Chapter 1: A Raid Less Easy

The two ships of operation Fast One winked into Normal Space in the outer reaches of the Krall occupied star system.

Noreen Renaldo, captain of the Avenger and in charge of the raid, tersely instructed the second ship to start their passive scans. “Slasher, focus on the southern hemisphere region of the planet and the area below the plane of the ecliptic. We’ll cover the northern half, and above the ecliptic plane. I’ll check out the moon myself.”

“Roger,” Was the only reply. They had discussed this previously.

Noreen had taken a page from the Krall’s playbook. Stopping in the outer solar system for a look around before Jumping the final billions of miles to their next intermediate stop, a moon, on their way to the real target. The range out here was too great to wait the many hours for active scans to return information that would be out of date before the return signal arrived. The speed of light round trip would require just over two days, and radar and laser scans at this range would contain too little detail anyway. Besides, actively scanning and then waiting that long for the signal to return would alert the Krall that someone was conducting surveillance well before the raiders arrived at the planet.

Instead, Noreen wanted to conduct passive observation of the inner system as it appeared a day ago, using the superior Olt’kitapi view screens on the converted clanships. If their plans went as laid out, the raid should be over by the time their gamma rays from the dual White Outs reached the inner system. Their next Jump inward, faster than light, would pass up their gamma ray wave front “announcement.”

The Avenger, and the Slasher under Captain Anna Retief, carried four hundred Kobani each, all of them with spec ops training. Indeed, some of them were actual spec ops troops from Human Space, who were now fully gene modified Kobani. With their Mind Tap abilities, the level of training of everyone on the mission went beyond the specialties of spec ops troops, but the mission was one that was closer to that mode of operation. In theory, each one of them could pilot a shuttle, one of the new four-man ships, or even a clanship. They all had the knowledge of how, if not the actual experience of piloting each of those.

Their mission today was to try to slip in close to the Krall planet undetected, assault the intended dome and the weapons factory under it, using relatively few raiders and then extract them as quickly as possible. There would be no attempt to rescue the Prada factory workers on this mission. They would do their best to spare them any harm, but it was impossible to sneak in and land a huge, slow, migration ship for an evacuation.

Wister, one of the elder Prada on Haven, had said convincing these Prada to climb aboard quickly, before the enemy rallied to knock the nearly defenseless tubs out of the sky, was highly unlikely if not impossible.

Not to belittle the value of the lives of the Prada slaves here, it was nevertheless recognized that they didn’t have special skills that wasn’t also available on dozens of other clan worlds. Evacuated or left behind (killing them was never considered), their absence or continued survival would not affect the Krall nearly as much as the loss of the underground factory. That facility would require a year or two to replace, and more time to bring it back up to its present productivity. The workers would be of even greater use to the Krall after the destruction of their workplace, to prepare for the new factory’s arrival, so they were considered relatively safe from Krall retribution.

It had been slow to sink in for Captain Mirikami and his other planners, just how important the theft of the migration ships had been, as well as the destruction of those much older migration ships stored in parking orbits at Toborkiti, a former Torki colony world.

To replace a factory, a modular starter factory would have to be produced by Prada, usually on some other world, for replacing any that the Kobani raiders destroyed. Because there were no giant ships to deliver the bulky things already partly assembled, at least twenty clanships would have to haul the components for delivery in one shipment, and then they required lengthy ground assembly. A successful Operation Fast One would have a greater impact than simply halting the weapons now being produced by this particular factory.

Clanships, in shorter supply than before, had to be taken from fighting and supporting various combat needs, and used to make supply runs deep into their own territory. Logistics problems were not something the clan leaders had needed to think about in their past wars of conquest, of weaker, less aggressive species. When you found a worthy enemy, they presented you with new problems.

The Krall had time to notify all their major clan worlds, and most of their medium status clans, of the human raids that had knocked out four crucial manufacturing sites. Those were planets responsible for most of their strategic weapons manufacturing, and for the ships that delivered forces and supplies. They had needed those production sites in order to expand their war with humanity. They lost the two most significant shipyards for clanship, shuttle, and single ship production, and the only yards that built the Torki designed giant migration ships, which were used to move supplies, large warrior forces, and slaves. In the case of the Hammers (humans called the partly collapsed matter weapons Eight Balls, because they were black spheres), the Krall lost a tremendously effective means to punish entire human worlds. Accelerated to a significant fraction of the velocity of light, an Eight Ball could slam into a world with a near extinction level impact.

This was hardly the first time a foe had ignored restrictions or rules the Krall had imposed on them, of course. All of them did that at some point. Of course, it was the first time a foe had been so effective against them, and humans had forever destroyed their second most devastating weapon, the Hammers. They couldn’t replace the Botolian designed gravity projectors since they weren’t available from a species they had made extinct. Even if they could find fresh Torki slaves that could learn how to produce the Hammers using those projectors. The partly collapsed matter balls the Torki had laboriously completed over centuries of labor had been placed in storage orbits for future need. The humans had somehow destroyed them in place, despite their being tough enough to batter their way through heavily armored human battleships, resisting lasers, plasma cannons, and missiles virtually unscathed. The method of their destruction had yet to be determined by the Krall. That was because the high velocity, diamond tipped, depleted uranium railgun slugs were also destroyed on impact, and the near misses had left that stellar system at escape velocity.

The problem now was that the Krall didn’t have a quick and convenient means (for them anyway) of rapidly punishing human worlds, to make them regret these acts. There certainly were plans to make human worlds suffer, but all of them required time and some level of unprecedented Krall sacrifice. Such as limiting the scope of new invasions, being less able to focus some special level of intense mass suffering on entire human worlds. Radiation would make those worlds worthless for war by their Great Path breeders, and would encourage use of nuclear weapons by humanity, which was also detrimental to the Great Path. Pity the plight of the poor genocidal warriors, with fewer opportunities to earn status point kills.

The most devastating reply possible to humanity presented the Krall leaders with a great level of difficulty, a material sacrifice of one of their most cherished super weapons. The highest leadership levels were in a dispute over what was the best course to follow. In the meantime, preventing additional human raids was imperative, and the more important clan worlds were on a high alert. Minor clans and new finger clans would eventually learn of the human raids, as successful warriors returned home from combat to breed the clan’s next generations. Those small clans could fend for themselves until word spread to them. After all, they only represented yet unproven bloodlines for the Great Path.

The most damaging three raids by humans had happened in a single, well-coordinated day a couple of months ago, when simultaneous attacks destroyed the irreplaceable Hammer making facility, and the two shipyards that produced or repaired the majority of their workhorse fleet of clanships. In the process of preparing for these raids, a matter of days earlier the humans had captured or destroyed all of the huge migration ships used to move supplies, slaves, and factories to the war fronts. They also captured eleven more intact clanships to use in the larger raids. In the process, they destroyed hundreds of undefended parked clanships on dome tarmacs, and leveled many domes themselves. It was a humiliating experience for the clans that were attacked, and it represented a loss of status for each of them.

In a final insult, the humans used the stolen giant Torki ships to remove the most critical workers for building these complex pieces of war equipment, and destroyed the factories. At least clanship production could be slowly ramped back up within a few years. In the meantime, an unpopular requirement that the Joint Council of clan leaders and the Tor Gatrol war leader was promoting, was for clanship pilots to be more conservative in risk taking. They were asked to avoid excessive damage to their ships and to be more on the defense.

In order that the joint clan council could approve Tor Gatrol Kanpardi’s plan to expand invasions to two new human worlds, the edicts went out that limited some of the more aggressive clan styles of attack, which placed clanships at greater risk. Kanpardi promised to rigorously pursue the fight on Poldark, to push the nearly thirty million men in the human army back on their heels, so that half of the four million Krall force could easily and suddenly withdraw, for starting a new invasion on another more vital and populous human world. This request produced a great deal of resentment among high status warriors and leaders, to be told to limit their aggression to protect mere equipment, and for a withdrawal on Poldark. No matter if it was to expand the war, the reduction in resources that made this necessary went against the instincts of these warriors.

Fortunately, there was ample production of less strategic but nevertheless, essential war material such as mini tanks (or Dragons as humans called them), anti-artillery laser batteries, counter battery rockets, plasma canons, and the heavy armored battlefield transport trucks.

The particular Krall world being scouted by the Kobani today had a high capacity production facility of exactly those types of essential war materials. Noreen’s concern was that the midsized Sudok clan, who controlled this world, might have placed clanships in orbit around its sizeable moon, located in a relatively close orbit to the habitable planet. It was expected that there would be clanships in orbit around the planet itself, but they hoped not around that moon. The clan could also have brought in orbital defense platforms, like those five that had survived the two PU Navy attacks around K1. It had been over a year since the passive Planetary Union navy scouting mission had observed this system, and that was before any Krall world had been placed on alert. The unstaffed, slow reacting orbital platforms were not as great a worry to Noreen as clanships stationed around that moon.

The moon was the intended “shield” for the Avenger and Slasher, to White Out behind its bulk to prevent the Krall from detecting their close-in arrival. Evidence of random Krall White Outs around the planet or moon would suggest they were doing micro Jumps to make undetected infiltration such as that harder to conduct.

The two human ship’s sensors should be able to detect the presence of clanships in orbits around that moon, and certainly random White Outs. Noreen only intended to use an hour of observation before making her decision to Jump inward, or leave here if not. The two ships had quietly departed a previous target star system, located much closer to Human Space, because of a high level of watchfulness. This alternate target was deeper into Krall territory, and protected by a smaller clan with fewer resources.

Anna Retief was from the Old Colony of Suid-Afrika, and had fought her newly captured clanship once before, backing up the Avenger when the CS2 shipyards were attacked. Her aggressive nature and competence made her a natural to participate in this next raid. The Slasher, as she had christened her purloined ship, had been partly modified for greater human comfort (no slow sissy elevators needed for the fully gene modified TG2s), and she had an AI similar to the Avenger’s, delivered from Human Space by the Falcon.

Chief Haveram had surprisingly kept his command of that former smuggler’s ship, now turned into a Koban freighter. The former Flight of Fancy’s Drive Room chief made regular Jumps to Human Space from Koban, carrying precious metals to convert to currency for purchasing things the Kobani needed, such as AIs for captured clanships or for use on Koban. The chief-turned-captain, surrendering to the physical temptation, was a TG2 now. The age regression he had undergone, courtesy of the Prada longevity genes, the new med labs and nanites, transformed him socially, and he had become something of a dashing figure around the rough Rim world black market ports he visited. He also had a reputation as someone you did not double cross in a deal! He was apparently much tougher and experienced than the very young man he appeared to be.

After almost an hour of watching the day old inner system activity, Noreen thought they had seen enough. “Anna, I’m not observing anything moving close to the moon, and Carson has so far spotted only a single clanship in a polar orbit around the planet. Do you see anything unusual?” She was on view screen with Captain Retief.

“Noreen, I’m seeing what appears to be another clanship, also in a high and slow polar orbit, and offset a bit from the other craft’s orbit. It’s just coming into view below their south pole. It’s a bit hard to make out yet, because I see it through so much of the atmosphere. If those are the only two watchdogs, and their orbits stay timed much the same, we can slip our shuttles and four-man ships into the atmosphere from behind that moon, between their orbit overlaps. That moon is surprisingly close in, but it works to our advantage. It must make for some huge high and low tides on the coastal areas. That must be why there are no Torki lodges here. Their quarters and labs would flood and dry out daily.”

“You’re probably right about that. We also see the second clanship now. My AI says there should be almost a thirty-minute window between their coverage of the upper northern latitudes, where our targeted dome sits. That assumes they are following that same pattern once we get closer. Our small ships should be able to penetrate and get into the mountain passes and approach the dome in its valley that way, all without the Krall seeing them coming.”

It was good enough for Retief, who had been ready to charge in without so much as a first look. “When do we Jump?

“Alert your assault teams to get in their ships. We can Jump in ten minutes, on my mark, now!” The two AIs would assure the two ships made their Jumps simultaneously to the designated region, only three miles above the backside of that moon. Their dual gamma ray bursts on exit would go undetected on the planet, and by the two orbiting guard clanships.

Carson rose from his acceleration couch. “Mom, I’m joining dad in his shuttle, Alyson will stay here with you. Do you want me to send anyone else up here?”

“No. Alyson and I can handle navigation and weapons here if needed, and Karl can help with that as well. I have people for reloading our missile racks that I can call up here if we need help.” Truth be told, the AI could do nearly any of the tasks required on the Bridge, except make life or death decisions on its own.

“Son, I know you will find this tiresome, but please be careful. Tell your dad that as well.”

He flashed the same toothy grin he shared with his father, “You know me. Always careful.”

Alyson shook her head. “I know you too, and that’s why we both are telling you to be careful.” She and Carson had moved into a semi-formal relationship, and had discussed a contract, “signing the line” in modern parlance, to make it official. They had decided after this raid to make the surprise announcement, which virtually no one that knew them would be surprised to hear. Carson’s daredevil reputation was well earned, and even his reckless father was shocked at learning of some of the risks his son took.

“Right.” He kissed Alyson on the lips in passing, and then bussed his mother’s cheek on the way to the Bridge railing, which provided an open view to part of the lower deck. One hand on the rail, he lightly vaulted over to drop the eighteen feet to the deck below. The ship was only at one g, so it was hardly a knee bender when he touched down on the balls of his feet. They had lowered internal gravity to match that of the Krall planet they were about to raid.

He continued down the stairs for two more decks, to reach the new launch bay of the shuttle he would occupy with his pilot dad, Dillon Martin, his Uncle Thad, best friend Ethan, and eight other Kobani. The original two launch bays had been increased in number and size, from the two shuttle bays and thirty-two single ship launch tubes that the Krall used. Now there were four shuttle bays with craft that held a dozen people each, and sixty-four larger tubes for the new four person ships of similar design to the single ships, commonly called four-ships now. From a distance, the two new small ship classes were almost indistinguishable from the original Krall craft, having the same shapes and proportional dimensions. It was expected this would cause some underestimation of the number of forces they actually were transporting.

The new small ships were all better armed than the standard Krall models because of Torki and Prada modifications, redesigned at human request. Now the shuttles carried four missiles rather than two, and had multi-spectrum lasers of higher power, capable of defeating the hull active reflectivity protection of Krall clanships and single ships. They also had plasma cannons stowed on the aft section bulkhead, which could be swung into place to fire from the left and right side hatches, when a hatch was slid open at low speeds. Any combination of the four missiles they carried could be the light hypervelocity anti-ship variety, the heavier ones for ground attack, or a new Electronic Counter Measure (ECM) missile.

The smaller four-ships had heavier multi-spectrum lasers as well, and two of the small anti-ship missiles. The smaller missiles were described that way because that matched their primary design function, to destroy other spacecraft. They could as easily hit stationary surface targets, if a larger warhead wasn’t essential.

Today, the target was a Krall dome, presumably with alert observers on duty in the upper transparent level, and ready to warn the dome and entire planet of an attack. This shuttlecraft, and the seven others, would launch fourteen of the larger ground attack missiles at the dome, even before they had the dome in sight, but would fire those slightly after the launch of two ECM pods. Which meant the Krall observers would not have seen any of them coming yet either, from their concealment in the mountain passes.

The two ECM missiles they would fire would broadcast an advance signal, a transmission suppression code, specifically designed by the Torki to shut down the operation of the standard Olt’kitapi designed com sets and radio transmitters. Those were communications systems the Torki made for the Krall, and had stayed essentially unchanged for thousands of years. The Torki assured them the ECM gear would suppress any radio transmissions from the Krall in the dome, and even block the personal com sets they carried when on duty. This was different than jamming the frequencies with a powerful signal, preventing communications by overriding the enemy transmissions with noise. That itself would be detectable from a considerable distance, particularly by the orbiting clanships. They were taking advantage of vulnerabilities in the original transmitter/receiver designs, ordering the equipment to shut off via a short-range, low power signal. If the Krall turned the devices back on, the transmitters promptly shut off again if the ECM signal was still present.

The humans had a set of frequencies set aside for their own use, which were seldom used by the Krall, and their own equipment would not shutdown. These transmitters were nevertheless set for low power by their armored suits and ship AIs, to avoid bouncing strong signals off the ionosphere, something nearly every habitable planet had. After cutting their foe off from calling out for reinforcements, they didn’t intend to make that call for them (indirectly), by filling the air with strong encrypted transmissions of mysterious origin.

As the time of the coordinated short Jump neared, Noreen made a broadcast to all personnel on both the Avenger and the Slasher.

“Attention. This is Captain Renaldo. After White Out above that moon, the two previously designated four-ships, one from Avenger, one from Slasher, will launch and fly to the east and west limbs of the moon to observe the planet from a hundred feet elevation. The two orbiting clanships were conducting active radar scans a day ago, and we need to confirm if that’s still the case, and what their orbits are today. Use tight beam laser to communicate with your mother ships. We will use Normal Space drive to follow you, but we will stay behind the moon. You are our eyes. Report what your passive sensors see. We Jump in one minute. Renaldo out.”

On the coordinated fraction of a second, the two AIs sent their respective ships into the Jump Hole and almost instantly, for that short a distance, two White Outs occurred three miles above the backside of the moon. The pair of four-ships promptly launched and headed around the curve of the moon to observe the planet and it’s environ. The Avenger and Slasher drifted along in-trail, until the curve of the moon would prevent their tight beam laser com communication, and there they held station with their drives. Just able to see one another by line of sight, and their own four-ship, which represented their “eyes” on the planet.

They remained this way for over an hour, to collect current information on the orbiting clanships. There still were only two, apparently in the same orbits, scanning the volume of space away from the planet with radar. Their moving target detection sensors were probably on automatic, to report any tracks observed. The AIs confirmed that there would be a window of opportunity of about thirty minutes, when the planet would place them in shadow of the two clanships radars. That would happen the next time in twenty minutes, and repeat every one hundred eighteen minutes, unless either clanship altered course or speed.

Noreen decided it was a “go” on the first opportunity. Using the laser com system, she again broadcast to all personnel, by a tight beam to Slasher, which couldn’t be intercepted. “The two ship AIs will coordinate when each set of raiders race out from behind the moon on each side, as the clanship about to go behind the planet’s curve loses coverage of us. The other clanship will not be able to see this moon for nearly thirty more minutes. Closer down by the planet you will have a longer shadow time because of the planet’s horizon. Get there fast, then use your drives to slow down to enter atmosphere without blazing a visible entry trail. Stay on the course and schedule that the AIs have fed your computers, and you will be in the mountains well before the next clan ship comes over your horizon. Its radar will be looking out away from the planet anyway, but to be safe I want all hundred thirty-six ships down in the passes of the mountains, downrange of the dome at least two hundred miles from it before then. You will have a total of forty minutes to do that.

“Launch as soon as I sign off. That will allow you time to reach the edge of the moon, and then wait for the AIs signal to head inward at max acceleration. Back off when the computer tells you to, and slow down to make your entry. If the Krall on the surface go to an active scan on you before you reach atmosphere, come back here fast and we’ll try some place else. Good luck and be safe. Renaldo out.”

This was rehashing what had been discussed and practiced back in the Koban system. Not this exact scenario of course, since it couldn’t be predicted. The type of atmospheric entry and subsequent low altitude infiltration to the target had been rehearsed multiple times. Each Krall planet would be different, but they had discovered that none of the Krall worlds was heavily populated, not even when compared to human Rim worlds and New Colonies.

This world probably held a population of perhaps three or four million warriors, in roughly a hundred or so domes, all belonging to a single medium sized clan, the Sudok, who completely controlled two entire planets, and had a presence on a few others, such as K1. This was their base world, where most of their population lived, trained, and bred, when not actually engaged in war. Even so, there were only a little over a hundred domes on the entire planet, and for a cooler planet like this one, they clustered closer to the warmer equatorial regions to house their nursery nests and hatchling regions. It wasn’t difficult to find an atmospheric entry route in the northern regions that avoided habitat domes. The domes in cooler areas were mainly low population outposts where factories had been established, preferentially built close to the raw materials and resources needed, without consideration for what climate the Prada might prefer.

On their screens, Noreen and Alyson saw the swarm of craft from the Avenger racing silently away. There wasn’t even a back reaction as there was when they launched missiles. The reactionless Normal Space drives were quiet and powerful, and left the Avenger without even a vibration. From the screens, they could see sixty-three of the four-ships and the four shuttles, all moving towards the lone four-ship already on watch at the limb of the moon. There were an equal number of assault ships leaving the Slasher. Noreen and Alyson didn’t watch any of those ships launch. Their eyes were locked on one shuttle in particular, as a husband and son, and husband to be, eagerly raced toward danger.

The AIs on the two “mother ships” continued to monitor the passive data fed to them from the two observational four-ships. Allowing another minute to avoid any possible radar detection, when the clanship passed behind the curve of the northern pole of the planet, the two small armadas were released to accelerate towards the planet’s northern hemisphere.

The Normal Space drive of both classes of craft could reach greater than two hundred forty g’s real space acceleration. Internal compensation of the inertial forces left the occupants stressed, but nowhere close to the blackout level of a TG2. Most Krall warriors would have been unconscious at the internal stresses placed on these crews, and a few Krall might have died, because they disdain the use of acceleration couches. The two flotillas flew nearly parallel courses, slowly converging on the atmospheric reentry area over an uninhabited part of the continent where the dome of interest lay.

As they reached the midpoint of travel, the two groups growing closer, they simultaneous rotated each ship end-for-end, where the reason for approaching from opposite sides of that moon became clearer. They were not bunched so tight that a minor error in positioning while rotating would cause a collision. Technically, the Normal Space drives didn’t care which way the craft were oriented in order to apply the powerful deceleration forces, required to avoid a fiery atmospheric entry. The occupants stretched out on their couches and fighting the stresses, only found it tolerable when the uncompensated force was pressed on them from their backsides.

There was never a doubt they could reach the atmosphere well ahead of the second clanship rounding the southern pole. But, if they left behind one hundred thirty six ion plasma trails, even against a daytime sky, someone on the ground would surely notice. The residual streaks in the atmosphere would also point the way to the general area of the attack.

It wasn’t necessary to come to a halt, merely to get their velocity down to where their passage would not strip electrons from the molecules of the thin upper atmosphere. They were still traveling multiple times the speed of sound initially as they entered, but would drop below mach one high enough that the sound shockwave would dissipate in the thin upper air before reaching the ground. At some altitude, they assumed their passage would produce contrails if the moisture content of the atmosphere were right. To disguise the multiple contrails, the now slowed craft clustered in formation closely enough that when or if the vapor trails appeared, the separate trails would all quickly merge in the turbulence of passage. It was hoped that a wide elongated white streak, if noticed after the fact, would resemble a high, cirrus layer of cloud. Only its sudden formation would be curious, if noticed. The craft causing it would be invisible, of course, because optical stealth was active.

Dillon, piloting the lead shuttle of the group from Avenger, was in formation with the lead shuttle of the group from Slasher. There were ships spread to either side of them to widen the contrail front if those formed.

Using a command to his armor to open a laser com link to the ship on his right, Dillon said, “Hey Sarge! Looks like my flying lessons for you were worth the money. You haven’t bumped anyone even once.”

The salty answer was prompt. “Nah. Your lessons were worth exactly what I paid for them. Absolutely nothing. Thad provided for my flying expertise.”

“What? He’s a crappy pilot. He has two left wings, making him fly in circles.”

“I didn’t say he taught me. What a horrible, if not fatal result that could bring about. I said he provided for the lessons. Cost him a lot too.” Dillon could hear the man’s laughter.

“He actually paid for you? Who was it? I gave you free lessons, for cripes sake.”

“I already told ya what yours was worth. Anyway, there was no actual money exchanged, although I’m sure he paid in other ways. Marlyn taught me all she knew in compensation, just to hold it over Thad’s head.”

“Compensation?”

“Yep. Thad still can’t play cards worth a crap. Marlyn found out about a bad poker night of his, and paid me with flight lessons. Now she holds his IOU. Worth every cent to us both!”

“Ouch. I can’t believe you told on him.”

“I didn’t. Honor among men, ya understand. She found out in an evening of passion. You can’t block your thoughts all the time, you know.”

“Ahh. Been there myself. Leaked a thought when I felt guilty about something. Oh well.”

Knowing that Thad, sitting in the seat next to him had heard half of that exchange, Dillon looked over at him with an eyebrow raised.

“I don’t want to talk about it, so fly your damn ship!”

Grinning, Dillon switched to why he really had called the other group leader.

“I’ll fire the two ECM pods, just before we clear the passes. How about we cluster all of our landings around the north, east, and south side entrances of the dome, and leave that west one wide open for the Prada, to evacuate to that grove of tall trees on the northwest side. They’re bound to have a village over there, and they’ll be afraid of us, and our ships.”

“OK. I’ll pass the word to the Slasher crews. The Prada will have underground exits in the woods that also lead to the factory. I hope they don’t have many workers living in the dome. Fourteen missiles will bring most of it down you know.”

“I know. They’ll be unavoidable collateral damage if they do house families there. Fortunately, this world’s environment isn’t as screwed up as the shipyard worlds were. They can live outside and above ground here, so most will be in the forest I hope.”

“I hope so too. Let me pass the word before we reach those foothills and spread out, losing laser com connections. We only have about five more minutes before we split up.”

The onboard AIs had the mapping of the foothills from their observations as guides, and the two groups would take multiple paths to reach the dome, staying below visual or radar scans (if any) as they made their way closer. At the lower speeds needed in the winding passes, they had about five additional minutes of flying at low altitudes. Dillon’s shuttle was to hold the lead of either group, and was given one of the more direct routes. They needed to launch the ECM systems about thirty seconds before the other missiles. That second launch should be when the forefront of the leading assault ships was fifteen seconds from leaving the passes, and entering the wide valley where the dome was located. By that time the ECM equipment, broadcasting its signal ahead of them, should have shut down all radio communications at the dome. The exhaust trails of the inbound missiles might be seen in visible or in infrared light, but the observers wouldn’t be able to tell anyone by radio.

The seconds ticked down. Dillon tapped the yoke button that launched the two ECM rockets, which promptly diverged as they climbed over the rim of the ridge of the pass that was concealing the shuttle. They diverged just in case some fast reacting and super observant Krall fired a laser and picked one of the low flying objects out of the sky. Either ECM pod was adequate for complete radio suppression. There was a spare third such device in a cargo hold.

Thirty seconds later, the eight shuttles combined to launch fourteen ground attack missiles at the dome, which was only fifteen seconds from direct view of the attacking force. Each missile, part of a smart network, was programed to spread out their impact points to destroy not only the upper four levels; the ones most often occupied by Krall when they were on duty at a factory dome, but missiles were also to strike major structural nodes on the perimeter of the dome, to bring more of it down.

The deliberate arrival timing worked extremely well. The advance craft were out of the passes with the dome in sight, just in time to see it explode like so many tinker toy parts, pin wheeling up and outward, then falling back. The parts of the dome not hit directly began to slump awkwardly, in fits and starts, as one collapsing section pulled another down. By the time the entire assault force was out of the passes, the six hundred foot high, half-mile wide dome looked more like a fifty foot high broken pile of sticks and shiny armored glass fragments, sparkling in the bright cheerful sunshine, which beamed its way through the pall of dust. Because there had been no clanships parked here (that was a surprise revealed by observations at the moon), there was no billowing orange and black column of fire and smoke from an exploded fuel tank.

Thad, checking the AIs communications report on one of the screens, verified there had been no outgoing Krall signals detected. The two ECM systems were both online, and their drogue chutes were still lowering them gently over the wreckage of the dome. Surprise was complete, and no warning had made it to the rest of this world. Yet.

Keying a push for the entire flotilla, using their reserved low power frequency band, Dillon told them, “Set down on all sides except the west, to allow Prada evacuations there. Let’s see if the missiles left us any Krall to kill.”

****

No warrior would ever admit to boredom, because that suggested they were less alert than maximum. The Krall had bred the need for sleep from their species thousands of generations ago, without regard to how a long day of wakefulness could be filled, if the enjoyment of continuous personal combat were not a constant mental stimulant. To fill the time on duty when on alert and nothing exciting was happening, most warriors relived past combat kills or actions from near perfect memories of battlefields. They repeatedly analyzed their own performance, and that of warriors that had been around them. Considering how they and their clan mates could have fought better, or more efficiently.

Because their minds were extremely active, they considered themselves to be at maximum alertness, ready to instantly detect and react to any threat. In effect, however, they were retroactively replacing the Krall brain’s equivalent of REM sleep in humans, where the day’s events were dreamed about and moved to long-term memory. The Krall’s brain wasn’t disabled from muscle control, as humans were when dreaming, however the bout of “daydreaming” did not truly make them more aware of their real surroundings than normal. That was an artifact of the daydreaming thought process, where they were keenly aware of the past battles they were reformulating, to do it perfectly the next time.

As a result, the four warriors placed on duty at the top of the dome were technically wide-awake, each constantly scanning their quarter of the observational hemisphere with their eyes and heads moving, more or less on autopilot. They were unconsciously relying on visual movement detection to cue their real world attention. This was far better than human ability, but short of the Krall’s expectation.

The two ECM missiles, when they appeared barely over the top of a ridge at five miles distance, were flying directly at the point of view of the Krall observing that quadrant. Their apparent motion was effectively zero across her field of view. She finally noticed their increase in size at about the halfway point.

Her proper first response was to alert the entire dome, relying on the other three warriors to overhear her report to the warriors stationed below. The second response was to try to survive the inbound attack so she could fight back.

Fashtok keyed her com button for wide broadcast, even as she leaped down the adjacent stairs, speaking loudly as she dropped. “Two missiles inbound low from south.”

She couldn’t see her clan mates, but knew they had heard her and would have reacted as she had, and be on their way down after a quick confirmation glance where she indicated. That would put them a second or two behind her, so she assumed they might not survive the expected impending explosions. As she dropped rapidly below the third level, still going down at max breakneck speed, leaping landing to landing as the stairs turned, she heard the echoing voice of one of her clan mates, at least a level above her in the same stairwell, reporting multiple missiles inbound from three quadrants. Leaving seconds later, he had seen more. Yet, there was something wrong here!

She didn’t hear his report through her com set, but by the echoing sound of his high Krall speaking voice, reverberating down the stairwell. Her own first warning should have been heard by him and every Krall in or near the dome, and in the factory below by radio. She had not heard an answer from her sub leader to her first broadcast. Not only that, but her warning should have resulted in this stairwell now containing warriors evacuating levels she had just passed. Where were they?

She tried another message, as she passed the fifth level below the top. The echo of that transmission should have reached her ears from her trailing clan mate’s com set speaker, when it repeated what she transmitted. She didn’t hear that. That meant none of the broadcasts had been successful. As she passed the eighth level from the top, something else she didn’t hear yet struck her as peculiar. There had been no explosions from those two missiles she’d seen, which had had more than enough time to strike the dome by now.

Her confusion was short lived. Fourteen other high-powered rockets answered her expectations that her three late departing clan mates would not survive. Unfortunately, the onslaught of explosions reduced her survival chances to zero as well. As the wall of debris that would end her life raced in from the sides, she hoped the warriors massed below ground, defending the factory, would avenge the dome’s destruction.

****

The eight shuttles landed on the tarmac and eighty four of their ninety six troops charged out the two open side hatches, with a pilot and two side gunners staying behind on four of them. The stowed plasma cannons were swung into place and the four shuttles lifted again to provide coverage of the dome rubble and surroundings from the air.

The hundred twenty eight four-ships spread out on three sides, as previously directed, and their former crews, five hundred twelve strong, scaled the mostly collapsed structure to seek the warriors normally occupying the upper levels.

All of the forces had stealth activated on their armor, making them ghostly hollows in the settling dust and swirling smoke, and pale shadows with an icon displayed on their helmet visors. The initial task of the crews of the four-ships was to clear the dome of any still living Krall. Despite the destruction, experience had proven that the resilient Krall could survive what seemed unsurvivable, and even with major injuries, could fight back with significant effect.

The missiles had spared the lowest eight levels of the thirty-two level structure, but the collapsing weight of the upper stories, and the penetrating effect of the spoke-like support struts allowed many to stab downward to reach ground level. In some cases, the struts poked slightly below the ground level floor, because underlying the dome was the upper level entrances of the subsurface factory.

As predicted, there was sporadic plasma fire in the crumpled mess of the dome in the pile of debris overlaying the heavily damaged, but largely intact, bottom levels. Previous attacks on other domes had revealed that any Prada housed in the domes over a factory occupied the lowest levels, often the ground floor. The shorter distance to their work areas made this practical, and in this case, the relatively clean environment would suggest many of the Prada families would live in the nearby forest. That was the hope, anyway. The reaction speed of the Kobani meant they could hold their fire for a moment, to better ascertain if a motion detected in the wreckage was a Krall or a Prada.

The sporadic sizzle-crack of plasma fire up high proved Krall were being found alive in the rubble, and some of the shooting, from the slightly different sound, was from plasma rifles, rather than Kobani helmet plasma bolts. Because only the Krall would have those rifles for this mission, that sound drew Kobani attention to surviving clusters of the enemy. Most would be killed, but if any were found that appeared to have higher status, based on their tattoos, they would be captured alive if possible for a Mind Tap.

The shuttle teams carried the cases of explosives to use in the factory, and had a number of the recovered Raspani boring tools, found on captured clanships or recovered from weapons belts of dead high status warriors. The tools were to be used to destroy fusion bottles, both at the base of the dome, and down inside the factory, after first shutting them off. If breached while in operation, the fusion generators became potent “bombs.” The Raspani invented tools could bore holes up to a hundred twenty two feet deep in any substance thus far tested. There had been a bonanza of the tools recovered at an orbital station, where the Torki technicians had used them to delicately dissolve away some of the collapsed crystal material of the Eight Balls, to make them hollow, and provide an opening to install Jump drives, fusion bottles, and pilot controls.

The Raspani name in their language for the tools, was three sputtering lip smacks, a snort in the middle, and a deep grunt at the end. That native pronunciation led Sarge to suggest the human description of them to be loosely translated as some form of the sound of a “wet fart.” His own rendering was made by blowing with his tongue between moistened lips.

He pretended to be offended when the consensus from all of the names proposed for them was chosen to be Q-rupter, for quantum disrupter. “What a boring name for a device that turns any material it’s beamed at into a gas of atoms. Fart Blaster was a better name.”

Dillon was flying one of the shuttles with side gunners. They had found only one target worth their plasma guns attention thus far. An unattended Krall shuttle was parked nearly under the overhang of the east dome entrance. The two gunners each got a shot at the cockpit, cautioned to avoid the reaction mass fuel tank at the rear and its fusion generator. Once in space and out of the gravity well, shuttle Traps could snare tachyons to power the Normal Space reactionless gravitational drives.

The Kobani shuttles and four-ships had all retained tachyon power in their Traps, and could launch directly back to space without using reaction fuel. The cleaner and cooler trail made for a more difficult to follow IR or radar signature if an anti-ship missile were fired at them.

Thad was in charge of the factory destruction, and Ethan and Carson were leading two of the teams that would descend into the factory levels. They had entered via the east entrance, just before the Krall shuttle was made useless. Sarge, his own shuttle left empty and on “idle,” as were all of the parked four-ships, led his demolition team in from the north side. Others teams entered at the south dome entrance. All of the factory entrances were at the base level of the dome, reached either via the swift elevators, or by stairs. The elevators made for potential traps, so they would take the stairs, located at the inner large ring of elevators and stairs, surrounding the central hall. Every dome so far found followed the same unimaginative design that the Krall appeared to find satisfyingly efficient, if boring to a human.

Today, the frequently encountered collapsed ceilings and penetrating dome support struts required some detours from the well know paths to the ring of stairwell openings. Although the teams were encumbered with the stealth-coated explosives cases, carried between pairs of armored and equally invisible troopers, they were hardly unprepared for a fight.

The front of their helmets contained all of the firepower it was decided they would require on this quick in-and-out raid. A thought to the suit could initiate two types of laser beams, a plasma bolt, or a microwave heat beam in an instant. The weapons would hit what you looked at, and had indicated mentally was the target. The suit could lock on and continue to fire at a target, even if the wearer looked away to lock onto another target and fire. The only limitation was that firing all weapons at once reduced the energy available to produce the most powerful plasma bolts, at the maximum fire rate.

The look, shoot, and forget, target tracking mode meant that a single spec ops trooper could take on multiple opponents at once, and focus on a different task while the first designated targets were under continuous fire. They each also carried a waist load of eight grenades, concealed under a disposable belt of stealth-coated material. While attached, or in contact with the suit, they could select the mode of operation of any grenade number by thought (small digits 1 through 8 could appear on the bottom of their inner visor, and brighten when touched for removal).

The timing before detonation could be set verbally, manually, or by thought. They also could choose the proximity mode and set the range for a booby trap (nearby friendly suits would block triggering), and there was a ten step range of explosive power. The lowest three levels threw the depleted uranium pellets with less force, so that their own armor could resist penetration, but a nearby Krall (out of armor) would be perforated like Swiss cheese. At higher power levels, which could kill a Krall in armor, their own suits were equally at risk if they failed to take cover or were too close.

As a precaution, based on recent experience, additional armor thickness had been added in two areas to reduce the risk of nearby grenade use. The top of the helmet and over the shoulders was thickened, and on the feet, butt and crotch. If you threw the grenade yourself, you could point the top of your head and shoulders at the impending explosion (arms pressed against your sides), in presumably a prone position. The alternative was to lay flat in the other direction, with your feet and butt pointed at the detonation. So far, this strategy had only been used on empty suits in testing; with mixed results if the explosive power was set at the highest two power levels and went off too near. You literally risked your head or your ass if you tossed them too close.

Thad and Ethan, each carrying a case of explosives approached the inner hall, their visors showing them icons of teams arriving from other directions around the hall. They both had eliminated icon reports from more than thirty feet overhead, because of the clutter of overlying icons of the swarm of troopers searching and clearing the upper levels. There had been perhaps a hundred twenty warriors up there, and nearly a quarter of them had survived the explosions and collapse. That was more warriors than had been previously found on the other raids on factory related domes, so perhaps this clan had beefed up its complement of guardians. That should have been a clue.

The two of them paused as a voice in low Krall spoke from the other side of the debris cluttered large hall. That it was spoken in low Krall, and was being helpful, proved it wasn’t from an actual Krall. At their thoughts, their visors showed them it was Sarge speaking.

“Leave here by the east exit and go to your village. Do not return and you will not be harmed.”

There was some scuffling noise from the other side, and a chittering sound that particularly young Prada made when frightened. Reynolds and his team had apparently found some of the workers, and he was trying to direct them to safety. Thad, as a team leader, selected a view from Reynolds’ visor, which appeared in a small, fully colored translucent square on the lower left side of his own visor. He could see through the image, but saw a group of four frightened Prada, one was probably a female, with a child clinging to her fur and clutched to her chest. They were scurrying around fallen ceiling sections and broken armored glass pieces, looking back over their narrow shoulders, not certain where the orders came from. They were following instructions, and moving quickly towards the dome exit they were told to use.

There had been multiple feeding stations for Prada, set up in the center of the hall, and that and debris prevented an easy passage through the middle. The four went around, and were approaching the south side, where Thad and his teams were about to enter the huge room. To avoid spooking them, he spoke on his group’s channel.

“All teams hold back, and stay quiet. Let these Prada pass. They won’t hear us if we don’t step on anything crunchy.” The workers couldn’t hear him speak of course, unless he selected external speaker mode.

That kindness and consideration was negated, when a shoulder fired rocket blazed out of a stairwell opening. The same one Thad had been moving towards for their descent. It was a high velocity, armor penetrating rocket. The same type that had nearly killed Ethan, when he was driving a Dragon on Poldark.

It didn’t explode when it passed through the body of the mother and child because they didn’t represent a hard enough surface. It tore them apart, however, then exploded against the top of an elevator door on the far side of the hall, where the molten copper core of the warhead instantly burned its way through the metal plate of the lift door. It likely splattered the inside of the empty elevator carriage with red-hot droplets.

There was no doubt the rocket would have killed any of the armored raiders it struck. The Krall that launched that missile either didn’t see the target clearly, or assumed an invisible human in stealth armor was walking with the Prada near the head of the stairs.

The other two Prada froze in terror and horror at the falling and ruined corpses of the mother and child. There was no way to know the relationship of the other two Prada to the dead ones, but any speculation was short lived. Multiple plasma bolts from Krall rifles blasted the other two into charcoaled remnants of smoking and burning gray and brown bits of fur.

On a general push, Thad heard Sarge state the obvious to all teams. “Ambushes set at the stairwells. They’re waiting for us. Use grenades.”

Thad was in overall charge of the ground assault against the factory, but that was sound advice. He let go his side of the explosives case nearly simultaneously with Ethan. Before the case could hit the floor, he had selected a grenade for level 10, a two second delay, as he detached and flipped the fist-sized bomb into the stairwell, where the known ambushers were concealed. Ethan’s grenade was simultaneously clattering with his on the stairs when the one two punch of the explosions shot more dust and smoke out of the stairwell.

The answering scream of pain and rage was a welcome sound, but they could hear many angry voices, and plasma fire was coming up out of all of the stairwells now, in actinic fountains of blue white hell. Multiple other explosions erupted dust and pellets out of all of the stairwells, briefly slowing the rate of fire, which somehow managed to increase the level of screaming rage. The Krall seldom went quietly when they fell off the Great Path. The rate of fire increased again, so it appeared they were trying to clear the way to rush up to meet the enemy.

Suddenly, out of the stream of plasma bolts flew dozens of smoking canisters that arced out and hit the floors, spewing a light gray smoke that was thin enough to see through. Thad selected the general push this time, “Seal suits. They may be using poison gas. Troopers up top, get down to the central hall, the Krall are trying to break out of the factory level.”

As he said this, he flung two more grenades into two stairwells, one from each hand. The other troops were doing the same, so a continuous barrage of explosions were erupting from the stairs, even as the thin smoke spread through the large volume, added to by the explosives and dust they stirred.

Human and Krall suits both could double as space suits, so the use of a disabling or fatal gas didn’t seem an effective weapon to use here. It wasn’t thick enough to conceal the Krall, certainly not as effective for concealment as the trick Carson had used in the clanship cleanout on Poldark.

The similarity must have triggered a memory for Carson. He called on a private channel. “Uncle Thad, this thin smoke isn’t to hide them; it’s to make us visible. Some of them used steam and water puddles to spot us despite our stealth on CS2.”

A correct supposition or not, Thad realized that this would be the practical result when the Krall broke out of the stairwells. They would see the “holes” in the smoke, where their enemy hid.

Using the general push Thad warned the others. “The smoke will let them spot us. Don’t count on stealth.”

They couldn’t count on grenades to keep them down below for very long either, because the eighty-four troops here were running low on them. The Krall were somehow maintaining a high level of return plasma fire despite the initial success of the grenades. The enemy plasma bolts were largely ineffectual, because they weren’t hitting any of the Kobani. It simply kept them back from entering the hall. That might have been another clue the Krall had additional plans. Holding a defensive position was not their style.

Thad knew the bulk of the Kobani reinforcements could not arrive from on top of the dome before the Krall got some of their warriors out of the stairwells. Then grenades would risk friend and foe alike. That happened sooner than expected.

Suddenly, the Krall sprang the next part of the ambush, apparently only waiting for the smoke to spread adequately. Even the concept of an ambush proved that the Krall were learning tactics from humans. They had rarely planned such actions in the past, and this one was obviously well thought out, at least for them.

The elevator doors suddenly rose nearly simultaneously, probably on some prearranged cue, because the Krall didn’t have com set use. Of course, their visors could show them a time hack they could all use, and pass via word of mouth. The armored warriors that swarmed out had infiltrated up through holes cut in the elevator floors. The Krall in front were carrying something that explained their continued resistance in the stairwells, despite hundreds of grenades lobbed down the stairwells. The warriors in the front ranks held floor to head height metal shields. The depleted uranium pellets couldn’t penetrate those, even if some did make it under the bottoms or through the gaps. They obviously had learned from reports of the previous raids, and expected the raiders to head for the factory entrances.

This battle was turning into a melee of close infighting, just the type the Krall liked. The Kobani were more than a match physically for any individual Krall, but this could devolve into a disorganized struggle, with no way of knowing how many of the enemy they faced. Thad had started with only six hundred eight Kobani, because they had assumed this dome would be as relatively unguarded as the others had been on the previous raids. Big miscalculation.

With direct targets to fire at, the Kobani were taking out some of the Krall behind the shield wall as they strove to peek over the top, or when they fired at wispy areas in the smoke, seeking the nearly invisible enemy. More canisters of the smoke generators flew over the shields towards where human laser or plasma bolts originated. Without being told, many of the Kobani switched to the microwave beams, which generated heat at their focal point, but did not leave as clear a trail through the air back to the origin. Following their training, they were constantly moving, firing and changing position. Because they were on three sides of the hall, they had shots at the backs of some of the warriors rushing out of the elevators when they pushed too far into the open.

Shooting a shield holder in the back of his helmet with his microwave heat beam, Ethan was gratified to see four other warriors suddenly drop their shields to rip at smoldering hot helmets, when other troopers worked to eliminate that particular advantage. Thad, seeing it happen, made a broadcast.

“Target shield holders. Then toss any grenades you have left through the gap.”

The level of thunderous explosions suddenly increased for a short time, and rattling pellets filled the air with ricochets off armor, walls and floors, accompanied by many wet sounding splats and roars of pain. This was of some risk to the spec ops, and several were wounded when pellets penetrated their suits before losing momentum, via rebounding from an intermediary surface. The majority of the grenades were dropped into clusters of warriors, piling them up in a matter of seconds, but that depleted the supply and the explosions soon diminished. That was the cue for the forces farther down the stairs to rally and charge up, without the concern of running over a just tossed grenade lying on the steps, detonating behind the shield wall.

Thad could see that the number fifteen appeared by a red icon, indicating there had been that many serious injuries or deaths among his eighty-four sappers. Now the warriors that had been held below the first landing of the stairs by the grenades were leaping up them, flying out of the openings, as they went high to seek their enemy in what had literally become the fog of war.

With the turbulence in the room so high, their carefully thought out detection method for their invisible prey was more limited than if they had been lying in wait, with the gas already deployed, floating and still, evenly distributed across the room and into the corridors. Movements through that would have been far more noticeable. The Krall would make an adjustment for the next time they used this tactic, but Thad’s concern was how his force could survive this time.

There were already several hundred Krall in the large hall, and the volume of rifle fire was pushing the humans back towards the radial corridors that led away from the dome’s center. If that happened, the troopers along the back of that press would not see as many targets to shoot. The human rate of fire into the swarm of Krall, who were perfectly willing to absorb injuries and losses, could wear down those at the front of the massed human troops. Thad could see friendly green icons moving closer from behind them, to bring up support from the rear. The problem was, they couldn’t fire on the Krall with their own people in the way, especially not if Thad’s force was forced down the long hallways towards them. That sort of numbers game of attrition suited the enemy, and was not what the raiders wanted to accept.

Thad was on the verge of ordering a rapid pull back from the lower level of the dome when he was amazed by a sudden blossoming of green icons on his visor. They were in a ring around the central hall, on the level above them. He had set his visor to exclude friendly icons that were much above the ground floor location, to prevent his confusing them with his own smaller force. Now the troopers searching the upper structure had started dropping or climbing down through the broken levels and had reached the three-story ring of balconies that circled the central halls in all Krall domes.

Much of the shooting from the Krall had grown more concentrated as the sapper force had retreated towards the only points of retreat and cover they had. Now suddenly, Krall fire was directed elsewhere. Upwards.

The spec ops on the rings of balconies, particularly those on the top two levels (above Thad’s arbitrary vertical cutoff of icon positions), were higher than the layer of smoke that revealed movement through its translucent wisps. They were having an old-fashioned turkey shoot at the heads of completely exposed Krall.

Thad wanted to visit Earth someday, to learn where that ancient term originated. What in hell was a turkey that it was so stupid as to be killed that easily? Despite the confusing expression, he was pleased with the results here, wherever the term originated.

With no possible cover from incredibly accurate and rapid firing from all sides and from above, the Krall had to retreat from the withering fire. Initially, never having had to retreat from a human attack previously, those trying to fight their way up out of the stairwells or climb up through the floor openings inside the elevators, resisted being pushed back by the withdrawing warriors.

Thad, who had a good command of low Krall, and some measure of understanding of high Krall, wasn’t aware of a word for “retreat” or “withdraw” in either language, any more than they had one for “friend.”

In several more minutes, the enemy had been forced back into the stairwells, where the first landings turned a corner, and gave them cover. Per his suit AI, Thad saw that there were over five hundred dead or dying warriors in the hall and elevators. There were an unknown number down in the stairwells. Shooting and killing wounded Krall as they approached, Sarge, with Carson beside him, stayed clear of the stairwells. Obviously, he wanted to know how they would proceed next.

Troopers designated for administering first aid were moving to the red and yellow icons indicated on their visors, to assess which ones needed evacuation for treatment at med labs in four of the shuttles. The suit systems proved depressingly accurate for the red icons. All but one of the eighteen indicated now were already dead, and that lone surviving woman would never make it to a med lab.

As Sarge, his second in command of the factory assault group joined him, Thad Linked to Dillon who was their air cover, and included his eight sapper team leaders. Those eight included Ethan and Carson, although he was shocked to discover that Yilini Jastrov was dead, and that Jorl Breaker now led that team. Yil had just “signed the line” with the much older (and now young looking) Clarice Femfreid last month. They had signed for one contracted child, and because Clarice had not made this mission, it was quite possible she had not cleared medical due to conception. Damn!

Shaking the loss off, knowing Yil was a close friend of Ethan and Carson, he didn’t look at them as the visors automatically registered Jorl as the replacement team leader. “We can’t take the time or accept the casualties needed to fight our way down those stairs, not knowing how many warriors we might face. We clearly caught them by surprise when we arrived, but just as clearly they had a reception planned below if we did, based on our previous courses of action. They know we take out the dome observers, blast any ships on the tarmac, and enter the factory to blow up the equipment and flood the works.

“I don’t think we can afford the time to clear them out and fight our way down. I’m open to alternative ideas. Sarge, you first.”

“We know the Prada have work entrances at their villages, or close by. We might try descending there.”

“The Krall know those are there too, and we can’t spend time fighting our way between levels even if those entrances could get us in unopposed. This time we know there are Krall down there in force.” He turned his head to look as new explosions from grenades blew dust up the stairs, and there was almost continuous if ineffectual Krall shooting around the stairwell corners of the landings.

He had a question. “Dillon, were there many Prada coming out of the dome after the fighting started? Four that Sarge directed to leave were killed by the Krall right at the start of shooting.”

“I saw perhaps a hundred run across the half mile of open ground from the dome to reach the southern edge of the trees. I saw hundreds more of them in the woods, and their IR signatures vanished deeper into the trees. I also saw a continuous stream of them pass from the northeast edge of the woods towards the west. I’m guessing they were coming out of the factory. They would have heard the explosions, and their merciful Rulers never care if they are caught in the crossfire. I believe they may have evacuated on their own.”

“OK. I think we have to take the chance that they were perceptive enough to get away from the fighting when they heard it start; The Krall fought each other for thousands of years, so this can’t be an entirely new experience in their long history as their slave workers.

“Let me hear ideas of how to flood and blow up this factory complex if we can’t go down inside and do it personally and thoroughly.” There was only a brief moment of silence, when the expected two most adventuresome and daring individuals both spoke at once.

“OK. I can’t listen to both of you at once, and to avoid favoritism, which will rear its head anyway, I’ll let Carson go first, then Ethan.”

With a thumb up to Ethan, Carson made his suggestion. One he’d been considering ever since the Krall proved today they were better prepared to defend their factory.

“We need to flood the factory to ruin much of the equipment, and delay their restarting and repairing it after we pull out. We might be able to do that without blowing up the cooling water pipes from inside the factory. They pull cold glacier water in from that large lake a mile to the east, and pump the warmer water out into the river on the southwest side. There have to be large intakes in the lake. We may be able to float explosives into them to go down into the factory to the pumps, and explode when well below ground level. Water will then pour in by gravity, as it did at other sites.”

Thad nodded. “OK. But they must have grill covers over the intakes, and we know they use pumps to move the water in faster than gravity can flow the water, and then is pumped back out. The outgoing pumps might prevent full flooding if they stay operational.”

Carson had a reply prepared. “We can remove any grills, either by burning them off where they attach, or with smaller explosives. Our suits are as good underwater as they are in space or a hazardous atmosphere. It’s my idea; I’ll go in the water.” No surprise there.

Ethan, who had a different idea, suddenly saw a way the two could work together. “His idea will work better if we also do what I was thinking. The factory doesn’t have to be entered through any of the prepared openings that the Krall are defending. Much of this entire area is overlying the factory, and we have the typical factory layout on our visor maps for navigation. The mapping will still work topside. If we blast holes through the factory ceiling from up here, at places where there is a considerable drop below those points, we can toss in our explosives.

“Many of them were going to be set to explode when water depth and pressure was high enough for hydrostatic shock to do more damage anyway. I’d suggest we drop one package down along the outlet pipes where they rise, to fall near the pumps that push water back up to the river. Carson lets the water in, I stop it from being pumped out, and our other explosives go off when the water is deep enough.”

Thad liked what he was hearing. “It’s slower, but that might work. We don’t have to wait for all the Prada to get out and any that are still down there can climb faster than the water will rise. I don’t think we can wait for the water to fill the whole cavity anyway, since that could take more than a day. Carson, take your team with you in a shuttle, and two of the Q-rupters to cut open any grills so you don’t have to blast. Ethan, the factory roof is no more than a hundred feet below ground in most places. We can use more of those drilling tools to help weaken the rock and soil overhead to blast through easier and quickly. Toss in the explosives before the Krall even arrive to see what we did. They’ll think we’re coming in through those holes. We can blow a few holes in other places, just to keep them guessing and moving in the wrong directions. Let’s get started, while our boys are holding them in their holes here.”

Thirty minutes later, with joint coordination, several breeches were simultaneously blown in the factory roof, just as Carson sent several remotely activated bombs and one final timed device for good measure, down with the strong pull of water into the inflow pipes. He was fortunate to have had cables tied around his waist and chest. The current would have sucked him in without two strong sets of Kobani muscles to pull him back against that flow.

Ethan dropped in two sizable explosive packets where the outflow pipes rose up inside the factory. He wasn’t sure now if they would drop all of the way to where the pumps were actually located. There were structural supports possibly in the way of a complete drop to the bottom. Either one of the packets could blast open the pair of three foot diameter lines so that water, if pumped up, would spill right back inside.

Blowing several more holes from the surface permitted dropping more explosives on the upper levels of the factory, where the maps indicated key automated machinery was located. These were set for remote detonation, or to blow sooner if tampered with by anyone. They had brought more explosives than they had expected to need, in case a couple of shuttles were lost on the way down. Now, because they couldn’t go down inside to use all they had brought with them, they either left them behind, carried their weight back to orbit…, or blew something else apart. The choice was obvious.

The charges were set for proximity detonation, and placed near the stair tops just out of view from below. They were daisy chained electronically, so that if one went they all did. No one intended to continue suppressive fire until the last moment and then run for a shuttle or four-ship. They had eight tripod mounted double-barreled heavy plasma rifles, brought with each shuttle in cargo, which could be set for motion detection triggering, or suppressive fire at a specified rate. Instead of letting them traverse, they were locked into one azimuth, the butt elevated from up on the lowest balcony level to aim down into a stairwell and set to start firing when the troopers raced to get outside to their craft. Dillon would activate the remote detonation of the ECM pods as they left atmosphere.

The set up was clever, and almost worked like a charm…, except unexpected company arrived.

Breaking radio silence, Noreen suddenly warned them by narrow beam laser com, “Fast One. Don’t reply and risk revealing your location. A suborbital clanship launched from a dome about fifteen hundred miles west of you. It’s obviously headed your way.

“The ship isn’t under maximum acceleration, so I don’t believe it’s been warned about the raid. Your presence there or all of you lifting off will be a dead giveaway when they see you. You have plenty of anti-ship missiles, but going to an active scan too early will warn them, and you have at least five minutes before the overhead orbiting clanship passes the pole and out of sight. Whatever happens, that guard ship will see a big explosion in atmosphere, or hear a radio call from the inbound craft. Let them come in and prepare to fire at least four missiles when they are so close they have too little time to use laser defense or make counter missile launches. I’m coming down to cover your retreat. I’m hoping without any White Out gamma rays that they’ll be slow to sound an alarm when I’m seen. The Slasher is also standing by for cover fire.”

The mass departure of all hundred thirty-six small craft had been scheduled to happen during another one of the imminent radar coverage shadows, caused by the non-overlapping and repetitive orbits of the two guardian clanships. Even with the final explosions inside the dome ready to “celebrate” their lift off, they couldn’t risk climbing out in the face of a clanship that could pick many of them off even before reaching space, let alone reach the moon.

Dillon, waiting to detonate the ECM pods on departure, had an idea. “Thad, we can try moving all of the ships to the east side of the dome, parked close to its sides among the debris. We may not be noticed there. If that clanship comes in from the west and lands, the ECM will suppress their communications before we launch the missiles.”

“How far out does the suppression work?” They didn’t have much time to plan.

“The pods silenced the dome from about five miles away. Should be the same for the clanship.”

“Colonel Greeves? I may know something about the inbound ship.” His visor told him that it was Fred Saber, a squad leader under Dillon, who had been part of the dome assault group.

“Speak. We don’t have much time Fred.” With a thought to the suit, Thad put him on the link with everyone.

“Sir, I was Tapping a dying warrior when you called us down to help counter the ambush. She was expecting their sub leader to return this morning from a nearby dome. This should be him. I never got a chance to report becau…” Thad made his decision and cut him off.

On the low power general push, Thad gave instructions. “Everyone, stay low but lift to get as close to the east side of the dome to hide as well as possible, the eight shuttles need to get the closest because they will stick out more. Park at angles among or under debris to make a jumbled appearance. Move now!”

The ships, already prepared for liftoff, moved quickly. The fast reaction speed of the TG2 pilots was all that prevented the small ships from banging into one another in their haste.

Feeling like he’d sounded too abrupt with Saber, who had furnished good information, he gave him a responsible task as reward. “Fred that was good work. I want you to choose another four-ship to help you, and one of you move into the debris field on the south side of the dome, one on the north, so you can both cover the approach from the west with your missiles. Be ready to fire if I give the word or if the clanship opens fire, or it suddenly appears about to move away, as if it spotted us. Got it?”

“Yes, Sir!”

Shifting to broader icon coverage with his helmet, and selecting ships rather than personnel, Thad watched on his visor window as Fred’s craft, and one flown by Richard Yang, a former classmate of Fred’s, moved to take up the designated positions. The ship icon movements got a bit confusing as small ships moved to join Dillon in his shuttle, as it parked next to the dome.

They all had moved into their new locations, and all were motionless when the approaching sub orbital clanship’s bright deceleration burn became visible. That’s when they were startled by multiple simultaneous explosions, which shook the ground and blew more fragments flying up from the center of the collapsed dome. The dust was still rising as the center of the broken dome slumped into the huge hole blown into the roof of the underlying factory.

Obviously, at least one Krall pinned down in the stairwells had gotten curious about the strange regularity of the automatic plasma fire and clambered out. Like the proverbial dead cat, his curiosity was now satisfied. He had triggered a proximity detector.

The question now was would the fresh column of dust, and a lack of response from the dome cause the approaching clanship to pull away?

The apparent answer was no, when the clanship continued its approach. Dillon and Thad had sensors that detected an encrypted transmission from the clanship. From Thad’s visor, when he expanded the image, or selected views from other helmets, it was obvious a number of the closely packed smallest ships were now buried under fresh debris. The larger shuttles, sitting closer to the vertical wall of the demolished dome had far less scraps of structure tossed onto them. Thad realized that many of the four-ships would need to be uncovered before they could lift.

Just then, the side walls of the dome on the east side, with no attachments to the center to hold them in place, and leaning outwards from the force of the last blast, slowly leaned and sagged out to drape over five of the eight shuttles. There was no way of telling if the shuttles would have the lifting power to get clear, or could do so without damage.

They had arrived with additional passenger capacity in the smaller ships, in the event some of them suffered damage. Only, they didn’t have as much passenger space as they would need if they had to abandon all of the craft that seemed trapped. The “huddle close to the dome” idea seemed a hell of a lot less brilliant in hindsight.

As the clanship moved more directly overhead it appeared to hover a moment, and Thad was about to order Fred and Richard to fire their missiles, which could lock onto a visually sighted target and alter course to climb up and pursue. It was nearly six miles up, and only slowly descending, as if looking the damage over. There was another brief encrypted transmission, before the thrust backed off and the pilot appeared committed to landing.

****

Droktad was disinterested in the return flight itself. This was not a duty posting that he desired. After a year of fighting on Poldark as a rising status warrior and a promotion, his first sub leader assignment was of leading untested warriors, who only monitored willing slaves. Slaves who were building weapons he wasn’t going to get to use in battle.

This was an unpleasant task, even if a necessary one. Particularly after the humans had displayed completely unexpected capability and initiative in attacking war production facilities. The war leaders had not believed the humans knew of, let alone had the ability to strike those facilities. He wanted more than ever to be back at the war. Sharing rotation time for combat duty with other clan mates was tedious.

He had just been to visit his next level leader, to request permission to join one of the new invasions forces, to escape the lackluster, slow status building position he now held. The cursed human attacks, he was told, made his responsibility to his clan and the Great Path even more vital now. To defend the production of their tools for making war. He selfishly asked if the greater importance of his role in defending this dome would earn him more status points, to enable him to buy his way into combat sooner. The answer was no, and he was returning to spend a full orbit watching his warriors watch workers. His inexperienced force merely waited to defend against an impossible human attack.

His K’Tal pilot was only slowing slightly, intending a typically rapid descent from a suborbital path that would put them over the dome soon. It was the pilot’s comment that drew him away from cleaning his plasma rifle for the hand of hand of hand times. He would wear out the sturdy parts cleaning them well before he wore them out in combat.

“Droktad, something has just happened at the dome. Dust or smoke is rising. There was none seen when we came over the horizon.”

The sub leader rose and tapped his view screen controls, and selected a zoomed image of the approaching destination, presently below and behind them as their main thrusters added its plasma glow to the edge of the image. There was a column of gray and white smoke rising vertically over the site, and he suddenly realized that the structure was far too flat, and even as he watched, and increased magnification, the center of the building sank farther, leaving the sides standing higher than the center. The dome was collapsing into the factory levels below! There was no way from this view that he could tell this was the second round of destruction. To his mind, it must have all happened as they approached.

He selected the ship’s radio on his console, and called on the clan frequency set aside for this dome in an attempt to reach his second in command. “Bolgar, what is the status of the dome? Was there an explosion in the factory?”

There was no answer, and he immediately thought of the subject he’d just been advised was so vital to be prepared for. A human attack. He’d been required, with other sub leaders, to observe recordings and listen (again) to descriptions of tactics used against them by humans in recent raids, and how carefully maintained Krall ambush postures would block the effectiveness of those attacks, should they occur.

He had a clan-approved strategy already in place, and there was no sign of human clanships on the tarmac, or of humans or warriors swarming over the broken down structure, as was the case in the recent raids. The static sounds of plasma rifle discharges would also be apparent if there were fighting, and he had just checked the sensor that could detect if these were happening in large numbers. There were always some static or electrical discharges, which could pass as single plasma bolts, but a raging battle would be full of discharges. At this moment, there seemed to be no more than would be expected if there were electrical shorts in the factory and dome, from the collapse.

They reached a point over the disaster, one he knew he would be blamed for, even if he were not responsible. He had been away from his post when it had happened.

He gave Fangar an order. “Slow our descent. If there are explosions from munitions in the factory, I do not want to land on a place that will collapse beneath us. The factory roof has given away below the dome’s center. I will try to contact the warriors in the factory on an emergency radio frequency.”

He was reluctant to use that widely monitored frequency, because it would be picked up by the orbiting guard ships, and probably by several domes at their present altitude. Not that this catastrophe could be covered up or hidden in any way. He simply wanted to be the first to learn what had happened, so that he could portray himself in the best manner possible, perhaps shifting blame to an underling, or better yet, claim it was a Prada industrial mistake.

Those were exceedingly rare, but had happened in the past. His thinking now followed his preconceived notion that a human raid here was unlikely, and his own precautions had made it impossible for one to be this thorough anyway. Besides, his K’Tal had seen it happen and there was no telltale human presence visible.

He made his broadcast. “This is sub leader Droktad. I observed what appears to be an accidental explosion as we approached for landing. The dome is heavily damaged. Is there any octet leader or warrior that can say what has happened?”

There was no reply, and from the heavy damage, it was possible that confusion and noise was a factor. He motioned to the K’Tal. “Fangar, take us down. Do not land too close to the dome in case there are other explosions, or the roof of the factory settles from the weight above.”

As they sank within range of the ECM pods, the loss of the com light on their communications control panels went unnoticed, what with their attention focused on the jumble of wreckage of the dome and parts lying on the surrounding tarmac. There was an unheard return call to them, from the orbiting clanship nearly over the northern pole, who had replied to the emergency frequency broadcast. Droktad had neglected to describe which dome had suffered damage, and had said it was an accident. This would be a simple matter to remedy, if he had heard and answered that next communication, or realized that he now could not use his radios. The orbiting clanship only knew the transmission came from the northern hemisphere of the planet. Instead of reversing course, it continued its request for more information, because the ship that made the call could be ahead or behind them. The name Droktad, as a sub leader could be tracked down of course, but there was no reason he would refuse to answer an inquiry about an accident he reported, was there?

It wasn’t until the heavy landing jacks were deployed, at the normal altitude of just above a half mile that the mystery of the events below grew considerably clearer to both occupants of the clanship. That was when Thad ordered the two waiting four-ships to launch their anti-ship missiles.

Droktad had his eyes focused on the tableau below, where some oddly smooth shapes were mixed among ragged debris, and seemed clustered more on the opposite side of the tarmac from where they were intending to land. He had just realized that they looked like single ships in form, but he knew the only such small ships available to his warriors at this site were presently in their internal launch tubes, on this very clanship.

Two such smooth forms suddenly fired four missiles at them. Droktad was standing at his console already, and rapidly activated the target decoys. Those sometimes drew missiles away from their original target, provided the incoming seekers on the missiles saw the stronger signal from a decoy when it was still close to the original target, and just slightly diverging away, as was the case here. He also activated the instant-on automated laser defense system, another new tactic ordered for clanship pilots and mission commanders to use.

This defensive procedure was imposed after the human raids had cost them so many undefended ships to missiles, some of which might have been defeated by the automated systems, even if no Krall were able to fire manually. Any true warrior preferred to control their weapons personally, and this seldom-used feature of the weapons suite, designed by the Olt’kitapi, was normally ignored. Those ancients had thought these types of computer systems would protect them from an enemy, but those aliens were all dead at the hands of the Krall, weren’t they? That was taken as evidence that the warrior’s way was best, despite the fact that manual control cost them more warriors in the end, and worse, cost them more clanships.

Control of one of the four high-powered laser cannons was retained by the ship’s commander, who masterfully targeted one of the missiles and fired, all accomplished in less than three seconds. The multiple decoys managed to pull two missiles aside, where they detonated harmlessly via their proximity fuses, as they passed close to the false targets.

The automated defense system used a heavy laser, the only one of those it controlled that could bear on one rapidly approaching rocket, to disable steering on that third missile. As it veered aside, it was cut in half by the computer tracked and controlled laser. The four missiles had not reached their maximum hypervelocity capability in that short a distance, so the automated system had no problem, at least with the sole target it was able to attack.

The incoming missile that Droktad had fired on was grazed and slightly deflected by his defensive beam, making it a pretty darn good shot, for an organic fire control system in such a short reaction time. Except that pretty darn good wasn’t quite good enough, as demonstrated when the warhead detonated against the left inside part of the bottom of the bell mouth of the large thruster nozzle. An automatic engine cutoff prevented the now missing section of the thruster from tipping the clanship over onto its side, from what would have been a horizontal vector of escaping plasma that the attitude thrusters could never have countered. The grazing shot had deflected the missile, and its warhead hit the toughest part of the clanship, the hardened ceramic material that could absorb the near star heat of the exhaust. It saved the lower part of the hull, at the expense of loss of the main thruster, and for such a short hop, they hadn’t left the gravity well to capture a tachyon for use by the Normal Space drive.

Ironically, the automated defense system would probably have claimed that grazed missile as its victim as well, since the laser it was denied the use of was the only one that could have done the job. Droktad’s ego could not relinquish full weapons control to a computer, so the laser that could do the job wasn’t tracking quite as precisely.

As a result, the K’Tal pilot now only had the attitude thrusters, located near the upper part of the clanship, to slow their descent. At least the earlier arbitrary decision to slow the approach briefly, now meant their speed of fall was far less than would have been the case on a typical Krall pilot’s max performance landing. They still hit hard, heavily damaging the landing jacks, and they didn’t rise back on them as the springy actions normally did. The damaged thruster bell shattered as it sank low enough to strike the tarmac, with intensely hot black fragments spinning away. For a moment, tilted slightly, it appeared the ship might fall over, but it stayed upright, with a pronounced list.

The two Krall, knocked to the floor by the landing, could have benefited from the human style acceleration couches that they disdained (again for ego reasons). They sprang to their feet, ready to defend their grounded ship and avenge the loss of the dome, and possibly the factory.

****

Sarge was impressed. “Whoever did the shooting, and deployed the decoys was fast.”

Thad, annoyed he hadn’t called for eight missiles, shook his head. “All of the heavy lasers ports were open simultaneously, but only two fired. I think they may have activated the automated defense system. That has been one of our edges, the use of computers versus their fast reactions. Even now that we personally are faster than they are, computers still act faster. They obviously have learned from their mistakes. I wish I had learned from our successes, and not stayed with the same basic attack plan. They laid a trap for us, expecting us to head down into the factory through the interior stairwells.”

Dillon added his comment. “I don’t think they were expecting the actual landing, or we wouldn’t have made it to atmosphere before they would have been after us. The ECM was a new trick that gave us a slight edge, but they’ll be ready to counter that with land lines soon.”

“Yea, but that’s for the next raid. Let’s dig ourselves out and get away from this one first.”

“Colonel?” it was Fred Saber.

“Yes son?”

“Do you want another four-ship to try to finish the job? Rich and I are out of missiles, but the clanship looks like it can still shoot back.”

“What? Hell, my shuttle is covered up and I can’t see. Is the damn thing still standing? I figured it crashed and fell over.” He had not heard an explosion from the clanship’s reaction fuel, but the tanks didn’t always rupture.

“Yes, Sir. The laser ports are still open and from our external microphones, we picked up the faint high pitch ultrasonic whine of the magnetic coils of the plasma cannons, as they came on-line. The ceramic barrels are heating because I can see a faint IR glow behind those ports, which are still closed.” The TG2 senses were paying dividends. Now what to do?

“No. There’s no point in firing anti-ship missiles from where we’re sitting. We’re all too close for a missile to arm and detonate if we fire. We would need more distance.”

Thad, using his command override, selected a higher power narrow focus radio, by deploying a dish on one of the other shuttles not buried under the collapsed wall. “Noreen, you saw what happened.” It wasn’t a question. He knew she was watching as she came inbound from the moon. “Did the other orbiting clanship turn back?”

“Not yet, but he did try to reply to that broadcast on the same frequency. I don’t think it knew where that came from, and it’s gone around the curvature of the planet. I’ll be down there before the next guardian rounds the southern pole. I can’t even see half of your ships under the crap lying over top of you.”

“I’ll send teams out to uncover what they can. We’ll need you to land for transport of some of us, and then blow up the craft we leave behind. I want you to blow up that tough assed clanship on the tarmac for us. We have plenty of missiles, but they won’t arm and explode at this close range. If I send out a few four-ships to get some distance to fire on him, that clanship will nail them when they move.”

“Right, when I hit atmosphere in five minutes I’ll fire a salvo of five, with more to follow if he knocks those down. Keep your people on the far side of the dome. The explosion will make a big fireball of ragged parts.”

“Will do.” Switching to his low power transmitter, he said, “Fred, Richard, don’t move your ships or that clanship will fire on you for certain. All eight of you climb out and run like hell for cover around the side of the dome. The Avenger will blast that clanship in five minutes, and then a fireball and parts are going to fly. Your suits will hide your movements. Go!”

Both four-ship pilots had kept their three companions linked into the conversation. Without a word, the person in back activated the rear hatch on each craft, and they worked their way out of the tight confines of the reclined seats and into the outside debris. Each nervously checking the large deadly clanship as they made their exit, located only a quarter of a mile away with a clear view of their craft.

****

Droktad now shared weapons control with Fangar. She would operate the Plasma cannons as soon as the plasma reservoirs finished heating. The ceramic barrels were already hot. Unaware of an incoming enemy clanship, they were not actively running a radar scan above them, and so didn’t have any missiles ready. Protecting the sky was what the orbital guardians were expected to be doing. He had not asked himself how these small craft had managed to elude that same protective coverage.

At close range, with the known size of the jumbled support struts from the dome as comparison, the two small ships he could see near the north and south edges of the dome rubble pile were larger than a single ship, but they looked almost exactly like them. They were the source of the four missiles fired at them. A single ship didn’t carry two missiles, and these apparently carried only two each, or else he wouldn’t still be here, wondering who made them. Actually, the “who” wasn’t a valid question, because there was only one enemy he could suspect. It was more one of “how” they had made a larger version of a Krall slave built product. It wasn’t fully two times the volume of a single ship, most likely because a typical human was smaller than a warrior was. He guessed the ship would hold three to five humans, depending on internal equipment and weapons they brought.

He intended to destroy both of them soon, but wanted any crew still inside to think that perhaps the crew or equipment on the clanship was disabled.

It certainly would be out of service if this were a human ship and crew, he thought.

Droktad was learning new things about the enemy. He intended to use patience to see what else these ships and their operators might do. If they showed the slightest sign of lifting, they would be smoking piles of metal in an instant. He had them both targeted for tracking, a talon tip ready to tap the firing command.

A slight movement of debris, several leaps from one of the small ships, instantly caught the stare of his red-pitted eyes. That wasn’t the first time his attention had been so drawn, of course. Pieces of wreckage were still settling on the dome, and wind would move lightweight pieces of fragments. This time, being close to an object of intense interest, he zoomed one screen on the area where he’d seen the motion. There was a repeat of the movement, as a section of strut rotated down for a moment, then lifted again. Just beyond that location, some dust stirred on a nearly flat section of a wide piece of armored glass, splintered from the windows of the dome. A scuffmark appeared in a layer of dust on the clear surface.

He selected one of the lower power lasers, and while it remained off, aimed it towards the scuffmark. As he was watching, the scuff widened and it was paired with a new mark, which appeared a half step to the right. He instantly fired the beam and then, with a talon tip on the targeting screen, made the red beam wander back and forth above the scuffmarks. Imagine his surprised pleasure when scorch marks appeared in the air not only over the section of glass, but in another area almost a leap farther beyond. Two different targets had been revealed, and they started moving very rapidly, in different directions, but the scorched parts remained visible to him.

Droktad put more burn marks on the original target, playing the beam on it for longer. It suddenly seemed to twist and drop into the debris field of scrap metal and plastic, seen only as a few visible burnt marks that were not moving. He played the beam more thoroughly, with pinpoint accuracy all around the whitish and some black sections, which were quickly defined as the form of a biped, of roughly human form and scale, wearing some sort of armor.

The animal had clearly been stealthed to the point of invisibility. Something Krall armor couldn’t fully do, and in his prior experience on Poldark and a hand of other raids, neither did human armor. He tapped the waiting firing command on the main console, and the two heavy lasers ravaged the two small ships. Even they were much more resistant to his beams, deflecting their energy far longer than a single ship would have survived. He now believed the reports of how effective the human raiders had become.

He pulled back his view screen from its tight zoom to look for more of these stealthed humans, and noted with satisfaction that Fangar had watched him, and was already searching.

“Until I damaged the coating on the armor I did not see them at all. Try different detection methods. I didn’t see them in infrared until the suit surface was damaged and burning hot.” Following his own advice, he studied the control range settings for the view screens, which he was aware of, but had never found cause to adjust beyond the visible light or infrared spectrums. He shifted towards ultra violet with no motion or human shapes observed. Fangar, to his annoyance and then reluctant satisfaction, apparently found them!

“I have one.” She blasted it, with her now barely online plasma cannon, operating at minimal energy for that ship-to-ship weapon. He saw where the bolt struck and splattered, at an empty (to him) point in space near the edge of the sagging dome wall to the north. The flying limbs and head from the destroyed suit torso became visible, as the power source for the stealth technology was destroyed.

He couldn’t wait to get such a shot. “How did you see it?” he demanded her to tell him.

Fangar achieved a superior sounding attitude, without crossing the line to insolence. “I moved my talon down the screen scale to where I have looked at radiation from stars in the radio region. A signal frequency that is far below infrared. Closer to the waves we use for communications.” She was a K’Tal, so that perhaps explained her knowledge of what most warriors considered useless information.

He noticed that as his talon tip reached the bottom of his current range scale of electromagnetic frequencies, that meaningless (to him anyway) Krall script numbers appeared beside his tip. When he reached the bottom, below infrared, the scale suddenly changed, with a red dot and the same number where he had been touching, now shifted to the top so he could drag down more. For the first time he realized there were more frequencies that the screens could select than he’d ever needed. There were a huge number of frequencies, and the numbers changed as his talon returned to the top and started down again. He could seek over a much larger frequency range.

“At what number did you find them visible?”

“They are seen in a range between…” and she provided two numbers, one a higher wavelength than the other.

Droktad knew what the numbers were, but they had never had any importance to him. He moved his talon tip down rapidly and saw the number he wanted to reach counting down on the screen, as the lower frequencies were passed, and thus longer wavelengths were indicated. There was another legend at the top that said he was now in a specific radio frequency range. He didn’t care any more about that label than he did runny droppings from his cloaca. Except human armor could be detected in that range.

When he looked at his targeting screen, now that it was set to the proper spectrum, he was dismayed to see it was very dark, with some movements indicated. He couldn’t see how he could direct his lasers accurately if he couldn’t see the target’s surroundings. He told the K’Tal so.

Fangar, in a slightly condescending tone that he wanted to make her regret later, told him how to select and lock-in the upper and lower radio range, then return to visual light frequencies to overlay that signal on the visual light on screen. He did that, just as she confirmed the method when she blasted another suit he saw faintly and only partially outlined on her own screen.

“That one was motionless and hiding behind a large strut.” She added with supreme satisfaction.

It wasn’t hard to accomplish the frequency overlay, and he was quickly looking out at the area on this side of the wreckage in normal light on his screen, with presumably the radio wave data included. He didn’t see anything moving at first. Then, at the south end of the piles of jumbled material, he caught a ghostly outline moving quickly towards the edge of the dome wall curve. A human was making a dash for safety, where it would pass out of his view around the curve.

Proving yet again that the speed of light couldn’t be beaten in a foot race, Droktad claimed his own second victim, as he burned the suit in half at the waist, and it became fully visible in normal light as it fell. The superimposed radio images were mere ghostly outlines, which one had to look at carefully to see them against the richer, color-filled surroundings on his screen. He appreciated the detection that Fangar had made of the hiding human he’d just seen her kill. Nevertheless, he would still give her some unpleasant duty for her disrespectful tone with her sub leader, a moment ago.

They had found and killed four humans, but more could have been held within those two destroyed ships and now would be hiding out there on the cluttered tarmac. There were certainly more of them on the other side of the dome. They had helped destroy the dome he was charged with guarding. He’d seen the shape of more of their ships on the other side before his clanship was shot down. He desperately wanted to kill more of these cursed attackers before the guard clanships figured out what was happening, and finally arrived to finish the task. He knew he faced some unpleasant duty of his own when his sub leader confronted him. This might be his last opportunity to kill humans for a long time.

With a grunt of satisfaction, he detected the shape of a foot, and the top of another human’s helmet, making a fast peek over a particularly massive support node with multiple broken struts protruding. There were two targets there. If he had control of the plasma cannons, he could take them out with a single shot, but he wasn’t giving this shot to Fangar.

The heavy lasers would take longer to get through the node, but two of them could be brought to bear at the same time. He was joyfully (for a normally somber Krall disposition) sighting not only the heavy lasers on the node to flush them out, but setting up two smaller lasers to personally sever the lower legs when they started to run. He’d then kill them slowly, a talon length at a time, by burning off small segments as they squirmed. It had been a year since he’d had human prey to enjoy.

His snort of amusement drew Fangar’s attention, and she knew he had found a choice target. Envy and sadism vied to keep her looking for her own targets, or to relish the slow death he assumed her leader’s snort implied. He tapped the console to trigger the two heavy lasers, centered on the thick and massive support node. It would only require a short time to generate enough heat to force the two humans to run for other cover. He would be waiting.

As it happened, the wait became the remainder of his life! Five undetected anti-ship missiles ended his and Fangar’s hunting pleasure, in an orange and black fireball. One missile happened to blast the command deck level off the top of the clanship, sending it cartwheeling vertically into the sky. This gave them a few seconds, on backup battery power to their screens, to watch as they flipped over, to drop back into the rising orange flames. It was a terrible thing to behold.

****

To Fred, and Jason, hiding with him behind the node, it was a beautiful thing to behold.

They knew they were doomed when the heavy lasers proved they had somehow been seen and targeted. There was no safe retreat from where they crouched. The node, initially the best heavy cover Fred could find when the shooting started picking their companions off, had turned suddenly into a death trap. Now it had become their safe haven again, as flames washed past them, along with flying pieces of clanship.

They looked up as the wind drifted the rising column of black smoke to the northwest, and they could see the Avenger settling tail first, towards the east side of the tarmac. She would be closer to most of the spec ops troops that now needed transportation.

Fred’s visor had reported the grim details to him as two of his own team died and their icons went red. Then he heard from Colonel Greeves about icons that he didn’t have displayed, from Richard Yang’s team. Richard was a victim of the first plasma bolt fired, caught completely in the open, trusting to his stealth capability for protection. Another bolt had caught another member of Richard’s team. The first troop killed, his own teammate Astrid Brandauer, seemed to have been an unlucky case of making her presence known by moving some debris or kicking up dust. At least according to Jason’s account.

She was following behind Jason, and both he and Astrid were hit by what seemed to be random low power laser hits, which damaged a portion of their suit’s stealth coating. Jason, in the lead, managed to escape, but Astrid was singled out for an agonizing, scream filled burning death. She had called for help, but when the beam found her continuously, her radio was left transmitting. It was horrible to hear before she mercifully fell unconscious or, he hoped for her sake, she was dead. The damned Krall had continued to burn the surface of her suit, which retained power and stealth for the undamaged sections. That apparently exploratory burning to see what they had caught, prodded them into somehow finding a way to detect their suits. That was because, in the next three minutes their shooting became extremely precise, rather than a random detection of side effects such as debris movement.

He would pass this information on when they had their after action debriefing, assuming any of them lived to do that. They had to get off this dirt ball before the orbiting clanships caught them on the ground. Jason was limping, but the suit had countered the pain from the burn on his left calf. He helped him hurry around the dome to reach the others. Some of them needed digging out, and some ships would be left behind to self-detonate, he’d heard Colonel Greeves say.

“Hang on everyone,” Dillon warned unnecessarily. He was trying to use a combination of reaction thrusters and Normal Space drive to lift the shuttle enough so that some handy broken struts could be placed under the portion of sidewall that had sagged over the top of five shuttles and a greater number of four-ships. The smaller ships were free of the wall, but in their hollow, they had nowhere to go to get out from under the obstacle. Dillon, in concert with the other five trapped shuttles, was hoping to lift the still continuously connected hundred feet of wall high enough, so that multiple teams of TG2s could brace it with pieces from the dome, and hold it up long enough for the trapped ships to fly out from under it. The troops on foot had to brave the turbulence of the reactions thrusters, as well as doge falling pieces of the structure.

Sarge, outside with those manhandling the longest pieces of scrap struts they could jointly lift, told the five pilots, “Try to hold there as long as you can. We are propping the top edge first, then sticking some in halfway, at the middle sections.”

“Sticking them in halfway? I feel so violated.” Dillon quipped in a falsetto voice. “That’s what all you boys promise.” It brought some humor to a tense moment.

For the most part, the tactic worked. One shuttle was still left trapped, along with three of the four-ships, but their crews could all get out safely. Now that they had seven shuttles free, and most of the four-ships recovered, their plight was clear. The Avenger could only carry four shuttles, and had internal launch tubes for only sixty-four of the four-ships. All of the extra crews would fit inside her, of course. Unfortunately, nearly half of their fleet of small craft would be left behind.

The window of opportunity for a liftoff in the radar coverage gap of the two orbiting guard ships was missed. Waiting for another gap was out of the question. They had been here too long already, and either of those orbiting clanships, or others, could come looking for them at any moment. There had been some sort of encrypted broadcast from the destroyed clanship.

The Slasher was still out by the moon, providing long-range surveillance and added firepower if needed. From there, she probably couldn’t slip in undetected, as Avenger apparently had barely done, using up more luck than they deserved. It would be another hour before the orbital coverage gap would happen again, assuming the two clanships would stay on the same schedule after the emergency frequency transmission. A micro Jump by Slasher would advertise her presence immediately.

Another factor was that there were surely Krall that had survived the big explosion and cave in, and they would be climbing out some place, unless they were trying to stem the flow of water coming inside the factory. More than likely, they would go to the forest village and order Prada down to do that work. If the explosives were not triggered by rising water first.

Noreen had the lower hold portals all open, and while the four-ships slipped into their docking bays, and four of the shuttles did the same, the pilots that had to leave their rides behind set them for remote self-destruct, and via Alyson on the Bridge, linked them to the AI, Karl, for an assured destruction after they were safely aloft.

This process was still underway when Captain Retief broadcast down to them on the general push frequency. Before Noreen even heard her say more than her ship ID, she knew it was bad news.

“This is Slasher. The clanship passing over you has started a deceleration burn. It may have seen the smoke and the destruction there, or heard something from a broadcast sent just a moment ago from another dome. We’ll have to fight our way out I think.”

This warning didn’t really speed boarding, because that was already proceeding as fast as TG2 coordination could make things happen. The shuttles and four-ships had smoothly and swiftly, slipped into the empty bays. Only the pilots that had lingered to set the destruct systems on the abandoned craft were running to leap twenty feet into the open portals. As the last one entered, the portals were slammed shut, and Noreen selected passive tracking for the weapons system, and tied four missile launchers with five missiles in each rack to Alyson’s console.

Noreen was about to tell everyone to grab their socks and hold on, when Slasher broadcast again. “The second clanship, or its first cousin, is coming back over the curve of the northern hemisphere, and clearly coming your way. Somebody else will surely be coming out to the moon to see who the hell is talking in our strange mode of encryption. You start your lift and I’ll be at the outer atmosphere before they know I’m coming. Retief out.”

Noreen warned them. “Lay down now. Max performance lift in one second.”

She was generous and allowed one point five seconds, which is considerably longer feeling to a TG2, at ten times the reaction and thought processing speed of a normal human.

The main thruster and attitude thrusters contributed slightly, but Noreen had retained tachyons in Avengers Traps for the Normal Space drive, which did the real heavy lifting this time. They left a plasma trail in a literal blue streak as the ship rose at close to the TG2 tolerance for this level of g force, limited only by the atmospheric resistance the hull could accept. That was when all of the personnel were in acceleration couches. Almost half were not lying prone in their armor on the deck, and if they survived the next few minutes without destruction, some of them would fly home in a med lab. Otherwise, a med lab would be superfluous.

Unnoticed behind them, the ECM pods went off in minor explosions on top of the wrecked dome, and oddly, the parked fleet of small craft lifted off as well and moved away from the dome. Before the small craft were five hundred feet in the air and a quarter mile away, the ships still trapped under the fallen wall exploded powerfully, as their fusion bottles suddenly ruptured. The already shattered dome hardly suffered any meaningful damage, but more of the ground managed to fall into the factory below.

At an altitude of just under ten miles, Alyson used her suit communications to send a launch command, via Karl, to initiate the high scan rate targeting radar, and to start firing anti-ship missiles as the atmosphere thinned enough they could safely clear the launch ports. At the hull searing passage through the now diminished atmosphere, it wasn’t possible to fire them even a mile lower. The stealth capability of the burned and damaged skin of the leading edges of the hull was ruined, and would have to be replaced. Stealth wasn’t needed now anyway, because there wasn’t a thing sneaky about this departure, and the Krall could see stealthed clanships anyway.

The clanship that had been overhead and decelerating may have thought it was coming to the aid of the supposed accident at that dome, which had mistakenly been declared that by Droktad, and he was never able to correct that error. It wasn’t using high rate target scanning at all, suggesting it had not been expecting to need to launch missiles as it flew a possible rescue mission, and it needed a few more seconds to get ready, which it didn’t have.

Its commander or pilot activated their instant-on automated defense system, and it spewed targeting decoys, and started firing lasers as Avenger’s eight hypersonic missiles used the twenty miles to build velocity. Another four missiles were launched after a brief few second delay, when Alyson recalled how the previous clanship had nearly survived four short-range shots, with even less time to react.

Next, an event that sealed the descending clanship’s fate occurred. A gamma ray burst flared above them, only a hundred ten miles above the planet and less than thirty miles above the clanship. Slasher came out swinging. She quickly launched a stream of ten missiles, five at the clanship below her, and five in the general direction of the much farther away second clanship. That particular distant opponent had seen Avenger’s hostile actions, and had just fired a hand of missiles towards her, but at five hundred miles of separation, Avenger wasn’t at great risk from them. She and Slasher would both be able to Jump before those threats drew near. It was that nearby clanship that Avenger had to get past.

The closer clanship, caught between Avenger and Slasher, couldn’t defend effectively from heavy attacks from two directions, dividing its laser fire, and two of Avengers missiles struck home. One aft, and one at midship, and it blossomed into an orange and black lumpy bubble of fire, nevertheless a thing of beauty to the human ships. Their extra missiles, of no danger to the two human ships designated as “friendlies,” were redirected towards the second clanship, in the event they could cover that distance before being destroyed.

It was Avenger and Slasher against a single clanship, which was a bit too far away to be a threat. Even though there were launches seen from tarmacs at several domes, initiated after the fighting just witnessed had started, they would be too late to join this battle. Slasher was high enough to Jump again right now, and Avenger would join her in less than a minute.

That was when the Krall commander in the second clanship reacted as they sometimes did, for “Path and Clan.”

The Slasher was positioned just above the atmosphere, relatively motionless after her micro Jump from behind that moon, and the Avenger, within the upper reaches of atmosphere, was deviating around the spreading pieces of the exploded clanship she’d killed, and was a screeching fast and accelerating target to the approaching distant clanship. One that was too difficult to predict manually.

The unexpected micro Jump, now termed an “intersect maneuver” by the PU navy, had no known defense. The Krall clanship winked out of this Universe, and before the light from that event could arrive (therefore, even computer reaction speeds did not matter), it reappeared within part of the volume of the Universe occupied by Slasher!

The resulting staggering blue-white blast was only survived by Avenger because there was no concussion in a vacuum to transmit the force of the relatively nearby nuclear force detonation. There were no damaging radiation effects to worry about, which the ship’s hull might have protected the crew from in any case, at a distance of seven miles. The larger high velocity fragments could have penetrated and shredded Avenger’s hull had it not deviated earlier, going around the previously blown up clanship fragments. Noreen had naturally chosen the direction away from the second clanship’s missiles, and coincidentally farther away from Slasher. As it was, the sleet of the fastest fine particles of both friend and foe peppered and pitted her upper hull, as she barely slipped past the more dangerous large fragments.

Operation Fast One had become a costly success, and not as fast or so slick as planned. The underwater explosions in the factory happened a few hours later, as flooding reached the detonation sensors. At least that all-important goal was achieved, as a return on the lives invested in its destruction.

As a sidelight, where Alyson would never have confirmation, she would be pleased at the results from her last moment instructions to Karl. When she was about to release the AI to destroy the small ships they were forced to abandon, she had a moment of inspiration. She remembered how the AI had remotely flown a single ship down to the surface of Heavyside when they were there. This time, the AI was also instructed to program each of the flight capable ships to fly somewhere, providing them with navigational coordinates of an alternate target dome on the northern hemisphere of the planet. This was where production of other war material was conducted. The small craft were all sent at ground hugging altitudes, like ancient cruise missiles, set to fly into the dome and detonate their fusion bottles. They might not totally knock out the underground factory, but it was a good use of the sacrificed small ships to slow production there.

Mission completed, the Avenger entered a Jump Hole a hundred fifty miles up, and she limped home by a devious route, to foil possible attempts to trace the direction of her travel. Today, the majority of the raiders went home, with some very painful exceptions. The equipment lost also hurt the Kobani efforts, particularly the Slasher. In sharp contrast to the Krall, material was far less important to humans than their people were. Koban and Haven had a small production base, so replacing the material would take months, but valiant friends could never be replaced.

Chapter 2: Plots in Layers

Mirikami listened to the last of the informal After Action Reports, from Noreen, Dillon, Thad, Sarge, and various team leads of the assault elements. The process wasn’t as formal and thorough as the late Colonel Trakenburg would have expected, but for the Kobani, it was clear that they had mistakenly assumed the Krall would display the same sort of inertia on their own defense methods, as the aliens had displayed over many years of offensive attacks made in Human Space.

In twenty-two years of raids, and two planetary invasions, the Krall had largely stayed with tactics that had worked before, introducing changes or new equipment only when humans did, after a period of lagging behind them, often by nearly a year. This maintained rough parity with their foe’s ability to fight them. By design, it was always the skill and superior physical ability of a Krall warrior that provided them with the edge. This was exactly what they wanted, for selecting the best physical warriors for breeding.

Even so, the surprise attacks against their rear area supply and manufacturing sources didn’t provide them with the same breeding potential advantages, at least not from the culling effect of most of those surviving warriors. Fewer of the Krall in the rear areas were elite, high status warriors considered worthy of breeding.

That lower status was often why those warriors were away from the battlefronts, or perhaps they had returned to a clan world only to quickly breed, and then leave lesser warriors to train and cull the hatchlings. The recent human attacks not only didn’t provide for selecting the best warriors out of their rear areas, they had damaged speed of the selection processes at the kill boundaries of the invasion on Poldark. This happened because of the decreasing frequency and scale of the Krall attacks, in turn caused by their supply issues. The goal of conducting invasions on two other human worlds was made more complex for the same reason. The Krall demonstrated that they could adapt quicker on the defensive side, if properly motivated.

Mirikami was kicking himself, thinking the Krall’s quicker reaction in defending their worlds should have been anticipated. “We lost forty three people of the six hundred twenty eight that we sent, and lost half of our assault ships, including the Slasher. I should have considered this possible Krall quick reaction. Four of our ships should have provided the protective cover that Slasher died providing. We were lucky not to have lost the entire force.”

Not in full agreement, Thad countered Tet’s bleaker picture. “I’d actually rate Operation Fast One as a qualified success. We adjusted, and took down two factories and their domes. Despite the Krall being prepared for our style of attack, we still caught them off guard, and got the job done with new technology, and ingenuity.”

Shaking his head, Mirikami knew their next raids would be even harder. “The Krall will react to our radio jamming technology with landlines, which we can’t switch off with ECM gear. They’ll post more warriors in the factories, and establish better monitoring of approaches to their planets. The Prada will be told to build better flood protection for the factories. They were unprepared for how we ruptured the water coolant lines, by entering them from the outside this time. They won’t be the next time.”

