped a moment.

“Tet, I know I apologized for my clumsy report that day Telour was listening, but I have never forgiven myself for how bluntly I mentioned the modification of clone genes. You know I wasn’t aware you were from New Honshu then, but now I’m about to talk about that again, and the best records we have were from that work. We even have Tri-Vid of the results. Are you OK with this discussion?”

“Absolutely Aldry, I wasn’t shocked by your mentioning clone gene work. It was the existence of such records that I couldn’t believe. New Honshu was virtually turned upside down and inside out to find and destroy those records three hundred years ago. Tens of thousands of women were executed for knowing anything about the work, the men of course having already died of the Gene plague.”

Aldry, Maggi, and Dillon all looked extremely uncomfortable as he told them this.

“You must know of course,” he reminded them of the obvious, “that my parents were not even born at that time, and it was the people of New Honshu that committed the atrocities on my world, not outsiders. Your worlds experienced the same rage and Purges as mine. Although my planet carried the guilt of creating the soldier clones that were the target, everyone knows we didn’t invent the Gene War virus. We don’t know who did, and apparently no one does.”

“I’m not troubled by the existence of a past I had no part in creating, nor did any of you. As a species, we certainly learned that this particular past can’t be repeated. However, we also know that each of us benefit today from a hundred or more small gene modifications that give us longevity and keep us more youthful looking longer. The modifications eliminated so many diseases and defects, gave us better eyesight, hearing loss is rare, osteoporosis is gone, most cancers, dozens of diseases. The list is so lengthy and here I am, foolishly preaching to a choir. It may have become illegal to do the work, but we have been on a course to relearn the science because we needed to do so. Now more than ever, because of the terrible fate only we know that humanity faces.

“Your skills here may be all that will save our race in the long run, because we don’t have twenty five thousand years to catch up to the Krall. But enough my preaching!” He banged a hand on the table. “OK. I’m off my pedestal, or pulpit, or whatever it was called.”

“Soap box,” said Maggi.

“What?” was basically everyone’s implied look or question.

“The expression Tet was looking for was ‘I’m off my soap box’.” She answered.

Same looks. “Never mind, Dillon always says I watch too many old flat screen movies.”

“And we haven’t covered an inch of the ground I’m here to talk about. Tell me what you have Aldry. List them for me in simple layman’s language please, so I don’t have to beg for explanations of technical terms.”

She nodded her understanding and rose to her feet for her lecture.

“The nano technology section has been busy modifying the carrier virus stocks we brought with us, inserting the gene modifications we built around test gene samples taken from volunteers in the lab. The computers have followed the detailed instructions we have for the hundreds of mods from which we can choose. The most practical and most needed had highest priority, and those that are the fastest to take effect. I’ll name the areas in order of what is most ready.”

“Metabolism! The Pep and Oxy pills will be things of the past if two combined viruses we have prepared are injected. Assuming they work of course. Clones were often sent to worlds were there was higher or lower oxygen content, and the buyers wanted more work for the same credits out of their purchase.

“The results are permanent and will be significantly greater that what we get from the drugs. The pills only rev up the slower metabolism we were born with, the gene modification would alter our metabolism to work faster and more efficiently all the time. There would be no crashes when the drugs wear off or we build up a resistance to them.” She held up one finger.

“Heat! We found a modification that was created for clones sold to Diablo, a colony world that eventually failed for other heat related reasons. However, the clones fared reasonably well in even higher heat than we have on Koban. The problem here is that there is also a more severe winter than most warm worlds usually experience. There is a mod for cold adaptations as well, but we need to find a gene switch to activate one or the other, as the seasons require. The ‘Hot mod’ is ready for testing however.” She held up a second finger.

“Strength! That was a common request from clone customers, and it is easily implemented as well. However, as I told you before, there is a limit to what human muscle tissue will tolerate because we were not born as gorillas. Don’t mess with a Krall no matter how powerful you feel.” A third finger was raised.

“Endurance! An equally common request for clones, but there is a trade off with strength because there is only so much muscle mass we can give you, even with exercise, and it will be shared between fast twitch and slow twitch cells.

“If we inject for both traits, you would eventually be stronger, and last longer, but neither trait is as great as if you received one modification alone. The consensus was, three hundred years ago, that you should do both if the clone was general purpose, and just one if it had need for only one advantage. I think both would be needed in our general circumstances.” A fourth finger was raised.

“Epidermis and Skin! We have some mods to toughen our skin against chafing and scratches, to promote wound healing and automatically reduce bleeding. However, we have to study what impact it has on the heat modification that also includes some skin changes. Not ready.

“Vascular system and lungs! Possible to improve, but this is much more complex, and it takes longer to do. Not Ready.

“Rather than list more that we can do but are not ready to even test, let’s examine what we have ready, and how long they take to see improvements.

“The first four: metabolism, heat, strength, and endurance can be implemented reasonably quickly.”

“The Metabolism mod should produce beneficial effects in one or two days with some diet and supplement help.

“The same two days for the heat tolerance mod and the two diets can be combined, and some of the supplements are the same.

“Strength or endurance, will start to implement in a day or two, but it takes time to build the muscle mass and new cells. You need diet and exercise and the same supplements we take now, but we would make better use of those supplements with this mod and shorten the time for muscle growth. But it could be weeks to a month for devoted exercise to make a significant difference.”

Mirikami asked, “What happens if you implement all four at once?”

“What’s the rush? We have four week at least.”

Looking around the table in warning to the others, Mirikami told her. “For the sake of discussion shall we say, if we wanted results in a test subject that are usable in three days from right now, can any or all of these be started simultaneously for good results?”

Aldry caught his look at the others, and instantly knew he wanted them to keep quiet. That meant this was no hypothetical question. She had heard this morning of the announced Testing Day in three or four days, so clearly the Captain’s question was connected to that in some way. Her answer potentially had life or death implications for some or all of those sixteen selected, she assumed.

“Tet,” she started cautiously. “I believe there were tests on clones that did apply multiple enhancements at once, to see what would happen. There were mixed results, and some complex changes, which we aren’t prepared to inject anyway, resulted in clone death.

“Of the four mods we have ready, and I’ll have to get Jake to comb the records, I think they could all be started at one time, but the two longer developing mods for strength and endurance would progress considerably slower. I’m sure they would divert much of the body’s resources from the metabolism and heat mods, slowing those improvements.

“Plus there are potentially debilitating side effects to consider. These come about because our viruses are all infectious agents, and we have to use immune system repression to prevent the body from opposing their introduction, at least initially. There will be fever for the first day or two, and for muscle growth there will be a lot of aches and pains. You also have to be wary of outside infections with your immune system repressed.

“Fortunately, one of the existing general population modifications you didn’t list is our improved immune systems, which accounts for a lot of disease reduction, and the disappearance of many infections from the population due to lack of hosts.

“The population of Koban Prime has stayed pretty healthy without a doctor or pharmacy because of this, and like most alien planets, the majority of infectious agents here did not evolve to attack us, nor ours to attack them. The old ‘germs’ from outer space fears proved overblown in hind sight.

“Even with a lowered immune system, there probably are only a few things we can catch; the previously called ‘common cold’ is still one, but it will only last twenty four to thirty six hours anyway. After about a day our little ‘super viruses’ will have entered the targeted cells and be out of sight of the immune system, inserting their changes, so we can stop suppressing.”

Now she lowered two of her four fingers.

“But I think we can only employ the first two on short notice, for metabolism and heat, with a chance for success in the time limit you mentioned.” Now she looked around the table, a stern look in her eyes.

“Who are the test subjects? The sixteen people selected? I will not inject them with anything we made without full disclosure of what we are doing.”

“Not to worry Aldry. I’m only considering one person. Myself.”

“What?” She almost recoiled from him.

There’s that same damned reaction, he thought.

Then Dillon made his own case for the injections, pointing out that since he was also going on the mission, it was as reasonable to test the enhancements on him, and that he was definitely well informed as to the risks.

In one hour, Mirikami and Dillon were rubbing their sore arms, calves, shoulders, and buttocks from the massive aerosol injections they had just received. This was despite equally massive objections from Aldry and her three teams of still learning “experts.”

The trip to the pharmacy was short, because they stored most of the required supplements in the labs for safekeeping.

The pharmacy items Mirikami had wanted to check on were more of the kind that go “bang” than the kind you swallow. They were starting to produce plastic explosives in the compartments around the now missing main engines. However, the triggering devices needed small amounts of more sensitive chemicals that could be mixed by the automated pharmacy equipment, using programming instructions Jake had located in old records.

Satisfied that the machine shop would have the material to assemble what he had asked for later, he went to eat. His sense of satisfaction wasn’t long lasting.

The pile of food, some of which he didn’t like, and large hard to swallow uncoated vile tasting supplement pills was daunting to Mirikami’s palate. He normally ate moderately, and much less red meat. He and Dillon were receiving an unfair share of the dwindling meat stores he thought.

He sighed, under the watchful eyes of both Noreen and Maggi, who had practically sworn an oath to Aldry to make them stay with the regimen she had printed out and handed to the two men.

Dillon always ate hearty, but because of his larger body mass, he also had a proportionately larger amount of food to consume. After the genetic changes were inserted in the cells and switched on, via the “messenger” signals that were also part of the injections, their bodies would soon be “demanding” materials to work with, and it had better already be in their blood streams before then.

Thad had been provided with a wired ship com Link in his quarters, which was tied into Jake’s growing communications net in the dome. He managed to connect to Mirikami by dialing some random numbers, being forwarded by a crewmember when he didn’t find the Captain on the Bridge or in his quarters, the only numbers he knew.

The Koban Committee had been discussing the possibility of making Thad the first person outside of the Flight of Fancy’s complement to receive one of the few remaining transceivers. He wasn’t “officially” aware of Jake’s existence, but he knew about their embedded communication devices, having deduced their existence on the first day he met with them.

“Tet, I expected you back over here by now, for the scouting mission you wanted to make. Did something come up that you need to reschedule, or did the Ladies I saw you arguing with as you walked to the ship talk you out of your lunacy?”

Regretting having put the com set on speaker, Mirikami forced a mouthful of food down with a quick gulp of mineral laden liquid. It made him grimace with the taste.

Before he could speak, Maggi took her opportunity. “Thad, he’s chewing his lunch at the moment, but no he did not let us talk him out of his insanity. In fact, he’s crazier that we thought, and made a second rash decision right after that. That’s why he’s late

. Oh, quit waving me to be quiet Tet.” She said off to the side.

Clearing his oversized mouthful, Mirikami finally could speak. “Thad, I’m sorry, we will be making that trip as soon as I finish eating. I have a rather large meal being forced on me, which I will explain to you when we meet. I’d like you to come over here however, because I plan to use one of our own shuttles to make the scouting go faster and to let us cover more territory.”

“That beats a bumpy truck ride, and I’ve not seen the compound from the air. We weren’t allowed in the Krall cockpit on hunts, and they don’t consider passenger windows essential to a nice flight. Are we getting out? I’ll still wear my armor if so.”

“I hadn’t thought about armor, I only tried a set on just the one time, but I’d like to look around, even if I’ll be going back out again later today or tomorrow.”

“Tell me what your size was and I can check a set out, and bring it over.”

Dillon told him, “I need a set as well, can you bring two?”

When he answered in the affirmative, they told him their sizes, and he switched off, after saying he’d be there in thirty minutes.

Maggi asked, “How can he carry two of those suits and all the guns he wears too?”

“He can manage. The suits are ultra-light, only about fifteen pounds each even here. We thought they were more like human made light armor, which are at least forty pounds in one g. The Krall use either a material that the Olt’kitapi invented or one of the races the Krall enslaved did. The guns are partly made of a variation of that strong lightweight stuff I think.”

“Why don’t the Krall warriors wear armor?” Noreen wondered.

“They do have some. One of our people asked them that on the ship. They don’t like to be encumbered any more than we do, but heavy weapons, tanks, and artillery on a battlefield will convince them. I’m counting heavily on their thinking it isn’t needed against the guns they give us.”

Tet stabbed a forkful of meat. “Now you two stop talking to us so we can eat this whole horse and cardboard box you gave us.”

“Fine!” Maggi said. “You don’t need to respond you know, but we can still talk; you don’t even have to listen. That’s something you both have proven adept at doing.”

Satisfied to have gotten in the last word, she and Noreen were content to let them eat in peace.

When Greeves arrived, Mirikami called Ms. Jorl’sn to have her ready shuttle one for a local flight. He asked Noreen to escort the Colonel there to stow the suits, and to help Roni with the preflight.

Feeling overfull, Mirikami went to the Bridge to make use of the Krall transceiver. Maggi and Dillon asked if they could come, so all three went to see what Telour might have to say about the scouting flight, and the two additions to the Training Day team.

It took a few minutes for Telour to answer the call when the transmit button was pressed. They were not sure if he was actually some place away from his own unit, or because it was always sending, faked it by waiting.

“Clan leader, I am not surprised you contact me. I know of the search for the two human cowards that have hidden themselves from selection. Do you claim immunity for any of the humans selected?”

“I do not Telour. Instead I want to inform you that two additional humans will join that team, and that I will soon fly one of my small clan shuttles to examine the areas where they might fight.”

“Two more will join this group? Are the two humans that are hiding to be sent? I did not think they had been found, or do you ask that we use our Katusha’s to help you search?”

“The two additional fighters are not those two. I don’t believe any human would want those cowards standing with them in a fight. The two additional fighters come from my crew. They will test some of the new weapons to see if they offer us any advantage.”

“The warrior novices will not know of the two additional enemy and they will face unexpected weapons. I approve your test of my plan clan leader.”

“Thank you. I will work particularly hard to demonstrate your plan will work. But you offered to assist us in finding the humans we seek, was that with the tool you use to apply tattoo marks?”

It sounded like a chance learn something about them.

“Yes. If close, they can see the material in the ring of the tattoo. Your older captives have used them, and they know how to search. Are you requesting some of these to locate where the cowards hide? The dome is large.” He pointed out.

“Yes I would ask that we be given as many as you permit us to have, and allow my crew mates to train on their use. Could we keep some for use in this training?” It was worth a shot.

“None to keep, but I have one hand of them for you to use for one hand of days only. Our slave races cannot make new Katusha’s, and one day all will be gone. Before we received the Katusha’s from the Olt’kitapi we made status marks with small sharp

,” he paused. “The word sounds most like noodles, but that is a food. What is the word in Standard I seek?” He asked.

“Telour, the word you mean is probably needles, which are small thin sharp metal rods that can also be used to put color in skin such as tattoos. Do you mean only the Olt’kitapi made Katusha’s for you?”

“Yes, they are very old and each Krall received one when becoming a novice. Now there are many more Krall than when the Olt’kitapi still lived, and many tools were lost in war and some no longer work. Our greatest K’Tal said the tools are quantum machines, but the science of their making was lost when we destroyed the Olt’kitapi. We are returning now to our ancient tradition of marking status by our own hand.”

“When and how will we receive these tools to help us search?”

“Because you are not permitted on our level, I will send a K’Tal to deliver four Katusha’s to you. Place your clan mate where she can find them in the room you call Great Hall.”

“She? The K’Tal is a female? None of us from the Flight of Fancy have seen one of your females.” Mirikami was surprised and curious.

“I think you have seen them but did not know you had. Females are smaller than a mature male warrior, and the smell is very different, but humans cannot smell their own behind. Until a female is swollen and soon to lay eggs she looks the same as a male novice.”

“My clan mate will wait where Training Day selections are posted. Thank you.”

“If human fighting ability improves in this first test I will be pleased. I will speak to you if it goes badly.”

There was an audible click, as if he had broken the connection, but Jake assured them by Link that the transceiver was still sending.

Mirikami played up to the eavesdropper. “Telour has approved our test and the additional fighters, now we need to scout the possible territory of our battle ground each day to make our plans. We had better get going.” He resisted the temptation to say he’d like to shove a grenade into a Krall orifice.

Once out of range of the Bridge transceiver, he told Cal Branson where to wait for the K’Tal delivering the Katusha’s, and told him to bring them to the ship first for analysis. If there was time later, they might even look for the criminals.

His entourage in tow, Mirikami made his way to shuttle bay one, where Thad had taken the armor, and Jorl’sn with Noreen’s help had had finished the preflight check.

Thad showed Mirikami and Dillon how to open the clamshell torso of their armor sets, and slide into and attach the legs and arms. The helmets activated the visor system once in place, giving them infrared and ranging recticles.

Then he showed how they could zoom on objects and read the ranges using chin and tongue press controls. There was enhanced external audio amplification, and the com system was decent, but subject to interception and directional detection by Krall warriors if used in the field.

There were outer attachment points for weapons belts and clips. The suits were as light as promised, but felt confining and would still contribute to tiring out any user that wasn’t Koban adapted.

Thad cautioned that a skeeter would scent where body odor came out of gaps, and could sting and bite you if you ignored the small gaps that might be revealed when you sat down or twisted your body. wolfbats, if you were not actively fighting them off could get through the armor as well. Kants would find their way in at multiple weak spots.

34. Scout Mission

All six people in the bay wanted to make the flight, since the little shuttle had eight seats and a storage area. There was a small airlock if needed, but in a breathable atmosphere, a side hatch for the storage area could also slide open for easier egress.

Noreen took the copilot seat next to Roni, who was their best pilot. Maggi and Thad took seats behind them where they could see out both the front and side ports. Dillon, and Mirikami, sat closer to the back so they wouldn’t step on or bump anyone getting in or out, feeling clumsy in the armor.

Jake opened the shuttle bay door for them, and Roni tested the lift and balance before smoothly sliding out of the side of the ship, already fifty feet above the tarmac. Once clear, Roni took them higher and circled the dome once, giving them a view in every direction. They could make out the compound’s outer walls in the distance. Thad, his helmet off asked where they wanted to go first.

“We can sightsee some other time. I want to overfly the marsh and river, the jungle, and then the cliffs and hills.” He had already decided the grasslands were a bad choice for a fight.

After study of all the areas, Mirikami agreed with Thad that the hills, caves and cliffs did look like better places to defend, but offense was also on his mind.

“Thad, when the Krall land a shuttle near the cliffs, you said there was a flat place they used. Where is that?”

Thad directed Roni to the spot, and they circled it in a slow hover. The vegetation clearly showed where it had been worn away by repeated landings, and there were large bushes around the periphery, with one small house sized boulder on the side of the clearing closest to the nearby cliffs.

From their height, they could see several shallow cave openings or overhangs, and two others that looked deeper. There were a couple of artificial walls made of stacked flat rocks. These had provided cover for some humans in past battles. There were scars apparent from explosive and armor-penetrating hits on walls and rocks, proving the area had been used often.

“Thad, if the warriors arrive by truck or halftrack from the dome, where do they park to start a search on foot?”

He directed them over the highest ridge to a worn rutted track that led through a valley on the other side of the cliffs. There was a natural sheltered spot where two or three trucks could park with some cover from the heights on both sides. Trees and numerous large boulders would block snipers from clear shots at warriors if they left the trucks there.

“Roni,” Mirikami called up to the front, “Set us down in that flat spot on the other side of the ridge, where the Krall shuttles usually land. I want to look that area over on foot.”

After they set down, the three armored men went out the storage hatch as quickly as possible, while Maggi and the other two women pointed Jazzers and a Sonic at the opening until it slid shut.

Looking back towards the dome, Mirikami realized trees and brush blocked a direct view. “Thad, do you know what our distance is from the dome?”

“About sixteen miles to the top of the highest ridge peak above us, when I measured it with a helmet visor. Why?”

“The maximum range for our implants is about seven miles to transmit, but we can hear the ship from farther away, probably out to the compound’s walls if we have a direct line of sight. I was wondering if I could receive a signal from Jake. He might be a source of information on Krall movements out here.”

He walked over to the huge boulder, startled as a skeeter buzzed out from its shadow. There was a flock of wolfbats circling very high over them. He checked the ground at the rock’s base, and nodded.

“Thad, what are the best paths up to the ridge, for Krall I mean, not humans that can’t leap fifteen or twenty feet? You say you’ve watched them, I’d like to know where they scale the cliff face.”

Looking around, Greeves studied the possible routes.

“It partly depends on if there has been any firing on them as they move up the slope. Revealing your position by shooting at them is going to draw them right to you, but they will use the cover of that notch and some others along the rock face to block potential sniper fire. Not that that has been terribly effective in the past. These warriors have been trained to duck fire from other Krall, so they react as if we were really a serious threat. At least they do at first.”

“It doesn’t take long for a novice to gain a lot of confidence fighting us. If it’s an experienced warrior, or a novice that fought here before, they are a lot less cautious and rush in for an early kill.

“They’ll risk minor wounds for points, particularly if there appear to be several humans grouped together.”

Dillon had a question. “Thad, they call off the war if we kill one of them. How do they know if we do? We aren’t just going to stand up and wave if we kill one of them are we? When is it safe?”

“I wish I had a firmer answer Dillon, but it’s happened too seldom for any of us to see a pattern.”

“They do appear to honor an agreement, but when we killed that Krall on my one and only Testing Day the others were still hunting, and I’m sure would have killed any of us they found before the octet leader confirmed the death and called them off by radio. I pulled back into a cave up there, knowing more were coming my way based on the amount of shooting we’d done and they certainly had heard.”

“Thad,” Mirikami asked, “what do you think would have happened if you had killed several Krall quickly that day? Do you think they would stop hunting, give up the blood lust they would surely feel for revenge?”

Greeves gazed at him for a long moment. “What the hell do you have up your sleeve Tet? That’s beyond any confidence I’ve seen displayed before a fight here, and borders on delusional. You’re talking about killing multiple Krall. When we have only managed three kills total, in three different fights, spread over hundreds of fights in probably the last five years? I’m the only living person to have directly participated in killing a Krall that’s still alive. You’re thinking of multiple kills?”

“Thad, I don’t think we’ll have the element of surprise but this one time, and I intend to make the most of it. However, if we achieve more than one kill, will they call off the hunt? What if the octet leader is killed?”

“OK. I’ll humor you. The octet leader will have a dark gray uniform, but he will send warriors ahead and his job is to direct less experienced novices and warriors in practical combat. Even if you kill one or more novices with a booby trap, he will have to go personally to the bodies to confirm they are dead. If they are dying but not dead yet, then the fight isn’t over. They won’t bleed to death, since their body automatically prevents that.

“The Krall I nearly blew the head off of still moved his arms and legs for thirty seconds after his brain was covering the ground. His missing arm had completely quit bleeding, and so had the huge wound in his head in that time. I could see his twitching corpse from the cave where I retreated.

“If he had been the octet leader, which he would not have been attacking three of us alone if he were, the next highest status novice assumes command if he dies or is unable to lead. Even in a pack of novices, they damn well all know their relative status and who is next in line.”

“I had time to place one of my dead men, Randy’s body, near the mouth of another cave to draw them there first. I didn’t see it happen, but they must have passed right by their dead warrior and fired on Randy’s corpse with explosive rounds. I heard the firing, and Randy’s armor couldn’t be salvaged later with a bucket. It was at least five more minutes before the novices left the area, and I heard a broadcast in my helmet receiver that immunity had been granted.”

“So you came out of the cave to greet the octet leader?”

“Hell no,” he shook his head with a grimace. “I waited for a half an hour and several more transmissions to even peek out. I heard the Krall trucks pulling out and saw the dead Krall’s body was gone. I came back to the dome on my own in one of the two trucks we took out. The other survivors did the same, but not before the next morning. Waiting probably caused the other two deaths while still hiding. After I called them cowards and cursed and threatened them, I think they were as afraid of me as the Krall by then.”

“OK. Trust but verify,” agreed Dillon. “I’d have to agree that expecting an instant halt to the fighting would be hard to achieve, even if the blood thirsty bastards were ordered to quit on pain of losing a damned point after shooting one of us.”

“Thad, can you lead us up the easiest trail to the cave and ridges?”

They told the shuttle where they were going, and started up a worn trail on a hillside that merged with a sloping rock face. It wasn’t long before Mirikami was sweating heavily, despite the small cooling system of the armor. He also thought he probably had the beginnings of a fever.

Following a couple of switchbacks of the trail, they found themselves about six hundred feet higher than the shuttle, on a roughly thirty foot wide ledge and another rock face about a mile long and another five or six hundred feet high, before it curved out of view to the right, ahead of them.

Mirikami spotted several natural openings in the cliff, ranging from narrow crevices a few feet wide to some six feet or more that had considerable depth into dark shadows. There were a number of long vertical chimneys that could be used for climbing higher up, to what Thad said was the last ledge before reaching the top of the ridge line.

Mirikami was recording it all with his camera. He stepped into the openings to check their depths. There were a number of fallen large rocks on the terrace that could be used for shelter by a warrior trying to approach the places of concealment.

Then he turned towards the direction of the dome and could see its top clearly at about fifteen or so miles. He raised his left arm, two fingers extended and waited.

“Sir, you raised your left arm with two fingers raised.” He heard Jake clearly.

He turned with a grin to Dillon. “Look towards the dome, raise your right arm, and extend any number of fingers.”

“Doctor Dillon has raised his right arm with a single finger extended.” Jake sounded in Mirikami’s transducer. Then added, “I believe that gesture is still considered socially rude, Sir.”

Realizing he had forgotten to ask Jake to include Dillon in the Link, and he was too far away for transmission to the ship, Mirikami laughed and explained.

“Dillon, our crewman in the ship has been watching and I told him to observe us when we reached this ridge. I asked him to tell me when I signaled by raising my arm and fingers, what arm and how many fingers. He thinks your middle finger indicates bad manners.” Understanding what that had been about both of the other men laughed.

“I wanted to make certain the ship’s telescope and cameras could see us clearly, even though I confirmed that the ledge was visible days ago. The real test was confirming I could hear him with my implant. This might be useful if we can get some live surveillance of this area.”

Now fully aware of Mirikami’s focus on the high ground, Thad felt he needed to offer his advice. “Tet, if anyone backs into one of these shallow caves it’s true the Krall can’t get above or behind you, and you would have a clear line of fire to anyone trying to enter. But if you check the floors of each of these, you’ll find small scraps of armor where they simply blasted away until the people hiding in there were shredded.”

All Mirikami said was, “I expect so Thad. That’s why I think it’s a good idea to get them to come after whoever is in there shooting at them.”

“It’s a death trap in any of these small crevices,” Greeves repeated.

“Oh, I don’t doubt it. That’s why Dillon and I won’t be in there doing that shooting. But I want them to think that someone is.”

“Ah. Drawing them to where you want them?” Greeves asked.

“I hope so. I don’t want a shootout with them, so I don’t expect Dillon and me to be on this ledge at all.”

Looking up the hundreds of feet above, he asked, “How hard is get to get to the next terrace, and are there more caves and such up there?”

“The ledge there ranges from ten to twenty feet wide, and has another rock face about a hundred feet high. It runs almost the length of this lowest terrace, which continues at least a quarter mile beyond that curve ahead, before reaching the steep gorge, where the river cuts through.”

“Caves?” He repeated.

“A few small openings, but not as deep as these. There are more and larger caves along this level we haven’t seen yet, just around the curve. Two of those are real caves, with branching passages in side, and the two larger entrances link up about a hundred feet into the rock. There are caves on the other face of the ridge, but I don’t know if any connect to this side. The hillside over there overlooks the valley where the truck park is located.”

“It looked like it would be easier to reach the top of the ridge there.” Mirikami pointed up. “Climbing from that side with an easier slope.”

“It is, but in this gravity it’s still damned hard on a human, and a warrior can run up it like it’s a flat plain.” Greeves noted.

“So if they come by truck and park over there, instead of by shuttle, and there’s shooting over here, they run to the top of the ridge to get to the action on this side?” Mirikami asked.

“I’ve seen them reach the ridge top from my view at the dome, and they climb down to join any fighting over here. Unless there was someone in the caves on that side with a fresh scent to draw them there. You have to understand, once shooting starts anywhere, it doesn’t last very long. They swarm to the action and kill what they find.”

“Hmm. Then I don’t want anyone over there to distract them from getting here,” Mirikami mused, pulling his lip.

Graves was nodding his head. “It sounds like you are setting up an ambush for them over on this side.

“I’ll tell you that this is what my two men and I did, but we only revealed ourselves to one warrior to draw him to us, and we waited and focused our fire to take him down quickly.

“If successful we were going duck into those two larger caves around the bend for cover, and hope to ride out any attack until the hunt was ended by his death. That is what I was barely able to do, and it still required the sacrifice of my friend’s corpse to draw them away from me for long enough.”

Greeves shrugged. “Tet, I’ll grant you have smarts, and an ability to make complex plans. However, a complex plan falls apart the moment the enemy doesn’t do what you expect. My men and I were trained as soldiers on the Rim, where we had ample places to train without Hub government interference. With three of us working with a simple plan and one Krall after us, we were two thirds of a near failure.” He shook his head.

“You and Dillon have never trained as soldiers, and have just started getting your Koban legs under you. It sounds like your plan is to draw as many of them to you as possible, with your goal to be somewhere else when they converge, probably hoping to blow some of them up with a mine. I like you both, I really do. But I’m going to miss your company.”

“Thad, it’s not one complex plan, it’s several, and I’m counting on your advice to help me make the pieces of each more simple and predictable, so that at least one of them might work. I’ll give you my ideas, and I want you to help me make them better. We have two days to set this up.”

The three of them sat on rocks outside a cave, much like hunters of old, and discussed strategy for bagging the most dangerous of prey.

35. Loading the Dice

The shuttle made a brief stop near the edge of the forest to pick a few Death Limes, and headed back to land beside the Flight of Fancy. Both Dillon and Mirikami were definitely feeling feverish as they stepped out of the shuttle, proving the viruses were at work.

Dillon and Noreen carried the metal box with the fruit to the ship’s commissary while Mirikami and Thad carried a second box to the machine shop, and Maggi went to the lab to talk with Aldry.

“Bob, I have two projects for you, one is potentially dangerous for you,” Mirikami informed the machinist, placing the box on a table.

“Yes Sir? I hope it isn’t a big one since we are already hustling just to have the claymores you asked for this morning to be ready for tomorrow.”

Smiling in appreciation of the effort they were making for him, he clapped Bob on the shoulder and told him “I said dangerous, not big. I know you have plenty of the metal pellets and small scrap you’ve been putting into the claymores. Do you have something you could tumble them in, like a closed drum?”

Bob looked puzzled. “I’m sure I can rig something like that. I have a three-foot section of heavy eighteen-inch pipe I was saving to test as a large mortar tube, sometime down the road. One end is already capped. I could rig a cap to cover the other end and set it on a pair of rollers to spin the tube.”

He looked at his Captain, scratching his head. “You plan on polishing them Sir? I don’t have anything handy for suitable grit, but I might

”

Interrupting, Mirikami laughed. “Not polish Bob, I don’t need that and we wouldn’t have time anyway. I doubt we need more than thirty minutes per batch, and I think just enough filler for two of the mines is all we can manage.”

Then he explained the special handling required, and asked that two of their most reliable remote actuators be rigged to trigger the mines, with a trip wire as backup.

“OK Captain, that job won’t take long at all since we already have the claymore cases made. You say you have two projects?”

“Bob, after discussion with Thad, I have a simple but high priority manufacturing task that I need later today. I’m satisfied we have enough claymores and grenades for this Training Day, so put folks to work on making six large cylinders, Three feet wide by five and a half long, and half inch plastic might do. Thad here will give you some details since it was his idea, and he has the practical experience. Dillon will drop by after lunch to give you more specifications for wiring and electronics.”

Just then Maggi Linked and told him Aldry had ordered that he and Dillon needed to eat again, drink more of the “tasty” fluids, and take their supplements.

“With all due respect, Captain Reckless, get your butt up to Deck eight and eat right now. Noreen and I will watch you to make sure you both finish it all.”

“Aye, Aye Mam. Deck eight, dining room.” He meekly acquiesced, feeling more feverish.

“Well,” Thad winked at him, “you appear to have gotten some marching orders. Was it Aldry?”

“Indirectly. Maggi is the bullyboy in this case, ready to make me pay for laying down the law to her earlier this morning. A lot of spite in that little woman.” He grinned, shaking his head.

“I watched you pause and listen. You need to work on that tell, poker player. Telour might eventually figure out you’re listening to someone, and I know that’s one of your key secrets from him.”

“Good point, and while I have you here Thad, I want to offer you that same key to our secret com system. Willing to have an implant behind your ear, and give up a lot of privacy?”

“Oh goody, I get to join the club? Is there a secret handshake?” Greeves joked.

“In a manner of speaking there is sort of a secret handshake with our AI, and a com protocol to learn.” Mirikami informed him.

Telling Bob he’d be back to help him in an hour, he left with Mirikami.

As they walked towards the lifts, Greeves asked, “You don’t mean one of those simple AI’s you have in the couches or dining areas do you?”

“Nope, ours is a near top-of-the line JK series AI, and we naturally called him Jake because we had no imagination when Interworld received delivery of the new ship. He can be tedious, but a handy source of information. That was our ‘friend’ that talked to me out there on the ridge. He will be part of our surveillance source when we start our Testing Day.”

“I’m game.” Thad told him. “Pleased that you offered. Extracting some payback from the Krall, at a mere cost of privacy, is worth a great deal to me. Thank you. Does it take long?”

“About five minutes to insert, then a protocol briefing and some practice. Let me set it up while Dillon and I have to eat a pile of crud. Here’s a little demonstration of its use.”

“Link to Mister Rigson.” He waited a second before talking. “Mel, are you on the ship?”

“Yes Sir.” He replied promptly.

“Can you meet me in the Deck eight dining room, and escort Thad Greeves to the dispensary for one of our transducer implants?”

“I can be up there in about five or ten minutes Sir, after I dress. I’m in my quarters.”

“Fine, Mel. No rush. Mirikami Out.”

“Neat huh?” He looked at Greeves. “I probably caught him on the toilet or in the shower, so that’s part of what I meant about loss of privacy,” he explained.

“The other part is that Jake can, if requested by only me or Noreen, record everything that you say and hear, but only with your approval given first. If you request privacy from the AI, we cannot override that without Jake notifying you in advance. You can of course request that he record your conversations, things you say and hear. You’ll hear samples of him doing this this when you listen to the record how I set up the com protocol shortly after the Krall boarded us. Are you ready for this?”

“I don’t see why not. Is it reversible?” he asked.

“Oh absolutely. The device is barely the size of a grain of rice behind your ear, and it can be easily removed.”

“I still want a secret handshake,” he grinned, “but I’ll start with this.”

There ended up being quite a few people in the main dining room, so Dillon and Mirikami ate in a more private alcove off to one side. This was partly to avoid looks and questions concerning the types and amounts of food the two had to eat, and all the pills. It also permitted some private conversation.

Before they finished, Thad rejoined them, having first tested his new “toy” by asking for a Link to Dillon from the dispensary. Thad ordered a modest plate, but noticed that the two men were still working on the considerable remains of what had been an even larger meal.

Looking at Maggi and Noreen, who had half-finished simple sandwiches on their plates, he talked with them. Tet and Dillon kept their mouths full and chewing like it was a duty.

“Do those two always pack it in like this? They told me they ate a huge meal just before we went out in the shuttle. That was only four hours ago.”

He noticed Maggi and Noreen looked uncomfortable about answering, and looked to Mirikami for some reason. Approval?

Mirikami bobbed his head, and waved at them to indicate they should wait for him to swallow. After washing it down with a drink of grayish fluid that made him grimace, Mirikami looked around to see who might be siting close to their table.

“Thad, Dillon and I are on a special diet to feed our bodies extra nutrients that will help us build up a heat tolerance and boost our metabolism. This is to increase our ability to perform better on Testing Day. You already know about our Pep and Oxy pills, which lead to a physical crash in less than a day of heavy use. We are testing a method of bypassing the drugs. This is a longer term solution.”

“I should have figured with all your doctors and scientists you’d have some better ideas than popping pills. Is that why you both look flushed despite a cool room, and you both show sheens of perspiration?”

Damn, the guy’s observant, Mirikami thought. “Yes, it is. We’re each running a fever from the burst of absorption our bodies are being forced to endure.” He’d like to tell him the truth, but there were their own scientists that had not been informed of what they were trying to achieve genetically. In addition, it was criminal as hell everywhere in Human Space, bordering on Death Penalty serious. Of course, they weren’t actually in Human Space he thought, in a flash of irony.

“Dillon and I volunteered to be test subjects, and we can’t be sure if it will work. We don’t want it generally known because we don’t have resources do this for everyone.”

“I wish you success.” Was his only comment.

Maggi changed the subject. “Aldry had that thorn you gave us carefully studied. A spectral analysis and chemical breakdown shows that yellow wax coating is a potent neurotoxin of a different type than we can find in our very extensive reference library.

“We compared its effect on some cultured nerve cells of wolfbats that we killed and preserved from our first day here, and also on some skeeter bodies, and on one live skeeter we captured. The neurotoxin is very effective on both of their nervous systems, and interferes with the same basic neural pathway on the mammal analogue, and the insect analogue.

“The similarity of their two nervous systems indicates that there is an extremely ancient genetic link between these two very different creature’s biology and nervous systems. It probably reflects an early step in life here, and may be common in many life forms on Koban.

“We had previously determined that the nervous systems of wolfbats are almost impossibly efficient and fast at transmitting signals. They have organic superconductors connecting their brain to muscles at much higher than room temperature. We have superconductors at similar temperatures, but these are entirely manufactured and nonorganic. It explains their fast reactions, and low loss of energy controlling muscle movement. They can flap harder and longer for the same energy output in a heavier gravity that any animals we’ve ever studied.”

“The thorn’s neurotoxin is well tailored to suppress the superconductor ability, and slows or scrambles the wolfbat and skeeter nervous system signals. That probably causes them great pain. It severely represses a human’s nervous system, as we already knew, to where we can’t breathe or move and we would suffocate in great pain, unless our heart or brain is shut down first.

“Here’s the most interesting part. We have some limited samples of Krall blood, collected on the ship when they conducted mock combat exercises with one another. Even without samples of a Krall’s nervous system, we see some genetic parallels to Kobani animals that perhaps account for their own fast reaction times. They don’t have organic superconductor tissue, but we found a similar genetic structure where a relative few mutations might incorporate the heavier rare elements we found in the Kobani animals nerves.” She paused a moment, thinking.

“It’s possible that the thorn’s neurotoxin would have a similar effect on a Krall as it does on a wolfbat. It might not completely paralyze them, but it would probably slow them down dramatically and really hurt like hell.”

Thad said, “That matches with how carefully I’ve seen them behave around the Death Lime shrubs. They absolutely won’t touch them despite liking the fruit as much as we do.”

“Unfortunately, we can’t reproduce the toxin artificially. Not yet anyway.” She concluded.

“Well, when we can produce it we will,” said Mirikami. “We’ll make do with what we have now.”

“Speaking of what we have now,” Noreen added, “The relay transmitter is now near the top floor of the dome, so we have low power transmissions everywhere inside the dome for good Links to our AI friend and each other, and we can tie in some cameras for him if we want.”

“There’s second relay,” Dillon reminded them. “We don’t have the means to talk back to the ship by transducer from far out in the compound, not without using a standard radio. Can we use the relay out there on Testing Day?”

Mirikami squashed that notion. “We only have the one spare, and it would still stand out as a transmitter source out in the boonies. After all, it is a type of radio, so the Krall would probably find it the same as they can detect and home in on the com sets in armor. We can hear our friend from out there, and Telour already allows us to transmit from here, so all we lose is the ability to ask for information and Link back to the ship.

“Thad will teach us some simple hand signals to show to our friend if he can see us. I’ve also asked Thad to remotely monitor us out there, and help our friend make better decisions.”

“Tet, do you think the Krall will just stumble into your booby traps?” Maggi asked. “They have superb vision and those reflexes.”

“We are going to place a number of mechanically triggered devices where we hope they’ll hit them, but we have some special remotely triggered guns, mines, catapults and crossbows that we can set off when we have targets, or to serve as distractions.” He told them.

“And when I left the machine shop this afternoon, one new piece of under armor gear appears to be taking shape. Literally.” He gave them a sly smile.

“Remember the white Smart Fabric table cloths? They can be colored by slight burning via a tunable laser, to several shades of tan or deeper brown. The same lasers can cut them into pattern pieces, and melt the seams together to form an undergarment that is proof against stings from skeeters, and from the little kants that crawl into the armor. It will also resist punctures from bullet fragments that make it through the armor.”

Greeves hadn’t heard about this innovation. “Won’t it be hotter?” he asked?

“A little bit possibly, if you normally wore armor naked,” Mirikami acknowledged. “I believe you have some clothing on under you armor now, right?”

Thad nodded.

“Like clothing made from the more stylish stuff, it’s designed to allow perspiration to pass through, and for air exchange. I don’t feel any more uncomfortable in my best Smart Fabric uniform than in my utility clothes when I’m outside. We all wear something under the armor to prevent chaffing. I’ll just wear my underwear and a well-shaped table cloth.”

“How many sets can we have before Testing Day?” Even Dillon hadn’t heard about this surprise.

“The slow part was treating all the surface of the fabric to darken it by mild laser burning without weakening its strength. Chief Haveram spent a lot of time working out the technique. Our AI friend can now calculate a custom pattern for each of the eighteen of us going out, and operate as the laser control tailor when the pattern pieces are joined. If we bring the whole team over to the ship, everyone will get a suit of long underwear while they wait.”

“Are there any more surprises I’d like to know about Sir?” Dillon smiled.

“I hope so.” He replied. “Hold on while I check. Link all of us here to Mister Branson.” He told Jake.

“Cal, what did you learn about the Katusha’s?”

“Oh. Excuse me Sir, I was just running a range test on five people.” He answered. They heard him dismiss whomever he had been working with.

“Captain, these gadgets have a fixed range of just over one hundred twenty feet, no matter what you place between the device and a person with a tattoo you’re searching for. The detection is as strong through air as through metal or plastic, it even saw through the fusion bottle’s magnetic confinement field.” He sounded awed.

“None of our scientists have any real clue how they might work, but were all quick to remind me that they specialized in biology, not physics.

“Whatever is embedded in our tattoos, these gadgets detect it every time. One person or five of them, the intensity of the detection light when aimed at a tattoo, or a group of them, is always the same based only on the range, and how well aligned the device is. It’s like there’s an invisible beam, or something, that sees a tattoo through anything.

“At a hundred thirty feet you have no signal. At just over one hundred twenty feet, a dim light appears if pointed directly at a tattoo. It brightens steadily as you get closer, or if you aim more directly at the target. I tested on a Krall on the other side of a wall in the dome and it worked the same as it did on the ship using our people.

“The width of the detection zone seems to be almost a cone that is about fifteen degrees wide and twenty degrees tall. That’s about the same ratio of the oval mouth of the thing and the tattoos it gave us. Aside from looking for those lottery cheats, what do you think we can do with them before we have to give them back?”

“Nice report Cal. I’m thinking we may use a couple to watch for Krall sneaking up on us on Testing Day. But I really don’t want any Krall getting that close to us, so I can’t say for sure how useful they might be.”

“By the way, what did that female K’Tal look like when she gave those to you?”

“Huh? That was a female? It looked exactly like any Krall I’ve seen.” He paused briefly as he thought back. “But it had a more filled in tattoo than a novice, and it was a bit smaller than the other black clad warriors that returned with Telour. It also spoke a few words of Standard, and sounded as deep and growly as any male voice I’ve heard.”

“I guess only her mother would know,” Dillon cracked.

“Know what?” Cal asked.

“Never mind Cal.” Mirikami wanted to keep things on track. “I think you can take those things over to the dome now to seek out those hidden rats, but keep them in the hands of our people. I also don’t want any of us getting into a shooting match if they are located with those. We are not the aggrieved people, so allow the Primes to take their own vengeance. Mirikami Out.”

Turning to Maggi and Noreen, he asked, “I want you two to locate the sixteen people on the list and tell them about the protective under garments we can give them. Send them over when they are ready for a fitting.”

“Yes Sir!” Maggi saluted. “But Captain Reckless had better finish that now cold meal still lingering on his plate,” she warned.

Dutifully filling a fork and looking to his fellow lab rat, Mirikami winked. “Dillon, I begin to see why you are constantly sparring with this relentless woman.”

“At a minimum I recommend you get a cup Sir.” was his muttered reply.

That earned him an affectionate hard smack on the back of his head as Maggi stood to leave, causing Dillon to jab a lip with his fork.

“And a helmet.” He added.

Later, trying on the under armor garments, the fit was uncomfortably snug with the heavy meal they had just completed.

“Our tailor may need to let these out,” Dillon commented. “Many more of those meals and I won’t fit in my armor either. These feel warmer than I expected, despite what you said earlier. But I think that’s the fever causing that. I don’t know about you, Sir, but I not only don’t feel heat adapted, but I could use a nap. If our metabolism is revving up, I sure don’t feel it yet.”

“Patience Doctor. You’re the scientist, and certainly heard Aldry tell us we had perhaps thirty six hours before the effects could be felt. But the fever makes me drowsy too.”

They sensed commotion behind them, and heard Maggi’s voice. “Go through the door to your left, the scanner measurements have been used to cut the garment pieces, and it only takes a few minutes to assemble them for a fitting.”

“Captain Mirikami!” exclaimed Deanna Turner happily, as she caught sight of the men. “I see you are here to model for us. Very stylish.” She giggled.

The mottled brown and tan garments covered them from toes to neck, like dirty child’s pajamas with feet.

“Deanna, I’m delighted to see you

, and how many came with you?” He looked past her as people kept streaming into the former wardroom turned to fitting and assembly room.

“We have all sixteen Captain,” Answered Noreen, as she and Maggi brought up the rear of the group.

“Excellent. I’m sure you were told about the benefits of these finely made, beautifully colored, reasonably priced free body suits.” He grinned back at the group of men and women, some looking doubtful.

“We were told they could help protect us.” Deanna was acting as spokesfem for the group. “But none of us could ever afford Smart clothes. We’re nearly all from the Rim where fancy is too pricey. Pretty those are not, but Noreen say’s they’re also tough. Can we please see that demonstrated?”

“As a matter of fact Dillon and I had the same concern. In the corner,” Mirikami pointed, “is a plastic tailor’s dummy from our uniform stores. It has a homemade body protector like mine covering the torso. There are a couple of sharp knives and a short sword on a table next to it. Feel free to abuse the dummy with those.”

All of them took a turn whacking and stabbing the dummy, and every one of them failed to cut or penetrate the fabric. One man, of the five that had not applied to volunteer to work with the “Fancies,” ran the dummy and thrust with his full weight behind the short sword. He didn’t cut through the fabric but managed to knock over the dummy and bloody his nose on the wall as he tripped.

Deanna, barely suppressing a laugh asked, “Ben, are you OK? The dummy looks fine, and at least it doesn’t have a scratch.”

Grumbling and embarrassed, Ben climbed to his feet and walked back to the others. “Alright, it won’t let a blade pass, which means it will stop skeeters and kants. Even a Krall probably can’t stab us through that crap. But they don’t need to stab us if they can simply blow a hole in us.”

Without warning, he whirled and pulled his pistol to fire point blank at the prone dummy. The WHOOSH-BLAM startled them all in the enclosed space. The dummy slammed back into the wall and rebounded.

Lunging at his gun hand as he appeared about to fire again, Mirikami shouted, “Stop you idiot! A ricochet might kill someone.”

“Oh, Sorry,” the man said, allowing Mirikami to push his hand down. “I didn’t think about that.”

“Ben, that was stupid.” Deanna said, accompanied by angry remarks from the others.

Dillon picked up the dummy. “There’s no hole.” Walking to the corner, he picked up a flattened soft nose slug from the floor.

“Wow.” That came from a man who had identified himself as Cody Masters. “Those suits are bullet proof?”

“Don’t get too excited. Dillon, raise the fabric and check underneath.”

There was a deep indentation and cracked plastic where the slug had hit.

“That’s what I figured. You might survive, but not unscathed from deep bruising or broken bones. And that was not an explosive or armor penetrating round.”

“I apologize again, Captain.” Ben looked sheepish. “I know you promised to help us, and this will. But it isn’t enough to save us.” Now he sounded dejected.

“Ben, this is only a defensive item,” admitted Mirikami. “It’s intended to help keep you alive longer and give you a chance to go on the offense. If any one of us kills a single Krall, it can save all of our lives.

“Get fitted for a suit here, and then I’ll escort you through our dirty tricks department. We may have some things you will want to use.”

By the time he had given them a tour of the explosives, grenades, mines, remote booby-trap triggers, quiet cross bows, pneumatic dart shooters, and a couple of one shot mortar tubes, they were much less depressed as a group.

Next, he sat with them to spell out some of what he and Dillon were planning, and offered them a part in working with them. Alternatively, they could take the weapons offered and defend themselves on some completely different terrain. He was a bit disappointed but not terribly surprised when a dozen men and women chose to stay well away from the ridge, where Mirikami intended to draw the Krall. Six of them didn’t even to say where they intended to go, but asked if they could have some grenades and mines.

Deanna and three other volunteers agreed to participate in the Captain’s schemes, and stayed behind when the others left to put in more practice time on the firing range.

Mirikami sent Thad and Dillon to check on the two last minute projects while he taught his combat volunteers how the various devices worked and what they could do. That occupied a couple of hours. He told them about Thad’s new proposal for concealment, which he admitted was risky, but probably less so than how Mirikami had previously intended to wait for and ambush the Krall. They were willing to take the risk with him, they said.

Mirikami joined Thad and Dillon in the machine shop in late afternoon, working out details of the final innovations they had planned. It was well into the evening when Aldry Linked in and raised hell again. She scolded Mirikami and Dillon for not sticking to the dinner schedule of one final large meal for the two men. Maggi confessed to having gotten so involved in the planning that she forgot the time.

“Gentle Men,” she reminded them, “This is the last high protein meal and nasty drinks you have to endure. Then an early night of drug induced sleep while your temperatures peak and the alterations really start to activate. You have to have that meal digesting or else you will steal the fuel and resources from your other tissues.”

“Yes Mam.” Mirikami replied. “I’m headed to the dining room now, with Dillon. Then we will go to our quarters to sleep. I feel like hell anyway, and I think I have something wrong with my nose or sinuses. It keeps dripping, and I’ve sneezed several times.”

“Congratulations, you probably have the first head cold in your life.” Aldry told him. “By morning or noon tomorrow your suppression drugs will have been excreted; assuming you keep your fluid intake up. Then your immune system should fight that cold off in short order. By day after tomorrow, on Testing Day, you should be feeling more energetic and more comfortable in the heat outside.”

Maggi pushed them, literally, off to the dining room where she had Chief Steward Walters setting their table in the same alcove.

They were struggling to put it all down when the Captain got a breathless Link from Cal Branson. When Mirikami heard what it was about, he asked him to hold, and then had Jake include everyone at the table.

“Sorry Cal, I brought more people in on the Link with us. Start again please.”

“We found Carltron and Blythe. The Katusha’s spotted two signatures under the flooring of the firing range, on the right side where the movable targets are located. I’m told this range was built for the Krall’s youngest novices when the Maldo clan lived here. There’s five to ten feet of space under the artificial terrain and fake hills and boulders.”

“How can you be sure it’s them?” Mirikami asked.

“Oh, we didn’t know at first Sir, just that there were definitely two separate signatures down there, and using a process of elimination of who it could be. There was a concealed access door that is apparently locked from the inside, set in the floor behind one of the boulders and covered in artificial Kobani grass.” He explained.

“But there’s no doubt now that it’s them. When the Primes tried to pry up the door, the Blythe woman called up to them and tried to make a deal before opening the door for them. Claims she was forced to keep Carltron’s secret and to have sex with him or be sent out for Testing. She confirmed that he had been taught how to use the computer by a K’Tal, and their second one shared the other one’s data base.”

“Did the Primes make a deal with her?” Mirikami asked.

“No. Carltron apparently woke up when he heard Blythe shouting through the heavy door. He claims the woman entered all ten of the names to be selected at one time, just out of spite because they could go live on the ship and she couldn’t. His defense is that he would never have done that because it was too stupid. It would reveal their secret.”

“Ha!” Maggi exclaimed. “That part rings of the truth. He was careful to keep the secret for at least four years, and if Blythe had entered just one or two names this time, it wouldn’t have been noticed. It makes more sense that Blythe might have done the deed.”

“Well,” Cal said, “It doesn’t matter now. None of the Primes will let either of them see another sunrise if they can get to them. Their problem is that the door was designed to withstand Krall training, which was never as tame as the target shooting we do, in neat lanes using frangible rounds.”

“I understand Cal, but the Flight of Fancy complement is out of it now.” Mirikami instructed. “You found them; now let the injured parties resolve this on their own. It’s a grudge to settle, and it will get violent.

“Please keep all of our people back a safe distance and let us know what happens. However, I want the four Katusha’s back on the ship for study and in our safe care now. I have a use for them in two days, but I need to turn in early so I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Yes Sir. Branson Out.”