Mirikami looked at Captain Longstreet, who had been researching an apparent Krall technological solution to their armored suit’s invisibility, which a pair of Krall had somehow managed to discover from their crashed clanship. “Joe did you figure out how they were able to see our suits on their screens?”

“Yes, Sir. I had previously noticed something a few months ago, on the raid when we stole the eleven clanships. On one of those I boarded, when I looked through my own helmet visor at a view screen on the clanship we were stealing, I could faintly see our stealthed people moving on the tarmac below. They had the same ghostly silhouette image as we see when we look directly at them with our visors active. That meant the clanship view screen was able to relay some form of radiation from our suits, which was invisible to the naked eye, but which my visor detected second hand.

“With the help of your AI, Jakob, and some volunteers, I was able to go through all the view screen frequencies until my naked eye saw faint shadows moving on a dark background. That was when I was using radio frequencies, much longer wavelength than infrared. Jakob then knew how to select that faint radio frequency background, and combined it with a visible light image of the same scene. Even without my visor, I could see faint stealthed armor outlines on the view screen. Further testing revealed it has a limited practical detection range, because the faint images fade out quickly with distance, and at nearly one mile, I couldn’t see them at all. Jakob could still detect the motion of stealthed armor for another quarter of a mile. This means we can’t count on total invisibility anymore, particularly not from a clanship, once the Krall figure out we’re there.”

Mirikami nodded, with a grim expression. “That’s how we lost those four boys, thinking they could simply walk away unseen from their four-ships. Those two Krall died without being able to tell anyone about this, but if that crew figured it out, others will. Our stealth is still better than we ever had before, even if not perfect when fairly close to a clanship. We need to try something different now anyway than these type raids, to keep them off balance.” He put a finger on his lower lip.

Noreen saw the signs, “I know you aren’t proposing we stop hitting them, Tet. What’s your alternative? I see the lip rubbing going on there. It isn’t a lip tug, so it isn’t what you really want to do, but you have something in mind.” She smiled as he grimaced, realizing his simple gestures gave his thought processes away. He’d have to watch that at their weekly poker games.

Shaking off his poker tell lapse, he nodded and said, “I think we have to work on reducing the number of clanships they possess now, and hitting the supply caches they already have, at a time when they can’t replace the equipment at the front lines quickly. Without the migration ships, it’s slower for them to shift large quantities of weapons systems from their more distant worlds. If they can’t be as wasteful as they normally are with equipment it might curtail some of their aggression, and led some clans into reckless moves despite the lack of material support. ”

Noreen sensed where he was leading. “Sounds like you might mean orbital strikes on equipment stockpiles and parked clanships, instead of attacking where they build them. We decided previously that this would take a much larger force than we personally can muster, at least for a planetary scale bombardment. We’re down to a baker’s dozen of ships, and our craft have no better defense or offense than any Krall operated clanship has, except for the higher accelerations we can tolerate, of course. That isn’t much of an edge against their higher numbers, unless we gain some additional advantage.”

Mirikami grinned. “I wasn’t thinking of using only our ships, although I want to work on sneaking onto remote clan worlds and stealing more ships. We do need greater numbers than what we can capture for what I’d like to do, and only the PU Navy has the ships. We have only one point of contact with real influence in the high ranks of PU military.” He shrugged.

Thad provided the name they all thought of, “Henry Nabarone.”

“Yes. We owe General Nabarone a visit anyway, to provide him with the gene mods we promised. We can offer him some help on Poldark fighting in exchange for a favor he will find very distasteful. I think we probably have stirred a hornet’s nest for him with the Krall, because they want to punish humans somewhere, and Poldark is where they can apply the most force right away. We should go talk to him, and convince him that it’s time he mended his fences with the Lady Admirals of the PU Navy, and to suck up to them for a change.”

****

Turning to a runner, Kanpardi ordered him to go to the Joint Council chambers, “Find Telour, and tell him I want him to report here to me, as soon as possible.”

It would demonstrate a lack of respect to the gathered clan leaders to contact his subordinate by a com call when he might be in a negotiation with one or more of them. The runner would know to wait for a pause to step forward. All the same, it was to interrupt Telour’s string of discussions that Kanpardi wanted him away from the Joint Council hall.

Tor Gatrol Kanpardi was beginning to lose patience with his most promising protégé. He had other intelligent and high status warriors that showed greater support for his own decisions. He had promoted Telour to Til Gatrol, making him second in command of the Krall war leadership, only after he had cleverly offered to combine a mission to increase clanship production by their own Graka clan, with a personal side trip to humiliate a former mutual enemy of theirs, Parkoda from Tanga clan.

The subtle maneuvering Telour performed then, to generate that mission, was seen by Kanpardi as an example of manipulation and misdirection, a trait that Kanpardi believed could be used against humanity. He thought the ability would help Telour recognize when humans were engaged in strategic misdirection. Relatively few Krall presently in leadership positions had this ability. Scream and charge was the time honored preferred, and most noble method of attack, with deception and trickery considered somehow less effective.

More of the novices entering combat this year had been hatched from unions of males and females who had demonstrated a flair for original thought, and had avoided some of the rampant human deceptions that led brash warriors blindly into ambushes. The first step in mastering use of such tactics yourself was to recognize them when used against you. This selection process might take another hundred years of selective breeding, or even two hundred.

The average Krall warrior would definitely be improved when this war ended. Kanpardi could see this big, long-term picture clearly, but Telour had a more narrow view at present, centered on his own interests.

Telour’s pride had been bruised by the Human attack on Graka clan’s shipyards, initiated literally on Telour’s heels the day he departed that world. The loss of status to the clan, from failing to fight off that attack, had felt personal to Telour because he had just departed. That perceived stigma was pushing him to demand harsher, more wasteful punitive actions against the most worthy enemy the Krall had yet encountered.

Wasteful, because Kanpardi knew that the Krall war capability was only temporarily slowed. Telour wanted to eliminate entire human planets in punishment for his loss of status, thus losing the war potential on those worlds for future decades of ground fighting. Telour was lobbying the Joint Council right now, to urge them to vote to destroy multiple heavily populated human worlds. Those same targets could be used to cull millions of warriors less suited for a smarter form of warfare, if the planets were spared now. The loss of such resources, without some offsetting compensation was inefficient! The death of billions of animals was inconsequential in his mind. The humans were going to die anyway. Their more useful deaths were the proper choice to be made.

Telour arrived perhaps thirty minutes later, not an obvious or unreasonable delay if he had been engaged in discussion with a high status clan leader, but the length of time struck Kanpardi as bordering on disrespectful to his superior.

“My Tor, the runner claimed you wished to speak with me.”

Claimed I wanted to speak to him. Kanpardi thought in annoyance.

“A runner would not appear inside the hall to retrieve you on a pretext. Of course, I sent him to summon you. I have a mission.”

He was sure now that he wanted to get Telour away from the council members and off this base world, K1, doing something that promoted Kanpardi’s strategy, and block Telour’s lobbying effort for his own agenda.

“I am ready my Tor. Where will I go?” This was really the only reply open to Telour.

“You will go to Poldark, to meet with Gatlek Pendor, and order him to press attacks on all fronts against the humans. They are to be pushed back rapidly, so that when we pause to regroup, they are unable to take advantage of the lull. I want this done within a month.

“Then while we pause, I will send many of our reserve clanships from here, on K1. Half of our warrior forces on Poldark will board them, taking some of our weapons systems with them. I will take one third each of the mini tanks, artillery laser defenses, plasma batteries, heavy armored transports, rocket launchers, and mobile counter battery artillery.”

Telour knew exactly what the purpose was, but he wanted it stated for clarity, to place the responsibility squarely on Kanpardi, “Gatlek Pendor is of Mordo clan, and the clan leaders will want to know why their highest status war leader is being denied so many warriors and material for the invasion force he leads.”

Kanpardi turned the tables on his subordinate. “You sat in the Joint Council with me when I outlined my strategy to widen the war, to invade two other human planets. Prove you were alert and listening. What will you tell Pendor when he asks what I will do with the forces I will remove from his control?” This was a rebuke, asking Telour to prove he had been alert, and it forced him to describe his leader’s plans. There would be no room for maneuver and duplicity after this.

“My Tor, your plan is to remove one third of the war material and one half of the warriors from Poldark, to send them to the world humans call New Dublin, to invade this Rim world, which became a New Colony after our war started. It has nearly the same population as Poldark, but only a small force of a hundred thousand human soldiers for defense. The planet is half way around the volume of human controlled space, on the galactic core side, and you have permitted only a few raids there, to make the invasion less expected.

“The second part of your plan is to gather clanships and material from here on K1, and from many clan worlds deep in our territory, to mount a second, and larger permanent invasion of New Glasgow. This is one of their Old Colony worlds, with a large population and a well-developed infrastructure. It has been scouted but never raided, and as one of their Hub worlds, it is not considered at risk on an invasion. There are only ten thousand soldiers there, all at a base near the largest compound, or city, on that planet.

“With little reason to expect us to increase the number of invasions, combined with our increase in offensive actions on Poldark, you expect to draw many of their reserves away. You believe both of the unexpected invasions will have early and rapid success, and achieve a secure talon hold on those worlds.” He paused, struggling to conceal resentment from his words.

“That is the overall proposal, as I recall it, my Tor. If you wish to test my detailed knowledge, I can report on the specific clans that will be entirely redirected from Poldark to New Dublin, and the clans that will support the invasion of New Glasgow. I also know what percentage of our reserve war materials will be sent with each new invasion force.”

Kanpardi made a negative shake of his shoulder. “A detailed report is not required, Telour. I needed to be certain that you remembered the goals I have set for punishing the humans for their surprise attacks in our rear. The new invasions will demonstrate we have not been weakened, and that they will suffer for their mistaken strategy.”

He was careful to acknowledge Telour’s position as a high status warrior. “You have a right to speak to other clans of other tactics, but in the process, you have been less forceful in explaining the plan I proposed. You can confirm the wisdom of my selecting you as Til Gatrol, by presenting my plans to Gatlek Pendor directly, on Poldark.”

Kanpardi took satisfaction from the brief ripple of Telour’s lips, as he was forced to hold back his personal objections to the more conservative route chosen by his superior to punish humans. To be sent to Poldark, ordered to explain the plan to the third ranking Krall war leader of another major clan, the plan thus became Telour’s own benchmark for success in the minds of other clans.

Telour would be forced into support for his superior’s plans afterwards, because he would undermine himself if he continued to press for an alternative punishment for humanity. He had been lobbying for destroying one or more human Hub worlds. This would clearly be a redundant and inefficient action to take in the face of increased successful invasions. According to Kanpardi’s argument, the least punitive plan was the least wasteful for the Krall’s long-range goals and made the best use of all resources, until the previous war production levels were restored.

“I will organize my mission’s departure for daybreak tomorrow, my Tor.”

He hoped for a half-day’s delay, to complete a discussion with Mordo clan’s leader, the clan affiliation of Gatlek Pendor. He wanted to set the stage in the Joint Council for possibly replacing Kanpardi in the near future, if he could plant the seeds now. It was not to be. Kanpardi was skilled at interclan politics and rivalry.

“That is not necessary. While I waited so long for you to arrive, I had ample time to arrange transport for you, as the commander of a hand of clanships. These will assure an aggressive penetration through Poldark’s space defenses. The commanders of each of the three other clanships under you are high status warriors, leaders that know of my plans. Any of them may serve as your alternate, if your ship, or some of theirs, are unfortunate targets of a successful human defense. You leave immediately.”

Kanpardi had arranged for enough redundancy in the mission that his message was sure to be delivered and obeyed, without allowing Telour an opportunity to scheme before leaving. The fact that Kanpardi appreciated Telour’s ability for subtlety and manipulation didn’t mean that Kanpardi didn’t share that trait. It was how he rose to his current position, after all.

Telour ran with his waiting escort of crewmates to the tarmac, to take command of the small flotilla. He didn’t consciously think of the repercussions of what he planned, because he was so self-assured of the correctness and necessity of his decisions. There were less direct ways to take the place of your superior. Something besides political machinations or an arranged pretext for a justifiable death match challenge. Few Krall would consider this course honorable, Kanpardi among them. Fewer still had been selected by their superior exactly because they possessed such a mindset. Gatlek Pendor’s own ambitions would be the key.

****

“Chief, I want the Falcon to go with me to Poldark, but as a passive tow by the Mark. The White Out of our combined masses near a gas giant will be noticed, but we won’t have the gamma ray signature of a Krall clanship, and draw less attention. I’ll transfer to the Falcon and you can then Jump in closer, to their moon’s orbit, and make the radio request for entry, flashing the same code from General Nabarone that you normally use to bypass levels of security, and customs. The Mark will cruise in closer but stay stealthed until I call for her, or meet her in orbit with a loaner ship.”

Chief Haveram had decided he liked running the Falcon, and had remained as her Captain. He made frequent Jumps into Human Space; always Rim worlds thus far, to make purchases, convert precious metals into hard Hub currency or credit, and make deals for off-the-book deliveries of equipment suitable for a developing colony. This way, there were no questions to answer about where the goods and equipment was going. It wasn’t illegal merchandise, but it would be a source of curiosity, and sometimes it required dealings with shady characters, who may have “acquired” their “legal” goods in a way that questions were discouraged from buyers. It could be dangerous work, which a rejuvenated old fart like Haveram was eager to do. Just like the dangerous deals a youngster, which he now resembled, might chose to risk. His demonstrated experience, yet apparent youth, seemed at odds with the people he dealt with, and his speed and strength when a deal went sour, made him someone a double crosser didn’t forget, if they survived the lesson.

“This is only my fourth trip to Poldark, Tet. Aside from delivering you and the ‘gene team’ to see Nabarone, am I picking up any more Spec ops people there this time? Or returning any to Poldark from here?”

On his last trip to Poldark, Haveram had picked up nearly forty volunteer troops to take back to Koban, to become dual citizens and to receive their first gene mods. He knew some of those men had been talking about going back to Human Space soon. They were chatting up the “Ladies” in the new nightspot and dance club, which the true military types congregated at in the evenings, in the basement under Koban Prime, where an abandoned Krall factory had its former administrative offices available for use. The bar was called Rippers Roost.

It wasn’t full of the loose talk of drunken men, although they tried to make it so. They were learning that their new metabolism made it difficult to absorb alcohol quickly enough to get really buzzed, let alone sloppy drunk, although there were some majestic efforts. The local uncontracted women, many having recently been rejuvenated to their mid-twenties, were starved for new male faces and news of Human Space. They spent time making the genuinely young troopers feel very welcome.

The notions of male sperm rights and marriage contracts, in a world outside the rules and customs of the Hub, were essentially ignored here, as was the formalized and subservient male gender roles still displayed in much of Human Space, particularly on the inner Hub worlds. Men here, and increasingly on Rim worlds, were now considered social equals. The trend was working its way into New Colonies, as they added military outposts, which despite open recruiting for all genders, was three quarters male in composition.

Mirikami had predicted that when the Kobani mods became widespread, that there would likely be more of a female presence in the military. On Koban, almost forty percent of his raiders were female, and increasing in numbers as the older women gave into the temptations of gene mods, rejuvenation, and the feeling of youth and strength they gained.

There were only ten percent more women on Koban than males. This minor gender imbalance seemed to make women less sexually aggressive than on Hub worlds, where they generally outnumbered men by nearly thirty percent. Perhaps a greater male availability was the reason. Male populations had nearly rebounded from the Gene War catastrophe, but on Koban women had fared worse. Males were still considered the socially “protected” gender on Hub worlds, but less so on Rim worlds, and not at all on Poldark or in the Army.

In the era on Koban when the Krall were testing humans for combat, women on average died more frequently when compared to men. As the assumed leaders by the captives themselves, women were initially selected for combat testing more often than the men were, and test candidates rarely returned. After the Krall left, and over a twenty-two year period, the gender ratio drew closer to even as women still died more often than did men. Attempts at childbirth without gene mods to make it possible in the high gravity caused some losses.

“Chief,” Mirikami said. Haveram preferred that old rank title as if it were his name, over Mike or Captain. “I’m taking ten spec ops back to Poldark with me, and you will deliver another ten of them to Heavyside when you leave Poldark. We will also carry three more of Rafe’s gene technicians, to help teach the medical people on Heavyside how to improve their technique, and adapt the nanites we use to better work with the biomechanical implants that spec ops troops already have.”

“To work with the internal AI they each carry, you mean?”

“That, and they want to keep the eye implants that give them the retinal image projections and slightly better Infrared vision than you and I have. We still have superior low light vision, just as the rippers have for night hunts. Their bio scientists and technicians decided that our wolfbat genes are better than their ultrasonic earpieces, even when those are linked to the AI, because of the superior mental organization our hearing genes induce. You heard about Maggi’s discovery about mental audio maps?”

“I was off-planet for her escapade. I heard we are able to build some sort of a mental map of the surrounding area, just using ultra sonic sounds. I didn’t get how that worked, and I certainly haven’t tried it. I don’t want the source of the thousands of Krall sounds she had to use to build an audio image to get anywhere near my butt. Not even in bright daylight, let alone in total darkness. How did that work?”

“I won’t go into the long story, but she was underground in a dead factory under an abandoned dome on our island of New Australia. She was in pitch-black conditions, and discovered that when her eyes were useless, her mind used ambient sounds to construct a mental image of surroundings, similar to how wolfbats do that. The higher frequency the sounds were, the sharper the image. Spec ops wants that ability now they’ve heard her story, and they will carry high frequency sound emitter spy bots, which can scurry off into dark places to make sounds that give them a mental picture of what’s there. For humans with our wolfbat genes, the ability works best in enclosed spaces, unlike the wolfbat’s ability to do active echo location as they fly outside.”

“I brought more spec ops here From Poldark my last trip. Why shouldn’t all the Heavyside graduates come here to get any of the mods?”

“Chief, if the Krall found us living here on Koban and Haven, who would be left alive to continue the Kobani mods? We need the Heavyside group as a backup, to prevent loss of our technology.”

“Yea, well we better not let that happen. This is home to me now, even if I spend most of my time off procuring stuff to make it a better place to live. Eventually, I expect to actually live here when I’m not traveling, now that I have my mods. To give me a break from some of that travel, we need to get Raven fixed for Jumps. She has fifty times the Falcon’s volume, and we need more material for Haven than I can haul. Half of the Prime City folks want to move over there now, if they had housing and comforts.”

The Raven was a former large passenger Jump ship, captured by the Krall and left in an orbit around Koban’s moon. Refurbishment of the damaged ship had slowed after the capture of additional clanships. Just like the Falcon, it would be able to White Out near a planet in Human Space and not trigger an automatic defensive response. The Raven was large. Not as huge as a Torki migration ship, but that alien design couldn’t be taken to human planets either. Not without sparking intense interest as a type of ship known to be used by the Krall.

“One step at a time Chief. It’s hard to fight a war and build two colony worlds at the same time.”

“I know, I know. So, I’ll deliver some gene technicians to Heavyside, with ten spec ops samples of our work, right?” It was a necessary job, but he felt like a bus driver doing that. Chief Haveram had found his true aptitude in dealing with the port scum and underworld gangsters on poorly regulated Rim planets, when he procured the things Koban and Haven needed on the black market.

Mirikami knew his former Drive Room Chief well, and smiled at his impatience to get back to the dangerous space ports he now frequented. “This is necessary Mike. The newly gene modified troopers on Heavyside will require training instructors that can keep pace with them, and they have to build a separate, tougher obstacle course at a new advanced training base, which will actually present a physical challenge to the fledgling TGs. Those final tier graduates will complete training quickly, and then will come here to Koban after graduation. They won’t receive the contact telepathy mods before arriving here. Their instructors will secretly already have that mod of course, and will vet which of the candidates appear ready to handle that responsibility.”

“Can’t they do that mod on Heavyside as well?”

“Probably, but I don’t want that. We are offering them Koban citizenship, along with becoming a Kobani. They need to see what the true home of the Kobani is like, and where their non-human genes originated. Heavyside offers nothing but 1.41 times Earth’s gravity to test them. I want them to see and mingle with rippers and wolfbats, to go on a rhinolo hunt, see whiteraptors stalking prey, observe our dinosaurs on Jura continent, and even those goofy moosetodons and smelly yaks. Discovering the place where your genes have designed you to live will, I believe, make Koban their home in their heart, or at least make it a second home.”

“Well the Falcon is ready to go when you say, Sir.”

“Rafe’s technicians have prepared the viral injectors on a med lab that we’ll place aboard your ship. It already has Henry’s biometrics programed into it for him, assuming he didn’t put on any more weight. The refrigerated vials are in a portable case, and the twenty spec ops have their duffels packed. I’m ready to launch in two hours. We can meet in orbit for the tow.

“The Mark has more room, so most everyone will be staying there for the Jump. With the Falcon docked with us, you can sleep in your own bunk and cross over when you feel ready to lose at poker for the eight nights we’ll be in the Hole.”

“Is Thad going?”

“Yes indeed. He wants to harass Henry when he climbs in the med lab.”

“Then I’ll play poker with you each night. He’ll make up for any losses I have with you if you get lucky. I hope ‘momma’ didn’t take away his poker allowance.”

The comment about Marlyn limiting Thad’s poker money was a running joke. In reality, the only people Thad seemed to lose with regularly were Tet and Sarge, and sometimes Haveram. It was a low stakes friendly game anyway, and Thad’s tells grew more obvious the more relaxed he was and having fun. They always made sure he had fun.

****

The Jump to Poldark was tedious for Telour, even though he mentally rehearsed his presentation for the Mordo clan war leader, Pendor. The offer of a specific reward, and Pendor’s expected means of repayment were each designed to tempt the Gatlek. Telour had observers placed on the staff in the Gatlek’s bunker complex, and knew that he craved a role in initiating a larger invasion on a new planet, with the challenge of establishing a foothold in virgin enemy territory. That sort of achievement was an opportunity for earning a place in the histories by name, and not just for your clan.

Telour, satisfied with the inducements he would offer, guarded by the blackmail protections he built into the plan, he joined his clan mates for the Krall equivalent of war stories.

Sharing battle stories, strategies and tactics, and bragging about when and where their status points were earned, comprised almost half of a Krall’s conversation with a non-clan member. Repeating favorite passages from the Krall histories, particularly of one’s own clan was another.

In private, with one’s clan mates, internal politics was a common topic, and snorting stories of inept combat performances, or amusing deaths observed of warriors from other clans were entertaining. Telour was adept at grasping bits, pieces, and threads of discontent, by bringing up subjects he wanted to gain a sense of how sore a particular subject was with other leaders and sub leaders. He was convinced that the majority of his clan, and of many others, were of the “scream and charge” persuasion, concerning punishing humans for their recent audacity in attacking their production worlds.

Personally, Telour was not a proponent of that method of retaliation, but he knew it was popular. He could use that feeling to his advantage, if a particular roadblock to his rise to power were removed. Use what the majority wanted to do as a means to gain his desired results.

He joined in with his underlings, feeling them out, and sharing tales of human kills and of unique and unusual methods of dispatching a human, which were satisfying, and educational. After all you couldn’t clean your weapons, exercise, and sharpen talons and teeth all of the time.

The general dissatisfaction, sensed vaguely even among the Tor Gatrol’s supporters, convinced him his goal was achievable. He was eager for the White Out, to arrive at Poldark and turn his ambitious new plan into action. It would make his repeatedly outwitting Parkoda seem like the work of a novice. His opponent this time was surely more formidable than that dead Tanga clan sub leader. He was looking forward to his victory and even a respectable and honorable death if he failed.

****

The Mark of Koban made its White Out a couple of hundred thousand miles from Bezel, a Saturn sized, lightly ringed gas giant planet in the Poldark system.

Mirikami joined Captain Haveram on the Falcon’s smaller Bridge, accompanied by Thad Greeves. The ten spec ops TG2’s, assigned to lead infiltration teams on Poldark, stowed their gear and flopped down on what was to them luxurious acceleration couches on the Falcon. One thing could be said when traveling as a Kobani, a semi civilian fighting force. You were treated much better than human cargo when on a PU Navy transport. Both groups offered good food, however the exotic rhinolo, yak, and moosetodon steaks had a wild allure the navy couldn’t possibly match.

The medical technicians, TG2’s themselves, were nevertheless intimidated by the casual acceptance of violence by the soldiers. They gained Mind Tap knowledge of many people’s combat experiences, including some of the spec ops, but by inclination science and technology was their expression of control over the Universe. No matter that they were physically capable of kicking the ass of any Normal they met, it would not occur to them to test that theory unless provoked.

Mind Taps had improved the technician’s knowledge of the details of genetic manipulation, and the rapid access to retrieve efficiently stored data made them seem much brighter than average. It was a bit like smoke and mirrors. A matter of perception.

Original thought and flashes of sudden insight were still more prevalent from the minds of trained scientists than that of the average Kobani. Not that any TG2 couldn’t display sparks of seeming genius at times, in areas where they had specialized knowledge. Such as a technician, suddenly figuring out what was wrong with a complex piece of equipment, based on their knowledge of how it normally worked, and what it did or didn’t do when it malfunctioned. They pulled in recollections of trouble shooting manuals they had read and solved the problem sooner.

A scientist that knew what a piece of equipment did wouldn’t necessarily know how it did what it did, or be able to repair it quickly. Nor did they need to know. Many Normals had a tendency to see any TG2 as almost a genius at times, confusing quick retrieval of large volumes of stored data with the ability to comprehend and innovate using that data, to discover something new and previously unknown.

The Falcon uncoupled, moved away from the Mark a safe distance, and performed a micro Jump inwards towards Poldark. Immediately on White Out, the Falcon was positioned in a heavily protected position in the the Lagrange orbital point, called L1, between Poldark and its fortified moon. This was the designated arrival area for civil transports destined for landing on Poldark.

They were under the guns, so to speak, of the planetary defense forces, but also had some concentrated protection from attacks by clanships here. There were rail guns and missile platforms trained on this region and others that were aimed outwards. You had better be “friendly” if you made your exit from a Jump here, and if you were, you had increased protection from passing clanships that could be departing from or landing at the ever-growing conquered territory on the surface.

Haveram emerged with his recognition codes broadcasting, identifying the ship as having a special exempt status granted by the planetary commander of the PU Army. That didn’t mean they were exempt from a close up inspection by a heavy navy cruiser. It launched three armed auxiliaries to circle them closely, and Haveram had to provide a video feed of his Bridge, and send his live retinal pattern, which was on file as belonging to the owner/operator of the Falcon. Without the retinal pattern, they would be subject to an inspection team coming aboard. Instead, they were allowed to move over to one side of L1, waiting for someone from General Nabarone’s staff to vouch for them, and to designate or approve a specific landing area.

To the surprise of the captain of the cruiser, and the lunar base watch stander, the approving authority proved to be General Nabarone himself.

“Good evening Captain Haveram. I presume you wish to land at…,” he broke off as he saw Tet and Thad in the background. He’d been about to approve Haveram’s landing at a civilian port, which the Falcon had used previously.

“Ah…, on second thought, I think I’d like you to land at the Caldron. I’ll send someone over to meet you there. I assume you know the coordinates?”

Haveram smiled, “Thank you General, I do know where that is. I’m looking forward to meeting with your representative.”

The Caldron was the name that had been given to a Special Ops training facility, built inside an extinct volcanic crater. It had a large canvas cover, rigged so that it could be pulled across the opening to block surveillance of the crater bottom from space or aerial observation. The representative that would meet them would certainly be Nabarone himself, and probably one or more of his staff. As soon as he saw Mirikami and Greeves on the bridge of the Falcon, he suspected the purpose of the visit, but wanted to greet his friends in any case.

The captain of the navy cruiser recalled its auxiliaries, and the moon base’s watch commander approved their leaving the L1 region. They were accompanied down by the cruiser, this time definitely there for their protection. The Falcon made its entry into the upper atmosphere as the cruiser pulled up to a higher orbit, still providing protective coverage.

Suddenly there was a rushed broadcast from the cruiser’s captain. “Captain Haveram, four Krall clanships just made a White Out well away from your position. Complete your descent quickly and you’ll be fine. We’ve been redirected to try to intercept the enemy.”

“Good luck sir, and thanks.” Haveram replied.

“If he goes after four alone he’ll need more than luck,” Mirikami commented.

Haveram, having been here several times now, knew more about the defenses. “I think because of your raids, the Krall have slowed the number of penetrations here, because there have been fewer supply missions in the last two months. The PU navy has found some of the backbone they lost after that Eight Ball blasted Rhama. They have recently moved thirty of their new heavy cruisers here. They’re willing to try to mix it up with single clanships. I didn’t think the Krall were sending four at once any more. This must be something out of the ordinary.”

****

Telour’s clanship mission commander coordinated with the other three clanships, to perform their joint White Outs at just barely higher than one hundred fifty miles, centered over the Poldark continent the Krall had nearly taken over. They had recently built a ten-mile radius ring of sixty-four heavy plasma batteries, as a defense for arriving clanships.

This sort of defensive position was a source of friction and annoyance for the freewheeling flight style that Krall pilots had been accustomed to using. The thrill of successfully running the human gauntlet had been taken away. Merely because one or two percent of such operations led to significantly damaged craft, and one out of two hundred were lost. The need to preserve clanships was the reason for this, and sacrificing risk taking for material preservation ran contrary to Krall instincts. They normally cared nothing for property or territory, only personal weapons and their earned status points.

The humans had recently restored some of the penetration excitement, primarily because of the reduced number of clanship landings and departures. They had brought in a squadron of heavily armed and armored ships, which were a close match with clanship firepower. They couldn’t match the accelerations of a clanship, but their performance in that area had clearly improved. They had proceeded cautiously at first, possibly worried about the injunction not to attack their base of Telda Ka, or K1 as humans called it, from space with their fleets.

The enemy forces on Poldark didn’t appear to realize that the hammer weapons, used to punish Rhama the last time their fleet was involved, no longer existed. Perhaps they suspected the Krall had another source for those collapsed matter balls. Their only use of their navy was defensive, and was limited to multiple squadrons around the space near Poldark, which could combine to form a limited task force, where all of the ships were of the same type.

Examination of the wreckage of a number of the new ships, which the humans called heavy cruisers, revealed how they had increased the accelerations the crews were able to tolerate. They wore a gel-filled type of body armor, which was itself firmly secured to their battle stations. Lacking personal mobility in combat, the smaller number of crew were the decision makers, and they directed the actions of the much faster reacting computers, which actually fired the weapons, and maneuvered the ship per the captain’s instructions, or followed a task force leader’s group battle plan.

For some reason, the much higher performing humans who conducted raids on Krall clan worlds were not used on these ships. The ship-to-ship fights would be more even if those stronger, faster reacting humans were the operators. The Krall edge then would be due more to the superior Olt’kitapi redundant design of the clanships, and that would be placing hardware performance in a position above the personal physical performance that the Krall were determined to improve.

New human missiles were also more complex than previously seen, with onboard computers that could think for them after they were launched. Some inbound missiles could fragment into multiple, independently targetable and self-directed small units. They would try specifically to seek out the vulnerable weapons ports, where clanships fired lasers, plasma cannons, or launched anti-ship missiles, in an attempt to pull the teeth of the clanship. The stealth capability of the clanship skin was still unsolved for humans, but the very act of firing back at the enemy revealed not only a Krall craft’s presence, but also the location of its weapons emplacements along the hull.

Rotating the clanship first one way, then the other in combat, made this more difficult for the AIs in the small missiles, but it also made accurate return fire more complex if the weapons ports were always shifting around. In the end, human ships still came out the loser most of the time, but the margin of victory was narrowed. The worthy enemy was getting better in space.

Telour quickly became aware of the extreme maneuvering of his clanship, which had made its exit several miles closer than the three ships that were covering his arrival.

He spoke to his pilot. “Krodar, the atmospheric entry for my previous visit here was almost unnoticed by the human defenses. Have they improved that much?”

“My Til, our hand of clanships has been targeted by ten human ships that rushed to meet us, and by two hands of long range ground missiles. Our own ground based plasma cannons are attacking them, as are our three companion clanships. They are flying above us, to draw more of the enemy fire as I planned, and they are firing on the enemy. I am moving to prevent us from becoming a target, and by not firing at the enemy, they do not see this ship as clearly. They will only detect our turbulent movement through the air, after we have moved away.”

“I did not ask for a protected and safe entry Krodar.” He sounded threatening. “My ship should fight as do the others. I am a warrior before I am a war leader.”

“My Til, Tor Gatrol gave me instructions to ensure that your mission to meet with Gatlek Pendor takes place as he ordered. To do that I must preserve this ship, without damage if possible, to land near his new headquarters bunker.”

Annoyed, Telour had to accept the unwanted protection. He observed the details of the brief battle on screen, which exposed the three other ships to more risk than his own. Understanding that it was a matter out of his control did not lessen the sense of humiliation, where other leaders favored by Kanpardi were permitted to face higher risks, as if he were somehow weaker, and requiring protection by other warriors. His resentment of Kanpardi’s logical actions hardened his own emotional resolve. The Tor thought too much like the enemy!

It was obvious after a few minutes, that the entire hand of clanships would make a successful penetration and landing. Only one of his escorts suffered minor hits when its pilot failed to rotate her craft often enough, and it lost two laser cannons when those ports were hit by small missiles. None of the ground-launched missiles had come close to scoring a hit, knocked out by the ring of plasma batteries on the ground. It was more than annoying that the Krall forces on Poldark had to use stronger defensive measures now, because of the limits placed on material available to use in offensive actions.

Unaware that this was similar to a human adage, he recalled that a common strategy in interclan warfare was that “a defensive plan was not required, if your offense was powerful enough.” The human saying was that “the best defense is a good offense.”

There appeared to have been moderate damage done to one human ship, which withdrew, and less damaging plasma beam hits on five others. Despite their rushing in for an attack, the human ships were initially positioned too far away from the low level White Out point to provide rapid concentrated firepower. The human missiles were nearly all intercepted, and the human ships in turn did intercept all of the Krall anti-ship missiles. Clearly, they had improved their efforts to disrupt resupply missions, or at least make them more thrilling.

****

Mirikami was standing next to the Falcon as General Nabarone’s staff shuttle settled to the crater bottom. They had exchanged recorded and written messages, but had not seen one another for nine months, since the Mark of Koban had headed home.

Thad was the first to comment, since he remembered and recognized his friend from earlier days, when Nabarone had been more physically fit. “Henry has lost some weight!”

Mirikami agreed. “From this distance I didn’t realize that was him stepping out first. I think he’s shed forty pounds. It must have been seeing you after twenty-five years had passed, which pushed him to exercise. You are five years older, I believe.” He smiled at the thought of the formerly semi-rotund general taking up running, and dragging some of his support staff along for company.

Thad had been Nabarone’s superior in a former Poldark planetary militia, when both men stayed physically fit. Koban had kept Thad trim, muscled, and tan in the intervening years, while running the PU Army command on Poldark had pushed Nabarone deeper into sedentary administrative work.

Two hands slapping his slimmer abdomen as he approached, Nabarone boomed out, “I’m not all the way there yet, but I’ll get there! I can’t help the tan too much, not with Poldark’s cloudier climate. How the hell are you, you bunch of trouble makers?”

Thad reached him first, grasping and shaking his right hand, and clapping his left on Nabarone’s shoulder, as he looked his trimmer friend over. “You look like you’re ready for the front line Henry.”

“Not until I get the gifts I think you and Tet’s presence suggest you brought me.” He said with a grin. “Not that Howard here or my other staff would let me do that anyway.”

Major Howard Caldwell, Nabarone’s aide, and two other officers were following behind the general.

Turning to Mirikami, Nabarone said, with a smile, “I’m glad to see that the chief trouble maker at least showed up to apologize for what he’s stirred up.”

Shaking hands, matching and then slightly exceeding the larger man’s firm grip, Mirikami pretended ignorance, matching the smile. “What did I do, Henry? I came to offer you and your staff a present of a lifetime, and discover I have to face some scurrilous accusations?”

When Nabarone pulled away his hand, he shook it to regain the feeling that the much smaller Mirikami had squeezed from his hand. “You supermen kicked the Krall’s asses, and they plan to take their anger out on us, I think. And by the way, thanks for not breaking my fingers, Tet.”

“You’re welcome, Henry. A month after we leave, you’ll be able to return that grip,” Mirikami answered with a laugh. Then he asked what the enemy was doing that made him suspect they were angry. “Have the Krall started new offensives?”

Nabarone shook his head no, but explained. “They are bringing in clanships, yet surveillance says they aren’t offloading more warriors or much equipment. Most of them haven’t left either. There’s a steady buildup of them. That has to be for a reason.”

Then as Mirikami tugged at his lip, a gesture even Nabarone recognized as preceding a usually insightful theory from the brilliant small man, he interrupted the discussion that was sure to follow. “Let’s go into the new headquarters building that Special Ops has constructed, and gain a bit more privacy. Besides, I think I may want a drink in my hand when I hear what you think is about to happen.”

The introductions and greeting of the other staff officers that came with Nabarone proceeded as they walked to the headquarters building.

After the exchange of names and handshakes, Nabarone explained why they were there. “These men are the only members of my personal staff that know about your gene changes, and of course Howard visited here previously and was introduced to you, back when you and your youngsters were in training. Captain Rivers, and Captain Slavko, are recent additions to my staff. They both have been vetted by two of the TG2 spec ops officers that Captain Haveram brought back with him on a previous return visit. They know what a Kobani is, and want to become a dual citizen. After I go through this transformation, then I need staff around me as a buffer, to understand the changes that might be apparent to outsiders over time. I had to replace some good people, promoting them up the line to other posts, because they held some mental reservations that the TG2s detected. These men do not.”

In ten minutes, settled in comfortable chairs in an officer’s lounge, drinks in hand, Nabarone invited Mirikami to finish the thought he had outside. “You warned that the Krall would be honor bound to strike back in some fashion after your raids. The chief here…,” he paused a moment. “Excuse me, Captain Haveram. You were originally introduced as Chief to me before you took the Falcon home. This is the first we’ve spoken since. How would you like to be addressed now, as captain?”

“Nah. Tet here is still my captain. Let’s not confuse the poor elderly gentleman, even if he does look like a kid now. Call me Chief, since only my mother calls me Mike.”

“Chief it is.”

Mirikami couldn’t let the dig slide. “You’re almost as much an old fart as I am you adolescent looking twerp. That mustache you seem to be trying to grow looks like a fuzzy worm on that baby face now.” Chief Haveram, like every modern male, carried the three hundred year old genetic mods that prevented facial hair growth, unless countered by a hormone cream. He apparently wanted to look more dashing; in a retro way that appealed to the Ladies, particularly those he met in the spaceport dives he now frequented.

Haveram stroked the wispy hair defensively. “It just needs a few shaves, to regain its vigor when it finally grows out for good.”

Thad took a turn. “You look like a teenager, trying to get into a bar before turning twenty-one.”

Nabarone deflected the conversation back to the real topic, but only after he added he own comment. “Stop making the four of us envious,” he gestured to himself and his three staff officers. “We can’t use your damned age regression mods because it would draw too much attention to us. Tet, the chief here passed along your warning that the most likely place for the Krall to retaliate was on Poldark, since they don’t have any of those Eight Balls they used to hit Rhama. What do you think would be the purpose of the clanship build up, if they aren’t moving in more warriors and weapon systems?”

“Kanpardi, their top war leader, is one of the smart ones. He is more patient, and he plans ahead. He knows that they can replace the lost production in a couple of years, by spreading it out to more of their clan worlds. As we learned on our last raid, they are adapting to a more defensive posture on production worlds. Small raids will be increasingly more difficult, and will only work on lesser value targets that will be defended more weakly.

“If I were Kanpardi, I’d have to satisfy the blood lust for revenge from the scream and attack type clan leaders, while not getting off the track of their long term goal. To use the steady conquest of our worlds to improve their warrior’s bloodlines. He believes in the Great Path, and based on the slow and steady progress they made over about twenty-five thousand years, it has worked for them so far.”

Nabarone was skeptical. “They plan to use clanships to help in a ground attack on our lines?”

Mirikami knew Nabarone was right to doubt that strategy. He shook his head. “In atmosphere that wouldn’t be very effective, because of the partial loss of their stealth ability, and an increased loss of clanships from your planetary defense, which they can’t afford right now. If they had brought in warriors and weapons systems with those landings, I’d say they were about to wipe everyone off the face of the planet, as they did on Bollovstic.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence in my army, and in me.” Nabarone groused.

“Henry, you once told me that if they didn’t pull back after the major pushes against your lines that they could roll your forces up when they broke through. They elect to pull back, to drag the war out. You never have stopped them!”

Nodding reluctantly, he silently agreed.

Mirikami continued. “They have always had more forces here than required to complete the conquest, but they rotate the fighting between clans, and finger clans, to let them all share in the fighting, while others stay back and train for whatever new tactic you used, or new weapons you introduced.

“Periodically, they send their battle tested warriors to clan nest worlds for breeding, and for training the next generation of novices. They are probably just starting to train the second generation of novices from the war’s attrition by now. I don’t think Kanpardi would waste the benefits of the good fight you have presented them with here.”

“Then what’s the point of storing clanships here, when some of them are destroyed or damaged on the attempt to land. They can depart even more safely, because of their speed and our lack of warning, so why don’t they leave?”

“Henry, what are they using clanships for, now that they don’t have migration ships?”

“Tet, please don’t play your Socrates and student game with me. I’m too thick headed to answer your questions on my own, so eventually you force me into seeing the true answer for myself. Just tell me. Why don’t the clanships leave?”

“They are not yet ready to pull the clans back, and load up their only remaining form of equipment transport. You would take advantage of the lull in fighting, and attack them in force if they did that now.”

“Huh?”

Thad and the others looked just as confused as Nabarone.

Mirikami, Socratic to the end, asked, “What would distress the Planetary Union the most, besides the loss of Poldark?”

The light went on in Nabarone and Thad’s eyes simultaneously, with the enemy pullback suggestion Mirikami had provided.

Thad said, “If the Krall launched a broad assault, pushed us back here, then suddenly pulled some forces out and invaded another colony. It would explain the clanship build up that didn’t bringing in more warriors or supplies.”

Nabarone understood the transport issue as well. “They can’t move material and forces as quickly for staging an invasion using the smaller capacity clanships, unless they have a lot of them handy, and the material they need. A lot more material than they require for the fight here is just sitting on Poldark. They intend to move it elsewhere!”

“That’s only my speculation, Henry. All the same, it fits what I’d expect from a leader that thinks like Kanpardi. If some other Krall, like the late Parkoda for instance were in charge here, Poldark would be dead meat in two months, and then probably a couple of other planets would suffer the same fate in quick succession. That’s wasteful and inefficient from the perspective of an intelligent Krall, and not a particularly good outcome for us either.”

Captain Rivers said, “We need to get this information to the Hub government. The navy could be lying in wait for them. Either when they leave here, or wherever they try to invade next.”

Mirikami shrugged. “The next target, if I’m right about any of this, could be almost any world on this side of the Hub. The fleet can’t wait at all of them, and they can be on the ground quickly if they White Out close in, as they always do here. When leaving Poldark might be the best place to try to ambush them, but it isn’t as if the fleet could suddenly sneak up on them before they started to leave in a swarm. They would Jump as soon as they cleared atmosphere.

“Besides, Henry, I’m talking about you needing to warn the Lady Admirals of this hunch of mine, which would have to sound like your own notion.”

Thad reminded both Nabarone and Mirikami of Henry’s prior sour relations with the navy. “You’ve been so sweet with them in the past Henry. Tet, do you think they are going to listen to his advice now?”

Nabarone sounded indignant. “This goes beyond personalities. We’re talking about a change in the course of the war. We have to convince them.”

Mirikami agreed. “Without evidence, that’ll be hard to do. However, while you’re in bed with some fictitious ailment this week, getting your new hyperactive body, a Special Ops team might be able to get some Mind Tap information that will help you to convince them. Then offer this information freely, as a gift, and when it happens, assuming it plays out as I suspect, you gain some credits with them for your next proposal.”

Nabarone had doubts. “You just said we can’t do much to stop them from pulling forces from Poldark, and we can’t predict where they will invade next. If my forecast proves accurate, how will I spend those credits you think I’ll earn?”

“The navy doesn’t have to guess where the next invasion will actually be, if they hit where part of it will likely be staged. Their forward base, K1, is where the additional forces and material will come from. They need more material and warriors than they can remove from Poldark. It’s time the rest of the Hub military joined the Army in this damned war, and stop waiting for the Krall to finish us off one world at a time.”

Major Caudwell, the general’s frequent liaison with the navy knew the navy’s fears. “They’ll worry about being blamed again if the Krall use Eight Balls if they attack K1 a third time. How do we convince them those weapons were destroyed? Who would we say did that?”

Mirikami nodded, “They need to learn something about our raids eventually, especially the destruction of all of the Eight Balls, and about the Krall’s temporary logistics problems. They have to take advantage of that. Unless we learn what the Krall are really planning at K1, we can’t risk a mistaken prediction concerning an increase in combat on Poldark, followed by a partial withdrawal. If we miss that one, we won’t get the navy’s attention again easily.”

Nabarone resigned himself to some navy butt kissing. “Ok, I’ll suck up to the admirals, and I’ll suffer some pains in my ass in a med lab, while you have the fun of planning a covert mission.” Suddenly, a worrying thought occurred to him.

“Hey! You aren’t going along are you, Tet? Even a Kobani isn’t indestructible.” Mirikami was the force that motivated his people, and the Kobani were the key to holding the Krall back while humanity prepared. Nabarone considered him too valuable to risk on a Special Ops mission.

“Thad, Dillon, and my lovely new wife Maggi, all threatened to make my life miserable if I even tried to include myself on a raid.”

“Holy crap! You’ve avoided marriage all these years and now, you slipped and got yourself caught. I thought you were a confirmed bachelor, like me. I’d heard Dillon and Thad mention her often, but I thought from their comments that she was…, ah…, somewhat, uh…”

Mirikami semi-rescued him and completed his sentence, it having taken an awkward turn. “Older?” He furnished, with a frown. Watching Nabarone redden in the face, he switched to a grin and completed the rescue.

“You forgot about the rejuvenation mods, which we learned from studying the Prada genes. I personally think I look to be in my late twenties now, by my choice to stop the regression there. Maggi looks perhaps twenty-one to me, although she says her appearance is closer to how she looked at twenty-five. At a hundred twelve, I’d stack her up against a platoon of your best Normal commandos, and send flowers to their families.”

In frustrated envy, Nabarone blurted, “God, I hate all of you young looking shits! I can’t do that without losing my damned command when the changes would be so obvious. In addition, probably losing my freedom if not my life. I’m already worried that someone will connect my revitalization with the truth. It’s why I’ve been torturing my staff, and myself, by running every morning to prove I’m on a fitness kick, before I really start to look fit.”

With a wry grim, Caldwell pointed something out to his boss, again. “Henry, I was a captain in a PUA Ranger unit for a year, right before I became your aide. In that unit, everyone ran every day, and I tried to talk you into running with me when I first came here. Growing a new head after it was bitten off a few times proved it was futile. I’m happy to be running again.” Which reminded Nabarone of his past responses to suggestions that he get out of his office more.

“Fine. All of you gang up on the poor, out of shape bachelor general. I’ll get my mods, and put you all to shame.” He promised, with a wink.

Thad, cautioned. “Don’t do it all at once Henry. Your caution to prepare people in advance by running was wise. You’ve been a desk jockey for too long to suddenly become Mr. Universe.”

“Bah! If we keep talking about this, the mods won’t get started. I only have four days to spend in that iron maiden of a med lab. Same for my staff. Is that right? The recuperation can take place while we work, if we stay squirreled away, out of sight in our offices for another week?”

Mirikami shrugged, as he nodded. “Aldry and Rafe, our best minds on the nanite improvements, say the aches, pains, and some swelling will be present only for the week after you climb out of the med lab. It’s age regression, which takes the longest. Replacing all of your cells. You may have to wait for the war’s end for that.”

“Tet, that’s the first time I’ve heard that stated so casually. War’s end. I hope I live to see that.”

Standing, Mirikami suggested they all finish their drinks in a toast. “To the end of this war.” They clinked glasses, and downed their drinks. Mirikami, following Thad’s recommendation, had not told Nabarone that a Kobani’s high rate of metabolism made getting loaded a tough task. The hard drinking general might not have liked that very much.

They led the four Kobani candidates to where the med techs had unloaded and set up their equipment, in the infirmary of the Caldron training facility.

Mirikami, after the introductions, said with a smile, “We’ll see you in four days, as new men. At least new on the inside. The outside will take another month to show.”

****

Telour had informed Gatlek Pendor of the general assaults he was expected to conduct on all fronts, attacking each of the various human armies’ strongest forces. The instructions were delivered in the presence of all three other high status warriors that Kanpardi had sent with him, as confirmation of his loyalty. The initial news was received with understandable enthusiasm. Tempered a moment later by the explanation for all of the clanships from various clans that had been landing, and staying on Poldark. They had not brought much in the way of new weapons or support equipment, nor even warriors for rotation.

The explanation that they would be used as off-planet transport for half the warriors here, perhaps one third of his mini-tanks, plasma batteries, and laser artillery defenses with their counter battery rocket launchers, generated a much colder reception. Pendor’s initial response was hostile and borderline rebellious.

“I am winning this war, in as slow a manner as I was ordered to do. Now I am told to push back the enemy quickly so I can safely withdraw much of my force, as if I have been beaten. This is too much like a defeat. I cannot order my forces to do this, not after their blood is heated to boiling by being unleashed for attacks on all fronts.”

“There will be a new invasion started, on a more populated human world, and these clan warriors and equipment will be used for expanding our war. And to punish humans for attacking our worlds where we build our weapons.”

He offered Pendor a conciliatory comment. “You have fought this war effectively, making this move possible here, and yet are still able to defeat the enemy with a reduced force. There might be an expanded role for a war leader such as you, in either one of two new larger invasions that are planned.”

The light of ambition winked on in Pendor’s eyes. The Poldark Gatlek promotion was only given to him after the invasion was already successfully started, and the old Gatlek had stupidly allowed himself to be caught in an ambush and killed. Pendor wanted to gain a place of honor in a history that mentioned him by name, as having secured the more difficult first foothold on a human world.

“Is this an offer you are making to me?” he inquired.

“It is one I am willing to discuss with you. A recommendation from the Til Gatrol to the Tor Gatrol carries considerable strength. If that were backed by your strong support for the offensive action, and then a successful partial withdrawal, it would improve your status. There are many contenders to lead the two new invasions.” It wasn’t necessary to look at any of the three other high status warriors present, which Kanpardi was cultivating, to know who the strongest competition was.

Deciding there would be something that Telour wanted in exchange, because his recommendation was not promised only proposed, Pendor saw no downside to agreeing. He could agree, or his successor could do so in his place. “I will support the Tor’s plan,” he said.

Then, to find out what Telour’s conditions might be for a recommendation, he wanted a private conversation. He asked the three war leaders that came with Telour to meet with his sub leaders, to discuss details of how to conduct the simultaneous offensive actions. This was a reasonable request because it involved obtaining cooperation from multiple clans, and preparing for the timeline of the subsequent withdrawal. His staff of sub leaders, who had been allowed to hear the discussion but not participate, would resent the outside interference. That was merely a diversion by Pendor so he could speak alone with the Til Gatrol.

When the control room emptied, Pendor led Telour into an adjacent smaller room, with obvious soundproofing on the interior walls, constructed completely inside a large copper wire mesh cube. Pendor secured an outer door made of the same copper mesh, and then he closed the soundproof door of the inner cube.

Telour had never encountered these sorts of security precautions inside a Krall bunker. “You do not trust your own staff?” he asked.

“I am careful to avoid human spy bots more than I distrust my staff. Nevertheless, I think that we will not want any ears but ours to hear this discussion.”

“What is the purpose of the metal wire box?”

“We learned that our efforts to intercept human messages, before they were encrypted for transmission, were blocked by use of such cages. Humans we captured were asked about the wires. Two of them called this a faraday cage, but neither knew why they were called that. Their simple construction makes the inside of this room very resistant to all radio signals. Human or Krall listening devices cannot hear us or send a signal outside.”

Telour considered this precaution. It demonstrated that Pendor could keep a secret, one that if revealed would result in their both being forced into a berserker’s death, on some obscure human world.

Before making his proposal of betrayal, he still needed to test Pendor’s ambitions. “The forces withdrawn from Poldark will be increased slightly; using others on K1, and then sent to invade a human colony they call New Dublin. It is a more populated world than this one, and has been settled longer. It is nevertheless located in what is called the Rim region of the volume of stars that humans occupy. We have not attacked it recently with raiders, to suggest it is of less interest to us. It will be a more difficult operation than was Poldark to invade, because the war was newer and humans weaker then. The forces will consist of the lesser clans taken from here and many finger clans.”

Pendor shook a shoulder in a noncommittal acknowledgement of this information. He was waiting to hear more about the second invasion’s target world. Telour was satisfied that Pendor was ambitious enough not to leap at the first offer.

“The other target planet is one of the worlds that humans describe as an Old Colony. It is deeper in Human Space, and Kanpardi has selected one called New Glasgow.” His dropping the title of Tor Gatrol was deliberate, as a designed reflection of mild disrespect. Another test of Pendor’s ambition, versus loyalty to the highest-ranking war leader.

He continued his proposal, certain that Pendor had caught his implied message. Kanpardi would not like what was being discussed here.

“The other invasion leader will have most of our reserves of clanships to use, and the newest weapons from stockpiles on clan worlds. None of those systems will have been roughly used, as those from Poldark have been, and the warriors will come only from major clans.” He saw the gleam in the Gatlek’s eyes. Good. Now to solidify his desire.

“This will be a more difficult invasion to establish, yet it is the one with the highest opportunity for great status increase if successful, leading major clans to victory.”

Pendor stood straighter, showing resolve. “You have shown me what choices are offered. You know there is only one that exceeds the opportunity I now have, of simply completing the conquest of this planet. You have said this leadership selection requires a recommendation from you to secure, and your words suggest the present war leader would not approve of what I must do to secure your help.” Pendor proved he grasped the political ambitions of his proposed benefactor.

“You are already second in command of war planning, and have only two higher status positions available to you. I do not think you want to be the Graka clan leader, and that high status position is securely held anyway. How would I be able to help you to gain the position of Tor Gatrol? It is also securely held.”

Telour was pleased that he didn’t have to explain the politics to this experienced Mordo clan leader. Not all high status and effective warriors were also effective at interclan politics. He could drop the pretense of loyalty to Kanpardi, a leader from his own clan.

“You were told the invasions are punishment, for the humans that dared conduct raids against our production worlds. What was not spoken is that we do not believe the humans that made those raids are controlled by the human leaders on their central worlds. They are far more capable fighters than the humans you face on this planet. The punishment I delivered to Rhama for the attacks on K1 produced proper and quick obedience. Humans were warned not to attack us from space. They need a stronger, immediate reminder of why they must do as we command. Few clans are happy with the slow, soft punishment Kanpardi offers.”

“The Hammer weapons were destroyed. We cannot hit them again as you did at Rhama.”

He wasn’t being contrary, but he wondered how Telour would employ the only alternative severe punishment on a human world. How would Telour convince the Joint Council to replace Kanpardi? He knew Telour had been trying to convince the clan council to use one of the limited remaining super weapons. But, against Kanpardi’s arguments this was not going to happen, so he had to be replaced for Telour to succeed.

The depth of Telour’s ambition, and commitment to punish humanity was revealed.

“A war leader that is killed in combat by the enemy will be replaced by his selected second in command, and he should be avenged. His successor’s demand to punish that enemy severely will be listened to, and obeyed. Those war leaders that support the new Tor Gatrol will be recognized for their own efforts.”

Pendor was being asked to help arrange the death of Kanpardi, in a war where the Tor Gatrol should never directly participate in the fighting. The Graka clan leader was respected by Pendor’s Mordo clan, but not more than their own advance in status, and their place in the histories.

“My Til, explain how it will be done.” He was ready for his next leadership role.

****

“Henry! Can you hear me?” Mirikami was standing by the medlab.

The subdued answer was softer than typical for Nabarone. “Of course I can hear you. Don’t shout. I have a headache, and even my eyes hurt.”

Sounding cheerful, despite the frown on the general’s face, he prodded him awake with news. “We didn’t need to kidnap a Krall sub leader to know what they would do next. They started a continent wide build up at all eight major fronts the day after you went under. There’s fierce fighting anticipated on every front at any time. Your field commanders have asked for you, of course. They were told you had an accident, so make it a point to favor your right leg when you get out of here. The cover story is that you broke it while running, and suffered a mild concussion when you fell.”

“At least the headache will match that story.” He paused as he considered the story. “Shit! Now I’m a fat general who’s also clumsy. Couldn’t I have been hit by a truck?” He griped.

Standing on the other side, Thad, equally loud and cheerful, answered. “What? Then blame some mysterious hit and run driver, or pin it on some poor slob to complete the charade?”

“Fine.” Nabarone conceded the point, in no mood to debate. “I need to order pullbacks to minimize casualties. If this really is preparation for a partial pull out, they’ll only push until we appear far enough back on our heels for them to get out safely. Tet, what else do we have to back up your prediction?”

“Your Planetary Defense Command has satellite images that show clanships, far from the fighting, ready to load columns of equipment. There has also been a fresh influx of clanships, which arrived apparently empty.”

“Then I’d better get my ass out of this box and call for a meeting with the navy. I assume Admiral Foxworthy has her heavy cruisers busy trying to block the incoming clanships. I need a face to face with her, and her boss, Admiral Bledso, to make my prediction of the Krall intentions well in advance. I wish I could tell her where the new invasion is going to be. Smacking that down at the start would be a boost for navy morale. We are going to need them to get active again in this war. I hope we can get them to hit K1 hard, while the Krall are using so many clanships elsewhere as transports.”

Tet gave him another update, as Nabarone’s head cleared. “Major Caldwell made it out of his med lab thirty minutes ago. He’s off planning with some of your commanders for a counter attack, as soon as the swarm of clanships Jump away. You probably can recover some of the territory you’ll lose now. Howard said your civilians were already prepared for fast evacuations from the cities closest to the Krall lines. They have been ordered to go now, over a wider area than you normally are forced to yield for the typical clan assaults. There won’t be much left on this landmass but your forces and the Krall.”

“We’ve known we’d be shoved out for almost a year. We’ve been preparing. We learned from Bollovstic’s mistakes, when they left civilians to the tender mercies of the warriors.”

Casually, Tet told him another bit of news. “I’ve also tackled the issue of convincing the navy and the PU government that the Eight Balls are gone.”

“How can you do that?”

“I’ve made radio contact with the Mark, and asked Jakob, my ship’s computer, to compile a video of the raid on that Botolian orbital station where the Eight Balls were built. It shows the balls being exploded with the obviously human made rail guns you gave us. It includes the orbital station’s evacuation of the alien Torki, the destruction of the gravity projectors, and scenes of our people in unstealthed armor next to the Torki. Then Jakob sent me the recording, and Thad did some editing to remove some things we don’t want to reveal, such as the fact that we fly clanships.

“I had him add a scene at the end, recorded on the Falcon, of me in our distinct new armor, and initially invisible. I fade into view, and reach up and remove my helmet, revealing that I’m human. I tell them that we are a human force from an unspecified world, which found the location of the only place where Krall forced labor made the Eight Balls. That they all were destroyed, along with the gravity projectors that made them, and rescued the only workers that knew how to build them. I explain that our armor was made by other aliens, allied against the Krall. The Torki are shown entering a docked migration ship, with more of our people in armor directing them. The inference is that there are human and aliens, cooperating to fight the Krall.”

“Hell Tet. You’ll reveal yourself. Not so much to the Krall, but to the Hub government.”

“I’m over ninety. Do I look my age? Facial recognition, even if it finds a match, isn’t going to convince them of a positive identification. Besides, I’m presumed dead, and they have no idea where we come from anyway. It’s my neck, and I eventually expect to reveal who I am to some PU authority. I’m on their side, and I’ll have to prove that.”

“How will you deliver the recording to them?”

“How about if I give it to you? Then you explain that we infiltrated down to Poldark, met one of your staff and told him. Then you hand them a sample of our armor as proof, as a technological offering. I gave the galactic coordinates of that star on the recording, since it wasn’t in that navy scouting briefing you got for us previously. They can send a drone to check out the place. When we left, the small clan that controlled the planet had been wiped out, and the orbital station was intact but airless, and filled with dead Krall.”

“I won’t know if Bledso will believe me, or if she’ll just be humoring me if she acts like she does.”

“Then ask her if she thinks it’s a valid report, as you shake her hand.”

“Huh?”

“Henry, what’s the point of having the Mind Tap mod if you don’t use it? Some of the spec ops we brought back with us can help you practice.”

“Oh, wow. I forgot about that. I can finally get back at those sneaky bitches for that backdoor into my computer system.”

“Henry!” Mirikami said firmly. “Please don’t screw around with this ability. If you can’t keep it confidential, you’ll be locked up in some padded room. Curry their favor, don’t piss them off!”

He waved a hand reassuringly. “I didn’t get where I am without being able to keep secrets, and outsmarting opponents. I’ll not be reckless.”

“Good.”

“It’s going to be fun though.”

Chapter 3: Heavenly Haven

Maggi was standing with Marlyn, watching as the modular elements of a large roofed structure went up, as the first open sided housing for the “empty” Raspani, newly relocated to Haven. The term empty was how the newly sentient Raspani preferred to describe their largely mindless brethren, which the Krall had created through thousands of years of breeding them for meat.

“The restored Raspani are often rather mean to the empty ones.” Maggi noted, as one of those whose group minds had only recently been transferred into the brain of an “empty” meat animal, smacked the rump of a recalcitrant and unenhanced female quite hard. The female kept getting in the way of the Prada, who were doing most of the roof raising work, with some human assistance.

Marlyn revealed a dirty little Raspani secret, with a conspiratorial laugh. “Blue Flower Eater explained that much of that rump slapping we’ve seen is male-on-female contact, and a sort of sexual foreplay. They have been denied physical contact for a very long time. I’m grateful they believe copulation is a private matter.”

The many supports for the structure’s roof were like giant tent poles, and they were each bearing their share of the weight as the broad roof, already hoisted twenty feet above ground, inched its way skyward. The small but powerful motors in the support shafts were reeling in multiple strong carbon fiber lines, attached to the closest nodes of the roof structure. Krall dome making material was being used to make a transparent covered area for the mindless version of Raspani. Enclosed buildings with walls and doors frightened them, because of an apparent association with the forced feeding structures used by the Krall, when those selected for slaughter were locked up and force fed spices, to make them taste better.

With this simple design, they could get out of bad weather through the open sides, and they could leave when they wanted. The rate of transfer of minds into the herd members was slowly increasing, now that some of the Raspani minds, those with technical and science skills, had been given primary control in mind enhancers implanted in several of the newly sentient herd representatives. They had largely taken over the task of making their own mind enhancers from the Torki, and performing the insertion into the skulls of selected healthy herd members.

The Torki had provided them a laboratory full of instruments, tools, and machinery, and the Kobani had furnished some computers to automate repetitious mechanical processes, purchased in Human Space. With Mind Tap instructions, the Raspani were quickly able to learn how to use the alien equipment effectively. This, despite their complaint that the quantum computing qubits that human computers used were primitive, and a slower method of information manipulation. They said there were several higher dimensions of quantum superposition possible than for a simple three state qubit, and computers could be designed to utilize quantum entanglement for faster internal information transfer. They promised to build some prototypes, once they had time.

Their first goal was to produce mind enhancers for greater distribution of the preserved millions of Raspani minds, most of which were presently crammed into a handful of Torki built devices, embedded in a like number of formerly “empty” Raspani brains.

A transfer of a single mind into a new device required less than an hour. Despite that, there was not going to be any single mind Raspani walking around for years, not until there were enough mindless ones rescued from the Krall, or new babies born. The mindless males and females were willing and fertile enough, so reproduction was a current racial imperative, to create new bodies for the crowded minds to inhabit, but at only one body per birth, it was slow.

After Mirikami returned from Poldark a Raspani scientists, inhabiting a less crowded mental enhancer in a new body, had asked for one of the warheads of a Krall Worm missile, which he heard described. He said they had an obligation to aid humans, who had risked their lives to rescue them.

Not having a device that had been used as a warhead, he believed they were the same as the Raspani tools people had started calling Q-rupters. Mirikami gave them one of those. The individual also asked if he could examine one of the Katushas, which were once made by the Olt’kitapi, and was another device that appeared to use a similar behaving quantum based application.

All that Mirikami was told was that Blue had asked one of their scientists if he would study the two tools, which this Raspani scientist knew about but had never handled personally. He would try to reconstruct the theoretical principles of how they each worked, and then try to teach the quantum principles of their operation to human scientists or technicians, via their Mind Tap ability.

Initially the awakening Raspani, aware of how young humanity was as a species, had considerable doubts of holding meaningful scientific communications with a presumably primitive and clearly combative people. They initially relegated the story they were told of the five hundred light year sphere of Human Space to a minor fluke of youthful exploratory exuberance. They presumed humans had bypassed the majority of habitable worlds in that radius, as did most species they had met in the past. That would result in a low-density interstellar population, within a given volume of space, as was true for every other known civilization.

When they had the conversion factor of human distance measurements explained to them by the Torki and Prada, and the number of human settled planets and their population totals provided, they radically altered their opinion. Blue took pains to describe to them how difficult it was for them to grasp how far humans had spread in such a ridiculously short amount of time, and shocked at how many of the marginally habitable planets humankind chose to heavily colonize. Marginal, that is, by the standards of nearly every other species the three alien races had encountered.

“The moderate gravity worlds are the most acceptable to nearly every race we know of except the Krall, and now humans. On Haven, we hear your people describe it as a paradise, because of its lush gentle life forms, and its comfortable gravity.

“On the contrary, we find its gravity roughly twenty percent too high, the predatory life forms are too aggressive, and even herbivores are larger and stronger, and too assertive for our comfort. Haven would be bypassed for colonization by the majority of my own people I’ve questioned. As it would be by most of the Prada, and perhaps half of the Torki, who spend much time suspended in water, feeling the gravity less.”

Maggi was listening to this, and said, “Our people that moved here came from Koban, so this would seem a wonderful relief to them, particularly for those that never opted to receive the gene modifications we now have available.”

Blue twitched his elbows in a sign of negation. “Your species was able to stay alive on Koban even before your most radical gene changes. None of us could have lasted a single orbit without proper outside support. The Prada died by the thousands there, even with Krall protection. Only by returning here for extensive resting after an orbit, could they endure the conditions there on return trips. Without the Krall forcing them to go, and providing protection as they worked, the native life and gravity would have eradicated them quickly. Humans accept greater challenges than we do, and you appear to thrive on them.

“You change marginal worlds to meet your needs, when other species would simply pass them by, selecting only the most suitable. Your original physical capability from your home world, one that we would call a high gravity world, combined with your natural aggression, ability to adapt, and a will to shape whole worlds to your needs is unique. When an enormously dangerous and hard world is forced on you, like Koban, your people decided to change themselves to meet the challenge. Our three races would not, or could not do that, nor would it even have occurred to us to try.”

Maggi, personally not overly impressed with humanity’s progress thus far, pointed out some near catastrophic failings. “As recently as five hundred fifty of our years ago, before even leaving our home planet, we stood on the brink of self-destruction from possible nuclear war for decades. Then, just over three hundred years ago, we nearly destroyed ourselves with the genetic skills we used on Koban to survive. In the near collapse of our civilization, we halted exploration and expansion entirely for almost two hundred fifty years, barely holding onto what we had. In my own lifetime, we have just rebounded enough to resume settling the worlds we already had in our control. Then the Krall found us. We have hardly been making the galaxy our own.”

Blue made what for all the world resembled a frown, but was a Raspani smile-equivalent. “Yet, you still hold a densely populated volume of five hundred light years radius, with many more planets than my own race ever claimed in our far larger volume. We spent two hundred times as many years to do less than you have. If the Olt’kitapi had not helped us advance faster, we would have accomplished even less. You by comparison, have accomplished a significant portion of what that great and ancient race did, in a fraction of their time. To use your vernacular, as I learned it from your Artificial Intelligence machines, you are galactic child prodigies, with extreme athletic abilities.”

Mirikami, not surprised at the alien’s assessment, diplomatically avoided saying that most aliens, besides the Krall, were overly timid, slow at making major decisions, and lacked the will to explore and meet challenges. For just a moment after having that thought, he wondered if Blue had a version of the Mind Tap gene when he continued speaking.

“Your race must see all of the older races you have met as cowards, and terribly weak.” He held up a hand, in a rather human-like gesture, to forestall any objections or denials.

He conceded, “That is partly the truth from your perspective. Your Mind Tap images are not intended to be cruel or insulting to us, but they are honest.” He quickly detected the distressed expression of Mirikami and Fisher, and hurried to explain.

“Not all of the new Kobani have the mental discipline that those of you with considerably more practice use when you share thoughts with us. Unintended thoughts leak through for the newly modified humans. Particularly those that are of your military professions. No Raspani ever considered this as even a possible life choice before the Krall came.

“Other than the aberrant Krall example, most of the intelligent species that the Torki, Prada, and my people have met, or have information about, evolved slowly from gentle pastoral creatures that were inherently peaceful, and not aggressively competitive. We believe it was those cautious qualities that allowed them to survive warlike adolescent mistakes, and then to spread into the galaxy. The Botolians were physically strong, warlike vegetarians, and like most aggressive species, they had built powerful weapons of collapsed matter that they would probably have used to destroy their own civilization in internal wars, had the Krall not done that for them.

“If the Olt’kitapi had never moved the Krall off their home world and furnished them space ships, they would surely have eliminated themselves there. Our joint experience has been that aggressive species seldom expand very far from their home worlds before their technology and warlike ways provide the means to end their own existence. Humans seem to have walked a narrow path between self-destruction and progress.”

Maggi asked a question once posed to the Torki representative, Coldar. “If humans manage to defeat the Krall, are you worried about our expansion into the rest of the galaxy?”

Blue spread his elbows and blew air, in what proved to be an expression of obvious acceptance. “Of course. Although, I noticed that you did not force the Prada or Torki to become your new forced labor, as you clearly had the power to do, and thus far you do not seem inclined to eat me.” This time the deep vertical smile crease between his eyes was matched by a short blubbering sound from his lips, which the two humans took to be a sign of mirth from the plump Raspani.

****

Stewart MacDougal heaved on the line connected to the cargo net hook, to release the cluster of cables from the attachment ring, so that the shuttle could safely hover away. He was dressed in a vacuum proof soft suit, but it was only for protection from the heat and acrid exhaust fumes of the shuttle thrusters. The new Smart Plastic extrusion machine just delivered might be large, but their mobile version was somewhat fragile, and he had to make sure the shuttle didn’t tip the machine over, as a strong breeze threatened to push the hovering craft sideways.

“It’s free. Move away.” He radioed to the shuttle pilot.

As soon as the shuttle was clear, unsuited men and women from the Hub City resettlement team rushed over to clear the cargo net draped over the big piece of equipment. With this device, they could start building actual structures, which would modify themselves using the built-in preprogrammed shapes of basic housing elements. They would be able to move out of the tents they had lived in for a month, as they cleared and leveled an area on which to construct their first Haven settlement.

The Smart Plastic feedstock was already stacked nearby, in its various forms. Large motorized wheeled bins of colored pellets (for cosmetic internal and trim colorations), heavy ingots of white plastic blocks for forming the walls and overly thick malleable flooring, and various specialty types of living plastic inserts, which the extruder would merge with and embed in the structure as it was formed. The reels of command line conductor mesh would be extruded with the plastic, to send the commands and power for the various shapes to take their useful forms, such as basic furniture items like chairs, tables, bed frames, couches and easy chair shapes, which could rise from the thick floors. Additional cushions and mattresses could be fabricated and added later, if the living plastic inserts were not soft enough for a person’s sensitive derrière.

The plastic design elements could be formed, reshaped, or made to flatten into the floor by computer commands in minutes, through the web of built in command lines, most of it powered by solar energy. Solar power provided enough energy, of course, if the homeowner didn’t want to rearrange furniture in the rooms too often in a single day. Batteries would last through the nights and most cloudy days, and a generator could be employed.

All of the initial homes built here would be uniformly white on the outside, and have well insulated hollow walls and double paned windows. They were designed to reflect summer heat away and to keep the insides cooler. Haven was a bit closer to the local sun than was Koban, with a more circular orbit and less of an axial tilt. The planet had little in the way of severe weather, and very mild winters.

Nearly ninety percent of the original twenty four thousand Hub City residents had elected to move to Haven when they could. Twelve percent of those citizens had never accepted any gene modifications at all, and this move was a godsend for them, to escape the gravity, and the confines of the former Krall compounds. Even if rippers and wolfbats no longer threatened humans, there were ample threats on Koban for which no truce was possible. Eighteen to twenty-four inch wingspan scorpion skeeters went after any warm-blooded life they found. A rhinolo turned anything bipedal into trampled and gored mush when they caught a Normal human on foot. Even goat sized horned antelope could kill a Normal.

Those people could be a lot more normal on Haven, as in the sense of an ordinary human, even though there were still animal threats, like the packs of werewolves and marsh dogs, the solitary giant wolverines, and other manageable dangers. None of the animals was a superfast, ultra-strong creature that could kill you with a lightening move before you knew you were even threatened. Last month on Koban a Hub City woman, seeing a skinny looking migrating marshland dagger bird for the first time, had walked closer to see the beautiful creature. Without marshlands around Hub City, the gorgeous blue and green iridescent feathered bird was unfamiliar, and seemed fragile and approachable. Had the woman known the animal was called a dagger bird, the name might have instilled greater caution, and thus saved her left eye. It barely missed penetrating her brain with its long bill.

Of the approximately twenty-four thousand original Hub City captives, roughly two thousand nine hundred had refused any genetic mods at all. Eventually, in a sort of self-delusional attitude, nearly nineteen thousand original Hub City residents had succumbed to the pressures of living on Koban. They had opted to receive the minimal modifications required to bear children and to move around easier. They had opted to receive the old strength and endurance clone mods, based only on human DNA. Their argument, if they were confronted with legal penalties based on Hub laws, would be that they were outside of Human Space, and that it was a matter of basic survival.

Of the remaining original captives that had moved to Hub City, those citizens became fully modified Kobani, and so did the majority of all of the nearly five thousand children that were born there. The children had not been raised with the stigma against human genetic changes. That taboo was ancient history to them, born of a culture they had never experienced firsthand. Recognizing the obvious benefits of the changes for living on Koban, they nearly all chose the mods. Besides, their parents didn’t want them to do it, so of course they did it anyway. At eighteen, they didn’t need their permission.

MacDougal had not been mayor of Hub City for almost a year. Yet, he still held considerable influence there, so he fostered cooperation with Prime City, and had developed a friendship with leaders there. When he offered to help build the first human built settlement on Haven, to be performed entirely by Hub City residents, he sweetened the proposal by suggesting that it be built next to the new Raspani open compound, and near a new Prada village.

They would help with building the eventual Raspani housing, when more of them were sentient, and protect the less-than-intelligent herd members until they received their mind enhancers. Working with these two species would help solidify future relations. The Prada, now recognizing that the return of sentient minds to the Raspani made them the elder species, over that of the Krall, were eager to cooperate.

The Raspani encouraged the Prada to be independent, and to rely less on guidance from an elder race. Nevertheless, they asked that they be more accepting of human participation in their construction projects. Maggi, via a Mind Tap discussion with Blue, learned that the inducement was that a youngling human species would benefit from the wisdom of the elder Prada, and that they were obligated to pass on their wisdom, as the Raspani would also do them. He explained they were hoping to wean the Prada from blind acceptance of any other race’s orders.

Stewart removed his soft suit, and joined the others in loading plastic ingots and pellets into the various hoppers on the extruder. Within an hour, they had the extruder pouring out floor slabs, with previously programed design features built into them. They laid parallel ten-foot wide strips, each the length of a one family housing unit, until they had the basic floor area laid out, each strip commanded to join the adjacent one, to form an unbroken thick floor slab.

Stewart, following Mind Tap learned instructions from a man that had done this type of work decades ago, had rotated the extrusion slit to vertical, and was about to form inner walls and doors, working their way out to the outside edges to finish the basic house frame.

Suddenly, there was the loud sound of Raspani squealing from their adjacent compound, many of them at once. He’d never heard their version of screaming, but it seemed to have that same quality of panic to him.

Slapping off the machine’s power, he ran for his nearby rifle, calling for some of the other workers to follow him. “Jack, Winona, grab your guns. Something’s happening in the Raspani enclosure.”

He slung his automatic rifle’s strap over his shoulder, and in fifty feet reached the heavy plastic mesh that formed the fifteen-foot high fence. There was a gate a hundred yards away, but he took the most direct route, climbing the fence, which had six-inch wide openings in its inch thick material, suitable for footholds and handgrips. After two decades of living on Koban, the last year with clone mods, and now on a world with a half gravity less than what he was used to, he jumped halfway to the top and scrambled over, hitting the ground on the run, while the two people following him had just started for the fence with their retrieved weapons.

The squealing continued, and came through a thick stand of trees, obscured at ground level by underbrush not yet trampled down by their low-slung browsing bodies. He’d been inside the compound by truck, but had always entered from the far end gate, closer to the Prada forest village.

He’d participated in the roof raising in the compound days earlier, climbing up supports, clumsily when compared to the Prada who rapidly swarmed up them. They then used their thick prehensile tails to hold on, freeing both of their hands. They’d deftly inserted the quick lock fasteners that secured the roof section to the top of a fifty foot tall support, then either came down to run to the next one, or they swung between roof support beam elements by hands, feet, and tail, to reach another support.

They each finished five or six supports to his every one. He had far more strength, but not their agility, nor their complete lack of fear of heights. When all was secured, they flattered him like some child, patting him on the back and head as if he’d done something grand…, for a slow, slightly retarded biped.

Running, he passed one of the outer roof supports as he passed under the roof edge, which covered only a fraction of the center of the whole compound. He realized where the sound originated now. It was coming from the spring fed water wallow, and the trees he was now passing through provided shade along one side of that, under the transparent roof.

The Raspani liked to wade, or even swim, in the cool clear pool when the day was hot. There were no muddy banks, only a wide gently sloping rock entry area on one side, and about a two hundred foot long pool, ranging from fifty to seventy feet wide, that ended at some low cliffs at the far end. The clear cool spring water was perhaps a hundred feet deep by the backside cliffs, and the bottom back there was always in shadow. Not that the Raspani liked to swim very much, and certainly not deep underwater. Their lower torso bore a slight resemblance to pigmy hippos, with a hog-like face on a fat neck that topped their upper body. They only liked the water for its cooling and cleansing benefits. They were fastidious about staying clean.

Stewart was nearly bowled over by two obviously terrified Raspani that, heedless of scratches, burst through a thicket of bushes he was about to skirt around. Lacking real speech, there was no point in trying to ask them anything, nor did it appear they would have tarried to answer him anyway. He took advantage of the broken branches to follow their back trail.

The squealing continued but it had lessened in volume, it sounded only like one individual now. He thought that was probably the result of Raspani fleeing from what had frightened them. The trees were thinning and he could see the start of the clearing around the pool, and the echoing of the Raspani cry was louder, as the sound reflected from the low rock cliffs along the sides of the pool.

Unslinging his rifle, Stewart burst from the trees and in twenty feet was on a ledge that overlooked the water. Below, there was rippling bloody turbid water, with flashes of several long, pale green slender shapes, twisting and turning below the surface. The normally clear water was so full of blood and bits of tissue that it was difficult to see what the shapes were. Then the source of the screaming squeals revealed itself, by apparently catching a fresh breath.

An adult Raspani was trying to drag itself up the gentle sloping rock surface at the shallow end of the pool to his left. There was thrashing bloody water near its hindquarters, which Stewart first took to be its back legs kicking, in an effort to swim or push its way up the slope. Its short thick arms were flailing the water backwards frantically, but the creature was inching backwards, not forward.

An armored looking pale green, flat-sided tail suddenly broke the surface behind the Raspani. In an instant, Stewart knew what was attacking the poor creature, if not how it had managed to get into this landlocked pool. It was what the Prada called a skather, and the humans had retained use of the same name.

Skathers were Haven’s analogue to a crocodile, except these animals had no external legs, just vestiges of ancient foot bones preserved internally. The predators, found in the nearby river, grew to at least twenty-five or thirty feet, but were very awkward when trying to slither on land. They normally preyed on migratory herd animals that tried to ford the river, or that came to the banks to drink. A sudden surge, powered by their muscular tails, and they could lunge several feet up a bank to catch and hold their prey, using long powerful jaws that had evolved to resemble those of the crocodiles of Earth.

Stewart ran along the side of the low cliff, trying to take a bead with his rifle on the skather, which apparently had a grip on one of the Raspani’s short thick and muscular back legs. It was jerking and trashing, trying to pull the squealing prey back to deeper water. Like Earth’s alligators and crocodiles, these predators generally needed the aid of their fellows to twist and tear pieces from large victims, even after they drowned them. Their jaws could hold onto their prey, and rip and puncture, but they were not suited for chewing. They would swallow whole whatever chunks of flesh or limbs they could tear free. Two of them working together, twisting and pulling on the same carcass, could rip off small enough pieces to swallow.

The blood and flesh bits in the deeper water, and flashes of multiple skather bodies there was evidence of why the earlier multiple screams were now silenced. Those victims were feeding the cooperating predators as they ripped them apart. This last Raspani was about to join them, if Stewart couldn’t shoot the skather’s flailing body, mostly concealed below the bloody water.

He fired several shots into the water behind the Raspani, afraid the bullets could deflect to hit the creature he was trying to save. He didn’t have a heavy rifle, although it had a high rate of fire. He was told it was a .25 caliber weapon, having less recoil than the larger guns that were available. He was no hunter, but had been told that people not familiar with accurate shooting should be able to use it effectively against oncoming predators. Its rate of fire would better ensure hits on the modest sized animals his Hub City people were most likely to face, such as wild marsh dogs, or even a werewolf pack.

He didn’t think he was doing the skather any harm with his few tentative shots. Part of the time, its splashing and lashing tail whipping had the exposed part alongside the Raspani’s flanks, where he refused to even aim. Stewart had seen many skathers at the riverbank, although the adults there were much larger than what he was seeing here. The Raspani, upper torso extended flat in the water, with his lower half trailing at the surface behind him, was roughly eight feet long. The unseen head and jaws of the skather, with only the tail sometimes visible, could not be even twice that length. It had to be a much lighter weight adolescent.

He had lost his brother and sister-in-law to a predator, inside the Hub City compound twenty years ago, to a ripper. He was often haunted in his imagination of the fear his family members had felt, and wishing he’d been there, armed, to try to save his younger brother.

The terror of this pitiful, half-brainless creature stirred his soul to save it if he could. He liked the newly awakened minds of the Raspani he’d met and spoken to, and knew this one would be one of those soon, if it lived to receive a mind enhancer. He was going to save it, somehow.

When he neared the shallow end of the pool, he made the mistake of promptly leaping into the water from the side of the pool, at the same distance from the edge of the shallow water as the Raspani was. He found himself in water just below his belt. There was a firm flat rock bottom to move over, but he had to push his way the thirty feet to the bleating Raspani against the water’s resistance. He wanted to get close enough that his poor marksmanship would spare the victim injury. Belatedly, he realized he should have ran all the way to the end, and dashed in from the easier to navigate inches deep water to run out to the Raspani.

He heard shouts from behind, as Jack and Winona broke out of the trees and spotted him and the Raspani. “Stew, what were you shooting at?” was Jack’s shouted question. All they could see for the moment was the struggling Raspani.

He shouted back, to warn them in case they couldn’t see the threat. “Skathers have gotten into the pool. I’m going to shoot the one that has this one by the hind leg.”

Just then, the skather’s tail obligingly flailed above the surface of the water, proving that Stewart’s claim wasn’t imaginary in this land locked pool.

He finally drew near enough that he could start firing into the water closer to where he saw ripples of the powerful tail just below the surface. The Raspani had lost more ground as Stewart had made his way closer. He was forced to move down the gradually sloping bottom towards the tiring Raspani, and the water rose above his waist. His angle to shoot at the skather was lower, and he saw some shots strike the water, and skip up to knock chips from the far wall.

He held the lightweight rifle higher with his right hand, and waded closer to the Raspani, extending his left hand. The Raspani desperately reached for his hand, having floated beyond the point where its short legs and feet had traction with the bottom, being pulled to deeper water. Its grip had the desperate strength of any frightened creature being attacked, and at simultaneous risk of drowning.

Stewart, with his longer legs in contact with the bottom, leaned back and pulled as hard as he could, and the Raspani floated closer. Suddenly, his own feet slipped the other way a foot. He backed up a step, and pulled again. The water behind the Raspani whipped into a froth of bloody water as the skather’s tail and body jerked harder as its prey seemed to show fresh strength.

The Raspani’s ear piercing squeals increased in volume, from the pain caused by the beast latched onto its right rear leg, as it bit down harder, and whipped its head and body back and forth. Holding his rifle as high as he could, his hand on the forward part of the stock as if it were a pistol grip, he pulled and held the trigger with the barrel pointed at the splashing water behind the Raspani. He fired perhaps eight or ten rounds, while the weapon jerked as he fired from that awkward, one-handed overhead grip.

The receiver click, after the magazine fed it’s last round was easily heard, despite the ringing in his ears. He didn’t have any spare ammunition, not that he could have pried himself loose from the Raspani’s death grip on his left hand and forearm to reload right then. Evidently, the last several rounds had an effect when the tail and body of the skather was near the surface, sometimes exposed as it fought for its meal. It must have been hit one or more times, because the Raspani was finally able to move forward faster, with Stewart’s assistance.

As the side of the lower torso drifted to him, he reached back with his rifle barrel and pressed that against the rump, to try to push it ahead. The Raspani wasn’t so panicked now that it couldn’t see that it was getting away. Holding onto its benefactor’s extended left arm, now behind it’s shoulders, would slow its progress to escape, so it released the man’s hand, and resumed the two handed imitation of a sloppy breast stroke, while its undamaged legs pumped to help move it forward.

Stewart placed his free left hand on the creature’s butt as it passed and shoved, causing the Raspani to drift ahead quickly, and its feet touched bottom. That was obvious when its long back, previously barely above water, lifted several inches, as it was able to stand.

Feeling good about this rescue, he was reveling in the shouts from his friends on shore, now directly in front of the Raspani, encouraging it with beckoning gestures, ready to help it clamber out of the water. Why they weren’t going in deeper to help was curious. They would have good footing, with water only up to their hips.

That was when the tone of their urgent shouting actually registered with him. It wasn’t joyous sounding, as the rescue he’d performed should demand. It was an urgent warning of something behind him.

He looked back and saw the rippled trails of two skathers gliding through the water towards him, only their nostrils and eyes above water. He turned and started wading as fast as he could, but the water seemed to have turned to molasses to his perceptions, only reluctantly passing around his chest, as he tried to outrace the toothy death gliding smoothly his way.

He reached water only up to his waist, but a glance back told him he wouldn’t make it. They were mere feet behind him, and his companions had moved to the sides, staying clear of the dangerous water, seeking better angles to shoot. Even if they hit their targets and not him, they wouldn’t do enough damage to prevent the two submerged skathers from grabbing him. He had less than a quarter of a Raspani’s mass. They’d easily pull him under water and tear him to pieces, out of reach of his friend’s equally lightweight weapons.

He whirled around to face his attackers and backed away, determined at the very least to strike a blow in his defense. Grasping the rifle with two hands, he smashed the butt down hard on the closer animal, striking at the eyes located two and a half feet behind the opening jaws on his left. The one to his right suddenly surged ahead, rotated its head and snapped its jaws closed on his right thigh, and immediately twisted its body to his right, to roll over and try to tear the flesh from his leg or break a bone. He flailed at it with the rifle butt, but the water cushioned the blow, and he deliberately threw himself in a roll in the same direction as the skather rotated, to delay its tearing his leg off.

The other one would likely join in as soon as it blinked off the blow to its eyes, and find a grip on another limb. He instantly lost sight of the second one as he went under, and the blood from the Raspani had left the normally clear water cloudy. He knew his blood would be added to that murk in a moment. He wondered if his brother had felt this mentally collected as he faced his own death. He was frightened, but not paralyzed with fear, even knowing he was about to die a nasty death.

He completed two rollovers in the water, and he was trying to work the rifle barrel into the gap between his thigh and the opening at the back of the beast’s jaw. He hoped to jam the rifle muzzle into some tender throat tissue and force it to release him.

He knew it was over when he heard a roar and felt the heavy impact of the second skather strike. Apparently, in the murk and feeding frenzy, it hit the other skather in the process. He felt the teeth in the jaws gripping him rake along his thigh, as the pressure eased slightly. He took the opportunity to shove hard on the rifle butt, causing the teeth to tear his flesh more because that was the only way he had leverage, to force the metal barrel deeper into the open throat.

There was violent shaking, as if the other skather had a grip on the one that had him. It hadn’t looked that much larger, but all he’d seen was its eyes, and nostrils at the front of its upper jaw. There was another roar, and he wondered how they did that underwater. He had about used up the last breath as he went under. The exertion had consumed the oxygen in that last hurried gulp. If he was lucky, he might drown before they tore his living, feeling body apart. He let his air escape in a rush, ready to inhale the water to end this as quickly as he could.

His fatalism firmly in place, he was rudely disabused of his preparations to meet his death, when the jaws on his right leg suddenly released their grip. He was confused as to which way was currently up, after the several rolls he’d endured. He realized it was brighter to his left, which meant that had to be the direction of the sky. His right hand found the stone bottom and he pushed off, towards the light.

Suddenly a large dark form hulked over him, and then he saw gaping jaws coming for him through the water. The blue jaws clamped firmly over his left shoulder, but not as crushing as before. He shoved his hands up to fight off the beast, when his tired oxygen deprived mind recalled that skathers were light green, not blue. His hands reached and touched the monster, and FUR!

Suddenly his mind seemed to explode with a confusing kaleidoscope of images, colors and…, rage.

His head broke the surface and he gasped in a breath, one more beyond what he’d thought had been his last, and choked when he inhaled water running down the face of the jaws that held him firmly by his entire left shoulder. His hands, futilely pushing on the animal, were the source of the images flooding his mind. Somehow, in some sort of near death delirium, the skather had morphed in his mind into the beast that had taken his brother’s life. It seemed transformed into an enormous ripper.

It was strange. The rage he sensed from the creature was not directed at him!

His limp form was easily carried up the incline to the dry part of the rocky slope, and released gently. Then the ripper turned to roar another challenge to the skathers still in the water, now feeding on the one that the ripper had surprised and killed. That was where its rage was directed. At those water creatures, which had dared try to kill one of the humans this ripper claimed as extended pride mates. It turned to leave, with a calm blue-eyed glance at the man he’d rescued, and padded away, licking at its own bite wounds.

More people besides Jack and Winona now crowded around him, cutting open his pant leg and working on his wounds. Others were tending to the injured Raspani, which had nearly lost its leg, and had collapsed, heaving in shuddering gasps for breath. Seeing the shredded and obviously broken back leg of the Raspani, he forced himself up on his elbows so he could see his own leg. Punctured, ripped and bloody as it was, it was all there. A week or less in a med lab and he’d be walking.

“Well Stewart,” a familiar voice said to him, “the next time you decide to go suicide swimming, try the river, where the really big skathers live.”

“Maggi, where the hell was that brilliant advice before I jumped into the pool?” He managed, with a faint grin.

She gave him a shot for pain from a medical kit and told him, “Jack says you saved that Raspani’s life. Blue is over there applying whatever it is they use for painkillers to its leg. He says if we loan him two med labs, he has a technician’s mind inside his head that can join them together to hold a Raspani. You can recover lying next to him if you like. They decided that an empty minded one would be too restless to stay still and heal, unless it had a mind enhancer to allow it to think. It will receive one of those just produced. You can have company. They fart a lot, you know,” she offered with a smirk.

“OK. I know now that I can hold my breath a long time when necessary.” He smiled.

Then he wanted an answer. “Where the hell did that gigantic ripper come from? I thought those fangs had come to finish me off. It felt very protective of me; even though that’s the first time I’ve touched one of their frills. It seemed to know something about me, who I was, just before it set me down. He told me he was sorry for my loss. I don’t know what it meant by that thought.”

Maggi looked at her old friend, and former fellow mayor of another city-dome on Koban. “That ripper has known a little something about you his entire life. So has his sister. They have owed a debt of sorrow from their mother, but could not find a way to pay it without causing you more pain. Did he manage that just now?”

“I’m grateful he jumped in and saved me, but what was the debt? I’ve never had any contact with rippers, and you know why.”

“That was Kobalt. He and his sister Kit were the first two rippers we ever raised.”

“Oh…” was all Stewart could manage just then. He was thinking back on what thoughts he’d received from the ripper.

He finally asked, “Do they know it was their mother that killed my brother and his wife?”

“Oh yes. Their mother passed on her dying thoughts to them as they were born, knowing their lives would be in control of the humans that had killed her. Such mature thoughts are normally forbidden to give to cubs, before they can understand the context. It’s very difficult to communicate with unborn cubs, because of the placental sac that insulates them from frilling. She was dying, and her cubs would be her only way to pass on her regret, so she pushed hard to send them her final thoughts. She hoped that her regret, mixed with her starving need to eat for her babies, would influence us to let her cubs live. I have known of their mother’s relayed feelings since they were tiny. I didn’t think there would ever be a way they could tell you. You were too bitter.”

Stewart nodded his agreement. “Time has passed, and I do feel bitter at Glen’s loss and of his wife, but I don’t blame Kobalt or his sister. I always assumed those first two rippers you announced to us a year later, were the same two cubs I saw the day the mother was killed. I have never experienced a frill session, even though I have shared Mind Taps with people many times. With you mutant criminals.” He grinned at her.

“You’re a half assed mutant criminal yourself now, you know. It isn’t as if clone mods are the latest fashion trend back in Human Space.”

“Right. I do know that. I have gradually come around to reject my former hypocrisy. Please tell Kobalt and his sister that I don’t bear them any ill will. And I’ll come around to thank him one day soon, for risking his life to save me, to finally pay me that debt.”

“Stew, I frilled him before he walked off to have his own bites looked at, and he had no idea who you were when he leaped in to help. You were underwater when he arrived, so that recognition didn’t come until he could smell you up close, and then you touched his frill. He was patrolling the edge of the Raspani compound, to keep predators from frightening the empty-headed ones by coming too close to the fence. He stays well out of sight of them himself. Had they not been screaming, he wouldn’t have leaped over the fence to risk scaring them even more.”

Stewart nodded. “Like I said, I’ll thank him myself. It’s hard to change, but I do slowly change.”

“I’m not saying when you should do that, but I have to point out that Kobalt and Kit are the two oldest living rippers we know about. Living with us, having medical attention and a steady proper diet has kept them healthy. Regardless, they will not live the long lives we fully modified Kobani will. When offered such a longevity mod, assuming we could make it work for them, they have thus far adamantly refused. For much the same reasons all rippers hate to see a kill wasted, and never kill for pleasure, despite enjoying the food kills that are necessary for them to survive. Longevity isn’t part of the cycle of life that they chose to live. Too many rippers, living for too long on Koban, would upset the balance between predators and prey. Or they would have to forgo sex and reproduction.”

“Fine. I’ll go see them when I get out of the med lab. Even if I have to visit Koban to do that.”

She patted his arm like the much older women she was, despite looking like his attractive granddaughter. “It will do your soul good. However, both Kobalt and Kit have moved to Haven, forming their own pride. There are several other prides forming here. The new settlements will need protection and patrolling for some time before we tame the areas around where we’ll live. There are wolfbat flocks coming as well, for aerial scouting and exploring. The rippers and bats have learned to work together very well, and with humans of course. You won’t have to go far to find Kit or Kobalt when you feel ready to talk.”

He nodded, not appearing troubled by the prides and flocks moving to Haven. They had been fixtures in the lives of everyone on Koban for over two decades. “By the way, speaking of patrolling the fence line. How the hell did those skathers crawl all that distance to get into a landlocked pool?”

Maggi shrugged. “Winona watched two of the smallest ones flee after Kobalt attacked the two that came after you. All of them in the pool were young ones and still skinny, as you may have noticed. She saw the two smallest ones swim into the deeper water where there are shadows, and they never came back up. She watched and waited. They can only stay down for about ten minutes when they’ve been swimming so hard. She and I think there is a narrow underground stream passageway from here to the river, and the adults can’t get through.”

He considered this a moment. “It makes sense. We picked this spot for the Raspani compound because of the clear spring that feeds this pool and keeps it cool. We can feel the upwelling water, coming from the higher elevations of the foothills to the north, rising out of some of the bottom cracks. We foolishly never asked ourselves why the pool doesn’t overflow into a surface stream leading down to the river. It must drain underground to the river somehow, which is lower than the pool here. The smaller skathers must have smelled the smorgasbord when the Raspani started bathing up here. We’ll have to install some grates down in the deep water, where they entered.”

****

The cross training classroom was full of aliens, and young, old, and new Kobani. They were sectioned into areas of specialization, at least for the instructors, and the alien students. The Kobani that were there to learn new skills and share experiences, wandered from group to group over the course of a few weeks, not needing to stay many days with any group.

Soft Grass, as the female Raspani teacher was named, or just Grass to most humans that knew her, shared her observations of the Kobani with the Torki and Prada instructors, both of them volunteering in the same technological learning section.

“Even humans that do not have the education for understanding their own limited science, show an amazing ability to learn details of the most complex aspects of Raspani knowledge of quantum physics, and dimensional linkages between this Space we experience directly, and the alternate Spaces. Although they do not often understand how to use what they have learned. ”

Trumdor, the Torki scientist/technician, agreed with Grass’ observation, with a modification. “Their Mind Tap ability makes sharing of large quantities of data possible for any of the Kobani, with rapid exchange of questions and explanations. When a full understanding is not achieved because the mind of the receiver isn’t up to the task, those with the wolfbat modifications can store the data they have absorbed. They seem to turn inward later, to form a greater understanding over time, as they ponder how to fit the information saved with new experiences and later knowledge. When they see a use for theoretical knowledge, many can then apply what they saved to solve new problems encountered.”

The Prada named Shivar thought that Trumdor had described the distinction more concisely than had Grass. Not wishing to appear to correct or disagree in any way with the senior species representative, he spoke carefully, his low Krall speech now translated to Standard, via a device clipped to his chest harness similar to the one the Torki used. The Raspani, via their mind enhancers, had learned to speak and understand Standard directly, although their heavy lips and front tusks slurred some words.

“Grass, your observation of data retention by the Kobani, where they often do not know how to apply new knowledge, matches observations of our elders as well. Yet, our Torki friend has also accurately noted a delayed form of comprehension in some of the less educated Kobani. Under stress, or some form of pressure, they often recall details of a particular technology, and apply it when they already know that it works, even without a full understanding of why it works. I have heard them say they do not know how their Tri-Vid recording and playback systems work, but can record or play a recording. They can apply much that we teach them, even if the majority cannot build or modify a quantum entanglement device that acts through superposition via hidden dimensions.”

Shivar didn’t feel compelled to admit that he didn’t fully understand the science behind what he’d just described, although he suspected that Grass and Trumdor knew this. The point was that many Kobani humans found ways to use what they learned, even when they did not have a firm grasp of the theory. It was proving true that humans with a better science foundation were adept at using the new Mind Tap ability to “unlearn” what was incorrect, and could firmly grasp theory that was new to them.

Grass expanded her elbows, a move that indicated her understanding of humans had been increased. Then explained how some human scientist could be about to make significant advances. “Two of the nontechnical full Kobani, and one scientist, have offered to permit a small mind enhancer chip to be inserted into what they call their prefrontal lobe. It can be removed if they do not care for the results. The chip will permit them to access the data storage of any nearby Raspani mind enhancer or the similar Torki Olt, with the owner’s permission required from the individual involved, of course. Based on results of such sampling, they may elect to accept one or the other full chip design, or a combination of Raspani and Torki features they will elect to retain.”

Shivar had been unaware of this proposal, and was skeptical. “They are such a young species. Do they have the mental capacity developed enough to benefit from the volume of data this will make available? Most advanced species have had many tens of thousands of years more experience.”

Grass wrinkled her forehead in a smile. “On their own, without help from a race like the Olt’kitapi, they have surpassed every species known to us in the time from achieving primitive space flight, to discovering Jump travel, and then quickly engaging in intensive colonization. I believe they will manage to take this step as well.”

In personal recognition of Shivar’s feeling slightly inadequate, compared to the Raspani and Torki technical achievements, she elected to remind him of the Prada’s own unique level of advancement.

“You Prada did not receive assistance from the Olt’kitapi, because for your race it was not needed to move you into the stars, to help you achieve what you were capable of accomplishing. My race would have still been grazing fields on our home planet when the Krall came, if not for the Olt’kitapi assistance in our early history. Without their Olts, the Torki would have been building simple villages on shorelines of their home world when the Krall arrived. The Prada were already colonizing when the Olt’kitapi encountered you, and they believed you should develop at your own pace.”

Grateful for her words, Shivar darted his head forward, in the Prada nod of acceptance of the statement’s truth.

Grass continued outlining humanity’s unprecedented rapid development. “Now, with the Kobani modifications, humanity has done what no other species has ever even tried to do besides the Krall, to our knowledge. They redesigned themselves, and they have acquired abilities beyond any reasonable expectation, and certainly beyond that of the Krall, in less than a single lifespan. Thanks to the Prada’s single genetic experiment long ago, now a human lifetime is as indefinite as yours.” This was another compliment for Shivar to relish from the elder race.

Grass made a Raspani shrug, elbows pressed to her sides, “Humans seem endlessly adaptive, incredibly adventurous, and from my people’s perspective, fearless of whatever risks the Universe offers.”

Trumdor summed up the Torki viewpoint. “The Kobani will eventually become the predominate race of the human species, and not only by virtue of longevity. Their main population Hub worlds will eventually desire the superior Kobani attributes, after they emotionally recover from the genetic disaster of their recent past. Once a human is changed to become a Kobani, their children will be Kobani from birth. If they succeed in defeating the Krall, as we hope, they will become a significant force in the galaxy, and perhaps a dominate force in the far future. Our view is that it will be best for our people to be actively allied with them, rather than be mere observers or bystanders.”

He broached a new subject, sharing a secret his people believed the Raspani, at least, already knew. “I suspect, in your long histories before the Krall defeated each of us, that you were aware of signs of distant civilizations along other arms of the galaxy. We have different names for these star streams, but in Standard, the nearest are named the Sagittarius and Perseus arms. They each provide far longer stretches of stars for potential evolving intelligent life to colonize, than what we find in the minor Orion arm spur that we inhabit. Before the Krall ended most of the civilizations near us, there were eighteen other species, of which we Torki have knowledge, and we expect there must be others not far distant.

“We believe some neighboring races probably knew of Jump travel occurring in our region of the galaxy, but remained distant when the Krall belligerently entered space, initially acting as agents of security for the passive but ancient Olt’kitapi. They would surely have grown deliberately silent when the Krall terminated the Olt’kitapi voice in such a short time. We believe these unknown species have done no more than draw back, to avoid contact with the hostile Krall. Simple observations by automated probes would reveal to them that the Krall swarm after every new civilization they find, and therefore they would remain hidden. This policy will not work for long with humanity, if they endure and survive this war. Humans will go exploring more widely in all directions, if they defeat the Krall.”

Grass acknowledged that many thousands of years ago they had hints of civilizations with Jump technology along adjacent spiral arms. “The distances made trade impractical, and we did not elect to risk long exploration to confirm our clues. The Olt’kitapi had built new and faster ships that could have made the journey easy, but they elected first to build a coalition of different species in this region. The purpose of the powerful mining ships they constructed was to gather raw material, to create huge artificial habitats around one or two stars that had ideal locations, with ample raw material and nearby civilizations, which they could invite to join them. Their first invited guest and coworker was unfortunately the Krall, who they wanted to be the guardians of these centers of advanced civilization.”

Shivar was embarrassed to admit that Prada history, with regard to this subject, was as fragmented as their race, forcibly divided by the Krall. “There are similar stories held by elders, but these are oral, as were the Krall histories when we were defeated by them. Over time, the original Krall history has evolved and changed, as they revised it to create a more flattering form to fit their racial prejudices. We Prada were not permitted to retain a written history, and did not have your mind devices to preserve our history intact. We now know of this loss, but it is one that we cannot undo until all of our separated factions have reunited, so that we might recover more of our history.”

A major societal shift made by the Prada on Haven was reflected in how Shivar referred to their former “Rulers.” Now merely calling them the Krall. The Raspani had made it clear that they were not the new rulers of the Prada. That in fact, they should not consider any other race as their rulers. It was not an easy adjustment to make, after so many thousands of years of loyalty to what they believed was the elder species, and thus by extension, wiser.

Prada elders, many experiencing doubts concerning aiding human opposition against a species no longer the eldest, but much older than their new foe, had been presented with an opportunity. Mirikami proposed they participate in a relay version of Mind Tapping, using several surviving Krall prisoners. The Krall’s unfiltered mental “charms,” were even less tactful than their usual indifferent actions towards preservation or welfare of their slave races. They had received thorough answers to the many questions they had posed to the impatient, hate filled prisoners.

They reported to their waiting people what the future with their “no longer eldest” former rulers would have been, and it was eventual deliberate Prada extermination. When asked what the Krall thought of their thousands of years of loyal service and sacrifices? They learned they were considered detested, weak animals, which would do anything to survive.

Trumdor added a final personal opinion, before they went to meet the next group of those seeking technological education. “The Krall will not be the galaxy’s only aggressive and arrogant species, bent on ruling others or bending them to their wills. There is no other species than humans that my people would want to ally with, if we meet a more sophisticated version of the Krall in the future.”

Shivar darted his head forward multiple times in solid agreement, as Grass spread her arms in a gesture that showed she viewed the Torki position as reasonable caution.

****

The four volunteers were in the newly constructed and only hospital on Haven, with the awkward name, proposed energetically by the ever forceful and influential Maggi Fisher. The Multiple Alien Species Hospital, or M.A.S.H., was her brainchild, one which none of those that agreed to the name realized that it was partially derived from a military description from a long forgotten era, over six hundred years ago. The original Mobile Army Surgical Unit’s function was vastly different than was this fixed-in-place hospital, designed for use by four species. Maggi had encountered the neat sounding acronym via her love of old entertainment shows and movies, of the pre-spaceflight era.

The patients today were all humans, but they were gathered in the Raspani wing’s surgical theatre. It didn’t resemble a surgical ward to them very much, since the normal patients were not shaped very human and laid on long narrow couches rather than beds, legs hanging to the sides, with arm and headrests at one end. The automated chip insertion device in this ward had been reprogramed, to perform a different task than inserting a mind enhancer chip through the top of a Raspani’s skull and into the brain.

Maggi was grinning at the four “experimental animals,” as she had called them. Mel Rigson and Cal Branson were experienced as medical technicians, although out of touch with even the current human technology, since they’d last trained for their skills on the old Flight of Fancy, before it was captured and taken to Koban. Joe Longstreet was a spec ops captain, and Alex Born was a physicist, originally from the Old Colony of Rhineland II, but a citizen of Koban ever since his passenger ship was captured by the Krall twenty-three years ago.

The attractive little blonde sprite had lost none of her diabolical humor, which she had honed at others expense for much of her hundred twelve years. She looked towards Grass and Coldar, the Raspani and Torki scientists, which were here to provide communication contacts for the experiments about to commence. “Gentle Men, our two distinguished guests are ready, and Grass has assured me this will be painless, despite cutting off the tops of your skulls for the Raspani insertion device to reach the prefrontal lobes of your brains.”

She enjoyed the startled looks on the faces of the four subjects, who had never heard this was even a consideration, for what they anticipated would be a simple outpatient procedure. They had seen the Raspani receive their mind enhancers in mere minutes, and then walk out with a small bandage on their head.

Grass made the sputter sound of a confused Raspani. “It was never proposed to open the entire top of their heads. The insertion device will use an entry through what you call the nasal passage, with a minimal opening by a needle, with no pain. There is no need to expose the entire brain. That would be unnecessarily dangerous.”

She grinned mischievously, “Oh…, I must have just assumed that. Your way sounds much better Grass.”

Rigson and Branson, long acquainted with Maggi’s sense of humor, had quickly realized she was pulling their legs, but Longstreet barely knew her and had looked acutely uncomfortable. Born had one of those science minds that took things said to him seriously, because he himself always spoke and thought deliberately, and honestly.

With her joke revealed, but a wayward thought planted, Born now experienced some reservations about a machine implanting a device in his most precious tool, his brain.

“Show me again the size of the needle, and the chip it will contain. Describe how the insertion is monitored, and how the proper placement is determined. I only brought just the one brain with me, you know.”

Maggi, now a bit sorry for her warped attempt at humor, called on a presumably more “trustworthy” source to explain. “Rafe, you have studied the superconductor links in our brains, and the neuron connections the Olts and mind enhancers make as they automatically connect. Perhaps you should describe the process.”

Rafe flashed a look of annoyance at Maggi, for triggering doubt in the volunteers, whom they previously had solidly on board for this procedure. “Maggi is known more for her ability to make herself laugh than for a good bedside manner. Doctor Born, I believe you have a communications transducer embedded behind your right ear, do you not?”

“Yes. I’ve had one for almost a year.”

“The Raspani designed chip is about the same length as that, but half the diameter, so the needle to make the insertion is correspondingly smaller. You will have a local anesthetic, administered by the insertion equipment as it goes in, similar to the infirmary equipment used to embed transducers. You will feel a slight pressure at the moment of insertion through bone, but no pain. We monitor the process on three scanners placed at right angles to each other, which can be moved where you can see the three dimensional image if you wish. The precise chip positioning is not very critical at all, because the smaller-than-a-rice-grain chip will be left in the bone of either your left or right frontal sinus cavity, and sealed off as we withdraw. Only the chip’s tip, with the linkage elements exposed will reach through the inside of your skull. You’ve watched the scans of the Raspani chips growing fine filaments to connect to their brains. This will do the same to the two sides of the prefrontal lobe. We will never even touch your brain with the probe.” He indicated the waiting scanners next to the insertion machine.

“Who will go first?”

Rigson beat Cal Branson by a heartbeat, and said, “Me. I’ve watched this type procedure before. I’ll go first. What do you call the thing anyway? Always saying ‘chip’ sounds too generic.”

Rafe scratched his chin. “I hadn’t given a name any thought. It’s to facilitate communications with Olts and mind enhancers, data exchanges with them, and between those of us with one of these chips.” He looked to Maggi and the others for naming suggestions.

Branson was faster than Rigson this time. “It will let us communicate by Mind Tap with other Kobani remotely, right? How about Tapcom as a name, or Comtap?”

A few minutes of discussion later, and Comtap was chosen for the name and the purpose of the new chips, since it was similar sounding to “com link,” an expression already widely used.

With computer guidance, the process was completed in less than five minutes, and the Raspani probe, choosing the most open nasal passage from scanner images, quickly and effectively navigated the path through that bit of human anatomy without difficulty, or needing any helpful intervention.

As Branson took his turn on the tilted back human style seat, Coldar explained to Rigson that the chip linkage might require several minutes. Branson’s procedure shaved a minute from the first insertion, and Longstreet was already in the seat when Rigson made a comment.

“I can feel the linkage I believe. Grass, your mind enhancement device appears open for connection, I think. I suppose I’d call it ready to communicate, and I sense those are your mental images, from when we Mind Tapped previously. I can recognize your thoughts even though we are not physically touching.”

Grass’s normally slightly wrinkled forehead became flat, indicating if not a frown, at least confusion. “My device is open to you, although I have not yet sought to link with you, because it seemed too soon to try. You are sure it is me you sense?”

“Yes, because I sense Coldar is to my other side, and has suddenly closed off his device to me. Oh, there it is back. Yes, I can sense your thoughts Coldar. He just tested blocking me, and then opened his Olt to me. I think this works, at least with an Olt.”

Grass made a deliberate effort to open a link with Rigson’s Comtap device, and was promptly overwhelmed with the intensity and volume of thoughts and sensations. She drew back physically, and had to close off the link quickly.

“I’m sorry Grass,” Rigson apologized. “I felt your open link, and I hurried to greet you, and I think I was too enthusiastic.”

Coldar confirmed the intensity of his own linkage a moment ago. “I needed to reduce the strength of your strong signal. It was more powerful than when my entire Lodge is with me and we have a group discussion. I believe it is due to your superconducting nervous system. I can attenuate the intensity without difficulty, but it surprised me.”

Grass returned to the mental link with more caution. “That is better. I was as open to you as I would be to another Raspani’s mind enhancer, and it was as if you were shouting into my mind. I believe we could share communication and thoughts with considerable separation of distance. Perhaps even from orbit.”

Rigson turned to his friend, “Hey Cal. I see you have just joined the club. I sense you as if we were touching hands. This is amazing! We can share Mind Taps across the room, like the Torki and Raspani do now.”

Hearing this, Coldar offered a correction. “I do not experience anything with other Torki or Raspani like I do with a Mind Tap with one of you. When I use my Olt for communication with them, the experience is more like your transducer communications. When I receive a data transfer from another of my people it is not like our Olt conversations, and arrives without my knowing what it is, and then I can sense it afterwards as if it was an old memory. With you just now, a Comtap communication was much more than a conversation that I receive, it was mental sensations, your feelings and mental images. An Olt conversation is a remote, one dimensional form of your Mind Tap.”

Longstreet, having completed the process by now, had also discovered he could link to the others, as if using his Mind Tap ability. He could exclude anyone or everyone, selectively, because he tested for that. “Coldar,” he asked, “we want to be able to learn things that you have stored on your Olts or mind enhancers by data transfer, as you do between Olts. What is some knowledge that I would not have that is stored on your Olt, which you can open to me? Let me see if I can receive the information, and understand what it is. Nothing too complex, I hope. I’m a soldier, not a scientist.”

“For us Joseph, you need to know what you are asking to receive, and I must allow that.”

“Call me Joe, please. I don’t know what I don’t know. Tell me what to request, and make it available from your Olt, then ask me what I learned.”

“Joe, try to request landing procedures for a migration ship. I will open that memory storage for you.”

Longstreet and Coldar held still for perhaps thirty seconds. Then Coldar asked, “What is the proper setting for a lower attitude thruster angle, for a water landing as you set down, and when do you open the water doors on the bottom for ballast?”

Longstreet seemed to think for almost a minute, before finally giving an answer. “The water doors are opened one ship length high, just before a sea landing, to allow ballast water inside to prevent rolling, and they are never opened on a hard surface landing. The data tells me that the lower attitude thrusters are never used below three ship diameters high when making a water landing. That’s because they must not risk being submerged in cold water while hot. They’re retracted and the portals are closed. There is no standard proper angle for hard surface landings, and after they are shut down for water landings, they retract into the lower hull and their outer watertight doors seal shut. I searched all of what my new memory contained, and that’s all could find on lower thruster angles.”

Coldar made a bow of respect. “You would need practice and a review of the entire file, but I believe you have received the basic information on how to land a migration ship.”

Longstreet grinned. “It’s almost like I had a form of sleep learning. I don’t recall learning the knowledge, but when I looked for it, I found it in there like a detailed memory. There is a great deal more available besides what you asked me about.”

The Torki bobbed its body in agreement. “That is much like our experience when we transfer data between Olts. It is there like an old memory when we seek it, but not before, and we did not learn it over an extended time.”

Almost unnoticed Alex Born had finished his procedure several minutes ago, and was sensing the new communication flow around him. He was eager to sample a particular information transfer. “Grass, I would like to request a transfer of data concerning the theoretical reasons for the short-range limits for certain quantum effects, such as the Q-rupters and Katushas exhibit. There must be a common principle involved.”

This complex technical request nearly caused the other three volunteers heads to spin, and Maggi rolled her eyes as she stood out of sight, behind Born.

The Raspani, an approving posture suggested by its stance, cautioned Born, “The transfer time will be very much longer than the data Captain Joe received from Coldar.”

Longstreet interjected, “It’s just Joe, not Captain Joe.”

Proving that both Grass and Alex Born had picked up a few idioms from Maggi, they responded simultaneously with the same archaic word.

“Whatever.”

Chapter 4: Not For the Feint of Heart

Greeves and Reynolds were in Nabarone’s War Room, watching them implement the plans for the “Fighting Withdrawal,” as the anticipated Krall offensive appeared to be on the verge of starting.

Major Caldwell described part of the plan, “The civil evacuations are finished, thanks to the advanced planning to move them back early and gradually. The roads, rails, and airways won’t be clogged with refugees, so our forces will be able to pull back quickly as needed. We’ve planted mines and explosives to do as much damage as we can without risking our troops. We even set the automatic home timers in thousands of residences and apartment buildings, to keep lights switching off and on, and to power some human shaped figures placed in front of windows, to draw warriors to the supposed kills.”

Greeves and Reynolds, both natives of Poldark, had the same question.

“Where did you find artificial human figures?” Thad asked.

“Well, vaguely human shaped, mostly.” Caldwell laughed. “We stripped stores, people’s attics, garages, and basements of Christmas figures. Some are complex computer animated displays, some are simple inflated Smart Plastic shells that play songs or music, and wouldn’t fool a person into thinking they were live humans, even at a distance. How many automated Wise Men have you been fooled into thinking were real people in a Nativity scene? Have you ever thought a singing snowman was plausible? Poldark’s Christian heritage is almost as commercial as Earth’s. We expect Santa Claus to place a lot of Krall on his naughty list.”

“Your purpose in doing this is nefarious, I presume?” prompted Sarge.

“Of course. For example, at Novi Sad we have Krall sensitive proximity charges in about a third of the first block of houses near the river where the Krall need to cross, and in all of the tall apartment buildings. For the high rises, animated figures are placed at upper floor windows, to draw multiple warriors up to them.”

“Sarge,” Thad quipped, “I’m sure your former stock of inflatable lady friends will finally achieve their own climax.”

“Very funny, grease man,” he answered, playing off Greeves last name, using a nickname he’d learned Thad once had, and disliked.

Not rising to the taunt, Thad had another question for Caldwell. “The dummies won’t fool them long, and I was told your retreats will be faster than in past Krall attacks. We weren’t in on your planning after we left, what’s the deal Howard? Using delay tactics or just giving away territory?”

“More than that. The Krall will suffer some early losses, proving we have fought back, but we intend to conduct a fighting retreat to conserve our forces for the counter attacks when they start their own partial pullback. If we didn’t expect that withdrawal, we wouldn’t give up the ground so easily. We think we can take most of it back.”

“Where is Henry, if the Krall assaults are about to begin? We assumed he was here when we landed this morning.”

“Both you and Tet said he needed to suck up to his Lady bosses. I used to do some of that for him as his navy liaison. He’s off planet right now, watching what’s about to unfold with Navy Chief of Staff Admiral Bledso, on the Invincible, the dreadnaught flagship of the fleet elements in the outer system. Bledso wanted to be here, to use this to show the president her involvement beyond purely naval matters. She wants to be Chairfem of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when the present Chairfem retires. If the assaults don’t happen as predicted, Henry might have to do more than eat his words to keep his job.

“To back Bledso in having Henry fired, if he proves to be a ‘chicken little’ and the sky doesn’t fall, is Lieutenant General Cadifem, Henry’s immediate superior. The Invincible is poised just behind our moon, where the general is within communications range if we need a command decision to alter our plans. There’s no need for him to stand in this room physically, while the assault unfolds halfway around the planet. By being with them, he can pepper his commentary with items that boost his prescience in predicting the Krall action.”

With Mirikami’s predictions still holding sway, Nabarone was earning capitol with the Lady Generals and the Lady Admirals ranked above him. It was against his nature, but as suggested, he was taking the credit when he presented evidence for both an upcoming enemy offensive, and the clues there would be a subsequent withdrawal by some Krall forces from Poldark. He warned them that the withdrawal would be for initiating an invasion on another human planet. His early predictions seemed more plausible when the atypical pattern of enemy behavior was pointed out to his superiors, in detail. Once the unexpected Krall behavior was suspected, the evidence was there.

The gradual gathering of clan forces closer to every strong opposing human position, with massed truckloads of light weapons and supplies, suggested multiple lightning fast offenses. A clue to this action being only a diversion was described to them by Nabarone, when he pointed out that the assaults were not being backed by much of the heavier equipment, which would be needed if they intended actually to hold all of the new territory taken, against human counter attacks. The waiting empty clanships were another clue.

There were few of the heavy plasma batteries close to the eight major fronts, which were normally used to blast attacking human ships and space planes out of orbit. There was a massing of the highly mobile light plasma battery carts, and numerous armored transports to move warriors and ammunition safely through artillery barrages faster. The bulk of their heaviest assault weapons and half of all their mini-tanks were being pulled back close to the periphery of a thirty-mile radius circle of heavy plasma cannons and lasers placed at the center of the conquered territory, which had massive orbital strike capability. Virtually all of the empty clanships were now parked within that strong defensive circle, which was ready to protect their mass departure.

The Krall were not adept at subtlety, preferring the “I’m about to attack, so try to stop me” mode of offense. They probably believed that placing a third to half of all their major combat material just outside the central defensive ring, near their empty clanships, didn’t look suspicious. It certainly wasn’t suggestive to the average warriors and sub leaders, who had no notion that a partial withdrawal was being planned. The Krall only pulled significant forces from a planet once the enemy was crushed.

Even the ordinary warriors knew this attack wasn’t designed to crush opposition on all of Poldark, but was for the purposes of punishing humanity for attacking Krall planets. That was the truth, but only in small part.

The clan sub leaders for this offense already had received specified limits of how far they would be allowed to push back the human armies, but within that limit they could inflict as much damage and death as they wished. There would be no designed pauses, to allow the enemy to regroup and preserve forces for later warrior culling. The humans would simply have to replace higher losses from their armies this time. No human captives needed to be taken alive for painful information extraction. It was always a distasteful task for any warrior to capture rather than to kill an opponent, and any human of any age was an opponent.

Small to midsized clans were being granted the unusual honor of placement at the forefront of every attacking force. Actually, that was so the major clans, those that had earned the right to participate in the new invasion of the next human world, could quickly disengage from battle and race to board the waiting clanships.

Kanpardi had ordered that the “disengage” command be phrased as a charge, not a withdrawal. A charge designed to rapidly and efficiently form a new invasion task force, to conduct a glory filled historic new invasion, against a much more heavily populated human world. They would be told this would be a difficult, risk-filled action with much fighting. The fact that the unsuspecting world had only a light defending force, due to its presumed secure location closer to the Hub worlds, actually meant there initially would be considerable human slaughter. There would be relatively little culling of warriors at the start of the invasion, at least until humans shifted additional fighting forces to the chosen planet.

Caldwell suddenly stiffened, as he studied the visual graphics on the large monitors of each of the eight major fronts the Krall had established over time. There were a significant number of midsized cities on the outer portions of the invaded largest continent, which did not face increased enemy forces. Apparently, this was because once the Krall reached the number eight at the largest cities that this suited their natural bias for that number.

There were red pinpoints, each of which represented two hands of octets of Krall warriors, with different red symbols for the types of equipment used to support them. A small red beetle shape represented Dragon units a small red lightning bolt for plasma batteries, a bent worm-like symbol was for a group of the articulated armored troop carriers, and so forth.

There were eight large clusters of differently and multicolored pinpoints and equipment shapes for human forces, adjacent to each cluster of red, which easily outnumbered the red pinpoints. If the Krall’s fighting ability wasn’t known to an observer, it would appear the human forces had them surrounded and were poised to crush them. In reality, the five to one advantage in numbers could only slow the Krall, if they wanted to advance.

Thad and Sarge had been told that the multicolored symbols represented company or platoon level strength, depending on the military branch represented. Army, Marine, Rangers, or special ops forces could be depicted in other tints of base colors if requested. The colors represented each one of the eight human armies that faced the brunt of the Krall attacks, with some intermingling of colors and forces where they overlapped.

What had drawn Caldwell’s attention was the previously motionless graphics at the leading edge of the Krall lines. They had suddenly acquired vector arrows, indicating speed, and direction, which was all pointed towards the various human force pinpoints.

“It’s started.” He told them unnecessarily. “Now our artillery starts. We mostly held it back because they were in revetments where they gathered, and largely under covered positions. Their stationary counter battery fire systems would also have been more accurate before they started moving those units. Our AIs are still better than their computers at randomizing our mobile batteries when they fire on the move. They do counter rocket attacks the most effectively. That’s why we generally stay with low trajectory ballistic projectiles, to avoid their most effective defensive laser fire.

“Many of our newest antipersonnel munitions release self-guided projectiles that seek weak spots in their body armor. Unfortunately, they changed to better and much heavier powered armor a few months ago, so elbow, knee, wrist and ankle joints are the primary points we program to hit now. A thermite projectile can melt and spot-weld a joint if it’s not knocked away quickly. If a joint freezes up, novice warriors sometimes foolishly detach that sleeve or leg section for freedom of movement. With the next wave of shells, we create a bunch of slower, one armed or one leg hopping Krall novices, which are still dangerous, but not nearly as much. We have new munition designs under test for penetrating this armor, but it hasn’t been deployed here in quantity yet.”

“You can’t blow their heads off through the faceplates? It’s what we were doing a year ago.” Sarge wondered.

“They don’t have a face plate now. The helmet is similar to that of your Torki designed armor, with an internal view screen, and it is even thicker than yours is. Their firing accuracy is still very good, and they mostly use the same hand held plasma rifles, with some equipped with forearm mounted short barrel versions, for close-in fighting. They don’t have your armor’s small Trap Fields for tachyon power, however, and they need frequent power pack swaps in a heated fight. They have finally copied our grenades, and they carry perhaps eight to sixteen each. They are electronically simpler than our models, with fewer booby trap options than ours have, such as no proximity detector to sense a human target. A Krall doesn’t have the disposition to lay a trap and wait anyway. Some of the sadistic shits pull off a captured man’s helmet, and shove a grenade down inside and watch him go.”

Thad thought a moment. “We’ll be facing these new suits soon. I’d like to test our equipment against theirs, and bring several relatively undamaged suits home for the Torki and Raspani to study.”

“Raspani? I thought they had been bred to a near animal state.” Caldwell was curious.

“We found millions of ancient normal Raspani minds that were in hiding, recorded on a special chip, located on one of the worlds that we raided. The Torki slaves there had saved the chip, embedded inside a Raspani skull. It’s normally an electronic mental assistance device, similar to what the Torki use, but this one was expanded to hold personalities of several million minds. Clusters of those minds are gradually being transferred to new chips, placed in the brains of non-sentient Raspani. We hope to have some technological advances from their scientists and engineers to share with you in the near future. Even better than what we gave you from the Torki and Prada.”

Caldwell shook his head at the ever-changing Universe the Kobani were finding. “You keep acquiring some strange allies. Well, about samples of the armor. I’ll ask a spec ops team to bring you one of the new Krall suits. We have some of your full gene mod boys using your style stealth, located behind enemy lines now.”

Sarge recalled the last fight he was engaged in, here on Poldark, when he lost his left arm while wearing standard armor. “I wonder what it’s like for our troops, facing this new Krall armor.”

****

The infantry captain was watching the Krall advance, via the various spy bots and riverside cameras they had planted. He spoke into his suit com link to the artillery commander. “Captain Franklin, start an antipersonnel barrage on the far side of the river, and walk it towards the river, staying behind those armored transports in the lead. We want to catch those warriors on foot coming out of the revetments behind the trucks. The depleted uranium pellets don’t hurt their new heavy armor much, but they ruin the hell out of a plasma rifle, and the other personal weapons they attach to their suits. Their closest rifle and power pack replacements are the ones carried in the backs of the transports they’re following. At least that’s what the spy bots showed us.”

“Captain,” responded the voice at the other end, “I have a number of the new armor penetrator rounds. A few of those could get past the laser defenses to take out some of the armored transports. They’ll kill a mini tank.” Implying they could also drive their molten metal jets into the interior of the double segmented heavy trucks.

“I was told those are in limited supply, arriving only after we learned about this continent wide assault.”

“True,” Franklin acknowledged, “but I have a couple of thousand rounds, Captain.”

“Thanks, but we should save those for actual tanks and our withdrawal. Most of the heavy transports in the lead aren’t going to make it across the river anyway, at least not at Novi Sad. Our bridges were mined for this day over a month ago. That’s why we left them standing, and asked you not to drop rounds on them. Until they bring up their own portable bridge segments or use clanships, the bulk of the leading warriors will have to walk underwater through the mud, or use shuttles to cross over after we take the bridges down. Their replacement rifles and closest ammunition supply will be at the bottom of the river in those transports.”

“Sounds like a plan. When you pick up movement under water, if you designate where on the grid, I can drop some HE rounds to ruin their day.”

“Great. I’ll have my corporal call you with any underwater detector reports. We have sensors already deployed. It’ll be good to return the favor, since they made rivers and shorelines death traps for our divers.”

****

Photok didn’t like driving an armored transport. The two batteries of rooftop plasma cannons were operated from the two rear compartments by other warriors, so as just the driver, he had no means actually to attack the enemy. He could only earn status points from kills and as a driver that would only happen if he managed to run over and crush one of the humans. Not a very pleasurable or personal kill, and not very probable.

He wasn’t even allowed to race ahead of the leading wave of the assault, to meet the enemy sooner. The front four ranks of transports were to reach each of the seven bridges over the river simultaneously, to prevent human plasma fire from concentrating on isolated trucks rushing ahead. Depending on bridge width, they were to drive four to six transports abreast, in ranks four deep, as they drove onto the bridges, then suddenly increase their speed to maximum when they reached the bridges. They would sweep any resistance aside with this fast assault, and then fan out and hold their positions on the far side, to prevent humans from trying to retake the bridges or to destroy them. The hated artillery couldn’t seriously hurt the transports, or bring the sturdy bridges down before the majority of the advance forces were well established on the far bank.

Photok looked to his right, at the other two armored warriors of his clan riding with him in the cab. The new heavier suits were so bulky that only the three of them fit where four would have sat previously. The three present in the cab seemed wrong somehow to Photok, who always thought in terms of full hands of warriors.

The other two held their rifles between their legs, butts on the floor, while he needed two hands to operate the steering and throttle. He glanced down at his own rifle in the pocket slot on the left door. When he stopped on the far side of the bridge, he intended to leap out with that rifle and seek some humans to kill. His minor clan had seldom been in the front of an assault force, and they had never been the first to engage the enemy. He vowed he would be among the first of his clan to meet the humans this time.

The warning relayed from the console system told them that projectiles were inbound. The transports were all linked to reports from the laser defense systems, and the ballistic tracks of thousands of rounds of inbound artillery were displayed on the console screen. The precise tracking for ballistic projectiles was less effective for the laser defense system, for some reason, and the humans had learned to avoid guided munitions in mass bombardments. The defense system only killed a bit over half of these projectiles this time. Typically, it would have destroyed eight out of ten shells if they had been fired in a higher arc. A flatter trajectory kept them below the defense system longer.

His transport’s forward armor was in place, and should easily absorb the impacts without serious damage. He and his clan mates were surprised when the rounds passed over their vehicles and airburst at head height well behind them. Instead of attacking the lead transports, the enemy was after the more exposed warriors on foot behind them.

Photok, being a typical Krall, felt anger that they had refused to consider him enough of a threat to try to kill him first. He felt no concern for those caught in the hail of depleted uranium pellets, and the occasional smart munition that sought the more vulnerable limb joints. The exposed warriors also wore the heavier armor, which had been pulled from ages old stockpiles and refurbished by their slave workers. This bulky armor had only been used in unregulated interclan battles from thousands of years ago and preserved in airless protection in old orbital battle stations. They had been produced at a time when preserving skilled warrior numbers had seemed advisable, when their Botolian opponents were fighting them with weapons that fired collapsed matter pellets. Its revival now was a testament to this new enemy, not for their individual fighting ability, but of their smart weapons.

There would be relatively few losses from these antipersonnel artillery shells, unless one happened to detonate directly next to a warrior. Even then, the armor might not be breached, but the shock transmitted through the armor itself could kill or disable. Many warriors would shed their heavy armor once they were within the populated human nest areas, aware that human fighters seldom risked killing their own people with artillery. A weakness that the Krall did not have.

From the sounds of rounds passing over, and the vibrations and thuds of the concussions from well behind reaching them, it was apparent that their exposed clan mates were being hit hard.

“We will make the cowardly animals pay for those denied a chance to fight honorably.” He said this over the unit com frequency for the two octets in his transport. There would normally have been twice that number aboard, but the second compartment of the two-segmented vehicle was over half filled with charged power packs for plasma rifles, and many spare rifles. He suddenly realized that the warriors behind him would need those rifles and power packs, because the storm of pellets would surely damage many of the weapons they carried now.

Pressing a button in his helmet with his long versatile purple tongue, he sent his own helmet’s view of the approaching bridge to each of the suit monitors of his two octets. They would pour out of two openings in the articulated joint between the two sections when they were parked on the far side of the bridge. They could start identifying targets and points to attack even as they crossed the bridge.

Zooming one part of his visor screen on the high human nest buildings across the river, with lights lit at the top levels, Photok saw moving figures outlined at curtained windows. Stupidly outlined by light from behind them, they had revealed their shadowed presence through the sight blocking fabric. This assault had obviously caught them by surprise, since the humans that did not know how to fight had not even had time to flee in panic, as they usually did in the face of Krall advances. A kill was a kill and satisfying, although the death of a human warrior ranked higher than what the enemy said was a civilian. An armored soldier was a multiple status point kill, but a room full of non-fighters could be killed quickly, and earn you more points in less time.

Arriving first, he intended to reach the top floors of the closest one of those buildings to score fast and easy points. He chose the one just to the right of the end of this bridge, of the seven identical large nests arrayed along the opposite riverfront. Perhaps he could even enter a second building if the artillery slowed his clan mates on foot for long enough. He would be across the bridge well ahead of them. He was on the roadway now, and had started to accelerate as he neared the point where the pavement sloped higher over the water. The tall nest buildings had revised his opinion of being a driver. He and his two octets would have first access to many kills as early arrivals, because once they delivered their resupply loads to the other side, they were free to hunt.

The humans had placed flimsy wood barricades where the six-lane bridge, the one he was assigned to cross, first extended over the dark swirling waters of the river below. It was less than fifty transport truck lengths to reach the other side of the river, and he was slightly ahead of the five tucks with him, four to his left and one on his right. The lack of heavy opposing fire added evidence that the humans were either unprepared for the massive scale of the assault, or had pulled back early.

That second possibility nagged at Photok. An early pullback would suggest there was less surprise than expected. Having no respect for human fighters as individuals, he had nevertheless learned to expect their cunning and planning. When they had captured the part of the human nest area on the Krall side of the river three months ago, there were other elevated land bridges to cross. Those bridges had become killing zones of the warriors that used them, targets for human plasma batteries and lasers. The warriors exposed on the high bridges paid for the easier and faster passage. That was why the armored transports were being used to lead the way across the river this time.

The octets in these trucks would attack plasma batteries and laser emplacements near the river from the flanks, after they crossed over. They would clear the way for warriors on foot to cross in greater numbers and speed. It would seem logical the enemy would try to stop the transports while they were still on the bridge. Today, there was only light projectile fire and plasma rifle bolts striking their front armor. It was like driving through a rainstorm to these heavy vehicles.

This was not very like the clever cowards. There had to be something more forceful waiting for them on the far side. He relished the chance to test whatever fight they offered. He was disappointed.

Roughly three transport lengths from the end of the bridge, his seat bucked him upwards as the roadway lifted beneath the truck, and then he saw the entire width of the roadway slab in front of him start to drop below the edge of a wide support at the end. His speeding transport hurtled down the increasing slope towards that flat wall. He knew the river was below them and they would end up there, but only after the first six speeding trucks smashed into that wall, and then eighteen others piled into them in three quick waves.

Located at the front of the impending pileup, he would either be crushed or trapped in the wreckage. He needed to get out before that happened.

As the truck dropped with the bridge section, he opened the door to his left and snatched at his plasma rifle. He could see that the warrior by the right door was already jumping clear. It was obvious the transport would smash into the wall before the roadway reached the water. The warrior on the right side had tried to drop to the ground, but she was still moving forward with the truck and falling. Her body would be mixed in with the crushing about to happen, when the vehicles behind piled on top.

Photok instantly saw the best chance was to go up over the top of the cab and to the right, to try to leap clear of the bridge and the other transports. He quickly pushed off the weapons pocket of the door with his left foot, retaining a grip with his right hand on the doorframe, in order to maintain contact with the top surface of the truck. He swung onto the roof, tucked both feet under him, his short legs helping do that, and shoved powerfully to the right and slightly backwards. He was passing over the cab of the slightly trailing truck to his right as he heard the impact of his cab.

The right side passenger of that adjacent transport was belatedly electing to get out, and was trying to climb to his cab’s roof to leap clear. He was looking towards the river, away from Photok.

Reaching out with his right hand, Photok kept a firm grip on his plasma rifle with his left, and grasped the other Krall’s helmet top. He pulled back and shoved down as hard as possible using the powered assist of his armor. Using that Krall as leverage, he threw himself farther, and cleared the second transport when it was still a body length from striking the wall. The clan mate, who so conveniently helped him along, was flung back into the disaster and wouldn’t be around to offer a death challenge later.

Barely clearing the right side edge of the support pier, Photok struck the dark water and tumbled over several times as he rapidly slowed and sank. The sounds of repeated impacts thudded clearly through the water to his helmet as he settled quickly through the inky waters. He tongued his external suit lights on with that long purple appendage, but the three narrow beams, one on the helmet crown, and two at the wrists, were swallowed by the murky depths. He struck bottom feet first, and felt the surface firm up after reaching ankle depth. The bottom mud wasn’t very thick, and his suit’s navigation told him which way to continue.

He started plodding his way up the slope of the river bottom when he felt as much as heard another two explosions in succession. He knew it wasn’t from the plasma rifles or power packs in the transports because those were designed to be nearly fail proof. This was more distant, and he assumed that other spans of the bridge were being blown down as the trailing foot warriors tried to cross.

The majority of them would be unharmed and could complete the trek just as he was doing, walking on the river bottom. It appeared that the privilege of first direct engagement with the enemy today might go to the warriors crossing by shuttlecraft. The contingency plan required they assist and protect the K’Tal that would assemble segments for the portable bridges that had been brought forward if needed. If Photok could get out of this cursed river quickly enough, he could still score early kills, which his suit would record and automatically report for him.

He had accumulated considerable status points over the last orbit fighting here, and he was close to a breeding award within his clan. His seed was stored in the event he was killed, but if he earned the right in this battle to propagate his line, then his name might be spoken in the small clan’s history for years. His genes would eventually be added to the future of his entire race. A form of immortality every warrior craved.

When his armored foot claws scraped on a flat hard surface, he knew he’d reached the paved erosion protection of the riverbank, and he scrambled up that quickly. He activated the power pack of his plasma rifle as he climbed. The inductive coupling to the plasma heating coils wasn’t affected if moisture infiltrated the fine gap between the power pack and the slot where it attached to the weapon. All he need do was lower his barrel to drain moisture, to avoid a preheat steam gush before he fired his first bolt.

Human plasma weapons no longer emitted the infrared pre-flash they once did, which gave a warrior a slight warning of an impending shot in their direction. Despite that improvement, human rifle accuracy was still less than a Krall’s was, and they often missed their shots at fast moving targets. Initially it was believed the flash suppression of their newer plasma weapons was due to a chance design change. After all, humans couldn’t see into the infrared, and their visual perception reported to their brains much slower than a Krall’s did. The brief flash before a plasma shot was fired should be imperceptible to them. Extensive testing on captured prisoners confirmed they still could not detect a crippling shot that was about to blow off a limb. Even when the captive was told in advance when a shot was coming.

There soon was evidence that human weapons makers did know about the plasma pre-flash. That proof came when vulnerable weapons ports, on human made tanks and space planes, would briefly slam shut just before being hit by Krall plasma fire, or a protective mirrored surface would activate just prior to a hull being struck. The humans couldn’t see the warning flash, but their technology could, and their AIs took action for the slow reacting operators. The Krall realized they now needed to modify their own weapons, to mask that brief advance flash.

As a result, the Krall slowly were adjusting to use more of the instant-fire lasers, but those beams had less penetrating power than did a star hot bolt of charged plasma. Warriors were reluctant to give up the power offered by their plasma rifles for a laser weapon.

Except their opponents appeared to adjust quickly, and they seemed to develop new technology almost as quickly as they needed new weapons or defenses. The Krall could make their distant slave operated factories produce a later generation of weapons, or add improvements to what they already had, simply by using the designs borrowed from many past wars, fought against many opponents. The Krall conducted no weapons research and development, but did have a reservoir of existing high tech designs to use, taken from multiple species, over thousands of years of fighting.

Humans were seemingly able to make the next step in adaptation before the delivery of new Krall weapons improvements even reached the warriors on the front lines. The production and logistic problems causing the slow delivery was not something that had ever concerned the average warrior. They were accustomed to using tactics where they wantonly wasted what supplies and weapons they had, and expected rapid replacements to arrive, with gradually improved weapons, as they were needed. The humans had caused production limitations and slower delivery methods, which were starting to matter at the sharp end of the talon.

As soon as Photok’s helmet broke the surface, he scanned the upper riverbank in front of him. There was a wall, which ran the length of the river as far as he could see, where humans and vehicles had once moved on a roadway beyond that low wall. There was no sign of defenders now, nor had there been before his transport had dropped into the water with the bridge section.

He quickly looked back across the river, and saw that four different spans on the bridge he’d drive over had fallen from their support piers, dropping not only the transports into the river, but the warriors on foot behind them. He had first assumed some sort of heavy artillery had destroyed the other bridge sections, but that would not explain the mere handful of heavy explosions he had heard. Artillery would have left parts of the spans intact between the supports, with holes in the road surface. These spans were all knocked down by planted charges.

When he looked at other bridges up and down the river, they had suffered the same sort of destruction. This meant that the humans were apparently expecting the “surprise” assault. The spare ammunition and weapons for the lead waves of warriors was now resting on the river bottom. On the other side, he could see the K’Tal’s driving the large tracked machines, bringing forward the lightweight folded bridge segments, which they would join and use to span the river. They would complete that quickly, and the mass of warriors still waiting over there from the larger clans, and not walking on the river bottom as the finger clans were, would then rush over. It was a race to see if the portable bridge would be completed before the mud walking warriors reached the enemy side of the river first.

Photok was already here, so he needed to take advantage of his lead position while he could. There were others of his and other clans rising from the dark waters along the riverbank, like amphibians coming out to bask in the bright morning sun. They too had managed to climb clear of the wreckage. He’d have to split kills with them, so he needed to hurry to reach the mass of civilians he’d seen earlier in the top nest levels.

He completed his twenty-foot climb to the wall, and leaped over that waist high obstruction, rifle at the ready. The four lanes were empty of vehicles and people. He heard the distant whumps of the human mobile artillery firing, and knew they would probably have antipersonnel rounds with the depleted uranium pellets, and some of the thermite charges that would self-guide to his suit’s joints, in an effort to punch through or make them seize up and lock. The couple of hundred warriors first across the river were not the targets of the artillery. Nor were the shells targeting the shuttles he saw landing on the other side, tasked with defending the K’Tal construction teams building the portable bridges.

The rounds came in just above the human nest buildings, almost recklessly close, using them as protection from the laser defense batteries now dotting the opposite riverbank. Perhaps a quarter of the low trajectory ballistic rounds were exploded in the air by the heavy tracery of red and green beams. By observation, Photok instantly knew the shells had never been targeted on him or his fellow warriors emerging from the river on the far riverbank.

For one thing, they were being destroyed too high to have been aimed at this side of the river, and another was that they didn’t appear laden with the smaller cluster bombs, some of which would have survived to fall among them. His heavier armor was largely impervious to the pellets, and he would have to protect only his weapon and suit joints, if he could. What his helmet detection system was telling him was that these were all high explosive rounds, which were definitely a threat to his armor, but there was a lower likelihood of one landing near to him than if they contained self-guided small bomblets. The shells that were missed by the defensive beams were falling into the center of the river, concentrated near the destroyed bridge spans. Splashes at the other bridges showed the same was happening at all of them. It made no sense. The bridges were already down.

The laws of hydrostatic pressure and underwater shock wave effects were about to be taught to the heavily armored Krall in the river.

The high explosive rounds were set for detonation on the river bottom. The destruction of nearby armored suits, and its contents, was an obvious and forgone conclusion, just as it would be if the HE rounds exploded near any Krall on the riverbanks. The incompressibility of water, compared to that of air meant that armor farther away from the exploding shells was still compressed by greater force than they were designed to accept, and the seams ruptured, opening cracks for water to enter. Those warriors closest to the blasts were already dead or unconscious from the shock wave, so drowning was irrelevant to them.

The ones located a hundred or so feet away from the explosions had suits that sprung leaks, and the warriors inside were so stunned they couldn’t react as the suits filled with water, and they slowly drowned. At two hundred feet, the armor leaked, but the warriors were able to activate the releases and remove the weight.

Unable to swim much better than a human wearing a weight belt, many of the dense bodied aliens pushed off the bottom, and flailed their way to the surface to suck in multi-lobed lungs full of air, before sinking and starting a faster walk to the shore. Most of them would have completed the crossing, even if they needed a second breath, except that the barrage continued intermittently for ten minutes, as the mobile human batteries repositioned to random locations, and fired again before relocating.

Without even armor to absorb the next shockwaves, the bare Krall bodies littered the floor of the river near the bridges. The finger clans had learned the meaning of the term “cannon fodder,” even if they didn’t know the human words.

****

Gatlek Pendor was as caught by surprise as those finger clans crossing the human bridges. He had not believed the humans were aware of the scale of the planned continent wide assault. He had sub leaders watching the bridges here at Novi Sad for the last two weeks, before the gathering of warriors near them even started. The enemy must have mined them even earlier, with what his K’Tal’s told him were remote detonators, or perhaps they sacrificed some of their simpler Artificial Intelligent devices.

He had not wished to sacrifice any of his own forces, but some clan’s had to determine if the easier and faster routes over the river were open to them or not. The small clans were eager for the chance to lead the attack. Now he would send the bulk of his forces over their own portable bridges at Novi Sad. There had been no other large city located on a wide river like this one, so the losses here would be the only assault force where the small clans would feel as if they had been abused by Pendor.

The four portable bridges were being formed rapidly. Each amphibious tractor held three segments of unfolding lightweight mesh bridge spans, with stabilized flotation to support them on the water. The first unit would park on the riverbank, and quickly unfold its three segments, as the next tractor trundled out to the end of the last unfolded segment. The tractor rolled off into the water, the back of the floating tractor already locked onto the last section it had passed over, and it then unfolded and extended its three lightweight mesh segments, as the flotation devices of all of the sections were equalized to make a level roadway.

Every tractor and its three mesh segments it carried, added four new lengths to the floating bridge. The amphibious tractors used their fusion bottle powered underwater jet propulsion units, and held the extending bridge in place against the current as the next tractor crossed to the new end. Inflatable supports expanded out to the sides to make the floating bridge less likely to rock to the sides, and the mesh surface stabilized at a constant height above the water for its entire length. If any tractor was disabled, by artillery or plasma beams, or a section became too damaged, the entire unit would be released from the structure, and one of several replacements tractors would race out to drop into the water and replace the lost link. Pairs of K’Tal were stationed along the length of the pontoon bridge, to facilitate and guide such repairs.

Every second tractor also had a section of side mesh and pontoons that a pair of K’Tal manually unfolded on the downriver side of the flat tractor. Between tractors moving out to add to the pontoon bridge length, a laser defense battery would roll out to park on the side platforms, furnishing additional defense from enemy attack, either aerial or artillery. Thus far, the space planes of the humans had not been sighted at Novi Sad, although they were in action against advances at multiple other fronts.

Pendor was suspicious at the lack of aerial support for the humans at Novi Sad, and held his single ships back from that battle, so long as the humans held their own air support in reserve. Many of the single ships were slated to be withdrawn with the clanships, and he was ordered to conserve them if possible. Besides, he fully expected to be making use of the resources he conserved here on some other world, as that invasion commander.

The human artillery barrage, which commenced as the replacement bridges were assembled, did not seriously disrupt Gatlek Pendor’s operation, although the finger clan warriors at the bottom of the river would have disputed that assessment. Nevertheless, within thirty minutes of initiating the assembly, the first waves of mini-tanks, interspersed with loaded standard trucks, armored transports, and running warriors on foot, were all starting to stream over the pontoon bridges. The added laser defenses performed well to defend the structures and those crossing on them.

****

Photok, perfectly aware of how short a time his unique opportunity to rack up easy kills would last, rushed towards the nearest large human nests. Along with nearly a hundred former transport borne warriors, who also had escaped from the trap on the river bridges, he rushed the buildings where humans had stayed to watch his clan mates die. The figures on the top floors were still moving, and perhaps thought the fallen bridges had provided them with a reprieve, and time to escape.

Photok was first to reach his chosen nest, the last one on the right side of the line of seven structures, and rather than enter via one of the possibly guarded entrances, he shot out a lower window to the left of the entrance, and leaped through the still cascading glass. He found himself crashing into soft human furniture, positioned around the individual family nest area.

His visor and infrared vision both told him the room was unoccupied, as he’d anticipated. He rushed through, jumping over the objects in the room, and kicked the door to the inner corridor completely out of its frame. Ricocheting from the opposite corridor wall, he spun to his right and saw the elevators that served the entrance, with a stairwell door beside them. He wrenched open that door even as he heard other warriors, located some distance behind him, smash their way into the same corridor. He’d have to be fast if he wanted to take the largest share of kills.

As he started recklessly up the stairs, his rifle at the ready, he activated his helmet camera for verifying the kills to come. It was transmitting continuously to the multichannel recorder his clan had left active at their own command bunker, and the images were available to any of his lower status clan mates, who were left behind to coordinate with other clans and the Gatlek’s main bunker. They were free to follow his exploits if they chose. He imagined they would be watching him, the most forward warrior of his clan in this nest, observing with nearly the same excitement and anticipation that he felt.

He raced up the open stairwell, at least two floors ahead of his closest competitors. His battlefield memory told him he had eleven levels to climb before he reached the first floor he’d seen with any prey. The twelfth floor had relatively few lit windows, so he bypassed that level for the next one, where he’d seen three times the number of nests illuminated. He heard the warrior immediately behind him make the poorer choice and smash through the level twelve exit from the stairs. That warrior would have to travel half the length of the wide building to find his few targets at the midpoint.

He recalled that a nest merely two windows from this very stairwell had been lit, as were the two windows immediately adjacent to it, on the thirteenth level. He didn’t understand human script very well, and didn’t notice that the door he smashed in had a “14” painted on it, rather than the appropriate “13.” Even had he noticed, he would have been ignorant of the still pervasive human superstition concerning the correct number. The man that had set up the jolly window decorations on this level had been perfectly aware of the significance of level thirteen, and had selected this “unlucky” floor with a puckish sense of humor.

There were human voices heard, and some sort of strange sounds that humans classified as “music,” which he could hear through the closed door of the second entrance. The annoying tinkling sounds of the so-called music would be the last that those humans would ever experience.

He smashed his armored shoulder into the flimsy door and came in firing his pulse rifle, screaming “Die, vermin animals,” using what he believed to be his best insulting and terrifying phrase in Standard.

First, he blasted completely through the pudgy figure dressed in white, wearing a tall black head covering, standing in front of the floor to ceiling window. The sliding glass doors virtually exploded outward over the balcony, in a spray of glittering fragments as it was struck by the cyan colored plasma bolts passing easily through the fake snowman. The other, more traditional appearing human in the room yelled at him, and he fired his next pulse through his rosy cheeked face, in response to the “Ho Ho Ho” that it had shouted. The white bearded, red and white clothed figure, disintegrated in a flash of electronic sparks as the animatronic figure, made of Smart Plastic, was hit. It had looked exactly like a happy but overweight human.

He realized, an instant after firing that these were not living creatures, because the star heat bolts ripping into their unprotected bodies had not produced the expected gouts of flesh and blood, which should have violently erupted as the searing plasma vaporized tissue and fluids on entry. Instead, as he hesitated, looking around for actual living targets, a recording sounded from wall speakers on the apartment’s intercom system.

“Thanks for coming to my party. I’m sure you and your friends will get a bang out of this. Goodbye, sucker.”

Realizing he would make no kills here today, he turned swiftly, hoping only to escape this trap. Photok mouthed a Krall insult. “Stinking treacherous animals!”

Those were the final words and images Photok’s clan mates received from him, recorded for posterity by his helmet camera. When the charges hidden in that room’s furniture exploded, he never heard the subsequent synchronized detonations work their way down the internal support beams for the structure, which collapsed the building’s fifteen stories in on itself. Segments of recordings from sixty-seven other warriors, who were ascending building seven of the complex, were also available for later viewing enjoyment.

Six additional River View apartment units of the Novi Sad retirement community disappeared in similar clouds of dust and debris within the next two minutes. All faithfully recorded from their interiors by helmet cams on warriors from other eager small clans, as the buildings turned into piles of rubble and crushed Krall armor. The armor was filled with the mangled bodies of the presumed superior breeding inherent in the genes of the highest status warriors from each of those finger clans. It was uncertain if their frozen seed would be considered worthy enough to produce more such ineffective, easily fooled progeny.

****

Former First Sergeant William Crager, now Sergeant First Class and fresh from Heavyside, was almost as excited about this field assignment as he’d been on his first one as a Corporal, twenty years ago. That was just after he’d graduated from the original special operations training program. The enthusiasm felt by this experienced soldier was generated now by his gene mods, and the promised visit to the mystery world where they had originated. There was another mod that he wanted, the Mind Tap ability, and to see the world where the large predators roamed that had naturally evolved this ability.

The new Heavyside gene labs, following the precise details furnished to them by the young super soldiers of a world for which he still had no name, had remade him into one of them. Return visits by representatives of the Kobani told him he would become a nearly full Kobanoid, with just one significant mod remaining, the one for Mind Tap ability.

He also knew that Kobanoid was the name for the new race of Homo sapiens, which they had genetically created. Kobani was the group term they used for themselves. He still didn’t know how they derived that self-description, or why their world’s existence and location was kept secret. The Mind Tap ability of the returning Kobani had vetted all potential candidates for suitability for undergoing the transformation. Not all passed, and none knew they were even being examined. Once accepted, a formality in his case because his feelings had been known, he learned there were other spec ops troops that had already undergone the treatment.

Crager was stunned to learn of the mental ability the next modification would provide, as it was demonstrated for him. He had obviously passed their mental probing, but they insisted he travel to the world of origin for that final modification. The limited telepathy explained the knowledge the first three Kobani he’d met held, one of whom knew too much about the secret plans on Heavyside to delve into forbidden genetic research. His suspicions of their motives had left him prepared to kill the three young men that had infiltrated their training program. He was willing to kill to protect a program he thought was vital to producing humans better able to fight the Krall.

It was with wry humor he recalled that it was Jorl Breaker that had instead spared his life, and told him about (and demonstrated) the physical capabilities of the Kobani. That teenaged boy could have killed Crager blindfolded, one hand in his pocket, standing on one leg. Then he offered to give Crager and his group the genetic secrets that gave that boy his abilities. Learning later of the Mind Tap gene, he understood how they had known to trust him and his circle of coconspirators.

He and his unit commander, Colonel Dearborn, had set up a new base on the nearly empty wastelands of Heavyside, where their volunteer scientists could develop the genetic virus “tools” they would need to insert the samples of the genes they were given. It had appeared the initial laboratory work might require a decade to test and complete. Until, that is, they had the promised return visit of a Kobani ship. Bearing more gifts.

Crager was startled when he was greeted at the base of the ship by a former trainee of his, Joseph Longstreet, who had risen to the rank of captain before being reported lost on a mission. Joe was now a full Kobani, with the Mind Tap ability, and had brought new nanites and med labs from Poldark. These were already optimized for producing the gene mods in five weeks, and a month of acclimatization followed afterwards. Crager wanted to be the first to undergo the transformation in the new Heavyside lab, but had to settle for simultaneous transformation with Colonel Dearborn.

Three months later, he was no longer content simply to run a training program on Heavyside. That program did need to be revamped, for the new super soldiers they would be selectively producing from the already elite ranks of their recruits. Crager wouldn’t admit it openly, but aside from saying that he wanted field experience to design a tougher, more realistic and practical training course for the new Kobani troops, he wanted to get back into combat. Otherwise, he thought his new body would explode with the pent up need to use his abilities against the enemy.

That desire landed him on Poldark, just in time for the continent wide Krall push. One drawback was that he had to accept a voluntary reduction in rank to Sergeant First Class, to fill a platoon sergeant slot. If he wanted to be in on the fun at the sharp end, he couldn’t do so at his former lofty rank of First Sergeant. Colonel Dearborn was reluctant to let him go, and told him his old slot would stay vacant for six months, if he wanted to return to Heavyside. Crager was no longer certain that running a training command was what he wanted for his future, even at age sixty-one. He was only four years away from the PU Army’s mandatory restricted physical duty. He didn’t believe he could ever go back to desk duty feeling as powerful he did now. He might opt for a “missing in action” status, as Longstreet and eight troopers, and the now deceased Colonel Trakenburg had done.

There would be yet another unexpected genetic surprise waiting for Crager in his near future. The much younger Longstreet hadn’t told him about the age regression modifications. Crager couldn’t go back to an apparent physical age of his mid-twenties anyway right now, not if he wanted to be accepted as whom he had been, and go fight on Poldark.

For the present mission, Crager’s sixteen-man platoon was deep inside Krall territory, a few miles from the defensive perimeter of heavy plasma and laser cannons, which surrounded several thousand gathered clanships. They had traveled for two days through some of the abandoned underground tunnels the Krall still didn’t know existed.

The intelligence people had said that the Krall offensives were more than punitive acts for the attacks on the Krall worlds. The PU government had only recently learned about human attacks on Krall worlds. They presumed the raids were executed by independent rogue units formed on some of the Rim worlds. The government didn’t know of the existence of the Kobani, and only knew that long-range navy scout drones had confirmed that some of the reported attacks had actually happened. It was now said; by an unnamed source in General Nabarone’s office, that the impending offensive on Poldark was actually a cover for a Krall partial force withdrawal. Part of preparations for invading a second human world. The anonymous source was actually Nabarone himself, but that wasn’t part of the briefing.

Crager hoped that the purported and completely unexpected withdrawal was actually the case. If not, their mission here could be better used to disrupt the rear elements of the attacking forces on the eight main fronts, to try to slow them down. Destroying these plasma batteries would not take pressure off the front line human forces.

It had been apparent for over a year that the Krall had more than enough warriors and equipment on Poldark to easily run over and crush the eight PU army commands opposing them, if they chose to do so. Instead, they rotated clans in and out of the fighting, choosing to only gradually push back the human lines. This corresponded with their stated strategy of slow attrition, by selecting the best warriors for breeding the next generation. Even at their present slow pace, they already had control of nearly seventy five percent of this largest landmass.

To the east was a narrow land bridge leading to another large continent, the presumed next target for the enemy when this continent was fully occupied. The other two continents on Poldark had oceans for isolation, but there was no doubt the Krall could get to them when they wanted to do so.

The destruction of a dozen adjacent orbital reaching plasma batteries would make the parked clanships somewhat more vulnerable from that side. Although, the clanships had potent defenses of their own, so placing charges and destroying the plasma batteries didn’t seem to be wreaking enough harm on the Krall, at least to Crager’s mind. If the Krall didn’t actually pull out any of their forces, then this particular mission would have minimal impact on helping the soldiers that were about to be crushed. Crager had no idea that General Nabarone, the overall commander of the eight armies on Poldark, was part of the Kobani cabal fighting the Krall, and doing it right under the PU’s nose.

Oh well, he had asked to lead a platoon in combat, and this was the task his platoon was given. He thought of one of the pet phrases he had used to sand blast the ears of his many past training candidates, when they were overheard griping. Shut up and soldier, soldier!

All of the team members had the new version of the Chameleon Skins, employing the new technology transfer from the Kobani’s alien allies. He didn’t know if this came from the Torki or the Prada, or both had contributed, but the even lighter weight, flexible, finely plated armor was draped over him much like a sniper’s ghillie suit, with the ability to make him vanish. The nickname of chamie or chamies had unofficially stuck to them.

The suits had much of the medium laser and low energy plasma beam resistance of the hard suit armor, and all of the improved invisibility camouflage, which now also diffused even radio wave reflections. The radio wave reflections of the hard suits had been discovered by the Krall, and used as a means of detecting the armor at ranges of less than a mile or two. The newer suits better prevented that low level of radio wave reflection.

Like any advance in war technology, the new camouflage capability for the flexible suits came with pros, cons, and trade-offs. A con was that it required a lot of power to operate, so the mini Trap Field emitters, which tapped pervasive low-level tachyon energy, was an uncomfortable hard heavy lump strapped around his lower back. A pro was that it powered the new quantum-controlled surface of the plates of the so-called Chameleon Skin. A negative was that there were no built-in energy weapons for the flexible chamies, as there was with the hard suits.

There were ample new pieces of equipment and weapons being produced, to make use the portable, moderate level and effectively inexhaustible power they now had available. There was a retractable power cable provided from the back mounted power supply, with a universal plug compatible with a number of portable man carried weapons or tools, with many more under development.

Half of his men had human designed new heavier plasma rifles, with rapid-fire plasma regeneration, and pre-flash suppressors on the muzzles. They had greater power per bolt, and a higher fire rate than the Krall rifles did at present. The high hundred-pound weight wasn’t a serious problem for troops with the Kobani mods. The weapons had the same quantum surface material to keep them mostly invisible. Until they were fired, of course. An invisible troop that shot searing blue-white plasma bolts at the enemy obviously revealed his position.

There were lighter rifles and pistols with various squad members that used infrared beams, and some that used microwaves. It was said an X-ray spectrum energy weapon was under testing. All of those energy spectrums could in principle be detected and traced to their source by an enemy.

Crager carried a newly developed weapon that was predicted to be nearly impossible to pinpoint by the Krall, at least visually when it was used. They would be able to hear the sharp crack sound it made when fired, and the projectile itself created a narrow hypervelocity shock wave through atmosphere. A Krall could localize the general direction from which it was fired, but could not see the projectile’s exact origin as it passed through clear air, unless they were fatally downrange and in the rifle’s sights. It didn’t have the light speed arrival time of lasers or nearly the same velocity for plasma bolts, but within the effective range of the projectiles, not even a Kobani could react quickly enough to avoid being struck.

It was a prototype weapon based on the railgun concept. It fired a one point five gram, slender tungsten carbide and cobalt covered sliver of metal. The small projectile contained a bit of cobalt to provide the magnetic fields a better means to shove the sliver at an unbelievable rate down the ridiculously narrow barrel. The tungsten carbide prevented it from melting from air friction on the way to its target. Only about the diameter of a thick sewing needle, and an inch and a half long, it had barely perceptible grooves at the butt, which imparted a stabilizing spin. The weapon’s users had started calling it a sliver gun, because it accelerated the small projectile along a tiny tube placed between two superconducting magnetic rails, exiting the barrel at hypersonic velocities with an essentially flat trajectory for its usable practical range.

The specific exit velocity could be varied, depending on the current fed to the rails. The maximum of nearly one million amperes of spiked current could easily be handled by the high temperature superconducting material of the power cable and rail material. The strong length of slender ceramic that held the rails steady against the pulse of energy, also helped dissipate the heat of repeated shots of the semiautomatic weapon. So long as the rifle’s length was kept inside the extra draped material of the chamie, its heat and electromagnetic pulse was redirected and radiated towards the ground by the suit, rather than radiating in all directions for an enemy to detect.

Like the new plasma rifle, the slightly lighter sliver gun was still a bit on the weighty side, but not an objectionable burden when that trooper was a Kobani. Despite the tiny size of the projectile, the short barrel length for acceleration to reach the maximum velocity of ten miles per second could deliver a surprisingly hard kick. A scaled down inertial compensation circuit, similar to that used on ships with tachyon powered Normal Space drives, kept the kickback to manageable levels, and a sniper could return his gun sights to the target quickly.

At max sliver velocity, roughly 36,000 miles per hour, the range at ten miles per second was surprisingly short if fired horizontally in atmosphere. The sliver might not survive to reach a too distant target if it overheated from air friction, or struck a raindrop, leaf, or larger explosive debris dust particles. It had a melting point of over 2,800 °C, but grew softer and lost some of its penetrating power before reaching that temperature, after roughly a mile and a half.

Factors such as barometric pressure, air temperature, wind, humidity, and even atmospheric particle density (or dust) was measured by the gun sight’s small computer. The shooter’s stalking ability, deployment, tactics, and their decisions to shoot or not were all their own.

At times, a lower velocity shot had a greater practical horizontal range. If fired nearly vertical at max power when up in the mountains, a sliver could punch through the thinning atmosphere and retain gravitational escape velocity from a terrestrial mass planet. Orbiting ships and stations would probably frown on celebratory firing into the air.

One of the proposed uses of the sliver gun was to penetrate the new heavy armor the Krall were now using. A precision shot could easily penetrate one of the flexible armor joints at considerably lower than maximum velocity, at speeds of one or two miles per second. A Krall hit with a sliver could easily continue fighting after such a wound, even if the limb were disabled. That was why there were partly hollow slivers provided, selectable from within the dual projectile magazines.

The rear third of a partly hollow sliver version contained the active neurological component of the Death Lime extract. The leading part of the sliver would disintegrate as it punched and melted its way through an armored joint, or even through the thickest part of armor at higher velocities. In tests, the toxin would usually survive penetration, with the trailing portion of the sliver making the delivery through the small opening.

Outside of a native Kobani, nobody knew where the toxin had originated, and it was no longer extracted from the wax on the thorns of Death Limes, once it could be produced artificially. Less than one minute after being wounded with one of those slivers, a warrior would collapse in agony, progressively unable to move its limbs as the toxin spread. It wasn’t directly fatal to them unless they were shot multiple times, but the effects could last for about thirty minutes from a single hit.

If a quick kill were required, and the sniper was less than two miles mile away from an armored target, a solid, faster moving sliver could penetrate the helmet for a head shot to the brain. The slivers would often spall off deadly metal fragments from inside a Krall’s helmet, and even if it didn’t, penetrating hypersonic carbide tungsten slivers tended to ricochet and make a mess once inside. Because of unpredictable sliver fragmentation and internal spalling, it might require second hits on a helmet to kill the tough warriors. The toxin version of the slivers on armor was generally ineffective at over a mile for the highest velocity shots, because air friction and intense heating of the projectile caused the chemicals to breakdown before it arrived.

Crager had asked for two of the new weapons for his platoon, for evaluation. One of them was issued to corporal Dalton, their school trained sniper, a rating that Crager had once held in his bygone days in field operations, but using a very different weapon. Crager kept the second rifle, confident he had retained enough of his old skills. The fifty caliber rifles formerly used against the old style Krall armor would seldom penetrate the new heavier armor. Prior to there being fast reacting Kobani troops, failed kills on any Krall seldom allowed the shooter a second chance to take out the target.

Each one of the twelve plasma batteries the team was assigned to spike was watched over by a single brown suited K’Tal technician. The six platoons of the full team had two batteries each to knock out, using charges carried by two squads armed only with stealth, and small hand beam weapons powered by the mini Trap fields. This deep inside Krall lines, with the offensives happening hundreds of miles distant, the Krall clearly thought this ring of one hundred twenty eight cannons was safe from any human ground threat, and could detect and ward off any atmospheric or space attacks. That confidence was about to be proven misplaced.

Ideally, the K’Tal at each battery could be taken out quietly, without an alarm or warning given to the other K’Tal’s, located just over a mile away to either side, at the next battery. The Gatlek’s bunker was under a low mountain peak roughly thirty miles distant, near the center of the defensive ring. Preventing a radio warning to that bunker was vital, because that would trigger the Krall to initiate backup cover fire for the gap made in the defensive ring. At a designated time, each platoon would activate the ECM modules provided by the Torki, to switch off Krall radio communications within a two-mile radius of each of the twelve plasma batteries.

The K’Tals might happen to see a neighboring warrior go down, or perhaps escape their own initial attack, but they weren’t going to give a radioed warning to anyone. A K’Tal was apparently only present at the remotely operated batteries for taking manual control if needed, or for onsite repair with spare parts. Eliminating those redundant warriors might go unnoticed for hours, but destruction of the remotely controlled cannons would be detected instantly by computer link. The plan was simple. Kill the K’Tals as quickly and quietly as possible, plant the stealthed charges for remote detonation, get several miles away and wait until it was time to blow them up.

With a dozen batteries destroyed there would be a seventeen-mile gap in the southern part of the defensive ring, located near a mountain pass three miles away. South was the direction from which terrain following cruise missiles would approach, shielded from detection in a string of connected mountain passes, with no defensive fire available from the closest destroyed batteries. The missiles would be inside the defensive ring quickly, to wreak havoc on the parked clanships.

Crager had video feeds to his eye implants from other squad members, showing him where his two targets were at all times. He had assigned himself the role of taking out the two K’Tal for the batteries seven tenths of a mile to either side of his position, midway between them. The other sniper was placed between the next pair of batteries, two miles around the circumference to the east.

Other team members were positioned to get up close and personal with their targeted K’Tal. They didn’t intend to use the new heavy plasma rifles, to avoid the associated flash and bang effects on the receiving end. While it was true that a dead Krall told no tales, one that was brightly blown to pieces by plasma fire was a message of another type that couldn’t be suppressed by ECM. They intended to step up behind them and sort of break their metal shells open, and kill them by hand. Just the way the Krall liked to fight. They had been asked to bring back several sets of functioning armor for some use or other.

When the window opened for the kills to start, Crager was sighted in on the flat side of the helmet as his first selected Krall target was about to turn around in his predictable pattern of pacing around the outside of the protective revetments. The hypersonic crack was somewhat muffled by the brush around the shooter. The ten mile per second sliver had already left a pinprick hole and a brief flash of white light on the K’Tal’s helmet, even before the weapon completed its recoil and was back on target. Crager saw the warrior sagging and decided a follow up shot wasn’t needed. His concealed sappers would be there in seconds anyway.

Turning around, he knew from his data feed that his second previously motionless target had moved into the opening of its revetment just before Crager had fired at his first target. The Krall now was looking farther east, towards the next battery. Something had caught his or her attention from there. Crager had a shot only at the thick armor of the left shoulder and upper arm because his view of the warrior’s helmet was blocked by a duracrete wall the K’Tal was leaning around to see to the east. He was likely trying to radio to that warrior at the next battery, and receiving no reply because of the ECM suppression. The K’Tal used its left hand to reach back and check its power pack at the small of its back, confirming a secure connection, and briefly shifted a leg so that the backside of the left knee joint was visible.

In two hundredths of a second, Crager had thumb selected a hollow sliver from his magazine, sighted a line along the back of the knee joint with his optics and fired. Before the sound of the crack even reached his target, the Krall had jumped as the needle with toxin penetrated the weak point. A space only three inches wide and a half-inch high on the back of the knee, where a thinner armor layer was briefly exposed.

Exposing a bare hand from under his chamie he signaled with fingers to the sapper squad that he knew was near that battery. One man, designated to watch his position, saw his signal directly, and the others saw it via the repeat in their eye implants of Crager’s hand from his own eye’s view. Target hit with a two, not down.

A number two hit was a toxin sliver. The warrior would be capable of activity for two more minutes. With ECM suppression active, they knew he couldn’t transmit to anyone. However, if he figured out he had a radio problem he might start shooting plasma bolts high towards the ring’s center and draw attention from warriors there to come investigate.

Crager cursed his decision to try the long-range solution, just to try out the new weapon. It worked, in as much as it assured a soon to be disabled warrior, but the toxin sliver wasn’t effective quickly enough when you had simultaneous targets to eliminate immediately. He had intended to use two quick headshot kills. He’d let his new ability and new rifle convince him to take an unnecessary risk. He’d been out of the field for too long.

He checked his data feed, and saw that the other sniper had signaled two targets were hits with a one, both targets down. They would be headshots like his first one, with solid slivers and quick kills.

Crap! I’ll hear about this one. He thought.

Suddenly fate smiled, and the obliging Krall sought the enemy that had given it what it presumed was a minor wound. Crager, his eyes never leaving his still mobile target’s hiding place, had already chosen a solid sliver for a possible second shot. He was rewarded as the edge of the Krall’s helmet peered around the side of a duracrete wall, looking for him. It required only .07 seconds for the next sliver to cover the seven tenths mile, and penetrate the helmet face, where the Krall’s right eye was directly behind the impact point. The warrior quickly slumped to the ground.

He shook his head. Doesn’t matter, he thought. I’ll still hear about this! He knows the old geezer f’ed up.

The troops didn’t cut each another any slack after the action was done, even if they would give their life to protect your sorry ass. The sliver rifle certainly had its use, but not in a poorly controlled situation, such as he had forced on himself. The chance that his second target would move out of position had been too great for the risk to the mission. Two perfect and vital shots had been needed in rapid succession, and little predictability for achieving both.

He wondered how Dalton, the young sniper with the other sliver gun had managed. He told his AI to play back the recorded image from the younger man’s eye implants. He found his answer to what had drawn the attention of his second target. Dalton, unlike Crager, had a clean easy shot on a Krall helmet for his number two target, dropping him instantly at the farther battery. Dalton’s first target, the one closest to Crager’s second shot, had been made ultra-easy because, incredibly, the Krall had removed its helmet and was grooming its deployed ultrasonic ears, squatting in front of the revetment. Presumably picking the Krall equivalent of earwax. He was like a sitting duck.

A duck that, despite a sliver passing through the tempting exact center of the deployed ear, screamed its rage and pain loud enough that, without a helmet to muffle the sound, drew the attention of Crager’s second botched hit. That helmetless K’Tal had only lived to scream because a Krall’s ultrasonic ears were placed on their upper necks, inches lower than their brainpan. The first shot had passed through its ear and upper neck. Only a rapidly triggered second shot had created a shock wave passing through the skull, which literally scrambled the Krall’s brain, and silenced the scream.

The sergeant grinned sourly. At least the kid isn’t going to offer me any shit tonight. There were two screwed up shots made today.

Uh…, nope. He thought through it farther. Dalton could remind him that it was the sergeant’s idea to use the sliver rifles on two targets instead of one man per Krall. Damn. That training slot looked better right now than it had fifteen seconds ago.

Anyway, the K’Tal’s at the other eight batteries had been eliminated the more reliable and proper way, and the stealth coated charges were being placed on and around the big guns. Crager’s platoon soon pulled back, and the team waited for developments. If the dead warriors were found and the charges were about to be discovered, the spy bots left behind would let them know. A burst signal to the commander of the waiting ranks of cruise missiles would launch them even before the cannons were blasted into rubble.

Fully loaded clanships in liftoff mode would be juicier targets, but even empty and sitting on the ground they were still valuable targets, all clustered closely for convenience. It was obvious the Krall had never planned a retreat under fire in the past. No time like now to learn some hard lessons.

****

Two days before Crager’s unit had planted their charges, the assaults on the eight cities had begun. The Krall came roaring through and over the abandoned barricades to enter the industrial city of Perm. By use of animated holiday figures and remotely operated, turntable mounted tri-barrel heavy plasma guns and auto-load mortars, the PU army here had maintained the pretext that the barricades were still manned.

Enough Krall fell on that assault to piss them off when they discovered the ten percent culling had produced no kills for those that had fought through. These finger clan warriors, granted their first opportunity to lead an attack, were enraged to discover they only had machinery to destroy. Bad tempers make for poor decisions. They tried to tear the tri-barrels down using their powered armored hands, and blasted at the still firing mortars with plasma rifles, up close.

Warriors of major clans, more experienced with tricky human methods, had fought human forces on initial assaults more frequently, by virtue of their clan’s political power in the Joint Council. They would have known not to make the destruction of automated weapons such a personal revenge. The blasts of all the stacked mortar ammunition, detonating at one time, accompanied by the planted charges along the berms where the tri-barrels were located, proved highly educational to the minor clans. Adding another five percent to the culling already experienced.

For a change, the humans were treating their territory and property much like the Krall did. As something worthless, and not worth dying to preserve every precious inch or building. Rather than measuring fighting success by status points earned for kills, the humans valued the lives preserved of their troops and civilians, who had quietly pulled back a day before the attack started.

The warriors from the big clans that were to follow the first wave were smug as they passed the wreckage of body armor and the mini tanks of the lesser clans. They estimated the racial gene pool was improved, and decided that the small clans could still use more culling.

The warriors in front were encouraged by the major clans to pursue the retreating soldiers of the human army and take revenge. It was their turn to learn that open roads and clear plazas were always mined or set as traps, that well lit and apparently occupied human family nests had a third of them rigged to explode if entered. In the past, these small clans had only entered a newly assaulted zone after the large clans had cleared the way, and then they joined in the killings in the less well-defended areas deeper inside the new human territory. This week they would learn to destroy a family nest without entering, and then check for bodies to add to their status points after.

It was now obvious that this so-called surprise assault was expected, and there would not be many easy status kills of what humans called civilians. Their so-called soldiers were not overly tough individually, but in a group, they cooperated well, and drew in rash warriors for an apparent easy kill, only for them to find that it wasn’t that easy when the ambush came. True, many of the ambushers didn’t get away, but they were killing more warriors than they once did in the process. The kill ratio had shrunk from twenty to one in the early days, to ten to one here on Poldark, and so far today it was down to three to one, because they had not managed to close with the enemy in larger concentrations.

The humans were making a far more rapid retreat than usual, and didn’t appear to be panicked or in a rout, as sometimes happened. They had what seemed to be an unending string of fallback positions, where the retreat of those under direct attack always seemed to have heavy covering fire, and waves of that cursed artillery protection as they retreated. The highly mobile artillery was the most annoying, because the heavily armored Krall repeatedly ranged well ahead of their laser defense systems. The thermite loaded antipersonnel bomblets would explode from the delivery shells, scattering among the Krall, and then they would be occupied with frantically knocking off the blazing little “joint killers” before the limbs of their armor froze in place, partly immobilizing them.

That was exactly when nearby humans, driving fast little tracked transports appeared, immune to the same little bomblets because their own weapons knew friend from foe. They used heavy tri-barrel plasma guns to burn through the armor of any warrior that was exposed and preoccupied with the thermite bomblets. Then heading for cover before their targets finished knocking off the one or two clinging bomblets, which might have time to weld the attacked joints, or cause a severe burn.

Hits from the heavy plasma bolts would cost a limb, or your head, even if you took one or both human operators with you as you went down.

Telgrad had lost one of his octet to a pulse cannon mounted on one of the two man little all-terrain tracked vehicles. Those had a driver, who fired his personal plasma rifle through a six-inch opening, using powered armor and his visor sights to hold it steady from behind a curved shield, using a view screen on the inside, so he could see to steer the vehicle. Another shielded and armored gun operator crouched in the back and handled the powered weapon that fired triple pulses of vaporized metal. He kept the three barrels supplied with the copper and iridium alloy rods of metal, which were incrementally vaporized at the back end of the three barrels, to form the heavy plasma bolts that were accelerated at the targets in rapid succession. The operator selected targets by eye, using his helmet visor and outside sensors that covered 360 degrees. The AI on the gun mount continually slewed the cannon to place the sights on the eyeball chosen targets, and fired three bolts in less than a second after a target was identified, when the gunner bit down on the trigger mouthpiece.

Artillery quickly came after Telgrad’s warrior suffered a fatal head shot, as she beat off three burners at her knees and one elbow. Telgrad and another warrior’s return plasma bolts were deflected by the rounded shielding as the gun cart retreated.

Soldiers had nicknamed the little transports ladybugs, because it was partly round in circumference on the back part, due to a humped back for the rotating turntable, which shielded the gun and gunner. The driver’s own shielded compartment resembled a bug’s head, with two rifle holes for eyes. Low armored skirts protected the tracks that moved the lightweight gun platform at high speed.

The gun was effective even on Dragons, if close enough, because the mass and temperature of the first two superheated bolts could crack or split the white ceramic, and the third bolt could often burn through the underlying metal skin. The weapon had a higher cycle rate than the pure plasma cannon of the Dragon, because it didn’t have a plasma chamber that might run empty, or that needed a slow preheat to protect a cold ceramic muzzle. Fusion powered pumped lasers converted four ounces at the tip of the three ammo rods into a hot metallic vapor, confined by powerful magnetic fields before being slammed downrange at several miles per second by a rail gun armature, firing in rapid succession for each of the three barrels.

The ladybugs worked in concert with the artillery, so they represented a double hatred for Krall warriors. Telgrad had seen the direction where this particular ladybug had retreated several times, between barrages. Its unique image was burned into his battlefield memory. He was going to take the remainder of his octet in that direction, even before the current barrage ended, and find where they went when they left to await the next barrage.

“Follow me,” he rasped. “We will find and kill the humans that earned status from Gitlod.” Leaving cover before a barrage was ended was riskier than usual, but obtaining higher status points for killing the human fighters that had ended their clan mate’s breeding line was appealing.

Revenge for Gitlod herself was of little motivation to the other octet members, because she had been a caustic presence, using her slightly higher point status as justification for constantly identifying combat flaws in the other six lower ranking members of the octet. Naturally, she held her criticism in check when it came to Telgrad, their leader. None of them therefore missed her personally, but still wanted revenge for a lost member of their octet. Besides, having killed a warrior in combat, those particular humans had now become valued at four status points each. Any one of the octet could earn eight points if they killed both on their own.

They pressed against a battered wall of a warehouse running along a narrow alleyway, using that as shielding from the motion detecting shells. The passage led in the direction the gun platform had fled twice before. They passed another octet, down by two warriors, who were just inside a ripped open section of the same wall, waiting for the hail of bomblets to pause. The other team surely wanted to take on some of the ladybugs, but knew they would return from where they took cover soon. They always did.

Waiting was too passive a tactic, and too human-like for Telgrad, who preferred the aggressive tactics of the warrior greats that had founded his finger clan. At the end of the alley, he paused to flick his red pupil eyes up and down the street, and then dashed across the wide main avenue to the alley on the other side, turning to provide cover for his octet if a gun cart suddenly pulled into the wider street. The last member of the octet had just made it to the alley when an incoming round air detonated over the street some distance behind him. The incoming shell must have detected Krall signatures moving in the open as it descended. Four bomblets used their short-range propulsion units and jetted in his direction, seeking and finding joints of his armor.

Two of the octet helped the warrior that was hit, slapping at the four small thermite bomblets before they did more than scorch the knee and elbow joints of his armor. They performed that task while still on the move up the alley. Suddenly, the octet leader halted and held up a clenched left gauntlet, and then pointed silently over his head at the wall to the right side of the alley. His external mikes had picked up the faint sound of humans speaking on the other side of that wall. There were more humans speaking than the two voices they sought.

The high smooth textured wall was typical of the sides of other large warehouse facilities in this industrial city. No more than a Krall hand thick between support beams and partly hollow for holding insulation. An unarmored Krall could bust through in seconds. Seven warriors in powered armor would tear through as if the walls were hardly there. Telgrad used the ultrasonic range of his external speakers to issue instructions to his warriors. By avoiding his suit radio and low frequency speech, or imprecise hand signals, he issued detailed oral orders that human ears couldn’t hear, and their electronic detection equipment would not sense.

“Spread along the side of this work nest, and stand a leap apart. When I signal, we will rush the wall and smash through, and kill any of the enemy that is close. We were told we needed no prisoners for information about their forces, but we are not forbidden to enjoy killing them. If possible, keep those alive from the gun cart with the black dots. They killed Gitlod.”

The gunners they were after had personalized their vehicle with small round black spots all over the outside. That cart was the only ladybug he’d seen marked that way. Capturing those two humans alive would make this morning end much better. His warriors spaced themselves along the alley, watching for his signal.

****

Stanislav was bragging on his gunner. “Branko got another one of them on our last cycle. That makes three for us today. The other two were killed in the mass charge on the berms, right in the middle of the heaviest bombardment. Those first two bastards were so busy swiping at the thermite all over them they never saw us take a bead on ‘em. The last one though, was a thing of beauty. We really set up an entire octet for that one.”

Branko had to jump in to add to the story. The pause between artillery barrages would be over before he got a chance to talk, if his pal told it all. “Stan saw ‘em run out of a building, just before it imploded from a booby trap they tripped. He gunned ole Daisy here,” He patted the ladybug, “and charged into the dust cloud billowing out right behind them. They were looking for new cover, since the next barrage was about to start. The dust and sound from the falling building concealed us. We only had seconds to nail one of them.”

The artillery and ladybugs coordinated their punches. The Krall took cover for the heavy part of a barrage, and just before it let up the ladybugs darted out of hiding to snipe at the Krall as they started to advance. Some would still be swatting at thermite bomblets on their armor, or may have just removed a leg or arm section, to try to flex them to break any weak welds on stiff joints. That’s when they were most vulnerable and distracted.

Stan had another two cents worth. “I drove Daisy right through the middle of the octet. I shot one in the back with one hand, steered into the legs of another with the other hand, and Branko killed the one those two had been helping knock off bomblets on its joints. The octet leader and another warrior fired on us as we got away clean, just as the next barrage was starting. It was that last short break in firing, or we wouldn’t have taken such a chance.”

The length of the artillery pauses ranged from a few minutes to fifteen seconds, to keep the Krall from working out a pattern. The mobile artillery and ladybugs had the prescheduled intervals loaded into their suit AIs, and took advantage of the knowledge. Since the artillery shells and bomblets would not target a “friendly,” the gun platforms could be moving about at any time. Normally, it was when the Krall were just rushing for cover as a barrage started, or at the end of a barrage for an exposed octet, which offered the best opportunities for ladybug kills of warriors.

Warriors with attached bomblets were less attuned to remote surroundings then, distracted by closer threats. They truly hated the robot mechanical killing devices, because it was insulting to be wounded by them, let alone killed. You gained no status for knocking off bomblets, although they would get points for knocking out a mobile artillery platform. Particularly if the four crew members died. That was a twenty-five status point score for them, because it was always assumed they had killed warriors.

A ladybug was only fifteen status points, with dead crew. More points for the crew if a warrior could show a specific crew had scored a kill of their own. That was partly why helmet cameras were left on, to review the images, to seek additional points for any prey that had in turn killed a warrior.

Not that the Krall didn’t pick off ladybugs often enough. Unlike artillery, which stayed well back from the front, mobile gun platforms often came in close. They had killed five of the squadron’s fourteen “bugs” in the first thirty minutes of the assault. Waiting for the Krall in among the berms had been a mistake for several crews, who discovered they had no path of retreat when the fast advancing warriors got in front and behind. The absence of human fighters in the berms, and the obstacles they represented to fast movement, led some crews to believe they could get out fast enough.

Concentrated rifle fire from two or more warriors could burn through the driver or gun compartment shields, if given the few seconds to do that. Grenades and heavy plasma fire through the driver’s rifle holes could disable the driver, or damage the steering system or throttle. Tracks could also be knocked off under the skirts. The gunner was better protected, but an obvious tactic for the Krall was to leap onto the rounded turret, hold onto the gun as it tried to traverse, and fire plasma bolts down through the small gap between the clamshell shield dome, and the gun mount.

Stan’s high-speed dash through an octet, only fifteen minutes ago, had worked because of the start of the next artillery barrage, which caused the octet to separate wider to avoid presenting a group target to the smart shells.

Proving he had a “whimsical” side, Branko said, “There’s nothing as lovely as a Krall helmet popping in the morning.” That drew a laugh.

There were four gun crews gathered in the cavernous, nearly empty warehouse, helmets off and standing by their machines comparing notes. The rest of their squadron was a half-mile away, at the front line that was inexorably pushing this direction. These men had been holding the Krall’s attention on that line while their comrades took their turn at a breather. Now it was their turn for a short rest. Falling back in a planned manner didn’t mean racing away from the fight. In a few miles, they would reach the first of the prepared defensive positions their armored and infantry units had established yesterday in some foothills. The ladybug crews would only need to go through two more artillery cycles before they’d rejoin the ground support they normally had. That would literally keep the Krall off their backs.

The Krall forces would be fragmented and strung out when they reached the next defense position, because individual clans almost never coordinated or worked together, and many of the warriors leading today’s attack were from various small clans. Naval space planes were slated to come in to furnish air support. That aerial help was something the front line troops rarely received, because the Krall normally stayed closer to their own lines in measured short advances, and had ample plasma cannon defenses. Human air support had proven very vulnerable to Krall laser and plasma cannons. The Krall single ships were not nearly as maneuverable in atmosphere, but they could shrug off most beam weapons for the seconds needed to get clear, and had ferocious acceleration.

One of the other “bug” drivers made a typical army comment about navy pilots. “Even if they show up, they ain’t gettin’ down on top of the enemy with us, for close-support. They on’t answer to our commanders, and on’t get low enough to be effective like they should be. That’s why we on’t have them for cover at any of the fronts. They want’a stay high to avoid ground fire from warriors, and then fall to the Krall’s laser and plasma defense grid. So we on’t never get no help from the navy.” It was the usual bitching.

In random conversation, one of eight, Malvy, said she’d heard it rumored that pilots in O’clubs had described some new aircraft to their ground pounder counterparts. They were ground based near here, rather than detached from the navy carrier orbiting safely out by a gas giant in this system. Supposedly, these space planes looked about the same as what the navy flew now, but had a different gray finish on their outer skin, with no unit markings. The pilots weren’t navy and wore unadorned black jump suits, and didn’t hang out with other pilots or even go to the O’club. She’d heard some of the men were reported to have the tattoos occasionally seen on spec ops troops. The navy pilots said that made no sense, because none of those troops had ever been to any of the navy flight schools. They might be able to fly a shuttle or a recon ship, but not the more complex and demanding high performance fighters.

Stan said, “I don’t care who flies the damn things, if they can keep Dragons from getting too close to us.” A ladybug squad could fight back against a Dragon, but a Krall could do things in a Dragon that a human couldn’t match. A moving Krall mini tank driver could put a plasma bolt through the six-inch wide rifle slot of a ladybug driver’s compartment at almost a half-mile. The flash heat of that bolt bouncing around inside would parboil the driver inside their armor. He shivered and stayed quiet as his thoughts turned fearful.