The next day they learned the Primes had used maintenance shop torches to cut the hinges on the access door. Then at least a hundred of them took turns firing buckshot rounds by the thousands through the narrow crack for a couple of hours. The shots ricocheted around in the confined space. At first, there was heavy return fire, but that died away after ten minutes. Finally, the riddled and mangled bodies were found and tossed outside for the kants and wolfbats to pick clean.

36. Crap Shoot

Mirikami and Dillon were still feeling some effects of their fevers, but less that the day before, were grateful to have a normal portioned breakfast. While eating, Mirikami ordered the first of the weapons Bob and Neri had made for him stored in the shuttle cargo area. They planned multiple trips today, setting up as warm a reception for the Krall tomorrow as possible.

Accompanied by the four volunteers that would work with Mirikami and Dillon, Thad with Jorl’sn as pilot, flew out to the truck park area, leaving some “presents.”

Next, the shuttle hovered at the top of the ridge, then at each terrace as they unloaded material and someone to work with that. The last place they landed was at the most frequent Krall shuttle parking area. They were counting on the Krall following what had become a pattern of behavior.

The six combatants and Thad stayed behind to set up their four additional locations, while Jorl’sn flew the shuttle back to the ship to ferry out what had become three separate small teams.

The three trips for the other dozen selectees landed them in the different locations where they had decided to make their stands. They were given the additional equipment they had decided they could use. Most of them had their hopes pinned on actions at the Ridge to save them all, but naturally formed a backup plan of their own if that failed.

The machinists, Bob and Neri, spent some time with the other three groups to explain how to set up and trigger the mines, and with use of dummy grenades how to arm and throw those, and the count of five before they would explode. After that, he left them to decide how to set up their own positions.

Tomorrow morning the humans would all be ordered out of the dome by Telour’s warriors shortly after daybreak. The humans would be free to travel by any means they chose, on foot, by truck, or by halftrack to where they would fight. Having the use of a shuttle was a first for them, and gave them additional time to get ready without having to spend the night outside.

The Krall shuttle would arrive in late morning, following a flight from their main compound. The warriors, if novices, normally embarked in trucks or halftracks right away, selecting which area they wanted to search first by scent trail.

Mirikami decided to give them a good scent trail in the morning. He spoke to Thad, who agreed to help. He Linked to Noreen, whom he knew was in the dome observing them at work on the ridge.

“Noreen, I want you to ask for donations of old dirty clothes from five or six particularly grimy looking Primes. Some of the former miners don’t appear to be clean freaks. Offer them clothing items from the ship in exchange. I want their unwashed clothes.”

“Alright Sir.” She sounded unsure of the request.

“Hold onto them and pass them over to Thad when he comes in today. In the morning, he’ll drive a truck out here with those clothes dragging from a rope in back, leaving a scent trail for the Krall to follow, and then fly back with Roni. Put them in a closed bag to hold their ripeness overnight.”

Noreen sounded relieved once she understood the purpose. “I was afraid you were going to wear them for moment,” she laughed.

“No. I don’t want their odors anywhere near us,” Mirikami chuckled in return.

Aware that the more experienced warriors usually flew out in their shuttle to land where aerial observation suggested would be the best place to start the hunt, he arranged for a second truck to be driven today to the base of the ridge. He had it “hidden” behind some large rocks. Parked trucks or fresh footprints were clues, of course, and implied the fastest and most efficient location to earn points.

Unlike a simple one-point kill of an unarmed human, the hunt allowed more points for prey that fought back, particularly if they fought smart and well, or were difficult to locate. The outcome was never in doubt, merely the length of time it took and the number of points to be earned by individual warriors.

By late afternoon, both Dillon and Mirikami were fever free, and finding that the day didn’t feel as oppressively hot as usual, and they had a feeling of energy that didn’t wane as they worked in the higher gravity, staying more or less constant through the day. The mods were apparently starting to work.

They placed their mines and remote activated equipment at widely spread locations along the terraces and ridge top, and spent much of the day carefully arming and aiming devices, and concealing most of them. A few devices were intended to be seen.

Dillon, in a flash of inspiration caused by the “pressures” of the previous day’s food and drink excesses, defecated and peed just inside a dark crevice, asking Frank Constansi, one of the volunteers, to watch for skeeters and wolfbats. He expected that smell would draw in a Krall for sure. He was being very careful to watch out for threats.

He wasn’t careful enough. Maggi was also watching from the dome, using one of several fiber optic video monitors installed for that purpose. She asked Jake to shift to infrared on one telephoto lens, to see into the shadow of the slightly cooler crevasse.

On an open channel, everyone on the team of six heard Maggi. “I hope you took some toilet paper Dillon. You might chafe your bottom out there in the heat.”

She enjoyed the startled look on his face as he backed deeper into the opening, tripping over his removed lower armor. Frank’s laughter was obvious as he turned to look towards the dome and doubled over, hands on knees.

Out of range with his transducer, he was helpless to send back an instant retort, even if he had one ready. He’d have to use the helmet com, and his helmet was off for the moment.

She loved that boy like her own and was terrified that he might die tomorrow. However, if she didn’t pick on him, he might realize just how worried she was. She couldn’t allow that thought to undermine his confidence.

Mirikami chuckled and shook his head. He couldn’t see Dillon up on the highest terrace, but the context was obvious. In fact, it sounded like a good attractant. He emptied his own suit’s urine collector in a long trail from near where the shuttle might land to the other side of the huge boulder. He looked overhead as he did this, seeing more wolfbats today than yesterday.

The wolfbats were smart enough to recognize the preparations, and had been circling high overhead all morning. From the direction of the woods, they had heard a couple of shots, with bats flapping up as dots into the sky from miles away.

Since communications security wasn’t an issue today, Mirikami asked the woods team what had happened using the helmet com set. It was simply a case of wolfbats getting too close for comfort in the treetops, and one of the people had taken couple of shots, but missed.

Selecting Thad’s channel, Mirikami asked, “Thad, you mentioned that the birds and squirrels in the forest can give you away. What about the wolfbats?”

Greeves answered, “In the woods a bat isn’t always obvious to us if they sit hidden in a tree. But you can bet the birds, squirrels and small animals know they are there. It will probably keep those creatures quieter, since the bats hunt them. It’s probably best if they see them to just leave them alone.”

“Are you willing to tell them that Thad? Or would you rather it came from me? I know you aren’t happy with them.”

“Ah crap. I’ll talk to them Tet,” he relented. “I have a few other tips I can pass along. They could bait their back trail with seeds or berries that’s hard to get into, say in tightly wrapped packages or boxes with small holes. The birds and squirrels that sort of food would attract will make a loud ruckus they could hear if a Krall passes close by.”

“Thanks Thad. Divide and conquer may benefit us too if the Krall split their forces. I wish them luck if they get a kill. What about the wolfbats over us? Will that give us away?”

“I don’t really think so. I noticed they circle even higher when Krall are around because they take well aimed pot shots at them. The bats generally orbit over the entire combat area, not knowing where the next meal will be. A Krall always leaves a body for the scavengers, and the bats know this. You might actually use them yourself as they follow warriors.”

Thanking him, Mirikami resumed work on his two “special” traps.

Up on the ridge they made certain Jake notified them when they were in clear sight as they set their devices, raising an arm as a signal. They signaled with the number of fingers when they set a remote activated trigger, and set that as the activation code.

Then they made additional preparations in an area where they sincerely hoped the Krall would not think to look first. They had made careful plans to ensure Krall attention would be focused elsewhere.

Later in the day, using their helmet radios, the shuttle made a circuit of the woods, marsh, and river canyon, calling out and retrieving the three other teams.

Thad was quietly disdainful of the three smaller groups as they returned to the Flight of Fancy for debriefing; quiet only because Mirikami had asked that he be so.

He was angry because the other dozen selectees not only hadn’t chosen to cooperate with Dillon and Mirikami, but also had farther fragmented into teams of three, four, and five people. He thought this weakened their overall chances of a quick sure kill by not combining greater firepower. You won that day’s war if you killed a single enemy.

Five people, the remaining four Flight of Fancy volunteers and the companion of one of them, had elected to fight in the woods. They were planning to set mines along their back trail if the Krall tracked them by scent. They also had taken as many grenades as they could attach to their armor, along with two pistols each, rifles, and extra ammunition stores placed at several fall back locations.

Three people had chosen to enter the marshlands, to take advantage of the protection of the Smart Fabric body suits, and the fact that this hard to defend territory was normally ignored by the Krall in initial searching.

They intended to dig in, submerged in water up to their necks, protected from the irritations of swamp insects, and bites from leeches and crabs. There were fifteen-foot eel-like creatures that passed for snakes there, but they rarely were a threat to humans armed with guns. They had taken machetes for those, to maintain a quiet defense.

They had asked for gloves and hoods to be made, which left only their faces uncovered, and the helmets would protect those. They too had grenades and three claymores they could trigger remotely. They had made small flotation platforms to hold spare ammunition and their remotes, which they would conceal beneath pulled-up marsh grass.

The other four had elected to use removable ropes to rappel down the canyon walls from the ridge tops, two people on each side, to reach a matching pair of hard to reach caves. The caves had formed when a softer layer of rock had eroded away over thousands of years, as the river had cut its way down through the harder rock of the uplifting future ridge.

The slit-like entrances now were about two hundred feet higher than the swifter flowing river below, and several hundred feet from the top. The two sixty foot wide crevices, four feet high and forty to fifty feet deep, could each provide cover of the opposite side cave for mutual support. The claymore mine each person carried down would help defend the entrance if a Krall tried to enter. Their plan was frankly to let the two better equipped and more aggressive ridge and woods teams score a kill, or at least draw the Krall’s attention while they waited out the day and night in a secure hard to search location.

The shuttle would make at least four or five trips the next morning, starting at first light. It would drop off the four groups with additional supplies, and take whatever else they decided was needed at the last minute.

The general attitude in the dome was that this was the best-prepared set of fighters to go out in years. There was a guarded sense of optimism that some of these selectees might make it back with immunity, entirely because of the more aggressive attitude fostered by Mirikami and Dillon, and due to the defensive surprises that the Krall had yet to experience.

It was ironic that a few people were heard to say that once the Krall shared briefings of the combat techniques the human’s used this time, that later teams would have less of a surprise advantage. It might have been better to take their chances this time.

However, that was based on a completely unproven ability to lure the Krall into fatal mistakes. No one knew how practical and effective homemade explosives and weapons would be against a seemingly invulnerable enemy. No one actually offered to swap places.

The Koban Committee gathered for a private dinner that evening. They were served their food in a small conference room where they could ensure privacy. Chief Steward Nory Walters was the last server to leave, closing the double doors as he left. Every Steward had been granted the honor of carrying a dish or drinks to a meal for only five people. They each had offered well wishes and good luck to the Captain and Doctor Martin.

Noreen stood to offer a toast to her friend and Captain, and to her lover and friend Dillon.

“Gentle Men,” she looked fondly at them both. “May you be not so gentle on the morrow? Give the Krall Hell.” Her eyes glistened and her throat felt constricted. She found it too difficult to speak, so she simply raised her Champaign glass as Maggi and Aldry rose and raised theirs as well.

Afterwards, their glasses drained, Dillon was ready to ask for a refill but looked at Aldry as if for approval. “Uh, I certainly don’t plan to have a hangover tomorrow, but is alcohol really safe in our present mid transition status?”

Aldry poured his glass full, saying, “Dillon, you might never really feel intoxicated again, with your new metabolism. Not without large amounts of alcohol poured down your throat. You will metabolize liquor too fast to get very drunk. Even at the seventy percent level your mods have probably reached so far.”

“Huh,” he grunted. “You didn’t explain that little detail. I don’t know if I want to face the rest of my life here permanently sober.” He grinned to show he wasn’t serious.

Aldry elaborated. “There will be some consolation effects that you, in particular, might appreciate.” She smiled wickedly. “Sexual endurance will increase, and the tissue changes that accompany the genetically enhanced heat tolerance tend to make certain, shall we say ‘delicate’ surface areas more sensitive and responsive to their environment. There’s more than one way to become intoxicated.”

Noreen gave him a look, a clear indication of scientific testing to be conducted later that night.

Mirikami, however, was a little uncomfortable at the turn of the discussion, so he diverted it back on topic. “Will our mods be offered to others of our people, now that they appear to work just as the records indicated they would?”

“Tet, the tissue samples I took from each of you when you flew back an hour ago were sequenced and scanned. You, probably due to a lower body mass, showed almost seventy five percent of your cells expressing the metabolism mod, and seventy four percent the heat adaptation mod. That percentage will increase at a steady rate for the next week until you could even pass the traits along to future offspring.

“Dillon, you are only a percentage point or two behind Tet, mainly due to your greater body mass. We had to infiltrate and convert a lot more cells and tissue with our viruses. However, you are younger and more athletic and you get more exercise, so I think your genetic conversion will be complete in perhaps less than a week.

“How soon can we apply the next two mods?” Dillon asked.

“You mean strength and endurance,” supplied Aldry. “I’d recommend a few weeks to allow what you have started to fully propagate through your bodies.”

Then the fact that they had shifted to future planning sank into their minds. There needed to be a future for Mirikami and Dillon beyond tomorrow for them to participate.

Taking the bull by the horns, Mirikami forced them to face the immediate prospects. “Ladies, no matter what the outcome is tomorrow, there is more at stake than the lives of Dillon or myself, or the entire combat team we have joined.”

He knew it wasn’t necessary, but he reminded then anyway. “The human race needs time, hundreds of years or more, and those of us on Koban are the only ones that have a chance of giving that to them, even if they never learn what we did.

“Tomorrow is but a single step, successful or not. There will have to be other steps after that, and you at this table will be part of those steps. However, those steps must be taken. You have to make it happen at any cost. I repeat, at any cost! Do you understand, do you promise to do this?”

He pointedly looked at each of them, and waited until he saw agreement in each of their faces as they nodded, and stated their acceptance.

“Now, this has turned far too somber, so why don’t we eat, drink, and be merry.” He declared.

Only Maggi, with her interest in twentieth century flat screen films recalled the rest of that ancient biblical derived expression. For tomorrow we die, which she kept to herself.

An hour before sunrise, Mirikami was dressed and had finished a surprisingly sizeable breakfast for him. His metabolism boost was demanding more calories.

Thad had Linked to say he was on his way to the valley truck park, dragging smelly clothes behind him in the dirt, claiming he needed a longer rope because even he could smell them. He’d taken a truck from the south garage, to make sure several trucks and halftracks were ready at the east, and north sides, to encourage Krall novices to take those.

He had left two scent trails from the north and east garages, towards the dirt track leading towards the valley.

Dillon met him outside by the shuttle, just before sunrise, talking with Roni Jorl’sn. Deanna Turner, Frank Constansi, Clarice Femfreid, and Juan Wittgenstein were there as well, all carrying their armor, but dressed in their body suits. They were the members of what everyone was now calling Mirikami’s Team.

Maggi, Noreen, and Aldry came down the hold ramp together and walked up to the group, shaking hands and wishing each of them good luck. Back at the hatch, Mirikami saw that it was crowded with his crewmembers and a lot of early rising passengers. They waved when they saw him look their way.

He was already in his armor, carrying his helmet, with two pistols at his hip but no rifle. He had three remotes securely fastened to his chest, and ammo was secured to a waist belt and a cross-chest belt. There was also a Katusha on his belt. If a Krall got close enough for that to work and knew where he was, things would have gone very wrong.

Noreen gave Dillon a lingering kiss, but a hug would have been awkward with his hanging pistols, grenades, remotes, ammo belts, Katusha, and a rifle. Besides, they had conducted a final “scientific experiment” an hour ago to “test” Dillon’s readiness for the day’s activities. He passed with flying colors, though Noreen was ready for a second shower to cool back down. She wanted her own mods now, just to keep up.

Maggi and Aldry both shook hands again with Tet, and Maggi made Dillon bend down to where she could give him a kiss on the cheek, placing her small hands on each side of his face. She was misty eyed as she turned away.

For once, even as protected as he was in armor, Dillon resisted the impulse to wisecrack to his mentor. Besides, she might have explosive shells loaded today. He’d noted she was wearing a standard Krall pistol plus her Jazzer.

The morning was already warm, but the sky was heavily clouded, suggesting it might be cooler than usual and the day might produce a shower or two. It wasn’t the rainy season, but that time wasn’t too far in the future.

Thad Linked to Mirikami. “Tet, I just parked the truck in some trees slightly past the Krall’s usual sheltered parking area. I’m dragging the tattered clothes up the slope to the first cave, where I’ll throw them in the back. I’ll leave a trip wire rigged halfway in, with enough plastic near the roof to bring the hillside down. Kindly pick me up so I don’t have to walk to the top.”

“We’ll be loading up and starting out in a few minutes Thad. We should be there probably before you finish your booby trap. Mirikami Out.”

He faced “his” team, though he didn’t like it being referred to that way. “Gracious Ladies, and Gentle Men, I think we are ready to make some history. We’ll pick up Thad on the way then check out the ridge top and terraces before setting down below the ridge. After that Ms. Jorl’sn will be ferrying out the other three teams to their selected spots.”

He looked at Roni. “I understand that the canyon team has asked if you can save them the climb down with ropes, and hover so they can step out through the cargo stowage hatch. Is that still their request?”

“Yes Sir. If the winds are low this morning I can probably hover close to the rock face, or else I’ll set them on the top of the ridge as we originally planned. They have pitons already in place for the ropes if they need to climb down.”

“Fine, accommodate them if possible, but don’t risk half our shuttle ‘fleet’ and your neck in particular. I never asked them how they were going to climb out if they made it through to the next day. I know nothing about climbing, so they must have a way.”

Raising his voice to catch everyone’s attention, Mirikami called for them all to climb aboard through the storage hatch. All of their equipment was already in place on or near the cliffs.

Mirikami was the last to board. He saluted his ship and crew, and was surprised to see people coming out from under the dome’s overhang. They waved, and he waved back. It wasn’t a cheering situation, but obviously, they wanted Mirikami’s ideas to work, since some of them might be going next.

The hatch sealed and everyone selected a seat, though this time Mirikami took the copilot’s seat. It wasn’t until he sat down that he realized how much more comfortable he felt moving around in his armor this morning, and his overall feeling of energy and anticipation made him feel alive and confident.

The shuttle lifted smoothly and climbed away from the ship. They were over the valley in five minutes, and could barely see the truck under the trees, which was what they intended. It shouldn’t look too obvious they had been there, but they wanted it seen. Up the hillside, Mirikami spotted one of the larger cave openings covered by brush.

“Thad, we’re here, are you about done?”

“Almost,” he replied quickly. “I’m hiding one of two trip lines I set. It’s possible they may just start shooting into the cave, but there’s a slight bend after you enter, so I’m hoping they come at least that far. I’ll be right out.”

They sat down to the side of the cave mouth, and he stepped out and trotted to the open hatch.

At the top of the ridge Thad, Dillon, and Deanna went to each of the charges there, removed the safeties, and verified the mechanical trip wires were still strung across the pathways through the brush. Both charges also had remote actuators.

They made the same checks on the next level down, with Frank, Dillon, and Juan, checking what they had set up there. Frank pointed to one narrow shadowy opening for Juan. “Stay out of there, that’s the famous shit cave you heard so much about.” They both laughed, and even Dillon was forced to smile. He made certain the remote actuator was working at that location before removing the safety.

Repeating the process on the lowest terrace, the shuttle landed in the protected clearing, behind the large boulder. The shuttle was half the size of a Krall shuttle, so it was completely hidden from view from most of the cliff side positions. However, there was a place along the lower terrace with a protruding outcrop of rock. That outcrop had a view of the gap between the shuttle and the huge boulder, and Mirikami had visited that yesterday.

Mirikami studied that outcrop again from the ground and nodded. Then they all moved to the other side of the boulder from the shuttle’s toxic exhaust. Mirikami gave permission to proceed, and she lifted away with Thad aboard, to return to the ship for the other teams.

Mirikami armed his special claymore, and reburied it in soft soil with brush over that.

Then the six of them trudged towards the cliffs, deliberately leaving clear footprints and scuffmarks until they reached a flat expanse of rock, then dirt again at the base of the rock face.

They walked to two of the clefts or chimneys where a climb up was possible to the first terrace, leaving footprints at the base. Dislodging some stones, they dropped them to lay on the surface, partially covering some of their fresh footprints, to suggest they fell as someone had climbed.

Next, they walked backwards along their trail until reaching the flat clear rock. There were now about a dozen set of tracks pointed roughly at and along the bottom of the cliffs, with suggestions that rocks had fallen when a climb up the clefts had taken place.

Now it was time to hide in plain sight. That part of the plan seemed too simple to work, perhaps making it the best part. They had about another ninety minutes before the Krall shuttle should arrive at the dome. It would be perhaps forty-five minutes before a final pass by their own shuttle, to verify they were hidden.

They only had a short walk from the cliffs, even if it was backwards.

37. The Hunters

Tyroldor was fresh from an interclan battle where Kimbo clan warriors had decimated two thousand forty eight Dolbrin clan warriors, leaving but a few hands of surviving breeders for their opponents. Both clans were young finger clans, just under a thousand years old, but Kimbo clan was a rising star because of their innovative tactics.

This had been their third straight interclan victory, where the previous victory was against one thousand twenty four of the Maldo finger clan on the original Raspani home world. Prior to that, in an even smaller action to display their new tactics, Kimbo clan had virtually eliminated two hundred fifty six Toboro clan warriors on a former Olt’kitapi colony world in this same sector.

That glorious benchmark battle had been negotiated to be an honor battle, “For the Path and clan,” fought to the death by equal sized groups with no quarter given or submission permitted.

Kimbo clan had now been invited by ancient Graka clan to bring an octet to Koban. They were asked to send two experienced warriors that had participated in each of the three previous victories, and the rest novices. Of course, Kimbo selected them well for this obvious showcase demonstration.

It was an honor even to visit Koban, the future Krall home world, and Graka was one of the great old clans that dated back nearly to the Olt’kitapi destruction.

Tyroldor was disappointed to learn that they would not test themselves against Graka warriors, where any victory against them would have status repercussions beyond its small scale. However, they were not told from what clan their opponents would come.

It was obvious that Graka wanted to learn about the hyper aggressive risky attacks the Kimbo warriors had innovated. Kimbo had relatively fewer breeders survive each of their battles, but those that did earned a disproportionate high number of status points. Tyroldor’s clan strongly believed in quality breeders over quantity, a position that Graka clan was said to favor.

There was the possibility of an alliance with Graka if Kimbo’s tactics produced more overall victories, despite greater warrior losses per battle. It wasn’t as if there were too few females for them to replace their losses by prolific mating.

The hand and a half of novices he brought were untested of course, but were older than most novices at their first combat test were. They were extremely well schooled in Kimbo’s slashing and ferocious frontal attacks, focused on inflicting maximum casualties on enemy warriors at their opponent’s strongholds, at any costs.

The strongest points were where the enemy’s best warriors would be posted, and by recklessly sacrificing well-trained novice fighters to reduce the enemy’s best fighters, the flanking attacks by more experienced warriors rolled up the enemy until they either submitted, or died. The few novices that survived those frontal attacks gained considerable status and valuable experience. They would be octet leaders for the next test.

Four tests ago Tyroldor had been a talented novice. Stepping down now to control a single octet seemed beneath his status, but the other experienced warrior placed under his command had also commanded four other octet leaders in their victory over Dolbrin clan. Tyroldor had earned more status than he had by virtue of some luck, and his aggressive use of his octets.

He was honored by his selection for this small action, clearly a demonstration to be observed by Graka clan. A prelude to something larger his clan leaders were certain. Perhaps they might earn an early role in fighting the new enemy that had been found.

The larger and more powerful clans traditionally reserved the early battles with a new species for their own training and testing. The rich grew richer in both status and experience.

Therefore, he was excited to learn after his octet landed that their fight would be against members of this new species called humans. His octet was to be permitted two different matching’s against them.

His initial briefing consisted mainly of images of what the enemy looked like, and their relative size compared to a Krall in recordings. They were obviously much smaller and certainly would be slower and weaker, but said to be intelligent and able to use basic weapons. In combat, the soft looking bipeds were shown wearing a sort of armor, clearly implying that they needed protection from even the lesser weapons being used.

His octet was to be limited to the same weapons these humans were given. A very detailed video of the compound’s terrain was furnished. This he shared with his octet, because every Krall had an inborn ability to memorize such details for a mission. Repetition was unnecessary.

After a day of training his novices at the only inhabited Krall compound on Koban, using the simple weapons allowed, they were ready for a shuttle flight to a former Maldo clan compound. Once there they would have an opportunity to see examples of what they would be hunting, and imprint how these animals smelled for tracking. He asked about human scents and edibility.

One Dorbo clan sub leader made a snorting remark that implied a human’s bad smell was only exceeded by their worse taste. Oh well, fine tasting races like the Raspani were rare.

The K’Tal pilot did not speak to them during the flight, and without side ports, there was little to see looking over his shoulder. He’d hoped they would see some of the legendary Kobani animals, but that would have to wait for their deployment.

Tyroldor spent the hours with his experienced warrior discussing how they would employ their standard tactic of a full out assault by the novices, once they had located the enemy. The two experienced warriors would stay back to flank and kill any survivors that escaped that initial attack, if any.

All they knew of the force they would meet was that four hands of enemy had been selected to face his octet, and that they might divide their forces into smaller units that would fight separately. This seemed to counter the claim that they were intelligent. Nevertheless, it only meant that they would have to track all of the units down, requiring more time.

The shuttle landed near the compound’s standard construction dome. As Tyroldor and his warriors stepped onto the tarmac, a strong animal odor reached their noses that they couldn’t identify. It was different from the background scents they had smelled at the other compound, which had been identified as native to Koban.

They were greeted by Telour, the Graka clan Translator placed in charge of the humans. He informed them that the smell they detected was human. Just then several armed humans appeared out of a large alien ship parked near the dome. They looked even smaller than Tyroldor expected. From their movements, it was apparent they were even less adapted to the higher than normal gravity than his recently arrived octet was.

Leaving the other warriors to size up the humans they could see and smell, Telour directed the octet leader to where several simple wheeled transports were parked, and one wheeled and tracked transport.

He was informed that these were available for his warriors, but the shuttle was reserved only for the two higher status warriors. He advised that a number of human combat teams had gone out earlier and would be waiting for them.

In Krall ultrasonic Tyroldor said, “Telour, you speak of combat teams, not octets. We were told that humans fight in odd size units.”

“Yes,” Telour answered, “These animals may choose to fight as individuals or in any size group as they decide, and might change their minds once combat is engaged. They are very unpredictable. Some may cooperate, or they may operate entirely alone.

Telour added, “Because you know little of our new enemy, I will tell you that the humans you face today have divided their forces.” He could also have mentioned that they had prepared surprises by making some of their own weapons, but let the Kimbo warriors adjust as they learned this. If any died, it benefited his plan.

“There are preferred locations where humans have chosen to fight us through nearly five Koban years, as we learned about them. Of course you have seen the terrain inside the compound walls. They are not stupid, so will not face the native life to leave the compound. Like us, they see advantages in certain places to hide and fight, and they have had time to learn where those places are. Use your instincts to think of those places, and plan your movements to increase your opportunities of finding them quickly.”

“There are many places they can hide. But why do they not attack?” Tyroldor asked.

“Because we are so much better at fighting that they attack only from ambush or when they must fight once you find where they are hiding. You have but one full Koban day to complete your mission, so you must find and kill as many of them as possible in that time. Do not permit them to submit, kill any that you find. This ensures they always fight as hard as they can.”

“We will find them all if they each smell as strong as those here. Can they smell our warriors as well?” he asked.

“That is more than I will tell you. You must learn of their ways as other octets have, in combat,” was all he would say.

“I can fly the shuttle I was told.”

“Yes.”

“I will scout with that to cover the larger area, but I believe an enemy would chose the high ground or forest as most defensible. They have use of these same transports?” he gestured to the parked vehicles.

He watched for any reaction from Telour that might provide a clue, but he saw nothing.

“Yes,” was all Telour said.

“Then I need to start our hunt.” He was about to turn away when Telour’s voice brought him to a halt.

“These humans have an honor agreement with the joint clans that if they kill even one of your warriors, the hunt is over. If any human survives to the next morning after the hunt ends, they are also allowed to live.”

“If I lose even a novice, our hunt ends?” he asked incredulously. This sounded like a deliberate effort to blunt Kimbo clan’s successful attack strategy.

“It was agreed by clan leaders long ago.” This took the matter out of any possible discussion. “However the humans are not effective fighters, being slow and weak. To them we are very difficult to kill. Until you personally verify a warrior has truly died from their action, the hunt continues. But you are honor bound to stop the battle if you know of a warrior’s death.”

Mollified somewhat, he acknowledged the hunt guidelines, and decided that he would not be quick to confirm a loss of a novice, since Kimbo’s new tactic of risking them for clan advantage was known. How could they demonstrate their successful methods if their very use eliminated the advantage because of an agreement with a prey animal?

Tyroldor assigned three novices each to two of the wheeled transports, a driver, and two in the back to catch scents. These vehicles were slightly faster than the ones with halftracks, and would let them expand their search area more quickly, but could not enter the marshlands. He sent them in arcs around the dome at a distance to seek a scent trail.

As soon as they had moved far enough away from the stink around the dome, they detected several old scent trails, and one strong fresh trail that followed tracks of another transport.

Tyroldor and his second in command Pitda confirmed the scent trail. The transport that first found that trail was rewarded, allowing it to follow it as fast as they could travel, to report on what they found.

The other transport was sent to search the jungle, bypassing the marshland, and fording the river at a place where it split into several shallower streams. They were permitted to explore any fresh scent they detected on the way, but to report back first.

Telour made a swift return to the dome to watch from the top level. He had noticed the final return of the small human shuttle earlier, and had watched as it landed at multiple locations, below his line of sight each time. However, it appeared the humans had dispersed widely, so he approved of the octet’s leader spreading out his search pattern.

The last place the human shuttle had landed was at the base of the ridge before returning here. Earlier he had seen humans working on every ledge, setting up or burying devices, walking into caves and then leaving them. He was certain that none of them had stayed on the ridge itself, and the shuttle had brought all of them down to the base, where he could not see how many made their exit.

The shuttle had returned empty except for the pilot, which he confirmed by a scent check from a warrior he sent past the shuttle to be certain. The shuttle then took the remaining humans out to various locations near the marsh, the river canyon, and the woods. Always parking to prevent a Krall viewer in the dome from seeing what was unloaded.

He was not going to help the upstart Kimbo clan, nor did he think any of his warriors would have made an agreement with so weak a clan. Nevertheless, he decided it had been a wise precaution by the humans to make sure they revealed as little as possible.

He wasn’t sure what the last landing near the ridge base was for, but it lasted less than two minutes before rushing back to the dome to land. That was just before the shuttle carrying the octet reported that they had the compound in sight. The humans had cut that flight a bit close, almost revealing where they may have been planning to fight.

38. Pay Back

Noreen, just below the Krall level in the dome said, “The Captain cut that a bit close. Jake reported the Krall shuttle was inbound just before he sent Roni back.”

“You don’t think the Krall team saw that, do you?” asked Maggi.

“Probably not,” Thad answered, before Noreen did. They were still low on the horizon when they were detected, and Roni stayed low and circled a bit to the west anyway, just in case she was seen. They couldn’t track her back to the ridge landing area.

“Besides, Roni Linked after landing to say she couldn’t detect any sign of the team, and hovered only long enough to dust off foot prints in the landing area, and perhaps their scent. Frankly, we rather hope they send a shuttle there anyway, though I see they just sent two trucks on different paths. I wish we knew if the two leaders were in the truck cabs.”

Jake, promptly interpreting the “I wish” and “we” as instructions to him, spoke to all four observers “The two higher ranking warriors, one in a dark gray uniform, the other in black, have entered the Krall shuttle and closed the main hatch.”

“Well Thad” comment Nan Willfem, the fourth observer. “You managed to trigger our friend. Were you trying to do that?” She grinned; sure his surprised look indicated he had not.

Maggi had some choice words to add. “Golly, Thad. The way you tilted your head and paused with that typically vacant male expression, you’d think you were listening to something.”

Laughing, Thad held out his hands in a warding off gesture. “OK, you got me. I’m just as bad as you are, but in my defense I’ve had a lot less practice listening to and talking to ghosts.”

Noreen, watching a video feed from Jake, spotted the Krall shuttle lifting and heading to the north east towards the Ridge and valley area. It reached that area well ahead of the dust that marked the truck on the dirt trail. It hovered a moment, then settled below line of sight. It seemed close to where Thad told them the clearing was for the favored Krall truck parking area.

In a bit of inspiration, Thad asked, “I wonder if the Krall shuttle reported anything to the truck they sent.”

Jake told him “I can’t tell you if the transmission was for the Krall in either of the trucks, but the shuttle did report a parked truck under trees.”.

Because Thad hadn’t asked for anyone else to be included, he was the only one to hear, so he repeated it for the others.

“Jake said they reported seeing the truck I parked there for them to find.”

Noreen instantly recognized something that Thad apparently took for granted. “Friend, Link the four of us here until we ask different. How do you know what the shuttle told the trucks?”

“I monitored the broadcast, Mam.” Jake answered.

“You always monitor those, but did they speak Standard?” she asked.

“No Mam, it was high frequency audio modulation in the Krall language. What you have called ultrasonic conversation.” He answered.

The three Fancy representatives looked at one another in stunned disbelief. Thad broke the spell. “You didn’t know he could do that?”

“No!” Was the consensus and shocked reply from all three of the women.

Noreen asked another question. “Friend, did anyone ask you to learn the language and report to us when you had finished?”

“No Mam. I am designed to learn new words in any language, and I informed the Captain on the day we were boarded that I was building a dictionary of Krall words. It is not completed, and they in effect have two languages, one ultrasonic and one in the human audio ranges that

”

Noreen cut him off from a longer explanation. “We can discuss this later friend. For now, tell us whatever the hunters transmit if you can understand the words.”

“Holy shit! You’ve had an intelligence source you didn’t even know about. No way do they believe you can understand their ultrasonic language, they don’t even think you can hear it.”

“Sir, the shuttle has ordered the truck to follow the humans and report if any are found.”

“Isn’t that basically what you wanted them to do Thad?” asked Maggi.

“Since there are no fresh scents there but mine and the dirty clothes, yes. I want them to go into that cave where I hid the clothes. I wish I had a remote actuator to blow it if they go inside, but I knew I’d not know when or if they entered.”

“I wonder if we should broadcast to the Captain and Dillon that we can listen in on the hunters?” questioned Willfem.

Thad pointed out, “We don’t have a secret language or a way to hide our transmission. It might reveal too much if we try a broadcast, because Telour may be listening as well. It’s hard to predict what we might need to tell our people later today. I’d suggest we hold that in reserve.”

“I can see the shuttle again,” Noreen told them. On the monitor, the shuttle was well above the valley and moving towards the top of the ridge. Once over the ridge, it flew along the top slowly, from one end to where it crossed the river gorge and along the other side to where the ridge gradually dwindled into a low line of rocks out to the compound wall.

The shuttle next flew west towards the jungle to the north and north west of the dome. It followed a grid like pattern over the trees for several minutes. That continued until Jake reported a transmission from the truck in the valley.

“A transmission from the valley says the human truck was found.” Jake told them. “They are confused by something, and I don’t understand the words. Five humans were joined by one more human this morning, and all of them moved up the side of the valley. Only one human was in the truck.”

“Their sense of smell is remarkable. I was the human driving the truck. The rest was dirty clothes pulled behind me. Apparently, they can tell the difference. I should have put the clothes in the back of the truck before I started so they could smell them there. I hope they don’t get suspicious.”

“The shuttle is moving rapidly towards the valley,” Noreen observed. “I guess they want to do surveillance for them, join the assault, or direct the action.”

“The warriors were ordered to approach a hole where the scent leads,” Jake relayed.

“They now report one human left the hole and his scent ends on the ground below there.”

“I came out of the cave and got on our shuttle.” Thad explained that anomaly for the others.

Soon, Jake reported another transmission. “Krall from a truck report hearing a shot and after investigation they have scented three humans and have their position surrounded. They have requested permission to attack.”

“What?” exclaimed Maggi. “There isn’t anybody actually there, is there Thad?”

“Hold on. Was the Krall truck in the same location as the valley?”

“No Sir. It was the second truck, on the other side of the river. It passed behind some low bushes near the marsh and it has not reappeared on the trail where its previous speed predicts it should have been visible. It may have stopped.”

Knowing exactly what Thad had realized, Noreen said, “They’ve found the three hiding in the marsh.”

Jake spoke again as soon as she finished. “The same Krall voice from the shuttle has ordered them to attack.”

Thad reminded them, “They have helmet receivers, I can warn them.”

“Won’t Telour know the warning came from the ship as well?”

“I have my helmet, Maggi,” He was wearing his armor, but his helmet sat on a high Krall table.

He leaped over, snatched the helmet up and locked it down. He quickly activated a general push that anyone in armor was going to hear.

“The three people up to their necks in muck have been spotted by hunters. They are coming for you now, load up and defend yourselves.” He knew their names, but that warning was specific enough.

After a minute, Thad heard back a brief transmission. “Thanks. That Goddamned Gladys had to shoot at a Goddamned eel.”

He told the others what he’d heard. “Cody Masters answered me, so they’re warned. He says Gladys shot at an eel, which must be what drew the Krall’s attention. It’s three against three, and they have terrible positions to defend. It doesn’t look good, even with the claymores and grenades.”

Thad opened his faceplate and turned up the suit’s external speaker so any transmission could be heard by the others in the room.

Jake spoke next. “The Krall on the ground in the valley told the shuttle that the scent of five of the humans did not leave the hole, which I believe they mean a cave. They say their scent is still in the air.”

The AI continued immediately, “The shuttle ordered them to attack and shoot into the cave as they rush the enemy.”

They waited anxiously for a half minute.

“Oh look!” Noreen was pointing at the monitor, but Thad, looking out of the dome with binoculars shouted, “Got you!” He leaped into the air with a fist pump.

About ten seconds later a muffled “whump” of an explosive concussion reached them, as the dust column rose still higher.

“Damn, I hope that killed some of them,” said Maggi.

Unable to restrain himself, Thad slipped a bit on his com security. “Jake, have any of the hunters said what happened?”

“The Shuttle first pulled up into my camera coverage,” he stated, “but it has now landed below the tree line. I have heard no transmission since the apparent explosion. I do not know if they caused that or if

”

“Stop.” ordered Noreen. She assumed the explosion was the bobby trap set by Thad.

They waited for what seemed like an eternity, but Maggi’s thumbnail watch measured as less than two minutes.

“If we killed any Krall at that cave, the hunt is over.” Willfem couldn’t help stating the obvious. It would be tragic if those in that marsh died after a Krall death.

****

Gladys Parfem knew her fear of snakes may have gotten them all killed. She hadn’t even hit the nasty green slithery slimy thing that had suddenly wriggled its ten-foot body right past her helmet’s faceplate. The two men with her, each no more than ten feet away in their triangle looked at her accusingly through the intervening grass.

All three removed their safeties from the claymores they had positioned facing away from them in a ring. They placed the trip wires nearby, to pull when they sensed the warriors were closing. Now down so low, up to their necks in water, they realized they didn’t have decent firing positions. They couldn’t see more than twenty feet through the two-foot high marsh grass.

The holes they dug weren’t so deep they couldn’t push up a bit to gain height, but a brown armored head would make a fine target from a considerable distance. Throwing a grenade any distance from a crouched position wasn’t going to be easy either, and the Krall would have to be right on top of them for those to do any good.

Perhaps the shot hadn’t been heard, or if it was, couldn’t be triangulated to the marsh. And Twentieth Century Santa was coming to take them safely back to Earth.

It was still morning, but they knew the hunt had started, not just by the clock, but because they had seen the Krall shuttle fly over earlier. There was even some sort of muffled explosion from the other side of the river just before Gladys lost her mind and fired at an eel that couldn’t hurt her.

All they had now was hope that the explosion had drawn the Krall’s attention away from the marsh. The helmet broadcast ended that hope.

Cody Masters had already had his external microphones cranked to maximum for the last hour. Every click buzz or plop in the water startled him. Now he could hear significant splashing from three directions, per his suit visor display. It was growing louder.

He was sure the voice he’d heard warn them was that of Colonel Greeves. He was surprised, but clicked on his own helmet to thank him and set the blame for their deaths where it belonged. He wasn’t giving their position away, since the visor showed approaching splashes from three directions. Even the Krall couldn’t run silently in the marsh.

He pulled a pin on a grenade, and saw Deigo do the same. Placing his gun in his left hand, he pointed it down to let water drain from the barrel. He knew the ammo was designed to blow water or muck from the barrel when fired, but you got less kickback if it was clear.

The splashing sounded closer. He looked to Deigo and nodded. They both threw as hard as they could from their crouched positions in the directions they heard splashes. As soon as the little bombs arched up, there were three simultaneous loud splashes as large bodies hit the muck, and ferocious fire hurtled over their heads. An explosive round caught Deigo’s right arm before he pulled it down, blowing off the armor and arm at mid forearm.

Cody was glad Deigo’s helmet blocked the scream he was sure accompanied the pain. The round’s detonation was bad enough through his amped up speakers. He started firing his own explosive rounds through the grass, as was Gladys he noted. Deigo had to be in shock, but he managed to raise his gun in his left hand, pulling the trigger and pointing it out over the marsh grass.

Where were the grenade explosions he wondered? Finally, he remembered that Thad told them there was a five-second delay after releasing the safety handle. They should have held them a couple of seconds before the throw. Their shots were also probably wild and too high, because he heard splashing again as the Krall resumed running towards them.

Suddenly, two close together explosions threw muck and black water up and back down on them. That had stopped the running splashing sounds for a moment. He pulled another pin on a grenade in his left hand to have it ready, and wrapped his mine’s trip wire around the same hand. Picking up his gun, he resumed firing, holding the gun as high as he dared, and pivoted it in an arc, spraying rounds randomly. He heard his concussions in the muck, and the Krall explosive rounds were hitting around them.

Gladys actually threw a grenade, but its high arc suggested it had only traveled about ten or fifteen feet in front of her.

Deigo was slumping sideways in his water-filled foxhole. Whatever the hell a fox was. That’s what Thad had called these pits. He saw Deigo pulling on his lanyard with his left hand. Apparently that was about the last thing he had the strength to try.

As it happened, it was the last thing he ever tried. And he succeeded.

The claymore exploded with an enormous bang through Cody’s cranked up audio. It cleared a sixty-degree swath of swamp grass in front of Deigo’s position. The slightly curved back plate that held the plastic explosive had hurled the thousand or so small bearings and scraps of metal nearly parallel with the base of the grass.

What someone had neglected to tell Deigo, or Cody for that matter, was that the back plate obeyed Newton’s law. It flew the opposite direction from the shrapnel if not anchored somehow. It smashed through Deigo’s faceplate and helmet in a spray of blood and black water, causing Cody to flinch away from the fragments and splash. When he looked back, all he saw were bubbles in the black water and blood as the submerged suit filled.

However, there was a satisfying scream of rage in front of Deigo’s position, unfortunately followed by resumed rapid splashing. A smaller than average but very pissed off Krall appeared over the grass firing into the watery pit where Deigo had sunk.

Cody managed to get off a single shot as he brought his pistol around, firing too soon, and his clip was empty. The Krall, shifting position to duck, made a lightning move to remove an empty clip and reloaded a fresh one from its chest belt. There was no way he could reload in time.

At that instant, the five-second timer on the grenade Gladys had tossed expired. When it detonated to the Krall’s right, it tossed the warrior sideways and out of sight.

Gladys now realizing the enemy was right on top of them, pulled her own lanyard, and was more fortunate than Deigo when it blew, because the Krall return fire had struck close in front of it and had caused it to aim downward slightly on its tripod. The second deafening explosion didn’t spread its pellets as parallel to the marsh as the first had, but the back plate went flying an inch above her head.

As she recovered her senses from the concussion, lifting her pistol and firing blindly to her front, the good fortune avoiding the back plate proved temporary. Another Krall stood up several feet in front of Cody’s claymore and fired multiple explosive rounds into Gladys, shredding her head, body and armor together in a spray of black mud, water, and blood.

Cody pulled his own lanyard as he ducked his helmet below the water. He heard the deafening explosion through the water and felt it shake the muck. He had dropped his gun, which was empty anyway, but he knew where his loaded spare was.

He lifted his helmet above water, reaching for the second pistol he’d left on the floating ammo platform. Except something grasped him and lifted him bodily from the pit. He was forcefully spun around to face the same snarling Krall warrior, who appeared distressingly healthy. It held him at arm’s length by his helmet, dangling below its big left hand.

Obviously, it had managed to leap out of the way, as Cody had ducked and pulled the wire. All he had done was cut down marsh grass.

Stokol, seeing his prey had no gun, holstered his own, and deliberately drew a slender nine-inch knife from a sheath on his chest harness, letting him observe the motion. This wasn’t going to be a swift end like Deigo and Gladys had, Cody realized in horror. It used the knife tip to start to probe for an opening at the rotor joint of his right shoulder. Cody frantically punched and pushed at the arm as the blade tip tried to force an entry.

Feeling how puny the human’s frantic resistance was, Stokol exposed his teeth. It seemed a good time to test the reports of how poor these things tasted. He would carve pieces from it while it still lived, and force it to watch him chew.

Cody continued to punch and kick without effect. He clutched the Krall’s thick right wrist with his own right gauntlet, punching at the hand and forearm with his left fist. He couldn’t even deflect the slow deliberate probing of the knife; much less halt the relentless strength of that piston like arm.

He was about to use his left gauntlet to reinforce his right hand’s grip, or to grab for the knife blade when he realized that in his fear he had forgotten something. The grenade, its pin already pulled, was in the hand he was using to punch. He felt and heard metal screech as the knife tip suddenly slipped up between the plates of the armored joint of his right shoulder. He opened the lower fingers of his left hand enough to release the grenade’s safety handle.

Cody screamed as the slender blade tip was maneuvered and forced powerfully into the new crevice, encountering the Smart fabric over his shoulder. It couldn’t cut through the tough material, but the blade’s pressure at the small tip pushed the fabric into his flesh all the way to the bone. Screaming from the pain, the shoulder socket began to separate as the tip pushed deeper.

Stokol was puzzled at the resistance to his knife tip. The human looked soft but seemed to have a very tough skin.

Cody tried to count, but the Krall’s insistent thrusting in and out to get all the way through the oddly tough seeming shoulder was horribly agonizing, sending rivers of hot pain down his arm and up to his neck. His own screaming destroyed any effort to focus. His right hand fell limply to his side as the shoulder joint gave way. He was afraid he might pass out, but he was also terrified that he might not.

From behind the warrior that held him suspended, he saw a second Krall, speckled from multiple shrapnel punctures. He had come to watch the surviving animal suffer. The third warrior could be heard screaming its rage and pain near where Deigo’s mine had mowed the grass, probably lying where the grenade from Gladys had thrown it.

We didn’t kill any of the sons of bitches, he thought miserably through his pain. Not yet anyway.

He brought his left hand up to the side of his head as if to weakly punch at the warrior, and opened his mouth wide in a scream he didn’t need to fake. The warrior leaned in to enjoy the prey’s expression as he savagely twisted the blade through to grate on the backside of the armor.

Stokol’s blazing red pupils were glaring into the animal’s eyes, determined to intimidate and penetrate the dim awareness of this pathetic meat animal that had dared cause them so much trouble.

Cody rotated his wrist so the Krall could see what he held next to his head. The Krall hadn’t seen the other tossed grenades clearly, so it didn’t recognize the oval muck covered object.

Through the human’s faceplate though, he clearly saw the open-mouthed scream turn into a strangely blunt toothed smile, and an unmistakable look of triumph in those ugly white with blue center eyes.

The warrior’s own eyes widened suddenly in a flash of recognition and fear, and its instant reaction was to release the helmet. However, Cody dropped less than a millimeter before the grenade converted his and the Krall’s head into eel food.

****

In the valley, following Kimbo clan’s aggressive and risky tactics, one novice ran full speed all the way to the cave mouth, angling in from the side. He fired both pistols in concert with his zig zaging clan mates just behind him. Waiting only for a coordinated pause in their firing, he leaped into the entrance and fired around the bend that they could see was a few yards inside.

The heavy fire with a combination of armor piercing and explosive rounds should suppress defensive fire, and once the lead warrior was positioned to fire at anyone just around the bend, the other two warriors would pass him and burst around that corner, increasing the fire rate to six guns directed at whoever was in there. They would keep up that pressure and kill every human they found, or force them out through some hidden bolthole. Those escape attempts would be covered by the two waiting higher status warriors.

Tyroldor, after ordering his other three warriors to destroy the humans that had stupidly given their marshy hiding place away, had landed the shuttle on the hillside a hundred feet above the cave. Pitda had rushed out to watch for possible hidden exits to open. Tyroldor remained in the shuttle ready to pursue any humans that might pop out much farther away.

The hard charging lead warrior, Tindak had just leaped into the cave opening when the hillside over the rocky mouth erupted upwards with an explosive roar, and collapsed back down to cover the mouth of the cave. Both of the covering warriors, still well outside the opening when it exploded, were blown backwards off their feet, but nimbly twisted and turned in midair to avoid or deflect some of the rock shrapnel that came flying towards or down on them.

They struck the ground perhaps forty feet down the slope, sliding backwards on their hands and feet with talons extended, their pistols having been holstered while in the air. They landed cat-like on all fours facing the collapsed cave and immediately ran back up to start flinging large rocks out of the way.

They had avoided some of the flying debris, but not all. The blood flow from small wounds caused by rock shards was already shutting down. One warrior even ignored a three-inch long slender rock extending from his back, inaccessible to him a foot below his left shoulder.

Pitda had been bounced into the air briefly as the hillside over the cave expanded and settled, but he remained alert a hundred feet up the slope, watching everywhere for human targets. His head was pivoting around constantly.

He made no move to help the two novices removing rocks, Tindak, if trapped or killed inside was simply a sacrifice to Kimbo’s relentless attack style. The two digging were not trying to find or save their clan mate, they were pursuing the enemy that might be alive inside.

Tyroldor had lifted the shuttle immediately when the explosion came, and he was now circling over the area at low altitude around the column of dust that was rising into the clouded sky. He was seeking secondary dust eruptions that would indicate where the pressure in the cave found an outlet. That could be where the enemy might also appear.

There were no other dust plumes, and when he tried to contact Tindak, he received no reply. With barely an instant to think about it, he ordered the other three warriors to return to the shuttle, and he landed nearby. If humans were inside, they were either dead or trapped. If his warrior was dead, he didn’t want that confirmed by having the rubble removed. That would bring the hunt to a humiliating early halt.

It was possible this had been a trap, or a human suicide to deny his warriors the glory of the kills they deserved. Telour said the humans were intelligent, but he had not told them they had given them explosives. That had to be truth or Graka clan would lose considerable status for cheating on a minor combat demonstration.

The humans of course were free to add to their fighting capability as they could, just as his octet was free to respond in kind. The humans apparently had done so with explosives, leaving Graka clan with clean hands. His team did not need explosives in this sort of hunt and he had but a single day to finish the mission. He would allow no wasted time to negotiate for matching explosives. He wondered what other tricks the humans brought to the game, that Telour was under no obligation to mention.

The status points for humans found in the cave, dead or alive, would be awarded to the octet. Live animals discovered later could be killed because the novice’s “sacrifice” had trapped them by sealing them inside.

Finding and killing the remainder of the humans was a greater priority, and they could return to check this hole later. If it had only been an empty trap and all sixteen humans were found and killed elsewhere, they certainly didn’t need Tindak’s body.

His three warriors had just returned to the shuttle, when he received a report from the three that went into the marshes. He anticipated confirmation of three kills because that was a very poor defensive location for the humans to choose. They clearly had intended to hide there, and probably gave themselves away with a panic shot at his warriors when they passed near.

He was pleased when the novice reported that all three humans were dead. However, the report came from Sitdok, not Stokol. He was lower status than was the warrior he placed in charge. The driver should have made the report, and would never voluntarily yield the honor of reporting the kills to his leader. Tyroldor sensed yet another problem.

Telour was certainly listening to their transmissions and watching from the dome, so he had to be certain an inexperienced novice did not report what the leader was not going to ask. To be forced to admit later that he knew of a loss to the octet. He would have failed this test for his clan.

Tyroldor phrased his next instructions carefully, using the Imperative mode of address that tolerated no question of the superior giving the order. It was used to send warriors to probable death for clan advantage or honor, when they were not permitted to submit to a superior force. Warriors with breeder level status were assured that their frozen seed would spawn a new generation bearing their genes. A novice simple sacrificed their blood.

“For the Path and clan, submerge all of the dead in the marsh muck for the worms to eat and leave no trace. Return to the transport and go to the edge of the jungle where the shuttle will join you. We will hunt together.”

“I salute our clan.” was the reply. The only sort honor allowed.

Pitda had joined him in the cockpit, and was fingering a shard of bloody rock he had casually pulled from the back of a novice in passing. He deserved an explanation since his high status and honor were equally on the line if this hunt blew up in their faces.

“The hunt ends if humans kill any of our warriors, but it ends only if I confirm that a death has happened. It is an honor agreement formed with humans for a reason I do not understand. But this has been agreed to by the leaders of the Clans controlling Koban.”

Pitda now understood why Tyroldor had stopped the dig for human survivors in the cave. “Tindak must face them alone in the dark. He will kill them all.” Confirming that he understood why his leader could not allow a probable dead warrior to be found in the rubble.

“The Path demands more of our warriors in the marsh?” Pitda asked, proving he had heard the instructions.

“The second in status of those warriors reported that all three humans were dead.” He knew Pitda fully understood what that implied in the chain of command, and he had also heard the instructions given to them.

Ignorance is bliss was a human term for this quandary, not that anyone had asked one.

Kimbo’s honor demanded they complete the hunt, and to prove they deserved a place alongside the Great Clans in the coming war. Humans might prove to be the worthy foe the Path had needed them to find after so many years, despite their puny appearance.

They lifted to fly towards the jungle to hunt there.

****

Sitdok, now the senior in status at the marsh, instructed Motgar to help him submerge the four bodies in the pits where the humans had hidden. “Tyroldor has ordered this for the Path and our clan.”

Motgar had to listen carefully. Her only good ears were on the left side of her now scarred head, and she had reduced hearing in those because of two nearby explosions.

She had largely been below and to the side of the blast that had sent small pellets by the side of her upraised head, tearing through her right ears. They passed over her prone body as they cut down the marsh grass around her. Almost over, she amended mentally, because the ones that didn’t quite miss she had extracted from her posterior with a few talon picks afterwards. The particles were almost as small as the tip of a talon, and she saved them for debriefing.

It was the second explosion that had knocked her down and caused deeper damage on that same side. She wasn’t sure if natural regeneration would restore her hearing on that side, though the ears themselves would surely regrow. The deeper punctures would heal at the surface, and her body should eventually push out the painful fragments. If not she would need to endure their being cut out. It didn’t feel like any organs had been seriously damaged, or at least enough to impair her ability to fight for the rest of the day.

The two of them were halfway back to the truck when Sitdok heard splashing behind them at the three pits. The eels they had seen when charging the humans were probably fighting each other for larger shares.

Replenishing their ammunition from the cases in the transport, Sitdok drove them towards the jungle, while Motgar, whose nose was undamaged, checked the air for fresh human scent while riding in back.

****

In the dome, Jake repeated what the warrior in the marshland had reported. Then the orders they received from the octet leader.

Maggi was confused. “Thad, we’re new here. Explain this to me. The leader hasn’t acknowledged a loss of a warrior in the cave, but Jake heard him radio to a warrior that never answered. Then he called three warriors by name to return to the shuttle. Therefore, if there are four in the shuttle and three in the marsh, one is missing. I thought they were honor bound to halt a hunt if we killed one of them.”

“I may have outsmarted myself at the cave Maggi. I assumed they would dig out any warrior that tripped the explosion. I’m afraid I made it possible for them to pretend they don’t know he’s dead, if they won’t actually look under the rocks.”

Noreen asked, “What do you make of the exchange between the leader and the three in the marsh? They said they killed the three people there, but what he ordered them to do after that seemed odd to me. Why hide the bodies? I thought they left bodies where they fell unless they wanted a trophy to bring back?”

“Noreen, I’ve never been able to listen in on them before, and I sure don’t know their customs. But our immediate problem is that they have abandoned the ridge area, where we wanted them. All of them are headed for the jungle. If I warn the people there it will confirm that someone is actually there, since that’s the only target at the moment.”

Maggi was torn. “I hate to trade Tet and Dillon’s group for the folks in the Jungle, but we need to draw them back, make them think someone is on the ridge to fight. Tet has a lot of traps set but the rats all went somewhere else.”

“Perhaps we can get them back by setting off a couple of explosives,” Noreen suggested.

Thad thought for a moment. “We want them all to go to the ridge to ease the risk to our people in the jungle. That means we have to wait for them all to join up as the leader ordered.”

Maggi noticed Thad’s use of “our people,” for those in the Jungle. Something he had not been saying since they first met him. He had blamed all of the Primes for the loss of his friends.

Intending to get a rendezvous time from Jake, Thad asked aloud, “All of us here want to know how long before the three Krall in the truck will meet with the shuttle near the jungle.”

This was Thad’s first attempt to ask a question that would include everyone with him in on the answer. He was tired of having to repeat things. As usual with the literal AI, they heard more than they expected, but not more than they needed.

“Yes Sir. The shuttle could arrive near the edge of the woods by the dirt road in four minutes if that is where they will meet. The area normally defined as jungle is several miles deeper in from where the first trees start. I must ask you to clarify where the truck is with three Krall in it. I can only detect one truck with two Krall present, and it appears it will reach the woods in eight minutes and twenty seconds at its pr

”

“How many Krall did you say?” interrupted Noreen. She was more familiar with the AI’s precision and long answers.

“There are two Krall in the truck leaving the marshland, I do not detect another

” he was interrupted again.

“Damn!” Thad swore, cutting the reply off. “They left a warrior behind at the marsh. One that’s probably dead. If injured the other two could carry a wounded warrior with them. The leader told them ‘for the Path and clan,’ which sounds somewhat patriotic, like we might say ‘for God and Planet,’ to invoke a sense of duty to our soldiers. He told them to shove the dead into muck and leave no trace.”

“Thad, you’re saying they’re cheating?” asked Maggi. “I thought they had a bizarre honor code that prevented their doing that when they have an agreement.”

“This ass wipe is skirting that code! He can deny that he knew of any deaths of his warriors based on what he has allowed to be seen or broadcast. Nothing fixes a partial failure better than a final victory. He isn’t going to leave anyone alive out there if he can find them. The only way we’ve ever had survivors is when they called off a hunt. They’ll cover the entire area before the day is over, even if they hunt all night.”

Noreen had an idea. “Can we talk to Telour? Tell him warriors are dead?”

Maggi, more adept at politics than Noreen shook her head. “No. He’ll wait to prove the deaths after the hunt is complete. He doesn’t care about the humans, only that his own plan to improve our fighting skills is working. That will look just as successful no matter when it’s discovered we managed to kill one or two Krall.

“Besides,” she reminded them. “We don’t want Telour to know exactly how we know what’s going on out there, listening to and understanding their radio calls. We are helping our people from here, which for all I know is a violation of some other damned honor code.”

“Here’s a long shot we can try. Tet also gave us control of the remote actuators, so I propose we trigger a few in places where the Krall apparently aren’t going to go anyway. The top of the ridge has some mortars we were saving to draw warriors from the valley to the ridge. The claymores up there were also just to catch them as they took likely routes down to search the terrace caves.”

“Won’t Tet’s team wonder what’s going on when we do that?”

“Maggi, they will figure we are drawing the Krall to the ridge. As we were prepared to do,”

“I think the greater risk,” he added, “is of the Krall leader suspecting a trap. We surprised them in the valley, and that shot Gladys made that accidentally drew them into the marsh might seem like another lure, particularly if we bloodied their maws with weapons they hadn’t expected.”

Noreen had her own mind made up. “Well, it’s what Tet and Dillon planned for, and I know what their decision would be if they thought they could save the people in the jungle.”

“The activation codes can be sent from here. Our friend can use the dome repeater, so it won’t appear to involve the ship. I’ve already used my helmet com to send a warning, so I can take credit for the signals if they detect them. I have immunity anyway.”

“So did the two men you challenged, Thad.” Maggi pointed out. “You can be challenged the same way.”

“Life’s a bitch, and then you die. If I have a hand in killing any more of these bastards I will have had some payback for my other friends. How close is the truck and shuttle now?”

“Sir, the only truck I have detected is about one minute from reaching the shuttle, which has landed next to the dirt track farther from the trees than I first estimated.”

Thad gave Jake instructions on which devices he wanted to use, and in what order. They all watched the monitor screen with the long-range video image. The shuttle could barely be seen beyond some tall brush, but the truck was kicking up dust that drifted in the slight breeze, clearly marking its progress.

As the truck neared the shuttle, the rear hatch started to lift, but none of the warriors appeared at the opening to get out.

“They may just be picking the other two up. I want their attention before they get inside and can’t hear the explosions. The noise has a long distance to travel.”

“Jake,” Noreen ignoring their usual com security for speed. “Trigger the mortar that Thad selected so that it’s firing and impact sound will reach that shuttle just before the truck reaches the shuttle.”

Jake replied immediately. “I have just fired device number nine, the mortar that Colonel Greeves selected as the first one to be used. The time for the launch of the round may arrive at the shuttle location five to six seconds after the truck arrives. The sound of the impact explosion depends on how long the projectile takes to hit the ground and the distance it travels. I will

”

“Stop.” Noreen cut the AI off.

“I never even thought about having the computer do that for me. Thanks. It was almost too late to try.”

Maggi was looking out the window. “I saw a puff of smoke on the ridge top, I think.”

They watched as the truck slid to a stop perhaps fifty feet from the open shuttle, and two figures, moving like typical Krall, rushed towards the craft. They both entered and the hatch began to lower.

“Crap. We were too late. We need to try again when they land nearer to the forest.”

Suddenly the hatch reversed itself, and a warrior could be seen stepping out, looking east in the direction of the Ridge.

“Mortar impact detected,” said Jake.

Maggi pointed out the dome window. “I can see a column of smoke and dirt rising above the trees out there, but I doubt it will rise higher than the ridge top.”

Thad agreed. He told Jake to fire one of the claymores that were aimed up the rock face at a cleft, where they had hoped a warrior might climb down.

Noreen stayed focused on the Krall outside the shuttle, still looking towards the east. As Jake acknowledged he had fired the mine, the Krall instantly darted into the shuttle. In seconds, the dark gray clad octet leader emerged with a warrior, possibly the first one, and both were looking east.

Jake spoke. “I estimate the sound of the mortar impact should have reached the shuttle.”

Simultaneously Noreen shouted, “They ran back into the shuttle and the hatch closed!”

The craft lifted, and immediately sped towards the ridge.

39. Spider and Fly

Tyroldor waited impatiently for the truck to reach the shuttle. He planned to place his warriors along an arc to the south of the thinner part of the forest, to check for a fresh scent trails. Then if they found any, they could follow them into the heavier jungle in the interior, where prey as clever as this one would surely go for cover.

He raised the hatch as the vehicle approached. His eyes immediately saw the discoloration of the side of the head of the female warrior standing in the back of the transport. She was turning her muzzle, properly sniffing the air for human scent, but the right side of her head was not the same as the left. Whatever had prevented his ranking novice from this set had perhaps also damaged her.

He needed to learn what weapons the humans used, but could not permit the inexperienced warriors to tell him anything he must not hear, such as evidence proving how lethal the weapons could be. He may have to debrief each of them alone, to “sacrifice” them if necessary in the coming combat, to retain Kimbo clan’s honor with their silence.

As the transport slid to a halt, the two warriors leaped out while it was still moving, as the urgency of the hunt required. However, Tyroldor’s experienced eyes saw dried blood on multiple small wounds on the driver’s arms, legs, and muzzle, and probably on the torso under the black uniform.

The female had abraded and missing skin on the left side of her head, and had surely lost her ears there. She moved with more caution than expected of a Kimbo novice, and had multiple small wounds on her left side. These were too small to be from explosive pistol or rifle rounds, he thought, but there were many hits, as if from the multi-pellet rounds. These punctures were too spread around to be from those almost useless and ineffective shells.

He used a talon click to start the hatch closing just as the warriors flashed through the opening. He thought he detected a distant thump sound as the hatch lowered, and Sitdok instantly crouched to try to look out under the closing hatch, clearly sensing the same sound.

Pitda said in confirmation, “I sensed a distant explosion. Sitdok did you see the source?”

“It was east but I did not see where.” He answered.

Tyroldor tapped to reopen the hatch, and Pitda stepped out to look to the east. He returned quickly to say he saw a small white cloud rising above the ridge. The octet leader rushed out with him to observe for himself.

The white smoke was dissipating, but his infrared vision told him it was warmer than the surrounding air. He watched for a moment to see if it would repeat, when the sound of a more powerful explosion swept over them. It came long after the original sound and from the same direction as the ridge.

“The humans from the cave may have survived and are making an opening to escape,” suggested Pitda.

“We will see.” Tyroldor raced back to the cockpit. “These humans draw us to them. They are not stupid, and they have weapons we did not expect. Like at the cave and in the marsh, this may be to call us to where they want us. We will scout from the air before we land to seek another trap.”

Flying over the ridge, they saw no humans, but a still warm small object was concealed within bushes at ridge top, where they had seen the smoke. Down in the valley, a pillar of dust was drifting in the wind, away from a small crater not far from where the transport had been parked.

Had this been a clumsy effort to destroy their empty transport? It made no sense to Tyroldor for them to have failed, because it was not defended. It had no value anyway.

He could see the collapsed cave was the same as when they left it a short time ago. If humans hiding near the ridge crest were waiting for them with the unknown weapons, he was not going to provide targets. From the dome, Telour could easily see the ridge, and might observe a novice make a Kimbo style sacrifice charge. The humans on the ridge responsible would die before a confirmation ended the hunt, but he knew his reduced octet burned with hatred to kill every human out here.

He spoke to Pitda. “I will land on the other side of the ridge from before. We know in the valley the animals have set traps and led us to them. Take our warriors to form a perimeter around the shuttle, except for Motgar. I need to learn from her the nature of the human weapons before we destroy these animals in the most painful way possible.” He snarled.

Pitda responded with a snarl of his own, and offered a left hand salute, talons extended. He too wanted their prey’s blood drained from many wounds while they still lived.

They scouted the steep side of the ridge from the air, and the evidence that many shuttles had previously landed behind a large boulder was easy to see. The location gave good shelter from the ridge and its terraces.

They landed there and four Krall formed a defensive square around the craft, with Pitda using the huge rock as a place to observe the ridge from the right side, a novice on the left side of the same boulder. The other two novices crouched by sizable rocks near the other two corners of the impromptu grid.

In the shuttle, Tyroldor gave the female specific instructions. “Motgar, answer only what I ask of you, and volunteer nothing about things I do not ask you.”

“I will obey my octet leader.” She was confused by this instruction, since battlefield debriefings were common in novice training.

“What weapon damaged the side of your head and your ears?” He asked her.

“I believe it was a small bomb the humans throw by hand, that does not explode quickly. It lies on the ground and explodes without warning.”

“How far can they throw this bomb?”

“They are weak, and did not throw any farther than two or three leaps. The bomb that damaged me did not fly but half a leap and fell into the grass near where the human was hiding.”

“After the bombs are thrown, what time length before the explosion?”

She told him the interval, which seemed a ridiculously long time to wait in a battle.

“You have holes in your arms, legs, and side. Were they all caused by pieces from the first bomb?”

“No, some large punctures are from a second bomb thrown by hand. Some smaller wounds and my head damage were from another kind of bomb.” She hoped this did not exceed his instructions.

“Describe the use of the other kind of bomb.”

“It is not thrown, and sits on the ground with a flat metal front,” her hands indicated the rectangular dimensions. “It was exploded by a human pulling on a line connected to the larger bomb. It sent many small metal balls flying in one direction, straight away from the metal plate. I have some of them I removed from my body and head.”

“Show me.”

She pulled four spherical little balls from a pouch on her harness. They were about the size of the smaller pellets used in some of the hunting bullets used in pistols and rifles. Not very deadly if a only a few hands of them hit you.

“How many of these do you think were used in the bomb?”

“Very many, because the grass was cut down in a wide path in front of the bomb for two leaps.”

“What other weapons did they have?

“Only two pistols were found for each human and more hand bombs. There was one large bomb for each human, aimed in front of them.”

“Did these hurt you enough that you cannot finish the hunt today?”

“No. I will finish.”

“Then let us go kill this new prey.”

Suddenly there was the sound of several bullets hitting the shuttle, one an explosive round, followed quickly by two simultaneous close explosions that produced a tremendous rain of sound on the hull.

They heard screams of pain and rage.

****

Mirikami’s team had been patient, waiting for a chance to spring their traps. However, all of them were beginning to lose some of that patience, and the tension while they sat doing nothing had only grown.

I wasn’t until the surprise helmet com broadcast from Thad that they had any direct evidence the hunt was even started. They knew immediately of course that his warning was to the three hiding in the marsh. Deanna told them it was Cody Master that answered Thad.

It was right after that they had felt the vibration from a large distant explosion. It had to be from the cave in the valley since that was the only place had such a large booby trap. They hoped it signaled the end of the hunt before anyone died.

Shortly after that their visors showed them a brief view of a Krall shuttle flying west over the ridge. They had heard or seen nothing for ten or twelve minutes, until Dillon called out that something had just fired off up on the ridge.

Dillon had control of the camera for the north end of the ridge, and Mirikami the south part. He switched to Dillon’s view, and saw he had zoomed in on white smoke at the top of the ridge.

“That was the large mortar. It was ranged to try to hit the truck park in the valley. Did any of us do that by accident?” He wasn’t accusing, but they were supposed to coordinate actions simply intended to attract Krall to the ridge top.

There were five denials. They felt more than heard the thump that told them the mortar round had hit and exploded on the far side of the ridge.

Mirikami tugged at his lip. “We have to assume it was remotely triggered by someone at the dome for a valid reason. It could be a signal to us or intended to draw Krall attention. Or do both I suppose.”

Sven Kirsten asked, “Wasn’t that mortar intended to try to draw Krall to the top of the ridge from the valley?”

“Not just from the valley,” Dillon told him. “To draw them from this side too, since a lot of our traps are spread along the terraces and at the best places to climb. After the valley cave blew up the shuttle headed to the west. Maybe it went over to the fight in the marsh, or possibly to search the Jungle. We had expected the ridge to be the most likely place to look for us, because the best places for us to defend ourselves are up there.”

“Well,” concluded Mirikami, “That mortar round will surely draw attention. Keep your eyes open, I’ll swivel my camera to look for the shuttle.”

Using a joystick sitting on his knee, the tiny concealed camera on top of the huge rock rotated to scan the sky away from the ridge.

Two voices said, “Stop” at the same time, and Mirikami saw the silhouette of the shuttle rise and turn their direction. It appeared to have been near the forest tree line. They were finally drawing the flies to their web. With any luck, they would give these particular Krall a different experience than in any previous fight with humans. It was still going to be one sided in Krall favor if they couldn’t kill one of them fast, or if they found their hiding place.

40. Spider Hole

The shuttle landed near the big rock and four Krall rushed out to take up defensive positions. Two were at the ends of the huge rock to watch the cliffs, and the other two on the opposite side of the shuttle.

Mirikami swore under his breath when he pivoted the camera’s maximum down look angle. The curve of the boulder kept him from seeing the two crouching Krall that had ran to its base. Switching to the tree mounted camera that Dillon controlled, he could see the two Krall on the other side of the shuttle.

“Dillon, can you rotate your camera to see the warrior on the right side of the boulder? I can’t see either one of them.”

“Tet, I see the top of his head, almost on the side of the rock. He’s out of position for you, and I can’t see the one on the left because of the shuttle.”

“Thad says they usually run and attack all the time. We need to get these to move back before they start an attack. I’m going to use the triple shot on the outcrop, see if they move back for better cover. As soon as I give you the mark that I fired, wait one second and you blow the device.”

He moved the camera to sight the outcrop he’d used on the first terrace, a couple of hundred feet farther to the right. He had aimed that triple cluster yesterday, and hoped it was still on target.

Entering the device code, he poised his thumb over the send button and asked, “Are you ready?”

Both said yes, and he warned them. “I’m shooting

, NOW!” and pressed the button. He saw the faint puffs of smoke and a second later, he heard and felt the explosive roar of the claymores erupting, spewing its shrapnel down the backside of that boulder.

They had built several three-barrel gun clusters with two armor-piercing rounds and one explosive round inserted in each set. The barrels were mounted on braced tripods aimed at the clearing where they assumed a shuttle would land. They were counting on any Krall hearing gunshots nearby would dart to the closest cover as they normally did, then continue on an attack. It was that initial duck to cover they intended to exploit.

As soon as the sound of the human attack sounded, all four of the Krall had reacted. Two going were the humans had hoped they would.

Tyroldor exploded out of the shuttle hatch into heavy smoke, both pistols in his hands. He was seeking a target, what he found was Pitda prone by the large rock firing at an outcrop up on the cliff. Sitdok was also shooting towards the cliffs from the other side of the rock.

Pitda was missing the lower third of both legs, and Sitdok, farther from the source of the explosion, had several fresh punctures on the back of both of his legs.

“Where is the enemy? He demanded of Pitda. He could scent old human stink despite the residue of the explosives just used, and something else he could not identify.

“We were first fired on from those rocks.” Pitda’s eyes never left the cliff, despite the painful crippling injury. I ordered Sitdok to suppress any enemy on the cliffs from that side.

Tyroldor called out to the other two warriors. “Gorpak, Kador, are there any enemy that you see or smell near you?”

Each replied they did not see or hear any human activity, but could scent that some had been here recently.

“How were you and Sitdok wounded? What weapon was used and where?” Tyroldor demanded.

Pitda, still watching the cliff, pointed with one pistol.

Tyroldor saw a warped metal plate against the base of a midsized boulder. A gap in the underbrush in front of the rock showed the path that the blast of pellets had followed from the place of concealment. Pitda’s shredded lower legs and taloned feet lay in the dirt along that path.

Motgar saw what her octet leader was looking at. “That is part of one of the bombs they used in the marsh. A human could be near that pulled the line to make it explode.” Her pistols drawn, she dashed around to the front of the large rock. She was seeking a lanyard with a human on the end, trusting Pitda and Sitdok to cover her while she was exposed.

Pitda, feeling oddly sluggish and experiencing far more pain than the inconvenient injury should cause, advised his octet leader, “The shots were poorly aimed, .. they were.. not close.. but I..” He found himself speaking slowly, with odd pauses he couldn’t prevent.

He snarled from a tremendous increased in pain from his stumps, but the bleeding had stopped. The pain of his wounds should have been blocked from his awareness, as it had been when he first rolled to his stomach and crawled back to the large rock, firing at the attacker’s position.

“There is something

wrong,” he struggled to speak. “I took.. cover.. after shots.. and there was.. explosion

I fell..” he screamed this time, as overwhelming pain burned at his upper legs and lower body, blocking his ability to think.

There was also a snarl of pain from Sitdok, who was no longer aiming at the cliffs, and had sunk to his knees, rubbing at his lower legs, where small punctures speckled them. The puncture size matched the earlier ones he had received in the marsh, and were no longer bleeding.

“Leader, I have great pain and my legs are on fire and will not obey.” He snarled again as the pain increased and moved higher up his legs.

Tyroldor called his other two novices to him, and Motgar had returned after she had circled the large rock. She reported she had seen no current sign of a human, but had smelled their scent here recently, within several hours, and saw tracks towards the cliffs.

“Motgar did you and Sitdok have pain and a temporary loss of ability to move after your wounds in the marsh?”

“No octet leader. Only the normal pain when I was first injured, and then it faded as I fought. Sitdok did not say he felt as he does now.”

Pitda was quiet now and barely breathing, a rictus of pain revealed by the drawn back lips that had frozen with his teeth revealed and his mouth half-open, purple tongue hanging down. He seemed still able to move his eyes, and to blink, so he was conscious but unable to move.

“The humans have another new weapon. It can paralyze us and cause pain. We need to find and kill them all, and discover what they have used. There is an odor that does not smell like an explosive material.” He sniffed at Pitda’s shredded leg parts.

“Sitdok,” Tyroldor called as he looked at the slumping warrior. The left eye that he could see blinked and turned in its socket as if trying to look towards his leader, but like Pitda, he could no longer move or speak.

“Novices, we are four now, and the humans refuse to face us directly because they are too weak to meet us in open combat. They use trickery instead of strength.”

“What would you have us do, octet leader?” Motgar asked this, senior in status over Gorpak and Kador, now that Sitdok was disabled or dying.

“We will stay aggressive and attack, but we cannot charge without thinking when the humans try to force us to one place or attract us to another. There will be more traps.

“Observe how they forced Pitda and Sitdok to take cover where they had placed their mines. I do not know how they made them explode, but they did not pull a line to do this.”

“This treacherous enemy is too weak and cowardly to face us unless they are trapped, as they were in the marsh where they were all killed. As they all will be killed when we find them.”

As the lowly inexperienced novice listened to her respected leader, Motgar considered that the octet now had but one hand of active warriors. She knew of only three dead humans for certain, so as slow and puny as they were, they had taken a toll.

She considered another matter. The highest status warrior of all six novices had not rejoined them after leading the pursuit of the first scent trail. Had a human trap found him as well, or did one of the soft puny cowardly things die with him as a bomb shredded them both?

In interclan warfare, when the attacking or defending forces had been reduced by half, contact was usually broken by the weakened force to preserve the breeders, and to debrief on how to change their tactics or weapons. They needed scanners to seek the hidden bombs and humans, which certainly must be available at the dome. Tyroldor was refusing to follow this honorable option, and she did not understand why.

****

On his helmet visor screen, fed from Dillon’s tree mounted camera, Mirikami could see the tops of the heads of the four clustered Krall, the octet leader clearly talking to them. Only one of the other two shuttlecraft warriors could be seen, lying at the base of the big boulder, apparently covering the cliffs on the left.

He was wishing he had placed more mines by the landing site. They never expected the Krall to display any hesitation in their headlong attacks, assuming they’d charge the probable hiding places on the terraces. Where of course they’d find only booby traps waiting for them.

It was possible they were waiting to be joined by the last two octet members, whom apparently were alive by virtue of the continuing hunt. However, if any of their new weapons had killed or injured any of the octet the Krall were not leaving nor were they attacking.

It was frustrating that neither camera could see the sixth warrior that had taken cover by the big rock. Their view was partially blocked by the shuttle for Dillon’s camera, and by the curve of the big rock under Mirikami’s tiny top mounted camera. He had hoped the neurotoxin from the thorns, tumbled and mixed with the claymore pellets would have had some effect, perhaps killing some of them even if only wounded. It had been worth trying, anyway. The treated crossbow bolts would be another chance to test the toxin.

He decided to try harder to draw them up to the first terrace, and that meant using a couple more of their limited decoys and the last pre-sited mortar. He coordinated with the others to get ready in their spider holes, as Thad called the tubes they had buried near the landing site. They were linked by detection proof buried fiber optic threads, as were their two external miniature cameras.

On cue, Frank caused a remote actuator to release a spring, and a small mechanical catapult flung two grenades arching out from the lower terrace in the general direction of the shuttle parking area. The pins were yanked out as the short lines tied to them reached their limit.

Another triple tube set was fired by Juan at the big rock from a different outcrop on the other side, and Deanna triggered a fat mortar tube on the ridge top, where it chuffed its heavy projectile in an arc that, with luck, would come down close to the shuttle.

****

Tyroldor had just told his three warriors how he wanted them to rush the cliffs, avoiding hiding behind obvious points of cover. They all caught the distant clinking sound of the little catapult’s arm striking its cross bar, accompanied by a short burst of gunfire from a different direction. The rounds struck harmlessly on the side of the large rock.

All four Krall had moved the instant they heard the first sound, and had automatically split their force to come from behind the shielding boulder, two per side. Tyroldor rolled away to the left firing at the outcrop where his eyes and ears told him the poorly aimed shots had originated.

Gorpak moved with him, but sought different targets rather than simply duplicate his leader’s action. He instantly spotted a pair of small round objects flying away from the lower terrace, but he could see they wouldn’t come anywhere close to them. He fired four explosive rounds at the ledge and the cliff just behind, where his instincts said they had originated.

Kador followed Motgar, and they stayed away from the most likely cover as instructed. His perfectly functioning ears picked up the sound of the mortar launch before rounding the boulder. Oddly, Motgar did not appear to hear the sound. He fired at the ridge top where the white smoke indicated the sound’s source.

Motgar, her right side hearing still impaired and the left ears ruined, only heard and observed her companion firing at the ridge top, where there was a white column of warm smoke. It was smoke like that which had drawn them from the woods, and that one had been followed shortly by a heavier explosion.

She triple tapped her com button on one side, connecting her on a priority channel to every member of her octet. “White smoke, ridge top, possible artillery inbound.”

As she issued this warning, Kador dove to ground, having already sighted the falling round as a dot nearly overhead. Motgar also dove to earth, but on her back searching for what he had seen. When the motion sensitive part of her vision detected it, she relaxed slightly. It was obvious from its very slight lateral movement that it wasn’t dropping directly on her position, but it was less than a second from impact.

The heavy blast was just in front of the huge rock, and other than throwing up dirt and dust, it did them no damage. All four warriors were on their feet as the debris was still rising, racing for the greater shelter of the lower cliff face. They needed to get up to the next level where the gunfire came from.

Suddenly there were two explosions a full leap in front of Tyroldor when the delay on the two grenades, which only Gorpak had seen, expired. The octet leader felt two stinging impacts on his upper right leg, and distinctly heard a whirring sound very close to his left ear as a fragment passed near.

Gorpak paid for his failure to recognize the possible threat those two grenades had represented. They had hit on a bare rock strip in front of the rock face and rolled closer. He grunted and paused as his vision disappeared in his left eye with a dazzling burst of pain. The impact was not great and there was no deep penetration, but a piece of grazing shrapnel had torn through the bulge of his eye socket.

Deanna tripped the actuator for another grenade catapult, and launched two more hurtling out towards the Krall.

Tyroldor saw them, as did all his warriors, so they went prone to be below most of the fragments when they exploded. However, he now recognized the threat the human’s fragmentation bombs represented to his unarmored warriors, and there would certainly be traps along the easier climbing points of the rock face.

The leader still considered the explosive weapons a low enough threat that they could complete the attack, but if a warrior died within his view in the process, he could not deny the knowledge of the death. The ledges were visible from the dome.

He remained confident they could kill these humans, but not if the hunt was terminated because of a ridiculous agreement.

He commanded that Motgar and Gorpak continue to the rock face and find a route to the first terrace that avoided the easy places to climb, which were likely booby-trapped. These two warriors were now his least effective fighters. They could be a distraction for the human defenders when he and Kador used an advantage he had that the humans did not, aerial transportation and the shuttle’s lasers.

Technically the lasers were not usable because the humans did not have them, and the shuttle should be used only for scouting and delivery of his warriors. Nevertheless, it could be argued that his octet did not have artillery, fragmentation weapons, armor, and explosives, and the humans did.

They waited a ridiculous amount time on the ground before the last two small bombs exploded. Tyroldor had no idea what advantage that conveyed to the humans, but timing them made it easy to work around their threat. After the ineffective explosions, he bolted for the shuttle, ordering Kador to follow.

He commanded the novice to sit in the second cockpit seat for another pair of eyes, and to operate the laser controls if they saw a target where they could be used. He lifted the shuttle and swiftly flew the length of the ridge top, made a return pass of the next lower ledge from the top, then the lowest ledge, the lowest and widest with just enough room to set the shuttle down.

He could see the two warriors using their talons to find purchase in the open rock face when he passed over them, and they were over halfway to the first level. He set the craft down facing the location where he had seen the gunshots originate, and beyond that the place where the grenades had been thrown. There was considerable cover on the ledge, with midsized boulders and bushes all along its length.

Aware that the slow moving humans would not have had time to travel very far since they had conducted their last attack, they would be in the vicinity, and would leave a fresh scent trail.

The two of them stepped through the hatch close to the rock face, and squeezed along the length of the shuttle, until their guns commanded the area in front. The two climbers rolled over the edge in a coordinated move facing opposite directions and lay prone, not using the shelter of the rocks or the scraggly shrubbery.

There were only a couple of the blood-drinking insects hovering nearby to see, and they quickly flew away.

The four warriors carefully sniffed the air for fresh human scent. It was present but was hours old. Tyroldor had the other warriors cover him and he went personally to the small stack of rocks where he knew the last shots had been fired at them. He did this himself because he did not trust his inexperienced novices to be cautious; something they had been trained to disregard.

Not seeing a potential trap in the bare rock around the small artificial stack of stones, he approached closer. He found the small three tube gun cluster, braced with stacked rocks and the little radio controlled actuator that had “pulled the trigger” on the set. The tubes were not currently aligned with the former shuttle parking place because Tyroldor’s own return fire had struck and shifted the rocks within two seconds of their having fired.

He uttered a low snarl when he realized there was no trail to lead them to the humans responsible for not only the last series of gun shots and explosions, but probably not for the previous more costly attack that had cost him his most effective warrior and a talented novice.

They had been led around by these little piles of defecation while remaining completely hidden, except for the three trapped and killed in the marsh. Even that simple action had somehow cost him one of his superior novices.

This device, and probably all of them on the ridge had been remotely activated. So one thing he knew with a certainty, they were watching this area right now.

At least they could see the sheltered parking area that was the most probable place to park a shuttle. They had known just when to activate their devices, and they had to use a radio transmitter to send the signal.

It had been an effective strategy thus far. The only member of the octet they had not damaged with these simple, almost primitive weapons was Kador. Gorpak would require surgery to excise the eye socket for his eye to regrow. Motgar might need her deepest fragments surgically removed. His fragment wounds were relatively minor, and his muscle tissue would eventually expel the foreign material.

There was something different effecting Pitda and Sitdok, because they had been paralyzed in some fashion, and might even die. That was why he left them behind. If they did indeed die, he would not be aware. It was proving harder to maintain the pretense of deniability and retain his clan’s honor.

The Krall com sets were already linked together to triangulate communication sources in the frequency range of the radios in the Krall built armor that humans wore. These units used typical Krall com frequencies, and the only detections had been from a source in the marsh after those humans had already revealed their position. The dome’s normal radio traffic was programed out of the triangulation calculations to eliminate false alerts.

However, the humans had used devices on frequencies the network clearly had not been set to use in triangulation. They wouldn’t have manufacturing capability as prisoners, so he and Pitda had discounted that possibility. Clearly that had been a mistake; one that he could correct now. They did have a field response to the human designed radio controlled actuators.

He explained what he had found to his warriors and what he would do to solve the problem. Returning quickly to the shuttle he used the command console to reset the software in all of their com set buttons. Now they would tell them where the enemy’s transmitters were located in any reasonable frequency range.

41. Spiders and Prey

When the shuttle lifted off Dillon used his tree-mounted camera to check the two warriors they could see were left behind.

“I think those two might be dead, but the hunt is obviously still continuing. If we can’t count on their obeying the so-called rules, then immunity doesn’t mean squat because no one is likely to survive to earn that.”

“Hey,” Juan Wittgenstein yelled. “I saw the left one blink an eye.”

“Are you sure?” Dillon asked. “I’m zoomed to the max on him, and I can’t see breathing. Or any movement, not even when the mortar landed just the other side of the rock and made me crap my pants.”

Frank laughed, a sign his tension was easing, since you couldn’t stay scared stiff for hours. “Why don’t we just watch his eye for a bit? I can see the red pit now, so if it

Hey! He did blink! And he moved his eye.”

“You’re right Frank. I saw it too,” said Deanna. “Could they be playing dead to draw us out?”

Mirikami discounted that. “If they suspected we were damn near under their feet they would have dug or blasted us out. They are not noted for subtlety, my dear.”

“Then what would leave them alive but paralyzed?” asked Clarice. “Did we break their spines or necks?”

“I think my Death Lime thorn cocktail did that. I mixed the thorns in with two sets of claymore pellets. The one I placed behind the big rock was one of those mines. We know the toxin kills humans, but it might not kill a Krall. It might wear off after enough time.”

“They’re alone and helpless,” said Clarice. “God I wish I could go blow their brains out for my husband, Albert. They killed him last year.”

“They’re all up on the first terrace,” Dillon noted. “They can’t see behind the rock. I could climb out and kill them and get back in my hole.” He proposed.

Mirikami opposed that idea. “Then your airtight seal will be breached for a few minutes, Dillon, and they would see your tracks and smell your scent trail if they return. We don’t have our shuttle to blow way the tracks and scent this time. If they find your spider hole, they can follow the fiber optic cables from yours to everyone else. I’m not saying I don’t feel the same way, but we can’t risk their lives to kill those two.”

“What if I reseal my tube, cover it and wipe my foot prints, then lead them away by making tracks and a scent trail towards the river?” he continued in a rush to put off the objections he knew were coming. “With two obviously dead Krall in plain sight, how can they claim to have followed the rules?”

“Let’s save that option for later, Dillon. The power in our soft suit rebreather packs are good until dark, with our suit batteries to help if we cut off our cooling systems. We may get hot but we can still breathe without leaking scent into the air until then. We can move to the caves after dark like we planned, assuming the hunt is over or the Krall are someplace else.”

“Look at his rapid blinking now, and his eye is pivoting around,” Deanna said. She had continued to stare at the image of the helpless Krall.

“He may be regaining muscle control,” Clarice said, frustrated they might have to let the two killers revive.

Mirikami interjected, “Ahh, I have my camera aimed up at the ridge, and I can see wolfbats circling in the sky overhead. Krall can hear their ultrasonic calls, and the bats will feed on dead warriors. I’ll bet both of those Krall are conscious and can hear them but can’t move.”

“That would be great, to see them eaten alive.” Frank was almost gleeful in his bloodlust to see the Krall die. “Oh Oh, Here comes another problem for them,” he added happily.

A skeeter settled right on the legless Krall’s back. It spent several seconds working on penetrating the tough skin, but finally became still and began to drink. Several more arrived and divided their attentions between the two motionless warriors.

“As entertaining as that sight is, we need to stay focused on the active warriors,” Mirikami admonished. “Put your camera on the shuttle Dillon. The leader just ran inside after looking at the cluster gun tubes. I think he picked up the actuator. He may have figured out how we triggered our devices.

“We anticipated their eventually tracing the burst transmissions, like they do for the suit coms. If they get anywhere close to the tree with our antenna, we will blow it to bits. The fiber optic is hair thin, so I don’t think they could find it and trace it to us.” That was the hope, at least.

“Let’s watch them for a while,” Dillon proposed. “We have some good mechanical booby traps that still might work.”

****

Tyroldor sent his warriors along the wide terrace seeking recent scents, and looking for any kind of artificial item, such as a wire, or mechanical device.

At the very first crevice, Motgar reported there was a scent of two humans that probably had been there that morning. He instructed them to back away, and he lifted the shuttle and hovered in front and above the opening.

Kador fired the high intensity laser into the opening and played it around, fracturing rocks from the intense heating. Suddenly there was a blast from within the little cave, and the multiple splatters of dirt from the ledge in front and the billow of smoke out of the opening told Tyroldor that one of the mines like the one that crippled Pitda had been inside.

He worked his way along the entire terrace and repeated the process at every opening large enough to hold a human, and on obvious places where a warrior might have taken cover from an attack. He was rewarded by two more explosions, and found another mechanical device, which he burned.

Motgar reported that the device would have shot a metal bolt from a bowed spring arm if a trip wire were pulled. After the device was destroyed by explosive rounds, she and Gorpak sniffed at the end of the bolt and reported that the tip had a yellow coating with a strange odor.

They had detected that same scent after the mine that wounded Pitda and Sitdok had exploded. Neither warrior had encountered the scent anywhere except that place. Tyroldor told them to avoid contact with the substance. Advising it could be the poison that paralyzed the other two warriors. He ordered Motgar to preserve the bolt in a sealed pouch.

These humans were more treacherous and prepared for the hunt than Telour and his clan had warned them. The Kimbo warriors should have been sent with armor as protection from bombs with poisonous fragments and from poisoned projectiles. Humans had been hunted on Koban for four or five orbits of the planet around its star.

Finding so many of these unexpected weapons meant they must have been encountered in past hunts. Kimbo’s rapid assault tactics were particularly vulnerable to the human weapons because novices were routinely exposed to high risk. However, they should have been given armor and scanners here, and told of the remotely actuated booby traps on unusual frequencies. They could have found and eradicated most of their foes by now.

Kimbo clan had not been given the information they needed to meet this new enemy, and Tyroldor would present charges of misconduct against Telour and Graka clan before the clan leaders on Koban. However, he was determined to complete the hunt first, using the information he now had.

At the far end of the ridge, the lower terrace ended at a steep canyon where the river flowed through. He picked up the two warriors so they could complete their search of the next higher level. There wasn’t room to set the shuttle down here, so he raised the hatch and let them jump to the smaller ledge. He planned to land the shuttle on the wider lower level to wait for them to report on scent trails at possible booby trap sites, then lift to blast them with the laser.

That was what he had intended to do, but they found what they had been seeking. Both Motgar and Gorpak immediately reported fresh human scent in the air when the craft had backed away. Nothing was detected on the ledge itself, but the scent was rising with the wind out of the canyon.

Raising the shuttle above the top of the canyon, he could see a darker color stone in a horizontal band closer down by the river. He lowered the shuttle slowly, and the shadows proved what he had suspected. Softer stone had been eaten away by water in the past, leaving a sizable wide ledge of uncertain depth on each side. He didn’t see any easy access path for the humans, but he felt sure this must be their hiding place.

Carefully scouting the ridge top near the canyon, he didn’t see any logical place to place a mine or trap, so he returned to collect his two warriors and landed at the top.

They all searched carefully and immediately found metal devices hammered or drilled into cracks at the top, and at places down the rock face. Even though it was over eight leaps away, they could see similar devices on the opposite rock face.

“The humans used ropes to climb down, I think.” Motgar told her leader. “But there is no scent from today, it is older.”

“But the scent was fresh in the air from down below, so they must be there in the caves on each side now. The humans may have come a day early to prepare their defense and to dilute the scent.

“With their mines and bombs this is a hard place to enter by surprise, and the cave on one side can support the other side. The shuttle noise has told them we were searching here, so they will be ready.”

Kador hoping to win favor offered the usual Kimbo solution. “If we climb down and enter from both sides at once, we can kill them without risk for us all.”

The octet leader displayed an uncharacteristic hesitation. “A loss to us here will end the hunt without killing every human, if there are others hiding in the jungle. I want them all destroyed to preserve Kimbo honor.”

Again, Motgar sensed their leader avoiding Kimbo clan strengths, and he openly said the hunt would end if they lost warriors in honorable combat. Losses in battle were acceptable so long as the clan was victorious. She didn’t understand why the hunt would end now, because the hunt didn’t end when Stokol was killed.

Path and clan were not invoked in this case so she asked her leader a question. “How will we kill the enemy below us if we do not attack them?”

Tyroldor roared out a savage response. “They will be attacked, but their cowardly hiding does not deserve the honor of direct combat with Kimbo warriors! We were not told of the weapons humans have, we were not given armor for bombs and poison, not told they remotely trigger explosions on radio frequencies different from Krall clan use. What else were we not told?” he was on the verge of berserker rage.

“Get in the shuttle! We will destroy them here then return to the jungle. They drew us here when we were ready to hunt there, so they did not want us to look there. They will pay for this he vowed.”

Cowed by the octet leader’s rage they leaped to obey, and the shuttle quickly lifted and hovered over the center of the canyon.

Kapdol armed the side lasers, and Tyroldor quickly descended to draw even with the wide crevasse on each side.

“Fire in sustained mode,” ordered Tyroldor, and the ravening beams blazed into the cave depths, as Kapdol directed the laser mounts so they pivoted back and forth to cover the full width.

The evidence that humans were present was quickly confirmed when a series of com set communications were detected as coming from both sides, and four near simultaneous claymore blasts scoured and pitted the hull of the shuttle.

This was followed by a barrage of explosive and armor piercing rounds from the cave depths. These hammered the hull with ringing impacts, leaving larger pits and several struck and cracked the side view ports of the cockpit. However, a craft designed for interclan combat, capable of short space flights with the attendant collision risk with battle debris, was not going to be penetrated or disabled by mere handgun fire.

The return fire quickly diminished as the superheated rock within the caves exploded in shrapnel like fragments, and the armor proved virtually no protection from the ravening energy. They continued to play the beams almost a full minute after the last sign of resistance was detected, and quit only when the overheat warnings on the plasma fed beam pumps sounded.

The rock roof of the caves had collapsed as the stone shattered where the beams passed, and tons of rock buried whatever remained of the defenders.

Watching the cave roofs collapse, Tyroldor was satisfied that nothing had survived through that hell of exploding rock and the crushing tons of rock. He climbed above the sides of the canyon, and rotated to see the distant jungle. Now the next part of the hunt could start.

Motgar, also certain these particular cave defenders were dead asked, “We will not search the remainder of the hiding places of the ridge?”

“We found no fresh scent on the lower ridge, so they only intended us to walk into their traps.” He affirmed.

“We found their hiding place by their scent rising in the air. We were pulled away from the jungle by them before because I believe they have much of their force hidden there. I will hover slowly back and forth over the treetops with both side hatches open, where you will watch and sniff. If we detect their scent that way, we will circle to find the center of the infestation, then land and approach from four sides.”

Then Tyroldor put the ridge behind them, heading for the jungle.

“Poor bastards,” Frank said, of the people in the canyon.

Earlier, when the two warriors leaped out on the narrow upper ledge and stood sniffing towards the canyon after the shuttle pulled back, they suspected the worst. They saw the craft disappear briefly beyond the canyon edge, and return to land on the top.

The warriors looked over the edge for a minute or two, then all returned to the shuttle and it descended out of sight again, between the canyon walls.

****

Panic was evident when Mirikami’s team heard helmet broadcasts from the men in the canyon caves. They screamed to one another that the Krall were using the heavy lasers.

This wasn’t a complete surprise to the six in the sealed tubes, buried almost under the previous parking place of the Krall shuttle. They had watched as the craft’s lasers had wiped out every trap they had set on the lowest terrace, and expected them to continue the process at the next higher level.

They’d next heard frantic transmissions as the four trapped men tried to coordinate their fire on the shuttle, triggering all four claymores at once. They ducked as far back and to the sides of the dead end caves as possible. Desperate to hide from the beams seeking to turn them into cinders.

The last transmission Mirikami’s team heard was “They got Cravens.”

Dillon asked, “Who was Cravens paired with?”

“That sounded like Farley Blagson to me,” responded Juan. “He’s friends with Cravens.”

“Well, warning those four was pointless, as we had discussed. If they were found they had nowhere to run. I put it to all of you now; should we send a warning to the five in the jungle and reveal to the hunters that there are still people alive over here, or let them take their chances?”

“They may think they killed the ones responsible for the bobby traps here,” said Frank. “If we say anything they’ll come back for us. I vote they take the same chance we already took.”

“I agree,” said Juan.

“They had an opportunity to join up with you Sir, and they chose to go it alone.” Deanna reminded him.

“Clarice, you’ve been quiet,” Dillon said.

“I don’t want anyone here to risk their neck for them, since they didn’t want to help us. But if none of you object, I want to get the hell out of this hole and go kill those two bastards lying out there with skeeters on their asses!”

“Obviously this isn’t a humanitarian gesture you have in mind,” Mirikami observed dryly. “Unless they revive or get picked up, the skeeters and wolfbats will kill them eventually, so you want to make sure?”

“To make sure, for Albert,” she stated firmly. “I don’t want to die doing it, and I don’t want to put any of you at risk either. But I can’t stand not making sure that at least two of them are dead for sure, because we aren’t positive they lost any warriors elsewhere.”

“Let me make a proposal. If Clarice and I both climb out, and I rebury her and my empty tube, we can make sure these two are dead and keep the rest of you hidden.”

“Hold on Captain,” Dillon told him. “I swore to back you up out here, and you are not going to get me to back down from that. If you go, I go, and I’ll tell right now that I want to do it. Clarice, if I set the camera so you get to watch, will that satisfy you?”

“I’m willing to do it myself, but if you both are going anyway, you don’t need an old lady slowing you down. You will have to go someplace else to hide, and I can’t go too fast.”

Mirikami studied his camera view from the top of the boulder. “They are flying over the jungle, so we need to be a bit sneaky if we climb out. They have spectacular vision. Now is as good a time as any, so I say we do it while we can. Are you ready Dillon? No cramps to work out first?”

“I can’t do that in this tin can anyway. My butt’s numb from this little bench, with creases from armor probably permanently impressed there by now.”

“OK. Let me get out first Dillon. I’ll go slowly and my size will let me squeeze out with less disturbance of the dirt. Then I can lift the sod plug off of you.”

Mirikami pulled at the vacuum seal tape they had used inside the home made six-foot tubes. This had made them airtight, thus requiring the soft suit packs to keep their air breathable.

He carefully lifted his inch thick plastic cap, covered with a couple of inches of dirt and blue-green sod. He removed his helmet and used that to prop the cap open enough for his slight frame, even in armor, to fit through. He crawled out on the surrounding grass.

He spoke into his open helmet so Dillon could hear through the fiber optics, asked him to thump repeatedly on the lid so he could be sure he found him. They each were buried about ten feet apart, and it was hard to spot the sod-covered circles.

Once located, Mirikami gently lifted the grass plug, thumping back on the cover, and Dillon lifted his lid straight up.

Grasping the underside as it raised, he held the edge high enough for the larger man to climb out, using his three-foot high bench seat as a step. He told Dillon to disconnect his fiber optic line and drop it in the tube. Next Dillon helped him set the cover back in place carefully, and they arranged the sod to obscure the circular cut.

They went to Mirikami’s tube, and he spoke one last time to the four still concealed, then detached his own fiber line and let it fall inside, and put on his helmet and lowered his own lid and sod plug.

Standing, they waved at the hidden camera in the tree, which was set to show the clearing and the big boulder. Mirikami’s camera had been left aimed over the jungle. Unfortunately, the other four had no way to control the cameras now.

Satisfied their former hiding places were well concealed, they looked at their two targets. Having only glanced at their motionless skeeter covered forms as they emerged.

Each Krall had three bugs on their backs and legs, sipping at their life juices. It wasn’t as easy to do on a Krall as on a human, because the blood flow kept stopping after ten or fifteen seconds. They had to penetrate the tough reddish hide at a new location to get a fresh flow of blood, but they had been at it for at least an hour.

The wolfbats had remained circling high when the shuttle was close, content to grant the skeeters their slow kills. They waited patiently, ready to descend to eat the tough stringy flesh once they were sure the dangerous companions of the red things, inside the hard flyer, were truly gone.

They shrieked their anger when they saw the first of the new creatures climb from the ground. At first, the new Flock Leader thought the big red ones had been waiting for his squadrons to dive to feed, prepared to kill them when they came close. Then he noticed the new creature’s smaller size and slowness. He knew they were two of the hard-shelled animals that tasted so sweet. They died out here often.

Recently these had proven almost as dangerous as the big red ones. He was glad they had stayed high, conserving energy on the warm thermals that could hold them aloft all day.

Dillon and Mirikami held their pistols ready, but didn’t intend to fire a shot that might carry farther than intended. Even with the miles between them and the jungle.

Dillon had strapped on a machete, similar to the one Thad often wore. He carried that in his right hand. Mirikami had only a nine-inch hunting knife. Neither carried a Jazzer, so the blades were the best means to drive off or kill the skeeters, and then to cut the throats of the Krall.

Both had their face plates cracked open so they could talk, yet not worry about a sting to the face.

Dillon stopped abruptly. “Hey, the Krall here on the left sees me. His eye is tracking my movement. He drew his eyelid back wider than I thought they could open. He probably saw us climb out of the ground. I wonder what the hell he thought about that!” He added a sinister chuckle.

****

Sitdok’s agony throughout his body was still terrible to bear, but had diminished some near his legs, where it had started. He was aware of the skeeters biting him, but didn’t feel them. He could see them and hear them from time to time, as they shifted position, or fluttered their wings in agitation as they pushed one another for the best spots to feed on him.

He thought he would recover movement before they fully drained him because his legs burned much less now. The poison was gradually wearing off where it had first started, and he decided it would not kill him directly. The biggest risk to his life was being helpless against the insects and flying animals of Koban. He was so wrong.

Sitdok couldn’t believe what he was seeing when he saw the ground start to open up. The poison surely was causing hallucinations. He was imagining Koban hatching an armored human, emerging from the dirt of the planet. It climbed out fully formed if a bit smaller than the other three humans he had seen. He could see its soft ugly face because it had no helmet on its armor.

It walked over to another place and helped as another human was born from Koban. They replaced the ground over the place where it was born, only glancing his way a few times. Then they both returned to close the hole that birthed the smaller human, and then it too put on a helmet.

He heard them speak in their low frequency slow speech, and watched with renewed horror and fear as the large one pulled out a very large knife and started walking slowly towards him. The little human held a smaller blade, but was moving towards a place behind him where he knew Pitda had been similarly struck down.