Branko, seeing his driver’s expression change, added to their earlier exploits with future ones he visualized, hoping it would boost his partner’s spirits. “If we can keep falling back until they start their own withdrawal, I’ll enjoy pounding the crap out of their retreating butts. With air and ground support helping us as we push them back, I’d like to increase our kills from today.” He patted the three new stickers he’d slapped on Daisy’s side for the kills made today, joining only two from the past six months of warfare, after he and Stan had first arrived on Poldark.

Replacements were frequent in this war, even if the enemy usually paced themselves slower than they were doing this week. The other three ladybug crews were very recent replacements, having arrived this month. Only two of their vehicles had even a single Krall silhouette sticker on the side, and those were added today. They held Branko and Stanislav in high regard, for their number of kills, and the tales of experience that they needed to hear if they wanted to survive for six more months.

As it happened, they would have been safer out fighting with the other five crews from their squadron, rather than taking a break in a quiet warehouse a half mile from the fighting. The ragged front suddenly caught up to them, and they weren’t ready.

As the far wall exploded inward in seven places, leaking Krall, Branko grabbed Stan and pulled him around the side of their gun cart, as the other six gunners either froze, or futilely drew pistols or raised plasma rifles. They wouldn’t have time to concentrate fire on even one warrior to bring it down, let alone seven. Escape or a tri-barrel gun was the only hope for a very lucky crew. Branko wanted it to be his.

Rapid headshots from the Krall eliminated three people in seconds. They were the ones that managed to raise weapons, but never lived to pull a trigger. Malvy managed a plasma bolt truncated scream before she suffered what actually proved to be a merciful death.

The other three gunners, slower to react had the misfortune of lost limbs that were cauterized as they were burned away by multiple bolts. The warriors, mindful of Telgrad’s injunction to take some of the human’s alive if possible, killed only three in the hopes they were not the ones that Telgrad wanted. The bonus status point would be nice, but pissing off the sub leader might not be good for your own long-term reproductive hopes.

Telgrad instantly saw the two humans that ducked around the spotted gun cart, showing better sense than to try a shootout with seven Krall. He was confident they were the more experienced fighters, aware of their limitations. He saw the five small Krall shapes pasted on the side of the gun’s open clamshell, and assumed these were the human equivalent of status points. These two would be worth even more points than he first believed.

“The two behind the gun truck with black spots are mine. You can divide the other six between you.” Six prey and six warriors should work out fairly, but if any warrior wanted to risk a challenge from clan mates by claiming a second kill, he could do that. It was of little concern to Telgrad.

Firing under the gun cart at their feet wouldn’t be of use, because the tracks would block the shots. He realized the open dome of the gun’s cover was rotating to shift the clamshell opening to the side. One of the animals might get inside, and bring the weapon on line. They could fire it from outside using the helmet link if the gun was manually switched on. He commenced a hard run to the side, to place a line of roof support beams between him and the gun, as he worked his way closer.

Suddenly, he saw the far side door of the front compartment swing open, and knew the driver was attempting to enter. He fired a left handed plasma bolt through the left side gun slit to hold him back a moment, and removed a grenade from his belt with his right hand, his next to last one of eight. Thumbing the timer once, he held it a moment, then threw it over the top of the cab of the vehicle. It detonated exactly as it passed over the top, precisely where intended.

If the humans had failed to don their helmets, which they had carried under their arm as they went around the back of the gun cart, the blast might kill them, and he’d lose his fun. A bolt fired at him from around the front of the cab proved the driver was still alive. The bolt was on target for his chest, but Telgrad had seen the barrel protrude just before it fired. Human plasma weapons no longer advertised when they were about to fire, but he had time to twist his torso so the bolt struck at a glancing angle. He fired back hoping the tip of the barrel might stay exposed, and thus be damaged.

The gun’s tip was withdrawn just as he fired, so he pulled his last grenade and threw it hard, directly at the same rifle slit he’d fired into a moment ago. He was annoyed when it clinked on the edge, but passed through anyway. He was only three leaps away, and he nearly missed that easy throw. The detonation knocked the driver out of the cab, when he apparently was trying to crawl inside. His stunned form flew backwards, and lay exposed on the floor where Telgrad could kill him if he chose.

Instead, leaving the easy target for later, he sought any sign the main gun had been activated. It was aimed in the same direction, almost vertical, as they often were set when parked. He had maintained a battlefield awareness of what the rest of his warriors were doing, via quick glances and use of external speakers to hear their comments. They were studiously staying away from the prey he had claimed, and were closing on the screaming three survivors (alive so far) who were too slow to react and now were doomed to a long and painful death. By watching his warrior’s helmets, he knew they were also watching him and his prey. Unlike the human helmet visors, Krall warriors would not tolerate anyone “stealing” their view of a battlefield, because that could convey some advantage to a competitor for status points. Yet, he realized they were looking at a place well behind the gun cart he was approaching. He’d like to know what the animal was doing, but if he asked one of his warriors for information, he’d have to share the kill.

The prey couldn’t climb up into the clamshell opening without being exposed, so Telgrad was on his final leap to reach the front of the little transport. He decided that he’d push off the driver’s compartment, and hurtle up over the back and fire down on his target, intending to leave him alive.

As he pushed off the driver’s cab to jump high, his six hundred pounds of muscle and armor shoving down on the front, the back of the cart lifted slightly. He had his rifle ready in his left hand, and his right gauntlet and metal talon tips ready to grasp his prey as he dropped down. Only his target wasn’t behind the gun cart. There wasn’t room for him to have ducked under the vehicle’s protective skirts, which protected the tracks from plasma bolts. Where was he?

Then the reason for his warriors looking well behind the gun cart was clear. Just as he had used the line of roof supports to shield his approach, the human had ran in the exact opposite direction, using the obscuring presence of the same two foot wide support beams. He was now two supports away and almost to the open door they had driven through to enter this structure. The enemy was obviously using his visor and that of his friend’s to keep track of Telgrad. He stepped sideways to put the last support between him and his pursuer as he continued to run.

Moving to his left to get a clear shot and to keep the enemy he already had down and stunned in sight, he was shocked to find that his second prey had not kept running. He had stopped and already had his rifle sighted on Telgrad’s face as he came into view. Telgrad, faster than a human could pull a trigger, instantly dropped to his left and fired as he fell. The prey’s bolt struck him in his right shoulder, exactly where his helmet had just been. His own instinctive shot was also accurate, but the enemy didn’t move fast enough. He died as his faceplate melted and flesh and gray matter vaporized.

Telgrad blocked the pain of the heat through the heavier armor of the top of his shoulder, and cursed the fact that his most desired target had escaped his vengeance. The dead animal was the gunner who had killed his octet member. He leaped back to his feet and whirled to close with the slowly recovering driver. All of the anger and hatred he felt towards artillery, and these gunners that acted in partnership with that shameless way of fighting, would be directed at the one live victim he had at his disposal. This one would have to last twice as long.

Perhaps the animal could explain why there were no massed forces facing this major assault, nor any animals living in the nests they had passed this morning before reaching this equally abandoned industrial area. It was not the strong level of resistance previous assaults had encountered, where any step into human territory was contested by what many clan leaders were calling the most worthy enemy yet met.

Chapter 5: The Hills are Alive

Nabarone, observing the fighting from Admiral Adriana Bledso’s flagship, had another technological gift to offer to the navy. “Admiral, when my wing of Shadow fighters gets involved with ground support, I think you’ll want some of these stealth space planes for the navy, they are variations of your SP-9’s. You can convert one of your Starfires in a week to use the new stealth coating.

“The breakthrough in the quantum control skin covering goes beyond mere stealth, however. It also makes the surface highly resistant to laser and plasma fire, and it’s at least as good as what the Krall use on single ships, and better than the coating on their clanships. Not only are they difficult to detect by our systems, the Krall can’t spot them very well either, until they get close. You would have improved defense against multi-spectrum laser hits, like those from the triple spectrum laser pods you have on this dreadnaught. Moreover, they will receive a power boost for their existing weapons, or additional ones, as a side benefit of a Trap field system, which powers the new stealth coating. This is similar to the miniaturized Trap fields built into that sample body armor I was given. Another bit of alien technology.”

Nabarone had furnished Bledso and his immediate superior, General Cadifem, with a sample of some new body armor, and a video of the destroyed Krall orbital station where the Eight Balls had been constructed. They were seen being destroyed, using the same human designed rail guns that every human world now had in orbit for its own defense. Nabarone informed them his clandestine contacts told him that the new stealth body armor was designed by previously freed members of the race of crabs, called Torki, shown in the recording. This knowledge had been a lot to swallow in just a week, with the Krall preparations on Poldark nearing an obvious trigger point for the assault he predicted was coming.

The Admiral was stunned to learn there was an unknown force of human fighters that had somehow made contact with Krall slaves, and were receiving the benefit of their advanced technology. Another alien species, not shown in the video, were described by an unidentified young man wearing the new type armor. He said a second slave race of the Krall, called the Prada, was also helping humanity. Both races, he claimed, needed to keep their cooperation a secret to protect the millions of their people still slaves, safe from Krall retribution. She was then positively shocked to learn that this unknown band of human fighters had managed to pull off an attack on the only production site of the Eight Balls, deep in Krall controlled space, and claimed they had destroyed all of the weapons the Krall had in reserve. Moreover, they could make no more of them.

Bledso, aware of past friction caused by Nabarone’s personality conflicts with his superiors, looked this next surprise gift horse right in the mouth. “Henry, how did you manage a major research and development project like that, while your army has been fighting just to hang on? I don’t think I’ve heard of such a budget item in briefings I’ve received from Mil.”

She looked towards her Army counterpart, Lieutenant General Mildred Carla Cadifem. It was her middle name, the same one Nabarone had assigned to his female voiced AI system, which had probably contributed to a soured relationship with this Army superior.

Cadifem’s right eyebrow arched as she looked at Nabarone. “This is as much news to me as it is you Adriana. Henry, how did you squeeze enough R and D money out of the equipment budget I gave you? Did your clever female voiced AI manage to squeeze out some extra credits for you?”

That was the third barbed reference to his AI, which now had a different name, a gender-neutral name of Frances. That name in turn had been a new barb aimed at the now deceased Colonel Frank (Frances) Trakenburg. Nabarone now was considering yet another name for his AI, after the gallant combat death of the irritating spec ops officer.

“General Cadifem,” he started formally with a bow, and for the second time offered an apology. “I am sorry if I offended you in the past. I had no idea it was your middle name when I named my AI. The name Carla, no longer assigned to my AI as I said in my earlier apology, was used in tribute to an older woman with whom I had an uncontracted liaison in college.” A true statement, except for calling it a tribute to the former wealthy benefactor, who had made him feel sexually abused as a young man without money. This was the first time he’d offered that explanatory detail in his apology.

Bledso still wanted to hear Nabarone’s answer on the space planes. “We’ve had some brilliant Hub scientists working on Krall technology. They haven’t fully broken that particular secret yet, and the sample armor you gave us has only just reached them. You make it sound like your people have gone a bit farther than simply figure it out. That takes time, research, and money. How long did you hold onto this information?”

“Admiral, with all due respect, not all of the brightest minds reside on Hub worlds. Out on the Rim, and in New Colonies, we find that being subjected to imminent invasion, and deaths of those we love, tends to focus our attention and extend the number of hours some researchers are willing to work on a problem. I’ll admit that this technology is also new to us, and I passed it along as soon as it was presented to me.

“I must however, correct one misconception. They are not ‘my people.’ Some scientists and engineers out here, certainly not any working on Poldark, have evidently managed to reverse engineer that technology with alien guidance, although they admit to lacking a full theoretical understanding. With trial and error experiments, something that the staid and incurious Krall never seemed to try, these people have found ways to improve on ancient technology the Krall had stolen.”

“Who did it?” She wanted to know.

“Until the patent rights and proprietary production techniques are protected under Planetary Union laws, the developers will apply the secret process for us to use, but only on the condition of their anonymity. They say they will not share the detailed knowledge because they don’t have the quantum theory fully developed. Historically, Hub worlds have rarely shared advanced technology with Rim worlds, preferring to sell their products to us at high prices, rather than to license companies out here to build them ourselves, and thus avoid technology transfer. This is the same principle in reverse. They will furnish the benefits of their new technology with the PU military, but not the knowledge of how it is done. If we don’t know who they are and where they’re based, the technology can’t be confiscated.”

He wasn’t going to reveal that Torki and Prada aliens were the actual source. Rim worlds protecting their business interests, was something Hub worlds would understand, having done it in reverse for centuries.

Cadifem remained skeptical. “They built their own SP-9’s? That certainly indicates some sharing of corporate Hub technology, or stealing of corporate trade secrets.”

He shook his head. “Nope. You will find as I did this week, that seventy two of the most basic models of an SP-9 was purchased from one or more of the manufacturing plants on the core worlds of the Hub. They now have been converted for stealth, and armed by the buyers. I tried to trace the chain of custody of the space planes myself, but these people, like most Rimmers, are closed mouth when they have backdoor dealings with Hub worlds. It seems there aren’t any PU restrictions placed on buying unarmed high performance space planes. I wasn’t privy to the sales details, and I was only offered the use of the space planes and their pilots if I didn’t probe too deep into where they came from.”

He knew these were purchased by Mike Haveram, using contacts based on several Rim worlds, and paid for with untraceable funds acquired by black market sales of precious metals and gems mined on Koban. Even if the Rim world intermediaries were found, they couldn’t give Haveram to the government, because they didn’t know him by that name, nor know where he was based. Bledso was inevitably going to think Mirikami’s group was a Rimmer faction.

“It isn’t completely free. I have to furnish them with fuel and ammunition, and field support for their pilots.”

“Why are they so generous to let you use them that cheaply? In fact, where did they find trained pilots?”

Nabarone shrugged. “They say they need to test the ships and pilots in battle, and Poldark provides the only large scale live testing available. I elected not to look at this gift horse too critically, since your navy Starfires have rarely been of any benefit to my troops.”

That barb was a complaint Bledso often heard from every planetary commander.

He shifted the questioning back on her. “As for trained pilots, have you kept track of mercenary hires? Do you know what your retired navy pilots are doing now? What about washouts that made it part way through flight training, and still wanted to fly? Admiral, I’m not going fabricate an answer for you. If the seventy two planes of this three squadron wing prove to be inadequate, and are poorly flown, then I’m absolutely no worse off than I have been without any air support at all.”

He hadn’t said he didn’t know the answer to the question about trained pilots. These pilots were mostly new spec ops graduates from Heavyside, with shiny new Kobani TG2 mods, who had been allowed to Mind Tap a retired and disabled, but talented navy aviator that could use the large sum of cash he was offered. After a bit of flight practice, they improved on their new skills, and passed them on to other TG2 pilot candidates. This made for a cadre of flight capable pilots that could increase faster than the number of space planes available for them to fly. If they performed as well as he hoped, then he’d soon be asked how these rookies flew better than experienced navy pilots did. Having Mind Tapped with one of the new pilots, Nabarone knew he could also fly one. He wished he could be down there flying one of the craft when they joined the fight, instead of out here kissing ass and acting brilliant.

Feeling better than he had even when young, Nabarone had been on guard not to move his new Kobani body too smoothly, and to limp on his supposedly recently healed broken leg. Everyone seemed to move in slow motion to him, and think so slow. He almost wanted to finish their sentences, a trait that wouldn’t endear him with them if he did that.

Hell, he didn’t want endearment. He wanted them to believe him about what the Krall were going to do, about the next invasion. Then he might convince Bledso to commit her forces to the fight before it moved to the Hub worlds. Nabarone knew it wasn’t Bledso’s personal reluctance to fight the Krall, it was a political decision imposed on the navy, which lingered after the previous disasters, despite how well Admiral Mauss had fought.

“Henry, when are we going to see these Shadow fighters in action? Your armies have fallen back quickly enough that they have drawn the leading Krall elements well beyond the original front line defenses. The feeds from surveillance satellites, before the Krall shoot them down each time, shows they have been slow to move their defensive plasma and laser systems forward, not keeping pace with where the front really is now. They have good coverage five miles or so beyond their original lines, but you have drawn them almost ten miles from where they started. Obviously, they expected you to stand your ground and slow the advance while they chewed you up. Now what? You can’t keep up a fighting retreat indefinitely. It’s still a retreat.”

“That was in the briefing I submitted to General Cadifem, Mam. However, three of the Krall assaults are approaching stronger holding points that we have established. One point is twelve miles east of Novi Sad in some foothills. There will be strong resistance there, with the Krall advance forces strung out and operating almost entirely at octet levels. Their isolated Dragons are no longer fighting as coordinated units.

“They have devolved into a pattern of every Krall warrior for themselves. They have no aerial defenses nearby, and because we held back air attacks, their single ships are not flying yet. The Shadow fighters will come in low, right in the middle of a heavy artillery barrage. Ladybugs will be designating Krall targets for them where the octets took shelter. The incoming shells will recognize the fighters, either delaying detonation or deviating away. The same as they do when a ladybug accidentally happens to fall in their target zone.”

“How will the fighters do more damage to them than the smart artillery?” she wanted to know.

“Krall spread out when moving in the open, so a single shell or booby trap doesn’t hit many at once. When they go to ground, they tend to close ranks to wait out the barrage in shelter, and perhaps receive the octet leader’s directions for the next series of movements. We aren’t entirely sure why they do this, but we know they do it often. The ladybugs have left spy bots behind to watch where they hide, and they can laser designate a good target for the space planes, or the tri-barrels can snipe at them if the fighters flush them out of hiding. We have held back some of our new armor penetrating shells for the Dragons. If they pull out of sight, the ladybugs can point out their hiding place to the inbound shells.

“If you suddenly stop their advance, what do you think will be their reaction?”

Clearly, the admiral had not read his action plans in detail. Not surprising he decided. The Space Navy found ground warfare unpleasant and grimy. Their preference was to kill the enemy at a thousand miles with a nice sanitary salvo of missiles, and avoid the debris field after that.

This was a career ground pounder’s own shortsightedness of space warfare. Nabarone had not studied the action reports of the two desperate space battles over K1, and the follow up attack when the Krall Eight Balls traced the fleet back to Rhama. Those thousands that died with their ships had not found the experience all so sanitary.

“Admiral,” He didn’t feel comfortable calling her Mil. “I’m certain they will launch single ships, and move their defense systems forward more quickly. We can’t actually stop them; we can only hold them for a time. I’m told the Shadow fighters will be largely undetectable by those Krall defense systems unless they get within a mile or two. The fighters will see where the plasma and laser beams originate, and I expect them to target those from as far away as practical.

“They’re here to experience atmospheric dogfights with single ships, and some of that fighting may leak into near space above the planet. I have already alerted Planetary Defense Command, PDC, to keep railguns off line unless they have clanship targets. From prior sensor testing, my people can’t see the Shadow’s any better than they can see Krall single ships, which is to say not at all, so friendlies are unlikely to be targeted by our ground batteries, and are resistant to the beams if accidentally struck.

“In atmosphere, as you know, space planes generate a different turbulence vortex as they fly than does a clanship, single ship, or Krall shuttle. Our Turb detection system has missiles that already have programing to ignore space plane turbulence trails, and are free to fire and track any enemy at any time.”

“Henry, I wasn’t so much asking about the routine response you expected from the Krall. I’m fully confident you will have allowed for all of that. It seems like they have shown surprising variability recently, and this apparent assault to cover for a partial withdrawal is the most significant example. At the least, you’re risking losing a great deal of territory, based on the assumption they will eventually slow their attack. I do agree that it looks probable. What if the Krall war commander does something you didn’t expect? Tor Gatrol Kanpardi has proven to be a very good strategist. He has to be involved in planning this withdrawal if it happens. He’s less predictable.”

Nabarone acknowledged their comments. “Excellent point. Observe and adjust is all I can offer. I expect the unexpected, but of course, I don’t know what it will be. I do have one piece of information to ease some of the fear of Kanpardi’s direct involvement. The Tor Gatrol is on K1. He sent Til Gatrol Telour to meet with Gatlek Pendor in his bunker, and then Telour left Poldark. We had well positioned spy resources that confirmed that for us. The less flexible mind of Pendor is what I’m confronted with, as has been the case for two years, and he’s not near brilliant.” Naturally, Nabarone left out some details, knowing Bledso and Cadifem would think he meant spy bots when he said spy resources near Pendor’s bunker.

Rather than spy bots, a squad of Kobani spec ops had caught a Krall sub leader that had recently been inside the Gatlek’s bunker. While he was drugged into immobilization, and questioned by Mind Tapping methods, the presence of the Til Gatrol was confirmed, and that the Gatlek was suddenly issuing oddly conflicting orders that the low ranking sub leader did not understand. He didn’t understand, because a planned partial withdrawal during a simultaneous major assault wasn’t found in any Krall history of wars with previous species. This was a first, caused by unparalleled successes of the human attacks on Krall worlds.

The Krall did manage to do the unexpected however, despite Pendor’s lack of brilliance.

****

Gatlek Pendor was frustrated. His last week to be spent on Poldark was not ending with the huge number of status kills he had expected the continent-wide punitive assaults to produce. The humans were uncharacteristically avoiding hard frontal combat. They were always too willing to retreat in the face of heavy losses, and they always used trickery and deceit, but they had also strongly resisted significant loss of territory in the past. Now, they were fighting in a manner that yielded ground quicker, and provided his warriors with lower kill ratios than in the past.

The small clans leading the attacks were complaining that cities and territory are worthless to them, and there was too little fighting and status kills to increase their breeding rights. The humans were backing away from pitched battles, giving up land they had fought dearly to keep over the last two years.

This didn’t seem very much like the worthy enemy they had confronted here for two years. Pendor was now faced with a logistics problem on the surface of Poldark, similar to the one Tor Gatrol Kanpardi had in space. The advance forces had outpaced the supplies and rear support systems that were expected to sustain them against stiff resistance as they entered the cities, and forced the enemy slowly out the other side.

The initial supplies had been placed at the forefront of their attacks, to provide quick support for the lead elements so they wouldn’t have to slow their advance as they waited for resupply. They had expected this tactic to fool the humans, because they had never done this in the past on smaller scale attacks. Instead, because of human traps and deception, many of their supply vehicles were lost before the warriors could take possession of the weapons and ammunition they carried.

Pendor had thought up this supply part of the plan himself. To help the small clans in pushing the humans steadily back, even as he prepared to depart with the material and major clan warriors he’d need for the next invasion force. He hadn’t consulted with anyone on the wisdom of this tactic, in order to prevent word of the partial withdrawal from reaching the ears of the small clans, who were being left behind. Therefore, he had put vital supplies they would need first, right where they were most at risk. Leading the assaults. Definitely, he was not at Kanpardi or Telour’s level of competence.

The finger clans had advanced three times faster than expected due to obviously preplanned human retreats, and would soon reach the geographical limits that had previously been placed on the advances of the clans. Now they had passed beyond most of the laser defenses against artillery, there were no single ships overhead, and hundreds of octets were reporting low stocks of replacement arms and ammunition. The latter because they were so far from the vast stockpiles in the rear, and they had lost a high percentage of those they carried at the start.

Many of the same transports filled with arms that led the assaults, which was Pendor’s not-so-clever idea, were expected to return for additional weapons and power packs. Those supplies should have been streaming to the front now, to aid the hard charging warriors. Unfortunately for the Krall, particularly at Novi Sad, they had been risked and lost at the front of the advances, due to human trickery on the bridges, and on seemingly open roadways into the eight cities. They were frequently destroyed with all of their supplies still loaded.

Replacement transports, which could have promptly sent additional supplies forward, were currently loaded with the equipment and arms that were being prepared for a quick charge back to the cluster of clanships parked around Pendor’s bunker. They knew human surveillance would see that movement when it started, so they intended to hold what they thought was an element of surprise to the last moment.

Then came a communication from the Pishtok clan’s bunker that they had learned the humans had been expecting this wide attack, and were deliberately drawing the Krall forces ahead too fast for proper support.

His aide, Grigmot, pulled back defensively as the Gatlek slashed the air with his talons. “This cloaca of a true Great clan presumes to inform me of what?” He demanded as much as asked.

The aid repeated what had been received. “My Gatlek, one of the Pishtok octet leaders captured and extracted this information from a human operator of one of the fast small plasma gun transports. The ones called ladybugs by humans.”

Instead of accepting the information, he first blasted the unnamed octet leader for his actions, contrary to his orders. “I instructed all clans to kill every human encountered, that I did not want to be slowed by unneeded information extraction for this rapid, but limited advance. Why did he disobey that instruction?”

Grigmot shook a left shoulder, equivalent to a human shrug. “The Pishtok clan leader says the manner of death was not prescribed to be instant. This human and his clan mate were responsible for the deaths of at least five warriors, based on status marks for kills on their gun cart. One of those warriors killed was from the capturing octet, which wanted not only revenge, they also sought the additional status points you award warriors for such kills. That octet captured three additional gun cart crews, which were killed instantly.”

Grigmot wasn’t pleased to have to remind Pendor of that status incentive, which he’d offered all warriors, to spur them to end the breeding line of any enemy that claimed status from Krall kills. The Gatlek wasn’t noted for his gratitude for such reminders. In a human army, an irritating underling might be sent to the front to face the risk of death. It was far worse in a Krall clan. The offender was sent home to guard nests, guaranteed that none of the nests would ever have eggs from a mating by the dishonored Krall in question. Grigmot was the third aide to Pendor, and definitely wanted to participate in the new invasion.

“Yet he interrogated some of the prisoners?” Pendor wasn’t yet ready to listen to the important detail. One that Grigmot believed he needed to hear.

“Yes Gatlek. The Pishtok clan leader is a warrior of high status, which allowed him to establish a finger clan from Dorbo. He considered this information of enough importance to pass directly to you.”

With an impatient snarl he asked, “What did the humans tell them?”

“He says even these low ranking human fighters knew of the coming assault, and had prepared and planned for a month. They are pulling back because…” He was cut off by his superior.

“Impossible. I only learned of Kanpardi’s plan from Telour within that time span, and started gathering forces for the assault only in the last two weeks. Have Pishtok ask the prisoners how the humans could know this, before I started to prepare.”

A hesitation by a Krall is measured in hundredths of a second, and Grigmot exceeded that by nearly a half second. He obviously didn’t want to pass along another unpleasant reminder.

“Per your initial orders, Gatlek, the humans were terminated before the information was passed to the Pishtok bunker. Their clan leader admonished his octet leader for not recognizing the importance of additional questions, but could not reprimand him for that.”

Pendor stood there glaring at nothing in particular, his red pits set in ebony, blazing with his frustrated anger. Finally, grasping that beating a dead human wasn’t going to give him more information, he asked, “What was learned of the reason for the rapid human retreat?”

“They have stronger points of resistance established, miles from of each of the original eight major assault points. They intend to use the extended and ragged lines of the thousands of isolated octets facing them to their advantage. They know the warriors in their eagerness have moved far ahead of their defensive laser and plasma batteries, with a slender, if not broken supply line. They will counter attack.”

It was fortunate that those that briefed the human troops had the foresight not to mention anything about an expected Krall pull back and partial evacuation. Information that troops such as poor tortured Stanislav didn’t know, they couldn’t reveal. Otherwise, Pendor might have made a different unexpected move.

****

“Not all of them? How many clanships were launched?” Asked Major Caldwell.

The lieutenant repeated. “The spec ops observers say only eight lifted off, and are moving in the direction of Novi Sad at tree top level, and not at max thrust. They say this isn’t part of the expected withdrawal, even though they saw those eight loading up with warriors. That’s why they didn’t destroy the plasma cannons or call for the missile launches. This isn’t part of the withdrawal.”

“Support for the warriors pushing east from the city, you think?” Caldwell looked to Greeves and Reynolds, who were not in his command but who had offered insights on Krall intentions in the past, under situations considerably different than seen on Poldark for the last two years.

“That’s perhaps sixteen thousand warriors,” Greeves said. “There are at least three times that many Krall already on the roads out of Novi Sad, headed for your first fixed bastion of resistance in the foothills. You have roughly a half million men facing them, and I doubt the enemy thinks they are enough to stop them. A ten, even fifteen to one kill ratio in an all-out fight is fair odds to them. I don’t think they would feel the need for reinforcements for the clans at the front even before you commit the Shadow fighters. They must feel like they are making tremendous headway.”

Reynolds, who had faced the Krall on the ground here for several years, and had done his share of retreating, had another idea. “A blocking force!”

“What do you mean?” Caldwell asked.

“You’ve pulled back steadily all day, stretching them out just like you and Henry planned. The foothills are the first holding point for a longer fixed fight. You say you have several more fall back positions prepared in the mountains, to keep bleeding them as you make this fighting retreat. What if they don’t let you retreat out of the mountains?”

“That could be it.” Greeves agreed, cautiously. “Fighting troops that retreat before they can close with them has to be frustrating. A smaller Krall force in the narrow passes could block the way out, or certainly slow the First Army considerably.”

“Why now? They have let us make orderly retreats before.”

Reynolds shook his head. “I was in some of those retreats, Sir, and they were closer to routs. We made it out only because the Krall held back, saving us for another fight. I was always afraid they’d put a force of warriors where we’d be trapped between them. It was something they could do with clanships, but never did. They were pacing the fight for their purposes. This time they intend to punish as well as withdraw some of their larger clans. You keep dodging back from the blows, avoiding severe punishment.”

“They didn’t launch clanships towards the other seven fronts. Just the Novi Sad push.” Caldwell noted.

Greeves shrugged. “The botched river crossings cost them more supplies there, and the better roads out of the largest city allowed your fall back, and their advance to go farther and in less time than elsewhere. They are more extended and exposed east of Novi Sad than anywhere else. Now you have the mountainous terrain of the Malen’kiy Urals to help you, to make it harder for them to come to grips with the First Army. What would happen if you couldn’t get those half million men out through the passes on the other side of that range of mountains? You don’t know exactly what day the Krall will start their pull out and these eight clanships full of warriors could stay behind anyway, to hold the First Army trapped in that old mountain range, and help dig them out.”

“We have dozens of infiltration tunnels through the Urals and its ridges, just like we had prepared in the Sredna Gora mountain range, west of Novi Sad where you and Mirikami first landed. We can eventually move most of our men out that way if these clanships block the passes, assuming we get the time. I’m contacting Turb control to send seekers after those clanships. They’ll expose themselves if they climb to get up over the peaks to the other side. I’ll also advise Henry of the situation.”

Caldwell moved to a com panel to call for seeker missile launches, and to inform Nabarone on the changes in Krall movement.

Greeves, looking at the plots and force dispositions on the screens devoted to the Novi Sad battle, saw a way he and Reynolds could become more than remote observers.

“Sarge, why don’t we test our armor against the Krall’s newer stuff? I see where we can get into the mountains from some feeder tunnels, similar to what was dug around that abandoned spec ops base where we first landed on Poldark. I see a black ops hub indicated in the mountains, and the tunnels radiate from that on all sides.”

“Sure. I haven’t played rock rat for over a year, and I have some payback to make for the arm I had to regrow.”

When Caldwell turned back to them, they explained what they wanted to do.

“OK. I can give your suits the Identification Friend from Foe codes to authorize you to be there, and give you the right to request assistance, provided any field commander you are dealing with is able to lend you help. There are spec ops in those mountains with full mods like yours, but as usual, Henry and I don’t know exactly what sort of mischief they are up to, only that it will help us and hurt the Krall.”

“Thanks Howard, we’ll mostly stay out of your people’s way, and try to link up with a spec ops unit.”

“Fine. Get your feet wet, but understand that if the Krall can block the mountain passes you will be entirely on your own. In your IFF code, I’ll list you as a full colonel, and both of you as attached to Nabarone’s Headquarters staff. Don’t expect any pay or uniform allowance.”

“Understood. We’ll pick up our armor from our billets, and borrow a shuttle and pilot if that’s OK.”

“Of course. I didn’t expect you to walk.”

****

Gofdar, the Mordo clan sub leader that Gatlek Pendor had assigned this mission, had mixed feelings. He was eager to lead two hands of clanships, each loaded with two thousand twenty four experienced and elevated status warriors, to attack the rear and flanks of many times their number of enemy. He might miss the launch of the new invasion fleet to the yet unnamed new human world. It was known only that it would be what humans called a Hub world, heavily populated, and largely unprepared for an invasion.

The number of early and easy kills on such a world could increase your status rapidly, but an experienced warrior, like Gofdar, relished combat with armed and resisting human forces, like those they had engaged here on Poldark. These soldiers would know there could be no surrender or retreat, and no escape when Gofdar’s clanships blocked their mountain pass exits. It would be fight and die. Not fight or die, since not dying wasn’t to be an option for them. The Gatlek wanted as complete a slaughter as possible of this part of the largest army, of the eight armies presently engaged with them.

The quality of a few hands of kills was often more satisfying than mere quantity, such as sixty-four kills of panicked untrained humans, old and young. Humans with weapons and armor always fought to the best of their limited ability when trapped.

Gofdar recalled at least two hands of such fights in his two full orbits spent on this world. One such favorite fight had been when the octet he led (before his later promotions) stumbled on ten unusual humans with soft flexible armor that hid them well. Under that flexible stealth armor, they all had worn black suits that made them much stronger than the typical human.

Anticipating being discovered, they were ready. They knew Krall armor’s weak points, and fired their weapons without hesitation, and more accurately than most soldiers did, hitting the joints and faceplates of the older style armor. He lost two of his octet outright, with another three wounded, one of them himself. He suffered a facial wound when his faceplate shattered from a bullet intended to enter his left eye. The human that shot at him lacked only the speed needed to drive his blade home through the opened helmet, when his projectile weapon emptied. Gofdar caught the hand and removed the weapon, a mere finger’s thickness from his muzzle. He killed his attacker with a slash that nearly decapitated him, sorry an instant later for his impetuous instinctive move. He would have offered a knife fight without armor, had he thought of that in time.

The sub leader still carried that ultra-sharp blade. He had used it to good effect on several captured humans, and twice in death challenges from warriors from other clans. He hoped he could face another ten humans like that today. If he had to miss the invasion force launch, he was certainly going to lead his warriors into this fight.

His eight ships were going to land in the larger passages leading away from the higher peaks, and block the main routes out of the far side of the low mountain range, where the bulk of the human force from Novi Sad was headed. He didn’t know how close to exiting the mountains the human army was, because Gofdar left before there was any surveillance to tell him. He had simply sent his ships to the ends of the eight mountain passes most likely to be used for the retreat.

This blocking tactic was one the Krall used sometimes in interclan wars and against previous alien races, but had not been used against humans because they normally stayed to defend any of their territory. This was the first time they had yielded so swiftly.

The Tor Gatrol wanted massive human casualties from the human warrior class, as penalty for human raids on Krall worlds. The next two invasions of human worlds were also to be demonstrations of how futile that effort had been, by not slowing the course of the war.

“Seekers have been launched, my leader.” That was spoken by his weapons master. His pilot, seeing the same sensor data had instantly started evasive maneuvers, jolting the crew on the bridge as they held to the support posts at their stations. The pilot lowered their altitude to below the higher peaks, as they threaded their way through mountain passes toward the intended landing point. All eight clanships were on their own for now, responsible for their own defense and evasion, ordered to reach the eastern ends of the canyons, to block them.

These seeker missiles would initially home on the detectable atmospheric turbulence trails that formed in the wake of stealthed, fast moving craft. Once close enough, the seekers could follow the plasma trail of thrusters, unless the clanship was using tachyon power to operate their Normal Space reactionless drive. That untraceable gravity drive wasn’t an option for this flotilla to use. That was because the clanships had all originated deep in Poldark’s gravity well, where the large trap fields needed for gravity control were unable to form properly, or maintain the required curvature to capture high-energy tachyons to tap for gravity and inertial control. The seeker missiles, if they closed in on the turbulence tracks, would “sniff” the ions in the plasma trails, and follow the radar invisible ships to their shielded tailpipes.

Firing a clanship’s defensive lasers, plasma beams, or anti-missiles at the seekers would serve to better identify their stealthed locations, both to human ground weapons and to space borne ship batteries that might be in position to target them. At the speed of light, those beams would surely hit them because maneuvering was useless. High velocity turns was one way to stay a step ahead of the prediction logic of enemy fire control when they couldn’t see you, but that was not as effective if the ship were hemmed in by high terrain. One alternative was to land early and out of position, another was to try to take out the incoming missiles at the last possible moment, risking some proximity blast damage before a rushed landing.

Gofdar ordered his weapons master and pilot to do the latter. He had selected the wider, more vital central pass for his own clanship to blockade, and setting an example for precision and efficiency was important to him. He wanted to be positioned perfectly for the force aboard his craft to meet and stop the enemy. It was their misfortune and two seekers missiles, using the wider mountain pass to their advantage, that caused him to fall short of his intended landing point, and he got to meet the enemy sooner than he’d expected.

“Two seekers locked.” Was the weapons master’s terse remark, as he fired the two lasers that could bear on the closer missile, and the one plasma cannon that could target the other one, along with two hypervelocity anti-missiles. The two seeker warhead explosions were closer than the Weapons Master planned, due to the pilot being forced to make a turn around a cliff outcrop that briefly blocked his targeting. The seekers closed rapidly, just as agile as the clanship in this situation.

There was a loud clang of multiple impacts on the aft part of the hull as the large warheads scoured the clanship when they detonated, mere yards short and above the bell housing of the main thruster. The pilot had a moment when he thought the thruster housing had split, or a piece had blown off, because the blast wave shoved the back of the craft down slightly, as if thrust were escaping laterally, pushing the tail down. He was able to correct with attitude thrusters, and those on the command deck decided there was no serious damage. So naturally, that was when the serious damage arrived.

The two warhead’s detonations not only had located the clanship’s position along the canyon, but the shrapnel had chipped and scoured part of the aft stealth coating on the side exposed to the sky. The pilot, in his effort to compensate for the brief nose up thrust vector, which threatened to lift them above the ridge tops, hadn’t rotated the clanship to position hypothetically unstealthed hull surface away from space born radar.

Some of Admiral Foxworthy’s heavy cruisers were almost overhead in orbit, called in response to the Krall clanship launches, and linked to the PDC’s detection grid. The location of the seeker detonation tracking signals, combined with reception of a weak fast moving reflection in the same vicinity was enough. The ship’s AI was already released to react and fire faster than a human could command, and it fired two heavy plasma beams on the suspected clanship target. It scored two hits. Not fatal, due to some atmospheric attenuation, but serious enough to farther damage the clanship’s hull and disable two attitude thrusters.

The pilot reacted instantly and brilliantly this time. He triggered target decoys, and flipped the clanship end for end in the narrow confines of the canyon. This served multiple purposes. The reversal removed the now radar reflective hull segments from view from space, provided a wicked thrust reversal to slow their passage along the canyon, and placed undamaged attitude thrusters where he could use them to go vertical, to drop for a hurried landing.

The follow up plasma beams from the heavy cruiser passed through the space the clanship would have occupied a mere two seconds later if it had not flipped, and the beams took out both of the target decoys. They obligingly spewed out highly radar reflective debris, and made a fireball by exploding containers of thruster fuel. The fireball and smoke furnished another benefit for the clanship, because it briefly obscured the near crash landing, as the landing jacks barely absorbed the impact as all thrusters shut down.

Gofdar stabbed a talon to open only one of the four bottom hatches, the one facing the closer cliff wall. He used his com set to order every warrior away from the ship except the weapons master. He didn’t need to explain to that warrior why he had to stay aboard. The clanship’s weapons were of value to hold onto this valley if the enemy didn’t spot and destroy the grounded craft from orbit. As soon as every warrior was out, the hatch would be closed, to recover as much stealth capability as possible. The open hatch was less visible on radar when it faced a rock wall.

The pilot preceded Gofdar over the railing of the command deck, ignoring the stairwell in haste. The eighteen-foot drop was trivial in Poldark’s gravity, and they raced down through the other decks and out the open portal in less than fifteen seconds. Gofdar slapped the keypad to close the hatch as he leaped clear.

Once away, and his warriors spread among the cover of boulders near the side of the valley, Gofdar paused to examine the clanship. It had not yet ruptured into an orange fireball from incoming heavy plasma cannon fire, or from more missiles. He saw that the damaged section of the clanship stealth coating was well below the bulge of the midsection, in its shadow, and the pilot had rotated the craft to position the exposed hull scrapes closest to the nearby steep ridge face, not exposed to orbital radar from directly overhead. The upper electromagnetic stealth capability was still effective. Of course, their body armor also had stealth mode active, otherwise a couple of thousand warriors would be extremely noticeable.

“I think the humans will not detect us from space. An efficient landing.” That came as close to outright praise as the sub leader would give to the pilot, who already knew he’d done a masterful bit of flying and positioning of the craft.

The pilot, Fordol, offered the information from his last vision of the sensors and navigational screen, depicting the other seven clanships. “My leader, we are closer to the approaching human forces than any of the other clanships. The humans did not retreat as far as we thought. Our sensors displayed at least six clanships were still flying, to reach the selected blocking points. Kadrot’s clanship, the one most to the north, was not seen on my display. Either they were destroyed or there were too many ridges between us for the signal.”

The best strategy was to consider that clanship lost, and that the small northern pass was open. This was something the humans would know if they had destroyed that particular blocking force. Using his battlefield memory of the terrain, something all of his warriors had studied before embarking, every warrior knew exactly where they needed to go. “The small northern passage splits from this main route, but deeper into the higher mountains. We can block that escape path if we reach that place before the humans can all pass through. They will be forced to move slower. We will need to move fast.” Left unsaid was the fact that they would have to face the bulk of the retreating human forces alone. This could prove to be a great battle, mentioned in the histories.

After a brief communication with his weapons master, the force of over two thousand twenty armored warriors slung their plasma rifles, and started running west at nearly twenty miles per hour. The powered armor actually slowed them down slightly, but the added assistance and suit cooling would keep them fresher when they arrived. With stealth active, they were like a ripple of translucent waves splitting around boulders, and coursing along the cleared sides of the valley’s central four-lane roadway. They had what amounted to just over fifteen miles to cover.

****

Greeves and Reynolds were deposited at a hidden tunnel entrance in a box canyon in the southern foothills of the Small Urals, as they were generally called on Poldark. Thanking the shuttle pilot for the ride, Reynolds triggered a hidden opening in the canyon as the shuttle lifted.

As they walked down a ramp to the tunnel they planned to use, the interior lights activated. Sarge checked his suit’s built in navigation system and map. “My visor map shows there’s an underground parking area at the end of this tunnel, less than a quarter mile away. We might find an electric cart or ground car there. We still have over five miles to travel to reach the command hub below the central peak.”

Dim light strips automatically switched on ahead of them, glowing softly as they went down the ramp. Their own ripper low light adaptation would have allowed them to see very well, although the suit visors offered map projections, sensor readings, and time and distance measurements. When they reached the wide place in the tunnel for parking vehicles, they saw they were in luck.

“We have two electric carts, both are charged,” Sarge noted as he looked over the two squad sized elongated carts, parked over inductive floor charging plates. Greeves had ignored them, walking to where the garage down ramp would lead up to the valley roadway. He stopped between a four wheeled ground car, and a rounded tracked vehicle, with a vertical pointing plasma gun on its back section.

“Sarge, you ever see one of these? How fast is it compared to a cart or ground car?”

“Those are new to me, but I saw some on the remote monitors of the street fighting in each of the cities. I heard them called ladybugs. They should be as fast as the ground car in the smooth floor tunnel, and faster than a cart. Why?”

“I like that three barrel plasma gun on the rear swivel mount. Do you know how they work? We might like a bigger gun than our suit weapons when we get to where we’re going.”

“Let me link to the local network. You can do it too.” He walked over to the nearest glow strip on a sidewall and touched it with his gauntlet. His suit AI used the authorization Caldwell had uploaded to their suits, and Reynolds was connected to the central AI at the spec ops command hub. After that, he could step away and remain linked now that he was identified.

Thad duplicated the action, and instantly saw an axillary link indictor glowing in a corner of his visor display. “How’d you know to do that?”

“Duh. This is a new type of armor I’m wearing, but it ain’t the first set I’ve ever worn in these type tunnels. I assumed the com protocol was placed in our suit AIs, along with our authorizations from Caldwell. Now we can download an operation manual for a ladybug.”

In seconds, they had the operator’s manual, which had considerable pictorial help. Greeves touched a spot near a narrow split in the rounded hump in the back, and the clamshell opened smoothly, revealing the weapon support column, a fusion bottle, and racks of feeder ammunition rods, for generating the plasma bolts for each of the three gun barrels.

Reaching in, Greeves touched the activation stud, and the weapon came alive. The clustered gun barrels lowered to horizontal aimed directly to the front, instantly linked to his suit AI. He saw that the sight recital showed the wall ahead, where the barrels were aimed, with the gun in safe mode. Checking the manual, he realized he could lock the barrel to his own vision, and aim wherever he chose to look. His AI handled the coordinate translation for the powered gun mount. He looked around the garage, aiming the sight at various points. It was fast and responsive. All he needed to do to fire was to think the trigger command to his suit. That, and shove three of the four-foot-long metal rods into the waiting slots that fed the three laser vaporization chambers.

“I like it. Let’s take this for our ride.”

“You want to drive or ride in back?” Reynolds asked.

“Why split up?” Thad asked. “Either of us can control the cannon from a mile away, so why not both sit up front?”

Sarge considered the operator manual’s pictures. “With our smaller form fitting suits I think we’d both fit in the front cab. The normal PU army body armor is too bulky for that, but we’ll still be a bit crowded. Except, the gunner needs to shove in reload rods from in back.”

“So what? There’s nothing to shoot at down here and I want to see where we’re going. We get two hundred shots per feeder rod anyway. I’ll load up before we go.”

“Use your visor to see what’s in front, you knuckle head. The cab doesn’t have a see through windshield anyway, they use a video feed to see outside the armor shell, except for the two rifle slots to shoot through.”

“No. I want to keep an eye on your crappy driving. You get in first then I’ll climb inside.”

“Crappy driving,” muttered Reynolds. “It’s a damned near straight tunnel,” he grumbled.

Sure enough, they both fit in front, if Reynolds sat a bit to the left side, but they were almost shoulder-to-shoulder. Luckily, leg and headroom was ample, for the bulkier PU armor. The two gun slits were positioned high enough so they could bend slightly to look out of them, and their built in energy weapons would target whatever they could see on the inside of their visor screen.

Slipping the unfamiliar throttles slightly too far forward, the ladybug jolted ahead before Reynolds pulled the steering yoke to the left to control the tracks. They clipped the rear fender of the ground car as they grated and screeched past.

“Perhaps I should drive, and you ride in back,” Thad proposed. “Caldwell will bill us for that repair.”

“Shut the hell up,” was Sarge’s reply, as he swung wildly around the two electric carts and accelerated down the glow strip illuminated tunnel. Thad’s chuckle sounded in his earpiece.

****

Sergeant Skalsgard knew they had stepped in it big time, when he saw the eight clanships headed for the Small Urals. From his observation post on one of the peaks overlooking the roads, which passed through the ancient mountains, he realized the Krall were turning the tables on the First Army. Up until now, the planned fallback had drawn out the over eager warriors from the minor clans exactly as planned. Those Krall, largely on foot, with a handful of Dragons with them, currently were dashing themselves against the first of the stronger fortified bastions, where they were trying to beat their way through the heavy fire pouring down from the high ground.

The second and last major fallback point was around and below Skalsgard, and along the ridge tops. This was where a few thousand troops, in prepared bunkers with escape tunnels, were expected to hold back the Krall as long as they could. The bulk of the half million troops would pass below Skalsgard along two major interior valleys on either side of his post, racing to escape the confines of the surrounding ridges. The lead elements, troops riding in two columns of trucks, with various mobile artillery, laser and plasma batteries mixed with them, had started passing his highest of the observation posts.

They were soon to successively split up and pass out through eight different routes on the eastern side of the Urals, staying well ahead of the pursuing Krall. The warriors, even in armor, could scale the steep sided ridges and sweep along the tops, overtaking the retreating main body below them if allowed. They were to be kept under continuous fire, and swept from the exposed ridge tops from a hundred prepared positions. After the columns were clear of Skalsgard’s unit, preset charges would bring down avalanches on the roadways when the enemy tried to use them. It wouldn’t stop the warriors, but the Dragons and artillery defense system couldn’t go with them.

Skalsgard turned to his corporal, who was talking to Turbulence Control, providing visual links from various suit visors linked to this post, to feed images to the AIs that were controlling the seeker missiles in the absence of radar. The clanships had just roared by them, flying below the higher peaks for concealment. Their passing had shaken rocks loose with their supersonic shockwaves.

“They need to knock some of them down to leave passes out of here open.” He shouted to his overstressed corporal, who was already doing all he could do. It was redundant, but he felt better for pointing out the obvious. Watching the back door being slammed on the troops below was too stressful to just sit quietly and watch. He and his men had escape tunnels, which would lead them out of the Urals in multiple directions. As usual, they were mined, with Krall detector sensors activated that would deny the enemy use of them.

Barely had he completed his frustrated commentary when he saw two widely spaced billows of orange flame and black smoke in the distance. “Yes! Two down. Let’s get some more.” Only there were no more explosions, and one blast looked too small to suggest complete destruction of a clanship.

He stepped in on the corporal’s link to speak directly to Turb Control. “The smoke column rising above the northernmost pass tells me you probably destroyed that ship. The smoke column that rose over the central pass seems too small. I don’t think that was a kill.”

“Sergeant,” sounded the irritatingly reassuring lieutenant’s voice, “the telemetry tells me we brought it down, because it definitely did not continue to the eastern end of the canyon. You can bet that both of them are gone.”

Skalsgard thought of a way to avoid the appearance of doubting the officer’s word. “Sir, we need to know how much wreckage is blocking the road before the main column gets that far. Can you send me your orbital surveillance to tell us where any burning debris is located along the valley floor?”

This was a bit of a trick question. Debris from a single clanship couldn’t possibly close the entire valley. Such wreckage would only create a slight delay to clear pieces, or it could be bypassed. The experienced sergeant didn’t want to sound like he was questioning the second Louie’s strong assertion that his unit’s missiles had killed both ships.

There was a brief silence, as if mute were selected when the officer apparently repeated the question to someone at the other end. A disparaging comment was no doubt included.

Background noise soon resumed on the link, and so did Lieutenant Smithers reassuring condescending voice, sporting a Hub world accent that contrasted with the rustic speech of the Poldark born Skalsgard. “I can confirm that the road appears completely clear visually after the smoke cleared, and radar from a heavy cruiser detected no debris your people will need to clear away. There are also no brush fires.” He didn’t send the orbital images requested, but his description was adequate to help the sergeant reach a conclusion.

“Thank you Sir. Madigan Post One out.” He turned again to his corporal.

“Tommy, advise First Army Command that it is highly likely that a clanship landed in the main valley about…,” he paused as he used his visor to measure the range to the ridge top where the small smoke column was fading. “Thirty miles east of Madigan’s peak. The enemy may have blocked the central pass, and a Krall force could reach the branch to the northern pass in thirty five to forty minutes on foot, if that ship landed intact. The lack of a flaming debris field tells me it did exactly that.”

The corporal had been in on the link. “Sarge, Smithers will report that it was destroyed.”

“Tommy,” the sergeant continued in a threatening voice, despite the casual first name use. “Kindly inform our Command Center that ten year combat veteran Staff Sergeant Vilinkin Skalsgard believes the enemy will advance to meet our main column before they can complete a diversion to follow the northern route out of the Urals. Do you understand me?”

“Yes sergeant” was his meek reply.

Selecting the channel for the unit in charge of directing this leg of the retreat through the mountains, he told his suit’s AI. “Link to Major Albertson, urgent.”

In seconds he was connected. “What’s happening on Madigan’s peak that’s so important, sergeant?”

“Major, I think we have a problem.” He explained what he knew and what he suspected.

“Good information sergeant. We’re holding them back at the western end for now. Has the front of the main column already passed to the east of the fork to use the northern route?” The split in the ridges to access the other wide passes was supposed to happen farther east of where the potential clanship landing had happened. There was only one way to go that wouldn’t require them to try to fight their way through, thus allowing pursuit to catch and pin them in the mountains.

“Yes, Sir, the forward elements have moved several miles beyond that branch, and I can see the line has curved around the bend where that resort and rest area are located.” In normal times, this had been the scenic midpoint of a well-traveled tourist route.

“OK. I’ll divert everyone that hasn’t gone past it to turn onto the northern route, at least until we know if the Krall are really that close to us. We may have to fit as many as we can into the tunnels if we are cut off. Shit! This is a real bottleneck. We need some time.” He thought for only a few seconds.

“I’ll order the forward part of the column already beyond the hotel to prepare for an attack. They won’t have much time, but thankfully, there can’t be more than two thousand warriors coming at them. Poor bastards. Those troops were sent back first because they’ve been on the line the longest. They’re tired and battered, but we need them to hold as long as they can. We may have to trickle as many as we can on foot through those tunnels.”

“Even if they can hold them Sir, if the Krall closed seven of the passes, they might split off a force to block the northern route somewhere along its length. I can see where it splits off, and that’s a narrow cleft of a canyon.” From Skalsgard’s standpoint, if the tunnels filled up with trapped and fleeing troops, he and his men’s own back door would squeeze shut. The Krall would certainly know where the shooting came from up on the ridges and peaks, as Skalsgard’s men shot warriors off the ridge tops above the retreating columns. These were very accessible bunkers, on ledges of peaks often scaled by civilian rock climbers. The Krall would swarm them.

“I’ll confirm if the actual orbital images show no wreckage. Lieutenant Smithers had better not try to put me off or I’ll have his ass. We have some new air support that was only slated to get airborne when we were ready to pull back on the west side. We may need it over here first. I’ll send you the orbital pictures.” He signed off, leaving Skalsgard feeling vindicated, but in the center of a probable trap.

****

Bored, Thad was looking at his visor map overlay while Sarge drove on in what seemed like an endless tunnel. The glow strips went off quickly after they passed, and their dim glow began only as they drew within a thousand feet. The ladybug was moving almost as fast as the tunnel sensors were set to activate the strips. The monotonous tunnel walls were rarely interrupted by the wide intersections of cross tunnels. Occasionally there was a fork, where a passage was cut to follow under another ridge. That was Thad’s fascinating job. Saying “left” or “right” as they approached one of those. Occasionally a passage would join with theirs. They were a few miles from the spec ops hub, a large nexus where many tunnels met. He was examining the surface area around that nexus, wondering where they might meet up with either spec ops troops, or regular army.

“Hey, there’s a civilian complex right above and adjacent to the hub. It sits on the main road through the mountains. I drove that road in years past, even before I joined the Poldark Militia. Very scenic drive through the Urals, but there was no restaurant or hotel back then. I hope it’s open, I could use a hot meal.” They had missed lunch and it was well past midday now. Not down here in this glowworm of a tunnel of course, whose intestine they seemed to be trapped in as they drove in the endless gloom.

“Kinda forgot there’s war on, didn’t ya? That pass is an evacuation route for the First Army. They were pulling back into the Urals before we even left. A field rat’s all you can expect.” Field rations had been a mainstay on Koban for several years of Thad’s initial incarceration there by the Krall. He never outgrew his dislike of the repetitive bland taste.

“Yippee. How I yearn for another lukewarm spaghetti and meatball grease lump, with a lime jell cup, chocolate mint cookies, and fake coffee.”

“You are thinking of those old Poldark, pre-war PU Army rations. The modern stuff, before I was captured, was pretty damn good.”

“Sure, and you don’t think your socks stink. I don’t trust your sense of smell or gastronomical preferences. You even eat rhinolo liver.” Thad shivered at the thought.

“Doc Rafe should have added some of the ripper taste buds to your sense of smell mods. You don’t know what the hell is good! Rippers love organ meat, just like I do.”

Delivering the barb his remark begged someone to use, Thad said, “Ripper males lick their own favorite organ. I wonder if you like that taste?”

Sarge’s expected retort was interrupted when the chime on the navigation system in each suit’s AI let them know they were now a half mile from the destination parking garage, adjacent to the spec ops underground command center in the Small Urals.

As they slowed, the echoing noise of the tracks and rush of air diminished, and at first, they thought something had worked loose underneath, because they heard intermittent thumping. However, the ladybug wasn’t vibrating in time with the sound, and a loose track link would have caused a repetitive sounding thump.

The parking area was already illuminated as they approached that, evidence that it was or had recently been occupied. Slowed from almost seventy miles per hour to fifteen, they entered the open space, immediately noting there were numerous electric carts, ground cars, and several ladybugs parked haphazardly.

An amplified voice shouted out from behind a ground car. “Stop right there. What unit are you with?” It didn’t sound particularly threatening, but the order sounded firm, and the speaker had remained out of sight.

Thad responded. “We aren’t assigned to any PU unit. Major Caldwell, in General Nabarone’s war room, gave us authorization to come out here to observe the Krall up close. What’s happening? Is that artillery I hear thumping on the surface?” As Sarge brought them to a halt, the intermittent distant thumping continued.

Suddenly, Thad’s visor showed him a shadowy outline rise from behind the front hood of the concealing ground car. The figure had another couple of questions for them. “Why aren’t you two stealthed? I see the heat signature of two in the front, nobody in the back. Sort of a casual entry into a combat zone, isn’t it?

Reynolds, seeing Kobani issue armor made an easy assumption. “You’re spec ops. Except, how did the Krall reach here from Novi Sad so damn fast? We came to watch how their new body armor performs against ours in a fight. We thought we had a full day before they reached here, if they even kept coming this far. We assumed they would be pulling out soon.”

The other suit suddenly shimmered into full visibility. “OK. You know too much to be regular PU, and we have the same armor. If you aren’t attached to any PU unit, and you came from the War Room, I think you two probably out rank me. Did you arrive from some planet I have yet to visit? I’m corporal Deke Madigan, ODA412. With the glamorous job of keeping any of the regular PU troops from working their way down here and making off with what little transportation we have.”

Thad told him, “Corporal, I just had my AI send yours our authorization to be here, and our ID. Technically, we are attached to General Nabarone’s staff. Although both of us were born on Poldark, in answer to your question we do call another world our home now. If I correctly caught your oblique reference, I’ll confirm we are Kobani, as I know you are, and we are indeed full mod versions.”

Checking his visor for the authorization, Madigan was suitably impressed. “Colonel Greeves. I’m honored to meet you Sir.” In an embarrassed afterthought, he hurriedly added, “You too Sergeant Reynolds.”

Reynolds harumphed. “Humpf. Neither of us has an official military rank on Poldark anymore Deke. Not even at home for that matter. We are a quasi-military civilian group. We wanted to try our hand at fighting a few Krall in their new armor today, and see how theirs matches up to ours.”

Trying to remember to leave off respectful Sirs to the civilians, Madigan told them, “I’ve been monitoring the action topside on my visor. If you stick around here, you’ll do more than try your hand at fighting them. They sent eight warrior loaded clanships to block the First Army’s escape routes out of the Urals. One ship was brought down early, but landed intact, close to us and in the main pass. There are two thousand warriors fighting their way towards us to close off access to the one remaining open pass. It branches to the north a few miles from where we are. The regular PU units are not holding them back well at all. That’s why my team and some other Kobani forces were directed here. We have to help hold them back while the First Army rushes to make the narrow turn to the open northern pass.”

“OK. We want in on this. What sort of access to the surface, or up to the ridges do we have from down here? I see three other ladybugs here, and Sarge and I found we could link in and control them remotely. We can use these four tri barrels to chew on the Krall from as high as we can place them.”

“Uhh…,” Madigan thought for a moment. “The hotel and restaurant are built against the side of the ridge, and there’s a VTOL landing pad on the roof, for when snow or snow melt closes the road. There’s a freight elevator up through the ridge that opens on the side of the landing pad, to bring down supplies. The lift might be able to hold a ladybug. They should be light enough, if they can fit inside.”

“Fine. I see where that is on the map. Tell your team leader we will get the guns at least as high as that landing pad, and perhaps one or two placed somewhere else.”

Greeves and Reynolds activated the other three ladybugs, and linked their AIs to their own. They each slaved one “bug” to the one they each would drive, and as they were about to head down the tunnel to the freight elevator, Madigan linked in to their com sets.

“Lieutenant Spartan and Staff Sergeant Mills will meet you at the tenth level, which is the roof landing pad. They appreciate the idea, but you need to hurry. They say the Krall are closing fast. The PU troops sent to hold them back are crumbling.”

The four “bugs” clattered out of the garage area, Greeves in the lead, Reynolds in the middle. They were at the elevator in minutes, and found the lift waiting. All they needed do was open the mesh grid door. The width was fine, but the depth left no room to drive a ladybug in and turn sideways. Kobani strength proved to be the solution. They parked the first bug parallel to the opening, and manhandled the tracked vehicle sideways a foot at a time, with a quick jerk and lift. When it was in, they went to the tenth floor, the lift motor creaking with the effort.

Waiting for them at the top were two other Kobani. With Spartan and Mills joining them at the corners, they jointly lifted and shuffled the “bug” out of the lift. Sarge drove it out onto the landing pad, where a spec ops private took it from him, and moved it to a suitable firing position.

After bringing up a second ladybug, Spartan and Mills going down with them for faster loading speed, Thad asked Spartan about spreading this firepower more widely than just on the roof.

“Lieutenant, I saw two higher floors marked on the lift’s control panel. What’s up higher in this ridge? Tunnels are indicated, but no width shown.”

“Two levels of personnel tunnels run parallel to the rock face, with an occasional concealed observation window looking out over this valley. Cross tunnels lead to similar tunnels on the opposite face of this ridge. The stone is granite, so we didn’t cut as many here as we do in softer rock.”

“How wide are the tunnels?”

“Not enough to drive these bugs through. They are wide enough at the lift doors to move a ladybug out, but you can’t move one of these more than ten feet along the tunnel before it gets too narrow.”

“How thick is the rock to the outside?”

“A lot less than down here. We had about ten feet of tunnel from the lift to the open roof, here, so the walls up there are perhaps only two or three feet thick, where the sides slope in towards the lift. Ahh. I think I see what you’re thinking. Let me send up a couple of privates after we take the bugs up. The infrared suit beams and lasers can fracture the rock to make firing ports. The guns would bear down on the valley floor and the opposite ridge top. The two on the roof here could partly cover the ridge just above us.

“The ridge tops are how the Krall keep flanking the PU troops trying to hold them back. They started with at least ten thousand men facing two thousand warriors, and half the PU troops are dead, with an estimated loss of a couple of hundred Krall. They’ll be pushed around the curve two miles up the valley soon, and when some of those men see this hotel as shelter, they might run for their lives to get here. No more orderly retreating.”

“Then we had better get ready. How many Kobani do we have here?”

“Fifty two. You and Reynolds make the two. Think we can hold them?” He grunted. “I sure don’t.” He offered that in a matter of fact tone.

Reynolds grinned. “We can certainly bleed them and slow them. Perhaps for long enough. I don’t think they’ve ever been up against a Kobani force. We’ll have some Shadow fighters for support at some point, I’m told. Kobani pilots.”

Spartan nodded. “I heard the rumors. I hope I live to see them in action.”

Up on the roof of the lodge, with the beautiful valley laid out before them, the sound of a heavy artillery barrage arrived from beyond the curve of the highway. It was a continuous roll of thunder for several minutes, reverberating from the ancient glacier carved steeply sided walls. The mobile batteries had moved over to an adjacent valley, less than a mile from this one, where they could operate without enemy counterbattery fire. The Krall had brought no laser defense system with them in their haste to place warriors in position to block the human infantry. The Krall in the other passes, having landed farther away, were preparing fortifications near their clanships with half their force, while the remaining warriors were moving into the mountains to meet the enemy, to slow the larger force down. When the warriors from Novi Sad entered the mountains on the other side, they would overtake and crush the First Army and its half million troops.

The four guns were in place when Spartan passed word that the last heavy and lengthy artillery barrage had been to permit the battered and exhausted troops to gain some separation from the Krall. They were to use their trucks to race back to the lodge, to where they expected fresh troops to provide cover for the last mile.

Reynolds had been listening to some of the chatter over the assigned frequencies of the men now in full retreat. Not all made it to the trucks, and many trucks had been disabled by Krall plasma rifle fire from the heights. Armored men were apparently hanging from the sides, or sitting on the tops, only their powered armor keeping them going.

He could hear screaming and panic over the air, as trapped pockets of men were being swarmed over by the Krall, some of them cursing the packed trucks that had left without them.

He stepped over to Greeves, just finishing with a group Mind Tap of a number of spec ops troops, showing how to operate the ladybugs and to keep them fed with the metal rods for their plasma bolts. Two of the guns were now positioned in the cliffs well above the lodge.

Sarge said, “I don’t think we can expect much fight from those men when they arrive.” He pointed down the valley.

The first trucks and ground cars were now visible, careening around the curve of the four-lane road in the center of the valley. The actinic flash of plasma bolts from the pursuing Krall were picking men off that clung to the tops and sides of vehicles. Considering the number of men on the trucks, there seemed to be much less shooting towards their rear. This indicated they were no longer a fighting force, and interested only in escape.

They had been told that nearly ten thousand men had been tasked with slowing down this two thousand Krall force. Looking at his visor display, Greeves’ suit AI had indicated the total number of soldiers in the sixty-three trucks at just over thirty two hundred sets of armor, based on the suit ID counts.

They had already lost close to six thousand men and the Krall perhaps two hundred thirty or forty warriors. This was a much higher kill ratio than the PU Army had suffered in recent months of fighting. Probably half the men had died because they were disorganized, tired, and demoralized at being cut off from their escape route.

He made a prediction. “Sarge, some of those trucks won’t even stop when they reach the lodge turn off from the road. If the first trucks go past us, they may all continue on, no matter what their officers tell the drivers. The fifty-two of us aren’t going to hold back that many Krall. They’ll bypass us if need be.”

Sarge gave his opinion. “The Krall don’t have enough warriors to defeat the main column, even if they do get by us.”

“No, but they don’t need to defeat them. Just jam them up while their warriors out of Novi Sad catch up to the bottleneck. They probably have enough warriors to block the point where the four traffic columns on the main road will have to turn north, out of this valley. That small two lane gorge road would be easy to choke off, if half a dozen trucks are destroyed to block the road and they prevent them from clearing them away.”

“Then the First Army looks screwed.”

“We can’t let those trucks out there pass us by. They may not want to fight anymore, but if we stop them, they have to fight or die, so they’ll fight like hell.”

Sarge shook his head. “You gonna run out there and play traffic cop? I’ve seen disorganized routs before, in the first days of the war. Some of those troops will shoot their own officers if they try to order them to stop now.”

Instead of answering Reynolds, he had his suit link Spartan into their discussion.

“Lieutenant, I think those soldiers coming our way are too panicked for many of them to think straight. Reynolds and I believe most of them will blow right on by us, and we can’t hold the Krall ourselves. How about if we convince them to stay and fight?”

“How do you propose we do that? I don’t want to shoot at our own side.”

“We won’t shoot at them. We blow up that bridge over the creek bed.” He pointed.

Meandering through the valley was a deeply eroded creek, which in the spring carried snowmelt water down the valley in a torrent. It was scoured deep, and wide enough that there were bridges several places along the valley road, as the now nearly dry waterway snaked its way through. One of those bridges was a quarter mile after the turnoff drive to the lodge for the trucks.

“We have the explosives, but…” He looked at the vanguard of the fleeing trucks, now less than three miles up the road. They didn’t have time to plant the charges.

“Lieutenant, we have four ladybugs, and our suit weapons. Shoot out the center supports under the bridge.”

It didn’t take Kobani fast thought processes to see the solution would work. Spartan switched to a unit frequency. “Attention. We need to knock out that bridge on the main road. All guns, aim at the center supports. Fire!”

Suit energy beams were fastest to respond, but the four ladybug tri-barrels were only seconds behind them. The air from the lodge and cliff sides was suddenly filled with hundreds of plasma bolts, red and green lasers, and an unknown number of infrared and microwave beams. The latter beams weren’t invisible to the suit visors; it was just that the path of superheated atmosphere to the bridge made them impossible to isolate.

In ten seconds the Lieutenant shouted, “Cease fire!”

All four lanes of the roadway, and the pedestrian walkways were tumbling into the ten-foot deep rocky creek bottom. The debris would dam the present one foot depth of the cold flowing stream for a short while, until it found a way around the rubble. There wasn’t any way around for the approaching trucks.

Someone in the trucks used an emergency frequency to contact whoever they had seen firing. The color of the energy beams, and their origin from the direction of the lodge made it obvious it wasn’t from any Krall that had gotten ahead of them.

“Who’s doing that firing? What were you shooting at?” There was no hint of proper com protocol.

Thad, using suit conduction contact, touched Spartan’s gauntlet. There was an instantaneous Mind Tap, explaining that Thad would accept any heat for the objections about to be expressed at his suggested actions. With the lieutenant’s approval, Greeves answered.

As he’d flashed to the spec ops officer, he was going to try a bluff, and use his past on Poldark as influence.

“This is Colonel Thaddeus Greeves, sent here by General Nabarone. We have closed this road to the Krall. They intend to shut off the First Army’s withdrawal through the northern passes. We are not going to let that happen. Here is my digital authorization from General Nabarone’s Headquarters.” His AI transmitted the electronic document, with the appropriate confirmation code that could be verified. He was authorized to “request” assistance from local field commanders.

After checking with his AI, Greeves noted the highest surviving ranking officer was a Major Krackov, whose suit ID showed was wounded and unconscious, and located in a truck at the rear of the oncoming pack.

The panicked voice had come from a sergeant by the name of Vince Jacoby, per his suit’s ID icon, and he appeared to be driving the lead truck. Greeves had no way of knowing why the handful of officers in other trucks, also near the rear, had not spoken out yet. Perhaps they were under some “compulsion” not to speak, and only managed to catch the last of the transportation before it left them behind to die.

“Sergeant, if you have wounded you can bring them here to the Lodge for treatment. The bridge is out. Park your trucks along the edge of the creek banks as additional cover. Your able-bodied men can shelter in the rocks along the creek. My force here will use our plasma cannons and high ground to pick off any Krall that attempt to flank you, and keep the ridge tops clear. We’ll be receiving air cover shortly.” He sincerely hoped that last part was true.

There was a momentary pause from Jacoby. “Sir, we were planning to join up with the main column. The Krall have hurt us bad and they’re right behind us. We can’t hold them.”

“Alone you couldn’t, but we’re here to support you now. You had better dismount quickly when you reach the collapsed bridge ahead. We need to start picking off those damned lizards before they get too close.” Mention of the collapsed bridge again was for those inside the trucks that might not know the road was closed ahead.

He had continued to use the emergency frequency, to make certain that every trooper in the trucks heard what was going on, and knew what they had to do to stay alive. There was no way Jacoby was in charge of anything but the panicked retreat in that first truck.

“We can’t really see the enemy sir. Their new armor has better stealth than our suits.”

Greeves saw he needed to counter this defeatist attitude, to restore some semblance of hope to men that were not only running but also now found themselves trapped.

“We have some newer armor, with visors with improved detection systems. We can see the Krall suits. I’ll arrange for some of our AIs to furnish your visors with Krall locations, to help you sight in on them.”

This wasn’t bullshit, because the Torki designed suits of the Kobani did this with their own suits all the time. The trick for a suit AI would be to translate the view from any Kobani suit into a target designation on the standard PU armor visors down on the valley floor.

He sent a thought to his suit’s AI, and then sent every man in the trucks a demonstration transmission to their visor targeting systems.

“What you see in the bottom right corner of your visors right now is the image of the fallen bridge, which I am looking at right now. This image is from my suit. If there were a Krall at that red dot in the center, all you would need to do is shoot at that spot.”

The demonstration also served to confirm the bridge was actually down.

“I’ll have our AIs keep track of each of you and the enemy warriors we can see from our higher vantage point, and present your visors with red dots at their locations when you look that way. Your weapons, if the gun sights are linked to your suits as they normally should be, can overlay its target bezel on that dot and you’re good to go.”

“Sir, we’ve never fought that way before. It won’t work.” Jacoby was going to be a hard sell, and his poor attitude would be infectious.

“Sergeant Jacoby, I told you my name was Colonel Thaddeus Greeves. I assume you’ve heard of the guerrilla training camp named for me. The technique I’m telling you about is one of the methods of sharing information between newer sets of armor like me and the men with me have, and the standard armor you men were issued. From our vantage point, we can send you targeting information on an enemy that you can’t see. For a change, you will see them, and from where you’re hiding, they won’t see you. It will work, because we’ve used this method before.”

In the heat of battle, with the Kobani moving around, there surely would not be continuous enemy target location data fed to each of those men. Anyway, if you sometimes saw there was an enemy indicated as passing between those two rocks, or concealed by that bush, you only had to shoot fast at that location. Then do the usual quick duck and move to avoid any return fire. There should be an increased number of hits on the Krall this way. Regardless, these men were going to have to fight, and this method offered them some new hope.

The lead trucks slowed, moving along the sides of the creek off the road, the drivers obviously seeking some way past the bridge and across the drop off. The rough terrain, and steep sided rock faces of the creek bed near the bridge made that unlikely. The sturdy rocky foundation had been why the bridge was built there, to avoid a washout when heavy snows melted. The men needed to get out and set up what was going to be their final defensive position today, one way or another.

Two of the trucks near the rear of the pack of sixty-three turned into the lodge drive. The suit monitors showed most of those inside were wounded, with eight or nine having expired after being loaded. These were probably the last vehicles to pull out, trying to carry as many wounded as possible. Those lead trucks, which avoided coming to the lodge, likely held more men with guilty consciences, who were not willing to face higher authority.

Greeves didn’t have time to be concerned with that problem. He had set them up for this last stand as coldly as a Krall might have. Fight or die. Except he would be here fighting with them. There was no way he was going down any of those tunnels to escape, and leave those men behind to cover his retreat. His visor saw the first of the rippling movements of the stealthed Krall suits as they started down the center of the road at the curve.

Time to start whittling them down, he thought. He remotely activated the two ladybugs, emplaced above them in the cliff face.

“Hey Sarge, You take control of the higher gun, I’ll use the lower. You probably need the range advantage.”

The response was just as polite as he’d expected.

Chapter 6: Thirty Five to One

The Krall can move fast on foot, but they couldn’t run as fast as the trucks that had raced away from them as they overwhelmed the last of the collapsing enemy line. Besides, the warriors had status points to earn against the desperate fighting of those that had been left behind. Those final two hundred or so humans traded their lives at a much more favorable ratio than they had been doing just two hours ago. Those that stayed to the last, when the Krall were finally able to close with them, fought well. Perhaps only three or four of them died for each warrior they killed.

Good fighting, Gofdar thought. This was what a worthy enemy was like when you had them trapped. Not every status point was equal he noted, not for the first time, and killing a dozen lightly armed animals did not feel nearly as valued. The last human he’d claimed here had just killed his own pilot with a remarkable double head shot, using a rifle in each hand. That same human also came close to welding the sub leader’s left knee joint in place, with fast and accurate plasma shots when he’d carelessly exposed the thinner shielding of the back of his leg to the man, after he dove and rolled behind a rock for cover. It still burned.

Now if only his moderate force could close the door on the rest of their massive retreating army, and hold their huge numbers boxed in these mountains for the next half day. It would be worth arriving at the next invasion world a week or two late, for the fine combat this prospect offered. Holding so many back could only be done for a short time, and they needed to take advantage of the close confines of the valleys, and make use the ridge tops to shoot down into the mass of transports and troops, slowing or stalling the columns.

He was imagining how quickly his best octets would have closed with those that fled, if the clanship had been able to carry even one of the big armored transports. The choice was made to take more warriors to fight, and not bring bulky machines that could not. Their powered armor would permit them to keep a steady running pace, as they started after those human cowards that had fled in a panic. They knew they couldn’t catch the remnant force before it merged with their army’s main body, which would be trying to stream through a narrow gorge that branched away from this valley, a short distance west of here.

His predator’s instinct truly wanted to catch the cowards that had fled so quickly that they abandoned many of their own; leaving them without the support needed to be able fall back yet again. Their blood would be pleasurable to shed, even if not as valued. The first to run had not laid down any suppression fire for the front line, to help them make another orderly pull back, which he’d seen them do twice before. Instead, they were observed piling into some of their transports, some half empty, and leaving their clan mates to die. They all would have died if they stood and fought, of course, but they would have died with honor.

He was, as he was expected to be, leading from the front of most of the warriors that filled the smooth four-lane roadway as they ran. He and his best octet leaders were deliberately setting a slower pace, one better suited for endurance than speed. With no further opposition expected from an enemy that broke and ran, his remaining one thousand seven hundred sixty three warriors would reach the main human force at the branching canyon in perhaps twenty minutes.

Even if fresh, they couldn’t confront so many troops head on, although the thought of that sort of a fight was enticing. Today, he had a higher priority than the thrill of fierce combat. He was ordered by the Gatlek to put the enemy in a pincher, unable to retreat fast enough to escape the clans pressing into the mountains from Novi Sad. This was the only human army, of the eight they faced, which could be trapped in this way.

He would send a third of his warriors to scale the ridge on the right, where they could look down on and attack the two columns of transports and equipment that would be trying to slip past them on the opposite side, squeezed into the narrow two-lane canyon road.

Gofdar would use the remainder of his warriors to try to block the main body from passing down the larger valley road for the rest of today. The human sub leaders would certainly know that there had to be an intact clanship blocking the way, since the attacking warriors had not simply popped out of the ground.

The clans from Novi Sad were already pushing back the defenders on the west side of the mountains, and soon they would be pressed into the rear of the mass of the slowed retreating army. Some of the enemy could surely get past Gofdar’s small force and move down the main valley. However, the stealthed clanship with powerful long-range weapons and missiles was there to block them. No doubt, the enemy could eventually destroy that ship, and fight their way past that barrier. He had just instructed the warriors from the other clanships to move west to intercept the humans, no matter which valleys and canyons they fled through. There would be fine hunting and killing for days.

It was after that pleasant thought that he received odd reports from warriors moving along the ridge tops to either side. Some other human force had directed heavy plasma and laser fire in front of the retreating cowards. Their transports were now stopping and forming yet another defensive line. There was a sizable structure on the right side of the valley, built against and into the steep rock face of the ridge. The same ridge the Krall needed to scale and dominate. That was where the beams and bolts had originated.

His warriors were exposed out on the flat part of the valley, but today’s experience had proven that human suit sensors were rather poor, and couldn’t easily locate the Krall suits. Particularly when they were running directly at them and not laterally, because the sideways motions caused slight ripples in the background objects, which they were a little better at detecting.

That misplaced confidence was why the sudden splatter of scorched blood and brains from the helmets of two octet leaders to either side of him was so surprising. At nearly the speed of light, there was no possibility of ducking a plasma bolt, not when you no longer could see a bolt forming a couple of hundredths of a second before it left the weapon’s muzzle. The humans had learned to shield their weapon muzzles from advertising the heat of forming plasma bolts. What was most surprising is that the two warriors killed were only a half a step more advanced than he was, close to the center of the roadway with him. Gofdar immediately dove to his right, just before a heavy bolt passed through where he had been.

Someone in that structure knew the preference of Krall leaders to lead from the front, and if invisible, why not the middle of the front? Obviously, their armor wasn’t as invisible to the defenders of that human structure as they thought, and that enemy knew where to expect Krall sub leaders to be positioned. Two of his octet leaders had paid the price for Gofdar’s lesson in caution.

He continued to move, in a crouch, shifting from point to point, now off to the side of the roadway and among larger rock rubble, bulldozed there when the road was built. He, like other warriors around him, moved to keep boulders, shrubs, or trees between him and the structure. Foliage wouldn’t block a laser beam or plasma bolt, but would hamper someone sighting on you. Hundreds of plasma bolts were directed back at the building, where the enemy had fired at them. More of the heaviest bolts came in rapid clusters of three, like the ones that almost struck him. They came from two places inside the cliff above the structure, and from two places on the top of the building itself.

The gunners in the side of the ridge had made the attack more personal to him. He’d escaped the random death of a chance battlefield hit only by luck. He wasn’t foolish enough to think his mission depended on his personal survival. His warriors needed only general guidance for particular objectives. They didn’t need a leader to tell them how to fight. That was why warriors were allowed to fight as they wished. To develop the instincts their very survival permitted them to pass along with their genes to the next generation. Gofdar wanted those gunners for his own status points, if he could get to them first.

There were only four of the triple firing heavy plasma guns, and they had the hallmarks of the weapons on the mobile tracked gun carts the humans had been using for several months. He didn’t know how they had moved them to the roof of the structure or placed them in those cliff side bunkers.

There were dozens of less powerful beams striking warriors often. The damage inflicted by a hit from them wasn’t as significant as from the bigger guns. Nonetheless, it would mount up if repeated too often, especially when the distance became less, as the beams underwent less spread and attenuation. The accuracy of those long-range individual shots was much higher than they had experienced from the enemy they had fought earlier today, or even in any prior Poldark assault that Gofdar had experienced. There was a sharp difference in what these shooters could achieve. It was more than accuracy.

He saw a nearby warrior that fell and tried to roll over low brush, to reach better cover, after her right knee joint was hit and flash welded in place. That warrior discovered that smashing down brush drew too much attention. The truth of that discovery was evident in the instant enemy reaction. She was fried by a half dozen different beams, both plasma and laser, originating from several points and levels on the structure. The various shooters were cooperating, and reacting extremely fast to any opportunity another shooter created. These were not like most of the opposition Gofdar had encountered on Poldark, or on previous raids to other planets. They were as accurate at long-range shots as the best warriors Gofdar had ever seen, and because of their extremely fast reaction speed, they were more efficient killers than the Krall they faced. These fighters were few, different, and in a class of warrior all their own.

His visor told him he’d lost another thirty-four warriors as they covered only half the distance to the structure. The enemy kept moving from spot to spot on the various upper levels, but he concluded that the total number of shooters there was apparently between fifty or sixty. He’d lost only two hundred forty one warriors versus the nearly ten thousand troops his sensors suggested he had faced all day. Close to six thousand of the enemy force had died before they turned and ran. Thus far, he had no idea if they had killed even a single one of the new defenders in that ferrocrete and metal building. They had suits with superior stealth to his own, because he could catch no signs of ripples from their motions, and it was effective over the full frequency spectrum that his suit was designed to detect. All of this intrigued him greatly.

He could not afford to underestimate their capability against his much larger force. After all, his comparatively small force was capable of seriously affecting the huge human army they were sent to delay. These effective fighters could possibly hamper his warriors from occupying the heights of the ridge above their nest.

As the Krall worked their way closer, they spread out wider, and the left flank, their attention focused mainly on the deadly shooters in the structure, suddenly discovered they were receiving fire from the human cowards that had previously fled. Disdainful of those broken spirited animals, and following their instincts, several hundred warriors moved to wipe them out, or force them to run again.

To their surprise, the accuracy and resilience of those same fighters had suddenly magnified greatly, forcing their attackers to take cover and proceed more cautiously. They showed considerable fire control skill now, shooting and moving frequently. The most disturbing aspect was their sudden greatly improved accuracy. They were making difficult shots through heavy brush, when only a portion of a warrior was exposed from behind their hard cover, yet obscured by underbrush. It was as if they saw the enemy better now, even shooting through obscuring foliage, and suddenly able to aim precisely.

As a result, there were three hands of warriors killed in a few minutes of a reckless rush towards the cowards. There were dozens of warriors that suffered minor foot, knee, elbow or ankle wounds, when a limb was exposed to a line of sight shot. This, despite the appendage being fully concealed visually behind underbrush, and stealthed. Admittedly, every warrior knew that a plasma bolt wouldn’t notice a few bushes as it blazed through to reach its target. Except, how did the previously inept shooters even see the stealthed limbs from their low-level concealed positions at the edge of a rocky creek bed? They suddenly had achieved greater accuracy and vision, it seemed.

Gofdar knew that somehow the efficient fighters up in the human nest were involved. A rabble could not suddenly turn into a more effective fighting force in such a short time. The high performing fighters in that structure were somehow helping direct the several thousand men along the center of the valley floor. If the fighters over by the cliffs were eliminated, those concealed in the creek bed would fall apart, as they had before, making them easy kills. Particularly now that they had no way to retreat.

The bridge they needed to drive over had been destroyed, apparently by those in the structure. Clearly, this had been done to force those fleeing to stay and fight. He was berating himself for his original decision to land all of his ships so far east in the canyons. They’d not known how far the humans had retreated at the time they launched, and Gatlek Pendor would not permit him to wait for new orbital surveillance.

He ordered his octet leaders to pull their warriors away from the central roadway and its defenders ensconced in the small waterway. First, he wanted those four tri-barrel plasma guns silenced, and all of the efficient fighters in that structure killed. Then they would easily sweep those creek defenders away.

****

Spartan, signing off after talking to the commander of the artillery unit located in the adjacent canyon, said, “The artillery barrage will start to land in two minutes, with one minute flight time. It won’t be as heavy and long as we need to hold them back. Using our visor detection capability for spotting clusters of targets will help them, but the Krall always keep moving.”

“Ya take’s whatcha can get.” Reynolds quipped, as he remotely fired his tri-barrel. “Gotcha!” He added, with fierce satisfaction as the three bolts flashed down towards a cluster of boulders, almost a mile away, downing two warriors.

Greeves had been linked to Nabarone’s war room for several minutes. “Major Caldwell says the Shadow fighters have launched. It’s only a single wing, so we won’t have many of them detailed to make strikes out here, and I don’t know when they’ll get here. They are spread thin, trying to support all eight armies. Nabarone is trying to get the navy to commit space planes from their two carriers parked in the outer system. Enemy single ships will be up in force as soon as they realize the nearly invisible Shadows are causing all the new damage they suffer. I hope our aircraft are as good as we expect. I know the Kobani pilots will be.”

Spartan nodded in acknowledgement of this new bit of news. “The artillery captain I spoke to said we should watch the first impacts closely. He had about twenty of the new sabot shells with new armor penetrators. I sent him the coordinates of the largest clusters of enemy I could find. Most of them are located behind five collections of large boulders, moved by the original road building work. He said they didn’t waste the new rounds on the waves of attacks earlier because no one could see the Krall well enough to tell them where the enemy targets were thickest.”

“What’s different about the new shells?” Greeves grunted as his tri-barrel missed the running, dodging Krall he’d spotted. The snicker from Reynolds told him his miss had been noted.

“At between two and six feet above ground, they blast apart a twenty inch high cylinder, containing two hundred tungsten-carbide sabot style slugs, stacked in a circular pattern, ten rings high twenty slugs per ring. Slugs are launched down a short rifled tube by the central blast wave, which destroys the cylinder and tubes behind them, forming added shrapnel. A plastic sheath spins the slugs passing through the rifled tubes, then the plastic sabots fall away as the now spinning, and nearly diamond hard slender slugs tear through nearly anything they hit. He told me they would punch completely through any part of the Krall’s new armor, and that we need to take cover ourselves. These slugs aren’t as dense as the depleted uranium pellets we have been using, but the sharp hardened tips, with spin stabilization and high velocity does the trick.”

“Are these also smart slugs? Self-directing or proximity detonated?”

“Not yet, but that is supposedly coming if these prove effective at penetrating the Krall suits. They’re dumb killers, so we have to keep our heads down and observe with spy bots in case any hit close to us. Up this high, and as far away as we are from the targeted area, I hope we don’t have to worry.”

The distant “whumps” of the mobile batteries firing in the next canyon was heard, announcing to all that the rounds were on their way. Because of the time delay for the sound to arrive on this side, that meant the shells had probably already reached or passed apogee, and were on their way down.

Spartan issued an order on a general push. “Everyone fire on the enemy one time now to pin them in place, and drop flat behind hard cover for incoming dumb rounds. After the first twenty blasts, the dumb rounds are done, and the remainder will be smart rounds, so fire at will after that.”

From each level of the battered, now windowless pastel blue and white colored resort, there was a dazzling spread of red and green lasers faintly seen in the smoky air, and the bright blue-white actinic plasma bolts lancing out towards their targets, none striking closer than a mile from the building. The flaming arc of burning brush thus created, served to define the closest the Krall had managed to infiltrate thus far.

Five seconds after they finished firing and dropped flat, the low-level blasts and concussions started, just as the Krall started to rise and move again. The blasts were simultaneously accompanied by a high pitch whining sound, as if thousands of angry bees had been released, often accompanied by a brittle crack when one of the slugs hit and shattered rock. In addition, a few of them hit the decorative pale blue and white ferrocrete of the resort’s outer walls and balconies. Those passed right through six-inch outer walls, the next wall, and sometimes several thinner walls after that, before spin stabilization was lost and they tumbled and stopped with a loud crack, against a final wall.

Reynolds looked up and poked an armored finger into a brand new half-inch hole, only a foot above his head. Then focused his attention on his visor image from his tri-barrel, and picked off three Krall in quick succession that exposed themselves as they sought better cover from the continuing barrage of smart munitions, or had to stand up to knock away thermite bomblets that had attached to joints or helmets. He shot one motionless Krall whose stealth had failed. He was probably already dead from a sabot penetration, but why not be sure?

With part of his attention, he saw Greeves doing the same, and was aware of the spec ops troops now picking off any exposed warrior, and they too shot some that clearly were seriously wounded, based on their slowness or twitching movements. There was no longer a thought of surrender or mercy when fighting the Krall, not from the human side. It had never been considered by the Krall.

Even the men spread out along the creek appeared to be taking their share of shots at the enemy, as the suit AIs of the Kobani armor fed them a target rich environment for almost a minute.

One thing was different to the ears of Reynolds and Greeves from their raids on Krall worlds, where they had usually met Krall not wearing armor. There was a lack of the usual screams of pain and rage of wounded warriors. That noise was absorbed by the heavy helmets they wore. That is, until there were a few bellows that rang out when warriors with head wounds or damaged helmets, were forced to remove them to see or communicate. The arrival of a slightly delayed final wave of smart rounds silenced those, when the bomblets homed in on exposed Krall body signatures.

Greeves spoke to Spartan on his private command channel. “That was pretty refreshing. Do they have any more of those sabot rounds?”

An answer didn’t come immediately. He crawled quickly, staying below the edge of the parapet of the roof, towards where he saw the lieutenant moving, and apparently engaged on another frequency, per the feedback his AI sent to Greeves. Before he reached the lieutenant Spartan replied, unaware that Greeves was so close behind him.

“No. There are no more sabot rounds available, and they have to reach the main column outside of that canyon to get any more reloads of smart rounds. The mouth of the canyon is jammed with trucks, and troops on foot coming through. They can’t get to the ammo carriers until some are able to squeeze through.”

As Spartan turned to look for Greeves, whom he thought was thirty feet away, the front of his helmet and his hands were covered in blood.

“Damn, man, you’re hurt. Let me…,” Thad started.

Spartan interrupted him. “Not me, Mills. He’s gone. Took a sabot through the wall and the top of his helmet.” Staff Sergeant Mills lay face down on Spartan’s other side, the back of his head gone, with his helmet lying where Spartan had removed it to check on his condition. There was grey matter and blood spattered inside the open helmet.

“I’m sorry, Lieutenant. Were there any other casualties from the sabots?”

“Fred here was the only fatality. I have a corporal down on level four that has a hole through his calf, which the nanites have sealed and stopped the bleeding. It missed the bone and he’s certainly able to shoot. When the painkillers kick in he’ll be able to run and jump.”

The steady sizzle and pop of outgoing and incoming plasma fire was sounding all around them. The lasers, microwave and infrared energy beams were all human generated, and those made no sound going outbound.

“Colonel, you and Reynolds have the highest mounted gun sights, what did you see? Mills was monitoring our spy bots. Did we hurt the bastards much?”

A quick query to his AI gave him an estimate of Krall losses, based on visual observations through various suit AIs and the four gun sights. “There are at least a hundred fifteen dead bodies exposed after the barrage, and more dead must be behind the rocks. My AI estimates that there were at least seventeen hundred fifty coming at us before the barrage, and the artillery may have taken down between six to ten percent of those.”

“Shit.” Spartan said.

“Exactly what we are deep in.” With part of his attention, Greeves triggered his tri-barrel on a moving warrior, and thought, a hundred sixteen confirmed dead now.

****

Gofdar was shocked. Whatever this new type of artillery shell was that the humans had fired first, it was very deadly. Their newest armor was easily penetrated by the projectiles it sprayed. His visor told him he had lost nearly thirty hands of warriors in the first seconds to those new shells, and another two hands to those wounded by them, and who exposed themselves to manual fire, or were killed by the subsequent self-guided thermite bombs they were too injured to knock away. A hundred thirty warriors lost in seconds, and another four hands worth with limited mobility or effectiveness due to loss of limbs, head wounds, or lost power in their armor.

The fact that the barrage was shorter than usual, and there were only about four hands worth of the new shells was revealing. The enemy artillery had been unable to continue that attack. Without his having a defense system to destroy some of the shells, or to launch counter battery attacks, there was no other explanation for halting the use of this effective weapon. Now was the time to strike.

He ordered every able bodied warrior to advance with all speed, and to take evasive movements only as needed. They had to cross through a burning wasteland to reach the uncharred ground, and then fight their way into the lower parts of the human nest. There would be high losses from this tactic, but the rewards great when they killed the small number of highly effective enemy that they faced. Then they could pin the main human army here until they were destroyed by the forces advancing from Novi Sad. The Gatlek would be forced to award a disproportionate number of status points to Gofdar and his warriors for this heroic effort.

****

“Well, here they come.” Reynolds said unnecessarily. “Any we can’t kill as they cross in the open, we get to shake hands with.” He wasn’t going to let himself be taken prisoner this time. Not that he’d surrendered the first time he was captured, he thought with a wry grin.

Greeves was thinking. “Lieutenant, you mentioned you had explosives. A lot?”

“Yes. This building is right above our hub, where we stored supplies.”

“Have you ever jumped down from seventy feet in armor?”

“No. Why?”

“No time like the present to try.” He explained his idea.

Hearing what was intended, and not to be left out of supporting the plan, Reynolds linked to the two spec ops troopers that had kept the two tri-barrels on the ladybugs above them loaded. “Leave the rear clam shells wide open and pull the lower limit pins on the gun mounts, so I can fully depress them. Then get down here fast to help repel boarders. We won’t be needing reloads for those guns after they get inside and we can’t see them.”

Greeves, watching the men Spartan had sent off to set charges, overheard Reynolds issue those instructions. “You think you can shoot down on them right on the rooftop? I hope we don’t allow them to reach this high.”

“Me too. I want to be able to aim almost straight down anyway. Are we going down to the lower floors now? I assume at least down to level seven.”

“Yep. I’m thinking we all get down to level one and work back up to seven, if we can fight them off that long. I wasn’t sure you were listening.”

“I always listen when you come up with some fool stunt where I might have to bail your ass out.”

They looked out at the mass of warriors that had risen out of concealment and were running at top speed to reach the building almost a mile away, running through the sleet of fire from the now fifty-one defenders. The four tri-barrels were taking one or two down with every burst, and despite the hail of return plasma bolts, the defenders in position to fire from the ramparts picked more exposed warriors off with rapid fire and precision. Many of the men were leaping down stairwells in a reckless rush to reach lower levels, to fend off the horde coming for them. They used their superb sense of timing and balance, combined with their strength, to avoid hitting or interfering with one another as they poured down from landing to landing. They sent the lifts to the top level, to leave the shafts empty and open to them on lower floors, and jammed the lift doors open at each floor.

Nearly the entire complement, other than the five men assigned demolition placement, descended to the ground floor well before the first Krall were within several hundred feet of the building. Two men were killed by the thousands of random incoming shots, which passed through now empty window frames.

The fire directed out at the enemy almost literally couldn’t miss hitting some warrior or other, no matter how energetically the Krall twisted, turned and ducked. The Kobani armor was virtually invisible to the Krall, located as they were inside the darkened resort, with no background ripple to reveal their movement. At one thousand five hundred enemy versus just over forty Kobani involved in active shooting, the roughly thirty five to one ratio inevitably took its toll.

Krall dropped in the front wave continuously, but Kobani also started to go down, some wounded and still firing back, others just went down for good.

Reynolds was pleased to see through his tri-barrel’s gun sight, that the men in the creek were taking down warriors from the rear of the pack, despite not being able to see them via the targeting data from the Kobani suit AIs. The Krall were converging on the resort, making a random shot towards the pack much more likely to find one of them. Those at the creek certainly knew that if the men in the resort died, the Krall would return for them next.

Many of the men switched to infrared and microwave energy beams in the increasingly hazy and smoky air, because those beams were harder to trace to their origin in the smoky gloom. A laser or plasma beam showed exactly where you had just been, and a spread of thirty or more return bolts had a better chance of finding you even when you moved.

The trade in lives heavily favored the Kobani if only numbers were considered, as at least three hundred warriors failed to reach the resort. Not all were killed, of course, because warriors were too tough to expire that quickly. At least they weren’t going to contribute to the close-in fighting.

There were now at least a dozen dead Kobani, with nearly that many fighting wounded. There were five stairwells, and four elevator shafts for the Kobani to use to retreat to the second floor. Leaping ten feet vertically was trivial in Poldark’s gravity for Kobani, or even the heavier Krall. A Kobani could make thirty feet in their lighter unpowered armor, a Krall only fifteen to twenty feet in their heavy powered armor.

The first of the Krall were trying to fight their way through the shattered windows and doors, gradually making their way inside the building, as they even used their own dead and severely wounded, carried as shields.

Spartan sent his first fallback cue on the general push. “Second floor. Second floor. Go!”

On that mark, every man able to do so fired all beam weapons at the closest Krall, specifically targeting their plasma rifles, spare power packs, and helmets, and tossed two grenades. One with an eight-second delay, set for high explosive, the other half had flash-heat settings set at three seconds. The latter were designed to overdrive the Krall helmet filters briefly, with bright lights, heat flares, and dense smoke. For a few seconds they wouldn’t see their prey.

That was the few seconds they needed to pick up their wounded, and leap with them up the stairs, or through the now open and empty elevator shafts to the next level. More grenades were dropped by the last Kobani in line, with various short timers, to keep the Krall guessing. The depleted uranium pellets in these couldn’t do as much damage to the heavier armor as had the sabots, but random hits could disable or penetrate a joint, damage a rifle or power pack, and after the sabots that had ravaged them, some warriors might dive for cover, delaying their pursuit.

Spartan, who was well aware of the supply denial strategy used against the Krall in the main assaults on the cities, had noted that some of the warriors were scavenging rifles and spare power packs from the dead. Stealth mode made it difficult to see the warriors in detail, but a dropped rifle lost stealth capability, and suddenly they would go invisible again when recovered.

He passed this to his men. “An unarmed Krall is nearly as good as a dead Krall. They are low on spare weapons and power packs.” They concentrated on “killing” the easier to eliminate weapons. Most warriors had originally carried two rifles, one slung as a spare, with a sizable “fanny” pack of spare power modules when they left the clanship. Others had a forearm mounted short barrel plasma gun as a backup. Of course, those too needed power packs. There were no supplies for them closer than the clanship now, other than taking them off their own dead.

The Torki designed Kobani armor never ran out of power, not with the miniature Trap Fields they used. They only lost power if a plasma bolt hit the Trap emitters or power distribution system. They were attempting to reduce the Krall’s standoff offensive capability by disarming as many as they could. Even so, their sheer numbers could still overwhelm the thirty-seven fully effectives that Spartan’s AI now reported.

He sent a dozen men with the non-mobile wounded up another level, leaving him with twenty-five men on level two to try to hold roughly twelve hundred Krall down on the ground floor a bit longer. That plan only worked to choke off the Krall rush for as long as it took for their heavy firing down the five stairs and four elevator shafts, to convince warriors still outside to take an alternate route to the enemy. They started leaping directly up to the second floor balconies by the dozens.

Three unarmed Krall, with no plasma weapons, leaped directly at a single spec ops trooper at a stair top as he swung around to the sounds they made as they thumped down. He sent two lasers and a plasma bolt into the front of the rippled silhouette of the helmet of the only one with a forearm plasma gun. There was a small amount of dirt and soot on all their armor, making them semi visible. He hadn’t known if the warrior with a forearm weapon had a charged power pack or not, so he killed him first. His shooting served to reveal his position to a certainty for the other two warriors. At least so far as knowing where his head was. That’s where his energy beams originated. The shooter’s body was still stealthed, and his limb positions were not visible.

The two warriors, triumphant at finally closing with one of these challenging enemy soldiers, lost their enthusiasm in short order. The much smaller human, invisible hands free because his weapons were built into his helmet, saw a slightly grimy translucent left arm of the closest Krall swing towards him. He ducked under, reached up and grasped the arm, pivoted under the limb and around to the back, placing that warrior’s torso between him and the second set of ripples flying through the air.

In near instantaneous decision-making, the trooper used the second warrior’s leap and momentum to push the one whose arm he held, sideways and down, as he placed a right knee in his victims back as the body dropped. He wrenched savagely back with both hands on the left forearm and bicep, and snapped the shoulder joint inside the armor. When he heard the sound of a scream of pain, he also knew he’d sprung open the suit’s shoulder joint, else he would not have head that “music” through his external mic.

He added a flip of his body over the downed Krall and did a midair twist as he passed over him, wrenching the armor’s sleeve fully from the shoulder, and down along the broken limb, revealing a six-inch length of red grey flesh below suit’s shoulder. An opening! The stealth of that detached piece of armor failed, revealing the silvery metal of the left limb.

Stomping down with both feet as he came over the top of his first opponent, where he knew the semi visible second warrior must have hit the floor, he felt his feet slam down on the other suit’s back plate. He now knew where both of them were for the second he needed to act. Recalling the stories of Krall “games” with Normal human soldiers, he snapped his last grenade from its waist compartment in a blur of motion and thumbed the actuator in that same motion. He sent a thought to his AI to set the timing and type of detonation he wanted from the device. His hand flashed down and shoved it under the armpit of the arm he still held, down into the suit at the open shoulder joint.

He felt the Krall under him finally react to his presence on his back. These three warriors slow reaction speed was the first close and direct physical contact with the enemy the young spec ops private had ever experienced. He had not felt as physically powerful when he shot them, since no living creature had time to dodge away from a well-aimed energy beam. He had noticed that they reacted slower to a near miss than he’d expected, or to a wounding hit, allowing him and his fellow Kobani to shoot them again before they reached cover or could even fire back.

He was surprised at how much weaker they were than he expected. Normal humans he knew were slow thinking and reacting, and woefully weak, but he never felt so almighty when around them. Probably, because they didn’t hate him nor did they want him or his family dead for simply being alive.

His mother had died in the first raid of the war, on the world where his mother had worked as a City Manager, on Gribble’s Nook. He was in preschool care, and his mother was apparently trying to protect her city. He couldn’t remember her, and he never knew his contracted father. He’d hated the Krall for his entire life, reinforced by the feelings of the aunt that raised him, who never got over the hideous way her sister was butchered.

He quickly felt with a foot where the back of the helmet was, and looked at that spot and fired his plasma bolt at close range, medium power, as the warrior tried to rise. The entire attack had taken no more than five seconds real time. The eruption of fire from the open arm joint and violent twitching of his previous victim drew his attention. He didn’t need to keep looking at the Krall he was standing over, killing him slowly as his plasma bolts burned a way through the helmet at reduced power. He’d instructed his suit’s AI to continue to shoot at the same spot, which quickly darkened as its stealth coating burned away. He was free to glance at a side image inside his visor.

He watched the image of thermite driven flames erupt from the other squirming Krall’s shoulder joint, as the upper arm charred and burned free. His learning to like the feeling of power as he killed this hated enemy had a downside.

He learned a final combat lesson.

It was to behave differently than the Krall you despised, don’t enjoy killing your enemy so much that you watch them die for pleasure. He hadn’t sensed the ripples of leaping warriors passing over the edge of the balcony behind him. The lower power setting on his plasma beam, locked on automatic to kill the warrior under his feet more slowly, made him a perfect target as he watched the other Krall burn to death. Four plasma beams ended the distracted young Kobani’s feeling of personal pleasure at killing his enemy.

You don’t always live and learn.

The amount of time spent defending the second level was considerably less than Spartan had expected, due to the Krall avoiding the fight at the stairwells and elevator shafts. Not a single warrior lived to reach the second floor via those routes, but they started pouring over the outside balconies by directly jumping there. Four more Kobani were lost, and the four remote tri-barrel operators no longer had targets worth the distraction while fighting Krall almost in their face. Immobile Krall away from the building were no immediate threat, and those were the only targets for the heavier guns.

Greeves and Reynolds were staying close to one another, and to Spartan. The Lieutenant issued the order to shift to level three, just before Greeves was about to awkwardly suggest they move up while they could do it properly. The men already on the third level, along with the wounded able to fight were prepared to provide them cover at the open elevator shafts and the somewhat better protected stairwells.

The Kobani were also confronted with a supply limitation. There were plenty of grenades in storage under the resort, with about fourteen hundred Krall in the way of obtaining them. The other access to the underground hub was via the roof and the freight elevator shaft down to the spec ops lair. That was reached from the roof of the tenth floor, and they didn’t intend to go that high, nor was there time to send anyone for a round trip.

The Kobani were jumping up the stairs from landing to landing, and making dashing upward leaps, using a quick deflection from the sides in the elevator shafts to go higher or reach an opening. Unlike archaic elevators, there were no cables to grasp. Their remaining grenades served to hold the Krall at bay below them for a short time. That was when Greeves received the radio call he’d hoped would come before the Krall had even reached the building.

“Colonel Greeves, this is Captain Roberts in Cobra 1, of Shadow wing. I have two birds with me, and we just blasted a clanship that had this particular valley blocked. We have the Novi Pazar Lodge in sight. We can shoot up the Krall attackers you reported to Nabarone’s Headquarters bunker if you tell me where they are. I don’t see very many of them in front. I see your icon in the building on…, uh…, moved up to the third level now, and a few of your other people higher above you.”

Novi Pazar? Greeves wondered.

It took an instant for Greeves to realize the resort had to have a name, but he’d not asked what it was. It had changed owners since he’d last lived on Poldark. He sent a quick command to his AI to link Spartan and Reynolds into the call before he replied.

“Cobra 1, make strafing runs at the base of the building, first two levels. I think nearly all the red bastards are inside there now. That’s why you don’t see them. We’re moving up inside the building, staying just ahead of them. There are perhaps three thousand PU army regulars in a creek bed in the center of the valley.”

“Got their icons. Sensors also report perhaps eighty-five Krall in the open in front of the building. Our ammo and plasma bolts will shred body armor, Kobani type included. You had better get your men a lot higher than level three. We’re passing you now. We’ll swing back and strafe the lower floors in thirty seconds, if you give the all clear.”

They heard the triple thunderclap as the space planes roared by them at low level. They were climbing and turning away over the far ridge, separating for in-line passes by each of the three Shadows. Greeves looked out a window as he picked up a wounded man in a bear hug, who then continued fire over Greeves’ shoulder, down the stairwell as he was lifted.

The turbulent air behind the passing Shadow fighters distorted the image of the opposite walls of the ridge, almost three miles away, but the stealthed craft were visually nearly invisible. They used Trap fields for Normal Space drives, so they left no visible ion trail from thrusters.

Without hesitation, Spartan ordered everyone to head for level six, no stopping in between. “Level six, level six. Go. No stopping. All the sappers too, finished or not. Move up with us to level six. We have three Shadows about to strafe the lower floors. Let’s not be here when they do.”

The demolition men had initially started their work at level three, so they were all farther above them by now, but they had not finished placing charges on levels four and five. No matter, they were out of time, and the Krall were gradually cutting them down. Spartan saw he had lost four more of his men, based on icon count.

Kobani in armor, with helmet mounted energy beam weapons, were able to look down and fire while their hands were free to climb. That made use of the elevator shafts easier. Except, with Krall now on level two and three, some were trying to fire their plasma rifles up the shafts without exposing themselves. The much faster reacting and more accurate Kobani shooters tended to discourage warriors from poking their heads into the shaft to see their targets, a usually fatal mistake when they tried. Some just poked their rifle through the openings for a quick shot without aiming, which was safer, but literally a potentially disarming event for them. An arm being shot and disabled was bad enough, but if their rifle was destroyed, they had to retreat to salvage a weapon from their dead. There were far more Krall dead in this attack than there were enemy bodies. That was not something they had ever encountered when fighting humans.

Their losses put them into a reckless berserkers rage, firing blind up the lift shafts. Not a terribly effective tactic. Nevertheless, two spec ops were hit by multiple random bolts while in the open shafts. One simply dropped quietly to the bottom, apparently already dead. The other man, stunned, was grabbed by another Kobani as his limp form brushed against him as he started to fall. That rescuer easily slung him up through the fifth floor elevator opening and followed him out, to carry him up to level six via the stairs. The landings between floors gave them better protection from shots from below anyway, so the elevator shafts were avoided after that.

As they collected themselves on the sixth floor, firing down through the narrow gaps between railings and steps, and tossing the few grenades they pulled from the waists of some of the wounded, they watched and waited to see what the Shadows could do to help them now.

Greeves called the flight leader. “Cobra 1, we’ve gathered everyone on level six, you should see our icons as you approach.”

“Colonel, I have a zoom image, and I see two suit icons on level one. Do you have wounded there?”

“Not that we can recover. We brought all the wounded we could find up with us. Those men are dead the slow way if the Krall check on them. You have a free fire zone below our level. How precise can you aim?”

“Beams are under AI control and dead on. The guns are aimed by us, and we’ll stay below level five. We’ve slowed, and are in line now, coming right at you. I hope the building structure can take all the damage. This is going to be harsh.”

“Hell, you may help us take this sucker down. That’s what we intend to do. Don’t hold back on our account.”

“Roger that. Hold onto your hats.”

The contrails showed as blurred circles in the sky, as the Shadows approached straight at them, moving only three hundred miles per hour to allow more time on target.

The first aircraft passed over the far ridge and snapped down so quickly into low-level flight, at mere feet above the terrain, that it almost appeared to have nosed into the ground.

The pilot, being Kobani, could handle far greater inertial forces and accelerations than a Normal human could endure. The airframe and wings had been ordered reinforced as well, over the objections of the engineers of the company that made them. It was pointless weight, they said, for a craft that no pilot could possible overstress enough need that strength.

Beams lanced out in front of the first Shadow, and flying so low the ravening beams passed through the building parallel to the floors, striking inner walls and furniture, to eventually burn spots on the cliff on the opposite side. The AI was flickering them precisely between the lower five floors, to burn through the thinner interior walls, and avoiding what the penetrating radar returns indicated were structural support beams.

The warriors, having heard the first pass down the valley, had been watching for the aircraft to return. They lined up behind the vertical steel beams of whatever level they were on, as protection from the lasers and plasma bolts, or laid horizontally between levels, where the cross beams would offer similar shielding. They fired their plasma rifles at the center of the swirl of turbulence, hoping to damage the obviously stealthed craft firing on them.

The Krall bolts were easily deflected off the slender and pointed nose of the craft. It had the same Torki made material coating of the Kobani body armor, with its quantum level spectrum control for making the surface highly reflective (or absorbent if that were needed) of nearly any energy level of impinging radiation, striking at any angle.

Cobra 1, observing the structural beams of the building using ground-penetrating radar, noted the return fire coming from behind the beams. Now he knew exactly where most of the Krall were located, as anticipated. The tungsten carbide coated depleted uranium slugs, fired from a forward mounted railgun under the nose, was a perfect weapon for the present situation. In fact, the gun had partly been designed with similar situations in mind. The Krall were master fighters and survivors. They were known to quickly, and instinctively, find the best available cover, as they always fired back at the enemy.

At three hundred miles per hour, he had barely thirty seconds to act, which for a Kobani was like a leisurely five minutes to anyone else. The pilot centered his targeting reticle on the largest central beam. He used his suit’s visor to link to the gun sight, and sent his firing command mentally. Three different times he did that, for single shots. He could have sent a fusillade of slugs, but he’d intentionally tried to keep the structure standing for the men he was trying to help. The three slugs maintained an amazingly tight cluster. The first punched right through the heavy steel beam, and damaged by the impact, it promptly tumbled and ripped through the body armor pressed close to its backside. In fact, it tore through the chests of four of the Krall that had assumed they were protected.

The second slug nearly passed through the same hole and was deflected slightly, but did not tumble. Not at first. It punched more or less cleanly through the same four warriors, who had not yet had time to fall more than a few millimeters. It also passed through the next three warriors, the slug accumulating more damage from impacts before it too was deformed and started to tumble. This deflected projectile only ripped off an armored arm near the shoulder of the next warrior in line as it spun and whined through the building.

The third slug passed cleanly through the two inch wide hole in the steel, and drilled its way through the same seven front warriors, and five more before it was deflected enough to miss the next ten Krall pressed close together. Those front-most Krall died before they knew they were hit, because it happened so quickly. Those that were only wounded, because a torso perforation for a Krall was usually survivable, suddenly knew that clustering behind a steel beam was a remarkably bad idea, at least when a railgun was firing a diamond hard, extremely dense slug at you.

Firing more slugs would have risked severing that main structural support member at the third floor level, with all of the weight of the seven floors above pressing down. He’d warned Greeves that there was a risk to the entire building. Cobra 2 and 3 had been told to aim at different support elements on different levels.

As Cobra 1 lifted sharply to rise over the ridge behind Novi Pazar Lodge, he radioed to Cobra 3 that his AI should be instructed to seek out and target the several hundred warriors spread out over the ground in front of the building. Most already seemed dead, but with their suit stealth active, it was difficult to know. The Krall were highly unlikely to be playing dead if they could still fight, and several dozen had fired on him as he flew above them, moving at a slow enough speed that they would find it a leisurely pass, slow enough so that he deliberately invited their fire.

Cobra 2 had stayed far enough behind number 1 to allow him to make a faster approach, quickly overtaking the leader crossing the valley, thus reducing the increased fire to which he naturally expected to be exposed, by now better-informed Krall, thanks to their first unpleasant experience with Shadow fighters. This gap gave the Krall time to start to shift positions in the building, away from standing behind supports. The AI found a richer target field for its approach, but because it was a bit higher, the bottom two floors were better shielded from his energy beams.

Cobra 3’s run killed, and in many cases double killed, the over three hundred sets of Krall armor faintly outlined by films of soot and dust. In several dozen cases, better targets were identified from plasma fire aimed at his faster moving Shadow. The origin points of those bolts were nearly all eliminated, because an AI thinks much faster than even a Kobani, and a thousand times faster than a Krall can pull back behind their cover.

Like Cobra 2, his railgun slugs found a handful of Krall lying flat on the floors behind some of the steel pillars, apparently thinking fewer smaller targets behind the heavy beams would make them safer. He demonstrated eleven times that even a low profile single target was more than inviting enough to these pilots. The energy beams also picked off fifteen scrambling warriors, but most of them had retreated to the bottom floors, or moved to the backside of the resort, close to the cliff, making them more difficult and concealed targets.

Heartened by the results, Greaves asked, “Cobra 1, can you make a couple more of those passes?”

“Colonel that had been our plan. However, two other of our flights took out three more clanships blocking the pass exits, and strafed clumps of warriors moving into the mountains towards you. They must have told Gatlek Pendor that we have our aerial cover active now, and a swarm of single ships has lifted. They’re headed for all eight armies on the major fronts. We’ve been ordered towards Novi Sad Sir. Sorry.”

“Understood. Thanks for your help Cobra flight. I owe you a drink. We still have our fallback plan to try, and you’ve improved the odds of it working. Good hunting.”

The three fighters completed a circle overhead as they formed up again, and made a final high pass over them as they streaked west, leaving a sonic boom to chase them through the mountains, as they went to meet the swarm of single ships.

“Lieutenant, did your men get enough of the charges planted do you think? The Krall also heard our air cover leave. We need to keep as many of these warriors as we can from reaching the ridge top. You have any plan better than the one I proposed?”

“No, Sir. My men haven’t had time to place any charges on level seven, and they only did half of level five’s support beams before we were pushed out. They managed better on this one, level six. Thanks to the extra time those Shadows gave us.

“Colonel, I think we may only be outnumbered by thirty to one now.” Spartan wore a lopsided grin, invisible inside his helmet. “Can I suggest we jump only sixty-feet rather than seventy? With each of us sharing some of the wounded?”

“Sure, level seven was only a best guess. I hadn’t factored in so many wounded so it’s tougher moving up a level now. We can’t be sure how many floors will come down when the charges blow.”

Spartan nodded and made his decision, broadcasting to the entire unit. “We’re jumping from level six. At least two men per wounded to cushion them. Everyone move to the east balconies, sappers have your actuators ready. You will trigger the floors as we pass them on the way down. Ten seconds from now.”

They could hear the Krall thundering up the lower level steps, firing ahead of their progress. A spy bot showed the forefront of the enraged horde on level four, a few already reaching level five.

The wounded were supported between two men each, and several seriously injured troopers had three helpers. At ten feet per level, they had sixty feet to drop to reach the ground. They had chosen the side with the smoothest and most evenly landscaped, boulder free surface.

“On my mark.” Spartan paused only a second, as he fired on the first dusty Krall helmet he saw peek over the stair lip. “Jump!”

Every surviving spec ops trooper, with Greeves and Reynolds helping support a wounded man between them, made a running leap over the low balcony walls, and jumped at least thirty feet out into space from the sixth floor.

No sooner had their heads dropped below the floor the first charges on the sixth level were manually triggered. Debris from the explosives blasted out horizontally just above them, and obscured the fact to arriving Krall that their enemy had left the building, rather than again having retreated up to the next level.

Level five was then blown a second later, as a few of the large number of upward surging Krall spotted ripples in the air on the east side. They didn’t have the time to act on that observation when new explosions tore through the support beams. A few warriors were killed or injured by the blasts, but for most of them their armor was sturdy enough, as were their bodies, to accept the stresses. As designed, the explosives and their placement were not intended to kill the Krall directly.

The level four charges blew a half-second later, and another one followed a smaller fraction of a second after that on the third level as the Kobani fell faster. The third floor explosives detonated with reduced effect. It was a smaller explosion because the full set of charges had never been placed on level three, due to pressure that had forced them to retreat upwards too soon.

There were no charges set at all on the lowest two floors, and the swiftly dropping Kobani, now over thirty five feet out from the structure, raised their wounded compatriots higher as they used their own leg and arm strength to cushion themselves, and their injured comrades from too severe an impact. All of them were forced to roll onto their sides, doing their best to protect the injured. Not that it didn’t strain the muscles of every one of the healthy men, and surely hurt each of the wounded. But, thirty-two of them were alive and had made it out of the building.

Without a moment of hesitation, they picked up the wounded and streaked towards the cover of the creek bed, and the fire support of three thousand regular army troops. There would only be a brief time before the Krall understood what had been done to divert their attention, and they would come under fire out in the open. The plan to prevent that return fire was having the upper floors of the building to start collapsing down on one another, trapping most of the Krall between levels as they sandwiched.

Reynolds looked back as they sprinted for the cover of the creek bed. The sixth level had sagged to the top of level five, which had unexpectedly held the weight. The fifth floor had partially sagged on only one side onto the fourth floor, but there was no general collapse as they’d hoped to trigger. There had been too little time to rig enough demolition charges.

Experts, who demolished buildings as a profession, always weakened selected support members before trying to bring the whole structure down. Perhaps they should have allowed the Shadows to shoot up the building a bit more on their strafing passes.

“Thad, take this guy. The damned building is still standing.” He lifted the unconscious man he had slung over his shoulder and offered him to Greeves. Thad, without a burden, had periodically looked back and sent high powered, yet invisible, microwave beams towards any movement he saw at the edges of the clouds of dust, still billowing from the battered ramparts of the lodge. Spartan had cautioned everyone against use of traceable lasers and plasma bolts, at least until the Krall definitely knew they were out of the building and exposed.

Accepting the limp armored form, Thad asked, “Whatcha thinking of doing Sarge? You gonna go back and kick down some walls?”

“No, I’ll take cover here by these rocks and wait. Perhaps until I see warriors on the roof and starting up the cliff face for the ridge top. It’s time to see if I can bail your ass out, after your clever stunt to trap the Krall in a falling building didn’t work.”

Greeves could see the ghostly image on his visor of his friend slipping into one of the piles of rocks that had concealed the Krall earlier. “Sarge, we can pick them off from the creek just as well. If they dust off their armor while they have a spare moment, you can’t see them any better from these rocks than from a mile away. Besides, the main valley is open now, so our troops don’t all have to fit down that small canyon.”

“I doubt the Krall know that yet. Anyway, they can still make a great deal of trouble for the columns that have already been routed through the northern pass. I want them to head for the roof of the lodge and up the cliff. The more of them in the upper half of the building the better. I have to wait here, because I can’t remotely control the tri-barrels from out by the center of the valley. That’s beyond their designed one mile control range.”

“Sarge, even with the limit pins out, the ability to shoot almost straight down won’t help because the gun mounts aren’t close enough to the outer cliff face. All you can hit is the rock floor or your own cart if you fire straight down.” He knew Reynolds had someone remove the down-limit pins from the mounts, so the guns could be fully depressed.

“Ye of little imagination. I just might bring the house down for you yet.” With that cryptic remark, Sarge went silent and dropped out of sight between two large boulders.

Their luck held, and no bolts from the half-ruined lodge flew in their direction. Jumping from the sixth floor, a height too high for the Krall to attempt, even in their powered armor, had left the warriors believing the weaker humans must have continued their retreat to higher floors under the cover of the obscuring dust and debris. The stairwells and elevator openings for the collapsed level six still permitted access for warriors, who continued their upward pursuit.

****

Gofdar was determined to destroy the remainder of this small, extremely troublesome group of humans, who had cost him so many warrior losses. One cowardly trait that even these better fighters displayed proved to be typical of human behavior. Falling back when the Krall attacked fiercely.

Retreat had been a pattern the Krall had seen this entire day, from every human force they had faced on the planet. Finally, these highly effective fighters seemed to have nowhere to go when they reached the top floor of this nest. He wanted to be in the forefront of that desperate fight, and then he wanted to find the humans that had operated the heavy guns up inside the cliff, who had nearly taken his life. They would not die quickly.

The blasts set off inside the building, triggered on levels six through three, had left his force of warriors covered in dust, but largely unharmed. He had lost barely more than a hand, although there were two hands or more of armored warriors temporarily trapped on a half collapsed level, who would work their way free when he assigned warriors to assist in cutting through the debris. He recognized that this action was actually a failed trap, because the staggered explosions had been intended to collapse the building down on Gofdar’s entire remaining force.

In a flash of admiration for a worthy foe, he realized if the full nest had fallen, it could have been a fatal strategy for them as well. It was fortunate his warriors had not given them time to complete their demolition placement work. It was vital to maintain the same relentless pressure now, and close with them before they could weaken the nest even more.

“Do not give them time to plant explosives. Attack!” This order, broadcast to every com set, was hardly needed to stimulate his nearly berserk warriors to greater effort. It did however, make him sound and feel as if he were directing the action, which he would have been unable to halt had he chosen to try.

He was only the seventh warrior to reach the rooftop landing pad, and the first lucky three lay dead at the top of the stairs. They had been burned down as they arrived, and their flesh was smoldering inside the large holes burned through the upper parts of their suits. There was none of the ripples visible here from human stealthed armor, or even traces of plasma or laser fire. The prey must have left through the open large doors, built into the side of the cliff from the roof. Those doors had not been visible from below, on the approach to the structure.

The three dead had been killed only seconds before Gofdar arrived behind them. It took a more powerful bolt than the humans fired from their suit weapons. There were two gun carts parked at the edge of the roof, the damnable weapons humans called ladybugs.

He and the four surviving warriors instantly fired on both tri barrels, and their bolts struck the now strangely silent gun barrels, ensuring they were too damaged to fire again.

The unknown truth was that these weapons, abandoned here when the Kobani raced down to the lower levels, had used up the last of their preloaded ammunition fuel rods some time ago. The rods were vaporized and incrementally consumed to create those powerful triple plasma bolts. Even as the Krall fought for entry on the ground floor, these guns had fallen silent. They were left unmanned because there was no need to reload them if there were no longer any warriors to target below the building.

The four Krall crouched and raced to the sides of the gun carts, positioned where they would be safe from a weapon that could not aim down that low and that close to its sides. Two warriors per cart, using brute force and assisted by powered armor, they reached under and lifted one side, tipping them onto their sides, the gun mounts protruding out of the top of the clamshells resting against the parapet, above the ten-story drop.

Gofdar called for more warriors to help shove them over the side of the building. He’d lost enough octets to these weapons, and the sound of their crash and crumpling on the ground below was pleasing to his ears. He’d realized as they shoved them over the side, that they contained no crews. His infrared vision told him that the barrels were too cool to have fired so recently. Those two guns had not killed the first three warriors to arrive on the rooftop.

That left only the two higher guns that could have done this. He looked up the side of the cliff, and saw the two crude improvised firing ports as he raced to reach the rock wall below them, where they couldn’t possibly target him that close below them. Perhaps they were reloading, or had not wanted to draw attention. Perhaps those two gun crews were also now in retreat. He ordered all of the warriors to use their suit’s antistatic dust repel system to make their suits cleaner, and then they brushed and wiped at any dirt that remained. The antistatic system couldn’t be used when stealth was active. Now they needed to climb the exposed rock face, and stealth was their best protection from snipers.

The upper emplacement was the gun that Gofdar knew had nearly killed him previously. He could still see heat radiating out of the higher opening, which meant that was where the shots had originated that killed the first three warriors to reach the top. He had again been a potentially helpless target on the roof, without even being aware of the threat, and had survived due to luck yet again. The humans obviously had tunnels bored into these cliffs, as they did many places in mountainous terrain on Poldark. Their warrens were usually mined to explode if entered by the Krall, unless there were living humans still present to be protected.

There had to be perhaps twenty or thirty humans in the tunnels right now. That must be where these fighters had retreated, he reasoned, carrying their wounded, since none but their dead had been found. He sent five octets after them. His personal goal was to scale the craggy cliff face to reach the improvised gun ports, safe from any shots from that source when he was so close to the wall under them.

The rooftop was crowded with warriors now, looking up where they knew they needed to go, and some looked out over the valley, where the other humans remained clustered in that small stream bed. Gofdar chose the personal path he could follow, which would keep his story in the histories of the clans that advanced along the Great Path. He would lead forty of his octets up the outside of the cliff to the ridge top, while the octets in the tunnels used their sense of smell to trace the humans to their den. He would ensure that the main human army had no escape path through the adjacent canyon. When his warriors caught up with the humans in the tunnels, surely hampered by foolishly carrying their wounded as they always did, they would be killed or captured. He requested some live prisoners, if possible, for slow interrogation.

If the tunnels had sensors that recognized there were no longer any living humans present, and contained only Krall, he might lose those forty warriors if the tunnels were destroyed. His remaining seven hundred twenty seven warriors not going with him would be sent to wipe out the cowardly humans on the valley floor, after first salvaging all of the weapons and power packs they could find, taking them from their own dead. His force of two thousand twenty four had dwindled to eleven hundred twenty seven, per his visor count.

This was an honorable attrition rate, worthy of high status awards when earned in fierce fighting against a force with so many more than their own numbers. The one fact he would conceal in his report to his clan leader, and to the Gatlek, was that a disproportionate number of his losses had happened against only about fifty of the enemy in this building, where half of this enemy appeared to have survived, thus far. He hoped they would be found.

He started up the cliff, after wisely permitting a full octet to precede him, awarding them what he termed was an honor, which he said was due to their fighting skill today. If there were any long range sniping at the first to start the climb, he’d have a bit of warning this time. He was conscious now of how important his role today could be in the history told of how he had led the forces that trapped a large human army, leaving them ripe for destruction. He believed he would earn a second name for this action, and he wanted to be alive to relish that accomplishment. His seed was already frozen, and ready for reproducing his line, but he wanted rewards that he could enjoy personally.

He instructed the octet leader to stop to examine the lower gun emplacement for occupation, although he was sure the crew of that gun must have departed, because there was no heat from that opening from a recently fired heavy weapon. Only the higher gun had fired in the last few minutes. He would check that upper gun, just to catch the scent of the crew, so he would remember them if they were taken alive.

The octet ahead of him safely reached the first gun position, and swarmed inside the obviously improvised and crudely made firing port. The leader reported there was a scent of a single recently departed human, with others having been around the gun perhaps several hours ago.

The gun was found powered on, pointed listlessly down at the back of the empty driver’s compartment. The gunner had left the rear clamshell standing fully open, as if the operator had fled in a panic. That sense of hurried evacuation was reinforced when the octet leader noted that there were three nearly depleted plasma feed rods inserted, ready for firing additional bolts, with many more reload rods in the racks. The gunner had run away before taking those final few shots at his advancing enemy. This was the first break in the discipline Gofdar had noted in this otherwise effective small force of fighters.

Down below, in the nest, the enemy had retreated only in the face of relentless pressure of his warriors. This individual had abandoned his post up here before there was any direct pressure. It was out of character it seemed, compared to the actions of the other fighters.

Gofdar was the first to peer into the cavity where the higher gun was placed, and saw again the familiar shape of a ladybug. Somehow, they had brought it up here, and physically carried it close to the cliff face from that small space in front of the lift’s door. A hole had been battered through the rock to provide an opening for a firing position. He looked out over the valley, to where he saw the exact spot where he and his octet leaders had first come under fire from this very gun.

He manually opened a ventilator port on his helmet to scent the air. He’d noted that this gun cart too had its clamshell open, that there were three nearly depleted ammunition rods inserted, ready for one or two more bolts to fire per barrel. He looked down at the roof below and realized how easy it would have been for that gunner to kill him as he followed the three warriors just ahead of him. It was almost insulting, as if fate had twice deemed Gofdar an unworthy target for this gunner.

He had noted that with the clamshell open as it was, this gun too was pointed down at a sharp angle, directly towards a hump at the back of the driver’s compartment. He saw a series of lights flicker on the gun’s command console, and sensed a pulse of heat from the lasers at the base of the gun mount as they vaporized the tips of the ammunition feeder rods, followed by a hissing sound as plasma was magnetically routed to feed the tri barrel’s plasma chambers. Recalling what his octet leader below had just relayed to him, he realized each gun was positioned exactly the same way, aimed down in the same manner.

That sound he heard was fate, and it wasn’t passing up its third chance to eliminate him. This gun was preparing to fire, but not at him. He briefly wondered, as he moved far too slowly to make a difference, what he would have received for his second name.

****

Greeves was exasperated. “Sarge, if you won’t shoot them off the wall from where you’re concealed, why don’t you want us to pick any of them off from here? They’re hard to see, but we can kill a few of them. What the hell do you mean wait another fifteen seconds?”

“Stop bugging me, Thad. I’m watching them, or at least I see some of the loose rocks fall and a few plants pushed aside. When they reach the second tri-barrel, I’ll take care of them all for you. Now stop distracting me. I said I’d bail your ass out from that harebrained scheme of jumping out of the building as it blows up. The jumping part is all that worked, you dummy. If you’ll be patient, I’ll fix it for you.”

“Who’re you calling a dummy? I’m safely out here in the creek with fire support, while your ass is all alone in that pile of rocks, which the Krall are going to swarm all over in another five minutes or so.”

“You think you’re safe? There will be perhaps eight hundred to a thousand Krall pouring out of that building after us when they figure out where we went. You won’t be safe until I make you safe…,” He paused as he watched something on his visor.

“Ah. Here we go. Lights out sub leader.”

“What do you…,” Thad didn’t finish his question. His mouth was simply left hanging open as his visor system automatically adjusted to protect his eyes.

A brilliant pair of flashes lanced straight out from the cliff side before two fireballs erupted, and matching huge dust plumes expanded and merged right behind them. It took only a few seconds for the double blast waves to reach them. An expanding spray of dust and rocks obscured that entire section of the ridge above the lodge. The thunder lasted longer than expected for the blast. It finally ended before the reflection of the sound returned from the far wall of the valley, three miles away. The cause of the extended rumble of thunder became obvious as the dust thinned.

A large section of the cliff above the lodge had fractured and slid free, falling onto the lodge below. The entire structure, already weakened, had totally collapsed as the tens of thousands of tons of rock slammed the upper levels onto the lower ones, and buried most of the collapsing building. The collective weight of the rock face was far more than the ferrocrete and steel structure alone, and both had combined to crush the Krall assault.

There would be isolated Krall survivors, of course, but not in numbers that they couldn’t be easily eliminated now.

Spartan was first to speak. “How the hell did you get the rest of our explosives up to the ladybugs? There was no time, and no one to move that many tons so quickly.”

“Hell lieutenant, why would I go to all that bother when all I had to do was read the ladybug safety manual? Hey, Thad. Let me tax your underused brain for moment. I’m sorry if that will cause you undue pain.” He laughed cheerfully.

With a sigh, Greeves knew he was going to hear about this forever. “Go on.”

“I asked for the limit pins to be removed from the gun mounts, as you recall. What was the purpose of those pins? You received the same downloaded user’s manual that I did.”

“To prevent some knuckleheaded gunner like you from accidentally putting a bolt down through the back of the driver’s head.”

“True enough, which would be bad for him and cause him considerable irritation, I’d assume. Now tell me what sits directly behind the driver’s compartment, and even lower than his head?”

“Son of a bitch! That was brilliant!” Greeves would regret his shouted jubilation and compliment, but not until later. His brief lapse in guarding his words of praise for the never humble Sarge would return to haunt him.

“What was brilliant?” Spartan asked. He’d seen ladybugs of course, but had never operated one. That was regular army grunt work.

Reynolds explained, as his “humble nature” would have him doing repeatedly, to anyone that couldn’t escape his company today. “The fusion bottle for the ladybug is placed between the drivers cab and the clamshell that covers the gun. Open the clamshell, remove the limit pins on the gun and you can fire down on your own fusion bottle. They sure make a hell of a bang when they rupture don’t they?”

Chapter 7: Parting is Such Sweet Destruction

Two days later, back at their quarters outside Nabarone’s Headquarters bunker, Greeves had some news to share with Reynolds. “I just heard from PU central command that the First will not be pulling back any farther. The Shadow fighters performed beautifully against the Krall single ships. In or out of atmosphere, the Kobani Shadow pilots kicked their asses, twenty-five to one for air-to-air kills, and managed a perfect score on space kills, where Krall advanced ship technology has an edge over our space plane designs.

“Shadow Wing knocked down enough single ships they were able to strafe some of the loaded Krall convoys preparing to make their withdrawal. Even the Navy sent in some of their space planes to help.

“Their pilots aren’t as good, and they lost thirteen of them, but with the Shadows to take the pressure away from single ship engagements, the navy hit the spread out supply lines of the forward Krall clans hard. Their warriors are now low on power packs and replacement weapons. Because Gatlek Pendor withheld much of the air and artillery defenses for his use in the next invasion, that’s forcing the minor clans to slow their pushes.

“We think they went past the points where they were told to halt their advance coming out of Novi Sad and on a couple of other fronts as well. They thought they were going to pin and destroy the First Army in the mountains, so they kept pushing. They need to pull back out of the mountains now because they can’t get the resupply they need. The Gatlek doesn’t appear willing to share any of what he’s taking with him.”

Reynolds nodded. “I think Pendor is in such a hurry to lift with his invasion fleet that he didn’t want to launch the large reserve of single ships already stowed in the clanships. He’s willing to leave the minor clans here with less material. They still have enough warriors, weapons, and supplies to fight Nabarone’s forces and win, provided they don’t fight as stupidly as they have this time. I hope it was Pendor that was responsible for their screwing up the assaults, letting them get overextended. They never fought that sloppy before, when following their more traditional style of steady warfare. If he’s in charge of wherever they plan to invade next, it may not go well for him.”

“We’ll know where they’re going soon.” Greeves revealed. “SatCom surveillance reports the lines of trucks that have been parked for days on the roads have started racing towards the gathered clanships. Apparently they’re about to pull out their invasion forces before they become bogged down in supporting the continent wide assaults they initiated. Pendor let the small clans get out of hand. Restraint isn’t their style when they see the enemy retreat, and Nabarone really took advantage of that.”

“Aren’t the minor clans still pressing their attacks on our forces?” Reynolds asked.

“Yep. I think that streak of independence in every Krall is exaggerated in a small clan’s ego, pushing them to ignore the preset limits of how far they were supposed to chase Nabarone’s troops. Now, when they discover that their massed clanships are pulling out, taking much of the equipment, they’ll soon get to taste what it’s like to retreat.”

“Assuming they know how,” Reynolds snorted, indicating doubt.

“Oh, I think Nabarone is ready to teach them how. I was just speaking to Henry. He has some excited new supporters in the Navy. They see clear preparations for the predicted partial Krall pull out, and are ready to make it as costly as they can. For today, Henry practically walks on water, so far as prognostication is concerned.”

“Buoyed up there by Tet’s analysis, you mean.”

“Sure, but his superiors don’t know that. Besides, Henry is damned shrewd in his own way. It was his plans that turned Tet’s prediction of a partial pullout into a way to bleed the most out of the bastards. I hope they like how fun the liftoff will be.”

****

“My Gatlek, the leaders of the minor clans refuse to believe the massive amount of supplies they know exist will not be moved forward to them.”

Pendor reared back his head and snorted with amusement. “They were told not to advance so far and so fast. Nearly all have moved beyond the geographical points where they were instructed to halt.”

“Sir, Kothar, the Toldak clan leader, has been heard openly discussing offering a challenge to you, if you proceed with withdrawing so many forces. He says they only pursued the human First Army so deep into the mountains because you sent a blocking force to try to trap them.”

“Tor Gatrol Kanpardi has orchestrated the partial withdrawal to conduct another invasion. I cannot be challenged for obeying an order from our highest war leader. Let him challenge the Tor. It is true I sent a blocking force into the mountains east of Novi Sad, which then failed to contain the largest enemy army as I ordered. The leader of that raid is dead, so let Kothar also challenge him for failing.” Another snort.

He added, “If the small council of minor clan leaders had obeyed the restrictions I placed on their advances, they would not be so far ahead of their supplies. Tell the various command bunkers that their warriors must return to the positions where they were ordered to stand and hold.”

His aide risked condemnation, but had a duty to remind his leader of something. “If the humans counterattack strongly, they may not be able to move enough supplies forward fast enough to keep all of the territory they now hold, even at the positions where you ordered them to wait.”

“That will be after I have relinquished my command here, and have departed on the new invasion as Gatlek on a new war front. Kanpardi will assign a new Gatlek over Poldark, promoted from a leader among the minor clans that will remain here. Remind them of that coming honor. One that only the strongest supporter of the Tor Gatrol’s strategy can receive.”

He suppressed a snort, aware that Kanpardi might not be the one to confer that promotion. Not even his own loyal aides knew of the arrangement he had made with Telour.

“Prepare my clanship for departure. I intend to launch in the vanguard of our brave charge to force a landing on a new human world.” The use of the term charge was in keeping with Kanpardi’s assertion that this action was vigorously expanding the war on humanity, not a redistribution of temporarily limited forces and material, a result of human actions.

****

Crager was standing next to lieutenant Honley, as the young spec ops officer absorbed the intelligence arriving by the second. The rate of loading the clanships had peaked, and was progressing at a steadier level now. It was evident that some of them would need to launch soon, because it would lead to recklessly excessive risk to launch all of them simultaneously, even by Krall standards. Because the war leaders had clearly been conserving resources in the last six months, since the Kobani raids, a reckless surge of launches so close together would risk collisions and waste.

When Crager had reported to Honley that a group of armor wearing Krall had left the main hillside entrance to the Gatlek’s underground bunker, he merely nodded. They had boarded a nearby clanship, of many parked close to that thousand six hundred foot high small mountain of rock that protected the complex. What made this clanship more noticeable was that when unstealthed, it was revealed that it had no hull sections of slightly different shades.

Clanships, or their parts, were often used for a thousand years of lifetime, and repairs from battles, accidents, and ordinary wear resulted in a less than uniform exterior appearance on very old ships, at least when they switched off stealth. The clanship that sub leaders from the bunker had boarded appeared to be genuinely new.

Crager knew the young spec ops officer personally, and assigned as the XO of the company now, he recalled that he had been a good trooper. He’d help train him five years ago. That fact appeared to have intimidated the young officer, and he looked too much to Crager for the NCO’s advice and approval. Listening to his more experienced NCO’s was a smart thing to do, but he didn’t appear ready to act quickly enough now.

“Sir, I think some of high ranking staff of the Gatlek is preparing to depart. Pendor may or may not be with them because we don’t know if he’ll continue to command here, or has been promoted to lead the next invasion. We do know those warriors that came out are part of the staff of whoever will command the invasion, and several were aides to Pendor. They’ll lead from the front, as usual.” The implication he wanted Honley to catch was that Krall leaders didn’t stand around and wait. That ship would be leaving soon, and not alone. It would be bad if he had to tell the Captain that his XO was indecisive.

It turned out he didn’t need to. On the common command link, which all of his senior NCO’s were also monitoring, they heard him call the commander of the cruise missile base. “Colonel Dolby, the Krall leadership has just entered their clanship. I believe they’ll start liftoffs within the next five minutes. I request you launch the first wave now, and the next wave two minutes after that. We’ll blow the plasma batteries when your birds exit the passes from the foothills. There’ll be less time for the clanships to adjust and to target your missiles.”

“Lieutenant, I sent the order as you were talking. The first hundred are lighting up now.” Obviously, the colonel, with intelligence of his own, had also been waiting for the young officer to act.

Honley verified that the three signal transmitters, which provided triple redundancy for the detonators, were all online via his suit’s AI. “Sergeant, I think business will be booming around here shortly.”

“Yes, Sir. I think it will.”

The first indication the Krall would receive that their enemy knew that they were pulling out some of their forces, would be when those low-level cruise missiles left the cover of the nearby foothills, three miles from their defensive perimeter. The moment the first missile appeared, a dozen of the heavy plasma cannons in the ring that defended the Krall clanships would erupt in flames and fragments, leaving a gap almost seventeen miles wide for the missiles to pass through.

The missile base was over a thousand miles away, so the time of travel intentionally allowed room for the first successful clanship launches to start. As much as hitting the lead ships, which the high status invasion leaders would occupy, had appealed to Nabarone, he’d ordered that the first strike not arrive until there were numerous clanships lifting, conventional thrusters blazing. The volume inside the sixty-mile diameter circle was expected to fill with a thousand or more simultaneous rising clanships, with another thousand prepared to lift, and another third still closing portals. The maximum opportunities for confusion and success in knocking many of them down would present itself then, when they were fully committed. Mirikami and Nabarone hadn’t deluded themselves into thinking they could get even a quarter of them. The Krall reacted too fast, and their ships and weapons were too sturdy for that.

Besides, killing clan leaders and sub leaders had relatively little impact on how well the Krall fought. Other, slightly lower status leaders were eager to leap in and fill voids, and each clan knew intimately the extensive hierarchy of their own rising high status warriors and sub leaders. Lower status sub leaders and warriors would instantly defer to the orders of those of higher status that survived. If there were two Krall of equal status that both desired the same leadership position and they refused to share, a sudden death match challenge might select the fittest to lead. It was like cutting the individual snakeheads off a medusa-like foe, where an unending number of new heads of similar skill and experience was waiting eagerly for their turn to lead.

Following Mirikami’s strategy, they were striving to reduce the amount of material available for the Krall to make war right now, before the remote Krall worlds could ramp up the production ability of their hundreds of underutilized factories and slaves. After thousands of years of meeting easy and unimaginative, intrinsically unwarlike foes, the Krall had permitted war production to become centralized, controlled by a handful of the most powerful clans. That would not continue, but if humanity could act fast enough, they could force the Krall to regroup and slow their advances, buying time for other worlds.

****

Pendor was of course on the control deck of his newly built clanship, the equivalent of a flagship in human terms. Unlike a human admiral, he was personally staffing one of the four command positions, with a single plasma cannon and one heavy laser linked directly to his station. Not that he anticipated having the pleasure of firing his weapons at the enemy, of course, because this massive fleet launch would completely catch the humans by surprise.

The second and third group of launches, slated to follow on each other’s heels, would see more action, as Poldark’s full set of potent Planetary Defenses discovered this wasn’t just a handful of clanships departing, as was usually the case. They would engage the next launches with more than the usual number of ground missiles, plasma cannons, heavy lasers, and orbital rail guns.

There were two space plane carriers in the system, and their craft had been involved in ground support actions for two days. The complement of thirty heavy cruisers based here would probably engage the ships at the edge of the columns of rising clanships. There had been reports of White Outs of more massive human ships arriving a week ago, however they had not been seen in the inner system, and may have departed. The entry into a Jump Hole wasn’t always observable if you weren’t close by.

Each of the clanships had a full load of anti-ship missiles, and three quarters of their laser and plasma defense systems would be under ship computer control, as distasteful as that was to any ship commander. That was how the slow reacting human crews were forced to fight all of the time. Merely directing the Artificial Intelligences where to concentrate their efforts.

Pendor and his command deck crew, with two backup members present in the event of losses, gripped the posts mounted next to their consoles, for the extra stability they provided if maneuvering was required before reaching a safe Jump altitude. Significant maneuvering would not be a recommended activity, not with the atmosphere to be so crowded with other lifting ships.

The first forty-eight ships to launch were specifically tasked with providing a cap, or perhaps better characterized as a blanket of missiles and plasma fire, aimed at any human threat seen. The ever present rail guns were primary targets, despite being kept in geostationary orbits much higher over Krall held territory, to avoid their being easily destroyed by the ring of space capable cannons in the Krall’s defensive ring. Their slugs were aids to detecting the stealthed clanships in space, after they switched to reactionless Normal Space drives. In atmosphere, their wake turbulence, ion trails, and fiery thrusters gave them away.

When a railguns relatively ineffective slug struck an invisible stealthed clanship, it broadcast the precise location of the hit and the unseen target’s direction of movement. Then missiles and energy weapon batteries instantly targeted the area around a hit with heavy concentrated fire.

A troubling aspect of the fighting the last two days was that many of the human space planes had been as difficult to detect as Krall single ships were. There was apparently a new class of them flying here, which had displayed superior detection capability for finding single ships, and in atmospheric combat had outperformed any of the Krall single ship pilots.

Clanship and single ship stealth coatings were similar, but the smaller ships were of a later technology the Krall had stolen from the Raspani, and their stealth was actually superior to the older Olt’kitapi design for clanships. Those space plane fighters had somehow been able to see their single ships. With actual wings for atmospheric aerial dog fighting, they out turned and out climbed the single ship pilots. Although, even if they could detect a stealthed clanship, they didn’t have the firepower to go talon-to-talon with the far larger and more heavily armored and armed craft.

“Send the vanguard now,” Pendor ordered.

Scattered widely within the sixty-mile diameter circle filled with clanships, the twelve hands of the ships in the protective vanguard blasted skyward at maximum acceleration. When they left atmosphere, they were not going to enter a Jump Hole as was normal for the Krall, they would linger and fight off any incoming attacks for all three waves of departures. This was a tactic the humans would never have seen the Krall use, because it was new to them as well.

No sooner than those ships were above two miles, Pendor sent the signal for the full launch of the first wave of nearly a thousand clanships. Some would take advantage of the ion trails of the previous clanships, to provide them a degree of concealment in atmosphere. Pendor’s pilot shifted course slightly, to fly directly up the trail left by a vanguard ship that had been deliberately parked next to them when it lifted.

As the vicious acceleration tested their legs and ability to hold onto the stability posts, they simultaneously entered the concealing ion trail they would follow, and suffered a corresponding reduction in sensor ability to observe the region around them as they lifted. As a result, Pendor had to rely on a radioed report from an unlaunched ship on the perimeter, that there had been a series of explosions on the southern rim of their defensive ring. The heavy plasma batteries there had been destroyed.

There was no need for Pendor to order the clanship commanders still on the ground to prepare for their own defense. It would have been an insult to do so. It seemed the humans were better prepared for this operation than expected. On the other hand, the single direction of the coming attack was now known. From the south. That knowledge of where the attack would originate wasn’t terribly useful in the first second or two, because a hundred cruise missiles flew through the still expanding debris cloud, after exiting from the low foothills a short distance away from the newly created perimeter gap.

Fifteen third wave clanships, still loading warriors who had helped load equipment for the second wave launches, exploded in the characteristic orange and black fireballs of fully fueled ships. Even in armor, the lifetime of a warrior that couldn’t get out of the flames in less than a minute was measured in roasting seconds of agony, when the suit’s cooling system overloaded.

The clanships in the interior were firing every plasma cannon and laser that could bear on the inbound missiles. Several dozen of them were knocked down, but nearly sixty of them eliminated the random clanships they had sought. Oddly, sensors indicated that four of the tracked missiles apparently failed to explode, which was highly unusual for the normally adequate designs of their human enemy’s equipment.

Suddenly, Pendor learned from transmissions from clanships on the opposite side of the mass of ships still on the ground, that radio transmissions had suddenly cut off in the southern quarter of the defensive perimeter. These attackers were using the same sort of communications blockage as the raiders on the Krall factory worlds had used. The unexploded four missiles were actually carrying Electronic Counter Measures.

The Krall’s previous experience with these ECM devices had prompted them to provide hardwired communications between the various clan bunkers, and to their forward posts near the fronts. There certainly wasn’t any hardwire strung between the parked clanships waiting to launch. Now there was a second wave of one hundred missiles inbound he was told, even as his ship left the atmosphere. He considered what the impact on his mission would be if all hundred missiles were successful, and each destroyed clanships mostly full of replaceable warriors. Unlikely, but it was a consideration.

Tor Gatrol Kanpardi, and even Til Gatrol Telour, would consider losing nearly two hundred invasion fleet clanships a significant loss, even if only about six percent of this fleet. At least replacement warriors were never in short supply. There were several million warriors in reserve at their base on K1. He made an instant decision as to which clanships he could least afford to lose.

“Launch all clanships loaded with equipment next. Do it now, immediately.” With radio communications disrupted to perhaps a quarter of his waiting two thousand clanships, some of those loaded with supplies in the southern section would still launch in the third wave as preplanned. The equipment in those ships was actually more valuable than were his warriors. Therefore, preserving as many that carried equipment as possible was a priority. This damned Worthy Enemy was becoming a painful injury in the cloaca.

Preserving material over warriors was a viewpoint he had not appreciated before, when Telour had explained Kanpardi’s reasoning for pulling stored supplies from Poldark. Now that the success of his own invasion plans required this equipment, and he knew there were ample warriors available elsewhere, he suddenly embraced the same attitude. He doubted warriors with low breeding status would agree. Those males and females with higher status would have had their seed or unfertilized eggs already preserved, as did he, so that their proven strong genetic line would continue.

He spoke to his pilot. “Delay our Jump to K1, there may be more orders required from me if the humans have more tricks to use. Stay with the vanguard clanships.” The rendezvous point for the fleet was K1, where they had always intended to take on more small arms and their power packs, and now he might need more warriors to carry those weapons.

The elements of the first wave, which had launched right behind him, were also nearly clear of the atmosphere. The forty-eight vanguard clanships had preemptively launched numerous anti-ship missiles in the general direction of Poldark’s moon, where the thirty heavy cruisers often lurked. They fired plasma and laser beams at the hundreds of railguns in higher orbits. The railguns had all turned to face away, and their thick back shields were absorbing the energy, and only a few suddenly drifted out of control or exploded.

At least when they were facing away from the planet in that self-defense mode, they couldn’t launch their tens of thousands of depleted uranium slugs, with the locater transmitters in them. As it turned out, when the Krall vanguard’s radar signals had time to search the space above the occupied continent, they discovered the humans didn’t need to fire any more slugs.

At least several hundred thousand slugs were already enroute towards the area over the center of the continent, directly above where the Krall defensive circle was located. They had obviously fired them when the vanguard ships were just igniting their thrusters, or even slightly before then. That was because the heavy slugs were three quarters of the way there as the vanguard ships broke atmosphere. It was too late to counter the railguns.

The surface missile attack, as Pendor’s ship launched, obviously wasn’t a fluke of luck or good guesswork on the enemy’s part either.

An impressive array of locater slugs was converging on the fringe of atmosphere where his fleet would have to make their exit. The slugs might do some minor damage to the hulls and some to equipment or warriors as they penetrated, but the likelihood of serious damage directly from those random hits wasn’t what worried Pendor when he was told of them. Again, humans knew what the Krall were planning. How were they going to make use of the information they would gather from the inevitable lucky slug hits on nearly invisible clanships?

Both ground and space based enemy plasma and laser batteries could cost him some ships, as could anti-ship missiles if those were already on the way. There was no sign of the atmospheric “sniffer” missiles that could lock onto a clanship’s ion trails and launch thrusters. They seldom were fired at long range, since they were more easily thwarted when seen coming.

Pendor wished the enemy cruisers had made an attack run on his fleet. If the heavy cruisers had dived towards the lifting clanships, launching their anti-ship missiles, the surviving majority of the heavy ground batteries would have shot them ragged, not to mention the formidable return fire from clanships. Thirty heavy cruisers against three thousand clanships was a suicide mission for those crews. That was not something humans were noted for doing.

Pendor, who had observed human railgun use for over two years, noted that the clump of approaching railgun slugs was extremely compact. They had not fired long continuing bursts, as was typically done against previous launches of only a hand of clanships. Even the slugs fired from more distant gun platforms were timed to arrive with the slugs fired later from closer guns.

He would have expected a larger number of the slugs, spread over a longer time, if they truly had anticipated what the Krall had planned. This time, with thousands of clanships lifting, it seemed halfhearted.

They might succeed in randomly locating dozens of the first clanships to achieve better stealth when they reached vacuum, and before they could travel a safe distance out of the gravity well to Jump. Except, the longer range for human plasma and laser fire to reach the area over the center of Krall held territory would reduce the effectiveness of having that accurate targeting data. Beam dispersal, and the atmospheric fringe would attenuate long-range energy weapons.

Pendor thought that they should have used those vulnerable heavy cruisers to move in and fire anti-ship missiles and close-up plasma cannons from short range. Yet they were nowhere to be seen. Humans were too timid. He often wished this enemy would fight more boldly, and stop retreating so much of the time.

His own ship was already far above the atmospheric fringes when the cloud of projectiles passed well below them, and entered the swarm of rising clanships. His sensors reported the sparkle of twenty-five or thirty small detonations, accompanied by the signal bursts of data the slugs transmitted to the listening human AIs. He anticipated a flurry of distant and largely ineffective energy beams, seeking the freshly identified targets based on their current vectors.

His education on humans was proving to be an ongoing process. He discovered the basis for the human idiom “Be careful what you wish for.”

His wish was granted, as over thirty White Outs flashed their gamma radiation in all directions from within the Krall fleet’s formation.

****

Admiral Foxworthy was on the bridge of her ship, in the forefront of her reinforced heavy cruiser squadron, prepared to enter a Jump Hole, on the opposite side of Poldark from the Krall held territory.

She transmitted to all of her captains. “As soon as the Planetary Defense AI transmits the coordinates of slug hits, we all Jump on my AI’s mark after it assigns your designated targets. Come out shooting, and one minute later, we Jump back here. If hit and hurt, Jump away sooner.”

The burst transmission she expected arrived, and Foxworthy’s command to her AI to “Go!” was redundant. They had already entered the Jump Hole.

The admiral, and every crewmember of each of the ships, was encased in gel-filled armor as protection from uncompensated accelerations, and secured at their battle stations. The ship’s main AI had navigation control, and the weapons control AIs had just been programed with targeting coordinates. The targets were initially protected by a rather bulky planet being in the way, and were located on the opposite side of Poldark, a situation being remedied by a short Jump. They were using a typical Krall tactic today on that same enemy.

Faster than a human could blink, the squadron emerged on the opposite side of Poldark, within the loose formation of clanships rising out of atmosphere. They could Jump into the gravity well this close to a planet, but the squadron needed to climb farther out of the gravity well to Jump away. Even as each ship fired its maximum number of twenty simultaneous anti-ship missiles, the plasma cannons were firing at the newly identified coordinates of clanships randomly struck by slugs. The cruiser’s lasers were being used as detectors, by sweeping the space around each ship at relatively low power, trying to identify any reflection or refraction anomalies that suggested other undetected clanships in stealth mode.

The Normal Space drives were already engaged, driving the cruisers up and away from the planet, firing at every identified target, and new ones that were being found as their lasers identified nearby distortions for them to target.

The Krall, not as fast as an AI, were nevertheless quick to react. The cruisers had the newer stealth coating technology that Nabarone’s technicians had provided to the PU cruisers, but this was its first test in combat. It was as good as Krall stealth or better, but so long as they kept firing at Krall targets of opportunity, their own locations were not in doubt. Each of the clanships that fired on them also lost its anonymity, which provided a “target rich” environment for the cruisers.

The cruisers had emerged exactly as the tail end of the cloud of railgun slugs passed through the first wave of Krall clanships. They were inside the Krall formation, firing before the Krall knew what was happening. The planetary and space based batteries of the Planetary Defense Command was also firing on each newly identified Krall ship, and trying to avoid any inadvertent hits of friendlies mixed in with them.

One of the clanships, badly damaged by an anti-ship missile that had knocked out its Jump capability, used its Normal Space drive to turn directly into a nearby cruiser, clearly defined by the origin of its energy beams and missiles. The cruiser’s main AI, detecting the oncoming ship on radar where its stealth coating was gone, tried a desperate surge in acceleration and a twisting turn to avoid the intended rammer. It was too close to the planet to execute a Jump, and the acceleration exceeded the safe limits the gel-filled suits could provide to the human crew.

They were all unconscious when the clanship struck them, at a closing velocity of tens of miles per second. They literally never knew what hit them. The clanship, loaded with over two thousand warriors, all knew what was happening, as the hull ruptured and spewed them into space. The impact, explosive fireball, and spinning fragments killed the majority of them, but a few “lucky” temporary survivors were able to observe the swirl of combat action from inside their armor, once it automatically stabilized their tumbling. It was a level of alert observation those warriors would maintain for almost a full day, before they fell back to Poldark. None of them had achieved escape velocity, and both the living and dead Krall made brilliant glowing streaks across the evening sky the next day. Very pretty.

Pendor watched in shock as so many of his precious cargo ships vanished in fireballs. As before, the loss of warriors was regrettable, but not a resource in short supply. His sensors informed him, as the cruisers winked out at the same altitude as his clanships did, that only four of the enemy ships were destroyed of the thirty, while he had lost another forty-one. The later launches, already underway, were going to have to run the gauntlet of energy beams and missiles, but unless the humans had another hand of a hand of cruiser squadrons, most of his fleet would reach K1 intact. He estimated that he might lose as much as ten percent of his invasion fleet, before the invasion even started.

That amounted to three hundred clanships, fully loaded, against only four human cruisers killed, and a handful of unmanned gun platforms and two orbital batteries. This operation was ordered by Kanpardi, so Pendor would only be held responsible if the invasion went badly.

He spoke out for the first time, after his ship entered the Jump Hole. “Kanpardi ordered this operation as a means to punish humans for attacking our worlds. Do any of you think that lesson was learned by them this week?” In a show of disrespect, he’d omitted the title of Tor Gatrol.

It was a redundant question. There was no way the ground assault of the last several days had achieved a lasting gain of territory, or had produced the massive number of human deaths desired. The partial withdrawal, intended to divert resources from stockpiles on Poldark to use in another invasion by this fleet, would require supplementation now from material and warriors on K1. That material in turn, was partly intended for mounting a second new invasion. Material losses were delaying their plans, interfering with their walk along the Great Path.

Telour was completely right. Kanpardi was preserving the devastating Olt’kitapi ships when they should be used to inflict real damage to entire human worlds, to force them to comply with Krall demands. Telour was the war leader that the Krall needed now.

****

“Henry that was a spectacular example of anticipating a more powerful enemy’s moves, and applying the hurt to them when they did what you expected.” Admiral Bledso was nearly gushing in her praise.

General Cadifem resisted the temptation to roll her eyes. Nabarone had done very well, but there had been some narrow escapes from disaster on the ground. She thought the real source of Bledso’s enthusiasm was the successful surprise attack by the heavy cruisers, under Admiral Foxworthy, against at least a thousand clanships. She had been afraid that they could lose the entire squadron by Jumping right into the hornet’s nest that way. The four ships lost had cost Foxworthy dearly, but was tempered by the destruction of at least forty enemy clanships by her squadron. Some of their hits were being claimed by ground and orbital batteries, and credit would be sorted out in a later review. Regardless, it was the Navy’s best trade of punches with the Krall in space since Admiral Mauss hit K1 the second time, over twenty years ago.

Politics had forced the navy to be largely bystanders in the resulting ground oriented war, after Rhama was nearly destroyed. According to Nabarone, there could be no more Eight Ball attacks, because human raiders from some Rim world group had destroyed the orbital station where they were manufactured, and had wiped out the small stockpile of completed weapons. There was Tri-Vid recordings of that action, and scenes of the slave labor aliens being rescued.

Nabarone’s explanation, that a shortage of war material was the only reasonable explanation for the Krall to risk so much by removing them from Poldark, appeared borne out by events. It would have worked without a hitch, if Nabarone had not figured out what the clanship build up here had implied. That insight seemed suspect to Cadifem, since pig headed Henry Nabarone had seldom been so predictive in the past.

She had to admit that in the last few days, he seemed to be a different man. He thought faster, recalled details that most commanders needed their aides or AIs to recall for them, and he looked healthy. He had lost weight while he was healing from his broken leg, and moved more…, she hated to use the word graceful in describing anything to do with the boorish man. He limped at times, but occasionally seemed to have healed just fine.

Bledso was passing along a request from Foxworthy. “Henry, we’d like your Rim contacts to provide the same stealth coating for our Starfires as they have on the Shadows they flew. The spray-on temporary stealth for the cruisers helped them, but in the scrum they were in, it wasn’t as useful when they had to shoot constantly, revealing their locations. Can’t the navy buy some of those canisters of coating material they used? You know we’ll be looking at the stuff on the cruisers, and taking Starfires apart to see how it all works after they’re coated.”

“Admiral, I explained before that the Rimmer scientists claim they don’t yet fully understand the technology, and the alien Prada and Torki that gave us some help on that naturally have different languages. It will take time. You’ve had captured single ships and damaged clanships for a long time. You have never figured out how the stealth works from those examples.”

“We need any edge we can get. They have to let us have this.”

“Admiral, they offered it free this time, and will sell you the use of as much of the substance you want, if you compensate them fairly. You won’t get their technology for some time. They don’t even want money. They want to be allowed to buy weapon systems and supplies from the same companies that the army and navy use. Just like they bought the space planes they modified to call Shadows.”

“Henry, I don’t have the authority to do that, but I can certainly take the proposal back to the Hub with me, and let the politicians decide. If our scientists can’t duplicate the technology, you know damn well the Rimmers will get their price. The small numbers of the Rimmers involved here made a disproportionate difference in the outcome. Very effective people. I’ll be sure and mention that.”

When she says Rimmers, thought Nabarone with amusement, she doesn’t know she’s actually describing Kobani, and is saying this to one of them. He’d be interested in knowing if her favorable impression of them would alter, if she knew how they had achieved their capabilities.

****

As Telour warned Pendor before this meeting today on K1, the Tor Gatrol was displeased. Somehow, Pendor needed to retain his position as the Gatlek for the new invasion. Telour had conspired with him to grant him this role, in trade for his cooperation to help him replace Kanpardi. They both had considerable status to gain, or lose.

As it happened, the Tor Gatrol was a bit more than displeased when Pendor was alone with him. Kanpardi snarled, “You allowed two hundred seventy eight of the clanships I gave you to be lost, simply while leaving Poldark, and now you want me to advise the Joint Council to replace your losses?”

“My Tor, I was following your command to withdraw enough forces to establish a new invasion front. The humans appeared to have been anticipating the event. They demonstrated preplanning, as if they knew not only what we would do, but when we would move.”

Still furious, Kanpardi demanded, “How would you explain this security breach, where the humans learn of a plan that Telour told you in private, and only you on Poldark knew the details? When you informed the leaders of major clans of my orders, did you use unencrypted radio communications? The quantum keys we use are unbreakable. Races more advanced than human could not decipher our messages in the past. Even the Olt’kitapi, who was the most advanced species in quantum sciences, used the same secure methods of encryption.”

“My Tor, all our radio messages were encrypted, and the keys are changed regularly. I did not use radio to inform the major clan leaders or any of my staff of their honored role in a new invasion. I summoned them to my bunker, and explained it muzzle to muzzle, just as Telour advised me to do. They were ordered not to discuss the plan outside their highest sub leaders already on Poldark, to prevent the minor clans from learning of the partial withdrawal and new invasion. As evidence that this secrecy was maintained, the small clans did not learn of the withdrawal before the fleet lifted, even though they share the same encryption keys we use. They were surprised and angry. There was no communications leak.”

Kanpardi sounded less angry and more inquisitive now, and puzzled. “Yet the humans knew they needed only to retreat with their armies until your fleet departed. Before the presumably surprise assaults even started they had infiltrated stealthed troops, and planted explosives along a section of the perimeter around your inner defensive circle. They detonated them exactly as your own ship lifted, allowing their low altitude cruise missiles to enter. In space, they fired railguns at exactly where your ships would leave atmosphere, and many clearly fired before you started to launch, coordinating the arrival times from many different gun platforms.” He paused in thought.

“This is much like we did to them on their first fleet attack here on Telda Ka, when we sensed their larger ships coming to attack what they call K1, through the advance ripples in Tachyon Space. We were waiting where their largest ships arrived. Our departing fleet would not produce advance tachyon waves before any of our thousands of clanships Jumped. That obviously is not how they knew.” He was thinking aloud, analyzing the facts and possibilities.

“Next, they Jumped a full squadron of heavy cruisers directly into your fleet’s midst, equipped with an advanced stealth system similar to ours, firing all weapons as they emerged, at targets identified seconds earlier by exploding railgun slugs that had just swept through your formation. The cruisers then quickly fled before suffering a tenth of the damage done to our ships, despite your overwhelming numbers. I wish my selected leaders and their advisors had planned as well as these mere animals.” That derogatory reference, a near insult actually, could only be directed to the Gatlek and his staff.

Pendor had thought about what he would say to the hard questions he knew he would be asked. He had prepared his unlikely defense. “I do not believe it was a failure of any communications protocol, my Tor. It must have been the result of information taken from an unsuspecting member of my staff, or from a major clan’s sub leader after the secret was passed to them in person. It would have been done using a new drug the humans have, and which I reported to you more than one orbit ago. It is said to force a warrior to enter the pretend death a human experiences nightly, and speak when unconscious, just as captive humans sometimes do.”

“We do not experience the pretend death they call sleep. What is this strange story you weave to excuse mistakes?”

“My Tor, it was in a report, one I made after my investigation of my predecessor’s death at the hands of humans. Gatlek Gentda’s death was part of a deliberate plan to capture him alive, and extract information using a sleep drug, derived from an unknown natural chemical that forces a human to need sleep. In our ancient histories, our race once also did this daily rest, before we bred this weakness away. I’m told the soft Krall still go partly dormant at night.”

“I recall that report, but not any results from an investigation of the human that confessed to you. Explain the story.”

Pendor repeated the sheer fabrications that Sergeant Reynolds had spun to try to stave off his torture and death. Namely, that the humans had deliberately gone after the old Gatlek to drug him and get information. At the time, Reynold’s fabrication seemed smarter than to admit what would be a fatal truth for him. That Gentda was simply brash and dumb enough to be caught in a human ambush and killed, and Reynolds only took the Gatlek’s body because his more advanced looking armor displayed some different communications technology.

The concocted story had kept Reynolds alive, and gotten him off Poldark, enroute to some other Krall world, to safeguard his phony knowledge from supposed assassination by humans that knew he might “talk.” An unexpected and unauthorized detour of the clanship to land on Koban inadvertently saved his life, a detail unknown to Pendor.

That bullshit story apparently lived on with Pendor. Except now, it was part of the Gatlek’s own bullshit cover story. The Krall certainly couldn’t have quoted a better source for his heaping pile of bovine dung.

Kanpardi glared at his subordinate. “No one else has ever reported a similar story. You said the ship with this captive disappeared. Is there evidence to back your story?”

“I have recordings of the interrogations, my Tor.”

“Even if it was true, how would that have revealed any of the withdrawal plans?”

“After your plan was under implementation, there were sub leaders of the major clans reported missing in combat that had that knowledge, and a middle status warrior from my own staff vanished. He left the bunker to organize and coordinate the moving of supplies for the withdrawal, shortly before an artillery barrage. We assumed his, and the other missing warriors, were typical random losses due to enemy action or perhaps from a death challenge from a warrior in a rival clan. The bodies were not found.

Pendor shivered his left shoulder, in the pattern of a Krall shrug movement. “It is conceivable that one or more of them, each with partial knowledge of the coming withdrawal, was seriously wounded and taken alive. This reported sleep drug is used to prevent a warrior from forcing their own death, and to place them into the same pretend death that humans enter nearly every day. In that state, it was said that some warriors speak in answer to questions. I have seen this happen with the prisoner I mentioned, who when exhausted by forced alertness for days, spoke to our questions when allowed finally to enter pretend death.”

“I do not accept that a warrior can be made to betray the Great Path.”

“The human, who agreed to help us if we allowed him to live, said a warrior would not know they were helping humans, or were even speaking the words into the air. I will repeat this story before the joint clan council. I have a copy of my report and the recorded interrogations, since the original must have been lost. This reported new drug might explain the sudden human competence in the face of what should have been a masterful and unexpected strategy on your part, Tor Gatrol.”

Kanpardi wasn’t fooled by the clumsy and blatant flattery from Pendor, yet there was an advantage to be had here for him. The invasion force to land on the old human colony of New Glasgow, a heavily populated and advanced world on the edge of their Hub region, needed every advantage to establish a firm talon grip before the humans brought in reinforcements. The loss of ten percent of the material for Pendor’s invasion force could possibly jeopardize that operation, and Kanpardi, who had developed that plan, would suffer a loss of status and influence if it did.

Kanpardi swiped talons of one hand at empty space. “I do not see another way for humans to have predicted in advance what I would do in response to their attacks on our factory worlds.”

Kanpardi was intelligent, but his inbred Krall ego wouldn’t permit him to consider that a human prey animal, one much like the now surely long dead Mirikami, could understand his motivations so well. A prey animal that had foreseen his most probable course of actions, based on the Krall’s current supply shortage. A shortage created by the prey’s own actions. That possibility fell outside any reasonable worldview of the Krall war leader.

He reached a decision, one that required him to keep Pendor as Gatlek for the next invasion. “I will take you to speak to the joint clan council. Tell them your story. I will recommend that the needed supplies be furnished for your fleet. After you have established a base of operations on the target world of New Dublin, I will personally visit there to see that things proceed as I want.”

He needed Pendor’s invasion started and removed from his immediate concern, so he could focus on his next task. The second invasion he was planning was of another world, also located one quarter of the way around the sphere of Human Space, in the opposite direction, named New Glasgow. This was one of the outer lying main Hub worlds, which humans considered safe. It would be easy to establish a successful landing there, due to a lack of any sizable military base and a modest agricultural economy, much as Bollovstic once had been like. It was far removed from the region where Poldark and the now defeated Bollovstic were located. Attacking both New Dublin and New Glasgow would deliver a shock to humanity.

He idly wondered where the old places they were named after were located. Attacking those would truly shock the humans. He’d have to assign someone to research where those older named worlds were located.

The two new targets were even farther from the dead colony that humans had called Greater West Africa, before Kanpardi ordered the population exterminated so he could use the world as a base, now called K1 by humanity. These two invasions, in opposite directions, would demonstrate the long reach and power that the Krall could still exert. A double blow to an enemy that might think they had significantly damaged the Krall’s ability to wage uninterrupted war.

Kanpardi believed his approach offered the best future for developing new breeding lines of Krall. The latest hatchings were producing a higher number of cubs that displayed faster learning, and which employed better strategies to find advantages over larger cubs born weeks earlier. It was clear that breeding only for brawn and strength was not all that was needed to confront a highly adaptable species like humanity. This race could be easily defeated at this stage, but what would have happened if they had not met them for another five thousand years?

The Tor Gatrol decided they definitely had to add higher intelligence and trickery to the list of advantageous attributes to breed for, when facing an enemy like humanity. It appeared humans might have found a way to turn a great weakness, the need for sleep, into a potential weapon.

If Reynolds bullshit stories could be weaponized, they would be lethal.

Chapter 8: Feral Consequences

“Wake up, sleepy head. Can’t win this war with your eyes closed half the time.”

Carson prodded Alyson awake, where she lay napping in her acceleration couch on the Bridge of the Beagle.

The pretty girl snapped to instant wakefulness, quickly absorbing her surroundings and data from her console, as only a Kobani could do. “We’re still three thousand four fifty two miles out. Not a sign of clanships, no radio transmissions, and no radar scans of us. It’s not the start of my watch until we reach low orbit.” She checked the time. “I could have slept at least another six minutes,” she protested.

“What would six more minutes do for you, lazy bones?” Carson asked with a grin, seated at a nearby couch and out of immediate reach of an irritated woman.

“At ten times a normal persons thought processing speed, it’s like an hour of sleep to me.” She answered in a rather lighthearted grumble, as she triggered her couch to morph into a sitting position.

She added, in a dig at her new husband. “Or for a slow male mind like yours, that’s almost like a full night of rest.”

“Oh ho. It’s going to be a bit grumpy out this morning, it seems. I let you sleep longer when I came up thirty minutes ago, carrying some breakfast for you.” He countered.

“Oh? Where is it?” She looked around, in obvious interest.

“I ate it. You were asleep.” He laughed at the contradiction.

She stuck out her tongue. “Honeymoon is over, I guess.”

“Nope, I made more. Enough for you and the Captain, and left it in the warmer. She went down to eat hers a half an hour ago, and she’s on her way back up with yours. It’s why I woke you. That, and to let you see this abandoned Krall world as we approached.”

“Philodor was a Prada colony, not a Krall world.” She reminded him.

“Not for probably ten or fifteen thousand years, since the Krall took it from them. The sensors haven’t found signs of Prada construction at this range. There are numerous seriously dilapidated dome circles, which the Krall left behind. From what Wister and his sister Nawella told us, a Krall clan pulled out of Philodor at least a thousand years ago. That’s time enough for any villages to have grown into cities, and factories to have been repaired and turned to local use.”

There was a voice behind them both. “You’re forgetting that these still were the elder worshipping Prada, obeying the commands of the Krall, whom they thought was the eldest race and their rightful Rulers.” That came from the top of the stairwell. The Captain was back on the Bridge. Marlyn walked over and set a tray of food on the console by Alyson.

“Thanks Captain.” Alyson asked her a question. “Wouldn’t they realize they had been abandoned after the first couple hundred years?”

Marlyn shook her head. “From Mind Taps I’ve had with Nawella this week and with other Prada elders on Haven, unless the elders down there died by accident or disease, the last leaders here should still be alive. If the final Krall to leave here told them not to increase their population, not to build anything new, they’ll be doing exactly what the Prada on Haven were doing when we found them. Living in a few small tree villages, maintaining underground factories for future use. They had been doing that on Haven for over a hundred years without changing. Wister’s people didn’t want to disobey their elders.”

“They’re sure building like hell now.” Carson noted.

“They haven’t exactly been on their own since we showed up, have they? Particularly after we, and the Torki, worked to restore the Raspani as a thinking species. The Raspani are the oldest species the Prada now know, and they told the Prada they are free of any Krall restrictions. To the Raspani’s credit, they also told them to do what their own elders want them to do, not what any other race tells them to do, older or not. That’s why we have Nawella with us, and Torki and Raspani representatives. To smooth the process of making new contacts, assuming we find survivors here of any of their peoples.”

Looking at the sensor data from Philodor, Alyson looked sad. “The Krall really left a trail of empty worlds behind them. Often covered with lush vegetation, and having many small to midsized animals and a lot of sea life normally, but nothing approaching higher intelligence.” Alyson spoke around a bite of smoked rhinolo meat, and scrambled golden gem bird eggs.

“Kids, you missed out on some of the school lessons your parents and I got when living in Human Space, about typical native alien life on our settled planets. On Koban, you needed to be taught how to survive, and learn something about our own largely unexplored world. You will learn now that the majority of planets we’ve found have hosted some form of life, even complex animal life forms, but rarely anything approaching intelligent. There are more and brighter animal species on Koban than on any other planet humans have settled. More even than found on Mother Earth. The smartest of these on Koban seem to be the rippers, but there are plenty of other clever animals. That’s probably a result of the superconducting nervous systems, which speeds the thinking of animals there.

“In Human Space, people settled over seven hundred twenty habitable worlds, or at least made extensive use of them, and every single one of them had some sort of life. More than half of them already had very lush and diverse ecosystems. None but Earth had produced technological intelligent life, or a species that might evolve to become technological. Koban, with highly intelligent rippers and their cat cousins, and our smart wolfbats, some surprisingly smart dinosaur species, and the recent find of clever sea mammals, is an exceptional world. Would there ever have been a technological species evolve on Koban? We don’t know, but certainly not soon. Only primates on Earth advanced to complex tool making, and that took about two million years, from stone hand axes to electronics.

“Do you foresee even the smartest animals we’ve found on Koban evolving to change body designs, so that they could build spaceships and leave their world?”

Shaking her head, she answered her rhetorical question. “I don’t think rippers or wolfbats would evolve in that direction, but over many millions of years some other new species there might have.

“We know a great deal more about successful technological species now, from information provided by the three friendly alien races we’ve met, and the one unfriendly species we wish we’d not met. Of the seventeen species beaten by the Krall, each had colonized systems around their home world, where a single technologically capable intelligence had evolved after billions of years, as did humanity, and they too expanded after reaching space. Only they all achieved interstellar space travel much later in their racial histories than we did, and even then they expanded very gradually, cautiously, over many thousands of years after first reaching orbit. They were quite selective of what planets they settled, demanding comfort and compatibility, whereas we change planets to suit us.”

She shrugged, “We humans seriously broke that pattern of gradual expansion, and the length of time taken to reach the stars after first reaching orbit. We are apparently the hyperactive kids in this neck of the galaxy. We were not necessarily the brightest people, at least not when we built our early civilizations, but now we may be capable of matching the best minds we’ve encountered thus far. That would be the Raspani, Torki, and Prada, but we don’t know how we would measure up to the Olt’kitapi.

“All of those races have tens of thousands of years of experience over us. We certainly surpass the Krall, but that isn’t a guarantee of survival, since all of the species the Krall conquered were probably smarter than they were, on average, and some were much smarter. Being strong, adaptable, and warlike appears to be an advantage we share with the Krall. Not a flattering thought.” She grimaced for a moment.

“Anyway, with our advantages of superconducting brains, ripper Mind Taps and wolfbat memory organization and storage, I think mentally we will soon catch up to the science of the Raspani and Torki, who use mental technical aids given to them by an older species. I think we already exceed the Prada, who use longevity to extend their learning time. Some of our scientists are absorbing what our alien friends know day by day, and are experimenting with new applications the other species didn’t even consider, or were afraid to try if they seemed risky. I’m sure we’ll make brash mistakes, because humans always have, and yet we have survived some extremely bad mistakes. It wasn’t our mistake to meet the Krall, but I think we’ll find a way to survive that meeting. Perhaps we’ll have to escape to another part of the Galaxy. We can adapt to most worlds we’ll find.

“Evolution and stiff competition on higher gravity Earth has already given us an adaptation edge over most races we’ve met or heard about. Physically, we already were stronger than nearly any intelligent species we’ve learned about except for the Krall, and they didn’t evolve naturally, using deliberate breeding. Unmodified humans aren’t as strong as the Botolians were, I suspect. The Botolians were fought to extinction by the Krall, so we’ll never know how we would have matched up with them, physically.”

Carson countered what he saw in her discussion as anthropocentrism, of focusing on the human example. “The Krall have expanded, they are active in space, and they are widely distributed. They also have some rather bright representatives. Humans don’t seem so rare to me.”

Marlyn didn’t entirely agree, and explained the differences. “If the Olt’kitapi had left them on their home world I doubt the galaxy at large would have ever seen a single Krall off their original planet. The Krall didn’t become a space faring and colonizing species by their unaided efforts. They don’t truly colonize now. They were placed in space by an advanced race, handed spacecraft, weapons and technology, which provided them the means to expand. They didn’t achieve this start on their own initiative.

“When they have encountered another species, they have immediately attacked and conquered an unprepared peaceful race, took what they could use for war, wiped them out or enslaved them, and in a relatively short time moved on to new territory when they stumbled onto the next slowly expanding species. Except for holding onto some factory worlds with slaves doing the work, they leave nearly empty and habitable worlds in their wake when they get bored with the lack of fighting and move on. Those planets appear ready for colonization again, after the Krall plague of destruction has passed by, and the ruined ecosystems start to recover.”

Alyson, as she continued to eat for two, perked up a bit. “Then there must not be as many Krall as we first thought, since they don’t stay to populate and fully develop a world, as we would do. We’ve overestimated their numbers and their threat because we assumed they would exploit those worlds as humans would.”

Marlyn, looking at the small bulge over Alyson’s abdomen, smiled at her naivety.

“No, there aren’t nearly as many Krall as we first thought. Surely not as many as there are humans alive today. We can’t be complacent though, since they can expand their population exponentially faster than we can ours. A sturdy woman with a healthy sperm source available for insemination, right after the Collapse when we needed to rebuild a population reduced by half, could theoretically produce twenty children in twenty to thirty years. However, not very many women ever matched that extreme reproductive rate, or even tried.

“The vast majority of women settled for two to five deliveries, with male selectivity being slightly favored over female conceptions by using non-technological methods. Some harsh gender enhancement methods consisted of abortions when the fetus was determined to be female. In the post Collapse era, the new central government would not allow the use of genetics or advanced medical technology for gender selection. Despite the need for increasing the male population, it took centuries to achieve.

“In contrast, from the age of twelve a Krall female is capable of producing roughly twenty eggs every eight months, roughly half being additional females. In twenty years, there can be at least six hundred direct offspring from a single egg layer. After the first hatchlings reach the age of twelve years, the first ten of the original female offspring are physically capable of breeding and laying eggs. In eight more months, another ten egg layers will be ready from each of those older hatchings and the original mother, and so on from each new female.

“The Krall normally allow the majority of hatchlings to die in a raw struggle for survival before they even select those they want to start training. Many of those chosen don’t reach adulthood under the harsh combat training conditions. After completing novice training, few win enough status to deserve breeding rights until it’s earned in battle, roughly by age twenty. If they survive, but fail to be a good enough killer, they are sent to train novices but don’t get to breed.

“Except that the the Krall could decide to preserve all of their hatchlings and use all of their potential breeders, assuming they wanted to build a force composed mainly of fierce cannon fodder. They could give novices rudimentary training and plasma rifles, and then a thousand clanships could deliver two million of the young killers to a Hub world in an hour. When they run out of the ammunition they brought, a human civilian population still can’t protect themselves effectively from a Krall’s teeth and talons, and from what other weapons they can steal. It takes armies, which must protect every single city on every planet. The same thousand clanships can add another two million warriors at any time on any other planet.

“Even adolescent cubs are capable of fighting and killing ordinary unarmed humans with near impunity. We would truly face a savage, if perhaps dumber horde, which the populations in Human Space could not defeat, even with guns placed in every hand of every adult and teen. It’s only the Great Path’s selective breeding concept that prevents the Krall from using such a tactic. If we started winning the war, do you think they would withdraw, and offer to make peace, or go after us tooth and talon with everything they have? They can clean up their genetic weaknesses later, when we are all dead.”

Carson grimaced. “The Olt’kitapi should have left them where they found them, to eventually overrun the Krall home planet, eating one another.”

“I’m sure as the ancients died they wished the same thing. They were an altruistic race and wanted to help other species change and advance. Unfortunately, they couldn’t do that for the Krall, so now we have to find a way to survive and to clean up their mess. I hope it happens in our lifetime, but I honestly don’t know how. I’m sure you two don’t want your child fighting this war.”

“His!” Beamed Alyson. Refusing to allow a note of defeatism to spoil her morning. “And no, I don’t want him to have to fight hordes of Krall.”

“Then we need to gather and free as many of the Prada, Torki, and Raspani as we can find, to work with us if they wish. To produce the materials we require for the fight, and help us make the technological breakthroughs we need, and convince more of humanity to join the ranks of the Kobani. Therefore, let’s see who’s left on Philodor to help us.”

As Marlyn instructed Kap, her ship AI, to enter a two hundred mile equatorial orbit over the yellow green planet, she called down to the new gravity stabilization deck on level 10. She invited the three aliens there to come up to the Bridge, to occupy species designed seats there, for direct observation and conversation. She assured them there had been no sign of a Krall threat detected.

They could now house a limited number of alien and normal human guests in greater comfort, not to mention in a safer refuge if there was a risk of combat activity. Deck 10 had heavier new outer armor and thicker floor and ceiling armor. It was the personnel alcoves, with embedded internal trap fields, which furnished the needed physical protection for more fragile living beings than were Kobani, from the maneuvers of the ship itself.

These alcoves provided countering of inertial forces, caused by sudden and violent accelerations of the ship, which could potentially cripple or kill unprotected non-Kobani passengers. In cases of the most severe maneuvering, the individual compartments would automatically seal and rapidly fill with four different types of jells for added cushioning, the type of fluids being selected for each species.

This idea had been taken from Planetary Union Navy ships, to keep humans awake and in control of making combat decisions, which AIs had problems making. The Trap Field inertial compensators were new designs, and were the brainchild of a Kobani weapons technician. They were a scaled up application of the technology used on portable railguns and sliver rifles, which required considerable inertial force to counter the powerful kickback of those weapons, even when carried by a Kobani.

Each alcove’s protective jell was tailored to be the least irritating to the tissues of the species occupying the slots, and jell would fully cover them except where they needed respiratory, visual or communication devices, and waste removal. There were forty slots in all, ten each for the four vulnerable passenger species anticipated. There were no normal humans aboard on this trip, so some of the cylindrical units had been swapped out, and the Beagle carried an additional three Raspani, three Torki, and three Prada alcoves, in the event they needed to carry more rescued representatives of the three species, from Krall planets.

Dewy Grass was pleased to be able to visit the Bridge. The Raspani’s mind had only recently been embedded into the former “wild” body she now occupied, and she expressed relief when told she could leave the alcove. “After centuries of confinement in a mentally crowded multi personality mind enhancer, having to wait in this protective cylinder made me feel claustrophobic. At least that is the word my internal dictionary says is the proper one to use from Standard.” The Raspani spoke the language almost as well as any human, except with slurring at times, caused by having thicker lips and protruding small tusks. She was using the speech replicator hung around her neck now, to produce perfect Standard words.

Tramakar, the Torki to whom Dewy had addressed her remark, bobbed her carapace on the right side, which indicated understanding, if not a shared sentiment. From her voice box, her translated scrapes, clicks, and scratching sounds were also issued in perfect Standard. “The jell we Torki selected for our protective coating has a pleasant cool feel after the overly warm temperature humans find comfortable, and it has a very refreshing taste. The fluid is thin enough to pass easily through our gill slits when we open those for underwater breathing. It’s nearly as easy as processing seawater, and contains nourishment. I enjoy the immersion if it’s required.”

On the opposite side of the compartment from them was Nawella, who as a furred Prada was even more delighted than Dewy not to have the protective jell suddenly poured over her body. Claustrophobia was only a small part of her reason, however. Each Prada spent hours preening their fur, and after being coated in the clear jell, none of the solvents tried thus far fully removed the residue. Nawella, as an elder, felt it essential to look her best, and she required hours of preening to look presentable after being coated.

She had a perceptive observation to offer. “I sometimes think the exuberant sense of humor of humans tends to manufacture the excuse to call for an extreme ship maneuver that requires the immersion. Particularly the males of their species.” She ran her small front teeth and slender fingernails through some of her slightly ruffled silky fur, as the thought passed through her mind.

“I intend to ask Maggi Fisher what is meant by the term, you look like a wet rat. Of all humans, I trust her to be the most honest in her reply, even when the answer may not please me. If the expression is a form of mockery, there will be a painful nip for Sergeant Reynolds’ posterior, if he isn’t too fast for me. He was the pilot twice when I have been coated with jell on flights where he was in charge. He claimed once it was a false alarm, and no anti-ship missile had been fired after all, or another time that one had missed us. I heard a crewmember say he didn’t think there was a missile, that it was a prank. I found no Krall weapons listed by that name.”

Tramakar, his crab-like physiology being far more different from a human’s than was a Prada’s, nevertheless believed the Torki mind had a better grasp of the immature mannerisms of their newfound human partners. The more reserved, staid and prim Prada seemed to inspire humorous actions and remarks from humans, especially males. She offered some advice, “After speaking with Ambassador Fisher, I recommend that you file your two longer front teeth to make them sharper, and approach Sergeant Reynolds quietly from behind. Kobani are very fast, and have excellent hearing.”

Nawella seemed perplexed. “I should not allow him an opportunity to explain?”

“Oh, I’m certain he would like that opportunity. You must not grant him that advantage, not if you wish to extract the proper amount of personal justice from him. I believe Ambassador Fisher will advise you to do the same.” There followed the untranslatable scraping sounds that Nawella knew was Torki laughter.

By the time the three alien observers had stepped from the lift onto the bridge deck, the Beagle had inserted into a two hundred mile equatorial orbit, and had launched a half dozen scout drones to pass over the middle latitudes and poles.

Captain Greeves turned and said, “Welcome Ladies.”

For some peculiar reason, most female humans persisted in describing females of other species as well-mannered and considerate human women, with high standards of proper behavior in their society. Nawella had looked up the uniquely human cultural meaning, and had shared it with the Raspani and Torki females. They all were equally puzzled, but had decided not to question the usage, since it was clearly intended as a compliment.

Marlyn bore a puzzled expression. “I confess confusion, in that we have nothing yet to report of sightings of any of your peoples on the first two large continents. We have nearly completed a pass over both of those.”

She gestured to the three custom designed couch and restraint systems installed for their use. The three opposite view screen panels, one per observer, were set for full control by the observers from their respective stations.

Dewy was the first to review the recording of their approach and to zoom to look closely at the open prairies of grass, visible on the continent they were currently passing over. “Captain, the grasses look very high. I don’t see any signs of grazing. There aren’t even any forests. This appears to be perfect territory for wild Raspani to feed.”

In a gesture all of the aliens now recognized, Marlyn nodded. “Our AI, Kap, says it’s not at all what we were expecting. The old Prada records mentioned many native grazers of this world, which are also missing, and this continent was once half covered by forests. The trees are entirely gone, and so are the herds that should have been feeding on the expanded grasslands. We spotted several places where grass fires have burned hundreds of square miles, and have started regrowth. The land appears entirely unmanaged and uncultivated.”

Nawella latched onto the most alarming item that pertained to her own people. “No forests? Not even restored domes?”

They all knew the Prada would have preferentially lived in isolated patches of forests, and if no trees survived, would have moved into abandoned domes, maintaining them and awaiting the return of the Krall they obeyed.