When the human swung his large blade in a horizontal sweep over his body, it was not to kill him, as he expected, but to kill the insects that had been feeding on him. He heard their frantic buzzing as they tried to fly away. They couldn’t do so without disengaging their biting parts from his tough skin.

The splatter of their engorged bodies threw his own undigested blood on the ground where he watched it stain the dirt, along with their green insect ichor.

The human was saving him. He had actually felt the pulling of the insect mouthparts as they tried to tear free and escape. He felt like he might be able to move his feet slightly if he tried. If this human born of Koban dirt waited too long, he was going to discover who was really going to inherit this world as their true home.

He vaguely felt its unwholesome touch as it rolled him over onto his back. The movement stimulated what circulation he had remaining, and the burning was lessening in his lower abdomen. Move me even more stupid human and stir my muscles to recover faster, wait a little longer, he thought. I will have you just as we had your clan mates in the marsh.

The human looked towards a nearby tree, away from him, holstered the gun it had held in its left hand. Another foolish move, Sitdok decided, as he tried to bunch his leg muscled to kick a talon-laden foot into the slow moving animal’s soft body.

Then the creature held up the empty left hand and moved it from side to side towards the tree, with a blunt toothed grin that looked familiar.

He had seen that expression on another human, in the marsh. Over Stokol’s shoulder, just before that warrior’s head blew off in a bloody mush.

****

Dillon whirled around and swung the machete, his left hand joining with the right in a high overhead arc, and saw the Krall’s eyes widen as the blade descended, severing its head in one stroke.

He saw the legs twitch strongly; one even kicking out towards him, indicating the creature had been on the way to recovering.

He reached down and grasped the boney crest at the top of the head with his left hand, and held it up for Clarice to see on the camera. He stuck the machete in the ground and waved right-handed at the camera this time. The slow-to-die Krall continued to blink rapidly and look around as life and awareness drained from its brain and mind.

“Done with your mighty hunter pose, Dillon?” Mirikami asked, amused at the young man’s theatrics. “You needed to put one foot on the corpse for full effect.” He laughed, wondering about humanity’s own capacity for cruelty.

Mirikami had rolled the other Krall over, seeing it too could move its eyes and blink. It seemed to be cooling assessing him, and he saw it look down along its body to see Dillon, who had just tossed away the other Krall’s head. It looked back up at him, and seemed somehow defiant, and unafraid of its fate.

Dillon warned him. “Tet, the other one kicked its legs when I severed its head. I think the paralyzing effect of the toxin was wearing off. Don’t take any chances near this one, even with the feet blown off.”

“Right. I’ll stay out of reach. He was pulling at his lower lip.

“Uh Oh. What are you considering Tet? I know that look.”

“Sooner or later that shuttle will come back here to check on these two, to see if they lived or died, but to collect them either way. This warrior appears to have higher status. Check out his tattoo.”

“That’s a fair amount of color. If I understand it, the red represents a lot of dead Krall from challenges, or probably clan warfare. But what has that started you thinking about?”

“If we leave them both here, when they come back they’ll be really pissed, and will smell that two humans did this. I don’t want those supersensitive noses looking too hard and too long around here.” Mirikami waved in the direction of the buried tubes.

“OK, let’s give them a good trail to follow,” Dillon offered. “We can head to the river, like I suggested before.”

“They will damn well catch us there and all of them might not go after us. I think going where we still have some bobby traps will offer a better defense.”

“You mean on the top terrace where they didn’t finish the clean out job?”

“Yes, and I’m thinking they might be more inclined to come after us together if they think we have one of them as our prisoner.”

“He must weigh three hundred fifty pounds! And he’ll be coming out of his stupor at any time.” Dillon protested. “We can’t chance taking him alive with us even if we can lift him.”

Looking at the Krall and the back plate from the claymore, he removed a strong climbing rope he had coiled and hanging from his belt.

“I wasn’t planning on lifting him very much, more like dragging.”

Then he added, “Who said we were taking him alive?”

The curved metal plate was tied to the Krall’s back with much of his upper body weight resting on it, hoping it would reduce friction when they pulled him along by ropes at his knees. His hands were tied across his massive chest to his utility and ammo belt.

Dillon was taken aback when Tet had him tie the severed head to the dead Krall as well.

They only had about twenty feet to drag that weight on dirt and grass, before reaching bare rock. Then the lower friction of metal on stone would allow them to move faster. They hoped.

Getting the “dead weight” moving was tough. Almost as hard as it had been for Mirikami to coldly turn the paralyzed Krall into that mass of dead weight. It was done with the Krall’s own long slender “skinning” knife, driven through the softer roof the mouth and into his brain.

He had to punch it through with hammer blows using a convenient rock, the Krall’s leg stumps twitching.

This eliminated the messier result Dillon had achieved. In addition, it promoted the illusion the higher status warrior could still be alive. Mirikami had avoided looking into the Krall’s eyes as he killed him. Perfectly aware of how weak his enemy surely considered him for despising that act of murder.

The gene mods were proving their worth, because there was no way they could have had the energy to drag that corpse the hundred feet to the cliff last week. Even so, they were half-exhausted.

They took a breather, sipping a warm energy drink from their reservoir tubes, watching as the distant dot of the Krall shuttle passed repeatedly over the jungle in an obvious search pattern.

“Well my Capy Tan,” Dillon teased, “you still think we can climb up and drag this hunk of dead meat up that cliff by your rope?” He laughed at the obvious absurdity of the idea now that they were almost worn out.

“It was just an idea I had when I felt so damn good at the start,” grumbled Mirikami. “I always had a backup plan. Look at the opening, halfway to the rock chimney. It looks wide enough to stuff him in. He’ll be out of sight if we pile rocks and brush in front.”

“Tet, with the noses they have there is no possibility when they follow us that they won’t find him. Then they’ll know he isn’t alive.”

“Yes, but they will be all the way over here by then, well away from our people. They will know that we climbed up to at least the next level. I believe they’ll keep coming after us. They know they destroyed our traps on the first terrace. The blood lust should be high by then to get the humans they know killed two of their own.”

“You don’t think they’ll stop the hunt do you? Even with the evidence of two of their dead laying right in front of them?”

Mirikami shook his head no. “This leader has met with more trickery and trouble than in any human hunt here before us, and I’m sure he is feeling enormous rage. They are supposed to get matching weapons or counter measures in their staged clan battles and wars. To ensure no one overwhelms an opponent.”

“Hell, we are hardly about to overwhelm them Tet. We know they have killed seven of us so far.”

“Nevertheless, in pursuit of his personal plan, Telour has permitted us something of a weapons gap this one time. You saw the octet leader use the shuttle lasers to hunt for us on the ridge and then use it to kill the men in the canyon. The Krall have not used that sort of advantage before today. They always hunted on foot or in trucks, armed with pistols, rifles, and knives. I believe right now that this octet leader thinks his team has been cheated of their ‘glorious’ easy victory.”

“Well, I hope I get to cheat him out his life, or of another warrior if I have to go down today.”

“Let’s not get fatalistic, lad, we have some options to try. But I don’t see that shuttle right now, do you?”

Dillon jumped to his feet and moved to see around some obscuring trees. “I think it sat down.”

“We need to get going moving again. Grab your side of the line.” Mirikami stood up.

They stuffed the corpse into the crevasse as best they could, and simply tossed bushes over the opening. Mirikami tied Sitdok’s head to his belt, running a loop of rope he cut through the mouth and out the neck.

“What are you doing, keeping that bloody damn head Tet? You into souvenirs now?” Dillon chuckled.

“Did you forget that when we get up there that we can be seen from the dome again?”

“Oh, right. You can show our proof of a kill, even if the frigging hunters won’t stop.”

At the base of the chimney, Dillon gently uncovered the upward facing buried mine. He inserted the safety and detached the trip wire, and let Mirikami tie the claymore across his back with a loop of rope.

He also took the rest of the climbing rope Mirikami handed him and started the climb in the narrow but deep split in the rock face. There were operate made hand and foot holds that had been chipped into the rock by earlier teams, as well as natural small ledges and cracks.

Dillon made the dangerous high gravity climb in less than twenty minutes, and let the line down to Mirikami, only a third of the way up. The Captain had known that he’d need help. He wasn’t overly hot, but had gone through his supply protein bars, and was running out of fuel for his new metabolism. He didn’t know how Dillon was managing so well.

Once on the lower terrace, he ordered Dillon to climb higher, and make use of the devices they had left up there. He suggested that he put down fresh scent trails and remove the mechanical trips, since they knew to watch for those now. Triggering the actuators remotely was no longer risky if they already knew you were there.

He told Dillon he would set up the one claymore they had recovered in one of the lower caves, one already cleared by the Krall. What he didn’t tell him was that he had also brought a wide flat sheet of plastic explosive, pinned to the Smart Fabric over his chest, with a detonator in a pouch on his ammo belt that he could insert if he was cornered. He’d try to take one of them with him if he could.

42. Final Gambit

“There’s Dillon,” Noreen shouted happily, “I knew they were OK.”

Followed instantly by consternation, “What’s he doing up on that cliff and out of his spider hole?”

Thad had his binoculars trained on him. “He’s lowering a line, and he had a claymore strapped on his back that he just set down. Someone else is making the climb with him. See? He’s helping pull someone up with the line.”

“That’s most likely Tetsuo. He promised me he wouldn’t let that young lunk head run off alone. But if the Krall didn’t find where they were buried why did any of them bail out for the cliffs?”

“Should we broadcast and tell them the Krall landed in the Jungle?” Noreen questioned.

“They knew that before they came out of hiding,” answered Thad. “The camera on top of the rock can see over most of the north half of the compound except for the valley side of the ridge. When I only saw four Krall on the ridge top I was afraid two had stayed behind to search at ground level. Then they lasered the poor bastards in the canyon and headed for the jungle.”

“Tet just reached the terrace; Dillon grabbed his hand to help him up,” Noreen observed.

Thad was trying to understand what they were doing. “If there were two warriors left behind Dillon and Tet would never have left their hiding places, the cameras would let them see that. They never would climb up there in plain sight if a couple of warriors simply moved away on foot,” insisted Thad.

“I want maximum zoom on Captain Mirikami,” Maggi ordered Jake.

“What do you see?’ Noreen wanted to know.

The screen image reached maximum for the camera they had installed in the dome, and Mirikami still was only an image four inches high. The Ship’s telescopic cameras were blocked by the dome.

“There’s something banging around at Tet’s thigh level, tied to his belt I guess,” Maggi replied.

Suddenly the Captain waved in the direction of the dome, and lifted the object tied to his waist to chest height, holding it out.

“I can’t make that out, even with binoculars. Did you make any bombs that shape? It isn’t quite round. I wonder what that is?”

The little image of Mirikami detached the object from his belt and held it over his head with his left hand, two fingers raised on his upraised right hand.

Even as Jake answered Thad’s rhetorical question, he realized what he was seeing.

“Sir, it has the same shape, size, and coloration as a Krall head.”

“Goddamn! They got one!” Thad shouted. “Tet brought the head up with him as proof.”

“They probably killed the other warrior we can’t account for as well, or they wouldn’t be out walking around,” Maggi noted. “That’s why he’s holding up two fingers.”

“Do you think Telour can see that? How good are their eyes?” Noreen asked.

“They have good distant vision, but I’ve seen them use a binocular like device on other hunts. Telour or some of his warriors will have some right now watching this. I’ve seen their silhouettes at the top windows during previous hunts, observing the action.”

He added, “We need to get the hunt stopped before the five people in the jungle are slaughtered. If I use my suit com, I can tell everyone that we see the head of a dead warrior. The Octet leader will have to admit the hunt’s over.”

He snatched the helmet off the table again and locked it in place, faceplate open so the others could hear. Keying the same general push, activating all channels of the com set, he made a broadcast he hoped would end the killing.

“Attention! A Krall hunter has been killed, and his head is being held by a human where it can be seen by those in the dome. Telour knows the hunt is over, and all of the human survivors have immunity. Stop the hunt, as honor and the agreement requires.”

He repeated this several more times, in different words. He even had to hush some broadcasted cheers from Primes elsewhere in the dome that had been monitoring, and transmitted their own glee.

Mirikami and Dillon both waved that they had heard, but wisely made no transmission of their own to revel their location to the hunters.

In the shuttle, Tyroldor heard the message, but because it originated at the dome, and he didn’t understand the human language he ignored the transmission.

The three dome observers watched as Dillon climbed to the second level, began inspecting the devises there at the various small caves, and sheltered areas.

Mirikami too started looking at the destroyed defenses and traps along the lower terrace. Some of the small caves could no longer be entered, due to collapsed rock filling them.

Then he reached a cave where the destroyed claymore had been concealed outside, intended to blast whoever entered or stood in front of the malodorous opening. It was Dillon’s much maligned and joked about “shit cave.”

Mirikami placed his replacement claymore at the base of the same scorched rock where burned brush had once provided its concealment.

He tossed the heat damaged back plate of the exploded mine out in plain sight, in front of the little cave opening. Tossing scorched dirt onto the replacement mine to disguise its intact condition, he detached the lanyard and put that in a belt pouch. Then he attached a remote actuator, and carefully removed the safety pin.

All he needed was to spot a Krall walking in front of the device when he could actually see him, so he continued down the terrace to the larger double cave, where one entrance had partly collapsed from the heat blast and exploding rock. The other opening was still passable, if you climbed over the fallen rock.

Mirikami set the severed head on a prominent rock pinnacle near the cliff edge, just past the freshly booby-trapped “shit cave.” The head was visible from both the dome and from below.

The problem with manually triggering the mine was that he wouldn’t be able to see the booby trap from inside the cave. He’d have to lay prone on the ledge behind fallen rocks for his observation point, and duck into the cave if he missed his target. Inside is where he’d have to make his final stand if pursued. He was going to try to keep them away from Dillon, which is why he sent the impetuous younger man up there.

Mirikami pulled out his small detonator and opened his chest plate to reach the quarter inch thick rectangle of plastic explosive. This improvised bomb would be his last hope to kill any warrior that came into the cave after him. He started preparing for that final stand, if needed.

****

Telour had been completely surprised to see his human clan leader pawn climb up onto that ledge. He realized that he had never asked him which humans from his group were joining the fight. Mirikami had told him he would not accept immunity without earning it, just like any of his people, so he had chosen this hunt to do that.

His presence and planning obviously explained the most successful defense so far by a human team on a hunt. Even though seven humans were dead, Telour had expected much higher human loses by now. It seemed probable that there were two dead warriors, which the octet leader was bordering on dishonor by pretending he didn’t know, avoiding confirmation.

Then he and his K’Tal, plus two curious warriors, saw clear proof that his chosen human organizer had definitely made a kill. A warrior’s head dangling from the human’s waist demonstrated beyond any question that the hunt should be over.

To drive the point home the head was raised high and the little human raised two digits on his other hand. Did that mean two dead? Telour wondered. There seemed to be only four warriors on the shuttle, of the six that had arrived at the ridge. The octet potentially had lost half of its warriors. This was far more than Telour had ever expected. Two dead warriors was a huge success of his plan to prove humans were capable of fighting. Only three warriors over nearly five years of various types of testing had died, measured against thousands of human deaths.

The suit broadcast from somewhere in the dome was unusual, he thought, but not unprecedented. Humans often watched events play out in the hunts, and sometimes gave warnings that had never offered any real benefit to the hunted in the past. This time might be different, because for the first time humans here knew that immunity had been earned for the ones still alive, and the hunters were in the jungle, apparently not aware.

Kimbo clan’s risky rushing tactics didn’t seem to be proving very effective against booby traps. Their recently successful methods were something Graka clan had wanted to observe, but they never expected to see them flounder against mere humans. It was instructive.

Finally, as a method to counteract the surprise human weapons and tactics, the octet leader had used his shuttle’s capability. This seemed like an overreaction, since they could have withdrawn to obtain armor and scanners, and then return. That would have cost them valuable time, and the shuttle weapons were only being used against mere prey animals, not another clan. The humans were using new weapons they had devised themselves, and which the octet hadn’t expected. It wasn’t clear if a combined clan council meeting would be critical of the Kimbo octet leader or not.

The dilemma Telour faced now was how to end the hunt without seeming to push the Kimbo clan’s hunters to withdraw; something he didn’t have the authority to do. However, he wanted to keep his little clan leader alive for organizing future hunts.

The manner in which the octet leader had manipulated reports and evidence to maintain his presumed “ignorance” was clever, but that would be over if he saw his dead warrior’s head on that rock. Telour thought of a way to present proof that the octet leader could not deny, and that did not require that he accept the word of a rival clan member.

Tapping his com button for the appropriate channel, he sent a message every member of the octet would receive.

“Tyroldor, this is Telour, compound commander for Graka clan. While you hunt in the forest and jungle, a human on the ridge has presented evidence visible to us in the dome that may prove they have killed one of your warriors. If this is so then the hunt should be suspended by an honor agreement with the prisoners that if they fight well and kill a hunter, those human fighters that survive will be granted immunity from this and future fights.”

There was a long wait, unusual for a Krall warrior to take a quarter minute to respond, but it finally came.

“Telour, there are four humans we are about to surround, and we just killed another. They cannot escape us. If I leave to confirm a possible death we may lose the advantage.”

Telour answered, scorn dripping from his pointed teeth, and revealed by his snarl. “You have four warriors against four humans, and if the octet leader leaves for a short time your three novices will lose the advantage over these slow puny animals?”

There also was no mistaking the snarl behind the quick response to the provocation. “You knew these humans had weapons my octet was not equipped to detect and counter. Had we been properly briefed, we would have swarmed over them and they all would now be dead. These cowardly animals fight only from hiding, always with weapons of treachery that they do not wield themselves.”

“So you find these humans to be a worth enemy?” That was a loaded question, because proving they were worthy was Telour’s plan to gain status for himself and his clan.

Another snarled reply answered. “If cowardly fighting with hidden traps and use of trickery makes them worthy, then some clans may find them so,” hinting that Graka clan could be one of those. “Kimbo clan fights bravely and attacks our enemies directly and defeats them openly.” He finished.

“Then your objection to what is a completely new human method of combat means that if they do not fight like Krall warriors, then Kimbo does not want to participate in the war to come? Perhaps we can train the many billions of the enemy to fight as Kimbo wishes?” Telour half expected a challenge to result from that taunt.

Tyroldor restrained himself with great effort, remembering that the goal of his clan was to gain an early role in a fight against the human worlds. To admit that Kimbo’s methods were less effective against this new enemy would not achieve that goal. If properly equipped, his novices could have faced the unexpected weapons more effectively. He tried a compromise course that would allow his novice warriors to continue the attack on the retreating humans, even if he had to leave them.

“Until I confirm the death of any of my warriors at so distant a place, my warriors here will continue the pursuit and kill any humans they find.”

“Pursuit?” questioned Telour. “You said they were almost surrounded. They are so swift now?”

“They have the weapons you did not tell me about,” he said accusingly, enraged. “They explode from concealment when they leave them behind on the trail. The human we killed here died as it set such a weapon, and it injured another one of my novices. Because I can’t permit even a single death in this hunt, we need to proceed with caution in this dense jungle.”

Telour told him “Unless you say that three of Kimbo’s finest novices are unable to defend themselves from four fleeing humans that have never fought before, you perhaps should protect your clan’s honor and confirm or disprove the death of a warrior at the ridge.”

He couldn’t resist another taunt. “That is where you used the shuttle lasers to clear the enemy forces is it not? Yet the enemy is visible there to me right now, displaying what appears to be the head of a warrior.”

“I will go,” Tyroldor grudgingly relented. “I need time to return to the shuttle and travel to the cliffs.”

He was trying anything to delay the inevitable. His novices could kill the enemy if they could pin them in one place in this hellish thick jungle. You couldn’t see more than a half leap through the undergrowth, and the humans had crisscrossed the area earlier leaving a confusing series of recent scent trails, with potential booby traps anywhere.

“Motgar,” He called her on his com set, aware now that she knew of his problem concerning the loss of any warriors.

“My Leader,” she acknowledged his call.

“You heard,” it wasn’t a question. “I leave you as leader in my absence, to pursue and kill the enemy until I recall you if I confirm one of my octet has died at the hands of humans.”

Losses from the octet weren’t in doubt for her, because she had witnessed the death of Stokol, but was unable to say that to Tyroldor because he had terminated her report by invoking the “Path and clan” duty to obey without question.

At least now, she understood why her leader had done that, but in her mind, she wondered if Kimbo honor was being served by the extremes Tyroldor was taking to avoid admitting he knew of even a single death. If a human had displayed a severed head at the ridge, it had to be Sitdok or Pitda, and since they both had been paralyzed, both would surely be dead if a human had found them.

Fully half the octet was probably dead as were at least eight humans, so there would be no loss of honor to withdraw now, to pursue another hunt later. With equipment changes and force replacements, the next Kimbo hunt would be far more effective against these humans. No matter, she would continue to fight as ordered, until her leader commanded otherwise.

Kapdol, the only member of the octet previously uninjured, had lost his left hand in an explosion that was suicidally detonated by the human he stumbled on arming a claymore. The human had also died in the blast, but came within inches of killing another octet member.

There had been other narrow escapes. They discovered that the little hand bombs did not always wait so long to explode. These particular humans knew how to make them explode while in the air, or just after they struck the ground. She had two new fragments in her back from delaying taking cover, and Tyroldor showed fresh but dried blood along his right side for the same reason. Now they had to dive to the ground as they shot at the sound’s source whenever they heard something crashing through the leaves. Small Kobani animals did that often as they were disturbed, slowing the pursuit.

****

It was Dillon, shouting from over the edge of the ledge above that warned Mirikami of the shuttle’s rising above the distant jungle. “Tet, take cover, the shuttle may be on the way back.”

Neither wanted to use the suit com systems, which would positively confirm humans were active on the ridge, so their faceplates were slid open, allowing them to talk by shouting.

Without stepping out to look up to answer him, Mirikami called out from just inside the cave’s entrance. “Get under cover before they spot you, I’m already inside the big double cave.”

He had been piling loose rock around the front entrance as bracing for his final surprise, and making sure of the concealment, he had an opening just barely large enough for him to get back inside in a hurry.

As soon as he was sure Dillon had moved to hiding and wouldn’t see what he did next, Mirikami inserted the detonator in the now rolled up and mashed together sheet of plastic explosive he had been carrying, and wedged that into place in cracks at the cave roof. He made sure the lanyard he’d saved from the claymore was laid out, stretching back into the cave. He wished it were longer.

He hadn’t wanted Dillon to see him out of his armor, when he lay outside on the ledge. He might have done something equally risky and insisted on joining him to cover his back.

Mirikami crawled out, staying as low as he could until he was behind some rocks ten or twelve feet in front of the cave opening. He pulled a couple of previously uprooted teal leaved bushes over himself, which he’d gathered for that purpose. He hoped they would break up his outline if the shuttle flew over the ridge.

The shuttle didn’t make as fast a trip as Mirikami expected, and it appeared to circle the jungle one time before it started a low speed hover his direction. That had him worried, since the Krall always seemed to do everything in a hurry.

****

Telour too was watching events, using the Krall equivalent to binoculars that enhanced their already excellent distance vision. Tyroldor had taken an unusually long time to reach the shuttle, and when it lifted, he made a circle over the jungle once, before starting a slow cruise towards the ridge. He obviously was trying to give his warriors on the ground time to hunt down the humans they were trailing.

He had observed the two humans at work on the ridge; one on the higher level made changes to the undamaged booby traps there, and the little human clan leader, Captain Mirikami, had set up and concealed a mine in front of a small cave. Then he had gone farther down the terrace to a second cave. After pulling up some bushes and leaving them in front of that cave, he went into the shadows of the entrance.

The lenses Telour had could help him see into the dark opening slightly, but only from an angle. All he saw were rocks being piled near the front. Perhaps to provide cover if a warrior started firing at him. It would be no protection at all if the shuttle lasers were focused there again.

He was surprised when he saw Mirikami crawl out of the cave on his belly, dressed in some brown and tan clothing, without his armor. The small form disappeared into some rocks on the wide ledge, and then he saw the uprooted bushes move, obviously being used as additional cover.

The plan was obvious to Telour. The little clan leader was planning on watching that trap, to set it off remotely when a warrior passed it on the way to inspect the head placed on the rock spire a short distance past that opening. With a fresh scent trail, the opening was an obvious ambush point, and any warrior would be likely to check it before passing it by.

An interesting plan Telour thought, and one that would probably have worked earlier in this hunt. Now he doubted that a forewarned and experienced warrior like Tyroldor would fall so easily to that trap. Not after having seen so many traps, such as those they had already found and destroyed.

He decided the human clan leader was about to discover how a Krall warrior adjusted to new combat conditions. It was a shame to lose a good tool on its very first use, but now that these methods and their effectiveness had been demonstrated, some other human would step up to accept immunity and follow in Mirikami’s example. With a few more results like today, there wouldn’t need to be many more hunts. Never had humans defeated two warriors on a single hunt.

Tyroldor eventually reached the ridge, made a slow cruise high over the original landing area, and realized that Pitda was nowhere to be seen.

However, Sitdok’s body was covered by three wolfbats, feeding on his remains. It wasn’t possible to see if his head were missing with one animal feeding at the top of the carcass. Flying lower to frighten them away wasn’t in his interest right now, so Tyroldor shifted his attention to the ridge. He spotted what could be the head Telour had described. There was no doubt he’d be forced to go identify the remains.

He checked with Motgar before landing. The three warriors were still tracking the humans, following their intertwined trails and backtracks that they had carefully laid out all that morning and afternoon.

He chose a wider place on the terrace well down from the location of the head. By now, he was certain he would find the proof he had been avoiding. However, he didn’t have to rush to embrace the evidence.

Perfectly aware that he was being watched closely from the dome, he pulled both of his pistols and ignored the tightness in his chest. One of the most recent hand bomb fragments had passed through his right side blood pump organ, reducing his dual circulation by almost half, as the leaky organ pumped part of its blood into his chest, and reducing the volume of air he could pull into the lungs on that side. The pain had diminished, but the decrease in functionality could not be ignored.

When he passed a cleft that led up from the base of the terrace, he instantly detected the fresh stink of two humans that had passed there recently. They had clearly been hiding somewhere below and climbed up here only after he and his warriors had departed for the jungle hunt.

That had given the humans the opportunity to find the two warriors he had left behind, and kill them, as they lay helpless. He had not taken his injured warriors on the shuttle for fear the poison that had paralyzed them would kill them while in his presence. He had abandoned his clan mates to keep the hunt alive. That act may have ended the hunt for him.

As he sniffed the air, a familiar odor rose to meet him from over the edge. Pitda was somewhere close below, but the scent had the faint taint of death. Either he had recovered and crawled to the cliff, or the humans had brought him there. This still wasn’t proof of death that Telour could force him to admit having found.

He followed the fresh scent trail to where it split. One human had continued towards the head, the other had climbed to the higher level. There were still potential booby traps on the higher level, so he continued straight ahead.

The scent trail led to each opening that his warriors had previously checked and they showed the effects of the laser burns and fractured and ruptured rocks. Nevertheless, he did not pass any of them without checking for current signs of human scent, and looking for fresh activity outside the holes and along the wide ledge in front.

As he grew closer to the location of the head on a slender rock spire, he smelled a sharp odor of some animal’s defecation. It wasn’t fresh, but it came from a tall narrow opening just a leap and a half ahead. The smell bore the unmistakable connection to human scent, and the trail he had been following was much stronger and more recent here.

The breeze brought it to him from a wider area than just the opening. The human had moved about this place for some time in the last hour. It could be just inside, hiding, waiting for him to approach.

Tyroldor studied the area in front of the opening in the rock face carefully. A half leap in front, and slightly offset was a scorched rock where the laser had burned it, and there was a warped metal plate from a human mine lying on the ground. This was where they had exploded one of the booby traps.

The brush in front of the scorched rock was fresh. It couldn’t have been there earlier. With that realization, he instantly fired four explosive rounds and four armor-penetrating rounds into the cave opening, in case the human was waiting for him to step up and look inside.

His recalibrated com set sounded an alert as a remote actuator was sent a signal, and the mine immediately exploded with a powerful blast, pellets striking the rock face and some ricocheted, striking him on the arms and chest. He had instinctively dived to the side at the sound, too late to avoid the blast, but it had missed him. His first thought was that he might be poisoned by the pellets, as his two warriors had been.

He looked at where he had been struck, but there were no penetrations. From the corner of his eye, he caught movement several leaps beyond where the head sat on the rock. The human, after triggering the mine, was firing at him with his pistol as it ran towards a cave opening. Tyroldor leaped into the air from where he had landed and twisted to present as small a target as possible along the enemy’s line of sight.

In midair, he began firing towards the figure as it dived into the cave opening. He felt a shattering pain in his left foot as an exploding shell hit home, blowing off a toe. His own shots were on target, but they only struck rock at the entrance to the human’s bolthole, where he had just disappeared.

Ignoring the injury to his left foot, and the increased tightness in his chest from the fragment lodged near his right side heart, he came down in a tuck and roll, coming to his feet running with a slight limp, not quite as fast as normal. He started for the human’s hiding place, determined to end him now, firing as he ran for suppression.

He passed where the severed head sat on a rock, observing Sitdok’s dead eyed stare towards the place where he had died. He vowed to replace that with this human’s head in a matter of seconds.

As he approached the larger cave, the human began firing out at him, in fitful and wide shots, clearly trying not to expose itself. The Krall poured its own rounds into the rocks that were piled inside the cave entrance for cover, creating a hail of bullet shards and rock fragments, emptying his clip of explosive rounds.

Reloading explosive rounds as he ran, his view angle improved. He could see the shape of the small human pressed against the cave wall, sheltering behind the rock stack. His pistol was in his hand firing out at him. The stacked rocks that were his cover began falling in on him as Tyroldor’s explosive rounds dislodged them. The upper part of the stack fell inwards on his gun arm, forcing a shot to strike between the onrushing warrior’s feet. The human’s return fire ended when an accurate round from the Krall shattered his pistol and the hand that held it.

A savage pleasure gripped Tyroldor as he fired armor piercing rounds into the torso of the trapped human, an animal species he had grown to despise in a single day. He didn’t shoot into the head because he wanted that as his own trophy, to end this cursed hunt.

He lunged to reach over the fallen rocks to tear off the helmet when something sounded just above him. He had an instant to see a line fall away from a gray lump stuck to the cave roof before a hammer blow of an explosion smashed him to the ground. He felt tons of rocks fall across his back, snapping his spine, a crushing weight pressing the air from his massive chest.

Instantly recognizing his situation, he struggled to turn his pistol on himself, to deny the enemy the honor of his death, but rocks held his weakening hand firmly.

Unable to breathe, Tyroldor knew his prey’s final clever trap had been set up to draw him in close, to kill its own killer. He would die leaving a blemish on the honor of Kimbo clan. His final thought was that his frozen seed would be destroyed, his genetic line ended.

****

Dillon heard the firing then the blast of the claymore. His hope that the mine had ended things was dashed immediately when he heard more shooting, which continued for about fifteen seconds. A final heavy explosion was felt through his feet, and left him wondering what had caused that, since Tet had only had the single claymore.

He had started for the front of his hiding place as soon as he realized the attack was on the level below, scrambling recklessly over the two claymores he had positioned to blast out of the narrow opening.

He had his last grenade in one hand, a pistol in the other, and ran to the edge to look down towards Mirikami’s chosen cave. He saw dust drifting way on the breeze, billowing from a pile of rubble where the cliff face had fallen to form a modest slope of broken stone. It was the space in front of where Mirikami’s cave had been.

He sought a target but he didn’t see any sign of a warrior. Not at first anyway, but he soon spotted a Krall’s leg protruding from the rubble. He fired a carefully aimed round at the limb, tearing a chuck of meat from it without a twitch.

Dillon hurried to the chimney of rock he had used to climb up, and risked a dangerous fall in his haste to get down. When he reached the former cave opening, it was completely blocked. He ran to the second opening, intending to enter that to reach the place where they joined. However, the lasers had fractured the rock and it too had collapsed to fill the entrance. Without more help and tools, he wasn’t going to dig his way in without hours of effort.

If the hunt were not over now, it wasn’t going to end, so he used his suit com. “Tet, can you hear me? I’m outside your cave but it’s completely blocked. There’s a dead Krall’s leg sticking out of the rocks.”

There was no answer for thirty seconds. Then he got a reply.

“Dillon, this is Thad. I’m afraid Tet didn’t make it. But he took the damned octet leader with him.”

“Thad, the hunt should be over, can we get some help out here? We can dig the Captain out. He’s probably behind the rubble in a pocket of air.” He wanted the shuttle out here with crewmembers to dig if the fighting was over.

Maggi’s voice, more tender than he had ever heard her speak answered him. “Dillon, I’m so sorry. We were watching and the infrared image was clear enough. We even played it back while you climbed down. Tet was hit multiple times as he shot back. He was just inside the cave entrance and was there when the explosion brought the roof down on him and the Krall.”

Slumping tiredly onto a rock in front of the rubble covering Mirikami and the Krall’s body, he said resolutely, “We still need to bring him back. I won’t leave him out here.”

Noreen talked to him next. The catch in her voice indicating she had taken her friend’s death hard.

“Dillon, we don’t know if the hunt is ended or not. The octet leader appears to have ignored other probable deaths of his warriors to continue the hunt. There are three warriors in the jungle tracking our people there right now. I’m sure now they know from your transmissions that someone else is alive on the ridge.”

“I’m ready for them. Tet will be joined by more of the bastards.” He knew it sounded like bravado, but he meant every word.

****

Telour had watched with amazement as the little clan leader sacrificed himself to draw the octet leader close, and triggered an explosion that killed Tyroldor as he himself died in a hail of bullets from his attacker. A very Krall-like lack of fear and a surprising and stunning demonstration of the potential humans offered, as a new opponent that they could use to travel the Great Path.

He contacted Motgar, the new ranking leader for Kimbo clan, although the inexperienced novice was unaware of her new status.

“Motgar, Tyroldor has been killed within my sight. That would leave you as leader of the Kimbo clan octet, but the death of a member of the octet must be confirmed by the leader to end the hunt. The proof is on the ridge, but you are engaged in a hunt in the jungle, and have no close transport to confirm an honorable end of the hunt. The transport you used to reach the forest is the closest you have. What is your decision?”

Telour wasn’t about to blur the rules for the humans they might yet find and kill. Kimbo needed to solve their problems themselves. He was surprised at the quick reply.

“The hunt is over,” Motgar answered. “I accept your word that I am the ranking member of the octet, because Tyroldor would speak on this open channel if that were not so. I need no additional proof of the loss of our warriors. We will withdraw to debrief, and if permitted, to fight humans on another day.”

Additional proof? Telour thought. She knows there were earlier losses, and isn’t ready to compromise her honor to pretend that it isn’t so.

“In that circumstance, I will send my own shuttle to recover your warriors, and also recover the shuttle currently at the ridge. How many warriors are there, and where are they located?”

“There are only the two warriors with me in the jungle. We will be traveling south to where we can find a clearing for your shuttle.”

“My K’Tal will contact you.” He answered.

A sense of excitement filled him with pleasure at the huge success of his plan. Only three Kimbo warriors were still alive. The little clan leader had organized a team of eighteen humans that had managed to kill five Krall warriors in one Testing Day. He wasn’t certain of the number of humans that had died, and that wasn’t important anyway, but there would be roughly nine grants of immunity awarded.

Graka clan, Telour in particular, stood to gain considerable status and possibly the right to start the protracted war on humanity. It was a great day indeed.

43. Life Goes on

It was a terrible day indeed. The architect of the best performance humans had managed against the Krall in five years of fighting and dying here had not returned.

The word of what the Primes were calling a victory spread like a rampaging herd of rhinolo through the dome. Nine survivors represented half of those that had fought today. Considering the one hundred percent fatalities usually suffered, this was a huge boost to morale.

Suddenly there were more applicants for volunteers to work with the scientist from the Flight of Fancy than they could possibly use. The incentive to live on the ship if they helped could no longer be offered if there were three people for every available bed.

As soon as the surviving three Krall hunters had returned, a somber Jorl’sn, accompanied by Greeves flew out to pick up the survivors from the jungle. They were the most exhausted, and near the end of their strength.

Thad practically had to carry one of the women a mile to a clearing they had found closest to where the four had prepared to make their final stand. They had heard birds and animals making noise as the Krall worked their way closer to them. All four had saved one grenade each, to use on themselves, rather than permit the warriors to take them alive.

It was well known that the last hunt holdouts were more often found butchered or skinned alive. Sometimes they were staked out for kants, wolfbats, or skeeters to eat them alive. The more trouble made for the hunters, the less quick the death.

To Thad’s exasperation, the four from the jungle didn’t express much gratitude to those that had made their survival possible, or acknowledge Mirikami’s sacrifice that had saved them. In fact, they hadn’t really known that other selectees had made it out alive. The full magnitude of the day wouldn’t sink in until later.

The second shuttle trip landed on the lower terrace, near where Tyroldor had parked the Krall shuttle. The other four “spiders” had climbed laboriously up to join Dillon. They were dead tired from the tension and stress of the day’s events, and from the dangerous climb. They could have waited below for the shuttle, but refused to let Dillon struggle on alone, pulling rocks from the cave entrance where Mirikami had died.

Dillon was determined to recover Tet’s body for a proper funeral. He also wanted to make sure the wolfbats had a full meal on the damned octet leader’s remains. The Krall’s lower body was all Dillon and the others had managed to uncover, due to a large slab of rock that had slid down onto the Krall’s hips and lower back. That slab would require more than human muscle power to lift.

Dillon’s remaining energy confounded the other four, who had essentially only sat in their hot cramped holes all day, except for their struggle to climb up to provide moral support and thanks to their surviving benefactor. Fortunately, they still had protein bars left to give to Dillon. His new metabolism needed a lot more fuel now.

As Thad walked towards the five survivors, they looked up with a combination of sadness, but also relief at being alive.

Dillon on the other hand couldn’t accept that when the chips were down, he had allowed Tet to send him up to the higher terrace. He was haunted by the thought that his being with the older man may have evened the odds, could have saved him. He sat dejectedly on one of the rocks Mirikami had used for cover.

Placing his hand on his shoulder, Thad promised him. “Dillon, we will have a crew out here with block and tackle, crow bars, whatever it takes. But that’s for tomorrow. The sun will set in an hour. If we can’t get in, neither can the skeeters and wolfbats. At first light, we’ll send out trucks and the shuttle with people and tools. OK? You can’t stay here all night, you need sleep and rest.”

Dillon patted the hand on his shoulder in appreciation. Still staring at his feet, he nodded. “I know Thad. Thanks.” Then he placed his hands on his knees to help push himself to his feet. Man, he really was worn out. Gene mods or not, this gravity and heat took a toll.

“Let’s get out of these stinking sweaty body suits, and clean up.” He told the others.

Back at the dome, the jubilation of the Primes was offset by the somber tone of everyone from the Flight of Fancy. The newcomers hadn’t lived for years with once or twice monthly death sentences handed out for eight to sixteen people. What the Fancies felt was the loss of a respected and loved leader, whose decisions had saved so many of them when the Krall had stormed onto their ship.

Noreen tearfully greeted Dillon with a hug, despite his objections that he smelled too bad.

Maggi, with more tenderness and somber a mood than Dillon could ever remember, touched his hand and smiled up at him with moist eyes. “I was terrified for you and proud of you both today. Get something to eat and some sleep. I’m going out there with you at first light in the morning.”

The hurried shower and hearty meal were quickly behind him, when Noreen led him back to her cabin.

“Noreen, I don’t have the energy, I hope you understand.” He was making his excuse in advance.

“Dillon, I’m going to whack your package myself, you big dummy,” she responded in irritation. “I’m taking you with me to make sure you do get a good uninterrupted sleep. Maggi and I will have you up, dressed and fed by dawn, so get your butt in bed and to sleep.”

“Yes Mam,” he answered meekly.

As soon as he was sound asleep, she slipped out to meet with Maggi, Aldry, Willfem, Jorl’sn, the Chief and Thad, to discuss what they would say to Telour. They were going to discuss how a new leadership committee would continue in Captain Mirikami’s place.

Their concerns and arguments prepared, they went to the Bridge to use the Krall transceiver to call Telour.

The Krall of course never slept, but he answered so quickly that he must have had the unit attached to his equipment belt.

“What do you want? I have little time for your problems, I have important tasks to complete,” he responded gruffly. He sounded distracted, different from the usual Krall intense focus on any dealings with humans, particularly Telour when his own status hinged on his getting humans to do what he wanted.

Noreen spoke for the group. “I am Captain Mirikami’s First Officer, his second in command. I’m accompanied by a group of people that have been working with the Captain to organize the human combat teams, like the groups your hunters faced today.” She was about to continue, but was interrupted.

“Those were not my clan’s warriors, they were from Kimbo clan, a small unimportant clan. Your dead leader prepared a surprising day of entertainment for me. I am pleased. But I repeat, what do you want?”

“We wish to discuss the continuation of your plan, and the agreement you made with Captain Mirikami.”

“I am departing for a joint clan meeting tomorrow. I don’t have time to waste talking about continuing an old agreement with new prey.” He clicked off, leaving them wondering what he had meant.

Aware that Telour could still hear them, Maggi said, “Do you suppose that without the Captain’s presence that Telour thinks we can’t continue what we’ve started? We can of course.” The latter said for the eavesdropping Krall.

“He may have meant that the agreement is unchanged, and there’s no need to talk about anything,” suggested Noreen.

On a hunch Willfem, who had been staging rehearsed conversations around the Krall transceiver in the Drive Room, said, “I’ll bet we all wonder what Telour would say if he knew we plan to continue to support his plan, and to develop more new weapons and tactics for combat.”

She shrugged and looked at the others, as if to say it was worth a shot to let him overhear their intentions. Then Jake’s voice sounded in their transducers.

“The Krall transceivers are both deactivated, they are no longer sending data.”

“Let’s go down to deck 8,” Noreen proposed. Not trusting an unguarded conversation near the transceiver, despite Jake’s assurance.

Leading the group to the small conference room, Noreen asked behind the closed doors, “If Telour isn’t going to monitor us, and isn’t interested in talking about plans to boost his own status, do you think the whole deal is off now?”

“He didn’t say it was called off,” said the Chief, “only that he didn’t have time to talk about it because he had a meeting to attend.”

“Actually,” Thad corrected, “he said he didn’t have time to ‘continue an old agreement with new prey.’ What’s the significance of calling us new prey I wonder? They’ve been testing us for years, why describe us as new?”

“Good point,” Maggi agreed. “I’ve never heard him or any translator describe humans as new prey before, just as prey or animals. This is coming right on the heels of the first good human combat showing against them. It sounds like something important is being discussed at this clan leader meeting.”

Noreen was uncomfortable with her new authority, but needed to take the helm. “Well, we all have an early morning. I plan to be up an hour before dawn if anyone wants to have breakfast with Dillon and me at sunrise. Thad you’re welcome to grab an empty room here. Ask our friend to find one for you.”

“Thanks, I’ll do that. G‘night, and I’ll see you at breakfast.”

After that they all split up, exhausted from the stress and tragedy of the day.

****

At five thirty, Jake sent Noreen a wakeup call, and sharing the bed with Dillon, she shook him gently awake. With a kiss, she jumped into the shower as Dillon dressed. Then they made it to their usual dinning nook, where they found Thad already there with an order of simulated eggs, bacon, and coffee. Maggi and Willfem joined them shortly, and the rest of the dining room had many more people than usual for such an early hour. Apparently, a lot of people were going out this morning to help retrieve Mirikami’s body.

Despite the risk of wolfbats and skeeters, more people wanted to go than the shuttle could carry in a half dozen trips. Jorl’sn was preflight checking it now, and had loaded some tools and a few small explosive packets they might need for larger blockages.

Five or six trucks and halftracks were being readied for a slower trip, with eight people per truck. Deanna and the other three survivors from Mirikami’s team were driving four of them. Forty to fifty people so far had asked to go along.

Thad wondered if they knew how congested that twenty-foot wide terrace was going to get. Not to mention that those in the trucks would have to make the risky one hundred foot climb up to the lower terrace.

When the shuttle left, five trucks were already three miles out, in convoy, with a sixth still loading. The flight out was somber and quiet. No one looked forward to this task. The video of Mirikami’s final moments left no doubt of the condition of his body, even before the explosion brought down the cave roof on him and the Krall. The infrared camera had penetrated the shadows enough to see him firing out, and the impacts as the Krall’s bullets struck home in his chest armor, mere seconds before the explosion had obliterated the cave’s entrance.

Roni landed far enough away that her thruster exhaust would be well clear of the workers and the closest climbing route when the trucks arrived.

Walking towards the cave, they could see four wolfbats fluttering around the rock slab, nervously looking their way to see if they had guns drawn. When Thad drew one of his pistols, they all scattered in a rapid flapping of leathery teal wings.

As they drew near, they could see that the Krall’s legs, even the bones, were completely gone, and animals had been trying to dig under the large rock slab to get at the remains of the corpse still pinned beneath.

They stood back to permit Dillon to start the excavation effort. He banged way at the rock slab with a pickax a dozen times, removing only small chips with each swing. It was obvious that method was going to take far too long, and the pry bars they brought couldn’t budge a several ton slab.

Next, they placed the small explosives they brought between the slab’s top and the cliff face, but realized they had underestimated the weight of what they needed to move. They wanted to blow it away from the rock face; possibly even over the terrace edge, but the small amount of plastic explosive didn’t seem adequate to the task.

Soon nearly a dozen people had climbed up, having parked the trucks a couple of hundred feet away from below the work area. Bob Campbell and Neri Bar were among them, and they had brought more plastic explosives. It was decided that those, combined with the smaller charges would be more than enough to kick the slab over the edge and out of their way. They placed the explosives in four places, with detonators wired together, and a single remote actuator.

Warning everyone away, the entire group moved beyond where the shuttle had landed, to make sure no rock fragments would hit anyone. Bob handed Dillon the transmitter for the actuator, granting him the privilege of removing the largest obstacle.

He hesitated. “I hate to do more damage to his body. It can’t be an open casket type service anyway after what happened, and his final requests said he wanted cremation. But this size of a blast might not leave much of anything to cremate.”

“Dillon,” Maggi spoke softly, “He’s beyond pain or suffering. This is only the shell of who he was.”

“Go ahead,” urged Noreen. “We need to bring him back, to complete our grieving and to move on, to continue what he started.”

With a sigh, Dillon armed the trigger and pressed the button. The blast was even stronger than they had expected, and the rock slab went spinning off over the ledge to crash with a heavy thud a hundred feet below. More rock rained down from over the cave entrance, but they were smaller pieces, and would be easy to remove. They waited several minutes to make sure the patter of rocks had ended.

Dillon was the first to walk back through the billowing dust, the others hanging back to give him a brief moment alone with the Captain’s remains. He stepped over the Krall’s crushed torso, and saw the shattered remains of Mirikami’s armor under the loose rocks. The helmet, its faceplate still unbroken and mercifully closed, concealed his friend’s final expression.

He settled to one knee, and spotted the shattered pistol the Krall had shot from Mirikami’s hand. Dillon stared at its handle. He heard someone come up behind him. He glanced around and saw it was Maggi, with Noreen close behind.

“He went down fighting,” Maggi said.

“He fought exactly the way he thinks, smart but tricky.” He lifted something from under the gun butt, running into the darkness. It was the lanyard from Mirikami’s claymore.

From the dark recess of the cave came “If you’re through trying to blow my ass off, can I get something to eat and drink?”

With a whoop, Dillon charged into the cave, only to emerge a moment later carrying Mirikami, dressed only in his brown and tan body suit. The Captain was yelling at him to be careful of his leg.

Maggi stared in open mouth amazement at him, cradled there in Dillon’s muscular arms like a child.

Mirikami looked down at her, satisfied. “It’s worth raging thirst and a broken leg to see you struck dumb.” He chuckled as she blinked away tears, finally finding her voice.

“I’ll break your damned neck if you ever do this to us again.” She threatened as she wiped her tears.

Noreen was so overjoyed she rushed to hug Mirikami in a tearful embrace, as Dillon set him down on a nearby flat-topped rock. Tears and laughter were flowing equally free.

Thad had heard Dillon’s first shout, and had drawn his pistol and arrived at a run, just as the big man stepped into the light with the Captain in his arms. Holstering his weapon, he laughed and clapped Mirikami and Dillon each on the back, a silly grin plastered on his face.

Thad called back to the couple of dozen people that had stayed back by the shuttle out of respect for privacy, then out of concern when they heard Dillon yell and saw Greeves draw a gun and start running.

Thad’s words finally made sense when they saw Dillon set Mirikami down. The excitement and cheers spread. Jorl’sn radioed back to the ship with the good news.

Handing over a fistful of protein bars, Dillon asked how he had rigged his gun, where had he gotten the explosive, how far back in the cave had he been. Mirikami held up his hand to still the questions.

“I’m famished and thirsty, so give me some water and a few minutes to eat these bars. Could you please bring me the first aid kit from the shuttle? I don’t know if my leg is broken, but a big chunk of rock fell on it when I brought the roof down yesterday.”

He practically needed a cordon to hold back the congratulations and back slappers as he refueled his new metabolism. Finally, knowing he’d have to explain this several more times before the day was done, he told them what happened.

“I removed my armor for two reasons. I brought a flat sheet of plastic explosive with me, taped to my chest, which I needed to remove. Then I decided to use the suit as a decoy to get the Krall to charge that if my claymore missed him. I tied one of my pistols to the right hand of the armor, and piled rocks to hold it pointed out of the cave. I tied the claymore lanyard to the spring loaded trigger, running it behind the suit so I could pull it from back inside the cave. I used some of the climbing rope to tie to a mechanical detonator trigger for the plastic explosive I planted in the cave roof.

“I tried to kill the warrior with the claymore at the next cave down, but it was too suspicious of our traps by then, and was about to figure out I wasn’t hiding inside the shit cave. Forgive me Dillon, your shit cave.” He laughed with Dillon and the others at the reference.

“I remotely fired the claymore while lying in hiding on the ledge, behind this rock in fact. I missed him. I jumped up and dove into the cave while shooting at him. I think I actually hit him once. Then I crawled back in the cave and started repeatedly pulling the lanyard to shoot out of the cave mouth. He fired continuously back at the source and probably demolished my armor, thinking it was me.

“By that time I was around a bend where I couldn’t see the entrance, so I used the Katusha,” he patted the device slung from his ammo belt. “I aimed it at the front entrance through the rock to gauge when he was coming inside.

“When the little light brightened, I waited a second then pulled the climbing rope to detonate the explosives in the ceiling. I guess I wasn’t far enough back, and a piece of rock either ricocheted back to hit me or fell from the roof. It may have fractured my right leg. It was instantly dark so I couldn’t see a thing without my helmet light, and I nearly choked on the dust until I pulled up the Smart Fabric to breathe through. I think I lay stunned for some time from the overpressure.

“When I regained my senses, I heard noise at the front and thought it was the same or another Krall trying to get to me. The Katusha only indicated one. I crawled farther back inside and waited in the dark with my pistol. Eventually I slept.

“This morning I heard sounds outside and the Katusha showed there were a lot of individuals out there. I crawled a bit closer to the front in the dark, ready to call out when you scared the crap out of me with that big explosion. The outside was bright, and Dillon was blindingly backlit before I could finally see it was a human coming and not a Krall. I decided not to shoot him, despite the painful ringing in my ears. I called to him, he found me, he carried me out. End of story.”

Deanna gave him her first big hug. “Tet, you have no idea how much your survival will mean to the already deliriously happy people back at the dome.” She gave him her second hug, but wrinkling her nose this time.

Mirikami saw the reaction and said, “I’m rather tickled about it myself, but we’ll all enjoy these warm and fuzzy hugs more once I get this foul smelling suit off and I’m clean again. I’d stay out of that cave for a few days. We need to stock these with paper; this is another shit cave I’m afraid.”

Thad laughed with the others, but injected a serious note. “I’m wondering if we will need to go back in there anytime soon, for a hunt I mean. Last night Telour sounded like the agreement was over, and he was leaving today.

“Really? What did he say?”

Noreen told him of the brief conversation the night before.

Mirikami, back to thinking form with protein bars in his stomach, pulled at his lip. “So he called it an old agreement with new prey. That does sound like something is about to change, and with our status. I wonder why?”

He continued, “As ruthless as Telour is, he considers agreements, even with prey animals, a matter of his and his clan’s honor. He wouldn’t abrogate an agreement easily, unless the debt of honor had been met.”

“What would pay off that debt?’ Thad asked.

“Exactly the right question. He offered me and those I selected immunity. Provided we helped him demonstrate that humans were capable of fighting back more effectively. Killing three Krall…” he was interrupted.

Thad told him “Five warriors died. At least only three came back.”

“OK, five dead Krall. That is certainly a much higher rate than I expected. How many people did we lose?”