Alyson had been making detailed surveys of the dome remnants seen. “Nawella, each of the four domes sighted thus far has been shattered, and the pieces were widely scattered after that happened. It’s more than mere neglect and a thousand years of decay. The domes were destroyed from the air, probably by missiles, and later the lighter weight pieces were carried away and abandoned. Ground penetrating radar is finding metal pieces and armored glass fragments left hundreds of miles away from domes, in the grass or just below the surface. Two domes that shielded underground factories were hit the hardest. From the signs still showing above the grass and in the pit below, they were blasted by missiles, and burns from plasma cannons show on the larger struts. The dome debris fell into the flooded cavities that formed below, from the adjacent lakes or streams of cooling water, and there are no indications of repairs ever started. Evidently, the Krall didn’t intend there to be anything for their slave workers to maintain. They were not returning here.”

Dewy didn’t consider that an adequate answer. “It would be difficult for the Krall, in in a hurry to leave, to kill every Raspani and Prada spread through the vast forests that were here then. Some Prada would have managed to eke out an existence, even without modern tools. Ferns and grasses would still sustain Raspani, even when native predators eventually returned.”

Tramakar offered an answer that probably had occurred to the uncomfortable looking humans, but they were waiting for the Prada and Raspani observers to think of it themselves.

She uttered the probable truth. “Grass, but no Raspani, forests gone and no domes where the Prada could take shelter. No native animals have grazed here. The Krall clan in charge of this world not only abandoned it, they wanted it uninhabited and empty of animal life. There is only one way it could appear this way now, after so many years for a full recovery.” She left the obvious inference hanging, letting the bitter fruit ripen.

Dewy had no direct memory of such examples, not even from the records contained in the ancient mind enhancers that had housed their millions of mental Raspani refugees. Worlds left like this one came long after the Raspani herds had lost their intelligence. This came after the Krall had used all of the Raspani worlds, one of their earliest conquests, and made the survivors their staple food. She didn’t make the dreadful connection.

Nawella, despite her reluctance to say the words, certainly knew what had happened, with such clues made obvious. A forward head dart was her nod, and the sidewise motion that followed indicated confusion. “It has to be feral Krall that made it like this, after the small Rekat clan destroyed their domes and factories here.”

Carson shared knowing and relieved glances with his wife and aunt. “We suspected this, but have never seen its result on such a large scale after so long a time had passed. There was a small feral Krall infestation, on an island on Koban, and another older one on a small Haven continent, which had died out. On Koban it had not lasted long, because Koban animals are much better at defending themselves.”

Nawella’s head dart in the affirmative was more emphatic this time. “The Rulers…, I mean the Rekat clan Krall, would have destroyed the domes and factories to deny the Prada any refuge or tools, and probably left many nests of eggs to hatch. The hatchlings would all grow and spread unchecked, for many generations.” Her shoulders shivered in a Prada shrug. It was a sign of recognition and acceptance of facts, not surprised revulsion.

“This continent would have been completely overrun by the hatchlings, and every living Raspani, Prada, or native creature was eventually caught and eaten. Starving, the untrained larger Krall would attack each other, eat those they killed, dig up worms, catch insects, and eat leaves, then eat tree bark, which killed the trees. They would rip up woody shrubs and break off tree limbs to use as clubs against each other to get food. In less than a thousand years, the once huge horde they grew into would have stripped this land down to the grasses and each other. I hope the last of them killed and ate one another long ago, and starved.”

Such a sentiment expressed by any Prada would have been impossible two years ago. The Raspani influence as the elder race, more than human encouragement, had made such maturing possible.

Carson wanted to offer a bit of hope, but he urged caution. “This continent seems barren of animal life, and we saw that half of another continent looked just like this one before it passed behind us. There are two other major landmasses we have not passed over yet, and numerous large and small islands.”

No sooner than he said that about islands, he looked quickly at Tramakar. “Were there ever any Torki here? They could have swum away from any of the continents, even if their tools and laboratories were destroyed.”

The crab dipped her carapace back in uncertainty. “We don’t have records in our Olts of contacts with any Torki evacuated from Philodor. Prada records from the memories of elders are all we have to guide us. They tell us that small arms production and shuttle building took place here, controlled by Rekat, a minor Krall clan. The shuttles and plasma rifles would at least have required the quantum key controllers for operation, which at a minimum one Torki colony would manufacture, probably two colonies. Of course, that work could have been done on another Krall world, if clanships collected the assembled equipment made by the Prada right here, and took them to a planet with a Torki colony. I would expect my Olt, with its greater range than the older standard devices, to be able to connect with Olts down there as we orbit. I have sensed no contacts.”

Alyson passed on another bit of dreary news. “The drones report a small continent to the north side of this one has only a narrow strait of water separating it, only about ten to fifteen miles wide, and the images show uninterrupted and empty grassland there so far. I think the Krall made it across, or perhaps a nest or two were left there as well.”

Forty-five minutes later, it was clear the Krall had infested all of the continents, and all of the largest islands. There remained hundreds of isolated small islands with trees, and a range of small animals and flying bird equivalents. Marlyn made a proposal to collect some of them and relocate them to the larger landmasses, for future expansion of their populations, but that idea was rejected by the three alien observers.

“Captain,” countered Dewy, “this world’s natural ecology was destroyed, and spreading small island creatures around is not going to establish what was once here. I believe that a smarter fresh start will be to select animals from known planets, choosing some that can flourish here, and will expand to fill the empty niches faster. We’d need a balance of predators and prey that match, and hundreds of niches filled with compatible animals and insects. It will require a hundred orbits of effort, needing frequent adjustments and revisits to strike a balance.

“Unlike you adaptable humans, none of our peoples would risk restoring our populations here before the ecology was rebalanced. Besides, at this stage of your war, the Krall could possibly return. Since the first steps will need time to complete before repopulation starts, and that can proceed without a constant guiding presence, no one needs to live on a damaged world during the initial ecological turmoil.”

Nawella agreed. “This is a task that we three representatives believe can be left to the efforts of those of us in need of future worlds to inhabit. Haven cannot be the only world we will jointly inhabit. This place seems ideal for developing another harmonious blended society of our four species. It was once a Prada colony, but it hasn’t been ours for thousands of years. We will need joint contributions to rebuild a civilization here, and we want to build a united society. Humans are of course welcome, and your protection and energy would be needed for some time, assuming the Krall can be defeated.”

Dewy resumed talking, “We can customize parts of the environments on different continents to suit the needs of all of our peoples. The Torki would wish to inhabit coastal areas and islands, and there is ample sea life for them to consume, so they may be the first to return. Until forests are replanted the Prada can’t easily live here, and even we Raspani desire more than grasses to eat. I would leave it to human settlers to decide what would make a suitable place for normal humans to call home. What would Kobani need Carson?”

He laughed, and then looked embarrassed and deferred to Marlyn.

She said, “What I think young Carson here found amusing is that the harmonious world you envision is imminently suited for your three races, and quite probably would be good for many of the settler types from Human Space, who will want to farm, operate mines and small factories, and build towns. When you mention Kobani, you are discussing an entirely more adventuresome new branch of humanity. A world that appeals to them, certainly to the three of us, isn’t likely to appeal to you or most Normal humans. Koban is a paradise for us now, but few other humans, and none of your three species has shown an interest in living there.”

Tramakar acknowledged that the future interests of the Kobani had been a topic of discussion for some time among the alien community. “It is premature to predict the outcome of your war with the Krall, but our future hopes all rest on your success at controlling their threat. We can only make progress towards a future if we believe you will find a way to do that. The planning must include those that will be part of the overall success. How do we include you? Would you prefer a role that always places you at risk, one that maintains your status as it is now? A protector?”

“Hmm.” Marlyn mulled that over. “I see so many obstacles to our success in this war that I for one haven’t considered a future role for us. I personally want to be an explorer, to discover and investigate new worlds, to scout them much as this mission is doing, only in completely unknown systems the Krall never touched. There are risks involved, and I relish them.

“Others of our people, particularly the young, crave adventure, and some will be willing, possibly eager, to face conflict. Some will be ready to enforce the laws, or defend people from oppressors or unjust laws. I’ll bet, if you speak to Captain Mirikami and Ambassador Fisher, you will discover they have been giving this subject thought for some considerable time. The two of them are always in front of the rest of us in matters like this.”

Dewy, after assessing the demeanor of her co-observers, smacked her lips and snorted in a sound of satisfaction. “We would never push any people into the hazardous role you Kobani fulfill now, yet it was difficult for us to envision what you would do outside of this war. Frankly, we admire, and we fear your capability. The slow expansion of our people in the past, compared even with the expansion of those you call Normals was extremely sedate by human measure.” The Raspani made an arm gesture that was equivalent to a shrug.

“As I understand the word’s meaning in your language, sedate doesn’t describe any human society from our perspective, and frenetic isn’t adequate to describe you Kobani to us. I hope that we can continue to warrant the friendship and protection of people like you. We Raspani know more of the galaxy than do you, and despite the Olt’kitapi mistake with the Krall, there were valid reasons for their wishing to have a species like the Krall as their defender.”

This comment immediately sparked Carson’s interest. “Like what? What did the Olt’kitapi fear that they wanted the Krall as body guards?”

Dewy, mimicking a human laugh put a vertical crease on her forehead in a Raspani smile. “Let us face one opponent at a time. Is there not enough to worry you now?”

Before Carson could pursue his question, Tramakar interrupted. “I have found Torki survivors here; or rather they have found me.”

****

Using the energy hungry Normal Space Drive, to reduce the sound and blast disruption from thrusters on the small island, the Beagle settled gently to ground. It landed close to the center of an atoll, where one group of former Torki forced labor had directed Tramakar. Landing there, well away from the beach, the spacecraft would cause the least amount of disruption, and pose less risk to the housing caves, and their laboratories by the shore.

It required extensive explanation of why a clanship that had suddenly appeared in this system was not under the control of the Krall. The Olt of Tramakar had been detected instantly by them when the Beagle made its White Out, even at a factor of ten farther out than the standard Olt would have managed. At least twenty thousand miles away, versus the usual two thousand mile Olt range. In caution, they had declined to attempt a link to avoid revealing themselves if the Krall had returned looking for slaves. They had even sensed the mind enhancer of Dewy, but with no experience of contact with intelligent Raspani, they had not known what to make of the strange signal.

The Olts used by the Torki on Philodor had considerable improvements over the standard model, which had been used for thousands of generations, unchanged from the revered original Olt’kitapi design. On Philodor, as their few colonies declined under the pressure of hordes of hungry Krall, they were forced to spread apart and occupy smaller islands. There were four colonies now, spread widely for safety, if the Krall ever returned.

The isolated Torki found that they needed additional Olt range to maintain the links between widespread colonies, and they needed them to be far more sensitive to the quantum entanglements that made the links between Olts work. They reluctantly experimented with the original Olt design, and achieved greater range.

This new linking worked despite massive intervening physical obstacles between distantly separated colonies that was more significant than a mountain range; namely, the entire diameter of the planet being placed between those on opposite sides. This redesign was done only so the scattered Philodor Torki could remain in contact globally. Their four colonies were placed on small island atolls spread around the globe, where they had remained safe from the feral Krall on the four continents and major islands.

Observing the curious actions of the clanship, and detecting the cautious radio and radar scans the ship used, they eventually recognized this was not Krall behavior, of “land and take control.” They took a chance and linked to the single Torki they detected, trusting that one of their own would keep their presence a secret if there were Krall aboard.

As with other fresh contacts by Haven Torki with newly discovered colonies, no sooner had the Philodor Torki established a synchronous link to Tramakar’s Olt, with its additional library available, every Olt on Philodor had simultaneously opened up vast volumes of new data to them. It was a day of multiple miracles. One of the miracles to them was the greatly enhanced mental linkage between Torki, which their cousins on Haven had been able to use since meeting Maggi Fisher the first time, and the Olt’s reaction to a Mind Tap.

The new library knowledge implied their species had made an evolutionary mental leap, able to share detailed individual thoughts and images directly, not simply the old consensus thinking of an entire colony. There was new knowledge of how to manage this process without being overwhelmed. How to maintain privacy and preserve your individuality.

Tramakar used the link to explain that this apparent new mental evolution was actually an accident, and not evolution. It had been triggered in the Torki Olts of the Haven population when they were contacted by a new species that called themselves humans. They were a new ally against the Krall, and this species did have a new mental ability.

The Olt’kitapi had not foreseen this possibility, of an outsider species with that ability contacting the Torki before the crabs gradually evolved to do the mental gymnastics on their own. Ready or not, since meeting Kobani humans, the Torki now could share thoughts directly using their Olts.

After introduction of the Philodor colonies to their new human benefactors, plans were made to route a migration ship here, with an armed Kobani escort, to evacuate the four Torki colonies to Haven. The Migration ships had been modified while in orbit at Haven, to access the faster T-squared level of tachyon Space. They could move all four small colonies in a relatively short Jump, at just under a week. Four Torki representatives were selected, one from each atoll, to select a new colony site on Haven for their combined populations. The Beagle could hold enough salt water and live seafood in a special hold for that handful of Torki to travel in comfort for a week.

The existence of a self-aware Raspani aboard, with a functioning mind enhancer, had been almost as much of a shock and as thrilling as discovering that these bizarre looking humans could share actual thoughts directly with any of the aliens, without a device planted in their brains.

Because the Raspani mind enhancers were an older technology, also designed by the Olt’kitapi, than were the Olts, the Raspani didn’t enjoy the same level of mental contact between their citizens, as did the Torki. Had the Krall revolt not interfered, it was likely the Olt’kitapi would have lived to share the newer technology with their earlier client species.

No matter how it had come about, the ability to link with the Raspani’s mind enhancer, a source of completely new information for the four Torki newcomers, was something they could not stop asking to do. Until Dewy asked them to please let her mind rest.

This sharing process wasn’t automatic and as direct with the Kobani, because physical contact was required for the mind-to-mind exchange to work. Even so, in the week before the Beagle departed, the island Torki population found inventive excuses for physical contact, so they could thrill to yet another alien’s thought processes and new information. Only Nawella was immune, and frankly, the Prada was feeling a bit left out of the loop.

On a given day, just over a week after their arrival, Captain Greeves told them that they needed to start their return to Haven. She explained the Kobani long-range Mind Tap ability to the four new Torki representatives, and told them why they needed to depart today.

“We need to Jump on schedule, because not only have we learned all we came here to learn, but a communications test is planned with another of our ships, which will enter a Jump Hole sometime today. We can’t exactly synchronize our joint entry at this distance, which isn’t necessary anyway. Whoever enters Tachyon Space first will send a message, which will exist in that alternate Universe for up to five days. The ship that is second to enter will receive that message, and send their own message in reply. It is not a conversation, merely information sent for future reception. Later, when each ship exits Tachyon Space we get the replies to our first set of messages. This comes only in a brief flash of mental transfer. This is an ability that only we humans with the telepathy ability experience.”

A complex multiparty discussion ensued between the four new Torki, and the three aliens from Haven, who already knew about this bizarre ability. Her head spinning, Marlyn cut short the seemingly endless stream of questions the newcomers directed at her and her two crewmates, with the skin of the human’s hands growing chafed and red from frequent contact with the rough chitin of manipulator claws.

“Gentle Beings, I don’t wish to appear rude, but we three need to compose our messages for when we enter the Jump Hole shortly, and we should be on the Bridge to monitor our departure.”

That was not true, but not intended as a lie either. Their presence wasn’t necessary on the Bridge with Kap doing the monitoring, but it furnished them with a polite excuse to dodge the intense fascination the just rescued Torki felt about Kobani telepathy and about humans in general. Unable to participate in the conversations as deeply as those with telepathy, Olts or mind enhancers, Nawella experienced a distinct feeling of inferiority. With no worry there would be a maneuvering risk for this liftoff and Jump, she followed the humans to the Bridge.

The four new Torki continued to link with one another, with Tramakar and Dewy, hungry to share new data and history, and continue to relay the treasure troves of information as long as possible to the Torki they were temporarily leaving behind. They were still heavily involved with their active links when Marlyn advised them from the Bridge they were about to Jump.

The return entry into Jump Hole was part of a planned test of Kobani Mind Tapping over long distances. The light years separation and instantaneous flash of communication was well established by now between Kobani with Mind Tap genes. However, there were four Kobani with the new Raspani designed chips inserted in their brains. If those chips interfered with this long-range mode of communication, the chips would be detrimental, despite the proven short-range benefits.

Two of those Kobani with new chips were on the Mark of Koban for today’s test. This was a case of serendipity and technology merging.

****

When entering a Jump Hole, the tighter hull construction of a clanship with its outer stealth coating didn’t even make a “ping” sound, as did most human built ships. It was the blanking of the external view screens, which provided the best clue they had left the everyday Universe. The second clue was the reception of friendly messages flashed from three people on the Mark of Koban. Mirikami had sent a hello to Marlyn, connected to a short message about the scouting mission he intended to conduct at K1. Alyson and Carson were targeted for messages from Mel Rigson and Cal Branson, two older men they considered as uncles.

Realizing the Mark had entered a Jump Hole ahead of them, and that it was obviously there now, they sent their acknowledgement, and a simple description of what they had found at Philodor. The men on the Mark wouldn’t receive that information until it performed the next White Out and left Tachyon Space. The new chips appeared to be no hindrance to long-range outgoing communications, because Alyson and Carson received the messages from Cal and Mel as usual.

Leaving Kap and Nawella to monitor the ship systems while in Jump transit, all three left the Bridge to go down to level 10, to resume their conversations with the seven aliens.

As soon as they stepped below the stairwell opening at the top of level 10, Dewy had a hurried question. “Did any of you three tell our new Torki passengers the names of the Kobani you were planning to share messages with, or say where the other ship was going?”

She and Tramakar were staring at them intently, with Dewy smacking her thick lips quickly, a Raspani indication of excitement.

Marlyn answered, curious at what seemed to be an urgent question concerning a trivial subject. “I didn’t say anything about it to them. The subject didn’t come up before we Jumped for home. As you may recall, I only said we intended to exchange messages.”

Tramakar pivoted her eyestalks, one peering at Alyson, the other at Carson. “Did either of you two describe details of the communications test?”

“No.” Carson answered.

Alyson shook her head. “Only what the Captain told you, just before we prepared to Jump. Why?”

The two aliens turned to look at the four new Torki, who were huddled together and crouching, as if they felt they were in some sort of trouble.

Dewy said to one of the Torki, “Bitdar, please tell us again the name of the human that you say spoke to you and offered a greeting. Where was he going?”

In a quivering motion of his two grasping manipulator claws, an action similar to a nervous human wringing their hands, the Torki addressed said, “He didn’t say his name at first. He only said hello, and that his ship, which he called the Mark, was going to a place he called K1. That world belongs to the Krall, if I understood his image and words correctly. Had I not received the language transfer from Tramakar I would not have understood the words in Standard. The image of a world full of Krall I’m sure that I understood.”

Tramakar spoke to the other three perplexed crabs, “You each received that message through your Olts, from two different humans that called themselves Mel and Cal?”

They silently made the hesitant carapace bobs that indicated agreement, but didn’t speak, as if they felt that somehow they had violated some unknown rule, or had lost the trust of their new hosts.

Marlyn, surprised, finished her descent, and reassured her obviously confused and nervous guests. “Please know that you are not in any trouble, but we are intensely interested as to how you received the messages directed to this ship. Specifically, messages that were addressed to the minds of Kobani. We three are the only ones aboard that have the Mind Tap ability. Or so we thought.”

“We spoke to them through our Olts,” Bitdar answered. “It wasn’t the same as if I was being spoken to as I hear you now, through my translator unit, or as I sensed directly in my mind when you use physical contact to share thoughts with me. Strangely, I could sense the words and I saw images as received by my Olt. Using the library of words in Standard I received today, I asked who was sending these messages to me. One human said he was called Cal Branson, and he asked who I was. Then we all four spoke to him and another human, who says he is called Mel Rigson. We first thought they were humans on this ship. Some that we had not yet met. They said that was incorrect. Both humans claimed they were on a different clanship, now called the Mark of Koban, and traveling with a captain they said is named Mirikami. They say they are very far away.”

Marlyn thought a moment. “I received a message left for me by Captain Mirikami, when we entered Tachyon Space, and I sent a reply to him that he will receive later. However, I couldn’t hold a live conversation with him. Did you detect his message to me through your Olts, or receive my reply to him?”

“I did not.” Bitdar swiveled eyestalks to his three companions. “Did any of you hear from a human named Mirikami, or sense the words that this human sent to him, through your Olts?”

There was a negative reply from each. Marlyn checked with Dewy and Tramakar to be certain their devices had not connected. “Neither of you detected the messages from Cal, Mel, or Tet using your devices?”

Two more negatives. Although Tramakar offered a comment. “I was in a group Olt conversation with all four of them when they first told me they heard words from humans not in this room with us. Yet, I did not receive them. When I asked them whom they were communicating with, they used their Olts to share with me what they had received. I do not know those two humans.”

Marlyn shook her head in wonder. “I have no idea how they received those Comtap messages. It must be related to the new chips those two men have. Nevertheless, Bitdar, I want you to try to send a message to either man, and we will learn later if they received your messages when they exit Tachyon Space.” She had overlooked a detail. They had said they had actually exchanged information.

The Torki expanded his large grasping claws. “They both could hear us just before you arrived. We communicated for several minutes. They have tried to speak to us while we have been talking to you. Do you wish us to ask them if they still can hear and answer us?”

Now Marlyn shared dumbfounded glances with her other companions. She managed to ask, “You are still in contact with them? Not just when we entered the Jump Hole?”

“Yes. We were speaking with them when you arrived. Where are they located? Their ship may not be very close to this one, but it is still within range of our modified Olts. Our devices are much more sensitive than what Tramakar and Dewy have, because they did not receive the same signal. We did not realize that some humans had Olts or mind enhancers.”

Marlyn absent-mindedly sat on a nearby Torki couch. She jumped right back up, since the hard, unpadded and angular edges were painful to a human’s softer anatomy.

“Bitdar, please tell Mel Rigson and Cal Branson that Captain Marlyn Greeves would like them to relay a message to Captain Mirikami. I will wait for them to answer.”

She turned to her alien companions. “Dewy, when we get to Haven, I want you to locate Blue Flower Eater, and ask him to locate the Raspani scientist who designed the Comtap chips. Tramakar, could you please find Coldar when we arrive, to learn how the new type of Torki Olts work? This is very important.”

She looked at Alyson and Carson with an impish grin. “This is going to be a fascinating conversation, if a bit cumbersome. But how nice to have a surprise to spring on Tet for a change.” She smiled in anticipation.

****

Mirikami was prepared to Jump to K1 for a scouting mission. Aboard the Mark were Mel Rigson and Cal Branson, recipients of the new Raspani designed device, called Comtap chips, which enabled them to communicate with mind enhancers and Olts that were within roughly two thousand miles. The linking generally faded away before reaching two thousand miles.

Today would confirm that the long-range Mind Tap, when entering and exiting Tachyon Space, would still work between Cal, Mel, and the crew on the Beagle, hundreds of light years distant. Mirikami didn’t want to lose instantaneous extreme long-range messaging between Kobani, just in exchange for a new short-range link with Torki or Raspani. There were radios that could do that.

Earlier tests between the four men with the new chips had shown that the flash of mental data shared, as they entered and left Tachyon Space still worked as before. But, that testing had been done within the Koban system. The Beagle’s mission to Philodor and Mirikami’s trip into Human Space were in opposite directions. The Beagle had left two weeks ago, and sometime today was expected to Jump to start its return to Haven.

The many added light years would confirm if the new Comtap chips interfered with the communication flash at a longer distance. There wasn’t a serious concern that it would fail at longer range, but it was prudent to test before additional Kobani receive the new chips.

The Mark Jumped and messages were sent. Receiving none yet from the Beagle, they knew they must have Jumped before the Beagle started home from Philodor. It was early morning for the crew of the Mark. Breakfast called to them.

Their years as Stewards on the Flight of Fancy kicked in for Cal and Mel. “Captain, Dillon, how about we go down and whip up a decent breakfast, before those voracious kids and our spec ops troops eat all of the fresh food, and we get stuck with field rations?”

Dillon perked up. “Good idea. Thanks for offering. I’d like four of those golden gem bird eggs, sunny side up, toast and jelly with milk.”

Mirikami grimaced. “Milk? I’ll have the same, but only two eggs, and Earth coffee please. Milk isn’t even good added to coffee or tea. I don’t know how so many people grew to love cow juice.”

“What do you do with cereal?” Dillon countered.

“Feed it to cows, to make more useless milk.”

This wasn’t the first time Cal or Mel had heard similar discussions between the two. Dillon, raised on Rhama, had completely different culturally based tastes in food than Tet, who was raised on New Honshu, which retained some Japanese traditions

Leaving the ongoing point and counter point arguments over food and beverages behind, the two breakfast volunteers went down the stairs to the mess deck, as they called it, or mess hall as the spec ops named that level. Mess being the operative word if the youngsters prepared their own food. There would be rotation of kitchen cleanup duties later, accompanied by the usual grumbling of those who caught the duty. It was manual work, at least until the Mark acquired the automated food preparation equipment used on military and commercial ships. It was supposed to be waiting for them at Poldark, the second stop after they performed the scouting mission.

Thoughts of breakfast ended for Cal, and shortly for Mel, as they rapidly descended the steps, still several decks from their destination. Cal, in the lead, suddenly pulled up and looked around, causing Mel to stop with him.

“What message? Who is this?” Cal said aloud. He looked at Mel to see if he’d made hand contact and was playing a practical joke, but his hands were clear.

“Who are you talking to?” Mel assumed he’d received a transducer link.

“Bitdar? Are you a Torki? How did you get on the ship? Where are you?”

Now Mel was intrigued, based only on the half of the conversation he could hear. Cal appeared to be speaking with a Torki via its Olt and his Comtap. That meant that since they were in Jump status, the Torki had to be aboard the ship, apparently as a stowaway. How in hell a five-foot wide, purple and yellow giant crab could sneak aboard and not be seen by the AI or the troops he didn’t know.

Suddenly, Cal’s conversation grew less interesting when Mel received his own questions, from what seemed like several Torki, one of which spoke in the clicks, clacks, and scritches of its native language. One of them, speaking Standard, managed to get the other two Torki to stay quiet, and it gave its name.

“I am Githram, and we are on the clanship that has a human named Captain Greeves as the pilot. We have departed Philodor, and we heard two messages on our Olts, sent to humans named Alyson and Carson, but not addressed properly. We were not trying to overhear, but you sent the communication without a recipient designated. All four of us received your messages just after we left Philodor. You must be close to us or we could not hear you.”

Two human voices, standing on stairway number four on the Mark of Koban, with the same degree of incredulity, said nearly simultaneously, “Philodor?”

Cal felt like tapping his head to clear up a bad connection. How was he linking to a Torki located on the Beagle? He’d now shared words with several different Torki, and clearly so had Mel he discovered, when he touched his hand for a quick Mind Tap.

Cal asked, “Bitdar, has the Beagle entered a Jump Hole?” There was no answer.

Mel tried using the name he’d heard. “Githram, can you still receive me?” Also no answer.

Breakfast forgotten, the two men compared a flashing series of Tap messages, sharing everything they each had received.

Cal summarized, “The entire group, apparently four different Torki, received both of our messages. I sent one to Alyson, and you targeted Carson. These four Torki each heard us both. I don’t know how our flash messages would reach aliens that we don’t even know. We can’t even broadcast to any other Tapper on a ship if we don’t know them. Only those we target and know personally. These crabs obviously heard us via their Olts, but they have to be out of range of our Comtap chips.”

Mel offered an observation. “The one named Githram said we sent our first messages without a recipient designated. That’s what we do when we want to speak to a specific Torki or Raspani, designate them as a recipient when using our new chips. We think of the individual we mean to reach. We mentally did that for Alyson and Carson for a Mind Tap, but our Comtap chips don’t know who they are since they don’t have a chip to address. Our devices might only know that they are on the Beagle. Perhaps that made everyone on the ship open to what we sent.”

Cal shook his head. “Marlyn was only taking a single Torki with her, one Raspani and one Prada. All four of the Torki we heard came from Philodor, and we don’t know them or their chip addresses.”

“Cal, we are both so flustered that we keep treating this as a normal link with Olts. They are much more than a hundred light years away, and this wasn’t a flash receipt of a static message, as we normally have. It was a live, interactive conversation!”

“Damn, you’re right. Let’s get back to the Bridge and Tap this to Tet and Dillon. They’ll never understand what we mean if we try to explain this by voice link on transducer.”

They had leaped back up only a single deck when they each heard the voice of Bitdar return. “Human Cal and human Mel. I am chosen to be the speaker for this exchange. I apologize for our not answering your calls to us a short time ago. We have been explaining this strange long-range Olt connection to Captain Greeves. She has requested that either of you relay her words, to a human named Captain Mirikami.”

Mel, as the former senior Steward, a position that no longer had legitimate standing, nevertheless took the lead out of past habit. “Please tell Captain Greeves we are already on the way to the Bridge to meet with Captain Mirikami.”

Without realizing it, he mirrored Marlyn’s feelings when he added. “It’s going to be great to see him surprised for once!”

Chapter 9: A Shift in Power

Thad and Sarge approached Noreen in Prime City’s Great Hall, where she was eating lunch with some of her crew. “Chief Haveram and the Falcon just returned,” he informed her.

“He made contact before he landed at Hub City’s dome to offload. We know where Pendor took his fleet after it departed Poldark. I mean besides the stopover at K1 for replacement clanships and warriors. A fast courier from Earth reached Poldark just before the Falcon Jumped home, to report that New Dublin had been invaded two weeks ago. The Chief relayed the news as soon as he made his White Out.”

Noreen was surprised at the unexpected Krall target. “Wow. That’s a quarter of the way around Human Space from Poldark. I’d have guessed they would hit another Rim world or New Colony close to Poldark. Such as New Australia, or Khartoum’s Destiny. I doubt there was much in the way of ground forces at Dublin, or any navy presence there. This is out of character from the Krall’s other three invasions, and I don’t recall hearing of any recent raids on Dublin.”

“Sarge and I talked about it on the walk over from The Flight of Fancy. We think this is part of a new strategy by Kanpardi. To prove that despite our attacks on their war production worlds, they still have the resources to reach and hit any of our worlds they want. New Dublin only had one of the standard ten thousand strong PU army Quick Response units, which would be spread among cities around the planet to repel raiders.

“For a major invasion, the PU Army has prepositioned several million troopers among a half dozen planets on the side of the Hub area closest to where they anticipated a new attack. The government, basically, predicted the next strike would be on the Rim and not very far from Poldark. They had hundreds of ships available to ferry troops and material to wherever they struck, to try to make establishing a foothold difficult for the Krall. They now have lost a critical month because of the need to shift their reserve forces twice as far as expected.”

Thad shook his head in confusion. “Bollovstic, Greater West Africa, and Poldark were all within a hundred twenty light years of each other. Like you, I’d have bet on another world in the same sector to be their most obvious target, and easiest to supply. Even when we have been prepared to meet them, the Krall have never avoided a head on confrontation with our strongest forces. As you said, Noreen, this seems different. Kanpardi is thinking outside the box compared to how they’ve behaved in the past. I wonder if Tet had any suspicions they’d do something this different. He’s been good at anticipating them.”

Noreen shook her head. “If Tet had suspected something like this, he’d have found a way to pass along the information to the Hub military, perhaps through Nabarone again. He wouldn’t be off looking at K1, scouting for a raid on their stockpiled supplies if he’d had an idea where the fleet that came off Poldark was going next. I think Kanpardi has stolen a page from our playbook, and finally did the unexpected. He’s getting crafty. I hope it isn’t catching on with any other Krall war leaders.”

****

Gatlek Pendor didn’t feel particularly crafty right now. He wasn’t pleased that the Tor Gatrol had come to look over his shoulder at how the invasion was going. Admittedly, there had been a few glitches in establishing the landing zone, despite the small size of the enemy forces to oppose him, and the apparent total surprise of their arrival.

The humans had simply been lucky, he told Kanpardi. He didn’t think it was his choice of landing site, which had helped the human’s small force to initially bottle up his warriors as they fought to get their equipment landed and deployed. How was he to know that he would need his defense shield so quickly after landing? The scouting images of six months ago had also not shown this valley to be so mired in mud. He had been confident that his warrior’s assault capability would quickly knock the unprepared humans right off their talon-less, blunt toed feet with days of landing.

The need for time to assemble mini-tanks, armored transports, and to distribute body armor from central supply ships to his newest warriors from K1, which were the first he chose to land, had drawn a surprising level of intense fire from the lighter human force, within an hour of touchdown. His K’Tal, working without adequate protection or defensive counter fire, had proven surprisingly slow at completing their assembly tasks, what with mortars, artillery, plasma bolts, lasers, and rail gun slugs putting holes in them and their partly assembled equipment. How was Pendor expected to have anticipated this level of response from their prey?

Thinking it was wise to rest his experienced warriors, just removed from intense combat as they left Poldark, Pendor had sent down his newest warriors collected from K1. The majority of those fresh warriors were eager but relatively untested near novices, with only limited raider experience.

They didn’t even have their own custom fitted body armor with them. They landed with nothing but uniforms, plasma rifles, ammunition, and Krall speed and instincts to keep them safe until they reached the ships packed with body armor. At those ships, they waited while the K’Tal helped them fit the new armor to them individually. Under constant fire from nearby ridges. The experienced troops Pendor was “resting” in orbit had just come from the battlefield, and they were prepared to immediately step back onto one.

The human troops, situated on the heights above the valley, quickly saw where the “bare” warriors were congregating, and directed extra firepower there. That would only delay the time when they knew the hundreds of thousands of Krall still to come, would sweep them back from their present vantage points. They intended to delay them, and make them pay while they could.

The wide flat valley Pendor selected for his landing, surrounded by high ridges on three sides, seemed a good defensive position to Pendor from his scouting reports. Of course, he’d thought it would be his warriors holding the heights and firing down on the human forces and cities.

There were two large human nest areas, on opposite sides of the surrounding ridges and in striking distance for his warriors he had decided, when he chose this spot. It was surely only pure chance the enemy had so many troops close, and ready to quickly move them onto those ridge tops, to fire down on his K’Tal as they worked to assemble his strike force’s equipment.

He had expected to use the firepower of his grounded clanships to keep the enemy at bay, without giving a thought as to how to disperse them in the valley when they landed. Allowing the sub leaders of different clans to cluster their own ships close to one another caused those in the inner areas of those groups to be partially blocked from directing the maximum plasma and laser fire on the higher terrain all around them.

The single ships he’d brought with him for air cover, the very ones he had struggled to preserve from the highly effective Shadow fighters on Poldark, were still in their slots on clanships in orbit. They could have been down here harassing the armored human troops on their exposed ridge tops. The delay in arrival of Krall airpower only helped the humans to hold out days longer, while distant PU reinforcements were started towards New Dublin, along with newly emboldened Naval forces. A carrier group was dispatched, the navy now more willing to mix it up with the Krall single ships after their moderate successes at Poldark.

It was only the steady arrival of additional clanships, with previously armored and experienced warriors, which had provided enough return fire to permit columns of mini-tanks to finally leave the floor of the valley, and start their fight to take the ridges. Eventually, the defensive lasers and counter battery systems were set up, and they began to project a protective umbrella over the landing zone and clanships. The offensive force was finally taking shape and moving out, almost a week late.

Kanpardi was highly critical of Pendor’s poorly planned landing strategy. “You and your staff, with advice from high status sub leaders of major clans, had several months to decide what you would do here. Our scouting missions had provided topographical maps and enemy dispositions for you to study of this entire world. Yet you landed between the two largest cities on the planet, sandwiched in a flood plain valley between the two largest human reactions forces on this lightly defended world. They were based in the two human nests, located on the rivers that always flood this valley in the rainy season, which just ended. Had you been able to Jump here directly from Poldark, your landing area would have been under water when you arrived. I suppose your need to pause at K1, for replacements, was part of your plan?” He snarled.

“You now have to fight mud and marshland, as well as the humans that are positioned above you on dry ground. Your major clan sub leaders must be pleased you have made the task of culling their weakest warriors so easy.” The Tor’s sarcasm was filtered through clenched dagger shaped teeth.

Landing this powerful force somewhere more isolated, as had been done on Greater West Africa, Bollovstic, and Poldark, would have let sub leaders organize their columns, and initiate advances on lightly defended human city-nests, without having to do this under constant attack initially, and slogging through muck. As Gatlek, Pendor was expected to work independently with his staff and clan leaders, and plan the assigned invasion. Kanpardi saw that was a tradition that needed to change. They needed oversight by the Joint Council at the least, for future attacks on a worthy enemy.

Pendor had obviously learned nothing from the success his dead predecessor had achieved on Poldark. The original Poldark Gatlek had been personally reckless and foolish in exposing himself to being ambushed and killed, but he’d planned his invasion landing much better.

That Poldark invasion leader had been carefully selected by Kanpardi, and Pendor was Telour’s selection. It called into question Telour’s judge of what constituted good leadership. The Tor Gatrol was unaware it was Pendor’s willingness to support Telour’s own personal ambitions that had made him the ideal foil for Telour. Kanpardi’s ambitious second in command had more on his mind than two new invasions, something he did not support until the humans were made to pay for their audacity in attacking Krall worlds.

Pendor, stung by the war leader’s criticism, as much for its accuracy as its delivery in front of his staff underlings, pushed him to act sooner than he’d anticipated. Pendor suddenly suggested the Tor Gatrol observe directly how his warriors were effectively pushing the enemy off the heights, which had provided them a slight tactical advantage thus far.

“My Tor, I have sent a large column of mini-tanks and armored transports to flank and surround a human strong point along a ridge, where they have been able to fire down at our clanships as they unloaded equipment. If you use my personal shuttle and K’Tal pilot, my clanship is close and ready to launch the shuttle. You can fly out to observe how efficiently we will either trap them, or force the humans to retreat.”

Take the offer, Pendor willed via his thoughts, to try to make it happen. The fates were good to him this time.

Kanpardi shivered his left shoulder in partial negation. “I have my own pilot, and she will fly your shuttle for me. Have it flown to your bunker roof. Do you expect me to tread through the mud that surrounds us just to reach your clanship? This poorly placed command post will fill with water if the rains return to fill the rivers.”

Pendor passed the order to have his shuttle launch from his clanship, and hoped this would be the last insult he’d have to endure from this superior.

No sooner had Kanpardi lifted from the bunker roof, than Pendor briefly left the command center and confirmed from his private quarters, that the radio signal from the human device he’d brought from Poldark was active. It was concealed in a secure storage compartment of his shuttle. He placed the remote actuator in a small pouch on his weapons belt, and returned to the command center to watch as his personal shuttle flew to observe the tank column. He’d certainly miss that well-armed and efficiently functioning new piece of fighting equipment.

At his main console, he brought up a tactical display on the wall of the valley where Kanpardi was going, the images derived from cameras on the mini-tanks and on the armored transports loaded with warriors, and some from helmet cameras of octet leaders. The Krall were exchanging plasma cannon fire with the humans concealed above them as they advanced rapidly along the base of the ridge. The column of over two hundred Dragons, as the humans called the mini-tanks, were forcing the humans to keep their heads down with accurate fire. The shorter barrel double plasma batteries on the tops of the armored transports were not as accurate, and the bolts fired were less intense, but they also kept the humans ducking and moving.

The original plan was to loop around the end of the ridge and behind the defenders into the adjacent valley, and attack the troopers from two sides, cutting off their retreat. Pendor knew that before that happened, the humans would withdraw across the next small valley to another ridge, and the process would repeat until they ran out of ridges.

He ordered a change in plans that would make the humans happy today. The defenders had moved at least ten mobile artillery batteries into the valley on the backside of the current ridge they held, and those would soon withdraw to the next valley over, to cover the retreat of the fighters on this ridge when they had to pull out. The artillery fire was less effective against rapidly moving, turning and shifting Dragons, and the armored transports were relatively impervious. There were no exposed warriors to bombard at all. Pendor was about to give them more enticing targets.

When his topographical display showed Kanpardi’s shuttle had entered the valley above the long armor column, he ordered all of the mini-tanks to halt, and face up the ridge to provide suppressive fire with their forward lasers and their main guns. He ordered all of the warriors in the transports to exit, and charge up the slopes with tank and plasma cannon fire for support. To make it look good, he called for clanships to fire on the ragged ridges. This kind of assault was a seldom-used tactic on Poldark, for a good reason. It wasn’t because of the pressure of the return fire of the outnumbered armored humans at the ridge top. It was because of the radio call they would make to their comrades driving the mobile artillery carts.

Stationary Dragons, and warriors deployed outside the armored transports, fighting their way uphill in body armor were much better targets for the artillery. Even as untested as these human troops were, this was a perfect battlefield scenario. To use an advantageous tactic against the Krall that was seldom presented. A heavy bombardment with a combination of antipersonnel rounds for the exposed warriors, and high explosive rounds to try to crack the ceramic hull of the motionless Dragons, or blow off one of their tracks to immobilize them. Even the stationary armored transports couldn’t take the pounding very long.

Only inexperienced minor clans still tried this sort of frontal attack on Poldark, and yet here on New Dublin it was being ordered by an experienced Gatlek, with an entirely different goal in mind than securing the ridge. He was willing to lose some warriors and mini-tanks today, to draw the counter fire he needed to cover his tracks.

The humans were slower to react than the Krall would be, requiring seconds to recognize what was happening, and more wasted seconds to grasp the advantage offered. Nevertheless, in a minute, Pendor’s tactical display showed the ballistic arcs of rising shells coming over the ridge. As usual, the Krall’s laser defense carts were knocking as many shells out of the air as possible, and typically only twenty five percent of them would get through untouched. Soon, there were many hundreds of them coming.

When the antipersonnel shells began exploding on the upper hillsides, and HE rounds were landing on the lower flanks, where the Dragons were stationed, it was time. Pendor, aware that everyone in the bunker was watching the thrilling, and gloriously foolish assault up the hills into the face of the enemy, reached into his pouch.

The shuttle was well away from the base of the ridge, hundreds of feet above the fray, and as a moving aerial target, it was essentially under no threat from the bombardment directed at the ground assault on the ridge slopes.

Kanpardi spoke to his pilot. “What is that inept fool Pendor, or one of his subordinates trying to do? This sort of attack will waste good warriors on a pointless cull, when the tactic he described to drive humans from these ridges would work better. Does he think this poor strategy of a foolish but brave assault will impress me?”

“My Tor, it does not …,” The words never finished, and Kanpardi would not have heard them if they had. The high explosive human made shell that Pendor had placed in his personal storage bin detonated.

In the bunker, the startled outcry as the shuttle rained down in fiery fragments lasted only a second or two. Random death on a battlefield was too common for the loss to have personally affected any of the observers. Even the loss of the highest status war leader of the Krall. There were competent leaders ready to step in and continue directing the war. Their surprise was more due to an apparently miss-aimed human shell having randomly hit such an unlikely target. Extremely unpredictable and pure bad luck for Kanpardi. His frozen seed would be widely propagated within his Graka clan, and traded with other major clans, who could afford the high price in status points for adding that famous bloodline to theirs.

The warriors charging up the hillsides continued unabated, suffering heavier losses than necessary, yet they exulted in their eventual victory at the top. Over a dozen human bodies were left behind in the hasty retreat of the thousand or more defenders. The soldiers had now crossed the next valley and were scaling the heights of the adjacent ridge, awaiting the Krall’s next attempt to push them back. They would do this until they reached the city where they were based, giving civilians more time to evacuate. It was the best they could do until PU Army reinforcements arrived in a few weeks.

None of those troops and warriors were aware that the course of the war was about to change dramatically because of events on New Dublin. For humanity, it would definitely be for the worse in the immediate future.

****

Mirikami had not taken the Mark of Koban directly to K1 as he’d originally intended. He performed a White Out by diverting to another unused star system, for more testing after the conversation he’d had with Marlyn.

The tests verified that when outside of Tachyon Space, the connection Cal and Mel shared with the four Torki from Philodor didn’t work. When back in a Jump Hole, they could limit their communication to any one of the specific four Torki, who had what were described as uniquely designed Olts, which used a more complex but stable form of quantum entanglement than the previous standard Olt’kitapi design. These were sensitive enough to link to other Torki on the opposite side of Philodor, right through the core of the planet. They didn’t actually know what their normal space communication range was, because they had been bound to the planet’s surface for over a thousand years.

The ability required the combination of Mind Tap ability with the new Raspani chip in their heads, and the more sensitive Olt the Philodor Torki had built.

Mirikami asked Marlyn to work with the Raspani and Torki when she reached Haven, and learn how the combined technology worked. If the Philodor Olt technology could be made to work in the new type chips Cal and Mel had, then any Kobani would have live, instantaneous communications with any other distant Kobani when both were in a Jump Hole.

When Mirikami next Jumped he had intended to continue to K1, but the transit delay presented him with a new opportunity. There was a recent message left floating in Tachyon Space, from Joe Longstreet at Poldark. The contents convinced him to go to Poldark before scouting K1. Joe said a Krall prisoner, one they’d had held for several weeks, had finally proved to be a source of intelligence about K1 that Mirikami should sense first hand, and perhaps pass on to the navy.

On his White Out at Poldark, he placed the Mark in high orbit in stealth mode, and arranged a rendezvous with Nabarone’s shuttle, surprisingly piloted by Longstreet. He’d brought the Krall prisoner up with him. The results of the following interrogation would expand Tet’s original plans, to try to involve the PU Navy in an even greater action.

Letting loose of the drugged Krall’s limp hand, Mirikami admitted it had been a detour well worth his time. “Hothdat here knows the code to safely enter orbit at K1, and the different clan codes required to land at several allied clan domes. She had no idea at the time she was captured that the invasion fleet she was part of was eventually going to strike New Dublin. She did know that Pendor always intended to Jump to K1 first, even before he lost some of his clanships and equipment. They went there to load some of the vast stockpiles of equipment that they couldn’t risk stripping from the forces remaining on Poldark.”

He looked back to the motionless blue suited prisoner, and in near flawless low Krall, he said, “I thank you for being so helpful, Harzax Kopandi. As your clan title says, you have measured your enemy, and now he has measured you in return. I will be sure to pay the nest near your clan’s dome on Telda Ka a visit someday. Your clan’s eggs will be carefully measured, as you have measured humans.”

Her present title within her Dorbo clan, Harzax Kopandi, was the same title granted to the now dead Parkoda of Tanga clan, who had also been tasked with learning how well humans could fight. This Krall had mental images of her studies of captured human troopers on Poldark, to determine how their newer human weapons and armor measured up to what the Krall were using. The “test” subjects were inevitably dispatched in the most violent and cruel manner possible. Mirikami felt no sympathy for this ruthless Krall, and when he had the chance, he’d make certain to visit this one’s clan dome on K1, called Telda Ka if you used the Krall’s description of it as Base 1.

She had revealed incidental knowledge of a huge buildup of war material at K1, which was not destined for use by the invasion force that Gatlek Pendor led. Clan rumors suggested there would be another invasion on a Hub world. Apparently, the plan was not yet ready to be announced by Tor Gatrol Kanpardi, to avoid advance political infighting between the major clans for leadership, when the Gatlek for this even larger invasion would be named.

Mirikami pulled at his lip. He needed to get this information to the navy, and convince them of its accuracy and urgency. It might be possible to head off a second new invasion. He’d have to reveal how some of this data was obtained. He could use when and where this particular prisoner was captured, since the navy had participated.

****

Hothdat had been “rescued” by the navy and a spec ops team. She was the commander of a clanship that had been destroyed by the human navy in space above Poldark, during the Krall partial withdrawal. Held upright now only by being strapped to a metal frame, she glared at her interrogators in helpless fury, unable to move her muscles to break free of the flimsy restraints, or to will her own death because of the paralyzing agent administered. A couple of weeks ago she had been minutes from an honorable death, via a plunge into atmosphere as she was falling back towards Poldark. How had she let this happen?

Her armor-clad body had been dumped into space when the clanship she commanded was ruptured and ripped open as it climbed away from Poldark. She, along with many of the warriors she’d carried, and the clanship debris, were destined to form firey streaks in the night sky a day or two after the massive launch of clanships. A last minute daring effort on the part of several humans had preserved her for this interrogation. She cursed her failure to kill them, and after that, her disgrace and inability to end her own life.

Worse, she now knew those three humans were examples of the mystery people that had attacked multiple Krall production worlds. They represented a new type of human warrior, who had somehow become physically superior to her species. They were obviously a minority within their own multitudes on so many worlds, or Krall successes in the war would have been reversed by now. They needed to find where these stronger animals lived, and use their greatest weapons against any worlds where they were found.

The Claw, a navy heavy cruiser in Admiral Foxworthy’s squadron, was assigned to work with Poldark’s Planetary Defense Command the day after the Krall fleet had departed. Their AI had noted multiple Krall warriors adrift in space, many still alive. One of them had a different colored armor, visible now only because it had its stealth switched off to conserve power. It was blue tinged, which had marked it as at least a translator, and possibly a sub leader or clanship commander. The scans for Krall survivors had been conducted at the request of the PDC, and they were only interested in higher status warriors. The human’s had more luck than expected. She was a ship commander, with moderately high status within powerful Dorbo clan.

The Claw’s report to the PDC was deemed of enough value to capture this Krall, despite the risk of attempting that for any personnel assigned the task. She was clearly conscious and alert as she fell towards Poldark, and had fired a wrist gun at the large ship when it approached. The rescue/capture was only attempted at General Nabarone’s insistence, and the navy said they didn’t have the means to bring a live warrior aboard safely, or a means to control it without blasting it with a laser or plasma beam. Nabarone then offered to provide a capture team, and the Claw’s captain explained why they had better hurry. The Krall was about an hour from reentry into the atmosphere.

The general told the Claw he’d found a recovery team, and they would be launching in a rush, to perform the operation when there was less than forty-five minutes until the Krall burned up. A shuttle raced up to meet the cruiser in low orbit. More precisely, the cruiser was allowing itself to free fall vertically out of orbit, keeping pace with the probable high status Krall.

Captain Danforth was surprised when she learned it was the general’s personal shuttle sent up, and its pilot asked to park in their main cargo hold. The man talking on frequency said there were spec ops soldiers aboard. Everyone knew that spec ops had an independent command structure from the PU Army, and that the general didn’t have a history of pleasant relations with past commanders of the spec ops units on Poldark. In fact, his relations with the navy hadn’t been stellar for that matter, at least before this past week. Now he seemed to be a golden boy.

Danforth came down from the Bridge to meet the capture team in the hold, where they had rapidly settled the shuttle in a slick bit of pilotage. She and her security chief had needed to suit up and airlock into the hold, wearing soft suits so they wouldn’t need to use valuable time pressurizing and depressurizing the compartment. They didn’t have time to do that if the team was to bring in the live and hostile Krall before it became a red flame streak in the sky.

Using her suit radio, Danforth greeted and accepted the salute of the first person out of the shuttle’s airlock, who was wearing a different type of black and white, form fitting body armor, which the naval officer had never before seen. His face was totally obscured behind his helmet, which instead of a clear faceplate had odd blue glowing lights on protrusions on the front. He realized she had no idea who she was meeting. The other two figures that came behind the first had the same unusual armor.

“Welcome aboard, uh…” she left the name hanging, since in the rush of the initial communications and hurried rendezvous, no names had been exchanged before the shuttle entered the open hold’s hatch.

The lead figure saluted crisply, and said, “I’m Captain Longstreet Mam, of Special Operations. Thank you for your prompt response. Sorry to rush you Mam, but how much time do we have left?”

Danforth returned the salute and answered the question. “Eighteen to twenty minutes, captain, depending on how high the atmosphere extends just below us today. On the night side as we are, it should be cooler and a bit lower. We’re moving down, parallel to the Krall’s freefall, but we rotated to place it on the other side of the ship from this hatch. It took several shots at us with a wrist gun, so we pointed the open hold away from it while you docked.” She looked at them dubiously.

“Excuse me Captain Longstreet, but how do you three intend to capture and subdue a live and armed Krall wearing their newest powered armor? I certainly don’t want it getting loose aboard my ship. Are the three of you are all that General Nabarone could send? My Chief here is the entire security force on my largely automated ship, he isn’t normally even armed with the hand gun he has now, and he definitely is not prepared to face up to a Krall warrior with you, nor would I permit him to try.”

The ship’s security man hadn’t even placed his pistol belt outside his soft suit, and the bulge of the inaccessible weapon showed under the fabric at his right hip.

The skepticism Danforth had expressed when her superior ordered her to comply with the general’s request had returned now, when she realized the team appeared to contain only these three men. If they were spec ops, all of them would be males. There had to be more people inside, or some weapons, or a containment net or cage, since these men carried nothing like those items that she could see.

Longstreet reassured her. “Mam, we were the only spec ops troops that were present near the General’s command bunker when your report arrived. We can definitely handle this operation ourselves. I do request that you and your security chief go back inside the pressure hull, and simply rotate the ship to where we can see our target. Out here you’ll both be targets in your soft suits, and someone we can’t properly protect.”

Trying to look into the windscreen and side ports of the shuttle, Danforth still couldn’t believe only three unarmed men had come to take on an armed Krall in powered armor. “You don’t appear to have a pilot. Did one of you fly the general’s personal shuttle? I wasn’t aware your training was so, uh…, versatile.” She wondered if there were more men inside that were staying out of sight.

“Mam, we all three are qualified shuttle pilots, although I flew here. I’m sorry Mam, but we do need to hurry. I don’t wish to be rude or insistent. This is your ship Mam. Except, I will have to explain to General Nabarone and Admiral Foxworthy why my team let this potential source of intelligence burn up, Mam, if we don’t move fast.” He was as polite as he could make it, but time was running out so he made his point by dropping names.

“Right you are, captain.” Danforth keyed the channel to her first officer on the Bridge and ordered her to rotate the ship, to face the open hold towards the Krall. As she prepared to return a salute she expected to receive from Longstreet, she realized that the three spec ops had already turned and rushed to the open hatch sides, ready to do whatever they thought it was they could do.

She touched the shoulder of her subordinate. “Let’s get inside Chief. Before we find ourselves with bullet holes in these soft suits.”

They hurriedly cycled through the airlock, and once inside they were unable to see much through the two small observation portholes of the double hatches. She’d have to get to the Bridge if she wanted to see what they did, using camera feeds. If these three men got themselves killed, or cast off into space well away from the ship, they’d probably burn up with the Krall. She locked and dogged the airlock hatch from the inside, in case the Krall did get free in the hold. At least it wouldn’t get inside the ship.

As she rode up in the lift with her security chief, she suddenly thought of some questions. “Chief Grant, did you see any ropes on them, jet packs, or weapons?”

“No, Mam. I did not.”

“How the hell are they going to get out to the Krall, and then bring it back if it doesn’t want to come? How will they get back here in any case without any lines connected to the ship?”

The chief had no answer to what seemed to be rhetorical questions, and ground pounder problems were not his problems. Their captain sounded confident, so he’d let them resolve the matter on their own.

Longstreet was discussing the exact same issue with his other team members, on an encrypted tactical frequency, with Sergeant First Class Bill Crager, and Corporal Eddie Condor.

“Hey, Top, Big Bird, you ready for this stunt?” He asked them.

Crager replied first by right of rank. “Sir, I’d prefer you not call me Top anymore. I’m not going back to run a camp on Heavyside. Just plain Sarge, Bill, or Crager will do. This propulsion trick worked fine in practice, when we tested the new armor, but we didn’t have a live Krall to wrestle with while floating over Heavyside, and we didn’t have a short time limit to finish the test.”

“Well, just plain Sarge, we’ll have to adjust.” Technically, Longstreet and Condor had been reported as missing and presumed dead for the last year, and only Crager was still active duty in spec ops. He’d just happened to be at the command bunker when this mission arose and at least three Kobani were needed.

“Big Bird, are you ready?”

Condor said, “Sir, I told my suit to set the Trap field as Sarge told me, and I cut power to weapons and stealth, but inside the artificial gravity of the hold here I can’t feel any thrust at all. I don’t like not having power for my weapons either. The Claw’s captain said that this Krall has a wrist gun, but what if it has a better weapon it didn’t use earlier?”

Longstreet did an exaggerated shrug, so it would be seen by the movement of his armor’s shoulders. “Life’s a bitch, and then you die. If it had better weapons, I think it would have used them, and the captain would have told us if they saw any. I also should have asked her to kill the gravity here in the hold, since I’m sure they can do that. Except we didn’t anchor or tie down the shuttle, and I didn’t even think to activate the magnetic skids to hold it to the deck. I can fly the damn things, but I’m not really a space swabbie. I didn’t think of those details when the internal gravity took hold.

“Anyway, when we kick off and leave the ship, we’ll quickly be in free fall and out of artificial gravity influence. Our thrust will be effective then. Remember, you can’t kick off as hard as it feels like you need to, based on your present weight, and we don’t want to hit that Krall moving too damn fast. The Trap fields and inertial forces we can control are very weak. It’s only a fraction of a pound of continuous thrust, which can build up to a considerable velocity over time, but time is something we don’t have a lot of today.”

He rehashed what they had discussed on the way to orbit, when the details of this rush job was actually worked out. They were using a feature of their Tachyon powered suits for gravity and inertial control. A miniature application of a Jump ship’s Normal Space drive. A strap-on jet pack would have done the job perfectly and faster, if they’d had time to hunt for some of them at a spaceport. They only had the general’s shuttle immediately available to them at the command center, in the forty-three minutes they started with, which didn’t carry jet packs of course. It didn’t even have any lines aboard.

They checked, and learned the jet propulsion packs were also not routinely carried on the Poldark based heavy cruisers that provided orbital protection here. They had to do this recovery by the seat of their pants. Almost literally. The armored suit’s weak tachyon Trap fields were generated by a unit located close to where their butts were, and built into their armor.

These devices produced ample weapons and stealth system power by trapping low energy tachyons to generate the electrical current and magnetic fields needed to power their energy beams, radios, and stealth systems. However, gravity was an immensely weaker force than electromagnetism. Once out of reach of the magnetic ship hull, and beyond its local artificial gravity field, their full power, when diverted to producing a reactionless inertial force effect, would only enable them to propel themselves gently in free fall.

Longstreet added one last reminder, as the star field outside slowed its rotation and the slowly tumbling and free falling Krall came into sight. “We jump out, grapple with and immobilize the Krall as we decided, then point our asses away from the ship to let the three of us overcome the outward momentum of our combined mass, and start thrusting gently back towards this hold.

“The Krall’s mass will slow us some when we hit it, but we will then all be moving slowly away from the cruiser. We have to stop that motion and start back, so conserve your power for the return push, and avoid weapons use if possible. We don’t need a dead Krall to interrogate.

“If it looks like we can’t make it back in time with the prisoner, I’ll give the order to kick off from the Krall, using its inertial mass to help get us back here faster. Then we wave a fond farewell as it burns up, and we look stupid and ineffective to the swabbies.”

Naturally, they had fast Kobani mental processes, and each man was using their senses and range finders to estimate the optimum time, from each of their positions at three sides of the open hatch, to initiate their push off to intercept the Krall without bumping and glancing off each other on the way. Except for the slow tumble the warrior had initiated when it had previously fired its projectile wrist gun, it was now keeping pace exactly with the free falling cruiser. The rocket-propelled caseless ammunition did have some slight back reaction on the gun barrel, triggering a slow spin. The Krall, accepting its fate, had not bothered to counter the slow roll.

The looming night side glow of Poldark was below them, partly illuminated by dim reflected sunlight, coming from the large moon. An occasional atmospheric fire streak was visible far below, as debris from the recent space battle made a reentry, or perhaps it was from Krall warriors making their final return visits.

Longstreet checked the distance to the Krall. It was less than sixty feet, and he had the exact timing worked out for their arrival. “OK. We’ll make the trip out to intercept it last two minutes eleven seconds. That should let us hit it slow enough avoid too hard of a push to overcome to get back, and its rotation will have its back turned to us. Sarge, I’ll try to go high, you take the middle. Big Bird you get the feet, unless you and I have to swap ends if the Krall alters its roll rate.” They had previously discussed how to grapple with the Krall in freefall.

Only fractions of a second separated the gentle push-offs of the three armored figures, as each calculated the exact trajectory they needed to intercept the Krall in two minutes, eleven seconds. The target was fifty-seven feet away based on their helmet target ranging systems. Whoever was flying the ship had done an excellent job staying this close, and halting the ship’s rotation exactly as the open hatch centered on the warrior.

As the three unstealthed humans slowly closed with their target, the target in turn watched them coming as she slowly rotated. She observed that this style of armor was different from what human ground forces on Poldark wore. She attributed the lack of active stealth on this design as armor intended only for use by their separate space forces. Space based soldiers didn’t need to blend into the terrain.

They will wish they were invisible soon, she thought. I’ll let them get very close.

The earlier pot shots at the cruiser had been merely a show of defiance, as a warning to leave her alone to die. Hothdat now saw an opportunity to take these humans with her, either to burn up, or to kill them by decompression. There were choices to be made. She could shoot at the weak spots of their elbow or knee joints to cause a leak, but that was not very sure. The alternative was to shoot their weaker joints when they were in her grasp, or grab them and force open their suits to the vacuum, or simply fling them away from their ship to flare across the sky and burn up when she did.

The more personal touch was the one she preferred. Tearing open their helmets and watching as decompression made their eyes and tongues bulge out of their faces appealed to her the most. Unless of course they had energy weapons with them, which she couldn’t see.

She had already fired five times from her eight-slug magazine of armor piercing rounds and had seen no reason to reload with another full magazine. She had a spare eight round magazine clipped to her suit’s left forearm, next to the wrist pistol. She couldn’t tell if her spare ammo pouch, originally attached to the back of her armor, had been ripped off when she was violently ejected into vacuum or not. She didn’t want to move now to check if it was there, thus clearly revealing that she was still conscious. She shifted slowly within her armor without moving her suit limbs, to be ready to shoot or grasp them when it was time. She had withdrawn her taloned fingers from the freezing cold metal gloves after the cruiser had seemed content to leave her alone.

Obviously, the weaker humans wouldn’t come close to her if they believed she was conscious. She didn’t understand why the stupid animals would come after her anyway, dead or alive, but their mistake would provide her with three final kills.

Watching closely, Crager detected a slight change in the figure’s rate of rotation. “The core body heat signature shows it’s probably still alive, and it could be unconscious if it just ran low on oxygen. Only I think it’s playing dead, waiting for us to get close. The roll just slowed slightly, so it’s moving.”

Condor was puzzled. “Sarge, I’ve been watching too, and I didn’t see any limb movement at all.”

“Not the armor limbs externally, Big Bird, but it may have shifted its hands back inside the cold gauntlets. It could conserve heat and energy if it pulled just the hand and fingers out of a gauntlet, because the suit’s larger surface areas at the fingers radiate more heat than at the wrist and forearm. There’s a little bit of room for limb movement inside their suit sleeves and shoulders. However, for whatever reason it happened, the tumble slowed by a half second from when we started moving across, and that means some mass has just moved away from its center of gravity. Just like a ballet dancer, extending arms or legs to slow her toe spin.”

Analyzing what his memory and internal clock told him, Condor could now confirm the slight slower rotation Crager had noticed. At least he did when he knew what to look for. “If it’s waiting for us to grab on to take action against us, it’ll shit in its suit when it finds it can’t break our grip.” He laughed.

Longstreet cut him short. “It has a wrist gun, and I can see by the color of the yellow band on the spare magazine on its left forearm, that it has armor piercing rounds in that. If it has any of the same type rounds left loaded in the clip already in the gun, it can potentially puncture our suits. Not our helmets, chest or back plates, or the main sections of our limbs, but it’d certainly know to fire at our flexible joints. Stay alert.”

The Krall waited until they were only two body lengths away to act. She realized the three of them, by lucky chance no doubt, would reach her just as her back would turn to present itself to them. She didn’t want to wait for them to come to grips if they would do it from behind. In armor and free fall, she didn’t have the full range of motion, flexibility, or gravity to give her a place to stand and pivot.

She decided to use her gun now, despite the lower chance of puncture success if she couldn’t hold it close to a joint when firing. She raised her arm to aim at one of the figures, which action then forced her to recalculate her aiming point, because of the back reaction of her arm’s movement altering her slow tumble.

She was startled by the instant response of the central of the three figures, the one she had decided to target. It had windmilled its arms and legs in a rapid motion that managed to shift the body to orient only the helmet and shoulder tops towards her, its arms at its sides as it slowly rotated on the long axis, head first at her. There were no joints exposed. It did this faster than she had been able to compensate her aim for her own change in tumble rate. She flexed and bent her wrist down anyway, with her thick cold fingers in the gauntlet curled inward to make a fist, closing the gun’s electrical trigger circuit. She fired a single round, saving the next two shots for the other targets with more wrist flexing.

The slug hit the target at a point that would be where a human forehead should be under the helmet. The head had tilted slightly sideways just as her aim had steadied, and the slug struck at a glancing angle and deflected away, instead of generating the stunning straight-on impact she’d wanted. The range was short enough that the rocket-like ammunition had not accelerated to maximum velocity, yet it managed to create a small reduction in that particular slow moving attacker’s closing velocity.

The other two figures had now also oriented themselves to point head first at her, with the heavy armored shoulders protecting the joints of lower limbs. She had aimed at the helmet because that appeared less thick than the shoulder armor, and there was the possibility the impact could hurt it even if it didn’t penetrate. Now none of the targets was exposing the weaker joints she’d been able to see just before she started to move. The two not slowed by the deflected slug would reach her in three seconds of drift, and they would be reaching her with her back largely towards them. Unless she did something to stay facing them.

She tried an ammunition propulsion trick taught for fighting and maneuvering in free fall. She swiftly extracted and threw away the nearly empty magazine, leaving one of the two remaining rounds in the firing chamber. The small mass of the magazine and slug, thrown to counter her spin, barely altered the rotation. Anyway, the real counter thrust she intended to apply was yet to come.

She inserted one armored talon of her right hand firmly into the muzzle of the wrist gun’s short barrel. Rotating her forearm, to aim the opening created by removing the magazine in the opposite direction of her body rotation, she flexed her wrist and curled her fingers to fire the chambered round.

When the slug’s propulsion charge ignited, internal circuitry along the barrel ahead of the slug sensed the blockage, and the gun’s electronics instantly reacted. It triggered the front of the cylindrical round to ignite, and a small bit of material at the front tip, which normally fell away after firing, sent gas ahead in the barrel to try to blow the muzzle clear of what could have been removable water or muck. This action would reduce that round’s exit velocity, but then the next shot could exit freely.

When the inserted armored talon refused to budge to release the gas pressure, the remainder of the propulsion charge, coming from the rear of the round, was routed out of the open magazine slot. This pressure was designed to trigger a magazine release lever and eject the magazine to relieve potentially explosive gasses. In this case, it simply blew the hot gas into the vacuum. This was what Hothdat had intended. Her forward spin was rapidly countered. She promptly removed the talon tip to allow the now nearly spent round to push out of the muzzle, slow and harmless. Now she was facing towards her attackers just before they reached her.

She extended her arms towards the figure closing with her head. They would learn what it was like to meet a Krall wearing powered armor, with over double the mass of any one of them.

Indeed they did. Yet, the real lesson was hers.

Longstreet whipped his arms up ahead of him and grasped her two wrists as she reached for him, holding them in vicelike grips, forcing her long arms as wide apart as his shorter human arms could manage. This was despite her own strength and power assist from the shoulders and elbows of her armor.

Corporal Condor did the same at her ankles, and Hothdat was quickly stretched spread eagle in an “X” posture that she found she was unable to prevent. She realized she could bend at the waist, but her hands and feet were held wide apart as if anchored in ferrocrete, her taloned finger and toes opening and closing, grasping in frustration. She started to bend at the waist to try to bring her hands and feet close together, to grapple with the enemy.

That was when Crager finally arrived, the glancing shot having done no damage, and he encircled her waist with his left arm and swung smoothly around to her back, where he locked his legs over the top of her thighs, and wrapped arms around her chest. He pulled back and applied force to straighten her at the waist, and prevented her from folding her body forward.

“Got the waist,” he announced on radio.

Longstreet, still holding the wrists apart, did a graceful upside down motion over the Krall’s head and then slammed the arms together at the wrist. Before the Krall could react, he let go a wrist with his right hand and used it to grasp one finger of each gauntlet to hold them together as if welded. He continued his flip, rotated to face the same way as the Krall and positioned behind the clamped arms, then placed his feet on its shoulders, pushing up to hold the arms extended.

Even through the filtering layers of armor, he sensed the mental fury of this female sub leader. Wrapping his left arm around both of hers just at the elbows, she was left with both arms pinned together over her head, with her presumed helpless opponent now standing on her shoulders. Longstreet let go the fingers with his right hand and looked down to give Crager a thumbs up signal.

“Got the arms.”

“Hey, Big Bird,” Crager said, unable to sense the Krall thoughts and gender because he didn’t have the Mind Tap gene mod as of yet. “Unless you plan to bugger this thing, get out from between his legs and get on the back side. Shove a knee up his ass to hold the legs straight down if you need leverage, but aim your own ass towards the feet for thrust. We need to get started back to the cruiser. We’re running out of time.”

Condor, who did have the Tap mod, said, “He’s a she Sarge.” He made the move, and finally the three had the warrior with her arms extended overhead, legs clamped together and stretched down. All three men were clinging to its backside, their thrust vectors, which actually originated from the Trap fields embedded in the butts of their armor, were aimed down the Krall’s length in the direction of its feet. It looked as if it were about to fly with the three of them riding along. Not a bad analogy, really.

Except the four of them were gradually rotating head over heels. They were unable to keep the captive pointed at the cruiser. They had to end the tumbling or they would never get to where they wanted to go.

Their gentle inertial thrust; comically directed from their backsides, first needed to coordinate to counter the rotation, and only then start to reverse the still increasing drift away from the cruiser. The three of them had enough momentum when they struck the Krall that all of them were slowly moving farther from the ship by the second. They were over eighty feet away before they had the tumble halted and the Krall’s hands aimed steady at the cruiser.

They were over a hundred feet out when their three thrust vectors finally countered the drift away, and they gradually started closing the distance. Longstreet did an estimate of the time remaining before the first tenuous atmosphere might be felt.

“Men, with the low combined thrust we have, and the first pressure of the upper atmosphere coming within perhaps the next twelve to thirteen minutes, I don’t think we can get back into the hold before our thrust will be overwhelmed by drag.”

Condor knew what that meant. “Damn it Sir, are we gonna have to kick this piece of crap loose just so we can get back? I can sense her thoughts a little. The last one we’ll receive will be gloating that she escaped capture. She knows we’re moving too slow.”

Crager, from his perch behind the Krall’s waist had noticed what resembled a fanny pack. He fumbled one handed inside, permitting the struggles of the Krall to bend its waist a bit. “I found two more magazines, and there’s still one clipped on her forearm.”

Condor missed the implication. “So what, Sarge? We gonna shoot it full of holes with its own gun to save it from burning alive? Hell, I’d rather it die painfully that way.”

“Corporal,” interjected Longstreet. “You would do well to consider the words of wisdom from a man like sergeant Crager. I just unclipped the wrist gun Bill. Here you go.” Longstreet passed the weapon down the Krall’s body to Crager.

Condor repeated his complaint. “I still don’t see why we don’t just use her mass to kick off hard and get back to the ship. Let her burn alive.”

Crager shook his head, as he looked down over the Krall’s rump at Condor. “Big Bird, if you don’t start learning tricks from the enemy, you are going to stay a lowly corporal, and everyone’ll start calling you Big Bird Brain. Watch.”

Crager inserted a magazine, chambered a round, removed the magazine and gave it back to Longstreet who had a fee hand, put an armored thumb over the open muzzle, and pressed the contact that activated the gun’s electrical trigger. Directing the open magazine receiver directly away from the heavy cruiser, there was a noticeable slight push towards the ship as the propellant was expelled. He shook the depleted slug out of the barrel, flinging it also away from the ship, for an added microscopic push.

Longstreet passed the magazine back to Crager, who repeated the operation, and did that thirteen times. Before Crager could finish using the second magazine, the hot wrong-way gases finally eroded away the gun’s receiver and trigger circuits so badly that he couldn’t chamber and activate any more rounds. Except by that time, they were only twenty feet from the open hatch and moving at a comfortable clip, even if they still had a bit of a side drift and rotation. They would have at least five or six minutes to spare.

The four figures fell gracelessly to the deck as soon as they passed through the open hatch’s gravitational threshold. They had no difficulty manhandling the wriggling Krall, pinning the arms to its sides holding the legs together, carrying it like a thick log into the shuttle’s open and waiting outer airlock hatch. They were fully aware that the Bridge must be watching all of this, and would be wondering how just the three of them managed to subdue a Krall that was clearly trying to oppose them.

When the Krall was safely out of sight and subdued with the Death Lime extract, Longstreet stepped out and called Danforth.

“Captain Danforth, we have our prisoner. It was almost dead when we got there. Thanks for your assistance.”

The return answer was quick. “We’re using the Normal Space drive to lift us higher captain. You were cutting it awfully close, time wise. Before you picked up speed on the return, I estimated we had less than five minutes to recover you.”

“Yes, Mam. It didn’t go quite as smooth as we expected, and we had to improvise.”

As he spoke, Crager also cycled through the shuttle’s air lock, the hold still being in vacuum.

Revealing that the Bridge was indeed observing them, Danforth asked incredulously, “You left only one man watching that Krall? It has air to breath now, and it’ll revive.”

“Uh…,” Longstreet paused to see the nod from Crager, who was monitoring the same frequency. “She’s been pulled out of her armor, and something that knocks them out was administered.”

“Really? I didn’t know there was such a drug. That was a female you said? They all look the same I thought.” Longstreet had let the gender slip.

“The drug’s classified Mam. Please don’t spread that around. And yes, we can tell by the odor it was a female when we removed the armor.” At least a Kobani, with a ripper’s sense of smell could tell the difference, and he assumed navy personnel had never even had a chance to compare smells between Krall genders. They obviously didn’t know anyone could sense a Krall’s thoughts.

“I understand captain. I had wondered how you and your men were going to get back to the ship when you didn’t use any retractable lines, or have jet packs. Clever to use the Krall’s own weapon and ammunition to improvise your push back to the ship. I suppose our initial report told you she had a pistol and ammunition. But if that wasn’t your primary return method when you started up here, what did you intend to use?”

“Ah…,” Longstreet temporized for moment, to think of a safe reply. “We had a slower magnetic means we wanted to use that was taking too long.” He wasn’t going to reveal their suit’s tachyon power systems. Besides, today’s live thrusting technique had not exactly worked as well as had the tame controlled tests in space.

Danforth complimented them. “Well it worked, and that’s a tribute to your training, fast thinking, and mission preplanning. I confess if you had taken any longer to start moving back, I’d have had my navigator drift the ship over to meet you.”

The dumbfounded look shared between Longstreet and Crager merely implied the forehead slaps they mentally applied, after hearing that obvious swabbie solution.

****

Mirikami sent Longstreet back to talk to General Nabarone, to relay his proposal to the navy. He asked to hold onto the prisoner, seeking more details of Krall defenses. He wanted to know how the war material was distributed between clan domes on K1. He already knew, for example, that many of Pendor’s invasion clanships would be returning to K1 after his force had landed. He might use that return as cover for his scouting mission.

He could have used encrypted radio messages to talk directly to Henry, but that signal, coming from a vacant looking location in space would draw attention. The Mark of Koban, their other commandeered clanships, and Chief Haveram’s Falcon now had the improved Raspani and Torki designed quantum stealth coating. It was essentially the same as that on their body armor and the Shadow fighters. This made the large ships electromagnetically invisible even to a clanship’s sensors, at least at this range, and hard to detect in the visual spectrum as well. It couldn’t be a perfect cloak, even if the technology allowed, because then they couldn’t see out either.

He promised to share information from his upcoming scouting mission to K1 with the navy, if they would at least consider mounting a preemptive strike there if his report and visual evidence proved credible. Rather than try to drive off an invasion force already landed on a planet, the navy could for once prevent the launch of an invasion fleet.

In a bold and risky move, Mirikami offered to meet with Admirals Bledso and Foxworthy. To show them the live captive Krall, and try to convince Bledso that this new Krall intelligence source is believable, even before he left to scout K1.

“Joe, tell Henry that I will be the face of the Rimmers that the Hub government believes are responsible for the raids on Krall worlds. That it’s my people that flew the Shadows that were so effective on Poldark.”

The only deception was that Mirikami wasn’t technically a Rimmer, although Koban was certainly outside the sphere of New Colonies.

Acceptance was almost immediate, arriving within an hour of the shuttle’s landing. Since Longstreet had taken the captive Krall back with him, its existence as an intelligence source would wait until Mirikami made his way down to Poldark, to present his story to Bledso and Foxworthy.

“Dillon, as we discussed, I’ll leave you in charge after I move us behind Poldark’s moon. I can launch the shuttle from there because Henry says the navy doesn’t maintain automatic defenses tied to detections systems on the backside, because the Krall have never used the moon as a shield to sneak in close.”

“Are you taking Ethan with you, or any of the others? I don’t like you going alone.”

“I’ll have Kobani with me, even if the admirals won’t know it. Joe and his men, and even Henry himself. Although we don’t want Henry to give himself away. Joe has some of the Heavyside Kobani with him. They can help if I need to duck out of sight. I’ll leave all our TG1’s here with you for the K1 mission.”

“OK. I’ll move the Mark out of the moon’s shadow to where we are now after you leave, so I can receive you by radio when you call.”

Ethan had been over to the side, and heard what was said, “Captain, why hide behind the moon to launch? You brought one of our shuttles from home, and it has a stealth coating and a Trap field for power now.”

“It may not be a Krall shuttle, but having it suddenly appear to the planetary defenses might draw curious attention. I’ll launch behind that moon, cut stealth and call the base to give Nabarone’s security code, and when I pull around to the front side, I’ll show up on planetary radar like any non-stealthed craft. No need to let them see it has the new technology yet. If they were suspicious and checked it out too close, they’d find it was registered to a passenger ship that vanished even before the start of the war. I want the navy on our side, not suspicious of who we really are.”

Chapter 10: Convincing the Navy

The Mark moved closer behind Poldark’s moon, and Mirikami launched alone in his shuttle. Two hours later, he settled down at the shuttle port closest to Nabarone’s buried command center. He was met by Sergeant Crager, who introduced himself to the man everyone considered the leader of all of the Kobani. Even those he’d never met.

“Captain Mirikami, I’m sure Joe and some of your kids have mentioned me. I’m Sergeant First Class William Crager, from Heavyside. I was the First Sergeant at SOB-1 when your three young men came through. Welcome back to Poldark Sir.”

Mirikami extended his hand, since there would be no salute for Crager to return. He was just a man in civilian clothes. “Please call me Tet. Good to meet you at last sergeant. Noreen and those boys told me about you when they first returned. She has filled me in on how well your program is going on Heavyside. So, you plan to return home with me for your first visit there, and to get your final upgrades.”

“Shoot. You got that just from my handshake. I guess I’ll learn how to block my thoughts after I can Mind Tap.”

Mirikami laughed. “Nope, I got that from Joe. He told me. I didn’t get squat from you as we shook hands. You probably can block just fine. No leaky head for you, my friend. Besides, I didn’t try to sense you. It’s a habit developed after being around other Mind Tappers. We automatically give each other privacy. Just like not leaning in on someone making a private phone conversation, to try to hear what’s said. You can do that, but you don’t do it out of politeness, or without a good reason.”

“OK. You got me. Please call me Bill. From Joe’s comments I know how you folks stay as civilian as possible most of the time. I hope you don’t mind when I slip back into a career’s worth of military protocol. Particularly when other military are around, brass especially.”

“I do that myself sometimes Bill, but it’s mostly concerning Spacer ranks, since my last contact with the navy was so long ago.”

“I have a car at the edge of the tarmac. General Nabarone and the two admirals are waiting to see you. The general has told them he’s met you previously, to discuss the deployment of our Shadows, and selling the PU the use of stealth technology. That’s a bit of background he wanted you to have. They don’t know anything else about you, as far as we know, and with Nabarone having Mind Tap, I’ll bet he’s sure of that by now.”

Mirikami talked as they walked. “I’m torn over how much I’m going to have to show them of our physical capability, to convince them I can safely lead a scouting mission to K1, get intelligence they can act on, and not stir up the Krall so they suspect the attack.”

“Tet, I personally believe they already have some idea of our capability. The Shadow fighters clearly outperformed Krall single ships, and our Kobani spec ops troops kicked a lot of Krall ass in the mountains, at that former resort. Finally, I know they have the detailed recordings of our rush mission to capture the lovely and charming Hothdat, before she could blaze a trail through Poldark’s atmosphere.

“They surely could see she wasn’t nearly as dead as we suggested, and we easily kept her under control. That recovery was made by three men in strange new armor, and they never actually saw any of our faces. We could have been anybody. We claimed to be three spec ops troops, but obviously the suits of armor aren’t PU issue, since only your Torki, Raspani, and Prada friends design and make them, and you delivered some here and to Heavyside, via trips by the Falcon. Captain Longstreet was the only one of us that spoke to them, and he gave his real name, an uncommon name in a relatively small elite force, and as far as they know that name belonged to a spec ops captain reported missing on a secret mission, over a year ago. Anyone can use a false name so there is no proof he was who he said he was. We spoke to one another only on an encrypted frequency, so mine and Condor’s names are unknown to them. I’m the only one that’s still active duty, and they don’t know I was there.”

Nodding, Mirikami said, “Then I’m free to suggest all three men worked for me, and just happened to be where Nabarone could find them for that rush mission. I don’t want to tie any of our spec ops Kobani to these mysterious Rimmer forces yet, just to keep the PU government from breathing down your necks on Heavyside.”

“Good idea, Sir. We’re turning out new Kobani graduates at the same rate as standard graduates, but at different camps of course. We have to have some of those standard graduates and a third of the unsuspecting prospects don’t even make it through the Mind Tap vetting process, at least enough for us to be comfortable letting them know about the gene changes.

“We revisit them after they’ve fought the Krall a few times. Nothing like having your ass kicked to force a change in viewpoint. We’re helping fight the war more effectively, and having a positive impact. Except, if the public found out we were gene modified, I can’t predict which way President Medford and parliament would go.”

“You might be surprised. Lady Medford ran on a platform to boost ground forces and provide every technological advantage they could devise. Through Nabarone’s urging, she pushed the house to pay us so-called Rimmer militia for the new stealth systems. She indirectly pays for your new armor, through the Special Operations Black Ops budget. I doubt if she knows that, however. How far up the line does Kobani knowledge go in spec ops?”

“Colonel Michel Dearborn, now running our Heavyside Kobani training camp, is as high as I know personally. By the way, he also needs to get away to receive his Mind Tap upgrade.”

“We’re ready for him when he can explain his absence for a month.”

Crager then finished his answer to the original question. “The Colonel has a contact in headquarters, a General Steven Marchaunt, who knows we were exploring unorthodox methods on Heavyside, to improve our troopers, and doing it off the record. He keeps us funded and helped refer biological and medical scientific staff to us for interviews. I doubt if he knows every detail of what we’re doing there now, or how far along we really are. Mike is confident he would continue to support our work even if he did know. As it is, he has maintained plausible deniability if questioned by the politicians or higher brass under a Verification scanner.”

They reached the staff car and Mirikami automatically climbed in front to sit next to the driver. Crager was flustered for a moment, as his hand reached to open a back door. He’d expected his VIP to sit in the rear. Tet was a more egalitarian commander than the career soldier was accustomed to meeting.

Crager drove several miles to a checkpoint at the entrance to a below ground parking area, where he was passed through based on his retinal scan, palm print, and a current password. This was to keep unauthorized humans out, and obviously not the Krall. Crager parked the car, and they boarded an automated tram which went deep under what the sergeant said was a massive granite ridge. They passed through another checkpoint, and then they rode an elevator down more levels than Mirikami tried to count.

On the elevator, Mirikami satisfied his curiosity. “They checked you three ways from Sunday Bill, but didn’t even ask me a single question.” He noted.

“My clearance is to escort anyone that I bring with me to meet Nabarone. If I’m who I say I am, then you’re passed without challenge if I check out OK. This is the first time I’ve done this, by the way. It was easier for me to get in here this time than for my first visit. Spec ops didn’t always have as good a relation with Nabarone as we have now. We’ve become rather cozy, despite still having a separate command structure.”

When the doors slid open, a booming voice greeted them. “Tet, welcome to my lair. Good to see you again.” The brass hat had come to greet the man that had given them hope that they might stop the Krall, if not actually defeat them.

Hand shaking and back slaps made Mirikami grateful for his own gene mods. It was good he’d had decades living on Koban, what with the enthusiastic man’s greeting. The formerly hefty man had slimmed down greatly, and wasn’t quite as large as either Thad or Dillon, but made up for it with his boisterous personality.

He led the two men to a small office for a pre-briefing, before meeting with the waiting Admirals. “Tet, I have told them that you are a leader among the supposed Rimmer militia, but I didn’t say you are the top man, or how many people you have at your disposal. I haven’t even given them your name. I wanted to let you decide how much you choose to tell them. I do have to ask, since you surprised me when you offered to meet them personally, if you intend to reveal any of your Kobani capability. I’d assume not Mind Tap, which would scare the hell out of them. I remember mine and Trakenburg’s initial reactions.”

“No, I won’t do that. Nevertheless, to convince them that we have the ability to conduct a secret scouting mission on K1, and get out without stirring up a hornet’s nest, I have to try a bit of subterfuge that I think may work.” He tugged at his lower lip.

“Sergeant Crager here told me the navy didn’t see any of the three on the Krall capture team out of their armor. Are any other non-PU military Kobani here at the bunker or close by, someone I don’t have to worry about revealing to the navy? I want the person in armor initially, but when they see their face, I don’t want to force that person to have to give up whatever spec ops slot they fill now. Not just to show them off to the navy. I don’t know if we can sell them what I have planned anyway.”

“How about a young lady?” Nabarone had an odd smirk.

Mirikami jumped to a conclusion. The wrong one. “There are female spec ops now?”

Crager laughed, knowing whom the general had in mind. “We wish, but we haven’t managed to get any female Normals through the initial screening process on Heavyside. They would be great after selected for the Kobani camp, since they are modified after passing through SOB-1, assuming they pass the Mind Tap interview. You know her. She came with you originally, and was at the crater with Joe’s team for training.”

Nabarone didn’t keep him in suspense. “Carol Slobovic came with Chief Haveram on the Falcon a couple of weeks ago. Not only will they never find a record of her in Human Space, she’s female. Guaranteed to sit favorably with them, no matter what you decide to have her do.”

Carol was one of the TGs that had traveled to Poldark on their first foray into Human Space. She had become a full Kobani as soon as they had returned home, when the value of the Mind Tap mod had proven itself, and the even later mods were available. Mirikami didn’t know where many of those youngsters were right now. They variously served on different ships or teams, wherever they happened to volunteer, or were asked to go.

“Excellent! I’ll brief her on what I plan when she arrives, and I’ll Tap you both to fill you in while we wait for her.”

Using a group hand-on-hand link, Mirikami explained what he wanted to try, just after Nabarone used his personal com set to have someone locate Slobovic and guide her here ASAP, and to bring her armor. They didn’t want to keep the navy waiting longer than necessary.

The usual transfer of images and information was over in seconds, leaving plenty of time for questions and answers in the five minutes it took for the young woman to arrive.

She was startled when she entered the room, “Captain, they didn’t tell me you were on Poldark. I’m not going home am I?” She sounded dismayed at that prospect.

She rushed to explain. “I’m having fun here as a liaison officer between spec ops and the PU Army, pushing the Krall back towards their old lines before the assaults and their withdrawal. I actually get to fight the Krall!” She made it sound as if that were an intramural sport at school. She certainly looked young enough to be in school.

Mirikami gave her a non-military hug, and laughed at her definition of a liaison officer, where she somehow found a way to engage in the fighting against the Krall. “How does sharing information and coordinating Army actions with Special Operations put you into the fighting?” He paused at her distressed expression.

“Never mind. Let me show you what I have in mind for you today. You’ll demonstrate first, without speaking, and when finished you get to impress the hell out of two Lady Admirals.”

He took her hand, and in seconds, she knew what was expected. Her disassembled lightweight armor was packed in a duffel bag she’d picked up in her quarters, located in the large underground bunker complex.

With an impish grin, she slipped into her suit, and as soon as her helmet sealed, she effectively vanished for a moment. The disembodied voice from her external speaker said, “Ready, Sir.” Then she rippled back into view.

Nabarone led them to an observation room, outside the interrogation room where Hothdat was kept, secured upright to a metal framework. There were tubes for nutrients and fluids down her throat to keep her fed and healthy, tubes to collect waste, and a slow drip of diluted Death Lime extract, to keep her immobile and unable to control her organs well enough to force her own death.

They left Carol behind, with two plasma rifle armed attendants that were always on watch. Nabarone issued the men some instructions, and then they proceeded to a conference room to meet the waiting admirals.

As they entered, Nabarone said, “Admirals, this Gentle Man is the Rimmer leader I’ve been telling you about.” As decided on the way, he let Mirikami step forward to introduce himself. Mirikami studiously avoided the male bow and hand kiss a civilian male might have been expected to offer two important Ladies, in uniforms or not.

With Nabarone’s mental picture of each of them in his memory, Mirikami approached Admiral Bledso, his hand extended early, to give her time to react with her own right hand. “I’m Tetsuo Mirikami. I’m pleased to meet you Admiral Bledso. I implore you to excuse the lack of formality my people use between the genders out where we live. Particularly since the Krall will gladly murder either gender. It tends to equalize us in our resolve to fight back.”

Bledso, her normal human genetics hiding her years well, nevertheless was startled by the apparent youth of a man she anticipated would be at least near her age of sixty-eight, and look even older. The Rim worlds weren’t noted for gentle aging of those hardy souls that moved there. She thought he looked to be no more than in his mid to late twenties. She shook his hand, remembering to use enough firmness to convey her position of authority, in a gesture she seldom used with a civilian male.

“We’ve heard about the exploits of your people, mister Mirikami, or do you have a rank title I should be using? I’ve only heard you described as a commander in the Rimmer forces that have helped us, and took the war to the Krall.”

“Admiral, I am often called simply Captain, because I fly a ship, but I generally go by my nickname of Tet. In deference to the military aspects of our meeting, and the conventions that I’m sure you two career military officers employ, Captain Mirikami is perhaps easiest for our purposes.” He shook her hand, sensing a few thoughts, and turned to Admiral Foxworthy.

“Admiral Foxworthy, your heavy cruisers and Starfire space planes performed brilliantly against the Krall. My congratulations.” He shook her hand, and received a few sharp mental impressions from her as well.

She accepted his compliment, and acknowledged her debt to his presumed Rimmer group. “Using your new stealth technology helped our ships, particularly the Starfires in the single ship encounters, and we had the best outing against the Krall in over twenty years. Even so, my Starfires didn’t do as well by far as your Shadows did. I didn’t hear of any losses on your part to single ships, clanships, or ground fire.”

“We did lose one Shadow, to an unfortunate collision with a single ship, but not directly from enemy fire.”

“Clearly Captain, it was far more than your stealth coating that made your Shadows so dominate. Your pilots outperformed the Krall pilots. We want that capability as well.” She left it hanging, to see what his response might be.

He diverted her for the moment, by touching on what he was here for today. “Admirals, performance improvement will come, as the alien technology we use becomes more available. As you know, deep into Krall territory, our raiders have attacked and destroyed Krall production facilities, particularly those for building clanships and the Eight Balls. In the process, we rescued many of their alien forced labor on those planets, and they are now allies with us against the Krall. We had a number of the aliens already working with us, even before the large-scale raids took place. They were a source of intelligence, and most of our new technology.

“We destroyed many of the factories that made Krall equipment, particularly the shipyards that produced most of their clanships and all of their largest transports, and destroyed thousands of clanships that were parked and undefended around domes on those planets. Unfortunately, we don’t yet have the high tech production capability to provide to the freed aliens. They are creating that as they go, and they will eventually help us more than they are able to do at present.”

Bledso offered the suggestion that Nabarone had cautioned Mirikami she would make. “We could certainly furnish them with considerable resources, if they wish to come to the Hub worlds to work.”

“Admiral, they are understandably cautious in their dealing with a new species like humanity. We are an immature civilization to them, and also aggressive.”

She was prepared to push a bit more. “I’m sure they could reconstruct their technology faster with what the Hub worlds can offer.”

Mirikami looked into the eyes of both admirals, and spoke firmly. “I will certainly not push them, let alone try to force them to work for us. We are not like the Krall. We need them to see that difference.”

When he saw Bledso was about to offer another point, he raised a hand to stave off her words.

“These three races, the Prada, Torki, and Raspani, suffered unknown billions of dead. They lost all of their worlds and civilizations, and then spent thousands of years in bondage, or were used as food animals in the case of the Raspani. If we behave improperly towards them, the technology they are willing to give us will dry up. Their improvements of existing technology weren’t offered to the Krall. New ideas will not be offered to us either, if we seem a future threat to them.”

He wanted to be certain to emphasize that alien help was voluntary, and why it would remain so.

“At this time some of them are actively helping us, others are experiencing their first taste of freedom in many thousands of years, and are only passively accepting of us. My people are helping them establish simple housing on a safe habitable world, which we are sharing with them. They know that safe is a relative term with the Krall in this part of the galaxy. That’s why some of the Torki and Raspani have designed new technology for us, which the Krall do not have. The Prada are manufacturing and building things all of us need. The stealth technology is but one aspect of what we have received. I’d like to show you a couple of others today, before I offer a proposal to help you prevent what I believe is a planned new invasion.”

This pronouncement got their attention. Foxworthy asked him, “You were aware that the force that left here has already attacked New Dublin, right?”

“Do you mean another new invasion, one besides that one?” Bledso asked for clarification.

He nodded. “Yes, to both questions. I expect you will need a source of intelligence to show you where it’s being staged prior to its being launched, and when it will happen. Before I propose how I will get you that information, I want to show you why my people are the only ones that can get it for you. You need to know how we learned about the second invasion. The navy was part of the effort that led us to that information.”

“We were?” Queried Bledso. “In what way?”

“Admiral Foxworthy, or rather one of the ships under her command was actually involved. I see from her expression she recalls the actions of her heavy cruiser, the Claw.”

He’d already known from her unguarded thoughts that she intended to talk to him about that event, based on some of her own investigations. He was heading her off at the pass, giving her the answers before she asked.

Bledso looked at her subordinate with the implied question obvious, but Mirikami spoke first. “If the two of you will allow General Nabarone to escort us to an observation room next to a holding cell, much of what I intend to share with you can be seen firsthand, with less explanation. The General has already been shown.”

When they reached the observation room, there were the armed men on either side of a two-way plazsteel mirror, which looked into a darkened interrogation cell. Nabarone waved his hand over a sensor, and the cell’s bright lights came up. Suddenly, eight feet away there were Krall eyes glaring right at them. Bledso jerked in shock at the sight of the two-meter tall red tinged Krall warrior.

Hothdat’s body was fastened upright to a support frame, arms strapped to the side rails, with feeding tubes entering its slightly opened toothy mouth, leading down from containers of fluid and nutrients hanging from the top.