“Eight all told. The three in the swamp, four in the canyon, and the one in the jungle was virtually a suicide to try and take a warrior with him,” Answered Deanna.

“Well this was a huge day for us captives, but they certainly won’t fall for so many tricks the next time around,” Tet predicted. He gave an example.

“The octet leader would not directly approach the cave entrance where I had aimed my last claymore, and he started shooting from off to the side. He spotted where I had hidden the claymore. I triggered it just to give myself a chance to duck into the cave, counting on that distraction to save my butt.”

Noreen cut the story time off. “Let’s get you back to the ship for a proper shower and a real meal.”

“Aye Aye, Mam,” he answered.

“Don’t give me that. I was scared to death I’d have to try and fill your shoes by dealing with Telour.”

They carried Mirikami on a makeshift litter to the shuttle, and flew him back to the ship.

After Mel Rigson checked him out in the dispensary, he announced the Captain had a deep thigh bruise, but no fracture.

Mel allowed him to finish a shower then wrapped his thigh in a smart bandage, as Mirikami ate from a hurried breakfast plate, and drank some of his Earth coffee.

Putting on a fresh utility uniform, he felt much better. He wasn’t even particularly tired, since he’d had nothing to do all night but sleep in that cave, where it was relatively cool. He’d had to swat at the occasional kant that crawled on his hands or face, but those were only scouts from some distant nest. Luckily, none of them managed to sting him.

Noreen broke in with a Link as he left the dispensary. “Tet, Telour has called for all of the Training Day survivors to report to him in the Great Hall, right away. He sounded as impatient as he did last night.”

“Have you told Dillon?” he asked.

“Not yet, Sir, but I will next. I’m sending a truck for you both. I know it isn’t far, but I don’t want you to walk on that bad leg.”

Ricco drove Tet and Dillon to the dome, also collecting Tet’s “spider” team as they started across. Presumably, the four survivors from the jungle team had been told, but they already lived in the dome. A stream of Fancies were headed over as well, and waved as they passed. Obviously they had also heard of the summons.

When Mirikami entered the Great Hall at the head of his team, Telour’s head whipped around and his red eyes immediately locked on him. For the first time he thought he saw an expression of surprise on a Krall’s difficult to read face. At least when it was an expression other than rage.

“Little clan leader, I believed you were dead. Your clan mates also believed this. I watched as I thought I saw you killed in the cave yesterday. Another trap that Kimbo clan’s octet could not avoid.” A hard snort of amusement sounded.

“You have done well for me. I called for the survivors to honor the agreement to award immunity. I did not expect to award you today.”

“Yes,” Mirikami replied. “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”

Hearing Maggi snicker in the background suggested she’d heard of the Mark Twain quote.

Detaching a Katusha from his harness, Telour ordered him to approach.

Mirikami was close to refusing the dubious honor, until Thad quickly murmured that he needed the prestige the marks would grant him. He was right, and not for the Krall’s respect but more importantly for the people who he wanted to feel hope.

Telour used his Katusha to mark all ten of them with red marks in their tattoo ovals, one each for eight of the survivors, but Mirikami received three dots, and Dillon two dots, in recognition of their greater contribution to the human’s overall success and number of warriors killed. These were proof of their permanent immunity from Testing Days.

Telour indicated that he was well satisfied with the first successful demonstration of human war making capability. “Your traps were well laid, and your tactics were effective against the Kimbo clan’s assaults, the clan which provided the handpicked octet. That small clan has received much attention for their successes in interclan battles recently.”

This was high praise and surprising, but quickly was revealed as a reflection of Telour’s pleasure with himself.

“My status has risen within my clan because of my new method of using humans in a surprising victory over eight of the best fighters Kimbo clan could send. True, three of those you killed were novices, but they were highly trained, selected as the best novices that clan could find.

“However you also killed two of their most experienced combat tested warriors, chosen for the same reasons. Their loss was the culmination of my victory.” For a Krall he was almost giddy.

Funny, Mirikami thought, I don’t recall your ass being out there yesterday, or even directly involved. It was typical of a Krall to dismiss the achievements of what to them were mere animals.

He continued, “The last test has attracted attention far outside that of my Graka clan, from other powerful clans that recently lost to Kimbo clan’s aggressive tactics. My success with you, combined with other news just received, may see completion of my plan sooner than I expected. We will prepare to leave now.” He left the cryptic remark unexplained, and promptly left the hall, the hand of warriors following him to an elevator.

After they were gone, Mirikami paused in thought. “I think Telour just paid us off.”

“What do you mean?” Noreen asked.

Maggi knew. “He was honor bound to pay what he agreed to give for the success of yesterday. From his remarks about leaving, he sounds like he may think the agreement has been completed.”

Jake broke in with a warning. “A Krall shuttle has been detected approaching from the southeast.”

“That could be from the other compound, coming to pick up Telour,” said Noreen.

“Why wouldn’t he use one of the two shuttles they have here already?” Roni wondered.

Mirikami and his core supporters headed back to the Fancy to observe the arrival. They watched on a screen on the Bridge as the craft approached.

Even before the third shuttle landed, they saw a mass of Krall exit the dome on a second screen. It was a mixture of uniforms, blue, brown, and black. There were more Krall on the tarmac than the Flight of Fancy complement had seen since their arrival.

“I think that must be every Krall in the dome,” commented Thad. “There are more than can fit in two shuttles, if they take that equipment with them.”

For the first time the others noticed the Krall were pulling a number of wheeled carts loaded with mostly unrecognizable gear, and what surely were Krall heavy weapons. Thad said he had never seen them before.

Two of them looked like twin barrel plasma cannons, based on the magnetic coils wound along their length and the bell mouths, and had small Krall design fusion bottles under their rotatable mount. They weren’t portable weapons, but the ten foot long by five feet wide carts showed they were easily transportable.

All of the equipment went into the newly arrived shuttle, along with two of the K’Tal and the pilot that had helped them load. The other Krall entered the other two shuttles, and without fanfare, the three lifted together and departed in formation to the southeast.

Mirikami received a Link from both Nory Walters and Mel Rigson.

“Captain?” queried Walters, the Chief Steward. “Mister Rigson and I think the Krall may have evacuated the dome. Cal Branson has gone up with a few crewmembers and some Primes to check on things. Based on the head count as they headed through the outer doors, we think they all may have left. They didn’t say anything to us. Any idea what’s happening?”

“Jake, Link this call to everyone with me please,” Mirikami ordered the AI.

“Nory, Mel, you are in a Link with a lot of people,” he advised them out of curtsey.

“We watched the same thing you did. Telour said there was a big clan meeting at the main Krall compound. He said they were leaving after the immunity awards. A third shuttle arrived to carry them and some equipment.”

“We watched them lift,” Nory affirmed. “The Primes that have been here the longest say they’ve never seen so many Krall at one time. They don’t generally know how many are even here.”

“Let me ask a friend,” Mirikami proposed.

“I wonder if there are any Krall left in the dome?” he asked for Jake’s benefit.

“Sir, I am excluding the five I was informed have died in the outer compound today. With those five exceptions, every Krall I have observed enter the dome since our arrival on the planet have now departed, the last that I am aware of are in the three shuttles now airborne.

“However, there may be additional Krall inside that I have never observed. Several of my cameras can see into the windows of the top level and I do not detect any movement. It is….”

“Stop.” Mirikami ordered.

“You didn’t return those Katusha’s to the Krall yet did you?” Thad asked Avery. “We can check for any Krall on the top level with those. You have four of them, and the entire top level is easily within range from level thirty one.”

“I had one of them and Dillon had one, and Avery has the other two. Let’s get them over to the dome now.”

Cal Branson requested a Link while the Katusha’s were being sent.

“Captain, the few Krall areas normally blocked off from the Primes on lower levels were left open. We looked through the normally closed and locked doors but didn’t go inside. No one wanted to risk a death sentence to go up to level thirty two to check there, but it appears like they may have all pulled out.”

“Cal, we think so too. We’re sending four Katusha’s over with Ricco. Link up with him and conduct the same kind of search you did for Carltron and Blythe, from just below the top level. It may take hours, but we’ll know if they left anyone behind.”

“Yes Sir.”

Several hours later, they had confirmation that there were no Krall detected on Level thirty-two.

The Koban Committee, plus Thad Greeves, met for an early lunch. Before he knew what he was being elected to, Thad became the sixth appointed member of the unofficial group.

As Tet and Dillon fed their newly boosted appetites, to Thad’s astonishment at their capacity, Maggi and Aldry explained why they were so hungry. Why Tet’s deep bruise would heal in a day or two.

She told him of the boosted metabolism and heat adaptation that made life in the higher gravity and summer heat on Koban tolerable.

“Tet explained that to me previously,” Thad noted, curious as to why they were telling him again. “It was to eliminate the need for the pills you used to do the same thing, which are temporary and toxic or something, if overused.”

“That’s true, but it wasn’t the complete story. How do you imagine we made it permanent? An adaptation that helps people permanently cope with life on this world.”

“I give. How?”

“It’s something we biologists can do for every woman and man on Koban, increasing their chances of survival, and make their lives easier. We can provide greater energy reserves and improved skin and body cooling. Something not permitted inside the sphere of Human Space.” She waited for him to connect the dots.

“Gene modifications, you mean.” He stated it, rather than asking a question.

Mirikami’s own response waited while he swallowed a large bite. “Yes. It’s what kept Dillon and me going out there, despite not having Koban adapted muscles. We did things over the course of the day that even you long time captives would have found demanding. But we have been here only weeks.”

“How do you feel about this Thad?” Maggi asked him. “Was this an acceptable action to improve our survival chances on Testing Days against super aliens, or do the Hub’s prohibitions apply to us out here, hundreds of light years from the nearest edge of Human controlled space?”

“Terrific!” He boomed. “You hand me a loaded question with only one logical answer, and surround me with proponents of the answer you want to hear from me.” He eased their worried looks with a rousing laugh.

“You know your audience of one rather well, I think. You’ve heard me say I would do anything to destroy these monstrous self-declared ‘Lords of the Universe.’ Even if the treatment isn’t totally safe, I’d like to try it next.”

“Are you kidding?” Dillon asked.

“Forgive me you Gentle Men, but when I saw you two untrained rookies climb up onto that terrace while the hunt was still on, I figured you were goners. That’s a tough climb for people that have lived here for years, and they have made practice climbs first. I expected you to collapse right then. Several weeks ago, you could barely walk down your cargo ramp without breaking a leg. No, I’m not kidding, I want to try it too.

“In fact, I wish we could make ourselves a match for the smug murderous bastards.”

Maggi glanced towards Aldry, and very slightly shook her head no. It wasn’t the time.

Mirikami had some questions. “Thad, how do you think the other captives would react to knowledge of these treatments? Could they keep it secret enough so the Krall wouldn’t learn what we’re doing? I’m afraid they might decide to exterminate us all if they discovered we even had the capability to improve ourselves this way. I have no idea why they never did this to themselves.”

“Don’t worry about anyone’s acceptance of your ‘magic.’ Today was the first time we ever came close to holding our own with a hunter killer team. Right now, you walk on water for most of them over there. If they know your modifications helped you survive, then they will want them. Beyond a doubt they will.”

“We didn’t exactly out muscle them, Thad,” Dillon pointed out.

“No, most of it was outsmarting and tricking them. But if you hadn’t had the energy and endurance you did, the last most important kill couldn’t have happened. How badly do you think the exhausted people in the jungle would have wanted to run longer and faster, to hold out in the heat better?”

“And continuing to keep what we did a secret?” Maggi repeated.

“That’s a problem with humans any time, any place. We’ve had collaborators before, and will again. However, even if no one tells the Krall anything, humans doing better physically will eventually be obvious to even an average slow-witted warrior. We won’t be a physical match, so I’d guess this would only enhance our value as better opponents.”

“We were concerned because the Krall take pride in at least twenty five thousand years of selective breeding to become what they are. If we show we can do this by a shortcut method, they might not take it well.”

“You seem to overlook they have you trapped here on a distant hostile world where even they can’t survive without domes, walls, and weapons. No matter what you do here, you can’t take that knowledge home with you because you are never going home.

“The only reason you can even attempt these gene mods is because you are outside the controls within Human Space, and happen to have a collection of scientists that can not only figure out the lost science, but have a place to work in isolation. That isn’t likely to happen anywhere in the Hub, now is it?”

Aldry, Maggi, and Dillon all agreed there was no other place their work could be done. They didn’t add that this was related to the hidden purpose of the Midwife project, or that they really were not repeating the hundreds of years of genetic research, but were using records they had recovered.

Mirikami summed it up. “OK, Thad wants in, and to become another guinea pig.”

“Hold on. What the hell is a guinea pig? I don’t want to become part pig!” He laughed, but there was a concerned look.

Maggi chuckled. “It’s an old term for a dumb laboratory animal that scientists once used to test drugs on before giving them to people. We didn’t bring any of those with us, so we use dumb males instead.”

“Oink,” said Tet.

Maggi pointed at Mirikami. “I told you males are dumb. Guinea pigs don’t oink they squeak, but they are a type of hairy little rodent that might hide in a cave, scaring those of us that care about them. Dillon is a less bright large hairy example.”

Elbowing Mirikami’s arm, Dillon commented, “She switches fast from tearful hugs and hellos to her normal sarcastic and demeaning mannerism doesn’t she?”

She smiled brightly across the table at her protégé. “Finally found that cup you were looking for sweetie?”

Dillon lost his smile and reflexively put his knees together.

Aldry eased Thad’s mind, “Don’t worry, I do the injections, not Maggi, and I’m gentle.”

Then she added, “This afternoon I’ll give you the briefing I gave to Tet and Dillon earlier this week. There are other brand new mods, and they will be ready for testing in a couple of weeks.

“Well, Dillon and I have time now to test the next two gene mods, for strength and endurance. We won’t be pressed for time getting ready for combat.”

“Yes. Something else I need to bring up before we increase our number of test subjects very much is their dietary needs. We can make all the supplements needed, since that phase lasts only for several days. However, the high quality protein from actual meat or vat growth meat fiber is going to run out quickly. Our normal folks, and I’m arguably ‘normal,’ won’t appreciate going hungry.

“You see how much Tet and Dillon needed to eat at the start, and they need to keep eating hearty meals with a lot of meat and vegetables. The small Hydroponics section that Jimbo has started can be expanded by a factor of several hundred. What he has growing right now will meet over half of our garden needs for normal metabolisms of several thousand people. We will be OK in that respect even if we used that entire level for hydroponics, or even added another level.

“How risky is it to hunt for the meat? I’ve heard that rhinolo meat is nutritious, but are extremely dangerous to hunt. Thad is there an alternative to those animals?”

“We only hunted rhinolo because that’s all that the Krall wanted to hunt. I’ve seen a dozen other species of animals on the plains, most are smaller than rhinolo. There are different herds of grass and leaf eaters. If we can eat one type, we can likely eat them all. However, there are more carnivores than just the rippers. All of them are surely fast and dangerous to us.

“However, by using your shuttle, we don’t have to stand on the damn ground facing a charging rhinolo to get our meat. We can try hunting this week, unless I feel as bad as Tet and Dillon did for a couple of days.”

“You’ll feel crappy for at least thirty six hours,” Aldry told him.

“Not too bad. I could still go along and advise even if I’m not up to hunting

” he was about to elaborate when Jake interrupted, broadcasting to everyone with a transducer.

“Attention, Attention, a large number of space craft have completed White Outs into equatorial orbits. I have detected three hundred fifty one that are the size and design of a Krall Clanship, and another eight with at least twice the volume of the Flight of Fancy. Another thirty-one range in size between Clanships and the Flight of Fancy.

“There is a great deal of ship-to-ship and ground communications that I am recording for later translation. Over ninety percent of the spacecraft appear to be Krall designs. However, eight percent of the ships are of human design. I am detecting additional White Outs in the equatorial plane, apparently with more human designed ships in tow. There are

”

“Stop Jake,” ordered Mirikami.

“Now we know why the Krall here headed for their main compound. If that fleet towed a bunch of human ships here, they were in transit for a week or more, and faster couriers could have brought news of the captured ships sooner.

“Jake, answer only for those people at my table, are all of the craft that are larger than a Clanship of human design?”

“No Sir, two are of Krall design. However, including the most recent White Outs there are thirty-seven ships that appear human in design. The largest eight ships appear to be commercial passenger transports, as do eighteen probable passenger ships approximately the size of the Flight of Fancy. Eleven of the human ships appear to be cargo ships.”

“This has to be Parkoda’s raid, don’t you think?” Maggi asked.

“I think it’s more than one set of raiders. There were three raids being sent, and Parkoda had command of one of those. This seems like a lot of ships to call these a single raid group.”

Noreen was puzzled. “How long were they gone, just three weeks? I don’t see how they could have boarded and captured that many in so short a time, and bring them back.”

“They obviously made use of the towing method to bring so many here intact. But that’s a lot of boarding, subduing and killing. Like you said Noreen, that’s time consuming. They obviously made it at least to the edge of the Hub worlds. Those largest passenger ships are rarely used outside the inner worlds. The Krall can travel into human space fast, using their Jump technology, but our tow to Koban took a week. I wonder if they found a way to do that quicker?”

Thad had a question pertinent to their immediate future, “Jake, can you estimate how many humans total are on those passenger ships?”

“Sir, there are many unknown variables, but using upper and lower passenger estimates for the size and number of ships, the number of people could range from twenty thousand to twenty five thousand for a sixty to seventy percent booking rate. If all were filled nearly to capacity, the total could be as high as thirty five thousand, but that would be very unlikely.”

Thad looked around the room. “Remember how warmly your eight hundred fifty or so bodies were welcomed here? What the hell are we going to do with another twenty thousand? The dome has plenty of room, but not the food, furniture, bedding, kitchens, and the zillion other things they need to live here.”

“There are eleven cargo transports. Perhaps those just have food and supplies?” Dillon suggested.

Mirikami shook his head. “I doubt the Krall read cargo manifests to select what thousands of humans might require.

“Do you realize what will happen to the Testing Days with so many humans to fight? The Krall can hold more and larger hunts. This compound is sizeable, but not large enough for a hunt with dozens of people to conceal. There are a limited number of places with decent positions to defend.” Mirikami was answering his own question.

Maggi as usual had the political and social aspect in mind. “There is no lottery in place unless some rules change. The humans that are sent to fight have been those with Koban adapted muscles. There are twenty seven hundred Primes adapted, thirty six hundred people when you count the Fancy’s complement.

“If the numbers the Krall want to use for combat Testing increases to match the new total numbers, the current captives are not going to accept filling increased quotas while the newcomers spend a month and a half getting adapted. Housing and food for the new arrivals will need to be established. Look how our comparatively smaller number was resented when we came. I think there could be some really poorly prepared people sent out to fight, unless we scale up our modification program.”

Aldry warned, “I won’t treat people that are unaware of what we are doing to them, so that means we have to go public soon. Secrecy will go out the window, and the new arrivals may be highly resistant to the use of genetic mods on humans.”

Thad was more coldly pragmatic. “That choice will catch on once newcomers start dying in large numbers. I was ready for the idea, after my experiences here, with only minutes to consider it, particularly once I saw the results with Tet and Dillon. I’m certain most of the other dome residents will agree. They’ve seen too much death out in the compound.”

In a shift of subject Thad added, “By the way, I may be a bit of a loner in the dome but most of the long term captives in Koban Prime don’t care for being called ‘Primes.’ Their calling you ‘Fancies’ hasn’t helped your own image. That’s too separatist a terminology when we need unity. Some of them think you look down on them, and many see your scientists as elitist. We need to find a term for all of us that would be more inclusive.”

Maggi spoke her approval. “Who says there’s no room for political thoughts in a military mind? That’s very insightful Thad. Any thoughts people? We are about to become a much larger community.”

Ideas were bandied about, such as to call every one “Captive,” which was shot down as depressing. They could call everyone a “Prime” but that already had poor reception. Using “humans” was too generic and failed to identify their unique separation from the rest of humanity.

Dillon reminded them that the Krall had promised that humans that survived the testing period would be left alive here, but without the means to leave the planet. Every human on Koban was going to live out his or her life here, one way or another.

He offered this suggestion, “I think we should refer to ourselves as Kobani from Koban. Just as I was formerly Rhamian from Rhama. It wasn’t a choice to be brought here, but we are here and we will remain here for life. I think we should start to embrace this world as our home rather than as our prison. It’s certainly beautiful and fertile enough to love.”

“Koban’s deadly enough to fear it as well,” added Noreen.

“Then we have to become deadly enough to match,” added Aldry. She shared a covert look with Maggi.

Finally, they favored the introduction of the collective term of “Kobani” for every human on the planet. Rather than announce it as a decision from some obscure committee, they would use the term themselves, and encourage the personnel from the Flight of Fancy to drop the use of Primes as being offensive to their fellow captives.

The arrival of the next wave of Kobani “immigrants” was soon announced.

44. Influx

“Captain,” Jake spoke only to Mirikami. “There is a Krall communication in Standard for you from Parkoda, transmitted from a Clanship in orbit.”

“Link the transmission to those of us in this room; send audio only from myself but wait fifteen seconds to connect me.” He answered.

To the others he cautioned. “Parkoda’s calling from a ship in orbit. You can listen, but I’ll do the talking.”

Jake routed the transmission to their transducers. “Human clan leader of my Prize ship. This is Parkoda. Telour says you are able to hear my signal. I order you to answer.”

“Parkoda, I await your orders.” Mirikami responded, hoping he hadn’t waited longer than Krall impatience would tolerate.

Parkoda outlined the problem he needed Mirikami to solve for him, while acting like it was his solution.

“The three raids were great victories. Two other raid leaders follow my example. They bring many human ships, as I do with me, complete and they still can fly but they cannot Jump. To keep more captives alive, we do not enter the ships. The message I sent to your ship was used for them, and most surrender to our strength. One hand of ships did not.”

He didn’t specify what happened to those four ships, but it couldn’t have been good.

“We tow to Koban using bigger tachyon’s our K’Tal say we need to move faster with big ships to bring. I order you to speak to clan leaders on human ships, what you call Captains. They could not talk in Jump Hole, and some I think will run now. We have destroyed the Trap makers on the hulls, but if they do not submit we will enter with novices that do not know you are so weak animals.”

“I understand you Parkoda. If I am allowed, I can send a message to every ship, all at one time to explain what they should do. I must use a radio to do this, and the signal will go into space. Is that allowed?”

“Yes, the signal will use many hundred human years to reach other humans. The war will start before then. Send your signal. We will listen.”

“Yes Sir. I will follow your order. Mirikami Out.”

“Jake, use the all of the standard emergency frequencies used by the various Hub, New Colony, and Rim worlds.”

“Ready Sir.”

Mirikami started by telling them they needed to listen to what he had to tell them about their captors, promising that he would speak with them individually later. He told them who he was, his ship’s name and date of capture, knowing they could check their records to confirm the Flight of Fancy belonged to Interworld, and who her Captain was. They possibly could know of their disappearance, since they were overdue.

His message was more current than Doushan’s had been, but he spent only five minutes at this, and told them they were part of thirty seven newly captured human ships. That they were surrounded by powerful alien warships that could, and would, destroy them if they failed to follow instructions. He advised them to share this information with their passengers and crew, that his own ship and passengers had survived their capture largely because they were kept informed.

Then to ensure they knew he wasn’t acting alone in this warning, he had each of the committee members say a few words, and confirm that survival on Koban was possible, and human captives had lived here for years. Nobody thought it was a smart idea to say why the Krall wanted human prisoners. They couldn’t escape anyway, and they might survive on the planet.

He next advised them he was going to send an interrogation to each ship’s navigation system to gather their identification, and to send his own ship’s identity and registration. He provided coordinates for Koban Prime, and activated a beacon for them to follow. He proposed to address each ship’s Captain if he was allowed the time and would relay instructions from their captors, and try to mediate any problems they had if they could not comply.

The largest ships were not designed to land on a planetary surface, and he proposed to Parkoda that the smaller human ships could be used to ferry humans to Koban from orbit, using conventional thrusters. He rebroadcast that entire series of transmission with Parkoda’s reply so the other ships could hear the exchange. He hoped being so open would discourage rash actions or mistakes.

The warnings worked for captive ships with passengers at risk, but one cargo ship apparently tried to restore a Trap Field using spare emitters, and it started a maximum conventional thrust out of orbit to gain time to catch a tachyon. Mirikami later learned that its Captain had ignored a warning from a Krall translator on the Clanship that had towed them, and an intolerant raid leader ordered it destroyed instead of boarded.

The explosion wasn’t visible from Koban Prime, but Jake detected the larger debris when the pieces came into view in spreading random orbits. Parkoda informed Mirikami of the ship’s destruction, and that information was promptly passed to the other ships.

That vessel likely only had five or six crew aboard, unless it had also carried a small number of passengers, a common practice on a Rim run. Jake had received the registration, and said it had a passenger capacity of twenty people.

There was no way to know how many died or what was lost, but what was gained was an immediate display of cooperation and willingness to follow instructions by the remaining three dozen human ships.

Parkoda announced that translators were ordering ships with the capability to land near the human compound as their orbits permitted a descent.

“Five ships are leaving orbit,” announced Jake. “One is a Clanship, three are human transports close to the size of the Flight of Fancy, and one is a cargo ship. They appear to be following tracks that will bring them here within the next ninety minutes. The Clanship should arrive in forty minutes.”

“Full Link and ship wide broadcast. Attention, the Krall are bringing down the first four of the captured ships. These people have no idea what they are facing and are not prepared for the gravity or heat. We need to arm ourselves to help, so please load out with small buckshot. Whichever entrance they land close to, we need to guard them and help them get into the dome.

“Pass this along to the people in the dome, ask them to help. We will not let these people die for the Krall’s amusement. Move now! Mirikami Out.”

Turning to the committee members, “Our work is cut out for us for a couple of days I suspect. We need to move trucks and people with guns to every entrance, or move them around to where we need them as the landings take place.

“Dillon, contact Jimbo and Ray; the Fireball Brigade will ride again. Neri worked out the igniter problems so they will all work as yours did that first day. Spread out and cover three entrances. At the first sign of wolfbats overhead, make some big fireballs they can see. They stayed away last time after that was done.”

Thad volunteered. “I’ll get hold of Deanna to organize some people to go outside with rifles to take pot shots with soft nose rounds to keep them high. We’ll need your Jazzers and Sonics for skeeters, because even buckshot isn’t safe if they get into a crowd.”

“Right,” Agreed Mirikami. “Those are kept charged, as are the spare packs. I’ll have them issued to the Stewards again, and they all have body suits now.”

“Some of the Jazzers are with us civilians Tet,” Maggi reminded him. Aldry and I have one and body suits. We can ride with the trucks to protect the new people, and save our legs.”

“Good idea. We need to ask for Jazzers from the new ships as they get down. All of them will have a small armory as we did. Perhaps we’ll have coverage for each truck. Somebody needs to get rooms identified in the dome where we can send people after we process them through the Great Hall. Collect names and make housing assignments. Deanna will be better used to run that operation than on wolfbat duty.”

“Tet, please delegate,” Aldry told him. “You have a committee for those details, and volunteers from the dome. We’re all Kobani now.” She grinned.

“Oh. You’re right. Sorry, I’m acting as if I’m still running a ship. I’ll go up to the bridge where I can see what’s happening overall, and guide resources to where we need them. Noreen, the Flight of Fancy needs a command staff again, even if she can’t fly.”

“Yes Sir. I’ll head up now to get the screens and cameras tasked to watch for bugs bats and ships.”

“I’m going with you. Good luck everybody, let’s save some lives today.”

Once on the bridge, Mirikami asked Jake to put him in contact with the first human ship expected to land. It was going to pass below the horizon in fourteen minutes, so he had to be quick. Jake placed the ship’s ID on screen, with the Captain’s name.

“Captain Mobutu of Marimba Destiny, this is Captain Mirikami of the Flight of Fancy calling. I’m sitting on the ground at your destination. Can you hear me?”

A reedy woman’s voice answered as her image appeared. She was a tall thin black woman with short graying hair, and her ship was registered to Greater West Africa, a Rim Colony settled by a number of former African nations that had merged after the Collapse. “Ah, thank the stars Gentle Sir. I was afraid I would have to do this in complete ignorance. Where are we landing?”

“Captain, you will be landing next to a large dome at the center of a twenty six mile radius ringed compound. The Flight of Fancy is parked on the east side of that dome, by one of four large entrances to the dome, one each on the north, south, east and west sides. We are making sure that any entrance will be ready for you. We will have armed protectors out to cover your people’s movement into the dome by truck.”

“Armed protectors? Do you mean these alien Krall that just blew up one of the ships out here?” She didn’t sound like that seemed like much protection, and she was correct.

“No, the protectors will be other human captives that have been here for some time. If you have nonlethal arms aboard, issue those to crew that you trust to be level headed. This world is dangerous, but the only native animals that will attack you inside the compound are all airborne.

“Jazzers, Sonics, or shotguns are practical defenses, and if it flies consider it deadly. You shoot it when it is in range. Before you disembark, we will bring trucks out to you to transport your people quickly to the dome. The gravity is one point five g’s and can be a killer to new arrivals.”

“Our ship’s computer told us this. How many trucks do you have? We have six hundred thirty seven passengers and seventy two crew men.”

“Our thirty one Krall made trucks will be unloading all the people on each inbound ship. Do you have fuel for more than one return to orbit and landing? You might be needed for ferry service out to the larger transports that can’t land.”

“We were told, by someone that said he was one of these Krall people that everyone but the flight crew must evacuate. I have fuel for several trips but that will be very expensive, who will repay my company? We need to be compensated for that.” Obviously, their predicament had yet to impress itself on her.

“Captain, the Krall will cheerfully kill anyone that fails to follow their instructions, as fifty eight of my people learned the hard way, and we were trying to follow instructions. I have no doubt you will see some of the big red Krall bipeds after landing, but let me send you a picture of them as they appeared on my ship when we were boarded. You don’t have very long to watch so pay careful attention to what you have so far been lucky to avoid.”

As soon as he switched off, he had Noreen play an edited scene recorded as the first Krall reached the Bridge, and some scenes in the corridors as the smoke billowed out over dying passengers. It was a sight intended to scare and to impress Captain Mobutu. She was in no position to deny the Krall anything they demanded.

The same process was repeated and streamlined for each of the other three ships about to land. It was inadequate, but all that Mirikami could provide in the time he had.

Jake informed them that the Clanship that had left orbit with the human ships was apparently coming to Koban Prime on a more direct route, but numerous other Krall ships appeared to be landing at the main Krall compound on the south east coast.

“Jake, do you know if the Clanship coming here is Parkoda’s?” Mirikami asked.

“That is the same Krall ship where his transmission originated Sir.”

Looking at Noreen, he speculated. “I wonder if he’s coming here to take command of the compound or to find out how much we helped Telour. Either case seems a bad choice for us.”

Noreen agreed. “Parkoda wanted to capture more humans for combat testing and he did that using our towing proposal. However, you also helped Telour produce a better fighting force. I wonder if he’s coming to thanks us, or to make everyone pay for helping Telour?”

“I’d not bet on any thanks from a Krall, so pissed off is more likely.”

“Sir, the Clanship is signaling.”

“Human clan leader, I learn you won immunity.” It was indeed Parkoda’s voice.

Mirikami decided to divert him from that subject. “Parkoda, I see the large raids returned soon, with many captured ships.”

Parkoda instantly went into a bragging session, as expected. “The raids were all good because I captured the first prize ship you are on. I have status for teaching to all clans to do as I did. Telour found smaller status to prove humans can fight if they have surprise and advantage. I now must share my victory because he made you fight. Something any warrior could do. I return with a K’Tal that saw pictures when humans fought wars.”

“You found proof of our old wars?” Mirikami asked.

“I sent a translator K’Tal to look inside a ship I killed. She saw pictures of humans fighting humans showing on a screen. The K’Tal said humans in the pictures used some weapons like Telour told the clan leaders that you used on Testing Day. Three of the warriors that hunted you that day told the clan leaders of other weapons Telour did not report. The pictures my K’Tal saw on the dead ship had no color, and came quick, one after another, each with a small change. There were very many fast pictures she told me, but she could not record them. Do you know of such pictures?”

The description sounded like one of Maggi’s old flat screen movies. His guess was that the rate of frame refresh was so slow for a Krall’s eyes that they didn’t see them as a continuous moving image as a human did, but rather as a fast series of still pictures.

“Parkoda, I believe I have many war pictures like that for you to show to your clan leaders, of human wars from the past. I didn’t know these were never seen by the Krall.”

“I will send the same K’Tal to see you and record the pictures. She was not able to do that on the dead ship. But I did not come for this, so do not waste my time. The Great Clans meet now.”

Then he delivered the chilling reason for his visit. “I am here to make combat on Koban more real for humans and warriors. This Maldo clan compound is small for battles like you humans proved are possible.”

Mirikami and Noreen shared worried looks. “We will fight someplace else?” Mirikami asked.

“Still from that dome. But you will go outside of the compound to make hunters search longer, and they will face the Kobani animals as well as the human tricks you made to help Telour.”

Well, he knew about their work for Telour, so he surely wanted to exact a penalty.

He snorted. “Facing Koban animals is a good test for a novice, and humans will learn if rhinolo and rippers believe in their tricks.”

Since Parkoda knew Telour had benefited from things Mirikami had done, he dreaded the next response. “Why would humans leave the compound?”

“It was safe in the compound in the past; it will not be safer for new hunts. Why make the search too easy if many more warriors hunt them?” Obviously, he intended expanding the hunts, with more hunters and more people hunted.

“What advantage would a human gain to leave the compound, which we know so well?” Mirikami asked, sensing the answer.

“There is no advantage to stay in a small area if the danger is the same in or out of the compound. Both warriors and humans must watch for Kobani animals when I open the walls.”

There was the new danger Mirikami had sensed was coming. They all were being made victims of his cooperation with Telour, to save the Flight of Fancy. Only about one third of the compound was practical for concealment and ambushes. Now they would be dodging native animals from the savanna and jungle, and the predators that hunted them.

“When will this happen?” The Krall seldom wasted time, so he wasn’t surprised when Parkoda didn’t this time.

“My Clanship will destroy the gates while my K’Tal records your war pictures.”

Mirikami tried a pointless appeal, “The arriving humans are not prepared for the dangers here. They will not be safe until they enter the dome, can this wait for two days?”

“Then you will need to move quickly. The Kobani animals will see open walls, untouched grass, and very slow new prey. You should carry many guns.” He snorted several times at this sage advice, obviously enjoying the images that came to his mind.

Parkoda had one final order. “My K’Tal will go to my prize ship. Give her pictures you say you have of human wars. If they show what I want, the prize ship will stand another day.”

Crap! He needed a carrot to dangle. Some advantage given for what cost a Krall nothing had worked before.

“To save you the waste of a missile to destroy your first great prize, I will give you war pictures to take to the clan meeting. Where humans are fighting battles and using better weapons than I made for my own Testing Day. It would be inefficient to lose all of the war pictures saved on your original prize. Any clan leader could come here to see them for themselves, on the very prize you captured. Do you agree Parkoda?”

He sounded reluctant, but told him “If the K’Tal brings back true pictures of human fighting against human in a war, I will keep the other pictures safe in my prize.” With that, he was gone.

“The channel is closed Sir,” Jake informed him.

The large Clanship touched down over a mile away, a hatch opened and a K’Tal with a hand of warriors leaped to the hot tarmac, running towards the Fancy.

“Ship wide broadcast and Link,” he ordered.

“Attention, a “K’Tal and four warriors will be entering the Fancy by the cargo hold ramp, and at least the K’Tal will be coming to the bridge. Everyone stay clear of the stairs.”

As he watched the Clanship lift again, he Linked to Maggi.

“Maggi, I need to make this quick so listen fast. The Krall never knew we recorded our wars or made dramas about them. I think their super-fast visual perception and impatience is poorly suited to watch our slow frame rate movies. Parkoda wants a sample of a movie depicting a past war right now, almost this minute. He’ll blast the ship if I don’t produce. He knows that I helped Telour, and he’s going to make us pay by blowing up the outer gates now. I might be able to save the ship if I give him evidence of our wars.

“I want to show them scenes from an old war movie, with weapons something like we built to fight with here. Probably one from the mid twentieth century. What can you recommend?”

“I’m sorry, but I really don’t know, Tet,” she replied, “I’m not a fan of war stories. I watch cowboy and pioneer dramas. However, Jake can look for movies with an actor I liked as a cowboy. I know he made some war movies about what they called World War 2. John Wayne was his name, but these are not documentaries, they were entertainment.”

“Thanks Maggi, I’ve seen some samples in the past and don’t think the Krall will know the difference. I just need to show them that humans made war within a recent time frame, and the weapons used match the low tech weapons we made.”

As they spoke, Jake’s perpetual monitoring had sent him searching the ship’s vast library for movie titles, with the actor’s name mentioned by Maggi placed in the credits. By the time Mirikami asked for examples, he had a list of war movies.

With time short, he had Jake flash short samples on screen. He found images of ground warfare of the type he wanted, but it proved particularly uncomfortable for him. The title was The Sands of Iwo Jima, which had pitted American Marines against his Japanese Empire ancestors. He glossed over a synopsis of the story.

“The K’Tal has entered the stairwell, Sir,” advised Jake.

“Right. I will use the movie that’s on screen now Jake. Can you display only battle scenes of the invasion of the island and the fighting there, and skip the training and conversational scenes? I want the combat portions.”

“I can try Sir, but some conversation is involved in the portions of the movie where there is fighting.”

“OK, fine. I’ll tell you when to play the battle parts or to skip to another scene”

He heard a whisper of sound and caught a flash of brown uniform as the K’Tal landed on the deck by the stairwell railing. He faced her. “Thank you for coming. I believe I have images of former human warfare for you to see.”

“Parkoda wants me to make a recording of that fighting, an explanation of why you made war, who was fighting, who won, how many died, and how long ago the war was fought.”

No preliminary social interaction with a Krall, he reminded himself. She spoke much better Standard than Parkoda he noticed, wondering if she also dumbed herself down in front of him as Telour did.

“The images I have are of a small part of a worldwide war that took place six hundred of our years ago and lasted for about six years.” He hoped he had the general details mostly right. Earth history wasn’t an important school subject on New Honshu.

“The war was between many different human clans for control of territory and for the power to rule over other clans. It was fought on our home world, and more than fifty six million humans were killed. My clan was one of three large allied clans that lost that war, and my clan is fighting in the pictures I will show.”

“Your clan submitted to the stronger victors?” she asked.

“Yes,” was all that he volunteered.

She detached a six-inch black cube from her utility belt. “Where will you show the images?”

He pointed to the main view screen. “Here, on this large screen.”

The K’Tal, who hadn’t bothered to tell him her name, aimed what must be a lens that popped out towards the screen.

To Jake, but as if speaking to Noreen. “Play the segments of combat.”

The scenes started with the naval and aerial bombardments of the rugged volcanic island, and progressed through the amphibious landing, showing chaotic random deaths from bullets and explosions, as well as more direct and targeted individual killings by both sides, in the usual old Hollywood dramatic fashion.

When prompted Jake skipped to scenes of close quarters fighting, machine gun and artillery firing, tanks, explosions, flame thrower use, hand grenades thrown, and bayonet and sword use. The pictures followed the full gamut of movie style combat of that era. He hoped he wouldn’t have to explain how the camera managed to catch the faces and killings without interfering with the battlefield action.

The K’Tal kept her recording device aimed at the screen until Mirikami could see that the battle had essentially ended. “Stop the movie.” The screen froze on a scene of devastation and dead bodies.

“Is that what you needed to see, and have you recorded the images accurately?” Mirikami asked.

Glaring at him because of the unintended inference that she had not performed her task properly, she nevertheless played part of the record back. Watching the image presented on the backside of the device for a moment, she was apparently satisfied.

“The images were recorded accurately. Are they typical of your warfare and ways of fighting?”

“Yes, for that time in our history. However, this was only a small battle of a much larger war. We fought on many types of land, on the oceans, in the air over much of our world. The battle I just showed you was on an island in a large ocean. Other battles were in forests and jungles, on wide plains or open deserts or mountains, and sometimes in our cities. We also fought under water. We used air ships to bomb cities, and had great battles between floating water ships like the ones you saw shooting big guns at the start, and between air ships in the skies.”

The K’Tal motioned at the frozen image still on screen. “This was different and more violent combat than I saw in pictures on the small ship. Novices on that ship had killed the humans inside when they resisted, but some pictures were flashing on a small screen when I entered. They stopped before I could get a recording machine and I did not know the way to make them show again.”

The Krall looked at Mirikami and Noreen in an appraising manner, with the typical laser like intensity they displayed when examining humans as an enemy.

“You humans look too soft and weak to make war like I saw, and you die easy from small damage.” She noted.

Mirikami responded to that. “When we fight with other humans we are all equal to each other, so there is no advantage to any clan. Fighting the Krall is new to us, but we will learn how to do that well. We will be an enemy you did not expect, and you may be sorry you found us.”

“You told how many humans died in your war, but I do not understand the human number ‘fifty six million.’ I will find out how many that is in our numbers. Does that mean very many humans being killed, like those in the pictures?”

“You will find that the numbers I told you we killed are very many more than all of the humans you have brought to Koban today, and I think many more than all of the Krall that I believe are on this planet now or in your ships in orbit here.” No need to mention that many of those millions were defenseless civilians, because the Krall didn’t have defenseless people.

She told him, “I think we will move faster on the Great Path as we defeat your worlds. Parkoda will be pleased with what I take to him. These are better pictures of fighting than I saw before and now I have proof of them for other clans to see. I was not truly believed, but now I will gain status with Parkoda.”

Swiftly attaching the recording device to her belt, the K’Tal made the usual unceremonious Krall exit, disappearing down the stairs in a rush of air.

45. Open House

Noreen looked at the monitor data. “The Clanship climbed several miles overhead and fired lasers and rockets towards the compound perimeter. Jake, did you see what the ship hit and how many times?”

“Yes Mam. It destroyed twenty-eight gates visible to my cameras, but four gates are out of my direct view behind the jungle and part of the ridge. They fired thirty two times in a symmetrical pattern, probably removing all thirty-two gates. The fenced enclosures around the outside of the gates that are visible to me were also destroyed.”

“Those fences were electrified,” Mirikami noted. “The top of the wall also had high voltage lines that are probably cut now. It looks like Parkoda has finished letting in the wild life, damn him. The new captives will have to face more than bugs and bats before they all can get down.”

“Parkoda is apparently landing to pick up his K’Tal and warriors.” Noreen selected an image of the Clanship settling back to the tarmac a mile away, with all five Krall running towards the craft. “We need to know if we have to get off this ship before he lifts, Sir.”

“Or if he would give us the time anyway,” Mirikami said. “I should have started an evacuation minutes ago. Jake, use the same frequency as before to contact the Clanship. I want to talk to Parkoda.”

“Ready, Sir.”

“Parkoda, this is Captain Mirikami. Your K’Tal said the pictures I gave her would please you. Is your prize ship safe from destruction?”

He answered quickly. “Yes, for now. Her report is that the pictures are of a battle greater than any test we gave to humans on Koban. I can take them to my clan Leader.”

Relived, he tried to ask for a bit more in value for those images. “Will you leave the hand of warriors here to guard the transfer of new prisoners to the dome? With the gates now open we will have rhinolo and rippers inside before we can move everyone into the dome.”

The answer was quick. “No. Move faster and use the new weapons you made at Telour’s order.” He clicked off.

As soon as his returning warriors were aboard, the ship lifted quickly, arcing towards the southeast.

“I guess he’s staying pissed off at us. Initially he sounded like he had shared in part of Telour’s credit for our Testing Day success, but apparently not very much. This visit must only be for payback because of our role in clan politics. I’m glad I found something I could trade for the ship again.”

“Tet, we’ll probably have some time before a herd of rhinolo happens to spot the open gates. Jake can warn us when that happens, so we should have time to get these first people unloaded safely.”

“Maybe a day or two will pass, but when they see

” Jake’s voice interrupted him.

“Sir, five large animals have passed through a gate to the south west, and are moving across the grasslands towards the river.”

“Damn. Rhinolo already? Are there more behind them?” He asked.

“Sir, they are not like the descriptions of the large bluish green animals with a long horn on their nose.”

Her voice tense, Noreen said, “Jake, put them on screen quick. Are they rippers?”

“Mam, from context of discussions I have recorded I believe rippers are an Earth analogue of lions. A large carnivorous cat family creature, is that correct? I am shifting a camera.”

Mirikami answered, “Yes. We were told rippers hunt in prides like lions, and are supposed to be shaped somewhat like them but larger.”

On the verge of sounding a general alarm, Mirikami anxiously watched as a side screen showed teal colored scenery streaking by as the camera slewed towards the normally empty grass plains.

Before the image steadied, they heard, “I have no Koban animal images to compare to them, but these are blue with white horizontal stripes on their backs and sides, with two black horns on the top of their heads. They do not appear at all like a lion.”

The image zoomed in and tracked on five animals staying close together, similar in appearance to Earth antelopes. They were trotting towards the riverbank. The lead animal was larger than the other four, and had two long spiraling black horns atop a triangular head with a white face. It had white beard-like hair under the chin and along the bottom of the neck, back to the broad blue–green chest. Between the hindquarters, just behind the belly, hung proof of his gender. The four smaller versions had shorter beards and no visible genitalia, so were most likely the harem of the larger male.

“Jake, can you estimate the size from this image?” asked Noreen.

“The larger animal is almost ten feet long, excluding the tail, and between seven and eight feet high at the hump over the front shoulders. I estimate the horns are close to five feet in length.”

He had more. “On earth the weight could be between two thousand five hundred and three thousand pounds. The smaller animals are each about one foot less in each of the dimensions, and perhaps two thousand Earth pounds. The weight on Koban is naturally much greater,” he added unnecessarily.

When the group reached the riverbank, they watched the water and surroundings nervously for a few moments, then took turns drinking as several kept watch. When done they moved away from the water to the lush tall grass, browsing on that grass and blue leaves of nearby low shrubs.

“Link to Colonel Greeves,” Mirikami ordered. “Thad, are you still in the conference room?”

“I just left, headed to organize a welcoming committee from our dome folks. Figuring out how we’re going to feed them, and strip what we can from their ships. What did the Clanship want? I heard some booms.”

“It was Parkoda, and he just blasted open all of the outer gates. Within fifteen minutes we may have had dinner on the hoof trot inside the compound.” Mirikami responded.

“Damn him. We can’t let a herd of rhinolo get close to the dome and see humans. They will charge, and we don’t have much to stop them.”

“Thad, these are smaller and look more like antelope, and there are only five.”

“I think I’ve seen them from the air, but the Krall only hunt the more dangerous big guys. I don’t know if we can organize a hunt from our volunteers or your crew. We’ll be busy as hell.”

“If anyone from the dome wants to hunt from a shuttle, I can send Ms. Jorl’sn out to bag them from the air, and bring them back. There’s almost fifteen thousand pounds of meat browsing by the river right now.”

“The Krall freezers could hold that much easy, but I’d start with only one kill, to make sure they are as edible as rhinolo. Do you want me to switch jobs to go hunt?”

“No. Protecting the new arrivals is more important, Thad. It may be hard for you to ask, but see if some people from the dome will go.”

“OK. I’ll Link to Roni when I find somebody, if you’ll authorize her to fly them out there. I don’t trust hunting any Kobani animal on the ground. They have horns for a reason.”

Noreen scanned Jake’s estimates on her console. “Captain, the first passenger ship, Marimba Destiny, is almost over head and ready for descent, and a cargo container ship named The Branislov is perhaps twenty minutes behind them. The Sky of Italy has just peeked over the horizon in her orbit, and should be followed by Rimmer’s Dream in ten or fifteen minutes.”

“OK. I hadn’t thought about arrivals being so close, but all four will be down in less than an hour. We need to keep people off the tarmac until they get down.”

“Jake, external speakers, full Link, and ship wide broadcast for me, now.”

“Ready Sir.”

“Attention, the first two of four ships are about to land. Stay inside and clear of the tarmac until we give the all clear. The Krall Clanship has destroyed all of the gates in the outer wall, allowing native animals to enter. Stay well armed and vigilant and we will survive this. Mirikami Out.”

“Jake, get me frequencies for the all of the human ships.”

“Ready Sir.”

“This is Captain Mirikami again, of the Flight of Fancy. My ship is grounded next to the dome where you have been ordered to land. After landing, remain in your ships until we give you an all clear to disembark. Four ships are landing close together. You can’t unload right away, not until all four are down.

“This process will be the pattern for each group of landings. Make no mistake; the transfer to the dome will be harrowing and risky. We will try to protect you and will help, but some people are probably going to die from high gravity accidents, and some from the local animal life. You will see old blasted ships near the dome when you land. The Krall have usually destroyed most small ships after the people were out. My ship was the first exception, but we destroyed our own thruster engines to save her from being blown up. I will attempt to negotiate this process for your ships if the Krall will permit this. We need the energy and the facilities on your ships if we can save them. Good Luck. Mirikami Out.”

The Four ships were all down within the next hour, with Mirikami or his officers talking with each Captain to describe what needed to be done. As soon as Rimmer’s Dream shut down by the west entrance, trucks were moving to the passenger ships, and three man teams in armor with rifles were strung out along the routes from the four ships to the dome, taking pot shots at the inevitable wolfbats that began to gather overhead from the jungle to the north. The skeeters had also been drawn by the movement and noise.

Ray McPherson had the first chance to demonstrate his improved flamethrower when he torched three skeeters that descended from over the dome on the south side. Dillon and Jimbo simply made fireballs as a demonstration for the wolfbats, which not only stayed high and well away, but many squadrons elected early to go hunt elsewhere for easier prey with less risk.

Skeeters weren’t smart enough to figure this out, and so kept up a constant series of darting and swooping approaches, watching for opportunities to strike. With several thousand people to attack, despite protectors and warnings to watch out, at least a dozen people got stung, one dying from a single sting in an apparent allergic reaction. Two more died when one fell down a boarding ramp after a sting, and another fractured his skull when he fell off the back of a truck as he tried to climb into the back. Gravity was more the killer in these two cases.

Three more people were lightly wounded by buckshot when a protector fired at a flight of skeeters. She had focused so much on her targets that she forgot the truckload of people fifty feet behind the bugs. She didn’t even hit the bugs.

The wheeled trucks could carry ten people in back with two gun-toting guards, and two more rode in the cab with the diver. The halftracks could carry eight in back plus two guards and two in the cab with the driver.

Each of the thirty-one working vehicles made seven or eight trips each to transport two thousand three hundred eighteen passengers, and some crew, leaving the minimum flight crews aboard the three passenger ships. Both of the Fancy’s haulers moved five or six at a time on pallets, but they were slower than the trucks.

It took just over three hours to complete. A sharp contrast to the reception the people from the Flight of Fancy had met, when the every man or fem for themselves attitude had permeated the early captives.

Noreen gave her estimate of progress. “Well, we have about a tenth of the job done, and about twenty two thousand more to come. Considering the three hours we used this time, and the ninety minutes to get them out of orbit, we can handle about five thousand people per day in two landings. The truck crews are removing all of the supplies, food, medicines, bedding, and personal belongings as we can get off them for now. This is the safest course until we find out if we can keep the ships for housing and manufacturing.”

Mirikami pulled at his lip. “Parkoda hasn’t replied to me since his Clanship lifted. If he’s in orbit he isn’t talking to me, or he may have gone to their compound. I can’t send any of these ships back up for a passenger transfer from the large ships unless we have permission. The other Krall Clanships might blow them out of the sky as trying to escape.”

Maggi had rejoined them after riding shotgun on eight trips to Marimba Destiny. “What was on the cargo ship that landed? They only had a handful of crew aboard.”

“The Transworld Boxter is a container ship, as are five other of the cargo ships up there,” pointed out Mirikami. “The crew has a list of what companies or people the containers were going to, but no real idea of what’s in each of them. The contents are encoded, and the crew and ports don’t know what’s in any container, which reduces the amount of ‘diversions’ of valuable goods at busy ports. There is always theft, but less if you can’t tell if you are stealing electronics or turnips.

“Until we can set up their portable cranes to unload them and break the seals, we won’t know what’s in any of them. It’s fortunate this one was a Rim ship, or they wouldn’t even have a portable crane, counting on good port facilities.”

Jorl’sn had gone out with two Stewards and two men from the dome to hunt for the five antelope. Surprised to learn that no human had ever named them, Jorl’sn used her officer status to claim the right to name them.

However, her first suggestion was shot down as ridiculous. These savanna animals filled the equivalent role of antelope on Koban. Noting that the equivalent of ants on Koban had been named kants she had proposed kantelope, which drew groans from the other four aboard the shuttle.

After watching them reach speeds up to fifty miles per hour when she chased them from the air, she mentioned they ran like blue streaks. Then she decided that blue streakers sounded accurate, so that was what she declared them to be.

They were big, fast and agile, with an amazing leap in the high gravity, attesting to their strength. The small herd turned away every time they came close enough to hover for a decent shot. Finally, they swooped by and brought a female down by firing out through the open hatch, and the other four animals continued on their way. This behavior was completely unlike the protective attitude of rhinolo for an injured herd member.

To avoid field stripping the animal out there, leaving guts to draw predators into the compound, they used the cargo winch to drag the carcass aboard and brought it back to the dome. They had perhaps eight hundred pounds of meat to sample. After testing for toxins of course.

Jake advised that another four human ships were breaking orbit. Apparently, the Krall were sending them down a “hand” at a time. Even from orbit, they could easily see that the transfer of humans from the first landing had ended, so they sent more ships down. This time it was two cargo vessels and two midsized passenger ships.

They had streamlined their transfer process, putting off explanations and questions until they were inside the dome. There were no deaths on the second landings, and only a hand full of paralyzing stings from skeeters. The wolfbats had all departed after two were killed by lucky shots taken at highflying squadrons. It was late in the day and the high metabolism animals needed to find easier food. They recovered only the corpses of the two dead bats for all their circling.

The captive’s mistake was in assuming that the Krall would give them a break at sunset, but instead they sent four more ships down at dusk. All of them were passenger ships with nearly three thousand people aboard. Things began to do wrong just before midnight.

“Captain,” Willfem Linked in to Mirikami. “The glow of the dome lights can’t really light the tarmac out here where Pink Nebula set down Sir. They have some external floodlights that cover the escalator ramp, but the shadows cause trip and fall injuries. We have some broken wrists and sprains. Are there any lights we can use?”

“Nan,” Mirikami replied, “I have our two haulers with headlights working two ships on the other side of the dome from you. They’re using pallets like we did the first day, and the headlights help spot skeeters. I don’t have any other portable lighting besides flashlights. Does the Nebula have cargo haulers they could deploy?”

“Captain Johnfem says she can’t get to them because they are behind heavy cargo. They were expecting to dock in orbit at Thor, and use the station’s equipment and zero gravity to offload.”

Mirikami thought a moment. “We need to keep the trucks working in pairs so one can wait and light the other while it loads. Alternating them has been faster, but we don’t want casualties.”

Willfem brought up another issue, “Several people have said that they have seen winking green lights out in the darkness. Has our friend seen any further sign of the two animals he reported moving down from the woods to the north?”

“No,” he answered. “They were among the trees and low to the ground. They would have to move fast to be this close in the twenty minutes since he first reported their heat signatures. They were moving south however, towards you and the north entrance.

“OK. Thanks Tet. I’ve asked him to notify me if he spots them close to us.”

“Did Captain Johnfem put someone on watch to aid their old FT-1 model computer in filtering out false positives? Our friend has tried to teach it, but a ‘Fat-one’s’ a bit too old a model of AI to handle that task without human help. We don’t need any more false alarms to scare us into buttoning the hatches again, slowing us down.”

“Captain, I think it’s that earlier scare than has folks seeing green eyes in the darkness. Wolfbats don’t hunt at night, and skeeter eyes don’t reflect green light. Speaking of pairing trucks, an empty halftrack just arrived before our nearly full truck left. I’ll follow your suggestion and hold the truck to give them better lights for loading the halftrack. I think more light will be reassuring.”

****

The bright lights disturbed Telror, interfering with her night vision. However, the light and noise had first drawn her and her hunting companion to walk the side of the cliff that protected the red prey’s territory.

When they scented a scorched smell of burned grass, they carefully approached a place where the deadly thin gray vines grew. These odd vines protected the red prey’s normally closed opening into their small territory, and the top of the stone-like cliff that surrounded their private hunting ground. The red prey rarely came out by making a hole in the cliff, preferring to ride inside the flying not-live thing that served them, and passing over the strange cliff and dangerous vines.

The pride knew the killer vines were actually not-live, but here the thin straight strands that could kill with a touch were broken and torn, lying on the ground. Some were still hanging from the bare skinny gray trees that held them up and pulled them straight, guarding the place where the cliff could open.

Sometimes hunters from her pride found dead prey animals near the vines, the animals having carelessly touched the vines and died in a violent death spasm that came with the smallest of touches. If the prey was fresh killed, and careful inspection showed the dead animal did not still touch the vines, hunters from her pride had learned it was safe to drag the prey away to eat.

However, the vines somehow could hurt or kill even through the body of dead prey, if the animal died while still touching any part of a vine.

With a thrill of excitement, they saw that even the opening through the cliff of the red prey’s territory was torn apart. The grey vines on the ground were all that kept them from passing into the unexplored virgin territory.

Rasha, Telror’s cousin, pressed her neck frill to her sibling’s haunches, and sent the pictogram image of pushing a small prey onto the vines to see if they remained deadly, or not.

Telror sent back the answering image of them hunting, and they swiftly split up to backtrack to a scent they had passed of a trail of small fast prey they normally would not waste the energy to hunt.

Working together, Telror quickly chased a half dozen of the fast little bounding and darting creatures towards where her cousin waited in ambush. Rasha swiftly leaped up and caught one in midair with her fierce jaws as it tried to jump over the bushes where she had lain in wait. She was careful to be gentle.

The pitiful squeals of the struggling animal nearly pushed Rasha into the ecstasy of the kill, but she withheld that pleasure in order to test the vines, as she had proposed.

As they glided swiftly back to the cliff opening, Telror grazed her cousin with her own frill. When Rasha held out the beating and kicking animal in her powerful jaws, Telror broke the small gazelle-like animal’s two back legs with a little nip to the lower part of each.

Like her cousin, as the animal screamed in pain it sharply increased her urge to sense the delight of the kill. The desire was powerful but their test of the vines came first, so she settled for a gentle stroke of her frill to sense the prey’s delectable pain and terror.

Walking close to the gray strands, using a casual toss of her head Rasha opened her jaws to let the squalling animal fall in the center of a tangle of the deadly vines.

The two watched with interest as the pitiful crippled creature bleated and struggled to flee, flopping across the vines, touching multiple strands without effect. Desperately pulling itself by its front legs, it managed to stumble into one of the odd thin grey trees that held the vines above the ground, and it still did not spasm and die.

Briefly brushing frills first, Telror watched with envy as Rasha pounced on the little mouthful, her jaws and fangs crushing and tearing its life out instantly. She savored the pleasure that was all the greater for the delay and anticipation of its death, the warmth of the life fluids sweet on her tongue. As agreed when they had touched frills, she offered none of the small morsel to her cousin because it was Rasha’s idea to prove the not-live vines were dead.

Now they had the excitement of hunting on new territory, anticipated for longer than the age of the oldest living pride member. Boltar was the elder male of the pride, and even his memories of frill images from past elders held no knowledge of what was inside the red prey’s territory.

They knew the red prey had partly abandoned their territory, because their scent and sounds had diminished over time. They sometimes returned in the flying not-life thing and came out to hunt on the pride’s territory. It was difficult to sneak up on them, and they had a dangerous stinging stick that made noise that could hurt or cripple. Nevertheless, they were thrilling to hunt, even if not very meaty.

The red ones respected the skill and strength of the pride’s hunters because they avoided them, and ran to their not-live flying thing to escape when the pride came for them. If they caught one before it could escape, it fought wildly with desperation. In truth, they were hard to kill, and used not-live things like long shiny fangs to bite and cut, as well as their own small sharp teeth and short talons.

The red prey were dangerous when they used their stinging sticks that hurt at a distance, but the hunters had learned to anticipate and avoid the sting when they saw a flash on a stick pointed at them. There were small and long sticks, not-live things they always carried with them. Without those to help, they could not stop even a lone female from tearing out their living organs. With the sticks, they sometimes killed a pride member, but they had never been allowed to keep the kill.

The frill touch at a kill of any red one invariably revealed its mind to be full of rage and hatred of the pride. However, there was also admiration mixed with a fear of their attackers. This sensation from their mind was far more delicious than the actual eating of their flesh. After such a kill, the lucky hunter shared the experience through frill contacts with the rest of the pride.

The frills also told the pride that the red prey wanted to be the greatest of all predators, the ultimate killers. Each one that had died under the pride’s fangs and claws had wanted to experience the joy of killing a member of the pride without the stinging sticks to help. It had never happened.

Now the pride could hunt them in their own territory. The two cousins crept into the enclosure with the greatest stealth possible of their kind. It was near the end of the day, not their favorite time to hunt, but the red ones did not see quite as well as rippers did in darkness. They carefully prowled towards where they heard the sounds come down from the sky, watching large not-life things land. They soon picked up the scent of another prey. A lot of them.

A touch for coordination and Rasha, the faster cousin, departed swiftly to seek more members of the spread out pride scouts. This prey was rare but known to them, because it sometimes came out with the red ones. It was smaller and slower than the red prey, easy to catch and kill even when they had stinging sticks. There were so many here that the pride would bring home much meat for the cubs tonight.

46. Rippers

In the dusk and long shadows, Telror crept close to the huge den carefully and slowly, keeping a burned dead flying thing between her and the den. She hid under its broken body and watched as activity appeared around a larger flying thing. It radiated heat and had a strange smell like the dead flyer did, but stronger and fresh. She decided it was a flyer she and Rasha had seen and heard come down from the sky.

New limbs descended from the not-live thing, and moving not-live things that the red ones sometimes used outside their territory came from their den. However, the riders were not red ones, and the prey that came out of the large flying thing was not either. With a sense of elation, she recognized them from thought pictures shared by her pride. These were the smaller prey that the red ones sometimes brought with them to hunt the giant horned ones.

Rasha should be returning with others of the pride soon, and because of their careful scouting as they arrived they wouldn’t need to proceed slow now that it was certain all of the prey were close to the big den. These were only the slow and less dangerous small animals, easily killed without great risk.

****

“Sir, I am detecting at least six heat signatures of animals of the size of the two I previously detected. These are also leaving the woods to the north and approaching the edges of the marsh, where I lost view of the other two.”

“Tell this to Ms. Willfem and the Pink Nebula.”

“In progress, Sir.”

“Of course, silly of me.” Jake could simultaneously hold multiple conversations.

“Are these moving with the same slow caution?” He asked.

“No Sir. Like the one I reported leaving just at sunset, they are moving at about thirty-three miles per hour south towards the north side of the dome, and are just over twelve miles away. If they skirt the marsh they could reach the dome in twenty five minutes, less time if they can move even faster or they pass through parts of the marsh.”

“Damn, that’s pretty fast and seems threatening. Put the Infrared and night vision images overlaid on the big screen. Do you have a better size estimate now, or a guess as to what they are?”

The main screen lit with the ghostly images of trees rocks and shrubs using amplified night vision and moon light. Then the infrared images were overlaid. Scale was hard to estimate, but yellow and red blobs could be seen moving past tree shapes as the two synchronized cameras tracked the movement of six heat sources moving right at them.

“The size of five of the animals, based on their average speed and the time it takes the image to move past fixed trees indicates an average body length of seven to eight feet. The slightly larger heat source is over nine feet in body length, and. I have compared them to the images of the antelope Ms. Jorl’sn named blue streakers, and these animals are lower to the ground, with thicker legs and less body length. Based on the mass of the antelope, these would probably weigh six hundred to eight hundred pounds on Earth and fifty percent more here on Koban.”

“Can you zoom the infrared image on the larger animal? We might see more detail.”

The single red and yellow image filled the screen, a bit jumpy as the camera tried to keep it centered. It was coming almost head on most of the time, making it possible only to see there were four legs below a massive body, low to the ground. Suddenly the image went off screen to the left as it turned away from a low line of cooler rocks. The camera locked on again, presenting a side view.

The motion was graceful and sinuous, with a large head on a short neck connected to a longer body on legs clearly shorter and heavier than an antelope. It was loping in a ground-covering gait. A wavering yellow line behind the compact body revealed a long thin tail twitching as it dodged around trees and rocks in darkness.

Maggi studied their agility and fast smooth movements. “They have to have excellent night vision to keep up that speed.”

Noreen voiced what Mirikami and Maggi were thinking. “That’s a predator. All of the grazing animals of that size have longer slender legs for high-speed running, and I don’t see any horns. Thad says all of the herbivores anyone has seen here had various types of horns for defense.”

“I think you’re right,” Mirikami agreed. “And we were told that rippers hunt in prides of that size or larger. The image Jake reported leaving at the same speed an hour ago may have gone to bring back the pride. We need to close hatches and bring in all of the trucks. We can’t continue the transfers in the dark with those closing in on us.”

“Jake, Link to all, use our external speakers and the frequencies for the eight ships on the ground.”

“Ready, Sir.”

“This is Captain Mirikami. We have detected what we think are six predators coming in from the north, running towards the dome at approximately thirty miles an hour. These may be what are called rippers, which are the equivalent of large earth cats such as lions or tigers, but larger, stronger and faster. Get back inside the ships or into the dome as soon as possible. You have only about fifteen minutes on the north side but don’t delay; they can run even faster that they are now. Not even the Krall willingly face these killers, even when heavily armed. Mirikami Out.”

The two trucks at the base of the Pink Nebulae, fully loaded, started for the dome’s north entrance. Everyone gathered at the base of the boarding ramp had heard the speaker warning to get back aboard. They were now crowding to get onto the up escalator side of the personnel ramp. No one thought to stop and reverse the down side escalator, so at least twenty people were still descending.

Willfem was standing out on the tarmac with the Nebula’s Captain Johnfem. She had relayed the message to get everyone back into the ship, even though the echoing speaker announcement had been understandable. They would easily have everyone back inside in less than ten minutes, and the just departed trucks would be able to drive right into the dome in far less time than that. She watched as several outbound trucks turned back.

She and the ship’s Captain would be the last ones up the ramp, and the twenty people still coming down had to switch sides at the bottom. Therefore, she drew both pistols, swapped out the two buckshot clips with heavier rounds and handed one to Johnfem. A brief explanation of the safety and the simple firing mechanism was all that was needed. The Captain pocketed her own Jazzer she had carried outside for skeeter protection.

They walked closer to the bottom of the ramp, and urged everyone to hurry, and even try to take additional steps up despite the gravity, to get back inside faster.

Willfem was wishing she also had brought some explosive rounds, but who would have used those for wolfbats or skeeters? Then for some unexplained reason she had also felt an urge to bring soft nose slugs and armor piercing rounds, useless for skeeters. There was no explaining the irrational side of fear.

****

Telror, watching from the concealment of a dead flying thing saw more prey coming out of the large flying thing than the whole pride could carry home tonight. She didn’t know how many pride mates Rasha could quickly gather by calling them to a hunt. She would have to wait for the pride members at the opening, to explain that the killing vines were dead.

Then she heard loud calls from around the side of the dome, and recognized it as similar to the lower sounding calls she could hear between the prey animals she was watching.

Then the prey abruptly changed their pattern of movement. The two not-life things carried some of the prey away towards the large den, as they had done before while she watched. However, the prey below the flying thing began to crowd close together, much like a threatened herd on the savanna.

Some were climbing back up to the flying thing, not in a panic but they were clearly wary now, frequently looking out into the dark. She was undecided what to do for a moment, because other prey was still descending to the ground in that odd smooth motion where their back legs did not move.

One of the two creatures Telror recognized as sentinels or heard leaders, raised two of the small stinging sticks it had hanging at its sides. It handed one to the second sentinel, making small calls, and looked to the north. Several of the not-life things leaving the den turned away, going back to their den empty. Combined with the loud call from the den and the change in direction of movement, the raising of stinger sticks signified a readiness to defend the herd.

Her eyes and ears told her that none of the small bloodsucker insects was near. The prey did not normally hide when the insects flew close. This time she knew her prey was alert to a threat they considered more serious.

It couldn’t be her presence causing the alarm; she was downwind and had not moved for a long time. None of the prey even looked directly in her direction. The two with stingers faced north, the direction from which her pride mates were coming. They should be here soon. These clever animals must have sentinels on the top of their den watching for threats. Her pride mates would be coming with haste, using Rasha’s images of the trail. They must have been seen from the higher ground, despite the darkness. The prey would soon escape into their den or flying things.

She had to act alone or there would be no successful hunt here tonight. She moved low to the ground from her concealment, her belly touching the hard flat rock, keeping her claws retracted to avoid the sound of scratching or clicking. She wanted to close the distance silently, so when her charge came she would not be seen before she could strike and kill her first targets, the sentinels.

****

Using old cameras salvaged from wrecked ships, Jake had been given fiber optic “eyes” to watch out over each of the four entrances this week. Flashing an infrared image on the main screen, Jake spoke in his normal tone, “An image like that of the suspected predators is slowly approaching the Pink Nebula from one hundred thirty feet west. It

”

Mirikami interrupted with “Link to all,” without waiting he shouted “To your left Nan! A ripper is a hundred feet out from the Nebula, about to rush you!”

He had taken in the screen image at a glance and knew as he spoke it would not be enough warning. Through the Link, he heard Nan shout to Johnfem and watched her image turn to her left, and the ripper instantly turned into a blur of movement.

****

Telror knew the instant the sentinel snapped its head around in her direction, even before it called its warning, that her slinking silent approach had been detected. With no cover ahead or to either side she could only charge, retreat was not a consideration.

As the alerted sentinel moved to point the stinger stick her way, in slow motion, it finally flashed. Telror had watched the movement, and judged her bounds and timing so that as the stick finally pointed her direction, she leaped up and slightly to her right. The illuminated trail through the air of the rocket-propelled slug was visible as it passed below her to the left, even missing where she would have been without the leap. She twisted her body slightly in midair to land ready to leap in a different direction.

It was a good decision, because both sentinels flashed their sticks towards where she landed, the stings passing close behind just after she had immediately leaped away to her left. That precision was odd because they did not appear to have good night vision. The bloodsuckers always came very close before the small lights revealed them.

She realized, the lights, of course! How careless she had been. She had instinctively positioned herself so the half moon’s light was behind her would not reflect from her eyes toward them, but she had over looked the lights the prey used to see in the dark. She was running directly at those bright lights, like small moons to reflect back at her prey. None of the pride’s night prey had anything but moon light to see by.

The sentinels were smart enough to aim stings where her eye glow told them she would be. It was a simple solution. Close her eyes for three bounds. Then she would be too close for them to adjust when her eyes reopened. One last look as she formed a memory image of the flat wide open surface, and where her targets were standing.

Before she touched down on her soft footpads, she had her eyes shut and claws retracted again to make no clicks. She instantly made her next leap blind, but in a northerly direction that would take her into the shadow made by the flying thing from their lights. In two leaps, she would turn to face them. No bright eye reflections then.

****

Willfem knew she had been too slow the first shot, but yelled for Johnfem to aim for the eyes. The ghostly green fire marked the bounding predator’s position as it shifted direction. They both fired where they observed the two glows descend, but misjudged the timing due to the higher gravity and faster drop. The green glow had rapidly lifted even as they pulled their triggers.

Adjusting her aim and trying to estimate where the next arc would land, Willfem was trying to predict a point in front of the leap when the double glows winked out. This wasn’t like the brief quick eye blinks from before, now they simply disappeared. She fired where she had hoped it had landed, but now only faced darkness with the ship’s floodlights behind her, providing a perfect silhouette of her.

“Back up, get under the lights she yelled,” scuttling in reverse herself, firing randomly near where she had last seen those burning eyes.

The two women bumped into the back of the cluster of people at the edge of the now fully panicked crowd trying to go back up the escalator’s right side.

Those trying to return to the ship were colliding with people being steadily fed down on the left side, some being knocked down, dragging down others as they fought to avoid falling in the high gravity.

Suddenly a huge dark powerful form leaped out of blackness from an unexpected direction, from the shadows of the ship. Willfem screamed a warning as she fell to her left and raised her right arm to fire at the suddenly revealed gapping maw.

The beast rolled to the side as she pulled the trigger, grazing the ripper’s right rib cage. A mighty slap of a huge clawed paw knocked the gun flying and broke her right arm as the claws tore her flesh to the bone. The cat turned its head in passing and two inch fangs in massive jaws crunched into the skull of Johnfem, jerking her off her feet into the air and killing her instantly.

Releasing the head of the dead sentinel, Telror had no time to savor the killing experience of that prey. She landed and instantly pushed up with her front legs and spun around to leap back over the sentinel that had stung her side. She looked down into the frightened eyes of the animal, and felt its uninjured front paw shove up at her neck in a futile attempt to push her away. It touched her frill in the process.

The wonderful terror and pain of this new prey suffused her mind, with an undertone of regret that it had not killed her attacker and that it would not live to see her “people” defeat the pride. Her People? The mental sensation was the way Telror’s pride mates thought of themselves and each other. She had never sensed this in any prey.

Shaking her head in annoyance at her hesitation, she opened her jaws and crushed the life out of this prey. The last images Telror sensed from it, its paw still gripping her tough frill, were of pain of course, but also acceptance of its death and surprise as it experienced the mind of her killer.

With a shock, she realized that she had sensed the prey was a female, something she couldn’t have known about this unknown species, and that the prey in turn had sensed that Telror was also female before it died.

That mutual mental awareness had never happened with any prey she had hunted. Her people could sense the minds of their prey when their frills were in contact with a kill, but only other lessor “people,” smaller hunters distantly related to the pride had ever sensed them in return. Moreover, these other rarely encountered competing hunters had their own frills. There was no frill on these animals.

Her disorientation lasted but a couple of seconds, but that was a huge amount of time by the standards of her normal perception of events. Looking at the other screaming prey climbing over one another in a desperate attempt to return to the safety of their flying thing, she knew she could easily kill them all. However, wanton killing, no matter how pleasurable the kill itself is, was wasteful of prey and forbidden by her people. Without pride mates to carry the meat home, she could only carry the two she’d brought down.

She raised her head to the half-moon and the night sky and roared a signal to the pride mates she knew must be coming. Up until now, her stalk and charge had been mostly silent, with only low snarls and growls as she had made the final leap. The prey all screamed as one at the terrible roar.

Seemingly impossible, their screams increased when her call to come to the kill was answered, a short distance away out of the darkness by multiple answering roars. One particularly loud and deep reply told Telror that Haktor, a young new male that had recently joined the pride was coming. Hearing six separate voices, she knew they could carry much more meat home.

With pleasure at the chance to impress this new male and potential mate, Telror turned towards the terrified prey. She pounced on them, using only her claws to kill by tearing out throats or opening the abdomens to release intestines. For some reason she was reluctant to use her jaws, unconsciously preventing frill contact. She killed exactly six more, though she could have easily killed more of the essentially defenseless animals.

As she expected, her six pride mates arrived just as she politely drew back to allow them to make their own kills. Quickly assessing the kills Telror had made, the rest of the rippers killed one prey each, although some collateral injuries could prove fatal for the slow fragile prey.

****

Watching in frantic horror on the bridge screen, Mirikami, Noreen, and Maggi saw fourteen humans slaughtered in less than two minutes, one a close friend.

There were at least thirty people still alive outside the Nebula, perhaps a dozen were part of the way up the ramp clawing and climbing their way over one another in their panic to get to the top faster, but actually slowing their progress. There was no doubt the rippers could kill them all easily. It appeared several people had fallen or been pushed from the boarding ramp, which might also prove fatal if they had fallen far or landed badly.

Mirikami had been calling and pleading for rifle squads to step out under the north garage overhang and fire at the rippers. The distance was over a quarter mile, but the slugs would still be lethal if not accurate. Driving the pride away was the only way he could see to save the passengers from being torn apart.

Except for two Stewards that had been driving two of the eight trucks assigned to the Pink Nebula, no one else went outside to try to drive the rippers away. The firing was ineffective because the rippers were in among the people the shooters were trying to protect, so they fired high, hoping the noise would drive them off.

He privately cursed the other people at the north entrance for their inaction, but after seeing the ripper’s speed and cunning, he understood the fear of drawing attention to one’s self. It was dark out there and an unknown number of rippers might be coming from other directions, despite his assurance that there were no others. After all, the first one had been unseen until it attacked.

He hadn’t yet had time to absorb the loss of his friend and crewmate. Noreen had screamed a pointless warning when she saw the huge cat shifting direction on the infrared image. Then it burst out into the flood lit area at the base of the ramp and knocked Nan down. They had assumed Nan died instantly, as clearly had Captain Johnfem from its jaws as it leaped past them.

It wasn’t until the beast had whirled back to stand over Nan’s body that Mirikami realized she was still alive. Her unbroken left arm pushed up into a frizz of fur around the cat’s neck. It was in the seconds while the cat stared down at her that he had pleaded by Link for someone to start shooting at the beast. Before he could even finish his plea, the animal shook its big head and opened its jaws wide to plunge its fangs into his friend, killing her.

It was only after Nan’s death, and the ripper’s skyward roar while standing over her body that the two Stewards reached the doors and started firing. Then the other six rippers arrived.

In less than fifteen seconds, they had killed more victims, but they suddenly quit their attacks. In an astonishing series of moves, with an ineffective stream of bullets passing over them, the rippers each grabbed a body by the head and swiftly dragged it to lie next to a second body. Then jaws wide agape, they were able to fit most of a head into each side of their large wide jaws.

Easily straddling two victims each, they ran into shadow from the floodlights. The infrared image showed that all seven predators were dragging two kills apiece, but at a much slower pace than they had arrived.

“Sir, there are four more ripper signatures leaving the woods, moving south at over forty miles per hour.”

A glance at the screen proved these were in a bigger hurry.

Mirikami had had enough of being a spectator. He used a general Link. “Get an empty truck to the Flight of Fancy cargo ramp now. I’m going to go help those people at the Nebula. Volunteers are welcome. Mirikami Out.”

He had headed for the lift as he spoke, and when the waiting lift’s door opened, Noreen and Maggi were right with him.

“Whoa there ladies. I meant people already down there and armed. I need you up here to tell me what you see on the screens.”

Noreen tapped Maggi on her shoulder. “You’re it! You stay, because I’m Goddamned well going! Nan was my best friend.”

Maggi looked up at her sympathetically, but found the courage to speak the truth. “Yes my dear young friend, but she is gone now and I am deeply sorry. But you can’t recover her body and you know what to do up here.”

Softening her initial angry retort Noreen replied, “I know that Maggi, but I can help lift a wounded body into a truck and I don’t think you can. You have good eyes and intelligence, and Jake to connect you to anyone. I have to go.” She stepped in to the elevator next to Mirikami.

Nodding her head in understanding of Noreen’s deep-seated need to do something physical to help, Maggi smiled and stepped back as the door closed.

Using the override code, the elevator mimicked a Krall dome elevator plunge to the lowest deck. When it arrived there were over twenty heavily armed passengers and crewmates waiting, and several trucks were pulling up to the base of the ramp.

Momentarily flustered, Mirikami said, “Darn it, I need to limit my broadcasts. I don’t need this many people, but three trucks might be needed to move the injured into the dome fast enough. How many of you are under forty years old?”

He grinned when only seven hands went up. “Youth wins again. You seven had better have strong backs for lifting. Get in the trucks; carry armor piercing or explosive rounds. Swap clips if you need to do so, and let’s go.”

He walked down the ramp with Noreen, the “youth group” in trail, all of them sliding in new clips. He and Noreen sat together in one cab, and the rest sat in cabs or the back of the three trucks. They accelerated to the maximum speed of the well-used trucks, about seventy miles per hour, and barreled around the northeast side of the dome.

It only took moments to spot the Pink Nebula’s lights on the north side, and he was surprised to see two other trucks from the north entrance pulling out as well, with several people riding in the back of each.

“Link to Maggi

Where are they Tiger Lady?”

“The two groups met up in the marsh, smart ass,” she answered back in pretend aggravation. “Want to guess what they did next?”

“Show me the Tiger Lilly side for once,” He sassed her back “Tell me without busting my balls.”

When she laughed, he knew the news wasn’t bad. “They all turned back north. Our friend and I don’t see any sign of more rippers anywhere, but of course we all missed seeing the first one,” she reminded him.

“We weren’t looking that hard in daylight, and didn’t have infrared activated until it was already dark. It may have been waiting there for the right opportunity.”

The rest of the rescue trip was spent loading nine injured, some severe, and one woman was dead where she had fallen from the escalator, over the side halfway up somehow. There were injuries from those knocked down by rippers in passing, but they had clearly not killed people when to do so would have been easy.

One man with broken ribs said something odd as Mirikami helped place him in the back of a truck, “It came right at me with its fangs exposed and I was sure it was going to tear my head off. However, it knocked me aside. It was so close that the hair around its neck brushed across my face as it passed.

“For that one instant I knew why it had passed me by for the woman behind me. It was because I looked it right in the eyes and accepted that I was going to die. It had decided that the screaming woman would taste better. But it wasn’t exactly taste like flavor, but more how her fear of him would give him more pleasure.”

“Him?” asked Mirikami. “Why do you think it was a male?”

“I don’t know how I know, now that you ask. It was in my thoughts as a male. Funny, it also knew when it touched me that I was a male.”

After returning to the dome, Mirikami briefly met with the Captains of the seven landed ships, and the still shaken First Officer of the Pink Nebula. He told them offloading of passengers and cargo would resume only after daylight, provided the Krall allowed them the respite.

The eight big ships needed the smaller ships to ferry their people down, and that had yet to be approved by the Krall. Two potential ferry ships were too low on fuel for more than one more round trip, but the landed cargo ship had fuel that wouldn’t be used. There was a small fuel tanker on one of the cargo ships in orbit. That could shift the available fuel around once the ship was down.

Just before midnight, Mirikami left the Great Hall for bed. The new captives could be briefed on their new lives by other Kobani. He made an effort to think of everyone as Kobani now, including his own crewmates and former passengers. However, he knew he would always have a tighter bond with “his” crew than anyone else.

****

After a half night of rest, the people transfer resumed at dawn, and they started moving cargo containers out onto the tarmac. For a change, the longtime captives did much of the work, being better adapted to the gravity. They also were eager to find out what luxuries or necessities might be in each big container. However, before opening they were being stored on the tarmac, placed close to the dome.

At midmorning they had finished the passenger unloading, and no more ships had been sent down. Mirikami’s transmissions to talk to Parkoda, Telour, or any Krall with authority went unanswered.

The work shifted to unloading the cargo ship, and the supplies on the passenger ships. The haulers from the Flight of fancy rolled up the Pink Nebula’s cargo ramp, and started pulling out the cargo that had blocked access to its two similar haulers. Once they were free, the Nebula’s drivers took over the job of moving their cargo items into the north garage doors.

The Marimba Destiny had only one hauler, but it was a large heavy-duty version, and could move heavy cargo containers by itself after the portable crane set them on the tarmac.

Some of the early goods found when a few containers were opened were nonperishable canned foods. Hardly gourmet fare, but highly welcome as relief from the years of frozen military rations. There were also sizable rolls of colorful Smart Fabric that had been shipped to Thor for some unknown use. They could become impenetrable body suits with a bit more fashion flair.

Just after lunch there were two memorial services held, one after the other. The first one was held in and just outside the cargo hold of the Flight of Fancy. The ship’s complement was nearly all present, passengers and crew remembering Nan Willfem, and noting that her final sacrifice came trying to protect strangers setting foot for the first time on this dangerous world. Mirikami, Noreen, and the Chief all spoke a few words. There wasn’t much time to spend in remembrance.

The second service was less well attended because most of the Pink Nebula’s passengers had not had the opportunity to meet their Captain. Most didn’t even know the other passengers, on a run that was a routine passenger hop between several colonies. They had only been in transit for four days when they did a White Out at a colony world they were passing near enough to make a brief port of call. In a typical pattern, sixteen single ships quickly disabled the Trap fields. Then in a break of pattern, the small ships shot off the emitter antennas, and a Clanship pulled near and they were suddenly swallowed into a Jump Hole for two weeks.

Except for the crew and those that lost someone, few of the Nebula’s passengers wanted any part of the Koban heat or the need for heavily armed guards all around.

In the science lab, just after the memorial, Maggi and Aldry held a briefing on what the pros and cons were of the modifications Mirikami and Dillon had received. Five people were invited, Thad, Deanna, and the other three volunteers that had joined Mirikami and Dillon at ridge on their Testing Day. Having seen the results first hand, all five wanted to undergo the initial set of gene modifications.

Combat immunity or not, there were other challenges to face if they were going to live out their life on Koban. They wanted to start right away, but the press of all the landings pushed that back a few days.

In the early afternoon Mirikami was in the Great Hall, describing Krall combat testing to avid yet horrified and repulsed listeners among the new arrivals. He explained what his ship had manufactured to give them some surprises the Krall warriors had not expected. It was surprising to find that most of them had not even seen one of their captors. Very few of the ships had been boarded before finding themselves in orbit here. Then the local Krall complement had pulled out before they landed.

Many were clearly skeptical of the claims of how dominating the aliens were physically, when compared to humans. This was despite the exasperated insistence of those with direct firsthand experience telling them it was true. Aliens were too alien to accept sight unseen. They also didn’t want to receive any tattoo from these purported aliens, even when told of the protection it offered them if confronted by one of these merciless killers. The old timers knew that would change soon after they saw their new keepers.

To aid in convincing them, Mirikami had a holo projector set up, and using Jake’s fiber optic lines showed them scenes the AI had recorded of Krall action when first boarding the Flight of Fancy. They saw bloody dead bodies strewn in the two corridors, but didn’t really see the Krall through the smoke. Then they watched their arrival on the Bridge, the ceiling flips, the rapid pistol draws and a close up of a face with red-pitted eyes in the black orbs.

A kernel of belief had been planted, and the depth of their predicament was starting to sink into their minds. The Captain played a video of the violent warrior exercises they had conducted in the hold area while in transit to Koban. Explaining that the image was not speeded up, that the Krall really moved that fast and were that strong. The warriors were essentially “playing at war,” and the ship’s gravity had been set at the same level as they presently felt.

It was during the discussion afterwards that Jake Linked to Mirikami. “Sir, a shuttle is approaching from the south east.”

He held up his hands, tapping a dummy earpiece to conceal the use of their transducers, which he still kept concealed. “I have just learned that a Krall shuttle has been sighted. Probably coming from the direction of their main compound, and evidently coming to Koban Prime. If you want to see them with your own eyes, you can do so in relative safely through the windows on the second level overlooking my ship, where they normally land. If they come inside, they will certainly pass through this Hall, so get out of their way and do not look them in the eye.” He emphasized.

“Otherwise there may be another memorial service this evening,” he gazed around the room.

“I can’t and won’t order you not to follow me to meet them. But I don’t recommend that any of you new arrivals go outside as I try to meet with whoever is coming here.”

He pointed at his tattoo, “Remember, you have not accepted the terms of Ra Ka Endo, when these tattoos are applied. You literally risk death for simply staring at one of them, even with a tattoo. I won’t do it and I have been granted immunity from combat testing by helping to kill three of them. However, that fact will not save me from a challenge of honor. I would not survive a personal challenge by any of them.

“I know you have all heard the recording made by the now dead Doushan Mavray, either on your ship or earlier today in a replay. Remember his advice and warnings, and believe what he told you. It is all true.” He waved to them as he stepped down from a table and headed for the east entrance.

47. The Mark

Mirikami waited under the garage overhang as the shuttle landed. As prearranged, he had Jake Link him to the other five Koban Committee members, so they would hear what was going on while they watched from the second level of the dome. He walked into the afternoon sunlight as the side hatch lifted.

He was relieved when Telour and a K’Tal stepped out, along with the usual hand of warriors. The feeing didn’t last very long.

Telour spoke first. “You are enjoying your immunity human?”

“It isn’t a thing to enjoy. I fought before I was forced to do so to earn it early, but even with immunity, I would do that again if it advanced the survival of the humans here. I have tried to contact you or Parkoda to get permission to bring down the other humans in orbit. And then to ferry down those in the larger ships.”

“Yes, those big ships proved surprising to the raiders after they brought them here. All of our ships, even the largest, are made to land on planets. They did not know or believe that your largest ships were so weak.” He snorted.

“What is amusing about such an efficient design? It is not very efficient to make a large ship do what small ships can do better. We ferry our people up and down on smaller ships to make our big ships better suited for long space travel. You say all humans are weak, so why would a human ship design with weaknesses surprise you?”

“I do not think the design is so bad, it is that Parkoda did not know that the largest new prize ships, many of them eagerly caught by his own raiders, cannot sit on the ground to be displayed as proof of his great victories.” He snorted again, and despite himself, Mirikami smiled.

“Have you returned to resume command of Koban Prime?” He asked.

“There will be no more commanders here.” He answered. “Unless you humans chose one,” he added cryptically.

Wondering where this conversation was going, he asked “How will we know when you want to conduct testing and how many humans will be required?”

“All humans everywhere will be subject to testing every day.” He answered, still cryptic.

A chill ran down Mirikami’s back. “The war is starting.”

“I told Kanpardi you would understand this quickly. I would send you back to lead one of your worlds in the war if I could. I would be interested to see what you could do with more than one ship’s machinery and with many more humans.”

“We all would be happy to return to teach our people how to fight and kill your warriors. Send us home and we will do that,” he promised, positive they would never do that.

“If humans here could be made as forgetful of their past as Raspani are we could do that. Not that we would of course. It would waste our time. But I know, as do our clan Leaders that some of our humans, I am sure that you in particular, know exactly where this world is in the galaxy.”

There it was.

However, Telour couldn’t resist a boast, “We would defeat you just as surely as we intend, no matter what you could teach your species of us, or of this world. Nevertheless, humans have the ability, like any race with Jump ability, to reach anywhere almost undetected.

That was the reason they had to die here.

Mirikami told him so. “You will not risk your future home world by letting us return to Human Space and tell them where it is. We would find a way to kill this world out of vengeance as you kill our worlds.”

“That is what we would do,” he agreed.

It was time to cut to the heart of things. “Have we met the terms of our agreement with you? Did we help you and Graka clan gain higher status by fighting better?”

“Yes, you did more than I expected and in a very different way than I intended. Humans will never be good warriors, but they are tricky and treacherous opponents, as you proved.”

Mirikami bowed slightly.

“That is your gesture of respect for a superior, or of gratitude,” Telour recalled from memory. “I do not believe from you it is for my superior position, so you are grateful I called you bad things?” Called tricky and treacherous rather that a good warrior was a deep insult to a Krall.

“Those abilities were enough for our purposes, so yes.” He replied.

“We can follow the Great Path by fighting an enemy that can fight us that way. We need to understand the ways of the many different enemies we will find. However, I will correct you in one thing you say. My agreement was not with all humans here, it was only with you and only you have earned your immunity and completed our agreement. We have each gained the advantage expected.”

This didn’t sound reassuring. “I required many humans to follow my directions and all of them here have done so. The last Testing Day involved humans from my original clan and those from my expanded clan among humans already here. You agreed I could give immunity to those I needed.”

Telour snorted. “Are you claiming immunity for all humans here because some followed you? I know most already here did not want to follow you, and the new human prisoners have not followed you at all yet. Why would I give them immunity, and why would it matter if I did?”

The bastard was having a good time watching him argue a pointless case. Telour was perfectly aware that Mirikami knew that the immunity agreement had always been limited to a select few, and was only a useful lever while combat testing was conducted. Testing was over and now the wider war would start.

The private joke he snorted over wasn’t about a now useless and expired immunity agreement with him, it had to be about all of the humans he was trying to protect, about something that he knew, and that Mirikami didn’t know.

Mirikami probed. “I don’t think it is the end of our agreement and the grants of immunity that you find amusing. Your leaders promised when the Krall left Koban that any humans here that survived the testing would remain alive. That was because we cannot survive here without your protection. Parkoda destroyed the gates yesterday, and last night a pride of rippers killed thirteen of the new prisoners and one of my clan mates. I believe we were already on our own then, and probably from the day you left the dome.”

“Again you are close to the correct conclusion, and you remembered what our honor places on us for our offer of life when we depart.”

“Are we supposed to be grateful for the slow death we will be left with here?”

“If you are grateful or angry it is of no matter to me or to the clans. You were not offered more than life, and the clans in truth had no need to offer you anything at all. To fight us or die was a reasonable choice. We wanted a better fight, so made the offer.

“For amusement I would have left the compound’s gates standing, to let you slowly discover that you could not survive even with that protection. However, Parkoda was not happy when Graka clan earned first right of battle to start the war. He learned this yesterday and was vengeful enough to make your end come sooner. He is too merciful.

“His Tanga clan learned how to capture enemy ships whole with more prisoners alive inside. Graka clan proved the humans we already had could be taught to fight. What I made happen with my plan has greater value for following the Path and my clan received more status points.

“Our clan leaders, except for Tanga clan, say we do not need more tests of humans, so Parkoda’s towing trick has no great value, and we do not need the captives the raids brought back. This too was decided yesterday.

“While Parkoda was running after more animals for status, I passed him by staying here to use the animals we had.” As always, he was taking credit for what humans accomplished.

“That’s really super good news for you, for your wonderful clan, and your almighty Great Path,” acknowledged Mirikami sarcastically, knowing a Krall was insensitive to such human phrasing.

“So when can we bring down the rest of the humans in orbit? I need all the help I can get if I expect to rebuild the gates and survive the winter this year.”

Telour looked at him in appraisal. “I did not think you would simply quit and I was correct. However, do you actually expect the humans still in orbit to become prisoners on Koban? They were never subject to testing here.” He snorted, rearing his head back.

This was black humor from him. If the orbiting prisoners never landed on Koban, they could kill them in orbit without the Krall going back on what was offered to those on the surface. Koban itself was the testing ground, not the space around the planet. It was their usual self-serving version of honor.

Mirikami made a proposal. “All but eight of the human ships can land right here, so they can descend at any time you allow that. After you let those ships land and unload, we can ferry down the remainder of the people, which is an efficient way for you to let us do all of the work.” He didn’t dare sound like he was pleading.

However, Telour had a different concept of economy. “It is also efficient to leave he rest of the ships Parkoda claims credit for capturing in orbit. Because of my own plan, we do not need the ships that carry them, or the animals for testing. Your cooperation helped me make this possible.”

Mirikami knew the sadistic bastard personally enjoyed this last cruelty, but he refused to flinch as the psychological knife struck him in his gut.

Telour continued in an offhand casual manner, to twist the metaphorical blade. “We would destroy all Jump capable ships anyway before we depart Koban, and it is more efficient to do that where they are.”

His mind was racing with arguments he could make to save those people, but he had to base the reason on something the Krall would consider of value, certainly not human lives.

A possibility came to him. A clan’s glory or accomplishments in their twenty five thousand years of history were an important element in the stories they told on the trip here. He needed to play on that need to earn respect in that history.

“You told us Koban will become your new home world,” he reminded Telour. “I assume it will be the home base of your expanding Galactic Empire for thousands of years. I am surprised that the Krall would not show this world respect.”

“We have great respect for this world,” Telour answered sharply, leaning towards the human in a threatening manner. “It is why we keep its location secret, why we leave it for a time, to follow the Path and make our bodies worthy of living here. I have also told you we will return when we move along the Path so that we do not need guns and walls to live here. That sacrifice shows our respect and honor for this place.”

When his talons had started to extend, Mirikami knew he had pushed him close to the brink of a challenge. He quickly explained.

“The human ship that tried to flee was destroyed by a thoughtless raider, leaving millions of pieces of debris in orbit, large and small. Most of that debris will still be there like small deadly moons around the planet when you return to live here, even after thousands of years.”

Telour interrupted him. “The ship commander of Parkoda’s raiders had a right to punish them, to make the other humans see they must obey us without question. The other ships only needed to move to different orbits.”

Mirikami made his point. “Would you add billions more pieces of human garbage to fill the space over your honored and respected home?” Telour appeared to be listening and his talons had retracted.

He added a sense of history now. “The Krall will be fighting and conquering in the Galaxy for thousands of years, and future Great Clan leaders will gather here to plan other wars. To come and go here, will their ships need to avoid pieces of trash from a careless mistake that a few clans make now? Is the story of your departure from Koban to be that important clans left behind a perfect world, with human trash forever circling above?”

“I do not want advice from an animal,” he told him coldly, eyes still glaring.

“In truth Telour, I do not want to offer you anything that can be used to your advantage. Nevertheless, I must because I can see how an important advantage for your own clan’s place in Krall history can also give a very small advantage to a few humans. You, and your clan, can gain status and a place in history by telling the other clans why the easy choice of Parkoda’s ship commander is a bad choice for the future of your home world.”

The fact that Telour was still listening to a mere human told Mirikami he had his interest.

“Would the clans see you as showing more respect for the future of the Krall home than Parkoda? Your Graka clan could earn another story in your long history by protecting this world from mistakes that Tanga and the other Clans would make without thinking.”

Mirikami knew he had scored points when Telour next spoke. “The clan leaders do not like so many prey animals to be left here, contaminating even the dirt.” He was actually explaining a problem he would have in selling the idea he wanted to steal. He needed an answer the clans would accept, even like.

Mirikami was eager to help. “The rippers will simply find more victims when they return, as they came last night. The rhinolo will come to eat the lush untouched grass, and they will not tolerate humans near them. We will not be able to grow food outside or to leave the dome to hunt without great risk. Our food stores will run out and our bullets soon will be gone. This dome will become a ripper den or wolfbat nest after we are eaten.”

Damn. Whom was he convincing here? It sounded bleak as hell even to him. However, he had a final prediction to offer that the clans might find to their liking.

“The pile of dust from human bones would only be slightly higher than it would be anyway when you return. We can delay our final defeat by this world for perhaps a year with more people to help, but we cannot survive here without your protection, as every Krall clan leader knows very well.”

He thought he had made a plausible argument, but even if was accepted by Telour, he in turn needed to convince first his clan, then the other clans.

Saying nothing but apparently reaching a decision, Telour made a complex series of taps to his com button at his shoulder, and deployed his internal ears. His leathery lips started their silent wriggle of ultrasonic speech.

Mirikami heard Maggi’s voice. “Jake, can you translate what he is saying for us, and what is sent back to him?”

“Yes Mam,” the AI replied. “Telour has made a call to *********, a name which does not translate from their ultrasonic speech.”

They waited.

After about a minute, Telour began lip movement again, as Jake translated.

“The answering voice matches that of Gatrol Kanpardi, a leader of Graka clan, whom I have previously heard speak. Telour is explaining how he thought of a problem with Parkoda’s proposal to destroy the human ships when the Krall fleet departs in three days. Telour has offered most of Captain Mirikami’s reasons for not doing this in orbit, and has added suggestions as to how they can lower Tanga clan’s status for risking the purity of the new home world.”

He continued, “Kanpardi agrees that Parkoda’s proposal is *****, a word that does not translate, but says there is an alternate solution. He suggests they send the orbiting ships into Jump Holes.”

The heart of Mirikami and those of the committee froze at Jake’s bland report of the obviously “clean and efficient” alternative death sentence for twenty thousand people. However, Telour’s ambition wasn’t giving up so easily.

“Telour admitted Jump Holes may be cleaner, except for the still dangerous small black holes that would remain in orbit. However, that is still a variation of Parkoda’s suggestion, to destroy the ships in orbit. Telour said that this minor change will still be mostly Tanga clan’s solution, and has little advantage for Graka clan. If instead, they use the first ship’s messy destruction to cast doubt among other clans about Tanga clan’s respect for Koban’s future, they can turn Parkoda’s proposed reckless destruction of the human ships to their advantage by offering Telour’s more respectful suggestion to preserve Koban’s purity.”

They waited to see if Telour’s superior accepted this argument. It came quickly.

“Kanpardi said he will present Telour’s proposal privately to other clan leaders as a way to preserve Koban for their future. However, he will not tell Tanga clan of this. If the other clans agree this is a better idea, then Tanga clan will not be able to oppose them. Not without implying that Koban’s perfection is less important to them. Telour was congratulated on finding a way to help his clan again take advantage from Tanga clan. The connection has been closed.”

The committee heard Maggi’s comment. “Politics are the same anywhere. It’s backstabbing, double-dealing, and back room deals. Humans are damned good at that. Better than these amateurs. This deal is as good as done. We’d better put the welcome mat back out.”

Hell, Mirikami thought, I’m just a Spacer and I engineered this. What does it say about the real me? Regardless, he was happy to be insulted for the second time today.

He realized that Telour had been speaking to his K’Tal and warriors ultrasonicly while he listened to Maggi. The warriors and K’Tal all stiffened briefly raised their clawed hands in salute to him and quickly rushed into the dome, probably headed to the top level. Telour turned back to face Mirikami.

“Human clan leader you have once more moved me in a direction you wanted, but again it is to my advantage. I do not like it but I will gain in status because of you. It is strange that I wish to challenge you and reward you at the same time. I will do the second thing because you may yet find another advantage for me that I did not expect. After all, you have three more days to think on this.” He detached a Katusha from his belt.

“Come to me,” he ordered.

Mirikami stepped directly in front of him, his eyes as always when facing a Krall, fixed on his chest.

Making an adjustment with the device, he swiftly pressed it to the hollow of Mirikami’s neck, precisely over the oval of his original tattoo. There was a greater sting and feeling of cold than he had felt on the two previous occasions.

When he removed the device Telour stepped back. Then Mirikami thought he saw his death coming.

The Krall stiffened his legs, raised his hand in a blur with talons extended to chest height, inches from Mirikami’s face. Next, he was moving away towards the dome in that swift and contradictory bowlegged yet gracefully rapid glide.

Mirikami stood frozen in place for a second. He released a breath that he had briefly thought was his last when those talons rose in front of his face.

Noreen, startled when Telour had raised his clawed hand in that blur of motion, gasped because she thought he might have disemboweled the Captain. When Mirikami didn’t flinch and Telour rushed off she asked, “What the hell just happened?”

“I’ll be damned!” Thad blurted out. “He saluted him. I’ve never seen or heard of a Krall doing that for a human. It’s a sign of respect only between Krall.”

Another onlooker, one of new arrivals, asked a question. “What did he do to him when he touched that thing to your Captain’s chest?”

Dillon wondered the same thing. “He must have added a mark to his tattoo. But Tet didn’t kill anything lately and that’s all they ever award us for, new tattoo marks for killing something.”

“They have other colors in tattoos, and those are not for killing,” noted Aldry. “On the ship the Translator Dorkda explained to me that his yellow mark was for learning the language of an enemy, like Standard, and said his several black marks were for mastering some K’Tal skills. They can be a sort of merit badge.”

“Well, we aren’t going to find out what mark our Boy Scout earned from up here,” complained Maggi. “Tet is walking back and all I can see is a dark shadow under his chin.”

Mirikami noticed stares as he walked towards the Great Hall, where he had left his presentation uncompleted. He intended to tell everyone what he had just learned about the Krall withdrawal in three more days.

His thought raced. They’d be alone on Koban after that. No more Krall combat deaths.

Before then they would have to get everyone geared up for a massive influx of people.

His friends, just off the elevator closest to the corridor into the Great Hall, were also staring at him as he approached.

“What?” he asked, fingering the still cool feeling area at the base of his throat.

“Telour didn’t say why he did that?” Thad asked.

“You were all in on the Link; he didn’t say anything as he marked me. What color did he give me anyway?”

“You can’t see?” asked Dillon, earning a groin swat from Maggi. It ended with a hard sounding thump.

“Ha! I found athletic cups in a container of sporting goods we opened this morning.” He chortled with delight at having out foxed the diminutive little woman.

She responded, “Ha! So the only one that fit you was the smallest cup?” Then she mimicked his chortle perfectly. She finished her retort with, “Tet can’t see his own neck, you young idiot.”

Everyone laughed to see things between the two back to normal, but Mirikami raised a hand to interrupt them. “Unless one of you has a mirror, will someone please tell me what color the mark is?”

“It’s solid black,” Thad told him, a wondering tone to his voice.

Seeing the stares continue and noting Thad’s demeanor he asked, “Does it clash with the blue dots?” he chuckled.

“Tet, the entire oval is solid black,” Noreen told him.

“Really? What does that mean? Any Krall stories that anyone heard?” he queried.

Jake’s voice came to all six, still in a group Link. “Before the event, Telour told the other five Krall that the Captain was a worthy enemy, and he would mark him as such. He then said that other humans may be worthy enemies, and the new war would reveal if the rest of the human species were worthy. Next, he told them to enter the Krall quarters in the dome to wait for his order to destroy the engines on the new ships and all of the fusion bottles. He expected more human ships to land soon.” Then the AI stopped.

“Wow!” Maggi said. “For once his extra trivia is more important than the original question. No disrespect intended to the ‘worthy enemy’ here.” She hooked a thumb at Mirikami.

“None taken unworthy one,” he shot back. “They are planning to kill the engines, and the fusion bottles? That’s bad news in general, but that plan might also include the Fancy, right after I talked Parkoda into sparing her.” He tugged at his lower lip.

They needed ideas. “We have to find a way to remove and hide some fusion bottles where they won’t find them, but they can’t know they are gone either. How can we do that?”

“How about just putting some of the trucks out in the woods or behind the ridge?” Thad proposed.