Bledso and Foxworthy had seen the tapes of the capture operation, but the Krall had been inside armor then, and had seemed more mechanical than alive. Both had also seen and been in the presence of dead Krall before. This was the first live one either had ever seen close up, its malevolent black eyes with flame red pits, glaring its hate right into them, as if it could see through the mirrored surface. It was unnerving.

Mirikami noted Bledso’s reaction. “Its muscles are paralyzed Admiral. I suspect you’ve heard that by now. It can breathe, move its eyes, and the other autonomous body functions continue to work, such as dual heartbeats, and the functions of internal organs. Even its sensitive ultrasonic hearing works. That high frequency hearing told it we had entered this room when the door behind us opened in this sound proofed room. The ambient high-pitched noise from the air handlers in the outer corridor rose in intensity. It knows someone is in here observing. I was told it glares like that at the window every time the door opens.

Bledso shook her head with a bemused expression. “Why do you bother to keep it alive, or had it captured in the first place? The paralyzing drug itself is interesting, and Admiral Foxworthy and I have inquired around. It appears to be completely unknown to our own naval intelligence. What use is it in this case?”

“Have you ever heard the assertion that Krall never sleep?”

Two affirmatives led Mirikami to part of Sergeant Reynolds fairy tale of the sleep drug he claimed was used on this Krall. That spurious fabrication seemed to have grown a life of its own. He modified the tale, to leave the preposterous supposed human brain as the source of the drug out of the story, and didn’t say that what was being used didn’t really induce sleep in a Krall.

After he finished, Foxworthy said, “That was the drug Captain Longstreet, or whoever he really was, used to put the Krall out. Records show that Special Operations once had an officer by that name, but he’s been dead for over a year. I think that was actually one of your people, using that name to throw us off track, wearing the same new armor we know your people wear, and that the Shadow pilots have. You’ve sold some of that same armor to spec ops, which is why those men seemed plausible troopers to us.”

Mirikami nodded. She had done this with less guidance on his part than he expected.

“Yes, three of my men were on Poldark, visiting the command bunker, to discuss some supply issues with General Nabarone’s staff when the Claw’s report of finding a high status Krall drifting in space arrived. On their guarantee that they could capture it alive, the general loaned them his personal shuttle on trust. They didn’t have a lot of time to plan, but it was a chance to test the drug on a Krall that actually knew something useful, besides how to pull a trigger when presented with a target. They were right.

“This one knew what was happening on K1. It talked in its imposed sleep when asked questions for the first day, before the drug’s efficacy wore off, and it soon developed a resistance to its effects. It remains paralyzed, but it no longer can be put into a forced state of sleep. That’s how my men were able to learn that the Tor Gatrol has been gathering large quantities of war material on K1 for an invasion. They didn’t actually need to take any from Poldark to stage yet another invasion. Therefore, the equipment on K1 must be for invading an even more important world.

“The clan rumors this one heard,” he pointed at the captive, “say that it will be a heavily populated Hub World, not a Rim world or New Colony. This sub leader,” he nodded at the Krall again, “knows recognition codes for safely entering orbit at K1, and which clans have responsibility for safe guarding the weapon systems and supplies stored around domes on its surface. We even have a code for leaving orbit to land at the clan dome of this one.”

Bledso also had some information Mirikami didn’t know the navy knew. “Is this landing to be done using a captured Krall clanship? I understand you have a number of them under your control. You apparently found a way around their quantum locks.”

He nodded, as he thought of a plausible answer. “The Torki workers that make the quantum locks for the Krall also know what unlocks them.” This was all he offered to confirm her statement. Revealing his Krall tattoo and its use wasn’t advisable. General Nabarone even had one now, as did any Kobani in the spec ops units.

Foxworthy had a question Mirikami expected, based on what her unguarded mental images suggested she intended to ask him when they shook hands. “Your three men captured that Krall while it was fully conscious, long before they had a chance to give it that drug. I watched the recordings repeatedly. They overcame it with brute force, and it was wearing powered armor that made it even stronger and more dangerous.”

It wasn’t quite an accusation, but she would demand an explanation before he could talk them into the agreement he wanted. He had a ready story, one less colorful and embellished than Reynolds would have used, but Mirikami was telling his story to skeptical human beings, not the Krall, who knew little of humanity’s ability to fabricate tales. The Krall bragged and embellished, but they didn’t have the artistry to tell an elaborate good lie.

Another superior human trait, thought Mirikami, sardonically.

He started this way. “Alien technology is exactly that. Alien, and advanced. We don’t understand how all of it works yet. Our new allies gave us the sleep drug, built our armored suits, and improved on the existing Krall stealth technology. Those limited number of top of the line suits give us the edge we need over the Krall in direct combat. The suits you saw on my men on the capture mission have an amazing stealth capability, which you didn’t observe because it wasn’t needed there, and frankly, they didn’t use it because they knew you were watching. We guard our secrets. I’m telling you this now, because I want you to use your fleet to attack K1 if we scout the planet for you, and tell you where to strike hardest. We have to demonstrate what the suits do for us, to convince you we can pull this mission off in secrecy.”

“I don’t believe you about the suits.” Foxworthy rudely told him. “There is no way suits that form fitting can give you that much of a physical advantage, or have the energy to provide the type of stealth our ships generate with tachyon derived power. Your people also moved and reacted just as fast as that Krall did.”

He shrugged. “Despite seeing them for yourself in those recordings, I knew you wouldn’t believe it without a personal demonstration.”

He walked over to the plazsteel and tapped hard with a knuckle. He gestured towards the glaring Krall and said, with a Reynolds-like flourish, “Watch this neat trick.”

The Krall suddenly lifted six inches from the floor and quickly lurched the eight feet directly towards the plazsteel window, causing both admirals to flinch back, and look towards the armed men stationed to the sides of the room. The men stood there, stone faced, as instructed.

Mirikami stepped to the door that led into the interrogation room and insanely, from the viewpoint of the two naval officers, pulled it open. The two officers looked concerned, but realized that no one else in the room seemed worried or had pulled back. What the hell was he up to?

Mirikami said into the room, clearly empty except for the Krall, “Set her down there please, and step back to the far wall. Use low power settings on your lasers to hit the top corners and fire one low power plasma bolt to hit the top center of the frame holding the prisoner.”

To whom is he speaking? Certainly not the Krall, Bledso thought.

The Krall and the entire heavy steel framework settled to the floor without a loud thump. The women realized the Krall hadn’t walked or jumped towards them, it was still strapped to the framework, body sagging against the restraints under gravity. Suddenly, two lasers, one red and one green beam, lanced out from a point in space near the far wall, about five feet from the floor, briefly touching the top corners of the steel frame, and a single actinic but obviously low energy plasma bolt struck the center top of the frame. It also originated from that point in space by the back wall.

“Admiral Bledso and Foxworthy, this was done by one of my people, wearing the stealthed armor you don’t believe can exist. You just saw some of its weaponry, and I think the stealth capability speaks for itself. I doubt you saw more than a ripple of movement from that suit, if even that. The armor was powerful enough to lift not only the Krall, but also that heavy steel frame. Let me introduce you to my trooper.”

He leaned through the door. “Stealth off please.”

The black and white armor that instantly rippled into view was of the same type the three men had used to capture the prisoner. Except the two navy officers realized the images recorded outside the Claw and in its cargo hold had apparently misrepresented the true size scale. This figure seemed very much smaller than they expected.

Still skeptical, Foxworthy asked, “Is there even a man inside that? It’s very small. And those men at the Claw moved as fast as the Krall did.” She considered the possibility that this object, and those men, were a new type of AI controlled device.

“Is that a robot?”

Mirikami offered an odd assurance. “It’s true that there’s no man inside.” He grinned.

Both women looked sharply at him at that admission, thinking the robot guess had been right.

“Helmet off please.” He said, through the open door again.

The headpiece suddenly spread wide at the neck, as hands reached up and lifted it higher. A shock of short dark hair fell free, in slight disarray, and distributed itself more evenly as the person tilted their head down and shook the unruly hair into a semblance of order. Then the person raised their head, revealing facial features of a rather normal looking, small sized young woman. When she smiled, she suddenly seemed transformed into an attractive, petite young Lady.

“Gracious Ladies, I’d like to introduce you to Lady Carol Slobovic.”

Carol merely nodded at the window, unable to see who was on the other side, now that her helmet sensors were unavailable to her.

“Carol, could you remove the rest of the suit please, and join us? I want our two navy visitors to be certain you are not some sort of attractive young cyborg.”

He turned away from the door as he spoke, to observe the two admirals. They in turn divided their attention between him and the young woman through the window, quickly removing armor that opened wide to let her step clear and remove.

Mirikami told them, “Carol is over eighteen years old, I think, and clearly she isn’t…” he was interrupted by her voice through the still open door.

“I’m nineteen…, and a half, Sir.”

That brought some involuntary chuckles, since only the young consider a half year worthy of mention.

“I stand corrected,” Mirikami acknowledged with a grin, and continued.

“She clearly isn’t a man, and I don’t think any similar sized male you know could have lifted that Krall anyway, along with the heavy steel frame it’s strapped to. Could a petite young woman like Carol do that?” He didn’t answer his own question, letting them make the wrong assumptions on their own.

As he spoke, said petite young woman bounced up the low step into the observation room. She was an inch shorter than the below average height of Mirikami. Her bare arms, below her short-sleeved utility shirt, had nicely defined muscles, but they were somewhat slender looking muscular limbs. Koban carbon fiber tissue did not produce bulky muscles, not if your natural genetics would not produce bulk in the human tissue they supplemented. She was still stronger than an ox, but didn’t look like she was.

When Mirikami made the official introductions to the admirals, he was pleased to see that Carol remembered the acting lessons he’d quickly coached to her. She offered only a half hand insertion on the handshakes, making her grip feel limp, and as she pretended to be introduced to Nabarone for the first time, he deliberately engulfed her small hand in his, so that she pulled it back quickly when released, as if he’d gripped her too tight. This was all part of the sales pitch that the alien suits had power assist because it was supposed to be obvious that Carol was no super woman.

Nice acting, thought Mirikami. I wonder if she considered crunching down on the hands of the admirals anyway.

Foxworthy again proved she was the harder sell here. “I didn’t hear your answer as to how your men moved as fast as that Krall in freefall. Being stronger is different from being fast. It’s why we use AIs on our ships, for fire control against the Krall.”

Mirikami had an answer. Not perfect, but “seeing” might also be “believing” for the two officers, if he provided a reasonable sounding answer.

“PU body armor has an AI, why wouldn’t alien designed armor have some equivalent? A similar system is installed in the fully enclosed helmet, which I assume you noted has no front faceplate. That suit can adapt to the human nervous system, and actually detects your thoughts as they are formed in your brain, to start the suit moving even before you actually can make a muscle start to move. The person inside goes along for the ride, as quickly as they think of what they want to do.”

This was another partial truth, because the suits did interface with the Kobani superconducting nervous system, and responded instantly to mental commands such as weapons selections, power level, and firing commands. Only, it didn’t have any powered joints to respond to movements. That was all done by Kobani muscle power, and the speed of reaction was from their own nervous system.

When Foxworthy simply nodded, Mirikami knew he’d scored all the points he’d wanted to make today.

When the admirals tried to pry into Carol’s personal life and home world, Mirikami stepped in. “I’m sorry Admiral Bledso, Admiral Foxworthy, but I understood that General Nabarone had described to you the ground rules that we insisted on for our own security. We will not risk offering details that could be used to trace us back to our various home worlds on the Rim. The Krall, if they find out where we have our small bases, would put an end to our service to you, and destroy our worlds.” There was more than a touch of truth to that statement, but some of his security concerns were due to the Hub government’s own genetic laws.

Bledso apologized. “I’m sorry Captain. That was indeed explained to us. We simply found your young Lady here so engaging that we forgot.”

Possible, but not probable, Mirikami thought. You were snooping.

He moved the discussion back on track, since they appeared to see Carol as what she closely resembled. An ordinary teenager.

“As you saw just now, the suits do have excellent stealth, even built in energy weapons, and a compact alien designed power source to run them. Wearing that suit, Carol was easily able to lift the Krall, and that heavy steel support frame.” Of course, she probably could do that one handed, without the suit’s minor weight to add to the total being lifted.

“I think I have demonstrated that my people have the capability to successfully infiltrate down to the surface of K1, discover where you could do the most damage to their stockpiles with a surprise heavy attack, and slow or stop the Krall advances on our worlds for years, while your own forces get stronger. We are never going to win this war as we’ve been fighting it against them.”

He knew the half-truths and misdirection of today, about his leading the so-called “Rimmers,” wouldn’t stand indefinitely, and eventually they would learn the people giving them a fighting chance had been genetically enhanced. That they came from a world outside of Human Space, well beyond what was currently called the Rim.

Right now, the navy could hit effectively at the Krall on K1, while they were still limited in their war making ability, because of a temporary clanship and migration ship shortage. He could also assure them there was no threat from Eight Balls, because they had all been destroyed, and the Krall couldn’t make more. The Hub government needed to be bolder, to fight harder despite loses, or human civilization was doomed.

Bledso, unwilling to make even a tentative positive comment openly, was concerned with political repercussions for her own career. Anything she said today might be leaked to the president, or worse, to the press. Her ambition to press the war against the Krall might end as badly as it had for Admiral Mauss, who stepped away from fleet command duties rather than be fired after the Rhama disaster, despite a combat victory while she led the fleet action at K1. A hint of Bledso’s true feeling was revealed however.

“Captain Mirikami, we will be eagerly waiting for what you have to show us from K1. The word of a single warrior could be the bragging typical of their nature, although there has been a truthful basis for much of what they have openly broadcast to us in the past. If they are accelerating planetary invasions, billions of lives are at risk. We can’t take preemptive action without strong evidence. I hope you can find proof on K1 that I can take to the Joint Chiefs, and if they agree, can be presented to the president. Good luck to you Captain.”

It was as close as Mirikami was going to get to a commitment from the navy, and he had intended to scout K1 regardless. “Thank you Admiral. We’ll Jump in a day or two, and I expect to return with Tri-Vid evidence confirming what we were told by this prisoner within two weeks. Our information for which clans have responsibility for storing and safeguarding this war material was extremely detailed. We won’t have to scour the entire planet.”

Telling the PU navy he was going to scout K1 in advance, and then bringing back the proof the Krall were prepared for a second invasion was better than suddenly showing up and making that same claim. It lent credence that his people had the capability that he claimed, and then demonstrate they had completed a mission the PU military could not perform.

They shook hands and said their goodbyes. Mirikami told Crager he could accompany him back to Koban when he returned from K1, and he had regretfully turned down Carol’s imploring to go with the Mark to K1.

“Carol you perform a valuable and needed job for General Nabarone’s forces here. Remember, scouting the enemy in complete secrecy will mean that if we’re successful, we shouldn’t encounter any fighting on K1 for this trip. Which is something you apparently have discovered is strangely included in your definition of liaison work.” He raised an eyebrow, not in disapproval but amusement.

“Oh, that’s true,” she reflected. “On second thought, spying doesn’t seem quite as exciting as actually meeting and beating the enemy in combat.”

He smiled at the slightly bloodthirsty look the pleasant looking young Lady flashed him as she said that.

****

The Mark performed a White Out at two hundred miles above K1, practically above a hand of Tanga clan domes, where Hothdat said some of the larger weapons were said to be stored. There were thousands of the white ceramic-coated Dragons parked at two domes, along with lesser numbers of much larger armored gray transports. They were gathered in columns, facing the open rim area of the large circular tarmacs, ready to stream onto clanships when they landed to load them. At two other domes were thousands of laser and counter battery rocket carts for defense, and thousands of plasma cannon carts and mobile barrage rocket platforms, for use in mass assaults when forcing and securing an invasion landing area.

All of the equipment was oriented facing away from the central domes in long columns, ready to be driven forward to meet the arriving clanships, which had to act as Krall transports now. In the absence of the huge Torki Migration ships, it would take days longer to load the steady stream of smaller clanships needed, than if they had use of the huge Torki designed ships the humans had either captured or destroyed. The clanships had large lower holds, but to carry the maximum amount per ship, the equipment had to be hoisted internally to higher decks through openings that could be slid aside in deck plating on two sides of the central column of the traditional propulsion system engine. The large transports were preloaded with ammunition and small arms, and could be separated into three modules that could be hoisted to higher decks for transit. The mini tanks would be driven in sets of four, onto lift plates at each side of the main hold, and lifted up to the higher decks for storage.

Mirikami had learned that they were not transporting a compact starter factory for assembly by Prada workers, because it would have to be dismantled even more for loading into a clanship. There would be no on-planet repairs or replacement parts for damaged equipment, at least not for the first planetary orbit of the target planet. That meant there would be no Prada or Torki slave labor long to concern human forces when attacking any of the enemy ships. That was a relief for Mirikami, to avoid the guilt and recriminations for the ancillary tasks he had his scouts performing.

The large number of clanships needed to move this material wasn’t observed, apparently still being employed for supporting and supplying the invasion on New Dublin. That invasion had been under way for less than a month, but most of those ships should be returning to K1 soon.

Mirikami had Jakob, his AI, start sending the recognition code for entering orbit at Telda Ka, as soon as they had openly arrived. Had he tried to approach after secreting his gamma ray burst behind some outer moon or planet, there was the risk a clanship might be posted there, just to detect that typically human form of sneakiness. He also had the landing codes for several clans, taken from Hothdat’s mind. They had made their White Out well below the surviving orbital defense platforms, placed in roughly five hundred mile high orbits. Nabarone told him the navy said those were not staffed full time by the Krall, and could be activated remotely from the ground for unauthorized ships that failed to send recognition codes.

Mirikami had the AI detach a number of self-propelled small satellites, with their own stealth, and then he took the Mark directly down into the middle atmosphere, and rotated to horizontal flight at roughly fifty miles. Jakob used the ship’s visual sensors to record the ranks of equipment arrayed around the four Tanga clan domes, like petals on killer flowers. He initiated the code that would authorize them to land at Skodol clan’s dome, located on another landmass. The domes below would receive this code, and would expect the ship to fly off towards the horizon. A rather typical example of the seat-of-the-pants style of Krall flying.

Skodol was a former finger clan of Hothdat’s Dorbo clan, and still a minor clan that would have little role in any invasion’s early stages. Mirikami’s entry plan had made certain that the Skodol dome was nowhere close to the domes below, which were occupied by major clans. Such clans had the status to earn control of such valuable resources.

Sending the landing code for Skodol’s only dome on K1 was a diversion, to allow them to see the stockpiles of equipment around the domes directly below, and then move east over a wide ocean to the shores of the next continent, where the dome lay that they were advertising their intent to land.

As their very visible flaming thrusters took them over the horizon, above a fifteen hundred mile stretch of sea and out of sight of any land mass, they cut the visible thruster trail that left ions in its wake, and activated the reactionless Normal Space drive. Next, they descended to a few thousand feet and activated the stealth system, and slowed to a hover on gravity and inertial force control. This ate up considerable tachyon derived power, but they weren’t expecting to fight or to have to make a sudden long Jump. Two Krall made shuttles with the newer style stealth system were safely launched while low over the water, and they flew back towards the four domes where the equipment just seen was parked.

Unlike the original Krall stealth systems, which other clanships could detect even at a distance of thousands of miles, the Kobani systems, redesigned by the Torki and Raspani, became invisible anywhere beyond several miles from any clanship. Even then, a clanship would need to search with much longer wavelengths of radiation than were needed to detect human ships, or their own craft. Long before the transmitted landing code could be received at the Skodol dome, the signal was shut off. Now they would change direction and pause in isolated areas to launch four-ships.

The Mark, or any ship for that matter, lost some degree of stealth if it opened hatches or ports to launch shuttles or four man ships. These smaller craft were also equipped with the new stealth coating, and could approach the target sites in relative safety if long wave radiation wasn’t detected as they neared. If the latter radiation were detected, in what humans called low frequency radio waves, it would indicate the Krall were seeking targets using that form of stealth. They had brought only one human made shuttle for landing on Poldark, and it was tied down in the large lower hold. It also had stealth, but if it were somehow seen visually, heard, or detected by sensors, its characteristics offered proof too strong to ignore that humans were on K1. A glimpse of a Krall design ship could be dismissed as another clan nosing around, perhaps as a training exercise.

Using this method, scout teams could be dispersed to investigate multiple locations furnished by Hothdat’s information, and the Mark could move on to repeat the dispersion process at other isolated sites. It was a quieter form of disbursing forces than the Krall used for their raiders, having launched those against human worlds for two decades.

Finally, having dispersed all of the smaller ships, the Mark flew undetected to within nine miles of a large multi-clan use dome where, according to Hothdat, Joint Council meetings were held. The Mark’s own passive sensors were watching for the longer wave radio signals that might indicate the Krall were actively scanning for the newest human stealth systems on ships. Thus far, only human body armor had been detected by the Krall using this radio wave method, and humans in armor weren’t considered much of a threat. The stolen clanships that had delivered those human warriors to raided Krall production worlds had been no better stealthed than were Krall ships, at that time. There, they had snuck in by hiding behind moons and gas giants, as they concealed their gamma ray flash White Outs. Those approaches into the K1 system were all being watched.

The Joint Council was still absorbing the details of the Poldark withdrawal, studying how their clanship fleet was attacked by Shadows, Starfires, and Foxworthy’s heavy cruisers, all of which had employed this same new stealth system. Only the cruise missiles had arrived completely unstealthed. However, the new stealth’s effectiveness on the heavy cruisers wasn’t blatantly obvious in the heat of their attack, because of the way the ships were used, with the enemy continuously firing at a rich field of Krall clanships, which revealed their positions on clanship sensors anyway.

Some clanship commanders and single ship pilots were questioning why they had not seen the enemy craft coming, and afterwards asked how they had vanished so suddenly, when they broke off an attack and quit shooting. The Krall histories were full of stories where they encountered incremental improvements in an enemy’s technology and tactics in a long war, and the Krall always adjusted after the fact, once the changes were reported to be widespread.

They had additional technology in reserve, and new types of battlefield weapons they could employ. Twenty five thousand years of fighting, and victories, left the winner with plenty of options to try.

Right now, there was considerably more being discussed at the council dome than the human response on Poldark. This withdrawal misstep was considered a glitch in an unprecedented force redeployment that many clan leaders had questioned doing in the first place. Tor Gatrol Kanpardi, who had sponsored that controversial plan, was now dead. Interclan politics was the highest priority right now, and that drama, unknown to Mirikami and his scouts, was still playing out today.

As the Mark settled behind a jungle-overgrown remnant of a sizable former human city, Accra II, the former capitol of the Greater West Africa colony, it was unable to detect any active scans at low radio frequencies. Although, the standard Krall scans that would detect stealthed PU Navy ships were continuously active, and were probably performed automatically, coming from various clanships of the major clans that were represented here.

The abandoned buildings of the human city had been preserved by the Krall for possible use by their slave race, the Prada. Those loyal slaves had always considered themselves as “servants,” a part of the Krall Empire. They balked at using housing structures that were so alien, and belonged to an enemy of the Rulers. Because they were not ordered to stay there to live, they built the nearby dome and simultaneously moved closer to it, into forest villages they built. That had been the pattern all over K1 two decades ago. Once the major construction was over, and the later repairs from the two human attacks had been repaired, the Prada, and a small contingent of Torki, were relocated to a smaller continent of K1, to produce small weapons and conduct Clanship repairs, isolated from the other Krall occupied landmasses. Their Krall overlords didn’t particularly like having their weak faithful workers so close, where they offended their senses and fouled the air with their furry odor, or lived in cool, dank tunnels that smelled of unpleasant seawater.

The Prada could be quickly ferried to any location, as needed for maintenance, and in isolation, they produced small war materials such as plasma rifles, power packs, and body armor that were used up rapidly. They did this in underground factories on that single, increasingly polluted continent. Even the modest Torki population on that coastline was enough to meet the needs of building new quantum code locks for weapons, and restoring stealth coatings on ships, or for coating body armor.

Only the nearly mindless Raspani herds were given free run of the two main equatorial continents, with wide plains and grasses that could support them. They had actually flourished where they had no native predators that relished their alien flesh. The strange foliage was suitable for them, if supplemented with an essential fern-like plant they ate from their original home world.

The original human settlers had introduced domestic animals, which had been gene modified hundreds of years ago, before the Gene War, to make plant life on this world suitable for their digestion. The Krall didn’t like the taste of that meat as much as Raspani meat, and as in most things, the Krall tended to stay with what they knew and liked. They slaughtered the local animals wantonly when they had an opportunity, mostly for entertainment, which helped the Raspani herds to expand. There were already far more of the Raspani than the Krall needed for food.

Humans had noted many times that the Krall appeared to be a species caught in a rut. They lived in the same type domes on every planet, flew the same clanships, drove the same basic trucks, used the same weapons, as called for to match their enemy, ate the same things, and fought repetitive wars. Other than improving their own bodies very slowly, they made no progress as a civilization. They were a spreading blight that replaced thriving species with their own aggressive, deadly sameness.

That nourishing green fern the Raspani needed for nutrition, and the less desired red pepper plant (which the Krall forced them to eat for flavoring), both grew very well here, and the poor creatures actually spread the green fern’s growth by planting new shoots themselves. The herds had spread widely in twenty-two years, and were in the millions if populations on the two largest continents were considered. They made for pleasant hunts for bored warriors seeking fresh raw meat, taken by talon and teeth.

At the large council dome, a mile wide, one-quarter mile high structure, there was a three-mile diameter tarmac for holding thousands of clanships, for sizable assemblies when various clans wanted to “pack the house” with their noisy supporters on divisive matters of clan status and warfare related decisions. There were under a thousand clanships present now, meaning that only the highest status leaders of the major clans were present. They needed to select a new Tor Gatrol. Only major clans had the status to present their own candidates, or they might ally with other clans that supported a candidate that best expressed what the majority wanted to hear.

The net result of this preoccupation with clan politics meant most Krall present anywhere near this dome today were either inside watching or participating in discussions, or listening to them and watching on command deck screens in their clanships.

As tempting as it was for Mirikami to take possession of dozens of the probably unguarded outlying clanships, that action would trigger intense planetary wide surveillance, right before a hoped for large-scale attack by the navy might take place. The theft would have to wait, if it happened at all.

Parked safely out of sight of the Krall dome, the eight people remaining on the Mark were standing just below the Bridge level, leaving the AI on watch. Mirikami intended to lead a small force closer to the dome and the parked clanships, but he was facing objections from Dillon. All eight of them were already in armor, helmets off.

“Tet, it’s too risky. You plan to walk out on that ramp to kidnap a high status Krall and bring him back, right out in the open. Send someone else.”

“Ahh.” He replied, with a mischievous grin. “Your persuasive argument must be that I’m too old, clumsy, and untrained to perform as well as any other Kobani with similar mods. Therefore, I should send someone that can actually get the job done.”

“Uh…, no, it’s… it’s not that.” He stammered.

“Right.” Mirikami rubbed his chin in pretend thought. “You mean it’s so dangerous to do this that I should only send people that we can afford to lose. Sacrificial and suicidal lambs, so to speak. The youngest kids we brought, you think?” He looked appraisingly over at the six least experienced TG1’s, seventeen years old, and all within hearing. This was fun, making Dillon squirm.

“Blazes no! It isn’t very dangerous.” He glanced at the last six youngsters, who had never been on any sort of a mission. “The Krall won’t detect us or expect anything like this. They’d be perfectly safe.” He knew they had been in a Mind Tap with experienced spec ops troops as late as this morning, as had he. They were as prepared as they could be.

In a low disheartened voice, Mirikami said, “Then, its back to my being old and feeble minded, isn’t it?” He let his face look sad as he lowered his head. No need to let a floundering fish off the hook.

“Damn it! You’re as sharp and capable as ever and you know I don’t mean you couldn’t do it.” Dillon grasped at another straw to try to keep the leader of the Kobani safe aboard the ship.

“Maggi will hound me if I don’t talk you out of this.”

Mirikami’s face brightened. “So, I only need my wife’s permission to go? I expected this, so I came fully prepared for that. Will a note from her do?” He promptly produced a folded slip of paper from his pocket.

Dillon didn’t take the offered slip of paper. “You planned this!” he accused. “I can’t believe you got your wife to write me a damned note that approves you going on a scouting mission, just to make me give in to you.”

“Ridiculous isn’t it? You have no idea how hard it was to get her to sign that.” He put the old Watch Stander’s list back in his pocket, reeling in his gullible fish.

“While I’m gone Dillon, that puts you in charge here, if you’re up to it with only one kid to help you instruct Jakob on what to do. I’ll take five of them with me, and one will keep you from feeling all alone, and afraid of what my wife will do to you.” He hooked a thumb at the six eager seventeen year olds. One of whom would be very disappointed to have to stay on the ship.

“I can handle the ship alone just fine Tet, and you damn well know it. Jakob runs almost everything anyway, so a dummy could do it. Besides, Maggi doesn’t retaliate against me often anymore. She’s mellowed since you two married, or perhaps you’re the new target. In any case, I get wacked a lot less now.”

Mirikami grinned and spoke cheerfully over his shoulder as he walked towards the six TG1’s, his helmet under his arm. “OK, then. As you suggested, you’ll be the lone dummy in charge. I’ll take all six of them with me. If I get too tired, feeble or lost, they can carry me back.”

The nervous looks of the youngsters immediately eased. None of them had wanted to stay behind.

Dillon finally nodded in understanding. “You know what? Maggi has had a bad influence on you. You set me up for this, didn’t you? Let me see that damned note.”

“She just wrote that I should give you a whack in the head if you give me any grief. I’m starting to feel aggravation returning.” He reached towards a long wooden pointer on the conference table, used when they were lecturing the new youngsters via images on a wall screen.

Yielding at last, Dillon said, “Ye gods, put on your helmet so I don’t have to endure that satisfied smirk.”

****

Kartok wasn’t happy. He was being forced to leave this critical council meeting by his clan leader, so that leader could return for an upcoming council vote on a new Tor Gatrol. As the third highest status warrior of Ditka clan, he of course could not voice his clan’s single permitted vote, but he had wanted to hear all of the votes as they were spoken with fierce passion. A single vote was granted to a middle status clan like his, a clan that had earned a place with the Major and the Great clans on the council only within the last two thousand years. The ancient Great clans each had three votes, cast by their clan leader and the next two highest status warriors. Major clans had two votes each, and a minor clan had one vote.

Ditka was a former finger clan of Great Graka clan, which meant in these council battles they would back the parent clan, until they repaid their status debt for their formation.

His clan leader needed to be here if the voting started today or tonight, as the unexpectedly rapid push for a vote appeared about to win a consensus among the Great clan leaders. The presence of every clan leader, even midlevel clans, was essential for each of the Great clans that had proposed or supported a particular warrior for elevation to Tor Gatrol.

Graka clan was in a razor edged lead in the struggle to elect their candidate, Telour, the current Til Gatrol, who was second in rank to the now dead Kanpardi. Both warriors were of Graka clan, but some of the seemingly less aggressive tactics of the former Tor had made him unpopular with a few Great clans, and even more so with Major and middle status clans.

To gain support for his promotion, Telour had been pushing for greater punitive actions against humanity. He wasn’t alone in that, because it was a position also taken by three other Great clans, who had their own candidates for Tor Gatrol. Most Great clans previously had supported Kanpardi, on using new invasions as the punishment. Because they were invasions that they had wanted to happen anyway, they seem less punitive rather than a normal progression of the war. Now the mood was for something else to be done, something more drastic than two new invasions, to force an adjustment of human attitudes.

Every high status warrior put forward as a Great clan’s candidate for Tor Gatrol had spoken to the Joint Council, except for Telour, who as the Til Gatrol reserved the right of addressing the council last. He was due to speak soon, and was expected to present his plan of how to punish humanity into forever ceasing attacks on Krall production worlds.

All four of the other candidates had offered plans of violence to various degrees, but Telour was said to have been working on the details of his plan the longest. It was rumored to be able to deliver the most damaging heavy blows to the enemy, with the least cost of a vital and limited resource, the Olt’kitapi living ships.

Kartok had been ordered to fly their clanship a quarter the way around the planet to his clan’s dome, and allow the clan leader to fly it back alone, while Kartok assumed the duties of directing new novice selection and training. All of their remaining fifteen clanships were still at New Dublin, delivering supplies, equipment, and supporting their warriors in the invasion force already on the ground.

A suborbital shuttle trip from their dome would take two hours for the clan leader to arrive, so Kartok was to take the much faster clanship to him, which was parked at the council dome. Trading places with the clan leader would deny Kartok the privilege of seeing a relatively rare moment, when a new Tor Gatrol was chosen. Such a selection was not very rare in the long Krall history, but was certainly rare in the life of a warrior.

He made his way by the most direct route, out to where a midlevel clan was forced to land, on the outer ring of parked clanships. He wasn’t consoled by a handful of other similar status warriors of middle clans such as his, that he’d seen radiating away from the dome in different directions, also on unwilling missions to fetch their own clan leaders. None had gone in the same direction ahead of him, so there would be no sudden firey launches that he’d have to avoid with a detour. Therefore, he sullenly walked in as straight a line as possible, directly under any clanship along that path. For a Krall, a sullen walk would constitute a steady jog for a human.

As he was about to pass below the bell mouth of a clanship’s main thruster, he felt a sting on his neck. Telda Ka was a largely tropical warm planet, one reason for it to be selected as their first base in human territory. It supported a huge variety of insects and dozens of small flying predators. Even after so many orbits, the less intelligent of the native life had not learned that a Krall was not a source of palatable nutrition. Furthermore, they were dangerous to even approach. Only, this time Kartok had not heard the buzz or flutter of wings. When he swiped at the left side of his neck, he found nothing there to crush.

He’d been engrossed with his own complaints, and in this secure place, he’d been less on alert than would be normal on another world. Annoyed, he whirled about to see what had dared to intrude on his foul mood. Even killing a mere insect would give him a miniscule measure of pleasure. Except there was nothing to hear, and nothing out of the ordinary to see. He clawed in irritation at the air and continued now at a normal Krall pace, the speed of a human sprint.

He passed below and between two more clanships, and was nearly three quarters of the way to where his clan’s craft had landed, when he faltered in his run as he nearly ran into a landing jack of a clanship. He suddenly realized his peripheral vision had narrowed, and his right shoulder had missed the jack only by a last minute twist of his body as the object suddenly appeared in the right edge of his strangely reduced tunnel vision.

Simply the act of turning aside suddenly put him off balance, causing him to stagger to stay upright, demonstrating instantly to his now alert mind that all three modes of establishing equilibrium and spatial orientation were affected. The statoreceptors were two fluid-filled vesicles that responded to natural or artificial gravity to furnish an up-down reference. He also had fluid filled phasic rotation receptors that responded to angular accelerations, similar to a human’s inner ear workings, and lastly, his visual reference system used external cues to calculate spatial orientation. The common factors for these balance systems to all fail were his nervous system, eye, and muscle control.

He believed he was thinking in a fully normal manner, but muscle control was weakened, his vision was impaired, and his nervous system wasn’t sending his brain feedback from his sense of touch along his limbs as it should.

He quit running, and rather than fall down as he felt muscle control slip away, he quickly sat on the tarmac to assess what was wrong. He could see another landing jack on the other side of the clanship when he moved his eyes in that direction. He could control where his eyes pointed, but the image was similar to looking through a tube. He could tell he was far enough away from that jack that he wasn’t directly below the main thruster. Oddly, he couldn’t turn his head, to enable his eyes to swivel enough to see the landing jack that he’d narrowly avoided running into a moment ago. It should be close, and he wanted to try to lean back against that in an effort to remain upright.

Suddenly, from the speed with which his viewpoint shifted, from looking at the landing jack he could see, to one where he was looking up at the bottom of the clanship, he knew he was on his back. Yet, he couldn’t have fallen over that quickly in this low gravity, nor should he have fallen backwards from the forward leaning slump he’d been in as he sat down. Something must have pushed him backwards.

That impression was reinforced when his narrowed vision indicated he was being lifted slightly, and his head rolled back and forth for a moment. Then he was lowered again, and suddenly found he was in near total darkness. It wasn’t completely dark to his senses however because his IR vision saw a diffuse and uniform dull heat glow everywhere he could roll his eyes, trying to see some detail. He was unaware that he was inside a closed box now. He briefly considered the possibility that he had died, because he had no feeling from any part of his body or limbs. Most Krall didn’t believe in an afterlife, although there were some that questioned that thinking, in the absence of evidence either way.

Then he heard muffled sounds, which clearly was speech. An unfamiliar chill of fear came over him as he heard two sentences spoken. The reassurance that he was probably still alive was totally negated by what he heard. The first words were spoken in a low frequency, in the human language. Next, he heard words in high Krall. Both sets of words would haunt his thoughts.

****

Mirikami and his six followers had crossed from the trees that grew almost to the edge of tarmac. They ran all the way through the abandoned city and now the woods, with stealth active, but they could see one another via helmet icons. Except for a handful of startled animals they spooked with slight noises as they passed them invisibly, they were less substantial than ghosts.

They used a group Mind Tap before they started their run from the Mark, despite the reduced detail shared when they did this through their conductive gauntlets, rather than by skin contact. Mirikami had told them to run until they were directly under the first clanship, which he would select as he started across the half-mile strip of open tarmac, which lay outside the ragged ring of parked ships that surrounded the council dome.

Mirikami kept a closer eye on the pair of icons for Drake and Tara, because those two youngsters were carrying a large empty cargo box between them. It was plugged into both of their suits to power its stealth coating, but if they let it drop or they pulled apart while making their way through the trees, the normally gray colored box would ripple into view in visible light but more dangerously, would also reflect radar.

Two hands of the parked clanships around the dome had radar detection active at all times on the sky over this region, scanning up to orbital heights. Periodically, at random intervals any one of the clanships, serving as stationary platforms for a type of inverse synthetic aperture radar, would scan a section of the surrounding terrain with a lower energy beam, seeking any movement on the ground, or low altitude moving targets around the dome.

Animal life, or wind blowing the trees would represent a diffuse return if its motion were detected, and because there was no moving mechanical antenna involved, the Krall computer could instantly return a synthetic aperture beam to scan any signal return in more detail. At least until a warrior monitoring the alerts was convinced it was harmless, or that it required longer observation. There were eight conventional beam-scanning antennas built into the hull and spaced around the bow of a clanship, and they could be used to maintain continuous coverage of a small area, where radar returns of interest were detected. This permitted the wide area scan of other antennas to resume, searching for different potential moving threats.

Such ground level scans had passed over the Kobani’s path several times, initially when they were much deeper in the trees. Once a scan picked up a deer-like pair of animals, which were startled when a twig snapped from a careless footstep. The animal’s motion as they ran away from the sound was directly towards the dome, and a random wide scan picked them up and followed them. Afterwards, a dedicated single beam antenna took over monitoring them, as the animals turned away from the tarmac and ran in an arc around the open ground. These various radar signals were detected by the Kobani sensors, and the origin of the signals and specifics of the radiation was displayed and interpreted for the Krall watchers on their helmet displays.

So long as they remained stealthed, none of the Kobani or that box would be detected by that higher frequency radar. Mirikami was aware, however, that if the seven of them frightened too many native creatures into fleeing, that their collective motions would form a pattern that could draw too much attention to their approach. If that happened, all Mirikami needed to do was stop moving. The others were keyed on him and they too would stop.

Giving a Krall on duty an advanced warning of them via disturbing native animals wasn’t as likely to happen as first feared, due to the Krall’s preoccupation of killing anything sizable, either for sheer pleasure, or sometimes for food. Low status Krall flunkies that were excluded from clan meetings often roamed these woods in boredom, killing for entertainment. Most local animals knew to avoid the region.

As the seven cleared the trees, they continued over the tarmac, the soles of their armored feet forming into a softer, noise absorbing surface. Mirikami used his zoom and heat sensing systems to sight traces of four Krall moving on the tarmac between the parked clanships on this side of the dome. One was going towards the dome, and of the three moving away, one of them followed a course that was only a bit off to the left of where he paused with the team under a clanship.

He extended an arm, palm held down, in an obvious Mind Tap ring invitation. They were avoiding any transmission, encrypted or not, to avoid drawing attention to their presence. They had heard a number of Krall transmissions, which were all encrypted and unintelligible. Mirikami didn’t know if this was because of mutual distrust in this political clan leader gathering, or they had learned that humans could have spy bots listening to unguarded communications.

He explained what his plan was now with respect to the closest Krall, and they split apart and followed his lead, staying several steps back. Mirikami detached the tiny little hand held railgun from his waist clip, the extendable lanyard providing power and keeping the gun’s stealth coating functioning.

He waited next to a landing jack ahead of the path the Krall was following, who moved at an oddly slow pace for most warriors. He could manually trigger the gun if he wished, but he preferred to trigger the firing signal mentally for a single round, when it was time. There was no alternate projectile type to select from tonight. He’d only loaded one type, and expected to use only one shot.

When the warrior passed fifty feet away, he sighted for less than a second on the Krall’s neck, where his IR system revealed the warmth of an artery below the scaly tough skin, and fired. The round was utterly silent when it left the rail gun, at a far lower velocity than the maximum possible. The needle struck softly and penetrated, and as designed, the heat and mechanical stress of even a low velocity impact liquefied the short, thin projectile. Kobani hearing had been used to test these new needle handguns, and they made no noise a Krall, or a Kobani for that matter, could hear.

The Krall swiped at the spot where it was struck, and whirled around in obvious irritation. After a glare all around, it resumed its original track, only at a faster normal pace now. Good, that would increase blood flow to his brain. All they needed to do was follow for ten more seconds, until the paralyzing agent started to take effect.

When the Krall nearly ran into a landing strut of the next clanship, Mirikami knew they had him. It sat down, obviously disoriented, and leaned forward. Walking up to him, he crouched and looked directly into its face. The red pits were blazing against the black orb that held them. The mind was active, and the eyes were able to move, but not the head. The warrior appeared to be looking right through Mirikami, which in a sense he was, since the background scene was routed faithfully around the stealthed armor.

Standing up, Mirikami pushed with one index finger between the Krall’s eyes, and shoved it over onto its back. As he did this, Mirikami received a dim flash of the Krall’s thoughts. He was thinking that if he failed to complete this task for his clan leader that he would lose status. He wasn’t fearful for his life, only his position within his clan.

The six TG1’s approached, and Drake and Tara set the cargo box down beside the limp Krall, whose eyes were rolling around in agitation.

Mirikami looked around for any possible visual observers, and knew that directly under this clanship no random radar signal could reflect out from under here either. He released the catch on the box lid and opened it wide. The inside wasn’t coated for stealth, and when opened it made a hole in space above the tarmac with rectangular sides only seen on the insides. Then Drake and Tara, one at the shoulders, one at the taloned feet, lifted the Krall to position him over the hole in space and lowered him inside. Mirikami closed and fastened the lid, which cut off what outside visible light the Krall could receive.

Having tested the inside of the closed box himself, Mirikami knew outside sound would reach the warrior. He mentally toggled his external speaker, leaned over the box and said softly, in Standard, “I’m afraid your clan leader will have to walk to the council to vote.”

Then, using a high frequency audio module built into his suit, said in the high Krall language, “You can say goodbye to your cloaca, because it belongs to humanity now.” The words were shifted from the human speech range into the ultrasonic range of high Krall.

When he stepped back, switching off his speaker, the four kids that came empty handed each clipped their power cords to the side of the long cargo box to power its stealth coating, allowing Drake and Tara to disconnect. Tara took a position ten feet in front of the box, with Drake taking the tail end Charlie spot, while the four others grasped the side grips of the box and lifted. They followed Mirikami back to the Mark at a fast trot.

Dillon quickly opened a hatch for them when he saw their returning suit icons on screen. There wasn’t enough time to interrogate the prisoner right now, so they stowed the paralyzed prisoner safely in a locked compartment, keeping him under continuous watch.

While they were gone, Dillon reported there had been no problem calls from any of the scout teams, which would have broken radio silence if made. They had left several stealthed relay satellites in low orbit, just in case any of their teams had called for an emergency extraction.

The Mark, lifting silently on gravity control of their Normal Space drive, flew away from the council dome, staying low and slow, until over the horizon. Then they climbed slightly and retraced their original drop-off route to start recovering teams in the order they had been dispatched.

Mirikami stayed below to speak with the teams as they arrived, and to confirm they had all managed to return less heavily loaded down than when they left. They only needed to wait briefly for three of the teams to make a delayed rendezvous, and then the Mark rose cautiously to low orbit from over another ocean, avoiding any atmospheric turbulence. At two hundred miles, they caught a Jump Tachyon, and headed for Poldark.

The Jump required almost a week. Mirikami and Dillon shared some quality time with Kartok, who proved to be a fountain of news. Some good news, with an undercurrent of potentially very bad news.

****

“Henry, we need to think about this before we push the navy very hard to do this. I think it’ll be better to let them come to the decision on their own. You know the probable repercussions if we hit the Krall so hard. They’ll hit back, and they show no mercy or restraint.” Mirikami wanted to hold Nabarone’s enthusiasm down a bit. The general wanted the navy to mount an attack on K1 as soon as possible.

“Pah! The navy has acted like pantywaists for so long they forgot how to be aggressive. If we don’t present your evidence to the president, the navy might sit on it until another invasion fleet launches. We don’t know where this invasion is supposed to go either. Only that it will be a Hub world. We need to prevent it from even lifting off this time.”

“Henry, the timing needs to be carefully done. If we strike the stockpiles of material sitting on the surface of K1 now, that will only delay another invasion, probably by less than a year. The Krall would ramp up production of those easier to replace weapon systems at dozens of domes on dozens of planets. Because we can’t use nukes, we have to destroy the underground factories from the inside, and only our Kobani forces can do that. There aren’t enough of us yet, and they are guarding the factories better now.

“Furthermore, they’ll never cluster supplies so foolishly close together and out in the open again. After one sample of what we will do, they’ll disperse and hide their stockpiles and protect them better. It’s only because no one has ever attacked them like this that we have this one time opportunity.”

He asked Nabarone a string of leading questions, forcing him to think deeper than eagerly hitting them right now. “How will the Krall move all of that equipment? How did they do it here? When is the best time to hit them? That’s what you have to sell to the navy.”

Sighing, Nabarone conceded the point. “You’re right. We have to let them land clanships and start loading. We have to hit them with a mass White Out, Jumping from stars near K1, to prevent their detecting what’s coming, and hit them as they lift off.”

It was hard for him to let go of his ground command instincts. To deny the enemy weapons that could be used to pound another planet as they had done to his home planet.

“Damn! All that gear is so exposed in those images. Such tempting undefended targets, with the bulk of the clanships that could guard it located far from K1. That’s more equipment than was initially used against us on Poldark, and I knew they were coming here next, after Bollovstic fell. I asked the navy to bomb them there before they came here, and they did nothing.”

Mirikami’s point was that the best time to strike would be when thousands of clanships were loading on K1 or lifting in atmosphere. At a known time and place, where the navy had a chance to destroy as many clanships as possible, as well as the supplies. If his luck held, and the Krall stayed as unsuspecting of human tricks as usual, at least until they experienced a new one, Mirikami might cause as much damage as did the navy.

They went to talk to Admiral Bledso, who had recently returned to Poldark from Earth, where she had successfully been lobbying for more purchases of technology from the mysterious Rimmer faction, who had aliens helping them.

The one detail Mirikami preferred to leave out of the briefing was what the Krall joint clan council meeting was discussing. Kartok’s mind held the information that a new Tor Gatrol was about to be appointed. He personally had heard proposals from four candidates to use an Olt’kitapi ship. One was to attack a planet in an empty star system in Human Space, as a demonstration of Krall capability, causing no deaths and preserving the ship for later use. Two other more vengeful options were to do it to an inhabited human planet. A third option was to conduct massive raids on multiple cities on Hub worlds, leaving before the humans could bring in heavy reinforcements.

The only drawback, from a Krall’s viewpoint, of destroying a planet in an uninhabited system wasn’t related to mercy. It was the possibility that it might still be a onetime use of that ship this way, if they didn’t follow up and make constructive use of the material created. The ships were never intended to do this type work without a specific beneficial goal in mind.

In the past, the ancient Artificial Intelligences operating the ships had refused to obey future orders from the Krall or rather their orders as relayed through the soft Krall, if the expected results were contrary to the ship’s proper use. The Krall didn’t know exactly what the ships expected be done with the aftermath, since the Olt’kitapi never completed the work the ships were designed to do. The ships never obeyed another soft Krall’s command after that if they found the use, or requested use to be immoral or even highly improper and wasteful.

The older versions of the original Krall genotype referred to themselves as Krall’tapi. They were initially given that suffix to indicate disparagment by the standard Krall, thus connecting them to the permanent changes to their minds they had allowed the Olt’kitapi to make. The soft Krall believed Krall’tapi was a description they should be proud to bear, because they had ceased to be trapped forever in the role of perpetually aggressive barbarians. Instead, they seemed to be imprisoned forever, by those same barbarians relatives.

In all of those previous weaponized uses for the ships, the Krall had used their capability to kill enemies on inhabited worlds, to impose their demands on their prey to obey the limits the Krall set on warfare. Krall opponents were told to use no weapons of mass destruction, never to use radiation or biological weapons that would mutate Krall genetics, and told to fight predominately ground wars, which provided for the best warrior selectivity.

A follow up threat was always made, that they would destroy even more of the enemy worlds. That threat was executed on occasion, despite the loss of the irreplaceable ship each time. The ship had to be duped into doing what it believed was a beneficial task.

The Krall’s opponents had no way of knowing how limited these weapons were. A home world being lost was normally enough, and a second heavily populated one destroyed had proven to be more than enough of an object lesson. Now it appeared to be the turn for humanity to learn this lesson.

The Krall didn’t know if merely a demonstration of destructive ability, used as a threat against an enemy, would still trigger the ship to cease to obey. It was possible that even such a demonstration could cost them a precious weapon, and then stubborn humanity still might not react as expected. This worthy prey was proving more unpredictable than any other they had fought. The large number of human worlds, and their vast population could make the lesson more difficult to drive home. A single Olt’kitapi ship, or even two might have to be sacrificed with this enemy in the long term, and using one of them on an empty world as a warning seemed wasteful to the Joint Council. Killing a few billion humans out of almost a trillion wasn’t a great loss to the full warrior culling potential offered by this war.

Mirikami was sure that at least one of the proposed options was going to happen, no matter who was chosen as the new War Leader, regardless of what new attacks the Kobani conducted, or held back. Telour was his greatest concern, because he had proven his cunning in the past, and was willing to try risky and destructive tactics to advance his ambitions. He suspected the Till Gatrol was involves in Kanpardi’s unusual battlefield death. A shuttle in flight, designed to survive impacts of debris from exploding spacecraft wasn’t an easy thing to destroy with a single artillery shell.

Mirikami, when he learned that Telour was a top candidate for war leader, he felt confident that his ambition and political shrewdness would lead him to be selected. Kartok didn’t have high enough status to know exactly how the Olt’kitapi ships did what they did, or how many remained operational. There were rumored to be few of the ancient ships remaining, and Kanpardi had refused to use one of them, in favor of punishing humanity via two new planetary invasions. That strategy was about to change, no matter who became the new war leader.

The strike against K1 shouldn’t take place prematurely, before the greatest damage could be done to the Krall as they clustered to launch heavily loaded and slower clanships. Obviously, it couldn’t wait until a new Tor Gatrol had a human world actually destroyed. After that, with the Rhama disaster as a predictive guide, the politicians from the politically dominate Hub worlds would again capitulate to Krall threats and demands. The war would continue exactly as the Krall wanted, and eventually humanity would grow so weakened they wouldn’t have the means or the will to fight effectively.

No matter what the cost, Mirikami wasn’t going to follow that course of appeasement. That path led to the eventual eradication of civilization in Human Space, and possibly to human extinction. A settled world was probably targeted for destruction, no matter what anyone did anyway.

****

“Admiral Bledso, you surely don’t believe the Krall just like having these huge stockpiles of weapons merely as property for show, do you?” Mirikami was exasperated at Bledso’s previous comment, suggesting that the massive amounts of war material on K1 could be a case of individual clans hoarding supplies and displaying their status.

He reminded her of what he knew she must already know. “For over twenty years we’ve seen that the hallmark of every Krall warrior is their desire to be a great fighter, to earn high status as a warrior and leader, to continue their personal bloodline with an equally high status mate, and to earn mention by name and clan in the long history of their advancement along their Great Path. Property, as such, has no value to them, and weapons that are not being used in battle are wasted. I know that they intend to use this material in another invasion, and soon. They don’t procrastinate like we humans do.”

As some over cautious admirals do, he thought.

She used his nominal rank in her reply, rather than his nickname of Tet as she had done previously, a pointed reminder of his lesser paramilitary position, relative to her own.

“Captain, you are a militia leader. Effective, certainly, but there are relatively few people living out on the Rim if a plan of yours results in enemy repercussions. I have to consider the safety of heavily populated worlds. If the Planetary Union Navy attacks K1, as we have done twice before, the Krall will certainly retaliate. We could suffer the complete loss of another world like Rhama. I need to convince the president, and afterwards the public, that if we launch another attack on K1 and suffer retaliation, that it was done to stave off an equally costly invasion of a Hub world.

“Right now, I only have your personal analysis that an imminent invasion is even planned, and that it will be directed at some unspecified Hub world.” She then turned one of his own arguments against his assertion that another invasion was close to launching.

“You claim they don’t have any of the giant Torki made transport ships because of your own raids. That the enemy can’t move material to an invasion site as quickly as before using the smaller clanships. It would seem that their making more Dragons, transports, plasma cannons, and defensive systems, and storing them on their base world of K1, does not foretell of a new invasion soon, not if they can’t deliver them while supporting the two invasion forces on the ground now. They simply have to store the accumulation someplace.”

Next, she threw the words of another high-ranking officer in the room at him. Ironically, they were also his own words, previously shared with the man in question.

“General Nabarone says the Krall are at least two years away from replacing the number of clanships you’ve knocked out in your raids. They probably would have to recall the ships being used at New Dublin, to load equipment and warriors on K1. Afterwards they would spend considerable effort simply keeping three widely separated invasion forces supplied and supported. This would leave their supply lines stretched thin. Why do you think they would risk that?”

Damn, Mirikami thought, she’s turning what I told Henry against me as well.

Bledso was proving to be good at political infighting. He didn’t know why he was surprised. The new Chairfem of the Joint Chiefs of Staff didn’t receive her appointment to that position based on field exploits alone. He was being forced into trying a risky demonstration, just to show her how he knew what the Krall were actually thinking, that it wasn’t simply based on the guesswork analysis of some low ranking Rimmer militia leader. At least he could show her what the new prisoner, Kartok, was thinking and knew. This was going to be tricky to manage.

“OK, admiral. I’ll demonstrate for you exactly how I know what I know. That Kanpardi fully intended to conduct three major invasions at once, despite the loss of so many clanships and all of their giant transports. He is convinced that Krall aggression, if unleashed without restraint, will be enough to hold human armies at bay for the time required to build enough clanships to solve their temporary transportation problems.”

He was staying with the fiction that Kanpardi was still alive and in charge. Knowing of an impending change in Krall leadership might cause the Hub, both navy and government, to wait and see what would follow, thus missing this opportunity to act while they could hurt the enemy the most.

He’d certainly not discussed this move with Nabarone in advance, not knowing that Bledso would react this way, and he could tell by Henry’s puzzled look that the man wasn’t sure what Mirikami was proposing.

“General could you please have a runner retrieve two sets of the new type of armor I brought here with me after the K1 mission? The spec ops quartermaster will have taken possession of the new deliveries of body armor. I’m only going to borrow them, and I actually only need the helmets. One of those helmets should be extra-large, able to fit over a Krall’s head; the other is for Admiral Bledso. A third helmet will be my own custom adapted helmet from the quarters you provided me, if you’ll also have that third one brought here as well.”

Even as Nabarone sent orderlies to do as requested, his look of puzzlement increased. He suspected that Mirikami was planning to use a shared Mind Tap, which he believed could never be logically explained away to Bledso. It appeared that a major Kobani advantage was about to be revealed in an effort to win the Chairfem over.

How the helmets would fit in, he didn’t know. He was about to learn how much of Sergeant Reynolds had rubbed off on Mirikami. It seemed bullshit artistry could be learned by example.

While they waited, he asked Nabarone to have the guards watching over Kartok wheel him in from the interrogation cell, where he’d been moved after The Mark of Koban had been authorized to land directly on Poldark. The Mark was now inside the same volcanic crater that had hidden it previously. A shuttle trip from there had brought Mirikami to the command bunker, with Kartok.

Shortly, a heavily reinforced steel framed motorized wheel chair arrived at the meeting room. It was of new construction, specifically designed for holding a Krall seated, so that humans wouldn’t have to look up at the hulking prisoners on a vertical framework. The wrists and ankles were secured, with a locked steel belt around the waist. Kartok’s head was secured upright, with a clamp around the thick neck and under the jaw to keep the head facing up and forward. This allowed his malevolent black and red eyes to rove around, taking in his surroundings. There were no feeding tubes connected today.

Bledso looked at the Krall, and asked, “Isn’t this the same one you showed me last month?”

“No Admiral,” Mirikami told her. “This one is male, and a bit larger. He looks smaller because he’s sitting, but he’s about four inches taller and nearly a hundred pounds heavier than Hothdat. That other one was female, and a bit grayer in shade. It takes practice and familiarity to tell them apart. This one is named Kartok.”

At the use of his name, the Krall’s eyes, filled with fury darted towards Mirikami. Kartok spoke Standard moderately well, but he generally chose to ignore his captors. This one, he now knew, owned the voice he’d heard the day he was so humiliatingly captured. Denied an honorable death in combat, he’d have preferred to be tortured to death, as he’d done to human captives in the past. He’d show them how to be stoical as he died, ignoring their efforts to elicit any cry of pain.

Kartok assumed they were here to touch him again, asking him pointless questions as if expecting some response. Perhaps from his eye movements, or his breathing, almost the only detectable body control he had. Holding his breath until he lost consciousness never accomplished anything, and seemed a source of amusement to his captor when he recovered. His small captor knew how to mimic the snorts of Krall amusement, which he did each time Kartok attempted to hold his breath to the point of brain death.

This captor, who introduced himself as Mirikami, often spoke to him in high Krall, using his suit’s sound replicator, apparently just to show that he could use and understand the language. Kartok couldn’t deploy his internal ultrasonic ears, although at close range he could hear well enough through the membrane that concealed and protected them in combat. He wondered why the human bothered to ask him anything at all.

The Krall had no way of knowing that his mental images and thoughts sometimes were clearer to the Mind Tapping questioner if the original conversation that Kartok had heard was conducted in high Krall, instead of the slower low Krall version of their speech, used with animal species.

He assumed the repetition of the same questions in both versions of his languages was for the human’s practice. The truth was that Mirikami was fluent in both language versions, although he lacked the ability to pronounce high Krall without an electronic device that shifted the frequency higher. Kartok assumed, incorrectly as it happened, that the human also required an electronic device to downshift the frequency in order to hear the ultrasonic words from an unimpaired Krall. Of course, Kartok was unable to make any speech sounds, because his dual-purpose vocal organ, lips, and tongue, were all outside of his ability to control now. He understood that this paralysis was caused by some drug that was included in his nutrients, and had initially entered his bloodstream by some sort of small projectile.

He decided their interest in keeping him alive was due to their own strange notion of torture. Similar to his enjoyment of causing screams of pain when he removed segments of a human prisoner he questioned for information, or was merely bored for some activity. He had to admit, this form of torture was certainly effective against a true warrior. He wanted nothing more than to end his shame and humiliation by dying, and that action was denied him by their drug. At first, it appeared more of the same sort of humiliation was in store for him today, in front of different humans.

Then they did something new, which although he was apprehensive, could possibly be something more physically threatening. Something he hoped would lead to his death. He couldn’t see exactly what it was because it was done from behind him, but they lowered an object over his head, and he saw only a trace of light leaking in from below, near his neck area. He could hear what they were saying perfectly, and it came from speakers embedded in the object placed over his head, which were not positioned exactly where his own ears were located. The sound came from higher on the side of his head, closer to where human ears were found, he realized on reflection. He felt despair when he was asked similar questions as before, and there was no threat or physical action taken against him to end his life and humiliation as a captive. In the near darkness, he couldn’t help but think of what he was asked about, and he thought frequently of how good it would feel to kill not only these humans, but also every human and all of their worlds.

****

Mirikami was explaining something difficult for Bledso to believe. It didn’t sound entirely ridiculous to her, because he had previously conditioned her to accept as true his assertion that the new alien design body armor sensed the wearer’s thoughts. That was actually a true statement, if you were a Kobani. When a Kobani was wearing the armor, the suits did appear to react faster than a human set of armor was capable of doing. He’d implied that this mind-to-suit linkage enabled the armor itself to react faster than was otherwise possible. He’d not mentioned that it was a superconducting nervous system and Koban carbon fiber muscles, which really gave the user that speed. The lightweight suits actually slowed the wearer down very slightly.

Before he donned his own helmet, Mirikami winked at Nabarone, providing a hint of the stunt he was about to try.

The mental link with the suit’s AI was the basis for the plausible portion of his story. He smiled unseen under his own helmet, as it settled into place. Now he would embellish the story with the logically smelly details that made the remainder of the explanation pure bullshit. No need to reveal his Mind Tap ability.

“Admiral, the helmets I had brought here for you and the Krall are not attuned specifically to your neural systems. Neither of you can properly interface with the alien AI system built into them, to link your mind to it for sending controlling thoughts. I’m sure you appreciate that when we are in combat, we have no way of placing a helmet on the head of a docile Krall warrior and doing this.”

The implication being that this wasn’t a practical demonstration of a real-time application of a tactically useful technology. A typical Krall would really be shooting at you, not merely thinking about doing it.

“My own helmet was individually adjusted by the Torki for me, as it is for each suit fitted for my people, to sense each of our unique mental patterns. However, it can send you information in a broadband signal that your mind can receive as basic emotions and crude mental images.

“I’ll ask the Krall questions, and you and I will each sense what it is thinking in general. Because I have the helmet that’s properly adjusted, I’ll be able to better sense what thoughts filter through from the Krall to your helmet, but in tests we know that you should receive them, but more attenuated than I will. This isn’t pleasant for any human, but we can catch glimpses of what this sub leader, whom I captured outside their joint clan council dome, knows about another invasion. If you’re ready, take my hand and then touch the back of the Krall’s hand, where you’ll note even the fingers are secured, although it can’t move them.”

She answered, expressing some apprehension. “I suppose so. I feel rather foolish wearing this contraption, and not particularly pleased to be contact with such a cold and clammy hand.” Realizing what she said, she quickly amended her words, because she was also holding one of Mirikami’s hands.

“I meant touching the Krall’s hand of course, Captain.”

“I understand what you meant admiral.” Of course he did, with hand-to-hand Mind Tap contact with her. He’d explained that his AI was helping improve the linkage between her and the Krall with the physical contact. In reality, it was only his Mind Tap doing that, and he was touching the Krall’s other hand.

“You can pull away from contact at any time it grows too unpleasant, and I assume you still have a satisfactory visual inside your helmet, of the Krall and of the room?” It was a perfunctory question for her benefit, because he saw mentally that she did.

Bledso looked directly at him, glanced over to the Krall, who was helpless to move his hand away from the dual contact, and then she looked around the room. There was Nabarone observing them, and the same two armed men that had guarded the last prisoner she’d seen.

It was a remarkable vision system. “The outside image on the inside of this completely enclosing helmet is astoundingly vivid, and I hear room noises and your voice perfectly. There’s no visual distortion like there is at the edge of a faceplate, as there is in any suit I’ve worn previously, nor any false color shifting that I can detect. I can’t even see the blue-lit protrusions that I know are mounted on the outside front of my helmet, right in front of my face, but I can see yours. You said those are the energy beam projectors.”

“Yes, they are. However, without the rest of the suit’s power system connected, they’re not activated. We’re operating on helmet battery power alone, which will last only a short time. We had best start our interrogation.” Actually, they would have about an hour of external vision, since there was no power drain for weapons or stealth, but he didn’t want to maintain this charade for that length of time.

“I’ll activate the AI’s link between you and me, and then with the Krall. I’ll warn you just before I let the Krall’s mind link in. It may be intensely hostile.” That was an understatement.

“Oh. I do sense you, I think.” She said. Mirikami had gently provided an emotional sense of caution to her, to be prepared for an onslaught of hatred and violence. “You want me to be ready for a wave of violent thoughts. This technology is fascinating.”

“I’ll let the Krall’s thoughts link in now.” He filtered them only slightly, because he didn’t want her to consider this fun, or something anyone would like to try casually.

“Oh my God!” She gripped Mirikami’s hand tighter. “He wants to cut us up alive and eat the pieces as we watch. I can actually sense the vile taste he thinks he would have to endure to do that.”

“I told you these links are not easy or pleasant. Do you wish to continue?” He knew she only half heard his words in the onslaught of Krall hatred, but he had to respect her mental toughness as she took rigid control of her emotions, using the same mental frame of mind she’d had when she was the XO on a battleship in the second attack on K1. Mirikami hadn’t known she was part of that fleet action.

“Let’s get on with it. I don’t like this bastard either.”

What followed were a number of questions in Standard, which all produced the expected violent mental response for anything said in the human language. Then Mirikami asked a question about the supplies on K1, followed with a similar, slightly differently phrased question in high Krall, which Bledso naturally couldn’t understand.

The first images were of a mighty fleet leaving K1, gloriously unhampered by human harassment. Not like the flash of savage irritation displayed when he thought of what had occurred when the other fleet had lifted from Poldark. Then he visualized as the new fleet Jumped to some generic image of a heavily populated human world. He didn’t know which world that would be, but the landing warriors slaughtered cities full of human populations, in a torrent of killing, he personally would earn many status points.

Naturally, this Krall didn’t envision any effective resistance from the stupid animals encountered. He didn’t employ the wider thinking of a strategic planner of some leader like Kanpardi or Telour, or even of most Major clan leaders. He quickly descended into the thoughts of many personal kills, and earning great status. He thought of the tools of war he needed to fight these great battles, and of forcing war production to increase on their own worlds, making the weapons his clan needed to rise to become a Great clan, with him as a great leader.

Then, at the height of Kartok’s thoughts of personal fervor and ambition, Mirikami made a minor miscalculation, and asked him when the next invasion would happen. One in which his Ditka clan would not play a significant role, and which he now knew that as a captive he would not be present to see or to participate. His life as a warrior was over, his bloodline ending.

Mirikami had hoped he would receive the same sense of an imminent launch, as he’d received days earlier when he’d asked the same question. He wanted a sense of urgency imparted to motivate Bledso. Except the passage of those days had led Kartok to realize he wasn’t going to escape captivity, and that there would have been a new Tor Gatrol selected by now. He wanted one of the punitive plans of any one of the new war leader candidates to be implemented, to punish humanity severely, even before that next invasion was launched.

The images of the clan leaders, in a great hall making the selection of a new war leader flashed through their minds, laden with Kartok’s emotions of destruction to come. He was visualizing the total destruction of a human world when Mirikami snatched his hand from the Krall’s, ending the stream of imagined devastation. The final mental picture had been perceived as observed from high orbit, with flames covering the entire surface of a human world, mixed with vast explosions. Mirikami already knew this warrior didn’t know what the Olt’kitapi ships actually did, none having been used for many generations. He was improvising what he’d like to see happen from space.

“I’m sorry Admiral, every time I’ve provoked this one with too many questions it causes him to fantasize, mostly about what he wants to happen to all of humanity. He isn’t particularly happy with us, as you might imagine. He now has slipped into a berserker mode of thinking, where all humans die horribly as he watches in pleasure, and he sometimes dies in his own mind in an orgy of glorious killing. When he calms down we can resume.”

Mirikami vowed to himself to try to stay away from any question that might lead to visions of entire worlds being destroyed. Not that this wasn’t a real possibility, but yielding to Krall demands on the conduct of the war and obeying their terms would lead to the end of human civilization. There were three surviving species serving as living testimonials of the Krall’s eventual goal, and no living trace of the many civilizations the Krall had fully erased.

He was surprised at Bledso’s reply. “I don’t need to experience that unreasoning hatred again, Captain Mirikami. I had doubted how you could have predicted the Krall’s future actions, based simply on your observations and knowledge of what they have done in the past. I now see how you have been able to see into the darkness of their very soul, if they have one, and understand their fanatical resolve and overwhelming confidence that they can and will fight us to extinction, at any cost. I caught a mental image of their slave workers, being forced to replace the clanships they will need to return to their full aggressive strength. We can’t wait for that to happen. They are at their weakest they have been since they first attacked us, thanks to your surprise raids on their shipyards and Eight Balls.”

“Admiral, does that mean you can recommend an attack on K1 to the president?”

“No, not recommend. With your surveillance data in hand, I can insist we attack as soon as we can gather the fleet elements and plan the strike!”

There was something to be said in favor of properly applied bullshit.

Chapter 11: Xenos

The first order of business when the Mark returned to the Koban system was for Mirikami to learn what the Raspani and Torki scientists and technicians had learned about the redesigned Olts made by the Philodor Torki. He requested they try to discover how the chips embedded in a Kobani’s brain were able to communicate with those different Olts continuously, when both users were in Tachyon Space. If they could modify the chips that were intended for Kobani use to work the same way, remotely with one another when in a Jump Hole, it would speed and improve long-range communications tremendously.

A secondary goal was to redesign the standard Torki Olt to match the Philodor design. That replacement would be a slow process for the crab’s population as a whole, because the original implantation method of an Olt happened when a Torkedia, a young and primitive minded Torki, returned to the parent colony after years of wandering the seas. Following Torki custom, they sometimes consumed a deceased old adult, thus reusing an existing Olt, which migrated to position itself in their developing brains. When they were expanding their populations, they fed them brand new Olt circuit chips in their food, or for the first time they were introducing a new design of Olt. The mature Torki would feed new Olts to the young returning Torkedia.

The Raspani wanted to start embedding a similar chip technology of their own, when they implanted new mind enhancer chips in the brains of essentially empty-minded individuals. Namely, those Raspani that were recovered as wild herds on abandoned Krall planets.

Blue Flower Eater, and Coldar were waiting with Maggi, Marlyn, and Noreen as The Mark of Koban landed on Haven.

Jumping down onto the still steaming tarmac from the open fifteen-foot high portal, Mirikami and several companions literally did a hotfooted run over to meet the others. They needed long high leaps, possible only to a Kobani, to keep their boot soles from transmitting scorching heat to their feet. The remainder of the ship’s complement was willing to wait five minutes for the pavement to cool.

Maggi planted a hug and kiss on her new husband with a bit more enthusiasm than the socially conservative Mirikami was expecting. She and his friends knew he was embarrassed by public displays of affection when it involved himself.

Noreen and Dillon, both originally from liberal planetary societies, were entangled in a mutually passionate embrace, pressed tightly together. This elicited a humorous comment from Marlyn. “Should we just turn our backs for a few moments until you two finish?”

Thinking the remark was directed at him and Maggi, Mirikami flushed and quickly started to pull away. Looking over Tet’s shoulder, noting who Marlyn was actually looking at when she said that, Maggi decided to have fun at her subdued husband’s expense.

In a lilting voice she said, “Why Tet, the way you braved that hot pavement to race over to sweep me off my feet, I thought you were taking me back to our quarters. I think everyone could wait another hour. We’ve been apart for nearly a month, and we’re still newlyweds after all.” She fluttered her eyelids, and tossed her blonde curls, enjoying the deepening redness of his face.

It made Marlyn and the others crack up when they heard her, and saw Mirikami red faced and flustered. The two aliens, hearing Maggi’s words and accepting them at face value, politely excused themselves and turned away towards the science lab. It was common knowledge that their three alien allies speculated that the sexual preoccupation of humans went a long way towards explaining their general hyperactivity, and that this was perhaps why this young species kept expanding with so much vigor.

“No, wait!” Mirikami blurted. “I’m ready to go with you…, right now.”

The aliens turned back a moment, and Blue said, “Our respective species have waited thousands of years to be free of the Krall. Please, obey your basic instincts if that is necessary. What is a mere additional hour, or even two?”

That appeared to strike all of the humans, except Mirikami, as hilarious.

Clearing his throat uncomfortably, Mirikami asked them to give him a moment. Then he introduced the third man that had crossed over the hot pavement with him and Dillon. “Maggi, you of course have heard Marlyn mention Sergeant Bill Crager. He’s no longer running a Kobani spec ops camp on Heavyside, and he was on Poldark helping to screw up the Krall fleet when they lifted off. He was also one third of the team that retrieved that Krall clanship commander drifting in space over Poldark a day later. That source of intelligence helped us get safely down onto K1. Bill, I’d like you to meet my wife, Maggi Fisher, a supposedly bright bio-scientist that has apparently devolved into the role of a humorist.”

“Gracious Lady, I’m pleased to meet you.” He offered only his hand, in the now common but archaic Kobani gesture. “Joe Longstreet has told me about you and your sense of humor. Perhaps that’s because Joe has also been a target of your jokes. I’m anticipating being one of your lab rats this week, Doctor. I’m visiting for my final gene upgrades for Mind Tap. Although I’d expected to receive them on Koban.” The last part sounded disappointed, as he looked at the tame seeming city starting to grow around Haven’s fledgling spaceport.

Maggi offered her hand, and grinned. “Don’t worry Bill; you’ll still receive the mod on Koban. It’s only a short in-system Jump. By the way, I want you to call me Maggi, not Doctor. We’re striving to eliminate some of the formality that Hub society ingrained in us for three centuries. We’re too far outside their influence here to pretend we share the same lifestyle and experiences now.

“When you get to Koban, I’m sure you’ll enjoy seeing the world where the bulk of your new genetics evolved. All except for the Prada longevity gene complex, and the nanite induced age regression, which we got from Human Space. Are you going to opt for the latter? It’ll change your appearance enough that you can’t go back to active duty as Sergeant Crager. You’d look young enough to pass for your own wayward son.”

“No thanks. I’ll stay looking my present age for a time, Mam. I’m enjoying being back in the field, working with some of the young men I helped train, and find that I’m able to keep up with them.”

He looked at Tet. “I’ll also volunteer to try out the new chip for communicating directly with our alien friends over there, and with other Kobani from inside Tachyon Space, provided that technology will work for us.” He nodded towards the Raspani and Torki, the first friendly aliens he’d seen directly. There had been Mind Taps and Tri-Vids about them of course.

“I haven’t spent much time in space or in a Jump Hole in my career up to now, but I think with the long life I might have, that this will change. I’d like to be able to phone home, so to speak.”

Mirikami broke in. “Bill, if you wish, you can come along with me and I’ll introduce you to Blue and Coldar. They’re going to brief me on what they learned about the new communications ability that Cal and Mel experienced.”

“I’d like that, and to meet some of our allies at last.” He looked at Maggi. “If I have the time that is. When were we going to Koban?”

“You have plenty of time, because I was going along to the science building with Tet. I want to hear what they learned as well. I can bed my randy Captain later.”

“Maggi!” Mirikami protested in mild outrage.

As it happened, all of them on the ramp wanted to hear the briefing, since the subject matter concerned technology that any Kobani might wish to have. The entire group followed along behind Blue and Coldar. The aliens, waddling and skittering respectively, were sharing clicking, scraping, squeals and lip smacking sounds as they engaged in a conversation, walking at the front of the mixed group. The topic appeared to be on the subject of human sexuality, and from behind them, their body language suggested there was frequent alien equivalents to laughter.

When they reached the large segmented laboratory, divided into human, Torki, and Raspani designed equipment, and various shared areas of research, they were led to an auditorium type room, equipped with multispecies seating, and holographic visual presentation projectors. A number of human scientists joined them from other parts of the lab. One of them was Alex Born, who had been the fourth Kobani recipient of the Raspani designed chips. Coldar went to the front, to speak first.

Unlike a human, he didn’t make any preliminary remarks or introduce himself, diving directly into the explanation of why the Philodor Torki had improved their Olts, and how it was done. The clicks, scrapes, and chittering of Torki speech was subsumed beneath the amplified sound of Standard, issuing from the sound replicator attached to his carapace and fed from his Olt, which handled the translation.

The translator program was operating somewhat differently when Coldar was not in normal conversation mode. The change in voice quality oddly seemed to resemble Dillon’s, because Coldar had apparently modeled his lecture mode of speech around that of the human scientist, after hearing one of his presentations on genetics. It brought a smile to all of the humans present except one. Dillon himself appeared oblivious to the obvious mimicry, probably because his own voice sounded differently to him than it did to others. Coming from a large purple and yellow crab, it was incongruous, but easily understood.

“Because of the previous feral Krall infestation on Philodor, few places were safe for even the seashore dwelling Torki, who were forced to migrate to the smallest of islands for isolation. The sea life on Philodor does not produce the sort of calcium carbonite buildup of microscopic sea life, which could form the small islands your language refers to as coral atolls. In addition, Krall interference with ecology had produced global warming, and rising sea levels had long ago covered many low islands and swamped shallow shores. For safety and dispersion from possible returning Krall visitors, the Torki there spread to widely isolated points in the oceans, well beyond the normal Olt communication range.

“Here on Haven, and most worlds where Torki have been transplanted, our colonies have remained within one or two thousand miles of one another, with linkage between the most distant outposts made through colonies strung in between. On Philodor, to remain scattered and hidden if a Krall clanship returned to look for them, they found it necessary to spread far apart, as much as to the opposite side of the planet. There were too few in-between colonies to form continuous Olt links between each far-flung population. We have long known that an Olt’s linkage is not blocked by intervening mountains, or by the curvature of the planet, because the range dependency had nothing to do with physical obstacles. There is a form of quantum entanglement used to link the Olts of a colony, and if a colony is moved to a new planet, where other Torki already live, a synchronization of the Olts of the two colonies automatically takes place when the distance involved drops below the designed built-in range limit.

“The Philodor Torki experimented, and learned that the range limit, and a preset number of quantum entangled particles to use in our Olts apparently was set thousands of years ago by the Olt’kitapi, based on the average colony separation distance that our primitive ancestors maintained on our well-populated original home world. We outgrew that limit as our civilization matured, but we were not hampered by establishing closely spaced breeding colonies on new worlds, so it was never an issue. After the Krall came, we were not permitted to have many breeding colonies, and those we did have were kept close together for Krall manufacturing convenience.

“On Philodor, they solved their range limit for wider colony dispersal by increasing the number of quantum entangled particles, and using more than one type of entangled particle. The various new quantum entangled systems improved the sensitivity of the links between distant Olts, making the entanglement more stable and provided redundancy. It wasn’t physical objects or distance placed between Olts that caused the original range limit. It was the sensitivity of so few entangled particles, which were subject to disruption by external forces the farther away the Olts were. That ended the links when two Olts were moved too far apart.”

Coldar stopped talking, as if he’d made his point. All was clear, at least to his mind.

Seeing frowns and puzzled expressions on the faces of the non-physicists in the audience, Max Born offered a clarification.

“Gracious Ladies and Gentle Men, what Coldar has implied is that the Philodor Torki made their Olts vastly more sensitive, by increasing the degree of quantum entanglement that had always made them work. They now have a signal level well above the old noise level, which caused a loss of usable signal, a signal that was always present, but which was washed out over longer distances. Blue has an explanation as to how this new sensitivity relates to the effect discovered when the individuals on the Mark and on the Beagle were within Tachyon Space.” He motioned for Blue Flower Eater to address the group.

The Raspani wrinkled his forehead in the frown looking smile of his race. “I have learned to limit my technical explanation to humans that are non-scientists.” He then reconsidered what he meant by non-scientists.

“I mean those of you that do not specialize in physics. We have come to realize that humans have learned far more of biology and genetics than Raspani, Torki, and Prada have, even if all of our knowledge of this subject were combined. Other than a small gene change made by the Prada, to lengthen their lives to create older and wiser leaders, none of us ever dared to modify our own genes. In this too, you humans show more adventure than do we.” He squeezed in his elbows in their version of a shrug.

“You already have learned that your superconducting nervous systems and your Mind Tap ability can entangle and modulate the movement of the lowest energy tachyons, which have effectively infinite velocity. This is the basis for your demonstrated ability to impress your thoughts onto that weak tachyon medium, where it exists as a pattern that persists for days, before the background noise causes it to fade away, yet the range is vast. We determined long ago that the Olts of the Torki and our Raspani mind enhancers communicate in a similar fashion, using quantum entanglement of the weakest particles of Tachyon Space. The range was short in Normal Space due to limited sensitivity of our devices.

“One of your pre-interstellar era scientists called this ‘spooky action at a distance.’ If I understand the non-scientific meaning of spooky in this example, your Albert Einstein argued that the accepted formulation of quantum mechanics was incomplete. For humanity, it was certainly true that your knowledge was incomplete, but it was not wrong about this. Quantum entanglement does exist, and works in our Universe and in Tachyon Space. The entangled low energy tachyons with infinite velocity, explains the instantaneous information transfer at any distance.

“The new Philodor Olts, with the larger number and different types of entangled particles, can also modulate and use the entangled quantum property of infinite velocity low energy tachyons to transport the instantaneous effects observed. When a Kobani enters or exits Tachyon Space, your superconducting nervous system can impose a preformed thought pattern of your targeted thoughts upon a vast number of entangled low energy tachyons, which retains the impression of your thoughts for a time. When the targeted mind that matches that stored mental pattern also enters Tachyon Space, the pattern you left behind passes through their brains and minds many times in an instant, collapsing a number of superimposed states that comprise the thoughts intended only for them.

“With a Comtap chip embedded, a Kobani will now be able to send modulated patterns continuously through the same low energy tachyons while you are in Tachyon Space. When you tested the first chip design here at Koban, you didn’t have sufficient and redundant enough quantum entanglement circuitry that could detect those continuous patterns. Your minds, without a chip, were able to create and detect the patterns one time, as you entered or exited Tachyon Space, passing between the Universes. The new Olts from Philodor were aboard the Beagle, where you wished to communicate thoughts sent from the Mark. The minds of your two human subjects on the Beagle were sent the usual thought pattern, a frozen signal so-to-speak, targeted at the designated minds for the brief moment when the men on the Mark entered Tachyon Space.”

Elbow squeeze again. “The discovery of this communication mode would have happened eventually anyway once the Philodor Torki arrived here, but you will have the technology sooner because of this accident.

“The first Comtap chips were already sending a continuous signal pattern, although without any receiving human with a chip sensitive enough to detect the continuous pattern, the signal was not received by them. There was a general destination for the thoughts present, a partial address if you wish to think of it that way, for someone aboard the Beagle. So the four Torki Olts on the Beagle all received your messages.” Now came the important part.

“We can redesign the Comtap chip, and every Olt, and every mind enhancer to employ the same increased degree of quantum entangled sensitivity as do the Olts produced by the Torki from Philodor.”

Pulling at his lip, Mirikami summarized his understanding, “You mean we can have continuous long distance communication when we are in Tachyon Space, not only between Kobani, but with and between Torki and Raspani, using the same individual addressing system that your devices already employ at merely light speed and shorter distances in Normal Space.”

“Yes.” Blue acknowledged. “Except that Kobani, because of your Mind Tap ability, can do more than simply share data and messages. You can share actual thoughts and mental images with those you contact.” He had more to offer for the future.

“Another level of enhancement should be possible, if we can increase the sensitivity of the new style chips by two or three magnitudes. All of the long-range communications via Olts, mind enhancers, and now Comtaps, is via modulation of low energy tachyons, and the links are essentially instantaneous. It appears possible, in principle anyway, to increase sensitivity so that instant Normal Space links of vast range should also be possible. There would be no need for us to physically enter Tachyon Space if we are able to detect the modulation of tachyons from Normal Space.”

Mirikami was deeply impressed. “Blue, you and Coldar have made rapid use of this new discovery. I don’t think humans are the only fast thinkers in the galaxy.”

There was one of those quick, shared looks between the Torki and Raspani, then the unmistakable sound of their laughter mixed together. Blubbering lips from the Raspani and a rapid scraping sound from the Torki.

Mirikami knew those sounds. “What’s so amusing?”

Blue answered. “Professor Max Born postulated that our Olt’kitapi chip designs actually modulated entangled tachyons, but due to low detection sensitivity, our devices used low powered light speed radio signals in Normal Space to connect. It was his theory of Quantum entanglement of tachyons that we confirmed via our testing, not our theory.

“It is also his belief that an increase in sensitivity will be possible, to extend instantaneous long-range communications into Normal Space. Your species, at least those with Kobani features of perfect memory and Mind Taps, are rapidly matching us older species in such theoretical matters. We think the Olt’kitapi already understood and used this method of communication.”

Looking to Born, Mirikami saw the slight nod, and small smile that confirmed the Raspani’s statement.

“I see. Congratulations Max.” He turned back to Blue.

“You have been changing the production facilities. Will I, and the people that I take with me on the K1 raid, have the new Comtap chips before the attack?”

Elbow squeeze again. “I don’t know if we can supply everyone you plan to take with you. You did not state the numbers or provide a departure date. We can build and embed dozens of them in Kobani humans in a month of your days. They will also function for your normal human population, without your Mind Tap ability of course. That is exactly how it will function for us.” He gestured to include himself and Coldar, as representative of all Raspani and Torki.

Considering that inclusion, Blue added, “We will also be making new chips for the Torki and Raspani, so that new effort will consume some of our manufacturing productivity.”

Mirikami bowed to them. “Blue, I truly appreciate and support your decision to share this technology with your own people, and I’d even like you to offer the capability to the Prada, if they want to have it. All the same, unless you are sending fighters with us to attack the Krall on K1 in a month, something I invite you to do, I respectfully request that the bulk of your chip production be largely devoted to the new Comtaps for the next month.

“I’ll be asking to place some of my people on various fleet elements of the Planetary Union navy, to better coordinate theirs and our movements when we Jump to attack.” He had yet to discuss this with Admiral Bledso, but believed she would agree.

Both Blue and Coldar shared looks, and probably held a brief private electronic communication. Then Blue responded for them both. “We were not aware the impending attack was coming so soon. You humans always act so quickly. Although we thank you for your invitation to allow us to participate, Coldar and I are well aware of how Torki or Raspani presence on any of your ships will expose you to greater risk. Can we be considered for participation on future raids? We owe the Krall for many thousands of years of abuse.”

Mirikami spread his hands in ready acceptance of their claim and request. “I promise there will be an opportunity for your people to participate in attacks against the Krall, which will not risk the degree of violent ship maneuvers as I expect will happen at K1. If any species have earned the right to strike back at them, it is you two and the Prada, who have suffered long and greatly. There will be rescue missions for you as well, which you can command to recover any of your isolated populations, such as the Torki the Beagle discovered on Philodor. One of our Kobani ships will escort armed migration ships, operated by the people you select, and return with you to Philodor for the Torki they left behind, and to other worlds abandoned by the Krall.”

****

A couple of weeks later, the members of what was once called the Inner Circle were holding an impromptu planning session. They were there to discuss some risky revelations that might have to be made to the Planetary Union navy, and by inference passed to the Hub government that the navy served. The risk went considerably beyond what the Kobani might face because of their violation of the prohibition against human genetic modifications. The Planetary Union might pursue legal action against the lawbreakers. Perhaps aggressively, and what affected the Kobani could have an impact on the Koban system.

There was a potential threat to all of the citizens of Haven and Koban, genetically modified or not, because everyone lived in the same system with the Kobani. They would suffer repercussions if the Planetary Union pursued any police or military action against those with gene mods. Even a boycott on trade with the supposed Rimmers, who the PU thought the Kobani were, would impose hardships. Attempts to arrest Kobani in Human Space could quickly escalate into hostilities.

Mirikami had requested this gathering, and he paused to look around the large circular table, considering the mixture of humans and aliens he and Maggi had strategically seated. Humans were in the majority, with only one of them being completely unmodified, one had only clone mods, and nine were full Kobani. Also in attendance were a Prada, a Torki, and a Raspani. This wasn’t a governmental meeting, because the Inner Circle had never been a government at all. This was a discussion, planning, and strategy group.

The members changed over time, but might be scientists, leaders, or merely someone that represented a special interest that needed their views to be addressed. They explored proposals, made suggestions, and expressed differing viewpoints, or voiced their objections.

Because humans, Kobani humans in particular, had made the existence of this assembly even possible, they had more participants in the group. Today, there was no voting involved, and recommendations made did not have the force of law locally. The Kobani were those that often faced the risks when a course of action was recommended, so additional leaders within their ranks were present to express their opinions and to offer advice.

Membership came from citizens living on Haven or Koban, and the three alien races that lived only on Haven. Recommendations of the group could have an impact on the remnants of the respective alien species, so they were always present. There were often invited guests, and anyone could ask to observe the irregularly held but announced meetings.

Today, a ripper named Kayla was invited, although the cats normally had little interest in these meetings, and typically displayed boredom. They would often enjoy a gaping yawn that exposed their long fangs. Particularly when they noticed any non-Kobani looking at them with a trace of apprehension. The quick looks away from them was proof, and a reward, that they had made the intimidating impression they enjoyed. The rippers rarely took a place at the table, because they never offered an opinion, nor seemed to have one to offer in any case. They were primarily present as truthsayers.

With frilling and Mind Taps possible, there were social rules to guard an individual’s private thoughts. Although, some specific privacy laws were still being formulated to guard everyone’s rights, being as fair as possible, or in some cases only as fair as practical. With Kobani Mind Tap ability, every citizen could be certain that their true feelings and grievances were at least understood by a Kobani, even if their beliefs were not shared. Ripper frilling was an infrequently used method of verifying that a Mind Tap relay done by a Kobani, between those without Mind Tap ability was unbiased. Kayla was here, if needed, for an independent and unmodified mental link.

A ripper did not embellish or “soften” their own thoughts, and would pass through the untarnished thoughts for which they were merely the conduit. Humans could potentially introduce deliberate modifications of thoughts they relayed, and it might be done inadvertently if they simply held a different opinion. Humans were less reliable than was a ripper in this respect.

Because there was no official standing for the group, its recommendations did not bind anyone into supporting them. Not that universal acceptance of any idea in human history had ever occurred. Now, with alien perspectives added to the mix, it was a wonder they managed to work together at all, and arrive at majority opinions. Somehow, they did, and they always held their meeting in a growing new city, which they had named Xenos.

There actually were participants in this group that did hold elected positions, although they had no more status in this setting than did any of the other members. Today, the office holders at the meeting were the six city council representatives of Xenos itself. Humans, from three different camps formed half of that council, and the other three elected (or selected) members were aliens. Perhaps the spirit of cooperation at Inner Circle meetings was due to the concept the city was named after.

Xenos was an ancient Greek term that referred to guest-friends. Located on Haven, the developing capitol city was intended to host peoples of various cultures, beliefs, and species, with toleration of those differences. If you refused to accept those principles, you could still live on Haven and reside in Xenos, but you couldn’t serve in the government, or even vote on proposals put to the participating citizens of the growing society.

Stewart MacDougal was one of the human representatives on the city council for the growing new capital. He was modified, having accepted clone genes years ago to make living on Koban more comfortable. That was before Haven had been explored and settled. He lived on Haven full time now, working with the Raspani to help them rebuild their society.

There was a completely unmodified human on the city council, Ellen Embry, also a transplant to Haven from Hub City on Koban. She represented the interests of those people that had never yielded in their opposition to the genetic modifications used by the Kobani. Normals were a gradually dwindling minority here, reduced from their previous majority position on Koban in Hub City. Their numbers were dropping even after every one of them had moved to Haven to escape the high gravity and the perpetual risks of Koban. Some older people simply died prematurely, after spending over twenty years in the stressful and ageing conditions on Koban before their move. A few caved it to the advantages the gene mods provided.

The ninety percent Earth gravity on Haven left them appreciative of how strong the Kobani had felt back on Koban. Here, they were comparatively stronger and a better match against the local wildlife. They discovered they were able to cope even better than the three alien species, who still found Haven to be a bit on the heavy and wild side. The lure of gene mods for speed and strength, as they watched superhuman Kobani children grow to maturity, was tempting.

In the end, it was mostly vanity and age regression, which was the real draw for the holdouts. Youth eternal was difficult to resist after suffering premature ageing and increasing health problems, which modern med labs alone could not correct. The number of partial converts to the longevity gene mod and nanite rejuvenation placed more of them in MacDougal’s camp, although many still rejected clone and Koban gene mods, at least at first.

The steadfast opponents of any gene changes never failed to remind their now youthful appearing counterparts that they were full-fledged criminals in Human Space anyway, even if they had not accepted the more radical changes. This tactic only served to push some of them into requesting additional changes. If you were considered equally guilty, why not get something in return for that guilt.

Embry preached to her remaining constituents constantly, but her strident words and attitude grated on many. It was hard to side solidly with someone that openly thought your former friends or family members were mutants and criminals, deserving of rejection by God and his church agents, and death at the hands of the Hub government.

Deanna Turner, an early Krall captive was the current Koban representative on the Xenos city council. Whoever held that chair rotated membership with other Kobani, after a yearly election when the previous member often tired of being away from home so much. Returning to Koban after a stint off planet had proven essential to the mental wellbeing of most Kobani, who found other worlds too soft and tame for comfort.

City council membership included a representative of each of the three alien species, and they too were free to change membership on short notice. Wister represented the Prada and would likely do so for many years, unless an even elder Prada wished the position. Geltra spoke for the Torki, but any Torki could reflect the communal thoughts of their population on Haven via their Olts. Wind Song spoke for the Raspani this year, and they held a referendum, much as humans did, but through use of their mind enhancers, since the bulk of the minds of their population was still recorded in storage devices. The aliens were a much less factious lot than was humanity, which surprised no one.

Xenos was being planned from the outset as the capital of the entire Koban system, with hoped for eventual representation from other worlds around different stars, if they could remove them from Krall domination, and safely be repopulated. Should the Krall learn of this opposition, a seed growing on the edge of the large volume of space they controlled, the Koban system would be swarmed, and all of the beings found there exterminated. The same for any world to which they spread.

Eventually, Haven was expected to have a smaller regional capital, administering for only that planet’s citizens. That would have to wait for future growth, assuming the Krall didn’t end the effort early and brutally. Xenos was intended to become the capital of a fledgling galactic republic, which at present comprised one stellar system, having two inhabited planets and four member species.

There already was one center for regional government, located at Prime City on Koban. The overall idea was ambitious, but planning for a future was what optimistic humans always did, and their formerly pessimistic alien allies needed to relearn how to think about a future.

Today, Mirikami was looking for advice, hoping for a consensus but not expecting unanimity. “Gentle Beings, here is the issue we need to discuss today. In order to place Kobani with Comtap chips on navy warships, for them to provide the navy with real-time Tachyon Space communications, we will have to admit that we have this embedded electronic and quantum technology. I don’t think this is a problem by itself, since they know we have other new technology, such as stealth systems, and our body armor with built in energy weapons. They are aware that we have a mental interface with that armor. Only they don’t know that it’s our unique nervous system, which makes it so effective. This direct mind communications technology is certainly new to them and they will want it. Because they have accepted implanted technology in Special Operations troops, this is similar in nature.

“If talking the navy into placing our people on those ships is successful, as I expect it will be, a Kobani on a navy warship will lead to our having to explain something more sensitive than alien chip technology in our brains that employs quantum entanglement with tachyons. Such as, why our liaison people won’t require jell filled acceleration suits, such as their Normal human crewmembers do when they go into battle with the Krall. Comments please, starting on my left, and go around the table.” Mirikami looked to Reynolds, sitting on his immediate left, as he sat down.