Noreen shot that down promptly. “That would preserve the small bottles in those trucks, assuming we can risk driving them out that far with the gates open, but those are relatively low power. What Tet means are some large bottles, like those in the ships. The Krall might not even leave us the ones that power the dome, putting them in the dark.”

“Exactly,” Mirikami said.

Dillon offered a possibility. “Nan and the Chief already checked the old ships and found them all ruined, but I wonder if we can pull some of the dead fusion bottles from wrecked ships and swap them for good ones from the ships that just landed?”

In a somber tone, Noreen reminded them, “Nan would have been able to tell us that. She knew bottles inside and out.”

Mirikami, as always had alternatives. “The Chief may not have a degree, but he and the drive rats have some experience in repair and replacement of fusion bottles. Noreen, please get with him and have the wrecks checked. We can’t make it long here without power. No lights, cooling, elevators, refrigeration of food, water pumps and purification. The list is endless.”

Suddenly, an unfamiliar voice behind him said, “Captain Mirikami, I know someone that can help you.”

When he turned around, he saw a woman in the uniform of the company that operated the Rimmer’s Dream.

“Good Lady I saw you briefly at the memorial service for Captain Johnfem and your passengers. You obviously know who I am, but may I have your name Gracious Lady,” glancing at her shoulder pips, “and Commander?”

“I’m the Dream’s First Officer Sir, Marlyn Rodriguez. I’m pleased to meet you.”

She held out her right hand in the socially traditional palm down manner, for Mirikami to bow and kiss the back of her hand. He reached out and politely turned her hand and shook it firmly.

She raised an eyebrow at the slight breach of social etiquette, but returned his handshake and firm grip.

She continued, “I’ve been hearing a great deal about you today, Sir. I apologize for appearing to eavesdrop, but I was maneuvering to introduce myself, when I overheard your discussion. You said you need to hide or preserve fusion bottles, but not why we might lose them. In any case I think our Engineering Officer, Ms. Riker, has the expertise you need.”

“I am indebted to you Commander for reminding me of something that I repeatedly forget. My ship’s crew and their experience have suddenly been multiplied by the arrival of many more Spacers. Thank you.

“We have just learned that the Krall plan to not only disable the ships, perhaps even destroy them, but kill all of the fusion bottles as well. This will happen within the next two or three days, before they leave the planet for good, leaving us here at the mercy of this merciless world.”

Surprised, she asked, “They are really leaving?”

“Yes, which I only learned a few minutes ago when I met with the representative that just arrived. However, we don’t have time for the long explanations now.

“I know you are experiencing gravity fatigue, because we all do at first, but if I send someone to else to locate your Engineer and your Captain, can you tell me where to look for them?”

“I can do better than that Sir, how about if I Link to them?” She smiled and winked. “We don’t have a shiny new JK system like the Fancy, but a JB series is pretty good, and it spoke with your system after landing.”

Briefly flustered at that implication he said, “I’ll ask you to Link in a moment Gracious Lady. First I’d like to make some introductions.”

Mirikami introduced her around hurriedly, to get that formality over, and explained that their transducers and AI had definitely helped kept many of them alive and made their communications secure. He told her that was a detail kept secret from the Krall. They never spoke to their AI or Linked to anyone when a Krall was close by. He suggested they preserve that confidentiality for the next three days, and to be aware that the Krall could monitor, hear, and see them anywhere in the dome if they chose to do so.

With that caution offered, he asked Rodriguez to excuse him as he asked some questions of his own AI.

“Jake, I just learned we have at least one other AI system here with transducer capability.”

“Yes Sir. It is called Jeb by the crew of the Rimmer’s Dream. We have exchanged libraries.”

Not wanting to be surprised again, he asked, “Is that the only ship with a J series AI, or any high level AI at all?”

“The JB is the only J series, but there is an ADM unit in orbit on the Vegan Star, which they call Adam. Each of the eight large transports has only a low level AI system. They rely more on human control on those ships with larger sized crews. The ADM model is

”

“Stop Jake, I know about the ADM AI model.” It was made by a different company, and far less autonomous that the J models.

Interworld had bought several new ships with the second newest J series installed, the K release. The company spent the money simply to reduce the need for larger crews, thus saving labor costs. The Flight of Fancy had the honor of being at the top of the AI heap here, since no L model had appeared.

“Jake, do the two transducer systems have the ability to Link both sets of crew members?”

“Not completely Sir. The JB system cannot Link to our transducers because of our more advanced encoding. However, I am backward compatible and can Link to their older model transducers, provided of course the Captain of the Rimmer’s Dream approves, and if the individual crewmembers grant personal permission. To retain privacy in the JB system, I can act as a relay for Links between the two systems. They can in effect Link with anyone from the Flight of Fancy when I act as the switchboard.”

All of the people surrounding Mirikami were familiar with the unconscious head tilt and distant stare as someone communed with an AI. They knew he was done when he straightened his head and focused on them.

“Noreen, please accompany Commander Rodriguez and meet with her Captain when she locates her. You are free to share any of Jake’s data of the Krall with them and their AI. We need to send more of our people around to find out what other new human resources have landed in our midst, and make good use of them.”

“Right Sir.”

“And as you walk, ask Chief Haveram to contact or meet with the other Drive Room crews. If we find bottles, we can move around, we need people that know to use the tools and the precautions to follow. That heavy hauler could move the largest bottles we might find. This is a very high priority task now that we know those are targets. Every Captain needs to know that each ship parked here could be subject to destruction by the Krall sometime after unloading.”

“Where will you be Sir?” Noreen asked, “If a face to face meeting is needed at a higher level than your First Officer? Some of us Spacers can be sticklers for protocol, you know.”

“I’ll be right here in the Great Hall coordinating things until we learn if and when more ships are coming down. If that happens I’ll move to the Bridge, where any Captain is welcome to visit, but I won’t be able to go to them.” He had a thought.

“I don’t want the other Captain’s to think I’ve been put in charge of everyone here. I just happen to have the most knowledge out of all the officers that have just arrived, and decisions need to be made fast.” He ended humbly, almost apologetic sounding.

Thad spoke up in his usual tactful manner. “Bull shit Tet! If a vote had time to be taken of who was best suited to lead here, or the most trusted person that everyone could follow it would be you! Hands down, you’re the winner. And I’d bet the several thousand that just arrived would largely agree, and all that most of them know is what the rest of us have told them.”

Maggi grinned and noted, “Our stalwart, inscrutable Captain can blush bright red with the best of them. Thad’s right you twit. Get over your damned modesty because we haven’t the time to coddle you. Lead us!”

Naturally, the rest of the circle of cohorts around Mirikami nodded or spoke in support of Thad and Maggi sentiments.

Laughing and shaking his head, he said, “Thanks everyone. I sure don’t want what Maggi calls coddling. She’s been so kind to Dillon that he wears a cup.” He took a deep breath.

“OK, here goes. I want to know more of what that first cargo ship brought us, and what is in the holds of the other ships. Fusion bottles are not built out on the Rim and they are shipped there often. We’ve carried them in our own hold. That one container ship is four hundred feet tall, and somewhat square in cross section. It’s what? Three hundred by three hundred Noreen?” he asked.

“About that size Sir. Most of the boxes are ten feet by ten, and fifty long. There could be three thousand inside her. Is that right Jake?”

“Mam, are you asking about the number of containers in the Transworld Boxter, parked on the tarmac now?”

“Yes Jake.”

“It has a capacity of three thousand six hundred containers if all are the standard dimensions, more if there are half sized containers in the same volume as one standard. There are special containers that can occupy the same space used for multiple singles when oversized equipment is transported, such as assembled mining plants, large excavators, preassemb

”

“Stop,” she said to the AI. To the group, “There could be around thirty six hundred standard boxes. More containers if there are many smaller boxes, fewer if a lot of oversized ones. It’s a lot however we count them.”

Mirikami agreed. “We have plenty of people to help now and more coming. We need more ‘stuff’ and to know what the stuff is. Let’s get busy sorting out what we have and if we have spare fusion bottles if we lose those in the ships.”

The next hour passed with Mirikami meeting with Captains and their officers, and some of their passengers that had specialized backgrounds. Like an applied and a theoretical physicist, seven doctors or surgeons, a mechanical engineer, and several people that heard there was a need for experienced hydroponics help. Those were sent directly to see Jimbo, who was rushing to expand the small hydroponics section already there.

There was a group of four Electrical Engineers, which had been headed to work on a power plant on Thor. They had knowledge of how to handle the electricity a large fusion bottle could generate. There was a wide mix of skills and talents, which would no longer be sacrificed to combat. If they could be kept from ripper jaws and off rhinolo horns.

One unforeseen need was a daycare. There were partial and entire families on some ships, with children of various ages. These ranged from families that were relocating, to those on vacations.

Small children were something the long time captives had not seen for years. Children were not common on the isolated small ships captured previously on the fringes of the Rim, and they hadn’t survived the original boarding process. No pregnancy had been carried to term on Koban, not with the high gravity. Contraception was the norm here when violent death had been the only inheritance.

Eventually Mirikami had to delegate Nory Walters, his Chief Steward, to sort through all the people that started offering their services. Nory sat beside a camera and audio pickup and let Jake record their specifics as they talked, and Nory asked questions. Three other volunteers did the same at other locations around the Great Hall. A catalogue of talent and expertise was being built that might be useful in a pinch. The longtime captives began to open up and share their stories, proving they were overcoming the chaos and paranoia they had lived under for years.

About an hour and a quarter passed before Jake informed him that eight ships were altering orbits, and several had asked for coordinates and landing details. Ms. Jorl’sn was on duty on the Bridge and was handling those requests, and broadcast the coordinates and pictures of the compound and continent to every ship. This time it was decided that all unloading would end thirty minutes before sunset, so there would be no repeat of the nighttime ripper slaughter.

Jake had already reported dozens of blue streakers grazing the grasslands near the river, and rhinolo were seen grazing close to the outside of the ring walls. They could enter at any time. At least a half dozen other species of small to midsized horned animals were browsing in all quadrants. There was even several hundred of what looked like a pale blue horse analogue, but resembled a huge draft horse more than an Arabian speedster. They all were surely followed by their own predators, so the compound was going to become “interesting.”

Everyone had already noticed an increase in the number of small biting insects, now that animals were coming closer. Their lumps of feces were also dropping everywhere they went, and things that eat or live in that food were arriving. The humans had not appreciated how free they had been of these smaller insect pests because their normal hosts had been kept so far away.

When the first ship arrival was within forty-five minutes of estimated touch down, Mirikami was making his way to his ship. As he crossed the ramp, he spotted a pack of six lizard-like animals about two feet high, with long tails held horizontal. They were colored one the ubiquitous shades of teal that helped them blend into the scenery here. Except they were now on the gray and dusty tan tarmac, making them stand out clearly.

Walking on two legs with small arm-like upper limbs, they resembled miniatures of representations he had seen of extinct Earth dinosaurs. Mentioning this resemblance to Jake, he asked for comparisons from the library.

“They closely resemble the body type of a dinosaur group called micro raptors, Sir. The color is uncertain for the earth versions because raptors became extinct over sixty five million years ago when

”

“Stop,” Mirikami ordered. He thought they were funny looking little creatures, practically cute at barely two feet high.

They apparently had spotted him walking on the open tarmac before he had noticed them. He now saw that they were positioning themselves to block a retreat back to the dome. He realized was being stalked by these little animals, which meant they were predatory like Earthly raptors had been.

However, he was a much larger than they were, even if he was smaller than average for a man. That implied a level of confidence he didn’t care for very much. He increased his pace of walking, not wanting to run, which might trigger a pursuit response.

As they moved fully between him and the dome they fanned out and started towards him in a slow but deliberate fashion. Cautiously stalking what was a completely unknown animal, but potentially prey.

He was armed with two pistols, one with soft nose rounds, and one held buckshot. Pulling the buckshot loaded gun he turned and aimed it, somehow expecting them to show some reaction. Of course they didn’t, feeling a flush at his foolishness. They didn’t know what he was, or what he held in his hand.

At about one hundred feet, he decided they were as close as he would let them get. He fired a shot at the animal in the center of the arc of creatures facing him. The buckshot apparently all missed, but he saw a few dust spurts near and behind the one he had aimed at. They all stopped in their tracks or jumped at the whoosh noise when he fired. One of them made a remarkable vertical leap of at least six feet in this gravity, proving the strength in those small legs.

Looking from one to another then back at him, they clearly reached a consensus. All six resumed closing on him in that same cautious stalk. He rapidly fired six more rounds towards different members of the pack, no careful aiming involved, not with buckshot. He counted on their scatter and quantity to hit something.

He did apparently hit two of them because they briefly went down, emitting rather loud screams for such small creatures. The two hit instantly leaped to their feet and suddenly all six screamed in unison and started running at directly at him. He’d managed only to make them angry, and they didn’t seem cute and miniature now.

They were fast as hell, jumping as they ran, making it difficult to keep them in his sights. He drew the second weapon, firing both as he backed as fast as he could towards the ship. He knew he couldn’t possibly beat them to the ramp and he didn’t want them leaping onto his back.

Dillon and Deanna had been working with three of the crew of the cargo ship, unloading and inspecting containers. They were currently placing them close to the dome on the southeast side.

They heard Mirikami’s first shot, but it didn’t really draw their attention. People were often taking pot shots at skeeters or high circling wolfbats. Then they heard six rapid shots followed by an alarming scream, and then a massed set of multiple screams.

Thinking they could be human, even though it sounded wrong, Dillon ran out from behind the container Deanna was about to unseal. At first, he saw only Mirikami facing the dome, and couldn’t see what he was watching.

When the Captain started firing with both pistols, rapidly backing away from the dome, Dillon drew his guns followed a split second later by Deanna. They started running towards him and from around the curve of the dome, finally saw what Mirikami was shooting at.

Without a second of hesitation Dillon blazed away with both pistols thumbed to full automatic, one with heavy buckshot loads the other with explosive rounds. Deanna followed suit at a slower pace, with her light shot and soft nose loads. The fusillade of pellets and explosions on the tarmac and into two of the small targets finally deterred the remaining but determined little screaming monsters. Only when they were within twenty feet of their target did they turn aside.

Watching the remaining four animals run away, he wisely reloaded before he looked over and waved at his approaching rescuers.

As they walked up Dillon said, “They were getting so close to you I was afraid to keep shooting on the run like that.”

“I thank both of you for getting me out of that fiasco. I should take my own advice. I told everyone else to go outside in groups or at least pairs, but I thought walking to the Fancy would be close and safe.”

Deanna was curious. “Sir, I’m glad you’re OK, but they looked awfully small. I’ve never seen them before. Do they have a name?”

“I keep telling you to call me Tet, Deanna,” he gently reminded her yet again. “I think those were cooperative little pack hunters that work together to pull down larger animals. They would have had me too, despite my body suit under my uniform. My head and hands are exposed.”

For meeting the other Captains he had been in uniform, but his Smart Fabric uniform was too formal a fashion, even if better protection. So he looked like a pudgy little man when he wore the body suit under normal clothing. Fortunately, his heat modification helped him cope with the extra layer of clothing.

He returned to her question. “I don’t think anyone has reported these before. I guess I’ll follow the example of Ms. Jorl’sn and name them for a characteristic they have. Let’s call those little demons screamers.” The name certainly fit.

“By the way, where were you when you saw me in trouble?”

Deanna pointed towards the side of the dome, at dozens of containers lined along its side. “We were unloading and spot checking some of them. We will need more time to look into several thousand, with more coming down.”

“I was headed to the Bridge, by the way, to find out what we have landing in this wave. Have you found anything of notable interest in those you opened?”

“Would you believe arms smuggling?” Dillon answered with almost glee.

“You’re not kidding? What kind and how much?” There was often contraband, particularly out on the rim.

“I resealed the first one we found as soon as we saw it, so only Deanna and I looked inside. It has some high tech microwave and plasma weapons. On the next container, the workers walked over out of curiosity and saw the guns while we opened some cases. Both containers had similar colors and seals, so I think there are several more. This stuff is all highly illegal, but out on the Rim there would be a market, and less oversight.”

Mirikami walked over and picked up the two obviously dead screamers. “I’ll drop these at the lab.”

He resumed his walk to the ship., “By the way, we only have about thirty minutes before the first of at least eight successive landings. Fun times huh? It’s time to get your butt’s inside and get hydrated, fed, and ready to change jobs. Open these Christmas packages later.”

“Yes Sir.” answered Deanna.

Mirikami sighed. “It’s ‘sure Tet,’ or ‘OK Tet,’ perhaps ‘thanks Tet.’ Practice, practice, and more practice. You’ll get the hang of my name.”

She laughed, winked at him, and said, “I’ll try Sir.”

48. Second Wave.

The fate fairies, probably teal colored here, thought Mirikami, were being kind for a late day start with so many landings.

Jake had informed him that six of the arriving eight ships were cargo vessels, and could safely be allowed to sit after their small crews and a few passengers were removed. The two passenger ships had a combined thirteen hundred forty two passengers and crews. No people would be left aboard any ship for the night.

That left twelve more ships in orbit that could land here, and only two days to finish. Three were cargo and could be set down and left for later. By the time they were all down there would be a sizable fleet, with potentially eighteen passenger ships that would be available for ferry service to the eight huge ships.

One of the Captains staying in orbit overnight learned that none of the planet capable landers was filled to capacity. Their combined unused berths could hold more than eleven hundred passengers from the other eight. He asked Mirikami if the Krall would permit them to dock with the larger ships and take on some of their passengers now before landing. It was an obvious way to save a couple of ferry trips later.

Mirikami managed to speak to a Translator on a Graca Clanship in orbit. After a short wait he got approval for the dockings, which would be done overnight.

If they did the final ferry flights in a continuous string of departures and landings, it was possible to bring everyone down within the next day and a half. Their deadline, to raise the population of Koban Prime to over twenty five thousand in two days, was on track.

What the Krall might do with the remaining eight human ships was unknown. Certainly not to be blown up where they were, and the tiny black holes left by dumping them into a Jump Hole still posed a small collision risk.

With a shiver, Mirikami belatedly thought of a simple third solution. They had been towed here by Clanships in the first place. Thankfully, slow-witted Parkoda had never thought of that alternative for the human ships, with the people still aboard. Simply tow them into interstellar space and then blow them to pieces.

Mirikami wouldn’t bet that Kanpardi, who had shown higher than average Krall intelligence, had not thought of that solution after learning about the towing trick. However, if it helped Tanga clan versus his own clan, he would have kept that to himself.

Parkoda wasn’t likely to become a high status leader in Tanga clan in the coming war. He was too easily out maneuvered in Krall politics. No doubt, he could find ways to get his clan’s less able and inexperienced novices killed in enough numbers to satisfy their Great Path’s evolutionary needs.

The two passenger ships this day were offloaded without much of a problem well before nightfall. There were seven skeeter stings, a few ineffectual wolfbat feints, six broken bones from falls, and tragically three deaths among elderly passengers before reaching the trucks. In the last twenty-two hours there had been five other age related deaths in the older population from the first day’s landing.

After passing an age of a hundred twenty or thirty years, physical deterioration set in that could not be halted or reversed without expensive organ replacement. The brain was the sole organ that couldn’t be replaced. The added strain of a fifty percent increase in gravity hastened the decline, and stroke was the main killer of the older arrivals.

The dome and ships were already buttoned up that night when nine infrared ripper sized signatures were detected entering the compound from the southwest, apparently following a small herd of fifty or so rhinolo and dozens of animals about the size of blue streakers.

Two ripper scouts separated from the pride and circled the dome in a careful and slow manner, several times passing under ships where the scent of humans would be fresh. They didn’t come up to the dome itself. A testament to their stalking skills was the times their moonlit and infrared images virtually disappeared in the brush at the edge of the tarmac, only to reappear some distance away.

Shortly after midnight, the scouts swiftly withdrew when distant roars apparently signaled them the pride had made a kill. A few intermittent heat returns were detected near an area that Jake said was a low place in the grasslands near the river. What was disturbing is that the rippers were not detected leaving the compound. It was known that they also hunted in daylight because they had been seen following rhinolo from the air, in scouted Krall hunts. The compound was becoming a very dangerous place, even without Testing Days.

Just after dawn, the Koban Committee met to discuss some facts that Chief Haveram had brought to them from a scavenger hunt. Four of the old blasted ships on the tarmac had superficially intact fusion bottles. They were irreparable, but with a bit of cosmetic external work, and cutting torches to free them from wreckage, they could be substituted for one of the functional units on ships that had similar designs.

Mirikami had some questions. “Chief, assume we get the units freed from the surrounding structures, and drag them to an opening we cut in the hulls. These are jobs we can do out of sight. Have you or any of your counterparts from other ships figured out to move them to where we want them? Doing it in sight of the Krall on the top level?”

“Yes Sir. That big hauler can carry any of them, and carry them right up into the holds where they would be out of sight for the switch. We have a lot of ideas of how to disguise them as various other bulky looking items. But we didn’t come up with a reason why we’d put stuff back into a ship that we’ve spent all day unloading.”

Thad had a simple answer. “Don’t bother to explain it, or worry about having to do so. You are attributing a level of curiosity to the Krall that we would have for suspicious human activity. Assume instead that you are watching a trained dog carry its balls and toys in and out of different rooms of your house. You might be aware of his movements, but you don’t care, because it’s just an animal that often does pointless things.”

“But they told us they plan to destroy the bottles we need to survive,” countered Noreen. “Moving something big enough to be one of them might raise a red flag, particularly if they are watching for us to try that.”

Thad said “They don’t know that Jake overheard that ultrasonic conversation, so they won’t be on guard.

“Besides, they won’t see us move big unidentified things out of our ships if we don’t do that. We only need to move the disguised dead units into them. Hiding a perfectly good fusion bottle under furniture in the back of the hold of the same ship is as good a place as any to keep them. Look at where your science labs were placed.”

Mirikami gave his stamp of approval. “We have been diverting the Krall’s attention like this all along. Telour told us that we’re a worthy enemy because we are tricky and treacherous. Why stop now?”

“I think Telour was only talking about you, Tet” Dillon said. “But maybe I can grow up to be tricky and treacherous just like you.” He grinned.

Maggi was ready. “But I already see you as a match for any Krall warrior.” She smiled warmly. Dillon looked flattered until she finished with “Big, dumb, and gullible.”

The meeting ended on that high note. They split up to organize the day’s activities, with Mirikami arranging for the ships in orbit to arrive in a specific sequence of landings. These he hoped, would furnish distractions for the Krall in the dome, to aid the Chief’s group in moving the dead fusion bottles.

There would be three passenger ships landing and a mass unloading while the cutting work to free an old fusion bottle was going on. The hustle and bustle of the unloading would hopefully hold Krall interest, if they had any at all.

Then a single cargo ship landing on the opposite side of the dome would serve as a distraction when the large hauler carried the removed bottle over to a ship with a similar size unit to replace.

They would move the four bottles, using landings and the hustle of movement all around the tarmac as cover for their secondary activities.

The first two landing rotations had gone reasonably well, the passengers suffering an anticipated number of stings and fall injuries, and one unanticipated death of an oldster. The shift of two dead fusion bottles into the target ships were masked by the movement of people, haulers, and cranes moving cargo.

On the third group of three passenger ships, the tarmac close to the entrances was more crowded, and the landings were farther away, requiring longer round trips of the trucks. It was on one of those trips that a lone rhinolo introduced itself, quite forcefully.

Jake had previously reported the animal, identified as a lone old bull by its faded hide and long broken tipped horn. It was browsing leaves and grass closer to the dome as the noise and activity continued. Thad had gone over to the west entrance with binoculars to take a look, and said it didn’t seem agitated, and only looked towards the dome occasionally.

Thad didn’t claim expertise in rhinolo behavior, but thought this old bull had probably been pushed out of its herd by a younger male seeking control of the bull’s females. It was probably taking advantage of the plentiful leafy bushes and grass, plus and lack of cover for rippers near the flat tarmac. Without a herd, it probably felt more vulnerable.

He couldn’t possibly know of the irritation factor and pent up hostility the old bull was harboring. After the next three noisy landings to the north west part of the tarmac, designed to distract from fusion bottle removal on the south east side, the bull stamped and tossed his head. It was annoyed at these loud things trying to force it away from its succulent feed.

At nearly eight feet high at the shoulder, fifteen feet in length, and probably four tons, nothing short of a full pride of rippers could force him to run. When it sighted a herd of smaller green animals coming towards him in line, he’d had enough of being pushed around. They were not taking his choice feeding ground.

He faced them, tossed his head and horn, bellowed loudly and stamped his massive feet, tearing up chunks of red soil and teal grass. They ignored his warnings, continuing in his general direction. Therefore, he did the only thing instinct and years of experience told him to do when outnumbered and faced by unknown animals. He charged.

Jason Sieko was the only one of the six outbound truck drivers and guards that was from the Flight of Fancy, so his transponder provided the only warning from Jake of the charging rhinolo. He was fourth in line, in a clattering halftrack, and had no way to signal the other drivers.

All the transfers had gone smoothly and no active ripper activity had been seen anywhere in the compound. The other guards and drivers had shed the hot armor and helmets that permitted communication.

He shouted to his “shotgun” rider, whom he only knew was called Aaron, and pointed out to their left front. “Rhinolo, we need to get everyone to turn back.”

“Right.” He agreed. “We can beat him easy if you push it hard.” He was referring to the accelerator rod in the console that controlled speed.

“Let me get the other trucks attention,” Sieko shouted back. The wind, tracks, and frame rattling at fifty miles an hour on the slightly bumpy tarmac made normal conversation difficult.

He leaned out of the cab so the two drivers behind could see him, and waved frantically and pointed at the now lumbering beast just over a mile out. They immediately slowed to turn around, but the three lead trucks were focused on the recently landed ships, two of which were extending their personnel ramps and opening their cargo hold doors.

The Krall didn’t put anything like a warning horn or siren, or even rearview mirrors on their ground transports. Seiko could only warn the front trucks by pulling up beside them. He shoved the power rod in all the way and the electric motors drew more current from the small fusion bottle. The halftrack surged ahead.

His rider screamed “What the hell are you doing, turn around! It’ll catch us.”

“We need to warn them,” he shouted back. “He have time, we’re faster than a rhinolo.”

However, the speed of the lumbering looking animal was deceptive, and the big beast was making close to fifty miles an hour, despite his age and mass. As Seiko passed the first truck, the driver looked over in surprise but quickly saw where they were pointing. He immediately started veering to his right to turn back.

“Turn around, now!” his rider screamed again.

“In a moment, we can make it after we get their attention.”

The man pointed his rifle across his lap at Seiko and shouted “Now. Turn Now!”

As he made his threat, they were passing the second truck in the line, and that driver and rider looked their way as they heard the clattering tracks. They too started a right turn.

“You turn back now or I’ll kill you and do it myself, damn you!” Seiko’s rider shouted.

Reluctantly, Seiko nodded and started drifting to the right starting a turn. However, he had never pulled back on the power rod, and as they swung past the back of the other truck, they barely clipped its rear, as Seiko had intended. At a nearly twenty miles per hour faster speed, the bump wasn’t terribly hard, but it was enough to jar Aaron’s rifle against his trigger finger.

The buckshot hit Seiko in the ribs of his right side. Because he wore his body suit the pellets didn’t penetrate, but the force of the impact broke several ribs and punctured a lung.

He was knocked to his left, and his right leg pushed against the steering yoke, causing a sudden hard swing back to the left, tipping the vehicle up onto the right side wheel and track. It balanced that way for a precarious moment, traveling dozens of feet before it heeled all the way over onto its side, skidding with sparks flying.

There were no doors on Krall trucks to impeded rapid dismounts, nor any safety restraints. Aaron found himself frantically grabbing at anything to prevent falling out of the cab and becoming a smear on the tarmac. His rifle did fall, and snapped in half as its butt caught on the tarmac.

Seiko, using his left arm to hang onto the side of the cab, now the top, also used his legs to push against the floorboard and console to keep from falling on Aaron. The pain in his right side was excruciating, and he was having trouble taking a breath. He couldn’t believe the bastard had actually shot him. It looked like they were both going to die here.

As the truck slid to a halt, the vehicle they had bumped had looked back, slowed and was turning towards them. Seiko could see them through the open roof of the cab. That driver had been so focused on who had hit them and the crash that they apparently still had not noticed the charging rhinolo. Either that or they were suicidally brave.

He started to feel the heavy thumping as the rhinolo came thundering onto the landing apron, and its bellow of challenge could be easily heard now, with the noisy tracks automatically shut down when they tipped over.

Proof that the other driver wasn’t suicidal came when Seiko could see his eyes and the gunner’s eyes widen in terror. They had finally spotted the big teal colored bull headed straight at them, a quarter mile away.

Slamming their power bar full in, the rear wheels spun as they turned hard left to loop back towards the dome, leaving the other truck to its fate. However, the excess power to the rear wheels was enough that they refused to take a firm grip as they squealed and spun, accelerating the truck far slower than the two desperate men wanted. The rhinolo thundered past the fallen opponent, making for the still standing challenger that had started to flee.

The truck started picking up speed as the wheels finally gained traction. They were up to nearly forty miles per hour when the gunner had the foresight to stand and face the rear through the roof hatch. He aimed his rifle, dismayed that it would be almost impossible to miss because the beast’s head was only a few feet off their right rear side and closing.

He fired repeatedly with zero effect before he remembered he had loaded a buckshot clip for skeeters. He threw that clip on the seat and pulled one from his belt that held soft nose slugs, regretfully the heaviest ammo he had brought. Before he could fire again, the broken tipped horn slammed against the right side with stunning force, the strength of the rhinolo briefly lifting that side and causing them to skid slightly, losing some speed.

Recovering from a painful slam against the hatch edges, the gunner started firing rapidly at the top of the head and the massive shoulder hump. He drew blood, but these were superficial to the big bull. He had suffered worse injury from male challengers in his own herd.

The next powerful hit came as the truck had started to regain speed and pull away. The horn slid under the rear frame and the bull’s neck strength not only lifted the heavy truck, it flipped them so high that only the left front wheel stayed in surface contact. As they came down hard, the rear wheels bouncing, the gunner lost his grip on the rifle. The rhinolo battered them again, this time tipping them all the way over.

Seiko saw all this through the roof hatch of his own overturned truck. He and Aaron were now both crouched on the cab’s side panel and tarmac below the cab. Despite the pain in his ribs and breathing trouble, Seiko pulled his left pistol, holding his right arm against the pain on that side.

The other truck was only a hundred or so feet away, with the bull banging away at its bottom, slewing it around like a toy. He took aim and started firing at the animal’s rear quarters, all that he could see from their position. Aaron screamed at him and shoved his hand down.

“Stop it! It’ll come after us. You can’t bring one down with a damn pistol.”

He countered. “The ammo for pistols is the same as for rifles. If you hit them enough and in the right place you can bring one down.”

“I don’t give a shit, I don’t want to eat it I want it to leave us alone.”

Seiko aimed his pistol at Aaron’s face. “I have an armor piercing clip. Load your heaviest clip and start firing with me or get the hell out of this truck. You shot me once, so I owe you one.”

“I’m getting out, you’re crazy.” He stepped through the roof hatch and moved around the front to place the bulk of the truck between him and the rhinolo, which was pounding the other truck into scrap.

Seiko started shooting again, emptying his first clip, and he inserted a second with armor piercing rounds. He was sure he had hit the thing a few times because he saw some blood streaks on the rump. However, so far it had given no sign it felt the damage.

The bull backed up slightly and slammed the rear of the overturned truck so hard it spun around completely. For the first time Seiko could see the two terrified men through the open roof hatch. Moreover, they could see and be seen by the attacking bull.

The bull bellowed as it spotted the smaller animals that it connected to the small “bites” it had been feeling. The confirmation was when they bit him again in the face and head. He felt the impacts on his thick boney skull plates, which protected him when he dueled with other bulls.

The two men were firing point blank at the enraged animal, and realized that someone from the other overturned truck was also shooting. For a moment they had hope they could drive it off or even kill the massive monster. That hope didn’t work out for them.

The bull charged straight at them, and thrust its horn through the hole where they hid. He was rewarded when he withdrew his head to see the result of his attack, and found one of them dangling and wriggling from the horn. Completely run through at its midsection it was making a lot of noise, and pushing at his face to get free. He knew how to help it do that.

The bull tossed its head up sharply, watching as the creature slipped free of the horn and rose straight up. It was a maneuver the bull had used in the past on similar sized predators that came after calves he was protecting. He agilely moved under it to catch it again on the horn, and it stopped making noise and struggling.

This time he shook his head side to side and felt the limbs slap against the sides of his head several times before the animal tore open and flew away to hit the ground and tumble several feet before laying still in a heap. That one would bite no more. Because he still felt “bites” nipping at his head and rump, he returned to the place where the other one was still hiding.

The driver had dodged the first irresistible thrust of that cruel long horn, but one of the shorter side horns had ripped through the top of his left thigh. He knew he was bleeding to death, but wouldn’t do that before the beast came back for him. No way was he going out like Mike had died. He loaded his last clip even as he heard the man in the other truck firing again. He looked over at his helper in gratitude, but knew it was too late.

When the bull turned its bloodied face back to look for him, he started blazing away, hoping to hit its eyes. He didn’t manage to do that with his hand shaking so badly. When it trotted to within twenty feet and lowered its horn, he fired a final shot into his temple.

Seiko saw that happen, and knew that the man was dead even before his body was ripped apart and trampled. He held his fire now since there was no one over there to help any longer. He pressed himself into the hollow of the floorboard space, as far away from view through the roof hatch as possible.

He heard the bull’s snorts and wide padded feet thumping as it came closer to his truck. If it came down to the same choice the other driver had made, he’d save a bullet to do the same thing. He knew it was time when he heard it bellow and its pace picked up. As the thundering hooves grew close, he placed the pistol barrel under his chin.

Just when he could hear the bull really close, there was a rapid series of gun shots from at least two guns, close beside the truck. At first he thought Aaron was trying to help him, but then heard him screaming as he fired. He must have been seen peeking over or from behind the truck and was spotted. The bull was after him now.

Despite what the ass had done to him, he would add his own firepower. He painfully stepped out through the hatch and heard the screams and shots farther away now. Rushing around the front end of the truck, he saw Aaron running away, firing over his shoulder at the rapidly gaining rhinolo.

Seiko emptied his last clip of heavier ammo at the back end of the bull, the only target he was presented with so far. He looked away as it caught up and lowered the horn. Aaron’s scream quit in mid shriek, and Sieko moved back around to the other side of the truck, not willing to watch the destruction of a human body for a third time. He inserted a clip of buckshot, confident it could get the job done if he put the barrel in his mouth.

The clop of hooves sounded again as it started back to his truck. He wasn’t going to get back inside the cab, bending over was too painful with broken ribs, and the other truck had shown the futility of that. He was bitter about the rib injury, but Aaron had paid a high enough price. He sure couldn’t try running when he could barely get his breath. Not even a Hub class athlete could out sprint a rhinolo.

He stepped onto the side panels of the rear truck bed, where he’d be more sheltered and he could stand upright. As he sought a grip for his left hand, the truck was struck by the four-ton battering ram, and as it spun around, he was thrown out onto the tarmac, losing his pistol. He scrambled after it as the bull continued past him and the truck, and lowered it haunches to stop quickly and turn back.

As it pivoted, moving too nimble for its mass, Seiko could see its eyes on him. He crawled to his pistol, prepared to take a few shots at his killer before turning the gun on himself. He took careful aim at one of the eyes in its heavy bony socket and pulled the trigger.

He heard the usual whoosh of the rocket propelled round, and was startled when the beast jumped and reared on its hindquarters, raising its front legs several feet in the air before they thudded back to ground. He figured he’d hit something sensitive near its eye, and was aiming at the other eye when, before he could fire, the bull jumped violently again. This time Seiko heard a distant boom that followed the leap. The animal looked over to its right, then back at him, and again started coming towards him. Seiko managed to get to his feet and planned to run around to the other side of the truck. Then the bull shifted the direction and speed of his slowly building trot to cut him off from that shelter.

The animal shuddered just as another boom reached Seiko’s ears, and he was startled to see blood spurt from the nostrils of the rhinolo. It took several more steps towards him, and bellowed so loud that it hurt his ears. It terminated with the bull’s collapse just as a louder boom sounded.

He looked over to his left towards the dome, past the other wrecked truck, and saw one of the haulers from the Fancy coming his way. Perched on the front forks he saw Doctor Martin, holding the largest damn gun he’d ever seen.

Seiko felt drained, and his legs would no longer hold him up. He sat down hard on his butt, jarring his broken ribs painfully. As the hauler drew close, he raised his pistol and fired another load of buckshot at the four tons of dead meat ten feet away.

“Hey Jason, I think you got him,” Chack said laughing, from the driver’s cage of the hauler.

Dillon quickly stepped off as the machine stopped, and rushed over to the grinning Steward. Concerned that the man wasn’t clear headed enough to know that he was safe, he put his hand on the gun and pulled it away from his weak grip, saying “You can stop shooting man, it’s dead.”

“I know, but that was the shell I’d saved for myself. I didn’t need it anymore.” He giggled at how stupid that sounded, then laughed, coughed painfully, and slapped Dillon weakly on his shoulder.

Getting a bit of his breath back, he had a question. “Doc, can I ask where the hell you found that small cannon you have there? These Krall pieces of shit,” he pointed at his pistol, now in Dillon’s hand, “ain’t worth spit on these things.” He pointed to the rhinolo.

“Jason, meet my fifty caliber anti-tank rifle and new best friend,” he replied, and let the man hold it. It was heavy and he yelped as his ribs hurt from the effort.

“I have broken ribs, so can you take it back? I’ll make love to it later.” He quipped.

Chack, now standing next to him said, “If broken ribs are all that big mother gave you, you came out better than the three Primes.”

A voice sounded in all their ears, “Chack, we are all Kobani now.” It was Mirikami, now linked to Dillon and Chack. “Jason, I can’t tell you how relieved we are that you’re safe. I watched you risk your life to warn those other trucks. It’s unfortunate that the lead truck didn’t understand what you were trying to do before you wrecked while warning them. But they did try to come back for you.”

“Yes Sir, they did, and I don’t fault them for turning back when they saw what was coming. I wish they’d left sooner.”

“I saw your gunner firing as that bull came after your truck. I’m sorry he didn’t make it.”

“I’m sorry he didn’t make it too, but he and I would have settled up afterwards anyway. He shot me in the side when I didn’t turn back and kept chasing after the lead truck. He didn’t give a damn about them.”

Concerned, Dillon and Mirikami simultaneously asked how badly he was wounded, speaking at the same time.

“My body suit saved me,” he said wheezing. “I have some broken ribs, and I think a punctured lung, but I’m alive. That’s better off than Aaron and the others.”

“Dillon, you and Chack bring him back to the Fancy for treatment. I’m working on finding some other drivers to get out there to help those ships unload. Dillon, as soon as you drop off Jason, we need more of those big guns uncrated.”

“Yes Sir.”

“Our other work needs to continue, and the Chief and his group never broke stride. We have to get all the ships down today. It won’t get any safer around here. Mirikami Out.”

The day’s work continued. They encountered no more than the expected problems with transferring people in high gravity. Another handful of people died, due to age and stress, and a bad fall. Thirteen were stung because they wouldn’t keep an eye on the sky.

The critical task of moving dead fusion bottles into four ships went without a hitch. Inside them and out of sight, they worked to loosen the bolts that held one of the two units each ship carried.

Next, the Krall had approved the ferry flights, and they commenced. Except for the four ships with bottles to be replaced, and the cargo vessels, every transport launched thirty minutes apart to dock with the eight large transports in orbit. Those passengers were lined up to go when docking was accomplished, and some of each large ship’s crew went with each load. As soon as the evacuees were in couches or bunks, the docked ship broke free. They left orbit as soon as they could line up for the proper descent.

The small fuel tanker was overworked transferring fuel to ships that were low. Fortunately, at least half of the transports carried enough fuel for two more round trips to low orbit, and several had enough for three trips without a refill.

By dusk the last two ferry trips were preparing to descend, with two others just down, but unable to complete unloading before dark. Mirikami and the Captains involved agreed that the discomfort of short rations to feed those people a full meal tonight wasn’t reason enough to risk lives. They had played recordings of the nighttime ripper attacks for those people, and they watched that lone bull rhinolo wreak havoc in broad daylight. Grumbling reduced considerably after watching those scenes.

49. Power to the People

At a late super, the six Koban Committee members met to consider the hardest, yet most successful day since the Krall forcibly brought captives here.

Mirikami offered a toast, “Gracious Ladies, Gentle Men, I salute the courage, bravery, and sheer hard work witnessed today. Tomorrow will be a final Krall test, before they depart to invade our worlds, expecting to leave us behind so weakened that we cannot survive the next year. Because of heroic efforts like today, I know we will survive.” He lifted his glass of wine.

“We have all become Kobani.”

To shouted accolades, they drank the first of several toasts, before eating a meal rich more for its newly arrived variety than its delicacy or finery.

“I have really missed pork and beans.” Thad, shoveled in another mouthful of a mundane but long absent dish from his diet. “Despite jokes and complaints about military food on Poldark, this was my favorite.” He ate a bite of sharp cheddar cheese, took a swallow of beer, and chewed happily.

Maggi looked over at the big man, and asked innocently. “Are you sleeping in your dome quarters tonight?”

“I hadn’t thought about it. I’m thinking of giving it away. Why?”

“The Krall have a more advanced air handling system is all,” she answered sweetly.

Dillon guffawed. “Thad, you know the more she likes you the more she picks on you, right?”

“I’ve noticed. If the love gets to where I need a cup like you wear, show me where you hid the larger ones, OK?”

Reverting to fading feminine sexual mores, Noreen defended her man, “His cup runneth over, trust me.” She patted his bulging bicep. “I think the genetic mods have had other beneficial side effects.”

Maggi groaned, but laughed at the youthful exuberance.

Aldry chuckled as well, with a bright idea, “Letting that rumor get out would make recruiting candidates for the mods really easy.”

“What do you mean rumor?” retorted Dillon.

Aldry continued, “Speaking of physical abilities in general, as soon as you have the time to come to the lab, we can start your mods Thad. Tell Deanna and the others for me too please. Tet, Dillon, my team is ready to start you two on the slower developing mods, for enhanced muscle strength and endurance. When winter comes soon, we have a cold adaptation mod to try.”

Mirikami was ready to start. “I had about decided that with the Krall’s departure that we might not need those mods. However, our experience with rippers and rhinolo proved to me that we need every possible physical boost we can get to force the native life out of the compound. We have to reseal the outer gates and push out the native life just to step outside the dome.”

“Ahh yes, faster, stronger, better…, that continuing problem.” Aldry hesitated, looking to Maggi for approval to say more.

Maggi stood and took the reins. “Tet, we have done additional original research, well beyond what we extracted from the old records. We believe we can do considerably better science than simply implementing three-century-old procedures. It’s too soon to start live testing of our discoveries. When things settle down after the Krall leave, we have some soul searching to do. There are ways humans should be able to match up pretty well with native Koban life in speed and strength, not quickly, but eventually.”

“Really?” Mirikami was surprised. “How is that possible? Not even the Krall managed to live here without hiding behind guns, walls, and electric fences. Wouldn’t we have to physically surpass them to accomplish that?”

“Exactly!” Aldry let the implication sink in.

Mirikami thought on this a moment before he spoke. “So your gorilla comparison was wrong then?” he asked.

“What’s that about a gorilla comparison?” Thad asked.

Aldry explained. “I once told Tet and Dillon that we couldn’t modify their human genetics to match a Krall’s strength, basically because we would have needed them to be born with a gorilla’s strength and DNA in the first place, and work up from there. Or I said something to that effect. It was a physical and a practical restriction that applied to them, to all humans actually, and it still does.” She saw Thad’s blank expression, and expanded on what she was saying.

“We were not born with the DNA framework needed to build ourselves up, from where we are now, to the physical level of the Krall. The Krall were already well evolved towards the high physical level they have achieved now. We can’t simply add-on features to our own DNA to match them.” She tried an analogy.

“Putting a fusion bottle and electric motors on a child’s tricycle isn’t going to make it competitive with a race car or one of our trucks. However, there is a long-term solution to reach that goal if we prepare ourselves first. We can

”

Stopping, she shook her head and waved her hands as if dispelling smoke.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. This is early research right now,” She cautioned. “We’ll know more in a month or two, once we are free to expand our research and set up the other labs to confirm what we think. We have to recruit more of our scientists to get a wider range of opinions and ideas.”

Maggi changed the subject. “We can resume this discussion another day. We have more immediate problems to solve. Tet?”

“Alright then. At dawn we restart passenger offloading, and should be done by midmorning. I’ll contact Telour after dinner to see if I can talk him into letting us disable the engines on these other ships the way we did the Fancy.” He placed no faith in that prospect.

“It would be good to have the accommodations and facilities for better human habitats than the dome. We don’t have anything to trade him for his advantage now, but it’s worth a shot. That’s all I have. Anyone else? No? Then let’s eat.”

The committee split up after the meal, and Mirikami went to the bridge to make his call to Telour.

“No,” answered Telour, to Mirikami’s request to let humans disable the engines and keep the ships as living quarters.

“My K’Tal and warriors will go to each ship at first light. The engines will be destroyed as well as the power modules, what you call fusion bottles. If I had a Clanship for use, I would simply put a missile in the heart of each human ship. It would be faster, but our Clanships are being prepared for Jumps, to start our war.”

He had to add a boast of course. “I will command a hand of a hand of Clanships to start our war, and I will join them in orbit soon. We Jump to a world you named Gribbles’ Nook. It is a mining world, not with as many humans as I hoped, but our clan leaders chose this place to attack to make your other worlds angry, to make them want to fight. My clan’s warriors are eager to fight a new enemy. We need no prisoners so we can kill every animal we find for two days of fighting and then we leave. Your race will come to see what we have done there. I told my clan leaders that humans will be angry.”

“How many ships and warriors are going?” Mirikami asked.

“For the raid on the strange name planet, only two thousand forty eight Clanships, and more than a million warriors, all from Graka clan. Soon other clans will send many more ships and warriors. All clans will bring slaves closer, to make nests for us as we clear one of your outer worlds of humans.”

Obviously, Telour’s clan had considerable resources, Mirikami realized, and they weren’t the most powerful clan.

“Graka clan also has the honor of first assault on a second world, after the clan leaders chose which of your outer worlds is better for us to live. My clan gained this honor mostly because I found that humans could be made to fight. I lead part of the first two attacks.”

Mirikami ignored his bragging and asked about his own problem, “How will you destroy the engines and fusion bottles on the ships here? The fuel on the ships can explode and the fusion bottles can lose containment and explode if not shut down first.”

He didn’t want to lose entire ships, or the salvageable material and equipment still inside. A fusion bottle needed a ship’s control and monitoring systems to draw and distribute its power.

This time Telour showed his first real hint of suspicion. “You did not show surprise when I said my warriors will destroy not only your ships engines, but their power modules as well.”

Mirikami feared he knew what they had done to try to preserve some of them. “We are not stupid Telour. This was a possibility we hoped would not come true, but it was not unexpected. It is extremely dangerous to simply blow up an operating fusion bottle.”

The Krall leader had an answer ready. “My warriors have been instructed by the K’Tal that came with me. We have an ancient tool made by the Raspani, before they fell to us, which makes a small hole in anything it is pointed at, and we can control how deep we need the holes. There is no fire made from this tool, even if fuel spills,”

“A hole in a fusion bottle that is operating could be catastrophic, Telour.”

“The warriors will order them turned off first,” was his simple answer.

“What about my ship, the one we used to make the weapons that you ordered us to make to fight you better? It was vital to completing your plan, and it should be preserved in your honor.” What the hell, that ploy had worked on Parkoda.

His response was disdainful, “I am not Parkoda to display a human made trophy as proof I am a Krall worthy to lead. When we leave here what other Krall would see it anyway? That ship is Parkoda’s now useless prize.

“Kanpardi is my clan’s Gatrol to lead us into the war. He says to leave you humans no energy to rebuild the electric fences, or to power your computers. He thinks humans are clever and could survive here many years with power.”

Damn, it’s going to be worse than I feared it would be, he thought. Unpowered the Fancy would be a dark hulk, and Jake would function at most a day or two on batteries. Worse, the labs would be dead, along with the hope of adapting themselves to better survive long term on Koban.

Taking one of the hidden bottles from another ship as a replacement for the Fancy was an option, assuming their entire subterfuge wasn’t discovered first. It would generate animosity from that Captain, to take his ship’s only power source. However, they needed the labs more than any Captain’s good will.

Telour made a small but surprising concession, however. “My warriors will not visit the ships that still have humans on them until last. You have time to move them to the dome.”

His following words proved he hadn’t gone all misty eyed and altruistic on them. It wasn’t a concession after all, but an example of a Krall’s preference for efficiency. “Humans will get in their way, and could interfere with my warriors work. It will take time to travel to each ship and this plan will waste less time. I intend to go to my orbiting command ship as soon as we finish here.”

Mirikami decided asking about keeping the trucks intact would remind Telour to destroy those small power plants as well, or he already intended to do so. He couldn’t see a plus side to mentioning them. Those truck fusion bottles were too small to run a ship’s systems or any of the major dome equipment anyway. To get the remainder of the people into the dome fast they needed all of the trucks, and had no time to hide any of them.

There was no telling at what point the Krall would shut down the dome’s two large power generators, but Gatrol’s orders to leave them with no power would surely have included them. He wondered how hot and stifling the dome would get without air circulation and cooling. At least three of their four ship sized power plants would be needed to run the dome. He assumed they could figure out how to convert the outputs to alien equipment power needs.

Eventually Telour grew bored and cut his questions off by disconnecting. Mirikami Linked to the five committee members and told them the bad news that they had all expected.

Aldry was extremely upset. “The only hope we have of beating this planet is if we can join with it. The lab is the only chance for that. We need that power.”

Join with it? Mirikami wondered at that remark. What do they have in mind?

However, he knew that if the energy was needed to keep the dome livable for over twenty thousand people, and for operating a high voltage fence to hold back the native animals, then the labs would have to be sacrificed. Unless they found another way to generate power.

Thad’s military mind focused on the one setback that could doom them within months, if not weeks. He asked “What do we do if they find and destroy the four hidden bottles? What can we do for a backup power plan for that contingency?”

“I don’t think we have one,” Maggi said. “Those trucks won’t do us much good even if they leave them alone. The dome will roast in summer, and freeze in winter. We’ll have to cut holes in the upper dome to let air blow inside for summer, wood smoke out in winter, and those same holes will pass wolfbats and skeeters year round. I’ll bet the rippers would find a way to climb up to them.”

Thad had some encouragement. “We don’t have skeeters in the winter.” He smiled.

“Gee, that sure eases my mind a lot,” was her dry reply. “How the hell can we find an alternate power source if they find those hidden bottles? Burn wood to make steam for turning a turbine?”

“Mam, you could tap into the tachyon energy in either of the two Trap Fields. A steam driven generator would be inefficient.”

It was Jake’s voice. He had heard a rhetorical question but provided a serious answer.

“What? Tet, did you hear Jake too?” Maggi asked, not certain if the AI’s reply had been on the general Link.

“I did Maggi. Jake, we know we have those trapped tachyons, but we’re on a planet. How can we get energy out of them in a gravity well without destabilizing the Traps? We certainly can’t form a Jump Hole where we are. We’d risk planetary catastrophe if we even try. We keep tachyon power generators off of planets and moons and out of gravity wells for a good reason.”

“Sir, it is true that the most efficient and maximum energy outputs are obtained by forming an event horizon, then using the intense gravity field to extract energy as controlled amounts of matter is delivered. Or the alternative is to permit faster than light tachyons to tunnel out into Normal Space, where the speed of light is an upper limit, forcing them to shed energy as they decay, which also can be used for power generation.”

“Yes, So?” It sounded like Jake was confirming what they all knew. “We can’t form an event horizon here, even if the fields could be kept stable. We’d bite off a big chunk of the planet before it rotated into Tachyon Space.”

“Yes Sir, you are correct that an event horizon can only be formed stably when done away from an interfering strong gravity field. As you observed, attempting to form such an event horizon on a planet would risk its destruction.”

“It is…” Jake had started to say more, but Mirikami spoke over him thinking he had finished.

“That’s

, uh. Sorry Jake, I interrupted you. Please continue.” Not that an AI cared about apologies or politeness, but the habit came automatically to people.

“Yes Sir,” Jake resumed unperturbed. “It is possible to draw electricity from Trap field emitters directly when the field they built contracts rather than dissipating by being switched off. If the contracting field holds one or more tachyons it can receive additional energy from them as the field starts to contract.

“It is how the emitters are designed, to use energy feedback from the fields to keep a Trap active if there is a sudden power loss. The emitters can deliver electricity continuously by this inefficient method until the tachyon energy is gone, or the field detunes enough to release the tachyons it holds, and completes its collapse.”

This time Mirikami waited as the AI took a symbolic electronic breath.

“This rarely used process can provide enough power to restart the magnetic confinement field of a fusion bottle on a ship if both bottles have been powered down. It is an emergency procedure, but it is also safe to use within a gravity well if the Trap field generation and tachyon capture was previously done outside of a gravity well. There is no event horizon formed, and it is completely safe even if the field is allowed to collapse to release the tachyons. The energy conversion factor is extremely low, which is why this method is not used for power generation on planets.”

“The Chief once described this virtually never-used bottle restart, but I was preoccupied at the time. How poor is the energy conversion from the contracting Trap field?”

“Sir, it is on the order of point zero zero two and point zero zero five percent of the energy generated by a comparable sized space based power plant system with an event horizon. The efficiency depends partly on how heavy duty the wiring to the emitters is, partly on emitter feedback design, and primarily on the energy of the tachyons captured.”

“That’s a terrible conversion ratio, but you said we can still draw enough current to initiate a fusion bottle’s magnetic confinement field. How does that start up power requirement compare to the normal output of the bottle after controlled and sustained fusion starts?”

Jake’s answer sounded less than useful. “A fusion bottle’s brief startup energy is many times the normal power output of the bottle. It must be delivered in a spike, which is needed for only one or two milliseconds to initiate magnetic confinement and self-sustaining fusion.”

That was a letdown, since they weren’t going to have any bottles to restart if the Krall discovered their subterfuge. However, it was a reply Mirikami had expected, “Unfortunately Jake, we need a continuous output of at least the normal power level of a fusion bottle. Not just a millisecond spike.”

“Yes Sir, I was describing the startup requirement for a fusion bottle. A few millisecond spike of high current is all that is required for a startup. However that startup level of power can be delivered longer than for one or two milliseconds.”

This was taking too long. With a sigh, Mirikami asked “For how many milliseconds can that spike of power are delivered Jake?” Jake’s proclivity for trivia was taking them off track from the problem they needed to address, long-term power.

The AI’s answer was a bit cryptic, at least to a Spacer like Mirikami.

“Sir, it would be approximately two point three times ten to the fourteenth milliseconds for the tachyon held in either the primary Trap or the secondary Trap.”

“OK. Thank you Jake.” Mirikami was ready to move on.

“Wait!” Dillon said. “Ten to the what power?”

“Sir, it is ten to the fourteenth power.”

“OK, it’s a big number Dillon. But it’s still only milliseconds.”

Dillon laughed. “Tet, you asked him for the number of milliseconds. Jake, please tell everyone approximately how many years that so called big spike of energy could be delivered?”

“Yes Sir. It would be about four thousand eighty nine Earth standard years.”

“Really?” Mirikami was shocked. Power generation used Jump Holes and tachyons, but nobody used the low efficiency method Jake outlined to get power from them.

Noreen excitedly asked, “We still have two of those energetic tachyons trapped, right?”

“Yes Mam.”

Mirikami still wasn’t ready to accept it as a real possibility. “Over four thousand years, Jake? On one single tachyon, delivering many multiples of the power of our fusion bottle’s normal output? I don’t see how that can be correct.” Obviously, he questioned the numbers.

“Sir,” Jake explained, in an AI’s equivalent of trivia heaven, “the Traps were tuned for the maximum energy tachyons they could capture. The two we have each have the energy equivalent in our universe to form an event horizon with the radius of a black hole having the mass of a red dwarf star. The documentation I have referenced says that, when forming a Jump Hole, if those massive objects did not instantly and naturally rotate through an unseen spatial dimension it would be too disruptive to form them near any inhabited solar system. With the large mass equivalent rotated entirely into Tachyon Space, their intense gravitation leaks only weakly into our universe. Even that weak leakage is extremely intense and can be used for power generation.”

Jake continued, “Using the Trap field contraction method under consideration, it is possible to extract a nearly infinitesimal part of the total energy involved through the weakly coupled Trap field into our universe. Most of the tachyon’s energy will go into a sort of quantum evaporation in Tachyon Space, where the documentation says it will gradually decay into weaker tachyons. Those tachyons escape the Trap field because it is not tuned for their lower energy. The evaporation will happen even if we do not extract energy, and that has been underway since the two tachyons were caught.”

“Put the Chief in our groups Link.”.

As soon as he was on, Mirikami explained to Haveram what he wanted him to do.

“Captain,” the Chief answered uncertainly, “I was taught the principle of restarting a bottle this way in training, but normally you would simply use the second bottle to do that. I have never rewired emitters to feed into a bottle for a restart but we do have an emergency procedure for that.

“What you are asking for Sir is steady emitter current to replace a bottle. I don’t know how to do that, or to regulate it or convert it to the various power needs of the ship. However, if it can be done, I’ll bet we have people in the dome that do know how. There are four power plant electrical engineers, and a couple of physics people. We now have a bunch of Jump engineers from the other Drive Room crews. How about I invite them here to look things over?”

“Do it Chief. I know you are tired from the bottle moving today, but this is top priority, an all-nighter. Pop pills if you have to, but we will be on batteries by tomorrow morning. The Krall might visit us at first light to kill both of our fusion bottles.”

“Yes Sir, I’m heading for the dome soon as I get some gun hands to go with me in the dark. We have several trucks parked outside and Jake to keep watch for us.”

“Right. Be careful but be fast.”

To the other committee members he told them, “You five can’t do anything tonight and I need you fresh in the morning, so get some sleep. I’ll be in the Drive Room with the Chief and our guests all night.”

At first light all twenty-nine remaining trucks were swarming to the ships with people still aboard, and there were four men with .50 caliber rifles laying on pallets held aloft by haulers, ready to take down any rhinolo that came near the tarmac.

The truck drivers and gunners had all enjoyed fresh rhinolo steak for an early breakfast. The old bull tasted a bit gamey, but it was a luxury after hundreds of frozen military rations. They couldn’t wait for lunch and a promised second steak.

Running out from the east entrance, just behind the first trucks departing from there, the K’Tal and four warriors ran in their typical less-than maximum but more-than a trot pace towards the Flight of Fancy.

Mirikami was watching for them from the hold, having suspected that Telour would send them here first. They were as ready for this as they could be in a single long night. They had borrowed additional batteries from another ship, charged and ready to extend the power needed for lights and tools, once the bottle destruction Krall team moved to the next ship.

“Heads up, they’re crossing over now,” He advised Chief Haveram on the Link. The team that had worked all night in the Drive Room with him was safely on upper decks. They had no tattoos and were at a higher risk of random violence from the Krall.

The K’Tal led the warriors up the ramp, and without more than a glance at Mirikami’s solid black tattoo, went directly to the Drive control room where the two fusion bottles sat making cooling sounds. Both had just been shut down by the Chief. They were already on battery power.

Internal ears were deployed by all five Krall, as the K’Tal apparently instructed them. It removed a device from its chest belt, which Mirikami, who had followed them inside, initially thought was a Katusha. However, he noticed that it had a circular bell mouth, not oval, and different controls on the handle.

The K’Tal seemed a bit awkward with the control buttons, using a single talon tip. Mirikami recalled that this was reputed to be a tool made by the Raspani for their own digits, before they devolved into a Krall meat animal. The gadget had a striking similarity to the Katusha, a tool said to have been made by the Olt’kitapi. The Katusha also had some odd quantum connection to the tattoo marks it made.

Telour had told him this Raspani tool could make a hole through anything, which might also indicate it would employ some weird quantum effect.

The K’Tal spoke its first words in broken Standard, looking at Mirikami. “Power modules dead now? If alive it is bad, and we go to kill all humans on ship.”

The Chief spoke up, “I shut them both down before you entered the ship. It is hot inside, but the magnetic field is off, and the plasma was vented.”

In response, the K’Tal suddenly turned to face the closest fusion bottle, and aimed downward from the near side top edge through the center of the casing. He seemed to press a button, but there was no sound. At first Mirikami didn’t see anything but a brief shimmer in the air from the device to the bottle’s casing. Then he noticed that there was a spray of gas starting to shoot from a circular spot on the casing.

The K’Tal stepped to the side and watched as the white gaseous spray ended, and revealed a perfectly round hole just over an inch across in the outer casing.

The K’Tal must have spoken to the warriors, because one of them stepped next to the K’Tal, who watched as the warrior also fumbled with the tool’s controls. Satisfied, the K’Tal pointed to a new place two feet away from the first hole. The warrior pointed, pressed, and a shimmer in the air followed by another spray of gassy material came out of another hole.

The other three warriors, one at a time repeated this so that there were five holes made before they finished. The last hole was made from the far side of the bottle’s housing, and the last warrior, a shorter female by her coloring, used a lesser downward angle. Mirikami jumped back more when a spray of grey-white material jetted out of a hole in the housing near the floor on his side, the beam, or whatever it was, having passed completely through the bottle and had continued through the deck.

Next, they each repeated the Swiss cheese process on the second fusion bottle.

The K’Tal, who had never given his name, said after they finished, “One warrior to do this to every ship, and to engines. If humans do not turn off power, they are killed by warriors.”

That risk had been assumed as a given, and each Captain was standing by on their ship to ensure power was either already off now, or would be off as soon as the last passenger was evacuated. Turned off sooner if a Krall headed their way before they had finished.

By noon, every ship had been evacuated, and shortly after that, there were thirty-seven more completely dead hulks on the cluttered tarmac.

And lady luck was with them. None of the long dead replacement bottles, which were doubly dead now, had been detected under the freshly polished or painted housing covers. That part of the plan had worked like a charm, to save four units out of the seventy-four to be destroyed.

One detail the busy humans had overlooked was the lone shuttle from the Fancy, sitting on the ramp, because it wasn’t considered a “ship.” A warrior walked up to the outside of the shuttle and put a dozen holes in the engine section. The small fusion bottle, for electrical power, was in idle but not shut off. They were lucky that the random holes the oblivious warrior made missed it, but only because it was mounted well forward from the reaction engine. There was some toxic fuel leaked, but the little ship’s computer automatically closed shutoff valves. Unfortunately, the shuttle fusion bottles were only slightly better than the small truck units were.

Mirikami told the other committee members that the shuttle oversight was his fault for not having it stowed away in its snug little hold. The warrior that killed the shuttle probably did so simply because it was on the tarmac in plain sight. He didn’t look for the other stowed shuttle still in its hold on the Fancy. There were probably one or two stowed on each of the eighteen other passenger transports, and probably a small launch on each of the cargo ships.

Superb on the battlefield, Krall warriors were rather dim witted on average, particularly when it came to thinking about the implication of why there was only one human shuttle found when there were many big human ships to carry others.

As soon as the Krall had left the Flight of Fancy, the four electrical engineers, two physicists, and two Jump Engineers from other ships converged in the control room of the Drive section. They joined Chief Haveram and his three “Drive Rats,” Macy, John, and Andy. It wasn’t packed, but it was close quarters for thirteen people, over twice the people the room was designed to accommodate.

Mirikami still felt like an observing outsider on his own ship, as he had much of the night when the technical jargon had flown from all of the participants, engineers, scientists, and technical specialists. The discussions sometimes getting confused as the different backgrounds and terminology of the various participants had to be sorted out. However, it had been sorted.

The Chief and his “Rats” had been running heavier cables in parallel with the originals from the emitter antennas much of the night, passing them through tight crawlways and cable runs through bulkheads. The new power line ends and the extra slack lay hidden behind wall panels in the Drive Room, out of sight of the Krall.

The new heavier lines were ready to be connected. The physics people had helped build some temporary circuits to convert the direct current from the emitters into the alternating current the ship’s power distribution system expected.

The Electrical Engineers had learned about the existing current regulators and step down transformers in the ship’s power distribution system, and they could use those to reduce the input from circuits the physics people had rigged, and thought they could provide a proper regulated current and voltage to repower the ship. If some of the parts from the seventy-four destroyed bottles could be salvaged, better DC to AC circuits would soon replace those that the scientists had jury-rigged.

Running power lines to nearby ships would also be possible, since there was far more energy available than the Fancy would ever need. For now, they were only tapping into a single set of emitters for the secondary Trap. After the Krall pulled out, they could work on power from the second set of emitters.

A Link from Nory Walters told them when the dome power died even as they were making the first connections on the Fancy, prior to testing the system.

A lot more study would be needed to figure out the alien power system in the dome. But once they could ramp up the output from the second Trap field, the technical guys thought it was more a matter of time, than a matter of “if” they could supply the entire dome, and the electric fences it had once powered.

Jake, running on battery power, reported some irregularities in the power being fed to him from the new system. It was decided to keep him on steadier battery power, and use the less stable new power feed to keep those charged. There would be time to make adjustments later. For now, it was vital to keep the ship looking dark, so they killed all but a few low power lamps where they needed to see to walk, and stepped out into the open cargo hold.

It was still early afternoon and the sun was hot on their faces, its light streaming down between gray and white rain clouds in the intense blue sky.

Telour was standing alone next to his shuttle, apparently waiting for his warriors to exit the dome after their latest round of destruction.

Now he felt so adapted to Koban’s heat and gravity that Mirikami practically trotted down the formerly dangerous slope of the cargo ramp. He walked over to speak to his Krall enemy. He had Jake put him on full Link to his entire crew.

He spoke first. “I suppose you and the clans are satisfied with the death sentence you believe you have given us today.”

Looking down at the shorter human, Telour answered. “I did not sentence you to death or you would already be dead. We will keep the agreement the clans made, you are alive and we are leaving.

“I think that you, human clan leader, do not in truth believe that you and the other captives will die here. You said that I believe we have given humans a death sentence. You did not say that you believe it is. We will let the life here on Koban teach you what you need to learn about death.”

Nodding, assuming Telour had learned that gesture, Mirikami told him, “You Krall are starting the war you wanted. Are you ready to lead your warriors to attack an unsuspecting, unarmed planet, whose people have no reason to hate you or any desire to fight you?”

“I am eager to fight, to kill without the restrictions of the testing done here. We will use weapons no stronger than what humans use against us, we may even give you technology to make the fight more interesting, to help us walk our Great Path faster. When one of your hundreds of worlds makes the mistake of using forbidden mass killing weapons, it will be destroyed with a warning. They will learn after one or two end this way. We already have a radio message that tells them we will do this. Another idea from you, but recorded with my voice.”

“Thank you,” he replied, with no gratitude felt.

“Already we have many eggs hatching, to find the few great warriors we need. Those with speed and strength more like the animals that live on Koban. We will feed them foods with the same rare metals found on this world added. We know what makes the animals able to move faster here, and we will someday breed that into our cubs. Making humans angry is part of that plan. You will do what every race we have met has done. Fight us and kill our weakest and slowest fighters, yet you will lose as we grow even stronger.”

Mirikami felt more belligerent than was safe. “I hope we do learn how to survive here, Telour. If we can do that, when your children return to reclaim this world, our children will not give it back!” A head-rearing snort proved how humorous Telour considered this remark.

I still leave them laughing, he thought. This way I know they don’t take the threat serious. They really should.

The five other Krall made their exit from the dome on the run, as always. They entered the waiting open hatch without a glance around. Telour did look once more around the area.

It was not the rapid eye darting, with quick head movement as if searching for threats. He appeared to be making a mental image of his last handy work, of dozens of destroyed human ships, against the background of a world that he did not appreciate for its natural beauty, but rather its natural savagery and deadliness.

Without another word, or a second glance at the human standing in front of him, he whirled and entered the shuttle, the hatch quickly falling closed. Mirikami hurriedly backed up, away from the sudden rush of vertical thrusters, and watched as the craft rose, then angled up sharply and kicked in the full aft thrusters and headed for an orbital rendezvous.

Humans were alone on Koban for the first time.

Still watching as the shuttle dwindled to a dot, Mirikami said aloud “This world is ours now. We are Kobani.”

50. Home Sweet Hell

It had been three months since the Krall had left orbit. The power was nearly back to normal in the dome, and nine ships were now repowered. The dome and five ships were fed from power lines passing down and out through the Flight of Fancy’s former thruster tubes. The other four ships used their own bottles. More power lines were to be added with time.

After all of the cargo had been assessed, they found nine more fusion bottles in various containers, two of them large enough to power two more ships, the other seven being under powered to fully operate an entire ship. However, they were suitable to run machine shops and pharmacy equipment, which produced items that were in high demand.

Thad, Deanna, Frank Constansi, Clarice Femfreid, and Juan Wittgenstein had completed adapting to their first gene mods in the first week after the Krall pulled out. Noreen had joined them, saying Dillon was wearing her out.

Tet and Dillon had started the second round of mods to enhance their strength and endurance, and after some rough going for a first week of shots and nasty supplements, and almost three months of exercise, they were feeling the strongest and fittest they had in their lives.

Dillon was so adept now at his hand-to-hand training from Thad, that even with Thad’s new adaptation for heat and higher energy levels; he could no longer beat Dillon at anything he taught him.

Thad had approached Aldry a month ago, and had started his own second round of mods. The increase in fitness of middle aged Mirikami, and the even more noticeable increase in Dillon’s younger and already impressive build had encouraged many of the long time captives to apply for all of the enhancements.

The reception from some of the newest arrivals concerning the gene modifications was more than cool (read that as hostile), and they strongly opposed what was being done with the human genome. That faction was unsurprisingly led by Ana Cahill, who had never gotten over being upstaged by Maggi. She also knew that the good Captain had shunted her into a powerless committee organizer role to keep her out of his and Maggi’s way. She owed them some kind of payback.

Cahill had the scientific credentials to attract those that wanted to hear her knowledgeable sounding details of criminal research she had not actually seen. However, she could correctly state that what was being done here was in violation of laws enforced throughout Human Space.

The self-appointed opposition leader was overheard talking to some fervently religious new arrivals about a new Purge. She seemed to forget about her own scientific background. In the Great Purge of three hundred years ago, anyone with even passing knowledge of the biological sciences had been subject to being killed by the frightened women that filled the power vacuum. Scientists had often been literally burned at the stake. Who said the Ladies couldn’t be ruthless?

Thad pointed out that the objectors had not been witness to the thousands of bodies brought back from the outer compound over the years of captivity. They had never had to wait to see if they would be sent next week to die at the hands of the Krall. He predicted that after enough time on the unforgiving planet they would alter their viewpoint. Particularly if they saw others adapt to the conditions here better than they did.

Over two thirds of the crew from the Fancy had asked for the first set of mods. The Stewards had been first to do so. Those men had served as guardians on arrival day, and had served in that capacity often since then. They were better motivated than most.

A bit more than half the younger scientists and their mates, if any, had opted to apply for the gene mods. Many of the older people thought it was too late in life for the benefits to help them very much.

Maggi and Aldry, taking a dose of their own medicine; literally in their case, were going to go through all of the mods they had offered the others. They reasoned that if two older women did as well as they hoped they would, this might attract more of the older people that were having difficulty adapting to the gravity and heat. There were several deaths per month in the older population.

Improving animal security near the dome was one of the first issues they needed to address. They decided to go for a smaller protected compound as a start. A week after the Krall pullout, over a hundred heavily armed men and women drove twenty-five of the trucks out to the southeast section of the compound wall.

Out there, the terrain was largely red dirt and sandy dunes with almost no grass, mainly low underbrush. It was as far from the river and any water source as you could get within the walls. There they hoped, correctly, as it turned out, there would be fewer animals. They were able to salvage miles of wire and posts from atop the wall and at several wrecked gates.

Fewer animals didn’t translate into none however. A lone predator; it looked like a smaller tan relative of a ripper; pulled a screaming woman down from wire collecting at the top of the wall. Her companions saw it drag her into the dunes outside the wall. It had somehow scaled a thirty-foot smooth wall from where it had crept out of the dunes. It was labeled a Desert Panther, and after that, death riflemen were posted as lookouts. They went up the ladders ahead of each crew of wire collectors.

Despite all precautions, two other deaths happened on the wire scavenger hunt.

One came when a guard turned into a would-be hunter. He shot and brought down a man-sized gazelle that he spotted from the top of the wall. He had just climbed up the ladder and spotted several of the normally skittish animals browsing nearby. He shot one of the beige and blue striped creatures and it dropped in its tracks.

Excited, he went around through the closest ruined gate with a truck and a couple of companions, planning to bring the gazelle back for its meat. The inexperienced hunter jumped out of the truck, rifle in hand, and rushed up to the prone animal and took a knee near its back, just behind its head.

The instant he laid a hand on the top one of a pair of two foot long curved horns, the still breathing animal thrust its head sharply backwards over its front shoulders. Both horns tore into the man’s right side, driven in at least six inches. His two companions shot the dying animal several more times before pulling the screaming man off the impaling horns. The victim bled to death before they could get him to the first aid truck.

He had the posthumous honor of having that type of gazelle named after him, in a macabre bit of gallows humor. His name was Daniel Thompson, and the animals became the Thompson’s gazelle of this world, only with a different spelling than for the extinct animal of Earth.

The third death was actually less amusing than it was made to sound when retold by callous people, the men and women that had waited their turn to die in Krall testing, lottery after lottery.

Thelma Calderon thought a motionless, partly dug-in sort of armadillo analogue, was a grey boulder on the red colored soil. She sat on its armored back only to discover the “rock” had a four-foot muscular tail with a club-like knob on the end. It left a fist sized depression in the side of her skull, and a startled expression frozen on her face. Then the squatty animal rose on short sturdy legs and quickly waddled off into the scrub and dunes.

The same sort of rough humor made the new animal’s name Thelma’s Thumper. Aside from everyone’s desire to survive here, it became a definite goal not to stupidly get an animal named after you.

When they had gathered enough wire and posts, they headed back in a fast convoy, staying bunched together. A detour of several miles kept them far enough away from several hundred or so rhinolo, antelopes, and gazelles to avoid their interest. Jake had reported sighting several rippers casually prowling through the grass on the far side of that mixed herd.

The compound didn’t crowd as many animals as was often seen clustered together out on the vast open savanna, despite the relatively abundant grass, trees and brush on the west side of the small river. Perhaps it was the narrow openings they passed through, potential choke points. A pride of rippers might wait on the other side. This hunting strategy had already been seen several times, where they would pursue a herd to the narrow openings, where they had to crowd together and slow down.

Rippers would focus on calves and fawns, or the oldest or injured animals as predators always did. However, they had a knack for generating injuries by running alongside a rhinolo or antelope and bite or swat at their feet to try to trip them.

Other than repeated scouting near the dome at night, there had been no more successful ripper attacks. Infrared cameras on the multiple powered ships were always watching. The rippers learned that no matter how carefully they stalked, their prey had always moved inside the big den or into one of the not-live flying things well before they could get into position to spring. This prey was cagey, and the shared mind image from one kill proved they were smart and aware. Soon they found they were blocked from scouting close in by the growth of the not-live deadly gray vines.

The barricade was an electric fence, built around the compound with a radius of almost two miles, with ten heavy strands stretched between twenty-foot high posts. They used smaller gauge wire, from rolls they found in cargo containers, to crisscross between the gaps, with trailing wires that dangled just inches above the cleared ground. A cement plant was planned for making concrete, so they could pour a twelve-mile circumference strip below the fence to keep anything from digging under. A fence was less sturdy and much lower than the wall, but it was all they could manage for now, and to clear them of the most dangerous animals.

They made four motor driven wire mesh gates wide enough for trucks to pass through, but without using the more elaborate and safer double lock system the Krall had used. However, here they could easily see if anything lurked outside the fence, as opposed to a solid wall. They could cut the charge on the gates without killing the entire fence and Jake, or Jeb, the other AI, could do it for drivers so they didn’t have to get out of the now fully enclosed truck cabs.

The electrical barrier gave them a certain level of protection from a browsing rhinolo or other potentially dangerous grazers. However, an angered and reckless charging bull could tear the fence open for others to enter before it died. That had happened a couple of times in the daytime when bulls decided a human was too close for comfort. The bull died for its futile effort, but it just wasn’t smart to get near any rhinolo browsing close to the fence. You couldn’t tell when one of them might decide you needed a lesson in respect.

However, one major fence penetration was more troubling.

Jake alerted the night watch that three rhinolo, pursued by rippers, had charged into the fence with the second two animals passing through alive, the rippers had withdrawn. It was during a review of the IR recording the next day that something caught Mirikami’s attention. He invited Thad, Dillon, and two men and a woman that had become game hunters to maintain the meat supply. They gathered on the Bridge of the Fancy, where a large screen was available.

“I want you all to watch the rhinolo fence breach from about two thirty this morning. There was no moon, and it was cloudy, so there was little natural light for the rhinolo to see. As you know, normally they avoid getting very close to the fence, apparently being smart enough to recognize it as a danger.

“I’ve had Jake superimpose the fence digitally, which doesn’t show up very well on infrared after its cool at night. Watch the animal infrared images carefully, and offer your comments afterwards.”

Jake ran the recording. Mirikami watched the watchers, since he’d seen this multiple times. Thad was the first to lean forward and show signs of increased interest, followed shortly by Dillon and all three of the experienced hunters. He saw Thad and Dillon both glance at each other at the midpoint, proving they had noticed what Mirikami had seen.

When it was over, he said, “Clearly, all of you saw the ripper images in the background, before the brighter large images of the rhinolo hit the fence. The first rhinolo cow was killed at the fence, as you know, since three of you helped drag the animals to the rendering pit and dressed them out. Who shot the other two that got through alive?”

The woman, Gloria, raised her hand. “I got ‘em. One of those was a cow too, and the other was her nearly weaned calf. They were afraid to charge at the fence to get out, and we had restrung the wire by first light to close the gap.”

“Being reluctant to approach the fence is significant, demonstrating that the rhinolo recognize at some level that it’s dangerous to them.” Mirikami noted.

“Anyone care to offer me an opinion as to why they recklessly ran into a dangerous fence in the first place?” he asked.

Both Yancy and Carlos, the two male hunters offered their opinions that the ripper attack had spooked them, and they simply didn’t know were the fence was in the dark. Thad and Dillon, familiar with Tet’s methods and observational skills waited. Gloria saw more to it than that.

“Cap,” using a nickname that had caught on lately, “Those three were running a hundred yards out from the fence, on a track to the left that would never have hit the wire, being chased from behind by two rippers. Then three rippers hiding ahead of them jumped out and diverted them, one came from their right, the other two in front. The only direction open was to their left, towards the fence. Then all five rippers bracketed them as they were chased towards the fence. They were driven that way.”

“And then?” Mirikami was pleased with her noticing that, but what else?

Gloria considered a moment. “The rippers stopped when the lead rhinolo hit the fence, and it stumbled and dropped in about ten feet and skidded another ten or twenty. The second two rhinolo came through the broken wire behind her untouched. All five rippers stopped, and then one strolled up close to the dead rhino, went around it and looked towards the two that kept running. Then it turned and went back to the other rippers and they all left.”

“Thank you Gloria. Dillon, anything you can add?”

“Tet, the rippers absolutely did it on purpose and they knew exactly where the fence was. They all pulled up just short of the wire. They expected one or more of the prey to be killed. When that happened one of them came close to check on the dead cow. It must have been tangled in the wire so it left it alone to avoid a shock. Those are pretty smart animals.”

“If I tell you that Yancy and Carlos found the dead cow completely clear of any wire?”

Yancy thought about it again. “That’s right, we did. I wonder why it didn’t try to feed on the cow? They have on other accidental electrocutions that fell clear of the wire. They have damn good night vision, and they obviously saw the wires before the cows even hit them.”

“It could have seen that the broken wires were at least teen feet away,” agreed Carlos.

Thad had kept his own counsel so far, knowing Tet was also trying to educate, as well as looking for confirmation. It was time to offer his opinion.

“They weren’t after food, it was a ripper scouting mission,” he stated with assurance.

Mirikami nodded, having decided the same thing, but only after several replays and a longer time to think. Thad was military trained and thought in terms of tactics and strategy, and he had seen it right away. His own suspicion was affirmed.

Thad elaborated, “The rippers were testing our defenses and how to breach them. They weren’t really hunting at all. They chose a cow with a calf, something the mother and usually other cows will risk a lot to protect and not abandon. The older cow that died on the fence I think was probably in front because experienced rhinolos usually lead the herd, and her size and speed would take her well through the wire. Five rippers, working in the dark, could have isolated that calf but they didn’t try to do that. I believe they wanted them all running headlong, exactly where they aimed them.”

“That’s giving a lot of credit and smarts to animals,” suggested Carlos.

“Some aspects could be coincidence,” Thad acknowledged. “Like the older cow being in front. Like last night being a dark night with no moon and a lot of clouds to make this work better.

“But the ripper that calmly walked through the fence gap alone and stood and watched the other two very alive rhinolo running into the compound learned what they need to know. With its night vision it already knew the first charging cow was dead and had cleared away the wire. The other four rippers also could see that. They had plenty of time, two miles out and in the dark, to have safely fed before someone would take a shot at them at daylight. Instead they simply strolled away.”

“Thank you Thad. I spent a lot longer reaching the same conclusion. We need to be more alert for stunts like this, and recognize that these predators are considerably smarter than we thought.

“And Carlos,” he added in an afterthought. “The Krall constantly underestimate us ‘animals’ so let’s not be too quick to downplay how clever a ripper is.”

No one was deluded any longer into thinking the fence could keep out a smart determined ripper pride. The desert panther had made it up a thirty-foot smooth wall to kill a woman, and rippers were more powerful. They might be able to clear the top of a twenty-foot electric fence, even if they didn’t simply drive a rhinolo through the fence to make it easy.

Nights belonged entirely to the animals, but floodlights were being readied for placement around the dome, and would activate if the fence were breached. However, humans would still be huddled inside the dome, looking out at the narrow circle of light for green eyes in the dark.

****

Telror walked beside Haktor, having gained his interest again over Rasha’s best efforts to win his attention. Telror had cemented his fascination for her tonight with the successful demonstration that the not-live gray killer vines could be broken if they wanted, by making the giant horned prey break them for them.

She had boldly walked through the place where the broken vines had been. The young horned prey and its mother were alive and still running, which was her proof that it was safe to pass through. It was still a thrill to actually walk past the ‘trees’ the killer vines grew from, as the others of her pride watched, particularly Haktor.

Rasha, her cousin, friend, and competitor had to watch as Telror employed a trick shown to her by Rasha the very first time they had tested if some gray not-life vines were truly dead. Turning back, Telror clearly saw the older giant horned prey was not touching any of the gray vines. She nuzzled it as she passed, her frill brushing the dead animal. There was a soft echo of a recently deceased life, but none of the wonderful thrill of the actual dying or of any fear that made kills so enthralling.

This giant horned prey was still warm and would taste good on the tongue, but she had fed earlier that day. This wasn’t a food kill, and it was definitely not a wanton and forbidden pleasure kill, because there had been no pleasure. This was done to show the pride how they could bypass the frustrating and annoying obstacles placed between them and an easy prey to kill.

This prey tasted sweet and different from any prey they had ever eaten, she recalled. Not the best-flavored meat, but its novelty had made it more appealing. It was also somewhat dangerous if it had the stinging sticks, as her now healed scar proved.

The red ones had all gone, the fresh scent of them was no longer here at all, but the new smaller prey had increased greatly. However they had the best sentinels the pride had ever encountered, and their new sting sticks could reach farther, as seen when they hunted the same animals the pride claimed as theirs.

They never had a chance to drive them away from one of their fresh kills, because they never hunted near any of the pride. This prey was always warned and hiding in their den or flying things anytime the pride stalked them.

After Telror had shared her startling mind memory of the new prey she had killed, the interest in them had grown. They had never experienced a prey species with the ability to sense them in return. There was doubt that they were just prey, because they hunted and kept the meat, even though they also ate plants. They could also be predators, just as the red ones believed they were.

The pride elders had decided that if they could get close to the den before the prey awakened in the mornings, they might take one as it first came outside, to sense it as it sensed them in return before it died.

Now they knew how to get closer to them, though Telror wasn’t as sure as the other pride members that she wanted to experience the kill from both perspectives at once again. It had unsettled her. Perhaps sharing some other pride member’s mind image of a mutual sensing at the time of the kill would be easier. No one seemed to experience the discomfort from her images that she had felt first hand from her kill.

****

Everything the new settlers tried to plant outside grew poorly or was eaten; by small insects, grubs, worms, or animals. The enclosed and covered corral remained the only place Earth plants and animals could survive outside of the dome.

The original hydroponics section was doing very well, and with the Krall gone, the top level with its greater natural roof lighting was being turned into a second hydroponics garden. A number of Koban plants were also being cultivated, but a favorite, the Death Lime, was too risky to plant where people might be exposed to the thorns.

One of the new labs not involved with human genetics had managed to extract the paralyzing agent from the wax on the thorns of the Death Limes, and was on the verge of being able to replicate the chemical structure. The next goal was a counter agent or antidote. There were plants that had a less toxic version of the wax. People needed some way to protect themselves while perhaps using the substance defensively.

Another change was coming for the first time for the majority of the people here. The weather was definitely cooler. Autumn was coming fast, and only the long-term captives had experienced the cold season. In the deepest winter the snows came, and at times bitter cold. The life here either fled to warmer climes, or had adapted to unlikely temperature extremes for most human settled planets. A tropical jungle here managed to survive freezing conditions, and rebound quickly when the rapid change back to warmth happened.

Thad was talking with Mirikami at breakfast. He had given up his overly spacious quarters in the dome, and had a smaller cabin on the Fancy. “Tet, you have mentioned the weather change, but I don’t think you newcomers realize how quickly fall turns into winter here. Most of the herds will move south towards the coast, but some new migrating animals will replace them.”

“Like what?” Mirikami asked around a mouthful of gazelle meat. His appetite had become an embarrassment to him since the last mods. He needed a lot of energy to feed his new muscles and metabolism. It was unfortunate they hadn’t worked on a “tall gene” for him. He was still short, but had become a bit stocky looking now.

Thad hardly noticed Tet eat because he was feeding his own new appetite as the latest mods worked their magic. He felt ten years younger.

“In about a month, possibly less, the savanna herds will have migrated south, and a sort of light blue hairy yak will arrive, and turn pure white as the first snows come right behind them. It will dig up snow to get to the frozen grass, and eat the leaves and bark on low trees and bushes. It has an impressive set of horns, and a thick bone cap between them. There’s a large deer or moose kind of animal that stays in the woods, but I don’t know of anyone that ever saw them close.”

He shook his head and shrugged, “There is some sort of really big predator that comes south from the mountains following them, and we’ve heard them roar and seen some really impressive tracks in snow outside the gates. But we have never seen them because we didn’t go outside the compound walls.”

“No Krall hunts?” Tet asked.

“The Krall didn’t seem to like to hunt yaks, probably because they aren’t as aggressive or dangerous as rhinolo, and no ripper threat. The yaks are a bit smaller than the rhinolo but still big and powerful, and look almost as fast as a rhinolo on open dry ground. I’ve watched them from a truck through the gates. I’d think they would be no challenge to hunt in snow when they can’t run fast, so that’s a possible fresh meat source if we use a shuttle. None of us know what they taste like.”

Just then, they were joined by company arriving to share the rest of their breakfast time with them. Aldry, Maggi, Noreen and Dillon, plus Rafe Campbell, walked into the semiprivate nook. The recently hermit-like Rafe being the only surprise visitor. He seemed to sport the proverbial “cat that ate the canary” grin.

“Good morning all.” Tet remained standing until the ladies were seated. This was another example of role reversal, one he had subtly reintroduced. “Rafe, it’s good to see you outside the lab for a change. After Maggi recruited you to head the second human gene lab you dropped out of sight, even sleeping and taking meals there. All work and no play, you know the old saying.” He smiled at the widower, clapping him on the shoulder.

“Tet,” Rafe grinned, “I just thought of another old saying. The one about the pot calling the kettle black?”

“He’s got you there Sir,” agreed Noreen. “You never take a day off either.”

Rafe’s wife had been killed on the ship while they were being towed to Koban. “Terminated” by a Krall warrior probably just bored. The man had withdrawn from social contact after her death.

After being interviewed by Maggi and Aldry, whatever they offered him to run the lab had brought him to life again, and he leaped into the new work. His social life was still negligible, however.

The five quickly placed their food orders with the table AI, then Maggi, as was often the case, cut to the chase. “If you don’t mind we need to talk business and policy while we eat, before some fresh emergency pulls any of you away.”

Except for Rafe, all of them were on the unofficial Koban Committee, though with the Krall gone, the group’s original function had technically ended. They no longer needed to convince the Krall that Humanity was worth fighting, as opposed to being exterminated or enslaved. Nevertheless, they still directed their efforts towards surviving on Koban for the long term.

“Fire away Maggi.” He chuckled. “I sense a broadside coming whether I agree or not.”

“Good. I’d hate to show you that those new muscles won’t protect you from determined little old ladies.” She smiled sweetly, which experience had proven could be more threatening than a Krall glare.

“To start, I’m pleased to announce that we now have several thousand applicants for the initial gene mods, and three hundred forty four already started. We can have all three thousand started before this month ends. The other ship’s pharmacies are helping us turn out supplements at a rate faster than we are using them. The fruit and vegetable requirements are barely being met by the first hydroponics level, but the new top level is quickly coming on-line. Hunting in particular has provided the high quality protein we need to give them.”

Dillon had a question. “That’s a big turnaround in first mod applicants. Nobody has to survive a match up with a Krall hunter-killer team now, so what do you think’s motivating them?”

“The planet and wildlife have a lot to do with it,” she told them, “and the gradual realization that they actually can have a long life ahead of them here if they are adapted. In addition, you, Tet, and now Thad have been visible examples of what is possible for them. You boys run around with more energy than anyone here does. The three of you bring in nearly a quarter of the fresh meat we eat.”

“But we don’t do that on foot or even from trucks,” Dillon pointed out. “Without a shuttle and the new .50 caliber rifles we couldn’t go very far outside the fence to hunt game. That’s the same way all of the hunting parties work.” Hunting remained the most dangerous activity they did, and without the aerial advantage, they would lose too many hunters to rippers, panthers, and sometimes the dangerous prey itself.

“Sure, but you three stay out longer, go farther, and bring more meat back than any other teams. You have the endurance. Macho pride has returned to the human pack. The men in particular hate to be upstaged, and they account for three quarters of the applications.”

“How about our opposition group?” Noreen asked. “Cahill is picking up anti-gene mod activists from the last arrivals. The potential number of people they can recruit to vote to stop us is considerably more than the number that experienced the Krall threat first hand. They don’t feel the same level of motivation as we or the early captives do. This is despite the stories they hear and the recordings we play. That bad time is now in the past; it left with the Krall to their way of thinking.”

“They all eat, don’t they?” asked Thad. “I mean they share the meat we risk our lives to kill and bring them. Every hunter sees how over matched we are. Even the small animals out there are faster than we are, and often dangerous to mess with. We notice and report new animal types almost weekly, now that we explore a bit farther. I suggest we make everyone participate in the hunting. Finding out what it really takes to survive here would be an eye opener.”

Mirikami added, “They’ll be seeing some of those new animals in the dome. A rat shaped critter the size of a fruit rat has made it under the fence and into the dome. It’s so fast, strong, and smart, that no one has even been able to trap one yet. They’re able to break open most traps we’ve tried, but now they’ve learned to ignore the bait, and why not? They can simply run up with impunity to take food from a plate right in front of you. A person can’t move fast enough to knock one away in time. If several people corner one, it attacks them like a little blue whirlwind with teeth.”

Maggi returned to Thad’s suggestion. “Thad’s idea to send everyone out to hunt is too strict, because not everyone that likes to eat has the fortitude to hunt. However, I think everyone should be sent out to ride in the shuttles to watch how it’s done, to see what it takes.

“We can tell them the requirement is a necessary familiarization with Koban, which is true enough. I think it would be seen as a chance at sightseeing. Who wants to spend the rest of their life confined within a circle two miles across? I don’t hunt, but I enjoyed the flights I’ve taken.”

She paused a moment. “There’s a beautiful world out there that we can’t experience because of how weak nature made us, at least by the standards of this world. Regardless of how we came to be here, Koban is by any measure a new colony for humanity, even if we are the only humans that know this and have no outside support. We and our children will live and die here; if we can have children that is.” She looked to her friend.

“Aldry has more to say on the latter subject.” Maggi sat down as Aldry rose to her feet.

Aldry looked solemn. “I don’t know how many of you knew that nearly two hundred women arrived here pregnant. Most of you were aware that there were twenty-three women between six and seven months along because they were showing. All of those ladies obeyed the travel cut off dates imposed for expectant mothers for Jump travel. Those travel restrictions did not factor in a destination where the gravity was half again Earth standard.”

She told them the sad statistics. “Each of those women has now miscarried because we can’t move them to a gravity controlled environment. Except it’s worse than that. Over a hundred forty other women have miscarried as well. After the first two months on Koban, we had eighty-five percent of the pregnancies end in spontaneous abortions, and we lost three mothers. There is good reason to expect all of the current pregnancies to abort before full term, no matter what we do for these women.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that Aldry,” Mirikami replied sadly. “Of course I knew of the problems the women that were farther along were experiencing, but I didn’t know that of all of them would likely lose their babies. You advised me that most women receiving one or both sets of gene mods before conception should generally reach full term. Can’t you offer those mods to the pregnant women now, to increase their chances?”

“No,” Aldry shook her head. “and there are multiple reasons. The viruses would also infect the fetus with untested effects on their development. The mother’s body is likely to abort the fetus anyway as her changes occur. The supplements we feed you at the start were never tested on pregnant women of course, and there is a risk for the fetus from them.”

“Damn!” Thad swore. “If we can’t have children this colony will be as good as dead in fifty years. What are we building for, what will we be able to preserve?”

Aldry held her hand up to forestall the pessimism.

“Thad, it’s true the pregnancies already underway will likely all abort. However, women with the gene mods already implemented when they conceive will have a stronger constitution, and should have a good chance of going full term, or close enough for a safe delivery. Gravity will still increase the risks and strain, but we think most women will be able to have healthy babies. If the fathers also have gene mods it will increase the chances of a successful delivery.”

“Huh?” Thad looked confused. “How can good old dad’s strength and well-being help mom give birth?”

“Thad,” Aldry answered patiently, “these are gene modifications. After they have established themselves throughout every cell, over some months of course, the traits are inheritable. They appear in DNA contained in the eggs and sperm. The babies will be born with a combination of both parent’s contributions. If only mom has modifications, the fetus will inherit some of the genes, and may or may not experience distress from the Koban environment. If both parents were boosted the baby will have them all.”

“Funny, I hadn’t thought about my mods being passed along to children. I thought of them as similar to body building.”

Maggi laughed. “Those genes will be passed along, plus your inherited longevity and immune system genes, your height, your looks, and a thick head will all be passed along to your unfortunate offspring. I hope you contract with a smart, beautiful woman for that poor child’s sake.” The barb proving she liked Thad.

“Ha! I guess your children would be short, irritating, and smart asses?” he retorted, in mutual admiration.

“Maggi,” interrupted Aldry, before the inevitable second strike would take them farther off track. “The inheritable nature of gene modifications has been established, so this is a good time for Rafe to tell us about the results of his lab’s research.”

Turning to the man sitting next to her, she said, “Rafe, would you please explain what your lab has been doing?”

51. Kobani to the Core

Rafe was a short man, and previously pudgy, before his wife Isadora was killed by a Krall exercising in the Fancy’s stair wells. He had lost his appetite and weight after that, and had asked for and received the first gene mods two and a half months ago. He had grown fit while setting up the second genetic research lab.

With his added energy and new focus, he devoted almost every waking hour to new research. Before joining the Midwife Project, he had worked on studying the occasional genetic mutations in children on the New Colony world of Brussels. That planet experienced a high incidence of Cosmic Rays because of a weaker magnetic field than Earth’s or most colonies.

He’d had an outgoing personality when Isadora was alive, but he had become withdrawn and intense after she was killed. Hatred for the Krall was at the focal point of that intensity.

He was still intense in his hatred of the Krall, but his research had given him a diversion and a new goal. When he realized that his new research had implications for the subjects of his hatred, he regained his former ebullience.

When Aldry asked him to stand and tell them what his research showed, Rafe bounced to his feet, his excitement obvious.

“You’ve heard how our colonists will be able to have children. Our children will be born with the strengths we give ourselves to better survive here. But those children will grow up to have children, and generations after that.” He looked around the table.

“You must answer this question. Do you want them to become true Kobani?”

The others recognized the rhetorical nature of the question and waited.

“Your grandchildren can do better than simply to be able to tolerate this planet, always living sequestered inside protective walls, as the Krall largely did. They can become fully adapted to this planet. They can inherit the same reaction speed as the native life, able to survive here as well as our ancestors did on the African plains, where modern humans first evolved. They can be much stronger, although never as powerful as a rhinolo or a ripper, but then our own ancestors were no physical match for rhinos and lions. Yet humans spread to be the dominate species on Earth. Our grandchildren can complete human domination on Koban.” He looked at them with satisfaction, waiting for a response.

Mirikami exercised his prerogative to go first. “Rafe, we have been told repeatedly that we can’t enhance our own DNA to achieve this. Clearly, you have something else in mind. How do you propose to reach this goal in two generations?”

Rafe looked directly at Mirikami, a slight smile showing. “When I asked if you wanted humans to become true Kobani I was being quite literal.”

He stared his explanation. “As we’ve discovered in life forms we’ve found on any planet, DNA holds the blueprints. It builds things like simple sponges and complex people on Earth, and some of the same genes in a sponge appear in higher animals, like us. Our lab has found genes in DNA on Koban that we share, despite having evolved hundreds of light years and billions of years apart. There are DNA building blocks that are common to many life forms that use the same basic chemical elements. And the blocks can be interchanged if intelligently selected.”

He took a deep breath. “We can incorporate segments of selected genetic components of native Koban life into our own DNA. The crucial first steps are a bit risky, but we can incorporate the genes that build the same Kobani organic superconducting nerves into our own nervous system. Not to replace our native nervous system but to build the framework of a new one, in parallel.

“We can do this within our own generation, incompletely for sure, and we will not be able to use it to full advantage. However, we would pass this trait on to the next generation, our children. They would be born with an unused parallel organic superconducting nervous system. That generation will be able to accept additional genetic enhancements to add in the connective nerve tissue that can connect our human muscles to the second nervous system.

“This will furnish them with the same fast reaction times we see in Koban animals. Our children would not only sense the need to move sooner than we can, but their brain would transmit the command for the muscles to do so sooner.” He had their attention, but also saw doubt.

“Note that for our children the reaction times would be much faster, but the physical response would be no stronger than our human muscles can exert now. However, the generation after that is when the end product of this effort becomes possible.

“Our children would pass their new DNA to their own children from birth, to our grandchildren. At that stage, we can incorporate additional Koban DNA for musculature construction like the one all of the animals here employ, and for stronger bones. We can do this at the fetal stage, or even prior to conception so our old weaker muscle structure isn’t built at all. If we deactivate development of the normal human nervous system, we will build only the superconducting nerves that connect to tougher, stronger muscle, cartilage, bones, and tendons, to give us the strength to move as powerfully and as quickly as any native animal of comparable size.” He looked around the room.

“This can be achieved in only two generations. If we start on ourselves soon, and our first children marry younger than has been customary, say in late teens, and they produce babies by age twenty, the first humans fully adapted to live on Koban could be born well within our long lifetimes. All subsequent generations will inherit their abilities.” He spread his hands, in obvious invitation for comments.

Noreen asked, “Would our grandchildren and their offspring still be human? Aren’t you proposing a man-made new species as a successor to Homo sapiens?”

Rafe seemed startled. “That’s not what I’m proposing at all! Our children will be as human as we are, and

” he paused in thought, before continuing cautiously.

“It is possible that in doing as I just proposed, employing the fastest possible pace of changes, that our grandchildren might be unable to reproduce with unmodified humans. I thank you Noreen for an excellent observation. It isn’t a trivial matter, but the solution is nearly so.” He told them how.

“It means we have to be careful and selective of the alien genes we introduce and what original human genes we suppress. We must, and can, maintain the ability to interbreed with a control population of unmodified humans. Two generations is probably rushing things to reach full Koban capability. I was expressing my eagerness to finish sooner.” He admitted.

“Rather than replace one nervous system with another, we should be able to retain both in parallel as we would do with ourselves and our children. That would permanently give our descendants the ability to control our enhanced muscles with either nervous system.” He nodded.

“By encouraging parings with an unmodified control group, we would ensure our future offspring can reproduce with unmodified humans, but then there would be a range of offspring with various levels of Koban traits. Some few would inherit normal human capability, some others full Koban speed and strength, with most placed somewhere in between. That would be enough to make us competitive on this planet. Not everyone is cut out to be a hunter, explorer, or pioneer.”

Dillon knew a lot more about the research Rafe was doing, and had even furnished some lab time to identify and isolate genes from wolfbats, rhinolo, skeeters, kants, gazelles, and even the Krall. However, he had spotted a flaw with maintaining an unmodified control group as proof of interbreeding capability of future Kobani generations.

“Rafe,” he hesitated to add even a minor complication, but didn’t want it brought up later by the opposition. “The control group will have to be composed of people like you and me, and anyone that has had our first two sets of new modifications. Avery just explained that women can’t have children here without those.”

Of course, that didn’t make him or any of the boosted people superhuman, unable to reproduce with unmodified humans. That was self-evident, but he offered the evidence anyway.

“In actuality there are no artificially unmodified humans any longer, not anywhere in Human Space. There hasn’t been since the twenty first century, when our species tinkered to add longevity, a better immune system, removed many dozens of genetic defects, let parents select for preferred traits like height, hair and eye color, against obesity, baldness, color blindness, and so many others. We all can still interbreed, as a nearly one trillion population effectively demonstrates.

“I brought this up because I don’t want a Cahill group’s argument to blind side us. When we count the synthetic genetic changes we all carried when we arrived here, each of them have perhaps a hundred modifications to my now one hundred and four. I like your proposal Rafe, but I’m biased in its favor since I helped a bit.”

Tet wondered how the genes for organic superconductors would get the supplements they needed in order to develop properly. He asked that very question.

Rafe chuckled. “As a biologist I’m frankly not sure how they form. Various salts in the local environment appear to combine to form the final materials with contributions from a list of elements we found that are possibly involved.

“We’ve identified Bechgaard and Fabre salts, higher than typical levels of copper, molybdenum, zinc, rubidium, bismuth, strontium, yttrium, and barium. There are also plenty of the rare earths. In fact, the makeup of this whole planet is a dream of mineralogy, precious and rare elements. It’s why it has such high density in a relatively small package with this lovely gravity.”

“Rafe!” Dillon complained. “How the hell can you create a room temperature organic superconductor if you don’t even know what is needed?”

Maggi moved closer to Dillon. “Can you do complex rapid computations, or do you simply make use of what a computer can do for you? Rafe can use the Koban DNA to make organic superconductors that he can’t assemble himself.”

“But I’d know what data to feed to the computer.”

“Whack!” went the sound of small knuckles to the back of his head.

Maggi, satisfied with that sound effect, said “And we can supply the new DNA the same things available in the local environment that it uses. Some of those might be unnecessary, but you are what you eat, and we know what they eat. I’ll wager that most of the supplements are contained in plant material because all of the grazers find plenty of what they require. Predators eat the grazers, and could get it from them.”

Thad added his opinion. “You really don’t have to sell me, since I’m already committed to the mods. There will be eager participants out of the thousands of volunteers for all of the mods you already have. However, you know there will be a strong push by Ana Cahill to oppose this new proposal, and probably a majority of the last arrivals will agree. Perhaps we need some physical separation from them.”

Mirikami though about this a few seconds, lip tug holding everyone else’s opinion at bay. “You are probably right about the opposition. However there isn’t any place for us to go.”

“I wasn’t thinking of us moving. I had the malcontents in mind when I said that. We really should probably move some of our human eggs to another basket; pardon the pun. I doubt the Krall bothered to destroy their compound on the coast, and Jake had images of other abandoned clan compounds on other continents.

“How about we take some shuttles to explore them? If the last one they used is still livable, we can let some of the people that can’t tolerate us lawbreakers move there and make their own way. We have a lot of material to share now, and this small circle is already feeling crowded.”

“That’s an outstanding idea Thad, Mirikami agreed. “Rafe, Aldry, I personally love that proposal, and not for mere survival on Koban. If we are able to produce humans that can flourish here, then we will not only be smarter than the Krall, but also ready to meet the arrogant ruthless bastards in a face-to-face fight. Up close and personal, the way they like it.”

Mirikami reminded them of something. “I told Telour that when the Krall returned that our children might not give this planet back. We may have hundreds of years to wait for their return. We can spread out and prosper on this world in a lot less time than that. There is detailed knowledge in our computer records to teach us how to build any industry we need including, eventually, Jump ships.”

Standing there, looking into each of their faces, Mirikami told them, “Wait for them hell! I want us to go looking for the Krall. Payback can be a bitch.”