Sarge was no longer as reticent in speaking his mind in a gathering like this, where he might be asked to act on one of his or someone else’s proposal. Apparently, this new attitude resulted from the confidence that came with being a full Kobani.

He stood up and shrugged. “I was just a ground pounder before, so I don’t know much about the navy. But I do know more than a little bit about obfuscation, and it always worked for me. Both on the Krall, and on high-ranking brass of any branch of service. Why not just get inside their jelly-filled tin cans and pretend it’s necessary for us? We can communicate through Tachyon Space just as easily from inside those protective acceleration suits. Can’t we keep our physical capabilities secret that way?”

Maggi, sitting on Tet’s right, knew the reason why that proposal wouldn’t work, and said so. “Sarge, those suits are a variation of the newer med labs we’ve had Chief Haveram buying from a Hub company on Mars. That same company also makes acceleration combat suits used on naval ships. Those are equipped with some of the same advanced monitoring equipment their med labs have, to sense if the person inside is unconscious or injured and in need of nanite injections. They would certainly detect our superconducting nervous systems and nanotube reinforced bones, and would think something is drastically wrong with us, or at least very odd.”

Then she added, just for the fun of it, “The body scanner system would of course spot the Comtap chip in our head, which they will already know we have since that’s why we’re there. Except In your case Sarge, they’ll see the dictionary.”

“What dictionary?” he looked at her with justified suspicion.

“The one filling your otherwise empty skull, where you found the word obfuscation.”

Thad and Dillon laughed openly, until spousal elbows diluted some of the humor.

With a sigh, Mirikami looked over at his new wife, as if to say, “Really?” as he held a palm out towards Sarge, to stifle the rebuttal he knew was forming.

Turning to Reynolds, suppressing a smile of his own, he said, “Everyone, please, keep the jokes and personal gibes out of our discussions. I don’t want to spend half the evening trying to explain to our non-human friends what they mean. Sarge, your idea to pretend we are no different from standard model humans, and simply step into the acceleration suits will give us away beyond a doubt. Do you have an alternate suggestion?”

“Sure. When I’m caught at a bluff, or a bullshit story doesn’t work, I give it up. Tell them as much of the truth as they need to hear, and hold back the rest. Our Mind Tap ability they don’t need to know about yet. I’d say guard our Prada derived longevity as well, since it will be a Normal’s full lifetime before that’s even noticed. A youthful appearance of people they know are much older can be attributed to their own nanites and med labs, which we didn’t invent. Looking younger is something they could do, if they wanted to use just the genes they were born with. It took our genetic knowledge to do that with the nanites we got from Human Space, but that isn’t surprising once they know we have the genetic knowledge. I don’t think we should advertise at the outset our most advantageous gene complex, the Mind Tap. That’s my opinion.” As he sat down, his raised eyebrow and glance at Maggi let them all know that a verbal dart in retaliation was merely postponed.

“Thank you. Thad, you’re next.”

Rubbing a rib, where an unladylike elbow from Marlyn had made a lasting impression, Thad offered another take on the subject. “When Sarge and I joined up with a spec ops unit on Poldark, all of the Kobani troops were forced to do things while fighting the Krall up close, right in front of thousands of PU Army troops, which started rumors going around about us. The Shadow pilots performance, by out flying the Krall, added to those rumors. The navy is perfectly aware that supposed Rimmer troops and Shadow pilots wear the same looking armor as the newest body armor recently seen on spec ops forces. Yet men in that armor far outperformed what used to be the best that spec ops could do, even wearing a Booster Suit.

“Some of the PU troops saw there were men inside that armor who didn’t wear the usual spec ops black Booster Suits. In several cases, armor damaged by plasma fire or explosives had to be removed, and those clearly unaided troopers still outfought the Krall in hand-to-hand combat, usually against warriors wearing their own heavy and powered armor. We’re kidding ourselves if we think the military and the government isn’t going to collate all of those reports, speculations, and helmet recordings, and determine that it isn’t exaggeration.

“I say tell them at least about our physical abilities, such as speed and strength. Own up to it being the person that powers the armor’s movement, not the other way around. I don’t think it would matter if they also know about our heat and cold adaptations, our improved vision, ultrasonic hearing, and sense of smell. I’d certainly make no mention of Mind Tapping, or of where we obtained the Koban genes. Let them think they were all designed by our scientists.”

To no one’s surprise, Marlyn, Dillon, and Noreen approximately mirrored Thad’s position. The PU was surely on the verge of figuring out on their own that those they knew as Rimmer troops had superhuman ability. To control the speculation, and keep them from making a public accusation that might make its way to the Krall, the PU military needed to be brought in on the secret. It was to their advantage to keep it secret for now.

Ellen Embry, next around the table, as usual had complaints to offer but no helpful comments. “Anna Cahill, God rest her tortured soul, predicted this day would come. I fear that those thousands of pure humans, whom I am duty bound to represent, will be lumped with those that the Hub population will know as sinners, humans again violating God’s perfect creation, altering what he had made in his own image. Hypocrites like you deserve to be punished with them.”

Stewart, not waiting for the sharp reply he sensed was coming from Maggi or Dillon spoke up. “Ellen, your group, of which I was admittedly once a member, numbers only a few hundred and not thousands of people. You continue to ignore the one hundred ten or even more gene modifications that a mythical pure human, yourself included, already had when we arrived at Koban.

“I eventually accepted that I was only able to survive on Koban, and later reached the relative safety of Haven, because of the existence and efforts of the Kobani. I too have now violated the gene laws of Hub society, but we live far outside of Planetary Union jurisdiction, we even live hundreds of light years outside of what is considered Human Space. We may someday petition to join the rest of human society, but I would only support such a move if they will accept us as we are. I will never abide by an application of outmoded laws, which I will argue did not apply beyond the boundaries of Human Space anyway, and which offers us the only hope to beat back the Krall. The Planetary Union does not own humanity or our genome, it is supposed to govern and defend human worlds that agree to join it, and there are still Rim world colonies that have not joined the PU, and which govern themselves.

“Several thousand former Hub City residents like me accepted the clone mods simply to survive and live on Koban. Many of them were then able to have children only because of those mods. The children they had have nearly universally elected to take the next step, to become full Kobani, at age sixteen in Prime City, and eighteen in Hub City and here on Haven. That new generation has fought and died to protect all of humanity’s right to exist in the face of Krall genocide.”

She shot back, “You say that, but you certainly have some reservations because you and your faction didn’t opt to accept those devil’s spawn alien genes. Does that make you only half hypocrites? You surely know what they have done is evil and against God’s laws. You openly consort with the Kobani, and the…, the Godless creatures…, which they have brought to live among us.”

Stewart sighed and shook his head. “Ellen, I’ve told you previously the origin of the Kobani mods are not why I didn’t go any farther with gene mods. Many of us with clone mods were frankly afraid of that level of change, and we took the safe route and let others go first. We let them face the hostile Koban environment on our behalf. We didn’t need to take that next step if braver people were there to protect us, and later fought to stave off certain human extinction.

“As you claim, I’m a hypocrite, that’s true. Only it’s not because I accepted clone mods when I believed I was trapped on Koban for life. It’s because later, I didn’t have the fortitude to take the leap to join those that are in the forefront of defending all of humanity. It wasn’t because I worried that the Hub planets would penalize us for the audacity of surviving, or for effectively fighting the Krall.”

He looked at each of the Kobani around the table, and pointedly included the three aliens. “Friends, all of you, please forgive me for my weakness. I would have joined the Kobani in the war by now, if not for the obligation I feel to continue to speak for those that my words and example convinced to take that first step with me, and received the clone mods. I will continue to stand with them, even as each month some of them elect to receive your Koban mods. When all of them, or at least most of them have done that, so will I.”

Embry sneered. “I’m sure the PU’s hangmen will use softer ropes for you clone mod aberrations Mister MacDougal, thereby showing proper leniency for your carefully measured violation of God’s design. I’d gladly point all of you out to them when they finally come, but your mongrel genes will do that for us.”

Her hateful snide remarks overlooked the fact that lethal injection was the only legal execution method permitted in the PU, not a rope. Secondly, in typical fashion for her group, their mental blinders missed the irony that the lethal injection contained a non-transmittable virus, developed by geneticists for the purpose of painless and humane executions, created well before the Collapse that followed the Gene War. A Planetary Union executioner would thus be required to use now forbidden genetic modifications to kill violators of gene laws.

Mirikami had been able to tolerate hearing Embry’s old arguments again; right up until she stepped over a line she’d approached closely before, but had never crossed. By inference, she had just labeled the completely innocent aliens as evil as the Kobani.

“Enough! Ellen, this persistent argument has grown tiresome and deeply offensive to the rest of us, and what I’m about to propose has already been discussed widely among the Kobani and others, who make their home in this system. If the people you represent intend to continue to accept Kobani support and protection, to live among us, and our allies, you will cease open and hateful attacks on your benefactors and providers. Think and believe whatever you wish, we can’t and wouldn’t try to stop you. Nevertheless, you and those you represent will stop making public insults and threats against the community around you. The Prada, Torki, and Raspani are people and contributing citizens here as well. Not creatures, in the derogatory manner you used to describe them so dismissively. None of us or they have treated you badly, and we have endured your abuse for long enough.

“There are multiple habitable worlds that have been free of Krall presence for many centuries, and which have no intelligent alien occupants or Kobani to offend your sensibilities. Your group can become colonizers of one of these worlds, with our initial support to help you establish yourselves there. After that, we will leave you on your own. When the Hub learns of our system’s location, as they surely will at some point, we will tell them where to find the ‘Loyal Opposition’ to those of us living here. That is my solemn promise to you, and I do not break promises.”

He waved her down sharply as she opened her mouth for a retort.

“Be quiet. Take this offer to those you represent, discuss it, vote on it, and the majority decision will apply to all of you, no exceptions or exclusions. It will apply to all of you. If your group elects to stay on Haven, you will no longer be allowed to attack and insult the community that protects and serves you. If you do, you will all be relocated to one of the offshore landmasses, where you can rule yourselves as you chose in isolation, with only our limited support until you become self-sufficient. The offer of a new colony world will still be available to you. You have one month to decide. Tonight marks the final end of this discussion, if not the disagreement.”

She started to renew her argument, but when Mirikami moved towards her, threatening to remove her forcibly from the chamber, she promptly shut up and sat down. Her face was red with suppressed anger, and she experienced more than a little fear. There was no possibility her followers wanted to have to take care of themselves on a new planet or even on an uninhabited island on Haven. That was exactly what was about to happen if they continued to vigorously and publically oppose every action of the Kobani, and avoided most of the work of settling Haven. She had finally managed to alienate the closest group her faction had ever had as an ally on Haven, the people Stewart MacDougal represented.

Dismissing her from his attention, Mirikami addressed the first member of the alien contingent. “Wister, the Prada have worked very hard to make a home on Haven, not just for your people, but for humans, the Torki, and the Raspani. You certainly aren’t responsible for the actions of us Kobani, but our revealing details of our gene mods could have a long-range repercussion for your people, if it leads to political problems with our Hub worlds.”

With a wry grin, he added something else for the over twelve hundred year old leader, “I know you Prada take the long view of things. We might someday find ourselves in conflict with our own people, if humans somehow manage to win the war with the Krall. I’d like to hear your opinion and comments about the risk of revealing ourselves to our own people.”

Wister stood, pulling his prehensile tail through the hole at the base of the chair’s backrest. His short stature at a human scaled table only lifted his head six inches higher. He looked around at his audience with his large amber eyes blinking, his black nose quivering, head, tail and ears held steady. That very steadiness indicated the sense of certainty he felt about what he was about to say, at least it was clear to those who understood Prada mannerisms.

“Many of my people are slow to resume thinking for themselves, after so long of accepting being told what to do, and never to be asked what we thought or wanted. We owe humanity a great debt for enabling us to recover the right of self-determination. In truth, the greatest debt is owed to you Kobani, although to any Prada, most humans seem to think and act the same.

“I heard you say this is a risky thing, and future conflict is possible, but we cannot understand why your leaders in Human Space would consider turning on you. Your differing motives, and many opposing factions are difficult for us to grasp. Your species seems to have conflicted with itself very often in your history. The Prada are united in our core beliefs and slow to change. We willingly support and work for those of you that live in this system. Well…, we do this on Haven,” he amended, “but on Koban, it is too difficult. I will urge my people to continue to do this, even if there is risk to us someday for that action. It is right that we do so, and in truth, it is self-serving of us. My species needs the help of all of humanity to survive the Krall threat and its eternal slavery. The Kobani are the branch of humanity that is the driving force that can make that happen.

“We see no valid reasons for concealing what you are. You are the hope of your entire people, and of mine.” He sat down.

Mirikami nodded, aware from previous conversations what the Prada position was. “Thank you Wister.”

He gestured to a pair of eyestalks aimed his way. “Geltra, what is the Torki viewpoint?”

The Torki, as was their custom, remained prone on the long angular ridge of her couch, which mated with a longitudinal crease in a Torki’s carapace, left there when they molted into their first purple adult shell. One eyestalk stayed on Mirikami, while the other stalk, disconcertingly for a human, pivoted around the table to scan the other attendees. Her claws clicked under the table, in unconscious conversational ticks as she focused on using her Olt to link to the black speaking device, adhered to the front underside of her carapace.

Geltra had time to compose a response as she listened and awaited her turn to speak. Accordingly, her voice and sound replicator slipped into a lecture mode many of the Torki had taken to using, at least when addressing a gathering consisting of mostly humans.

In short, she sounded very similar to Dillon’s speaking voice, the pattern they had adopted. “I am in a communal Olt link with all but a few of our population on Haven. The sense that predominates is one of encouraging the Kobani to be open with those humans they have been protecting from the Krall. To do otherwise would create unwarranted distrust if they learn the secret of your physical modifications on their own. We are sharply opposed to informing them of your unique form of insanity. At least until you earn their trust. Although human mind aberrations may not be as risky to admit, as we collectively and previously believed, because of an assurance we heard spoken by Doctor Martin recently. He said: all humans are a bit crazy.” The last was a recorded playback of the actual words.

Eight pairs of human eyes turned to stare at Dillon, who looked sheepish at this unexpected quote, and he shrugged.

Viewing the scene around the table through the Olt link, the Torki commune sensed a misunderstanding, so Geltra clarified. “We are referring to the mental aberration you describe as the Mind Tap ability. It is aberrant in the sense that it is a departure from the normal or typical human mental ability. Even other crazy humans may find this strange and threatening at first. We Torki certainly found it strange, and initially troubling, until we learned we could prevent your reading of our minds if we wish to withhold our thoughts.”

She grew quiet, other than the normal chitin scraping, and small claw clicks.

Never having risen from her couch, she naturally didn’t sit down, so Mirikami wasn’t certain the Torki had finished. “Geltra, this particular crazy human isn’t sure, but I think you have completed your statements. Perhaps our expert on crazy and a prime example of the condition can confirm this?” He shot an amused look at Dillon.

Geltra lightly bobbed her carapace, “Yes, I have imparted the majority opinion of our dispersed population. We were unaware Doctor Martin was your expert on human mental aberration. We will all now recognize him as such.”

“He’s certainly one of our finer examples of the condition.” Mirikami confirmed.

He next looked to the Raspani, sitting to his right, beside Maggi. “Wind Song, could you share with us the Raspani viewpoint on possible risks of revealing our Kobani abilities to the leaders of the government of our species. I know you have only recently had your mind enhancer implanted in the host body you now inhabit. To be certain you understand, let me say that we Kobani, in order to fight the Krall, have violated one of the most stringent prohibitions in our current culture. We have employed outlawed genetic modification of the human genome to make us superior in strength and speed over the Krall. I understand your people have discussed the science behind the human Clone Wars and subsequent Gene War, which explains why the prohibition on using that form of science was enacted by our government.”

Wind Song raised her head slightly higher by holding her gray and pudgy upper torso closer to vertical, her legs straddling the padded bench under her lower body. All Raspani with mind enhancers were now fluent in spoken Standard, despite the sibilant sounds they made if they spoke it directly. Most of them, Wind Song included, had a Torki made synthesizer hung around their necks if needed for extensive conversations with humans. Because her comments would be brief, she chose to speak directly. Her fleshy lips and short tusks distorting some words.

“We have sstuddied the reportss of what your people quickly learned of geneticss, a branchh of sscience my people never conssidered equal to the power of physsicss, and yet our physsicss was beaten by a weaker form of Krall geneticss. What you have done to meet the Krall iss proof we neglected an important technology. We underssstand that sssome of the mainsstream humanss will want the Kobani punisshed, for breaking lawss that your ssociety created to protect them from misstakess of the passt. The humor we heard sspoken, that humanss are mentally aberrant, or a little crazzy as our friend Dillon desscribess hiss own people, iss not literally true. Your people were motivated by sselfpresservation when they made thosse lawss, and will be motivated again when they learn that only the Kobani can meet the Krall, and sslow their advancce.

“The word in Sstandard that I found to desscribe what we think will happen iss pragmatic. While the war enduresss, they will welcome your help, becausse that iss a practical conssideration. If the Krall are defeated, then their gratitude will endure for a time. When they feel ssafe again, and are ready to remember the political reassonss to oppossse human genetic improvementss, who of them could perssecute the Kobani branch of humanity? Would they dare attack the new kind of humanss that were powerful enough to defeat an enemy they were helplesss to sstop? That sseemss not likely. Reveal only what you musst and do not worry of their future reaction at thiss time.”

This was exactly the reason why Mirikami and Maggi had arranged for the seating at the table as it was, to place the three alien races where they would be the last to speak. The Raspani in particular had a viewpoint that most closely mirrored Mirikami’s and Maggi’s own.

Humanity needed Kobani help desperately, so now was the most favorable time to reveal what they had done genetically, to be able to fight the Krall so effectively. By revealing their secret before it was discovered, it would avoid the Hub leaders presenting a demand for an explanation of their secrecy, which would foster greater suspicion.

Rising to his feet, Mirikami gave a short summary, taken from the group’s overall comments. “My friends, the majority of you have supported a viewpoint that Maggi and I also support.” He looked down. “If I may be so bold as to dare speak for my wife?”

“Just this one time, my dear.” She looked up with a real smile, not the Tiger Lady grin.

He smiled back, and continued. “With General Nabarone’s cooperation, I’ll ask to meet with Admiral Bledso, Chairfem of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and brief her on our physical enhancements. Henry’s status as a Kobani will have to stay a secret, but I’ll send Chief Haveram ahead to Poldark, to ask Henry to relay the request by fast courier for the meeting. If Bledso is too busy with planning for the K1 strike to take a week off for the Jump to Poldark and back, I’ll visit Earth, and meet with her there.”

There were multiple objections and concerns raised when his friends heard that proposal. Dillon voiced the general concerns best. “Tet, if Bledso doesn’t like what you tell her about our genetics, and she chooses to have you arrested or held on Earth, you’re going to be right in the heart of the Hub. How would we get you out of there without causing a serious rift, which a raid would generate?”

“Everyone, please relax. Remember, I was in Mind Tap contact with the Chairfem when she experienced Kartok’s thoughts during his demonstration interrogation a couple of weeks ago. I detected the depths of her intense desire to win this war. There was a strong sense of how far she might be willing to go to prevent the death and destruction emanating from that Krall’s mind.

“I believe that she’ll want to work with us, and the political side of the Chairfem will recognize that our secret is best kept from the PU government for now, both for the overall military advantage, and to give her beloved navy every benefit of our assistance against the Krall at K1 this time around. She really wants to deliver a heavy blow if possible.”

After this, there were only a couple of mundane items to discuss before the assembly broke up, and most of the attendees left the meeting chamber. Mirikami asked Max Born to stay a moment.

“Doctor, I’ve not spent much time talking with you previously, and I apologize. It’s partly because you talk about subjects that are well outside my area of knowledge and over my head. I’m a simple Spacer at heart, and I love being a captain of a ship most of all. I’ll admit, the fight against the Krall has pushed me well beyond my original comfort zone.”

“Captain, I’ve followed your progress in leading us the last twenty three years, and I have to say you are far more than a simple Spacer. I find myself personally and scientifically in your debt, because without the introduction of the Koban genes that you supported, and the escape from Koban your plans and preparations made possible, I wouldn’t have found such a rich source of new science and technology from the alien allies you met and rescued. The ability to learn what they know, to truly to understand what Torki and Raspani scientists mean when they explain new physics, and to retain all of that so well, is largely due to the wolfbat and ripper genes your guidance has made possible. Thank you.” He offered his hand.

Accepting Born’s handshake, Mirikami spread the gratitude where he thought it was more deserved. “I accept your thanks on behalf of others more responsible for our progress than I. It’s true I backed our geneticists and explorations, but others did the work that made our progress possible.”

Laughing, Born rebutted. “Tet, it is another of your hallmarks that you always give credit to others. I’ll have to concede that it’s difficult to give you congratulations on what you have accomplished, because you always pass them on. I presume you asked me to remain for some other reason?”

Mirikami smiled in return. “Yes I did, Max. You apparently think that additional sensitivity of the Comtap circuitry might lead to the same instant long-range communications in Normal Space. How far in the future might that be?”

“Oh, my assistants and I have already produced a test version of the new circuits, with the level of sensitivity needed. Unfortunately, we don’t have it scaled down to fit on a chip the size of the existing Comtaps yet. Not even to the size of the slightly larger new chips, which the Torki have started producing for our use inside Tachyon Space. Yesterday, I had my original Comtap chip replaced with the new long-range version the Torki are producing. I was able to receive instantaneous data from our test circuit yesterday, while both the transmitter circuit and I were in Normal Space, but light years apart.

“I asked Captain Lebeau of the Pride of Gaul to transport my assistants and equipment, and they Jumped at least ten light years from Koban for the test. Standing right here on Haven, I received their messages clearly on my new Comtap, but I couldn’t send them a reply with the older style chip, of course.”

“Max, How long before you have the technology scaled down to fit on an implantable chip?”

“That will be a design task for the Torki, or possibly the Raspani to complete. They have the only production equipment designed to produce the embeddable chips at the present. If the shift to using the Philodor technology is any guide, perhaps a month to produce the first version.”

“I’d like to have this capability before we join forces with the navy for the raid on K1, although I don’t have their time line yet. They were in a hurry, so the attack may come within less than a month. How transportable is your prototype, and could you reproduce that so I could take it with me? If I could send data from Normal Space to ships in or out of a Jump Hole to the new Comtap chips, at least our people could receive coordinating messages from me.”

“That’s no problem because we built three of the test circuits, which we used for testing before we got the first of the new Comtaps yesterday. I went first, to receive the replacement chip when Coldar brought it to us, so I could see how well it worked. You can have one of the test setups for Normal Space transmission if the next implant version isn’t produced before you go to K1. You can have the latest Comtap chip like the one I have for receiving Normal Space transmissions today, if you have time for the implantation. I had my old one replaced and the new one installed in roughly five minutes. It’s as fast as a transducer being embedded behind your ear, although the brain integration takes another few minutes.”

“Who do I see?”

“Coldar or someone in his department. If you have time now, you can follow me to the Torki lab area.”

Mirikami was followed by Dillon, Thad and Sarge, who were each planning to be Kobani representatives aboard PU navy ships. None of the latter men felt experienced enough to command a clanship in a fleet fight, using human style tactics. That they were leaving to experienced Spacers. The Kobani now had captured just under a hundred clanships, stolen whenever any were observed parked unattended by a clan dome on isolated Krall worlds they scouted. Only about a third of the stolen ships had been modified for human comfort, and none had AIs, but with Mind Tap instruction, any Kobani could operate them better than a Krall pilot could, because the built-in acceleration limits were eliminated for the greater Kobani capability, with human common sense applied.

After the combined half hour session for the implants, the four men experimented communicating with the devices, noting how their use differed from the somewhat richer sensations of direct hand-to-hand contacts, which were more familiar. They didn’t opt to test the devices for the electromagnetic signal range, but they were assured by Coldar and Born that in Normal Space their effective link capability was not only global, but would extend out to at least twenty thousand miles, which did not involve tachyon quantum entanglement and modulation.

Naturally, the most interesting distance would be in Tachyon Space, which should be effectively unlimited continuous communication at any range. That would be tested before they offered their services to the PU navy, but it could wait until the hundred or so other Kobani volunteers were equipped, and a mass test conducted.

Mirikami also went away with the small briefcase sized prototype device, which Born told him would connect to their current Comtaps while they were in Normal Space, anywhere. Since all of the Kobani with the new Comtaps were in the Koban system right now, it wasn’t much of a test. However, he used it to talk to Cal Branson who was visiting friends on Koban.

Because the prototype wasn’t embedded, the Mind Tap ability wasn’t available yet, making it an audio only link. There currently was over seventy two million miles between Haven and Koban, but Cal’s surprised reply to Mirikami’s connection to the other man’s Comtap was instant.

“Hi Tet, you surprised me. I didn’t know you had a chip yet. Where on Koban are you?”

“That’s the real surprise Cal. I’m on Haven, in Xenos, trying out Max Born’s prototype of the next Comtap version. It’ll work at any distance, using a stronger quantum entanglement with low energy tachyons, even when both users are in Normal Space. It’s not yet reduced to implantable size, so I’m carrying the various components in a small case for now, and I talk to it with my Comtap, and it relays to your Comtap through Tachyon Modulation. That’s why there are no mental images or emotions to this link. Believe me I’m happy to be able talk to you this way, since you could as easily have been in Human Space or in a Jump Hole.

“When I head back into Human Space this month, I’ll still have this case with me to make an audio call to anyone with a Comtap, an Olt, or a mind enhancer. The production versions will be reduced to about half the size of a pea, I’m told. Yours and Mel’s will be two versions out of date before they’re a month old.”

“Oh man! Are Mel and I stuck with the original type? That’ll teach me not to volunteer too fast.” He sounded extremely disappointed.

Mirikami smiled at the other man’s complaint. “Not at all. Max just had his own original Comtap replaced with the same type I just received, which has greater local electromagnetic range with Mind Tap ability, and when in Tachyon Space has the same unlimited range to another chip inside a Jump Hole. The next generation chip will connect us while light years apart in Normal Space. Max and I, and anyone with the older versions can have them replaced with the next upgrade when it’s ready. Just let the Raspani insertion machine swap them. It’s plug-in upgradeable technology for the brain, originally designed by the Olt’kitapi.”

“That’s a relief.”

“You’ll hear about our next big mission against the Krall soon, but I won’t go into detail now. I only wanted to test this gadget. Talk to you later.”

Satisfied with their expanding communications capability, he looked at his closest friends. “We can really help the navy coordinate this attack on K1, but I want to be in command of my own ship when the fight starts.”

He laughed. “I’d love to hear Telour’s snarls when his clanships start to drop like flies.”

Chapter 12: Consolidation and Revelation

Telour snorted in amusement. “I would like to watch the look of fear spread between the mass of humans, when our ships descend like flies on their Hub world.”

Speaking only to his staff, he felt it necessary to put a positive spin on the day, after being selected as the new Tor Gatrol, and then promptly handed a setback. Something needed to be said to counter the disappointment he and his Graka clan mates felt at the postponement of the plan he’d proposed. It was that idea which had actually clinched his promotion. The delay of initiating that plan felt too much like a defeat for the ambitious and aggressive new war leader.

Earlier that day, standing alone on the central platform of the great dome, he’d been surrounded by the full combined Joint Council. The leaders of the Great and Major clans stood close to hear his words, but his strong voice reached even the many Minor clan leaders in the highest, most remote tiers of the large chamber, who had just arrived for the vote.

He’d announced what was afterwards described as a clever plan even by the opposing Tanga clan (Telour had naturally thought it was brilliant). He proposed a method that he promised would lead to the destruction of multiple human worlds, teaching them finally to do as the Krall commanded. The brilliance was that it would entail the use of but a single Olt’kitapi living ship, selected from the remaining four that would still respond to soft Krall instructions.

He described to that assembly how his plan would inflict a huge number of punitive human deaths; yet the deaths would occur days to weeks after the triggering event. That was a delay long enough for additional solar system destructions to be initiated by use of only one of the fast traveling ancient Olt’kitapi ships. As in the past, the AI mind that controlled the ship would surely somehow learn that its actions had eventually resulted in massive deaths on inhabited worlds. The Krall goal of forcing their worthy enemy into proper submission would be achieved, presumably well before the AI went catatonic, then vanished into Tachyon Space, or quit responding and returned to its base.

Telour’s rebuff came when the Joint Council had decided that by establishing the third invasion force first, they could release most of the clanships for support duties after the initial delivery of the new force from Telda Ka was completed. This had been the original plan of Tor Gatrol Kanpardi, before his death, and respect for his planning still exerted considerable influence. Telour was being haunted by the decisions made by the superior he’d arranged to be killed.

The council thinking on this subject was that the same clanships from the invasions would be used for supporting forces already on Poldark and New Dublin, as well as those on the next target, the older Hub world colony that humans called New Glasgow. They would be quickly available for repelling attacks if humans tried a desperate response after the destruction of the selected worlds.

The worlds Telour suggested to be killed were located in the compact volume of space humans called the Hub of their civilization. This attack was now to swiftly follow the third invasion, and serve to divert human resources from effectively resisting the new invasions, or from trying to rescue people from the systems about to die. This was considered an efficient use of the excessive number of worlds the humans already occupied, and their loss would dissuade further attacks on Krall production worlds. A recording of Telour’s voice would announce why this happened before the final solar system was destroyed.

It was for this reason, to hurry along his plan’s implementation, that Telour had called for the rapid return of the ships at New Dublin to Telda Ka, to load material and warriors for the next invasion. All of the supplies and warriors for the force at New Dublin were now unloaded and on the ground, and they had finally broken out of the marshy base area that Gatlek Pendor had foolishly chosen for his landing site.

The prepositioned PU army reserve forces, caught by surprise by an invasion well away from the Rim region of Poldark, were just now reaching New Dublin, and had to fight their way through a clanship screen even to land. They arrived “A day late and a credit short” as General Nabarone had announced on Tri-Vid, pissing off his army superiors again with his accurate but tactless and blunt public remarks.

It was only the orders given to the Krall pilots, to preserve their clanships, which made the navy troop transport landings possible without greater losses. The planetary defense system was far less capable than the one around Poldark, but it was adequate above the major cities. Five navy battleships and ten squadrons of heavy cruisers, sent as escorts, helped keep the milling clanships away from the troop ships. The landings went easier than expected, because only one day earlier, a thousand other clanships had unexpectedly Jumped out of the system.

General Ellen Masterfem, the commander of the ground defense forces arriving at New Dublin, assumed that a third of the clanships had left to load up more supplies at K1, anticipating they would be brought back here. She was grateful for their leaving and she increased the rate of her troop landings before they could return. Naturally, she reported the enemy’s massed Jumps, unaware yet of the expectation of navy high command, that there would be another invasion force formed.

Masterfem would continue to operate under pressure, as if those ships would return before her forces were all down, the ships unloaded and troops deployed. Bledso, not wanting the Krall to suspect that their next invasion plans were known, the commander at New Dublin would continue to scramble in ignorance to land her forces recklessly, without the knowledge that the large groups of clanships leaving New Dublin were not returning. She lost troop ships that could have made safer landings a week later.

The Krall Joint Council believed the third invasion, hitting far from New Dublin, would leave the enemy military commanders reeling, with their relief forces spread too thin. Humans were about to learn that sheer numbers, in a population of nearly a trillion, didn’t automatically translate into enough trained fighters, or their being placed where they were most needed.

Every Krall was a warrior, and each could participate in the fighting. In contrast, less than one percent of all humans were even being trained as soldiers. Over half of the trained and experienced fighters were presently deployed on Poldark or on Rim worlds relatively close to Poldark, which had seemed the most threatened region. The less experienced and fresh troops were being held in reserve on New Colonies in Human Space, just inside the Rim region on the same side where all of the Krall’s major attacks had occurred. Until now.

The majority of those inexperienced reserves were now headed for New Dublin.

Current PU planning was for an eventual build up to a ten billion strong human army, pitted against at least the billion Krall warriors now estimated to be inside Human Space. To the Krall, even this number was not a serious force, although they only had another two billion mature warriors distributed among their hundreds of clan ruled planets. Even the Joint Council didn’t know their actual strength in total warriors was that low. No reason to care either, when they could double the number of novices old enough to fight in half a breeding cycle if they reduced culling.

Telour was aware the number of human fighters was increasing by two hundred thousand or so every month, and a very small number of the newest human warriors were proving to be remarkably efficient and highly capable. It was those humans that had hit Krall planets, having an impact far greater than their low numbers implied should have been possible. Nevertheless, under the aggressive leadership of Telour as Tor Gatrol, they would soon teach humanity that there was no basis for their ridiculous belief that there could be noncombatants in their society. Their present rate of military training was far too low for what this Tor had planned for them.

Telour, listening to a report from a courier returning from New Dublin, heard that Gatlek Pendor had ordered a third of the fleet of clanships there to prepare to Jump to Telda Ka in two hands of days after the courier left. The clanships were currently opposing the arrival of the human troop transports and navy escorts, and when the majority of clanships left, more of those human troops would reach the ground safely. Good, more human forces on the ground there meant Pendor would have a good fight, and even fewer would be available to rush to the more vital world of New Glasgow.

The travel time for the courier to Telda Ka was two hands of days, so the first of the clanships were already on their way back here. Another one thousand or so should leave New Dublin four days later, and half of the last thousand would follow in yet another four days, leaving Gatlek Pendor five hundred clanships for his use, the same as the new Gatlek, Fistok of Mordo clan on Poldark, had been allowed to retain for his support.

Telour’s mind was busy with plans. The earliest the invasion fleet could be loaded and ready to launch again, he estimated to be perhaps forty days in octal numbers, just over a month in human time measure. After launch, that force should reach the surface of the next target world and have a strong foothold established in about that same amount of time. That was a hundred octal days in all, or a bit over two months before humanity knew what they faced next.

He’d need to give thought to which human worlds he would target for punitive destruction after that. No doubt, the Great clans would insist on having some input on his decision. That could be tiresome, but he would demand the ultimate decision to be his own, to assure the last world in the string of destruction fit his plan’s timetable.

The Olt’kitapi ship would have to come directly here to him first, of course. There was no possibility Telour was going to miss stepping onto the control deck of one of the ancient ships, knowing that he would command its actions. The future histories would detail that event, and contain the words he said that day. His role in advancing the Krall along the Great Path would be far more important than Kanpardi’s had been.

Of course, he had no intention to travel with the ship on its mission of destruction. It was impossible to predict what it would do when it eventually learned that it was tricked into killing intelligent life, or exactly when those first mass deaths would be detected. There was no reason for the new Tor Gatrol to risk being stranded inside the ship if it simply quit responding to commands. It might return to where the other ships were kept, but some of them had simply vanished, probable suicides in Tachyon Space.

He calculated the time needed to summon an Olt’kitapi ship, which should arrive after the invasion forces had landed on New Glasgow. There would be a two-week courier trip to the planet where they held the soft Krall. His emissaries would need time to choose a qualified operator, gather that pilot’s family members to hold as hostages, then travel two days to reach the huge moon where the living ships were hidden. The return trip, with the dedicated guardians of the ships closely watching the soft Krall, would require but a single day for that ancient ship to reach Telda Ka, even from that great distance.

He would send the courier to fetch one of the ancient ships just before the invasion fleet lifted from Telda Ka. In human terms, this gave the solar systems that Telour would select a mere two months of continued peaceful existence.

****

Mirikami shared some news. “Chief Haveram reached Poldark with Joe Longstreet, and he also took Corporal Eddie Condor. All three had the new chip. Nabarone not only agreed with our plan to reveal our Kobani genes for speed and strength, he told Joe it was about damned time.” He grinned.

“After Joe Mind Tapped him about the chip’s long-rage ability, Henry promptly agreed to send a courier to Earth to contact Chairfem Bledso. His next sentence was a typical one for Henry.” He laughed and repeated Joe’s quote. “Where the hell is MY goddamned chip?”

“He’s right. We need to get one to him, even though he seldom even gets his butt off planet, let alone enters a Jump Hole.”

Thad offered an amusing warning. “When he gets one that works long-range while in Normal Space, you’ll be hearing a lot more remarks like that one.”

“Probably. Although, he did make an obvious useful change to my plan to contact Bledso that should have occurred to me. I was too focused on Henry using his influence to get her to agree to meet with me on Earth. Instead, he sent Joe and Big Bird in the courier as my messengers, using his authorization codes. That’s where Joe was when he made his report, while in transit.

“Now there’s no need to wait for a reply from Bledso any longer than it takes Joe to contact her. The Comtap is going to revolutionize communications, when muddled headed people like me remember to use it properly. Joe and Big Bird can demonstrate our communications ability directly for her. A meeting that might have taken a month just to arrange should produce an agreement within two weeks, assuming she goes along with us. We’ll have near instant communications in the future, if some of our people are allowed to stay with the navy.”

Sarge nodded. “That’s comforting. Now you don’t have to enter the lion’s den on Earth, just to get her agreement to put us on their ships.”

“I may not have needed to go, but Joe and Eddie went, and all of you that are offering to do liaison still have to get aboard navy ships, which is a bit like putting you in a bunch of small lion’s dens. I think you’ll all be fine, because they are going to want what we offer.

“I’ll be on the Mark with that test circuit of Max’s, to coordinate with you before you Jump, and stealthed in Normal Space observing the action after the fighting starts at K1. Most of our own ships will join the fleet in some capacity. Bledso will certainly have some admiral calling the shots, and we’ll just be a cog in a large integrated fighting machine.”

“A cog?” Captain Lebeau, of the Pride of Gaul, sounded indignant. “How are nearly a hundred of our ships a mere cog?”

“Francois, we haven’t even had much of a fleet with which to practice until the last couple of months. Our ships look exactly like the enemy ships, at least when we’re not in stealth mode. If we aren’t properly integrated into their force, we could have some friendly fire accidents. Our one hundred ships are only about ten percent of the fighting ships Henry thinks the navy has available. They’ve reduced ship size for greater numbers. No new dreadnaughts or battleships were built after the last K1 attack, since they make too juicy a target for a suicidal Krall in a clanship.

“None of our captains, me included, has ever fought in a fleet battle, even if some of us were in the navy at one time. The existing large ships might go along for firepower, but they’ll need heavy screening and have to move often.

“Once the shooting starts, a ship with the new stealth is revealed when they fire, and can be identified by the kind of weapons used. Our clanships will be identified as possible Krall by any of the fleet AIs. Therefore, I plan to let the fleet commander decide how best to use us and keep us safe from their weapons. Whoever that commander proves to be.”

****

Chairfem Bledso smiled. “President Medford, I’d like you to meet our newly appointed Fleet Admiral. You obviously know of her by reputation and you have both been in some of the same meetings, but I understand the two of you have not actually been introduced.”

Bledso did the honors. “Madam President, I’m pleased to present Fleet Admiral, Lady Lela Chatsworth.”

Chatsworth saluted, and President Erthrid Medford awkwardly returned the gesture she seldom used. She had been prepared for a handshake, as she had shared with the Chairfem so many times in the past. Knowing you were the commander in chief, and acting like one were different things. Medford had no military background, and military rituals were foreign to her political instincts. That was something Bledso recognized and avoided with her each time they met, and the president suspected the Chairfem had political aspirations of her own, once her military career ended.

Medford initiated the conversation, but was unsure of the proper military form of address. Was it Admiral or Fleet Admiral? She started by simply repeating the new rank of the former Admiral. Technically, the president had nominated Chatsworth for the promotion, but she had relied on Bledso’s and the Secretary of the Navy’s recommendation.

“A Fleet Admiral. It has been quite some time since we’ve had someone with that rank. Congratulations. I believe the last person to hold that rank was Academy Superintendent Golda Mauss.”

There was an awkward pause, before Bledso rescued her president from her misstep. “Not quite, Madam President, Vice Admiral Mauss was once considered for promotion to Fleet Admiral, when we thought the war would be mainly fought in space. That didn’t occur once the ground warfare aspect became the primary mode of combat with the Krall. There was no longer as much emphasis on the naval aspects of the war, and the position of Fleet Admiral was never filled.”

In fact, the ground war was repeatedly forced on humanity by the Krall, who wanted it that way, and Vice Admiral Mauss had led the only two fleet actions of the war against the Krall. Her brilliant second attack against K1 had been quite successful in that theatre. Then in a disaster, when a few of the Krall craft followed the fleet to its repair base, using a then unknown technology, they suddenly appeared over Rhama, where the docked fleet was unprepared for the nearly unstoppable ultrahigh velocity Eight Ball attacks of collapsed matter. The planet was devastated by a single near extinction level impact, and a Krall ultimatum was issued, to not attack K1 from space again. President Stanford, favored to be reelected that year, lost in a landslide. The planetary scale disaster helped select the next president, and the other politicians who won their respective elections riding the wave of anti-navy public sentiment, thus keeping the navy largely out of the fight. Until now.

Vice Admiral Mauss wasn’t fired for her tainted success, the only thing near a victory in the war to that point, but her career stalled when her staunchest civilian supporters lost reelection. She resisted calls for her resignation, serving in a low visibility desk job for several years, and eventually was appointed Superintendent of the Planetary Union Naval Academy, located on Earth’s Moon.

Her strategy, flexibility, and quick thinking shown in her two confrontations with the Krall were appreciated and respected by those that had served under her, and those officers later rose in rank. Both Bledso and Chatsworth had served under Mauss, and they had fought in both Operation Deep Lance, and in Operation New Lance.

Medford, her memory refreshed by Bledso, felt her face redden. “Excuse my poor memory, Fleet Admiral Chatsworth. I was a new Member of Parliament when the second attack on K1 happened, and I had never even met anyone in the navy or in any military service at that time.

“The Planetary Union was utterly unprepared for war, and few of its citizens, myself included, had any notion of how serious the Krall threat was back then, or how desperately we needed to rebuild our military capability. It was six years later, when I ran for and was elected to a Senate seat that I started to learn what an exemplary job our military was doing. I found myself a junior member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, where I belatedly discovered what it took to maintain our vital military branches. I became an ardent supporter then.

“After my inauguration last year, I had an opportunity to meet Superintendent Mauss when I visited Luna Base and the Academy. I received a hurried briefing from an aide on her career just before we met, and I vaguely recalled a mention that she had been considered for Fleet Admiral. The first person to be considered for that rank since World War II I was told. I hadn’t thought to inquire further, because her position was Superintendent by then. She made a considerable impression on me. I presume you know her personally?”

Chatsworth answered with a smile, glad to put the president at ease over her gaffe. “Yes, Mam. The Chairfem and I both served under her, and she has always impressed me as well. She’s a brilliant strategist.” Then, in a bit of inspiration, she made an off the cuff remark on a subject she and Bledso had been discussing, shortly before being ushered into the president’s office.

“I could use Superintendent Mauss’ advice and experience when I go up against the Krall. She seemed to know when they were about to do something unexpected, and quickly had a counter move in mind.”

Medford cocked her head in thought a moment. She may never have had a single second of military experience prior to becoming commander in chief, but she hadn’t risen rapidly to the top of the political heap by failing to grasp clues in a conversation. The Fleet Admiral could choose anyone she wanted to serve under her. It was unlikely that Mauss, expected to retire within a year or two, would pass up another chance to fight the Krall. She clearly loathed them. Chatsworth could request any navy personnel she wanted, so why wouldn’t she simply offer Mauss a position on her staff, or command of a ship?

Suddenly, the flash of insight arrived. It was a political matter, not military, and Chatsworth was indirectly seeking approval to talk to Mauss. Not from Bledso, but from Bledso’s boss. There could be objections against the Fleet Admiral taking along the admiral that had failed to protect Rhama. Yet, no one was ever blamed for the invasions of Bollovstic, Poldark, New Dublin, or even of K1 itself, the former colony of Greater West Africa. The navy was now trying to prevent the invasion of yet another world. It was time to blame only the Krall for Rhama, not those that fought against them.

“Admiral Chatsworth, I believe anyone going into a gang fight should take the best fighters with them. I suggest you invite a bulldog like Golda Mauss to go along. The navy and I can find another admiral to replace the Superintendent.

“Later, after the attack on K1 becomes publicly known, I can make an announcement that Mauss was with you. I think you should find a role for the admiral who bloodied the Krall’s nose so bad they said ‘No more!’ I urge you to recruit her. She was unfairly pilloried in the press.”

Medford knew she had it exactly right when she saw the relief and obvious gratitude of both Chatsworth and Bledso. Clearly, the Chairfem wanted her Fleet Admiral to have the best advisors along with her as possible. There would be some blowback in the press and from her political opposition about allowing Mauss to have an active role in another fleet action, but that would come after the fact, because there wasn’t going to be a whisper that this attack was even being planned.

****

A week later, Bledso’s aide reluctantly interrupted the Chairfem’s working lunch at her desk. “Mam, a courier from General Nabarone has contacted Denver SPC, requesting permission to land.”

Bledso took a sip of coffee to wash down a bite, as she used the moment to absorb what she’d heard. “Space Port Control said the courier from Nabarone called to land at Denver, not Washington?” Army headquarters was there, not here, so it made little sense.

She asked, “Is it just from Poldark, or did they say from Nabarone himself?” It made more sense if the courier was from Admiral Foxworthy.

“Mam, they used General Nabarone’s encrypted recognition code, and relayed a recorded request from the general that you personally meet with his messenger.”

“Damn it Gale, I’m shoulder deep in coordinating the units that Chatsworth needs to take with her, coming up with cover stories for their movements. I don’t have time to argue about Henry’s reduced naval support at Poldark. Foxworthy is preparing to leave with most of her squadron to join the fleet.” She suddenly realized the current date.

“Wait! She won’t even Jump for another nine days, and she certainly couldn’t have told Henry she was leaving two weeks ago when this courier departed, because my orders hadn’t reached her then. He must have guessed or made an assumption. Doesn’t matter, I don’t have time to hold his damn hand while he complains. Foxworthy has the only ships and crews that have faced the Krall regularly, so we need them at K1.”

“Mam, I spoke to the courier captain directly, and he told me the general said it’s urgent that you meet personally with the messenger he sent, a Captain Joseph Longstreet, of Special Operations. You are supposed to have heard of him.”

Bledso’s eyebrows rose. It seemed the dead spec ops captain had returned to life once more. She’d only heard his voice on the recordings made when he was supposedly a member of the capture team that picked up the first Krall she’d ever seen as a live prisoner. She didn’t know what this version of the dead man looked like because he’d never been out of his armor. She had a file on the man reported killed in action, and she spoke to her AI, which had of course been listening to the exchange.

“Conrad, show me the file on this Longstreet.” Before the sentence was finished, the AI had already searched and located the file, waiting only for the request to place it on her display. His official picture appeared on her larger desk monitor. The Tri-Vid image was of an attractive, young looking man in an Army dress uniform, wearing the black beret of Special Operations, and the black and white shoulder patch of the Heavyside based unit partly visible. Young looking was a given in an active duty spec ops troop, and cosmetic genetics centuries ago led to many people inheriting attractive features.

“Conrad, is there a voice print of the man that captured the Krall prisoner over Poldark, or any other way to confirm if the man I’m expected to meet is the same person?”

“Yes, Mam, I have a voice print. There is also a biometric estimate of his physical dimensions if he were not wearing the armor seen in the recordings made by the heavy cruiser, the Claw. That estimate matches well with the records for the Captain Longstreet that was reported killed in action. There were no previous voice recordings to use for a comparison. A DNA sample from the man reported as killed was found when you requested that I search for the actual identity of the person on the Claw. The Special Operations branch said they didn’t have one, as part of their policy of anonymity for their recruits, and they were in general uncooperative with my requests. The PU Army had a DNA profile in their old records for a Joseph Randolph Longstreet, which was more a result of incompetence than proper file keeping. They were instructed by the Special Operations Branch to delete those previous records, as is promised to recruits by that dark ops branch.”

“Good. Then when the man meets with me Conrad, I want you to check him out for a reasonable match to these records. We may even be able to get a DNA sample.”

“Yes, Mam.”

Looking aside to her aide, “Gale, authorize the courier to land, and arrange for an escort to bring Captain Longstreet to my office. Check my schedule, and keep ten minutes clear for me to talk with him.”

“Yes, Mam.”

For the following hour, Bledso was engaged with sending orders to move squadrons or specific ships, and preparing stories for local news consumption of where the ships were moving, or the names of exercises they were supposed to be conducting when they left their normal bases. The navy had grown in strength and complexity.

There would be just over a thousand ships engaged in the attack on K1 this time, although none would be on the size scale of the only existing dreadnaught, the Invincible, or even the five battleships that were repaired after the second K1 attack. The big ships certainly provided massive firepower in a single package, but that had proven to be a source of vulnerability when they also provided a focus for concentrated suicidal attacks for Krall clanship commanders, who wanted a high score status kill. Jump technology itself was used as a weapon against less maneuverable giant ships. A clanship could Jump into the space occupied by a large ship, destroying both of them in a titanic explosion. Another tactic was to Jump close, then Jump away again by using a massive tachyon to create a huge event horizon, shearing away part of a big enemy ship in the process. This was a less sure a way to kill the target ship, but it allowed the clanship commander a chance to brag about his exploit later.

The navy decided a larger number of smaller ships offered greater fleet flexibility, and smaller and harder to hit targets for a suicide minded Krall clanship pilot. Heavy cruisers became the backbone of the new fleet, and the nearly hapless destroyer class ships were no longer being built. Screening the fleet had not proven that effective, when the enemy could Jump into the center of a formation, and bypass the outer screen. Unpredictable movements had proven to be the key to success against the Krall in the last fleet action.

Bledso was engrossed in Chatsworth’s proposed strategy of fleet movement and composition of units, when her aide, Gale, opened her door. “Mam, Captain Longstreet has been cooling his heels in your outer foyer for thirty minutes. I made a hole in your schedule to hold calls for ten minutes, if you are ready to see him now. By the way, he isn’t in uniform.”

Almost startled she had jerked her head up when the door opened; unaware so much time had passed. Pushing some things aside and setting her computer’s system recall to restore where she was, she said, “Give me five minutes with Conrad, then escort him in, please.”

The door closed and she asked the AI, “Does he seem to be the same man in the file on Longstreet, and does the voice from the Claw recording match this man?” She had formed her own opinion and was expecting a confirmation from her AI.

“Mam, he looks like the image in the army file, he has the proper body proportions within acceptable parameters, and the voice matched when he spoke with Gale. Without an eye scan or DNA sample, he appears to be the man reported as killed in action, and the voice of the person that was on the Claw.”

“I expected that. I didn’t think Nabarone would try to send a ringer to fool me. I guess I can ask him why the subterfuge, and hear what he has to say. When he passed the scanners built into the hall door frame, were the usual spec ops implants detected?”

“He has a standard small spec ops AI unit in his sternum, an eye projection system and infrared detectors in each eye, and the metallic nervous system lines for Booster Suit control, although he isn’t wearing a suit. He has a communication transducer behind his right ear and an unknown embedded small device in his head, set in bone and located behind his nose. There were also some organic anomalies, but you do not have a medical scanner type system installed in your anteroom doorframe. He passed through the door too quickly anyway for a thorough scan, but I detected no weapons.”

“Thank you Conrad, I wasn’t concerned about weapons. The man is a weapon in his own right. Please link to my transducer for possible comments or observations if I raise my left index finger. Cut off if I lower the finger.” She wanted the AI’s information on demand. In addition, to signal it to shut off if it talked too much. Something AIs still did, despite advances in the technology.

There was a light polite knock. “Come.” If it were only Commander Gale, she’d have walked right in, as always. Gale opened the door, and ushered in a tall, well-built man who was a match to the file picture she’d seen earlier, and she announced him by name and rank, although he was in a simple two-piece dark blue business suit, with an open jacket over a lighter blue shirt.

Bledso, because this messenger was presumably representing General Nabarone but dressed as a civilian, came around her desk and offered her hand in greeting, rather than wait to see if he would salute. “Captain, what can I do for you, or rather for General Nabarone? Why did he find it necessary for you to see me directly?”

He took her hand. “Mam, it isn’t what you can do for me, it’s what I, and what other people sent by Captain Mirikami can do for you. We can provide you with real-time long distance communications while inside Tachyon Space. I’m here to offer our services to the fleet when you attack K1. We now have over a hundred stolen clanships under our command, with the same improved stealth capability we provided to the navy, and they are at your disposal.”

He held onto her hand a bit longer than she found comfortable as he said this, but he released as soon as he’d had his say. This wasn’t at all what she had anticipated being discussed. It was better.

He nodded as their hands parted, as if she’d said something he agreed with, but she’d not spoken yet.

“Uh…, I suspect that you mean you have alien technology that can communicate between ships while in Tachyon Space? We have had scientist and engineers working on this for years, but we haven’t been very successful. Please be seated.” She went back around her desk, considering what he’d said.

Suddenly apprehensive, she asked, “Do the Krall have this capability?” Their intended rapid movement and frequent Jump strategy might not keep the Krall as much off balance as they hoped. Not if they could also share information, and coordinate movements while in Jump status.

“No, Mam. At least they don’t have instant light years range of communications like what we have to offer. I can demonstrate this for any of your people if you’d like. Someone would have to enter a Jump Hole with me, and while there, I could talk to Captain Mirikami directly, even though he is many hundreds of light years away. I have another person that came with me on the courier from Poldark, which we can use as the other end of a two-way relay while we both are in the Hole. The link works over light years inside Tachyon Space, so it obviously will function across a solar system.”

She suspended her skepticism for now, and raised her index finger slightly from her desk. “You will understand I’m sure, that I will have to ask one of our scientists to brief me on our own progress in Tachyon Space communications.”

“Yes, Mam.”

Conrad was prompt. “Mam, there has been no significant progress in this field, and the best efforts reported to date were slow, and worked only between ships that were effectively flying in formation in a parallel Jump.” She lowered her finger.

“Can you provide us with these transmitters and receivers for testing, and furnish one for each of our ships? We’d need quite a few. Perhaps we could build our own.” She wasn’t going to reveal to him how many ships they would have yet. The claim of Mirikami having captured more than one hundred Krall clanships had not fully sunk in either, nor had that claim avoided her doubts.

“Mam, in a manner of speaking we will provide as many communication systems as you need. Frankly, you can’t very well build them. I’m one of them myself.” He smiled, knowing he’d just confused her.

“Excuse me? You are one of the operators you mean?”

“Not exactly. The technology is built into my head. Right behind here.” He tapped the bridge of his nose.

“I have what we call a Comtap chip embedded in my skull, which permits a quantum entangled system to modulate low energy tachyons when we are inside a Jump Hole. Such tachyons travel at an infinite velocity in that Universe, and can deliver a message to the intended person with another such device instantly. If one of us is aboard each of your ships, we can help you coordinate individual ship movements after they enter a Jump Hole. Captain Mirikami wants to allow your fleet commander to direct his captured clanships ships this way, and possibly use our ability to get all the way down to the surface of K1 disguised as Krall clan members. Our ships look like enemy ships when unstealthed or when firing the same weapons, so we have to avoid friendly fire accidents of your ships on ours.”

“Wow, Captain. This sounds complicated, but I can see some advantages and potential drawbacks.”

“What are the drawbacks Mam?”

“Even if we accept non PU military personnel on our ships, we need to install acceleration suits for your people on each ship. This is late in the game to get that done, with fleet units spread out all over Human Space to keep the Krall off guard.”

“Yes, Mam. We knew you would be concerned about that, but acceleration suits won’t be necessary for people like me. I assume you’ve now discovered I’m the same spec ops captain that was reported dead, over a year ago. I went with others from Special Ops, to train Captain Mirikami’s people in how to fight the Krall.

“While we were with them, we received physical enhancements, which they already had themselves, that made some of our so-called “secret implants” and strength multipliers completely inadequate. We are aware that some of the technology our troopers receive on Heavyside has become known to the other service branches. This is why we needed you to meet me in person. To convince you that other men like me won’t need the extra protection of those complicated and restricting acceleration suits.

“I might point out, Mam, that declared ‘dead’ or not, I really am PU military. There are many more of us from Special Ops who have worked with Mirikami’s people, and allowed their biologists and geneticists to improve us.” He paused, as her eye widened.

“You heard me correctly, Mam. We have been with him and his people on raids where we captured clanships, and attacked multiple Krall planets. Let me assure you that Mirikami’s scientists have made it possible for his people to beat a Krall warrior, one on one.

“When we first met them, their untrained teenagers were able to beat our best spec ops troops easily! Even if we were wearing Booster Suits. Because of their genetic work, I have beaten Krall warriors face to face many times on the battlefield, and have not worn my own Booster Suit for the last year. We are too few to turn the tide of the entire war that way, by direct combat, but we have been able to weaken the enemy by reducing the availability of their tools of war. The next attack on K1 is vital in this respect. Mirikami is willing to risk exposure to the legal system to help you win that battle.”

Bledso leaned back against her desk. “It may be redundant, but wow again, Captain.” Making a decision, she said, “Hold on a moment…,” She leaned over and tapped the com button to her aide’s desk. “Gale, clear my calendar for the rest of today.”

“Is everything alright Mam?” She sounded concerned.

“Absolutely. I’ll be leaving with Captain Longstreet shortly, but contact Captain Boise, on the Sword at the Denver Spaceport, and see if she has launched for Luna Base yet. If not, ask her to hold for me. I’ll be boarding her ship and she’ll have to make a detour. Tell her I’ll explain when I arrive. Have my shuttle readied and tell Marshal he’s only taking me to the Space Port, and to land next to Boise’s heavy cruiser. Oh, and alert Fleet Admiral Chatsworth on Luna Base. I’ll call her after we lift.”

She looked firmly at Longstreet. “Ready for a ride?”

“Yes, Mam. I presume you’ll have more questions, and want to put me through some testing.”

“You bet I do. Contact your courier’s captain. I’ll want him in a Jump Hole with us soon, with one of my people with him and your counterpart. I intend to test your communications and your claim to be stronger than a Krall.” She had a sudden thought as they walked towards the door.

“Hey, do you know about a young lady that was on Poldark, a teenager by the name of Carol Slobovic?”

“I’ve met her Mam. I didn’t know where she was. Why?”

“She obviously isn’t spec ops, but I saw her do something pretty amazing, and which required lifting something heavy. I was told by Captain Mirikami that her powered armor did that for her. Was that true?” She looked pointedly at him, her hand hesitating on the door’s handle.

“Ah. I heard about the demonstration, but I didn’t know young Slobovic had been the one that did it. As I understand it, you were permitted to assume it was the armor giving her the lifting power, but Tet…, I mean Captain Mirikami, didn’t actually say that it was the armor. She was a skinny eighteen year old the last time I saw her, but I doubt if she got any larger. It was natural for you to assume she couldn’t lift that Krall unaided.” He was lamely defending Mirikami, who had perpetuated the mistaken assumption.

“Mirikami can be tricky, it seems. I wonder what else he let us assume is true that is not?”

“Mam, you wouldn’t expect him to come right out and tell you the kid was genetically enhanced did you? Right in front of several powerful military leaders of the PU, which has harsh penalties against genetic modifications of humans? You are only being given this leverage over us now because we want you to succeed against the Krall, and we want you to know we can really help.”

She opened the door and waved him ahead of her. “I can understand his caution. I also note that although you reminded me you are still a part of the PU military, you also use the term ‘we’ when you speak of Mirikami’s people. You admit you have..,” she looked at her aide, watching curiously, as they passed through the outer office, and changed her next wording.

“…that you have joined his operation in a rather permanent way, have you not?”

Longstreet saw her glance, and noted the hesitation. Obviously, she intended to keep the genetic changes a secret for now, even from her trusted aide. That was reassuring.

“Yes, Mam, a number of spec ops troopers have been allowed to work closely with Captain Mirikami, and to integrate with his troops as we trained them.” That was a nice neutral sounding way of expressing how they had accepted illegal genetic changes.

“Mam, we see his people as a means to fight the Krall in a way that conventional forces cannot. That’s what Special Operations has always been about.”

As they entered the hallway, the curious aide was heard speaking on the phone, alerting the Chairfem’s shuttle pilot to be ready for a short flight to the Denver Spaceport. Her wide eyes wondering what was going on, and why her boss hadn’t even told her what it was.

As they moved down the corridor Bledso asked, “Are all of your men that went to work with the Rimmers dead the same way you are?” She asked with a half smirk.

“Some are, Yes, Mam. Except that Colonel Trakenburg, former CO of my unit on Poldark, and a number of other spec ops trooper friends of mine died for real, right alongside Mirikami’s people, conducting raids to weaken the Krall.”

Her smirk was erased, but not her determination. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound flippant. Regardless, before I let any of you aboard our ships, I have to know what you bring to the table for communications, and how well you can hold up without an acceleration suit. The Sword is typical of our newest heavy cruisers, and she can accelerate like a demon. You had better be sure you and anyone Mirikami sends us are able to handle what she can dish out. I want you to arrange for the courier you came here in to lift, and join us in orbit. In hindsight, I’ll need to transfer to her myself to meet your corporal with a chip in his head before we Jump to test communications. I want to control both ends of this com test, and put some real distance between us. I can tell you, I damn well don’t plan on sharing your acceleration testing on the Sword, not even if I liked being covered in jell.”

This is going to be an interesting day, Longstreet decided.

****

The Comtap supported negotiation had been ongoing for over an hour. Mirikami was in a Jump Hole aboard the Mark, staying near Koban and Longstreet was on the navy heavy cruiser Sword, with Chairfem Bledso, and they were in a Jump Hole and remained near Earth. Other than having to relay her questions and comments to Mirikami through Joe, the Chairfem was excited about the results of instant communication over hundreds of light years of distance. She didn’t know where Mirikami was exactly, but when the Sword jumped one light year in a random direction, to preclude the Mark tricking them by being in the Sol system, they never lost the long-range link.

“OK, Joe.” Mirikami responded to the most recent request. “Tell her we’ll be sending our Comtap volunteers to Luna Base over the next week. The arrival schedule will be worked out in advance, so you or Condor will be in a Jump Hole when our ships are nearing Earth. They’ll tell you when they are within ten minutes of making an exit close to the Moon. Your ship will exit first, and warn the navy gunners at Luna Base that a friendly clanship is about to White Out.”

There was a moment of delay, not at all due to the hundreds of light years separating the two men, and finally Longstreet said via the Mind Tap link, “I just relayed that to her Tet. They want to put their engineers aboard our ships as soon as they land at Luna Base, to install the new IFF transmitter and receiver. No more risk of friendly fire, at least not from a fast responding AI system. I also believe they want to nose around inside.”

“Good. That’s a relief. I didn’t want us have to protect our asses from our own side if things get hairy. Let them look around. They’ll quickly discover they can’t even open a damn door without us. We gave the PU a handful of Katushas through Nabarone, but other than seeing some tattoos on standard spec ops troopers, who needed to operate Krall weapons, I’ve not heard of a Krall tattoo on anyone else that wasn’t Kobani. I guess they could have put them on their asses rather than below the neck. My guess is they didn’t expect to encounter humans in possession of functioning Krall clanships, so why bother with tattoos.”

Bledso had offered Mirikami’s ships the standard Identification Friend from Foe systems, one to be installed on each of the clanships he sent to support the fleet. Even if a human mistook a visible Kobani ship for a hostile clanship, the ship’s fire control AI system wouldn’t direct fire on the target without a command override. Left unsaid was that if distrust developed with Mirikami’s flotilla, the navy could always authorize that override.

Bledso, and the naval officers with her, were naturally oblivious to even the possibility of Mind Tap, so casual touches had revealed a pervasive “trust but verify” attitude towards the supermen who were coming to their aid. Understandable, when there would be a “Rimmer” representative aboard each of their capitol ships, and they potentially could be conscious and mobile, when the crew was not.

First Longstreet was tested, and then Condor; proving to them that Joe wasn’t a freak of nature. They each had flown on the Sword throughout a busy day of stress testing. The captain of the Sword tried increasingly violent maneuvers under AI navigation control, monitoring her passengers while they were strapped into standard acceleration couches. Her medical staff watched for signs of distress in their visitors, as the extreme forces applied began to test the ability of normal crewmembers to remain conscious, even in their jell filed suits and clamped in place at their battle stations.

There was sometimes minor strain seen on the faces of the two spec ops, when the force levels were so high that blackouts occurred for a few individuals of the crew in their protected jell filled battle station suits. The manual tests arranged for the two subjects, where they typed messages on keyboards, operated selected pieces of non-vital equipment, or spoke to the AI, demonstrated that they were never seriously hampered. They even grinned a time or two when a particularly high acceleration was applied. Their claim that they could still fight their own ships at stress levels even the Krall could not match appeared plausible.

One bone of contention arose when Mirikami had said his communications people would be wearing their own body armor while the ships were in combat. Bledso had balked at first, knowing that their weaponry was built into their suits, and her sense of distrust was implicit.

Mirikami had Longstreet relay this, “Tell the Chairfem if our people don’t wear their armor they’ll have no protection in the event of a hull breach and atmosphere loss while in combat. Furthermore, assuming we’re provided standard navy pressure suits, she’ll have misused her best in-ship defensive assets if a disabled ship is boarded by the Krall. Even if the navy crew is able to extricate themselves from their acceleration suits quickly, they have little or no chance of repelling even a single warrior that gets inside. Our people, as she must have seen by now, are stronger and faster than the enemy is. With our weaponized armor, her crews will have a chance to live long enough to be rescued.”

There was the expected wait for Longstreet to repeat his words to Bledso, and then he replied, “Hold on Tet, I told her what you said, but she looked skeptical. I’m offering her a demonstration and it’ll take at least a half an hour.”

Mirikami had grown impatient long before Longstreet finally relayed Bledso’s acceptance of armored Comtap personnel. “She agrees Captain, we can wear our armor.”

“How did you convince her?”

“We didn’t even have our armor with us on the Sword, it’s still on the courier, so Condor and I gave her and the crewmen of the Sword a demonstration of our native ability. You told her how fast we were, but nothing we did earlier today required much speed or movement, just a bit of strength. We held a mock gunfight in the main hold, starting with a quick draw. We borrowed a pair of the security division’s pistols and gun belts. We drew, and rapidly shot tight pattern silhouettes around each other’s heads into cargo pads fastened to bulkheads behind us. That was from all the way across the hold, emptying our weapons in two seconds. Then we ran towards each other at full speed, threw the guns at each other’s heads, snatched them in midair and holstered them as we closed. We engaged in strenuous hand-to-hand combat all over that hold, which only had a one gravity field. We made it look good, ricocheting off walls, ceiling and deck, with flips, twists, and turns like two showoff Kobani kids! A lot of unnecessary but impressive flash. Nobody on board this ship will ever call us out, no matter how pissed off they get.” His words were accompanied by mental images, and a grin.

In afterthought, he added. “A couple of the thinner interior bulkheads need some warps removed.”

Amusement obvious in his thoughts, Mirikami said, “Kind of over did the demonstration a bit, don’t you think?”

“Tet, they tested us like a pair of seated dumb assed trained apes today. They really needed to see we were dangerous and useful to them, even without our weapons and armor. When armored we’re even better use for repelling boarders.”

Because they were Mind Tapping, the exchanges were lightning fast and mere seconds would pass for Bledso. Mirikami had time to probe. “What has Bledso or the Sword’s crew said, or you have picked from their minds about how we got to be this way and what they think of us?”

“The navy doesn’t allow dummies in its ranks. The crews know what we have done must be genetic, although none of them suspect the alien origin of the genes we have. We picked up thoughts when we shook hands after the demonstration, and Big Bird and I solicited their opinions. Most were envious, and wanted to be able to do what we can do. A few of them were clearly afraid of the gene laws and of social condemnation if they had our modifications. One petty officer clearly was hiding hostile thoughts about us, and barely considered us as true humans. Even then, she thought God would want us to help them fight the godless Krall.

“By the way, as you warned, Bledso has managed to get a sample of DNA from each of us, but we expected that. Rafe and Aldry still say the outlawed science of genetics in Human Space isn’t advanced enough to figure out the details, let alone the source of our Kobani mods. Repercussions could come later, if humanity wins the war.”

“That’s about what I was expecting Joe. OK. Ready or not humanity, here come the Kobani! I wish we could start calling ourselves that, but Rimmer is not considered a derogatory term by those that are from Rim worlds. It’s only some Hub snobs that feel that way, and come to think of it, I just called them snobs.” He laughed at the irony of the traded barbs.

“Tet, Bledso asked when you can meet with Fleet Admiral Chatsworth, or her representative. The use of our hundred ships has to be worked out with them. She knows our captains don’t have the advanced AIs or years of fleet discipline to coordinate very well with the complex navy maneuvers.”

“Right. It will be Chatsworth’s call, but I think we will likely be asked to either attack a specific target on K1, in isolation from the navy units, or perhaps use our stealth to get down near the planet’s surface, or engage Krall clanships individually in space. They don’t know yet about the surprises we left behind from our scouting mission. We’ll work out where our ships can meet with whom she delegates to work with us. We can’t White Out in any populated human system for that. We’re too noticeable. I’ll personally travel to Luna Base on the Falcon with Haveram, if asked.”

“OK Sir, I’ll tell her. Right now, it appears that Condor and I were too clever. We were just asked to stick around as talking heads for Bledso, Chatsworth, and their staffs for now. I assume we‘ll have more of these titillating relayed conversations, since one of us will have to be hovering near Earth in a Jump Hole most of the time, with our thumbs up our asses and missing the fighting.”

There was a sympathetic chuckle. “Thanks Joe. I’ll rotate your duty with another pair of people before we attack K1. I’d hate you to miss the fun. In the meantime, keep them guessing about us. Mirikami out.”

****

Bledso was concerned about her friend’s tenure as Fleet Admiral. They were not having a disagreement, but the discussion wasn’t over.

“Lela, I agree that under the state of martial law imposed in the Rim region, that knowingly making use of gene enhanced Rimmers as a resource has precedence over civil law. We’re in a war for human survival, so that has priority. On the other hand, keeping those people on your ships after the attack on K1 will leave you open to charges of condoning what they have done. Even the president can’t protect you if the religious right motivates Parliament to force her hand to have you replaced. I sometimes question the president’s personal beliefs. In private, she shows a right wing tendency and says things that sound sympathetic to religious fundamentalist beliefs. I think political expedience forced her to appear to shift to the center of her party’s ideology, and she’s already in the more conservative party.”

Chatsworth stood firm. “Adriana, we have no idea what the response of the Krall will be after we hit K1. I’m convinced they no longer have Eight Balls, since Mirikami’s attacks on their worlds would have provoked their use I think. Nevertheless, they certainly have a tremendous potential for destruction with three or four times our number of ships. They can gather them and Jump anywhere for a slashing attack, including Hub worlds. Our reserve forces were delayed weeks in Jumping to defend New Dublin, because of the long travel time in learning that an invasion had even started. With Mirikami’s people aboard picket ships, we’ll know instantly where the Krall strike, in what strength, and what they are doing. I plan to send ships with Comtap users aboard them to every inhabited planet in Human Space.

“The Krall won’t expect a sizable fleet to show up and hit them so quickly when they can be called instantly by Kobani Comtaps. They’ll think they have at least two weeks to pillage without challenge, because it normally takes one week to warn us, and at least another week for help to arrive. They won’t be ready for the level of force I’ll send, a week earlier than they expect.”

“That might be an argument you can use to justify use of Kobani on our ships. But you know logic will go out the window, if the extent of their gene modifications leaks to the public. The DNA samples we took from drinking cups used by Captain Longstreet and Corporal Condor revealed they have unique genes that our scientist’s gene sequencers can’t find a match for, not from any planet’s population.

“The best guess I was given is that they were designed from scratch; a complex task our medical scientist have said was beyond our ability even before the Gene War, from human cloning work. Successful functional new genes usually imply millions of years of evolutionary selection. Our so-called experts don’t even know what most of the genes code for, how they make them so fast and strong. Luckily, we may have found a possible source for Rimmer expertise in the field of genetics, and from a most unlikely Hub world reference.”

“What was that?”

“I know you recall President Stanford’s chief military advisor from our first raids on K1. Retired Admiral Anderfem was Stanford’s friend and her military naval advisor. Her family has dominated Alders world politics since that Old Colony was settled, nearly five hundred years ago. Anderfem wrote a memoir of her career, her years advising Stanford, about the two K1 raids, and wrote a strong defense for Mauss’ actions and strategy. She also mentioned in a personal history chapter, her suspicion that a member of her own family may have been one of the earliest to suffer from a Krall attack. Her younger sister, Aldry Anderfem vanished on a mission to a remote orbital station located beyond the Rim worlds, in the general direction from which the Krall came. Eight hundred ninety nine passengers and crew of the ship the sister was on vanished with her, without a trace.”

“How is that a clue, and how would you have heard about the story?”

“My aide, Commander Gale, read the memoir a year ago and brought it to my attention when I started questioning where the Rimmer’s knowledge to perform genetic modifications came from. The bulk of the passengers that vanished on that charter ship were other bio-scientists, slated to do research on an orbital station placed out well beyond the Rim.

“I’ve since had Gale do a bit of digging in the minutes of the Joint Academic Council of major Hub universities, who organized a science mission called the Midwife Project. The project received government grants from the Department of Colonization, which in turn was provided a budget increase supported by political allies of the president. President Stanford appears to have secretly supported what would have been an unpopular and politically sensitive bioscience program. The scientist sent were the cream of the crop of those that might have been able to recover the lost scientific knowledge of how to do human genetic modifications.”

Chatsworth wasn’t buying the connection. “Oh come on, Adriana. Unless there were armed Rimmer pirates that knew a superior race called the Krall was about to attack us, it’s pretty farfetched that they would have had the foresight to kidnap them and put them to work to do these gene changes, all before the war even started.”

“No, of course I don’t think that. Its pure speculation at this point and perhaps a coincidence that the best minds in the area of human genetics vanished when and where they did. However, let me add this other bizarre coincidence to the mix, which has me scratching my head. I looked up the lost ship Aldry Anderfem was supposed to be on, to confirm that detail from the book. It was named the Flight of Fancy, and her master was listed as a Captain Tetsuo Mirikami.”

She let that hang in the air until seeing recognition flash on Chatsworth’s face.

“Exactly. He was from New Honshu, so his last name isn’t particularly rare on any of the Japanese settled worlds, not even the first name of Tetsuo is unusual, but the combination of both names isn’t as common. A Rimmer leader of genetically enhanced people, who is a ship’s captain with that same name, gave me goose bumps.”

Chatsworth shrugged. “I think you’re seeing a confluence of random coincidences. You told me this Rimmer named Mirikami was unusually young. It’s been over twenty years since that passenger ship disappeared. An experienced captain of a large transport ship couldn’t have been a young man back then, not with gender bias to slow his career advancement. Add in another twenty or so years since he vanished, and I suppose this young Mirikami might conceivably be the original man’s son, and have the same name. That’s a far stretch to make this presumed connection.”

“I considered that. I did. Yet when I met the Mirikami on Poldark, he seemed far more educated, mature, confident, and experienced than I’d expect from a twenty five-year-old male, who was raised in the boondocks of civilization. Hell, I don’t know Lela. I just wanted you to pass this along to Admiral Mauss, since she’ll be coordinating with Mirikami to deploy his hundred ten ships, learning what he can do for us. They just advised us they had captured another ten ships this past week, proving them to be damned competent I think. You told me she’ll be Jumping to a sterile system to meet with him and his fellow captains. Anything she can learn about him and his people will be useful, and the story I related to you is at least worth exploring. They got their genetic changes in some fashion, and they’re keeping how they did it a secret. Golda is as good as anyone at getting to the truth, or detecting deception.”

“OK. I’ll have my AI look up Anderfem’s memoir and send it to her, with attention given to the interesting items you found in them.”

****

Mauss was waiting at the airlock of the battleship Lancer as her guest arrived. “Captain Mirikami, I’m pleased to meet you, and intrigued, to say the least. I’ve heard some curious things about you.” She shook the hand he offered in lieu of a salute. Something Bledso and Chatsworth had cautioned her to expect.

“Admiral Mauss, I can say much the same of what I’ve heard of you, and I’m honored to have you as our navy liaison. Having read your book, and Marshal Freidka’s history of your tactics and the strategy that went into the first two strikes on K1, I’m hopeful you have some interesting proposals for taking advantage of our unique capabilities. We can’t continue to allow the Krall to have the war fought their way.” He was watching her with intensity and obvious curiosity as they shook hands.

“Yes. I suppose you were too young when those actions took place to remember them first hand, but they have been covered extensively over the years. It’s unusual to encounter a reader of history, versus the media’s docudramas of typically shallow Tri-Vid snapshots of complex military actions.”

Her response was designed to draw him out, and confirm if he was as young as he appeared to be. She saw a strong resemblance to an old picture of a middle-aged man she had found in Interworld Transport records, of their presumed dead Captain Mirikami. This man was clearly much younger than even that old hologram. Now, she was distracted and surprised that he’d read two of the most accurate depictions of what had happened at K1, rather than watching the popular media versions that inevitably focused on the drama and tragedy of the near destruction of Rhama, and the political downfall of President Stanford.

The true detrimental impact of Rhama’s devastation and the fall of the president had never been from their military value for the enemy. It was in the reaction of the public and the politicians to the Krall’s ultimatum, which clearly shifted the war in a direction that would help the enemy gradually to destroy human society in the manner they preferred. She also wasn’t expecting the smile and chuckle from the smallish, young looking man.

“I wasn’t even where I could be aware of the progress of the war for twenty years, although I knew it was about to start before anyone in Human Space did. As you already suspect, I’m considerably older than our cosmetic procedures might lead you to believe. I was certain back then that the initial response of the PU government would be to underestimate this new enemy, and misunderstand the Krall’s real motivation and goals. I believed our leaders would seek to avoid conflict by any means, and try to negotiate their way out of a war with a clearly barbaric and implacable race of pure warriors that only live to fight.”

Mauss nodded, confirming her impression from the first moments of meeting Mirikami that his bearing wasn’t that of a young man. He wasn’t physically imposing, but conveyed a confidence and sense of strength, and had the odd graceful movements that she was told all of these secretive Rimmers displayed.

“Captain, your comments imply that you were somehow out of touch with what was happening on the Rim worlds after the war started, which is where you say you and your people are from. I’m sure some news must have reached you, because extensive Hub contact existed with every Rim world.”

“I suppose there was news available on Rim world colonies, Admiral. We wouldn’t know.” He grinned, and then said, cryptically, “I don’t know how that sort of news could spread so far beyond the Rim.”

She pounced on that statement. “You’re implying your people are from farther out than the Rim colonies. How could that be? How could any group colonize such remote and unannounced planet discoveries without major assistance from the Hub worlds, or at least from other well established colonies?”

“Admiral, I prefer not to say, because if somehow the Krall received enough hints of where we’re located, we don’t have the resources or population to defend ourselves. We know they’re aware of our existence from our raids, and they’ve experienced our capabilities, but they think we’re a small exceptional unit of the PU Army using perhaps an experimental type of armor that makes us seem stronger and faster. Frankly, not unlike the impression we’ve conveyed to the PU itself.”

Mauss was blunt. “Captain, you have concealed yourselves from the PU just as you have from the Krall. Do you consider us to be a potential enemy, a friend now only of convenience?”

Mirikami looked at her askance, and asked. “Admiral, are you being coy with me concerning PU laws? Both the Krall we fight and the PU we defend are potentially a threat to our existence, and oddly enough, for the same reason. The Krall would wipe us out at any cost if they knew we were their physical superiors, that we have bypassed them on their twenty-five thousand year selective breeding program of their Great Path. The Hub government may someday come after us, due to how we achieved that superiority. Both of them because of our genetic modifications.

“Nevertheless, I think our actions prove we are on the same side as the Planetary Union, which puts us squarely on humanity’s side, because we are human. We don’t just happen to appear to be human. We can marry and have children with unmodified humans, and we have the offspring at home to prove that claim. We are not a different species; we are another race of Homo sapiens, as you appear to be a member of the Caucasian race.”

Mauss smiled at this. “I’m more of a racial mix than I appear, just as you must be. You for example look somewhat Asiatic, specifically part Japanese and Caucasian, yet due to your modifications you claim you are also now a member of a new race.”

Mirikami returned her smile. “True. I was a mixture of Japanese and one-quarter Earth born Caucasian even before my gene mods. There isn’t such a thing as a purebred member of our new race, just as there is no purebred human of any race of human anymore. All of us of the older generation naturally carried whatever genetics we possessed at birth on our home worlds in Human Space.

“Which, incidentally includes the same long ago gene mods that you, me, and everyone alive carried from well before the Clone Wars. The children many of my people have borne since our changes have the typical mix of genes all humans carry, plus the new ones that our scientists were meticulously careful to make compatible with human reproduction.”

There was a hint Mauss wanted to follow. “You say you are of an older generation than you seem, and were born on a world in Human Space. How would we verify that claim, of your origin on a human world?”

“You’ve already done that I think. You just identified me as part Japanese and Caucasian, when most people couldn’t be that specific if they hadn’t done some research. Nevertheless, look up the records of the Flight of Fancy, a former passenger ship of Interworld Transport, serving Rim worlds and New Colonies. I understand the company still serves many of the same routes. I was captain of the Fancy when she vanished, and her passenger list will surely provide you a huge clue as to how we made our genetic advances.

“One of the people serving as a captain of a ship I brought with me today was my first officer on the Fancy, Noreen Renaldo. Other captains with us were serving on over thirty-five other ships that should be vessels suspected of capture by the Krall, taken some months after mine was captured. It’s certain that you would learn of these connections anyway, therefore it isn’t a secret we could keep. I won’t go into details of how we all came to be held together, where we were, or how we survived, because that could cause slips that might lead the Krall to us. They think we’re dead, and we want them to keep thinking that.”

His hand was no longer in contact with Mauss, but he saw the easy acceptance of his mention of the Flight of Fancy in her expression. That told him she had already suspected who he was, and was seeking verification. From the moment of the handshake, he’d seen her mental comparison of his current face to that of a hologram photo from his old Interworld company ID that she’d found. He also sensed her determination to make this new navy attack on the Krall more damaging and lasting than the last. She wanted his help.

Despite her relegation to a smaller role in the planning of this mission, she saw potential in the unconventional force she was asked to find a means of using effectively.

“Captain Mirikami, I think there is a way for us to use your small force, but I need to know more of what your ships and people can do. Like how you managed to conduct your scouting mission right on the surface of K1.”

“We’ll be happy to demonstrate this for you. I have a simple request first. In keeping with our distinctly non-navy traditions, my volunteers and I prefer more informality than you are accustomed to using. Please call me Tet, which as I’m sure you know is short for Tetsuo. When we gather in your conference room shortly, after the introductions, I ask that you at least attempt to learn and use the first names of the officers you will meet. There are nametags to make that easier. We seldom salute, and never stand at attention. Nevertheless, I doubt you will find a more combat disciplined or deadly a group in a fight.”

“Tet, I accept your suggestion, and in exchange please call me Golda. If any of my people on the Lancer appear to be scandalized by this informality, I’ll have a word with them.” She grinned at that inevitability.

The giant Lancer, one of the last battleships ever built, had come alone to the rendezvous star, the system given the code name of Rimfire, to meet the hundred ten “Rimmer” crewed clanships. This was a massive, heavily armed and armored ship, intended to awe the newcomers to space warfare, flying their far smaller stolen clanships. This attitude prevailed despite the fact that the navy had never captured a single Krall operational clanship intact, not in twenty-three years of war. They couldn’t even repair and fly the wrecks they had recovered.

Just as the personal informality requested by Mirikami had suggested was the case, the number of ships that arrived with him had unexpectedly increased by another three from the promised hundred ten. The explanation was that the roundabout and dispersed route to this system had allowed two of the ships to pass a target world of opportunity, and they had stolen three more ships parked next to a small Krall clan dome (which they had destroyed). Mauss wondered how useful the new ships could be in this exercise, considering they must have untrained new captains and personnel as prize crews.

Mirikami acknowledged that he knew of these additions even before they had arrived in the system, because all of his captains had the new embedded Comtap chips. He told Mauss not to worry about the capability of the three new ships and their crews, that they could match the performance of any of the other crews.

He also explained that because his people were physically stronger than the Krall, their stolen clanships had modifications, taught to them by the former alien slaves, which removed some built-in performance restrictions the Krall had. He said the new ships and their operators were as ready to fight as his other ships.

As Mirikami predicted, the three new craft and crews were easily integrated into the flotilla. Mind Taps are a wonderful thing.

Apparently, Mauss thought, there are spare trained people he brought along to replace expected losses.

A week later, Mauss had a plan devised with Mirikami to use his ships as a separate small strike force, and she wished the navy had a thousand more of these “ragtag” crews and ships to fight alongside the fleet. Any tactic she proposed they try, the first time through the coordination wasn’t perfect but was extremely well done, and the second pass was always better than the first, because the crews modified and improved on her initial advice.

They displayed an astounding ability to learn quickly, and to apply even bizarre ideas that a navy ship and crew could never have pulled off, such as rapid micro Jumps without a computer to help. She didn’t realize part of that was due to the brilliant simplified navigation system the Olt’kitapi had devised for their near-barbarian Krall helpers.

Not only would a navy crew be unable to absorb the training in so short a time, they physically couldn’t have survived what Mauss observed these ships do. She was looking forward to seeing their collaboration put into practice. The Krall were not going to like it one bit.

Chapter 13: Operation Forestall

Sarge scratched his head in pretend confusion. “Maggi, why’d you call it four stalls? Is that some old timey outhouse reference of yours? Appropriate I suppose, since we’d be in the crapper if things went wrong.”

“The name is Forestall, you lunk-headed semi-literate hick.” She jabbed back, without seeing his wink to Dillon.

Dillon chimed in, “It sure sounds like four of something. Shower stalls?”

She looked up from the screen of text, which she’d been reading, with a dangerous sweet smile. “It means the stalls where they’ll keep you four jackasses penned up, so your asinine braying can’t warn the Krall who we are when we arrive.” She had included Carson and Ethan as two of the jackasses, because she could see their big grins when she looked around the Bridge.

Just reaching the Bridge of the Avenger, and hearing only the last comment, Noreen innocently asked, “What kind of stalls?”

The four men laughed at Maggi’s pained expression.

“Never mind them dear. These four equally adolescent turds are pestering me over the lame name the navy gave to the K1 mission. It’s to prevent another invasion, so it’s being called Operation Forestall.”

“Oh… That’s not very valiant sounding is it?”

“Hardly. They tried names like Deep Lance and New Lance for the last attacks on K1, with mixed results afterwards. I just hope Forbearance isn’t the name of their next action when the Krall respond after this attack.” That erased the grins of the four men.

In a more serious vein, Sarge reminded them. “We know from Kartok’s Mind Taps that the Krall will react violently to a raid like this. Telour is probably the new Tor Gatrol, and he’s pushing for a planetary destruction even without a raid on K1. If the PU government simply sits back and licks their wounds this time, they may never scale up for a fight to the death. The Krall will continue to take us down one planet at a time until we can’t marshal enough force to resist them. A lot of people on Hub worlds, like that Clayborn woman, think humans have lost the ability to fight after the Collapse.”

He was referring to a story that had been making the rounds in the press in Human Space recently, proposed by a noted woman psychologist Janet Clayborn, whom also had a medical degree, and most significantly had a new book out she wanted to promote. It was titled, The Decline of Men.

Clayborn gained press notice only because she was from a prominent Earth family, and had successfully treated some of the rich and famous women of Hub society, who shared her resentment of the newly resurgent male ego, as more men received military training. Soldiers no longer accepted the subservient status granted to males over the last three hundred years of society’s recovery.

One of her arguments was that when the Krall increased their pressure on human worlds, despite the great effort the PU had put forth thus far, that the men doing the fighting had not been able to stop the enemy. She speculated that after the loss of so many men in the Gene War, that those that survived to procreate the race had replaced the original genes of the Y chromosome with a weaker version. Claiming that the men who survived the synthetic disease were only the inherently unaggressive representatives. Her point was that the less combative and less virulent males alive today were being forced to shoulder the responsibility of fighting a war, something they were less competent at than their warlike male predecessors would be.

Maggi pounced. “Not even you could be so addled brained to think that was true.”

Sarge shook his head. “Of course not. Moreover, if enough people on Hub worlds accept that idea, they may not push for building more and larger armies, largely filled with males. If we don’t eventually beat the Krall on the ground, we can’t hold onto any of our worlds. If we lose a planet or two to some Krall super weapon, I don’t know if the PU politicians will have the guts to rally the soft Hub worlds to make the deep sacrifices needed to hold them back until we have enough Kobani to win the war. We’ll need decades to achieve the number of Kobani to resist the inevitable Krall population explosion if we start to push them back. Our own side is opposed to our gene mods just on principle.”

Maggi was conciliatory to him, in her own unique manner, naturally. “I’m glad to see you came to the right conclusion. Surprising to me, as mush brained as you are.”

Noreen deflected the banter by bringing up the assignments Mirikami had just delegated to his people.

“I was in Comtap link with Tet before I came up here. At least a half link, since he could send to his squadron commanders while we all are in Normal Space. Naturally, each of us would have to enter a Jump Hole to set up a full two-way conversation. I hope Professor Born’s group finishes their miniaturization of the circuit Tet has in that little case soon.

“He and Mauss have studied the reports they have of over a thousand clanship arrivals at K1, via a Comtap report from Captain Lebeau of the Pride of Gaul. He was sitting stealthed in the system, and entered a Jump Hole to communicate before the last of the arrivals did their White Out. This tells us that the Krall are preparing to load them with equipment stored around the various domes. Lebeau returned to observe the domes where they land, and will relay that.

“Another of our ships, the Dagger, under Bob Danker, is in the New Dublin system. He just reported that another thousand twenty-four clanships just Jumped out of that system in the last hour. The navy there, using the tachyon wave gadget the Krall used on our fleet movements at K1, says the direction of departure was dead on for K1. That gives them almost nine days before White Out at K1. They either don’t think we learned how to sense that wave front, or don’t care enough to conceal where they went.

“Danker told Tet that there are another thousand clanships still at New Dublin, but about half of them have suddenly taken on a more passive role, not participating in supporting ground actions against the eleventh Army. He thinks they are simply passing time until they can Jump for K1, eager to join the next big invasion. The Krall are learning about traffic jams and seem to be trying to spread out their fleet movements, to avoid the collision risks they ran into during the mass launches off of Poldark.”

Dillon asked, “If a thousand of them have just arrived at K1, and roughly another fifteen hundred will come from New Dublin, how many total does Tet figure will be at K1? There were ships at every clan dome I’m certain.”

“Lebeau counted over thirteen hundred additional clanships, most on the ground, but a couple of hundred ships are constantly in orbit, which the navy says has doubled in the last two weeks. The five surviving old Malveran designed orbital weapons platforms each have a clanship or two docked there, so they are apparently being staffed by warriors during the invasion preparation, possibly to improve their slow targeting response time the navy saw from them previously, when they were remotely controlled. Each platform has multiple other clanships nearby to protect the big slow moving tubs with their giant plasma cannons. No doubt, there are more of those single ships aboard them with event horizon projectors placed in their noses. The Krall have taken precautions in advance of their fleet’s arrival, but they don’t behave as if they expect an attack. They are simply protecting their defensive assets better than before.”

Dillon did the math. “Roughly three thousand eight hundred fifty clanships against about eleven hundred sixty of our combined forces, if I count the Shadows. They’ll have better than a three to one advantage. I suppose that gives us a target rich environment.”

“Tet says Chatsworth will let the first wave of clanships land and load up without taking any offensive action. They’ll be slower to maneuver even if they do lift off, and she told Mauss that she’s gambling they would stay in orbit at K1 anyway. A multistep liftoff is likely, when a tarmac at domes with the largest stores of equipment becomes over crowded with clanships. They surely want the entire fleet gathered to hit their new target all together, as they have done previously. Doing it that way, the PU couldn’t start moving forces to counter staggered arrivals. They like to be established on the ground well before the army and navy can react in force.”

“So the navy wants the Krall fleet nearly all gathered at K1, and most of them heavy loaded before they strike. Good.” Sarge grunted his trained ambusher’s approval. Yet he was incapable of fully approving anything planned by the navy.

“Of course, that’s only telling us what the navy plans to do. What about our motley unwashed group, which they have so far kept separate and away from their highly organized fleet, with its spit polished boots, and well-washed butts. When the hell do we get into the act?”

Noreen beat Maggi to the quip. “Good question, from one of the motley unwashed butts.”

Reynolds joined in the laughter at his expense, in appreciation of her fast comeback remark. “Are we hitting Krall elements on our own?”

“The qualified answer to that is yes, sometimes, and maybe. We might even be firing the first shots if we get caught sneaking into their party.”

“There you go,” he responded with enthusiasm. “Tell us about the sneaky part. That’s always my favorite method with those bastards. They can be such suckers. Are we going in stealthed again?”

Noreen winked. “You heard of a wolf in sheep’s clothing? Well something more like that.”

“Wait,” Dillon butted in. “Who’s the sheep?”

“We’re Kobani, knuckle head.” Maggi reminded him. “We’re the new wolves in this galaxy.”

****

“He is an insect brained meat animal.” Telour snarled. “The Joint Council approved the clanship distribution plan that I proposed. There would be more efficient loading than we had at Poldark if my plan is followed. Droktor has ordered Tanga clanships to land only at their four domes for loading, disregarding how I had assigned two hundred fifty six of their clanships to land at other domes, and assigned different clans to some of Tanga’s tarmacs. Now the congestion on their tarmacs will slow the loading and launch. They will have too many ships devoted to the task for the initial loading. It would be better divided into the waves I proposed.”

The personal insult, spoken in a small mixed assembly of sub leaders in a side chamber, at least wasn’t uttered in the more crowded central great hall. It might have prompted instant death challenges if heard by any Tanga clan sub leader. A Tor Gatrol could honorably refuse such a challenge, but doing so multiple times would cause some to question his leadership. Even a sub leader from a different clan, resentful of Telour’s ascension to Tor Gatrol, still might carry the words to the Tanga clan leader.

The comment wasn’t as reckless as it first seemed, however, because Telour knew that all of Tanga clan’s council representatives had left the great dome. They had traveled to their home four dome cluster, to participate in the massive loading project of vital equipment, where that Great clan had used its influence for over an orbit to gather the mass of equipment on their tarmacs. Telour’s staff would find themselves busy today, offering expanded invasion responsibilities to other clans to keep them quiet and pacified.

The leader of Telour’s own Graka clan was of course present, and quietly offered a word of advice to his furious and intemperate clan mate. “You indirectly caused this insolence, Telour. Gatlek Bendor, who you named to lead this invasion force, has made Dorbo clan our ally once again, after Kanpardi angered them in the past. You know that Droktor expected to lead this next invasion himself.”

Telour gave his reasons for that selection. “Clan Leader, would choosing him have made Tanga clan our ally now, after we took the honor of starting this war from them many orbits ago?”

“No. However, another slight of their honor should have been expected to produce such a reaction from them. Most of the clanships under Tanga control could have been left for the second or third wave sent from New Dublin, with other clans filling their tarmacs and loading their stores of equipment before they even arrived. They would have had no choice but to better distribute their ships when their tarmacs were nearly empty.”

Because he was speaking in private with Fradot, the leader of his home clan, Telour could make an admission. “I allowed Gatlek Pendor to select the clanships to send back first. I expected him to choose in a manner that benefitted me, because I selected him to lead that invasion. He may have been bribed by Tanga clan to send all of their craft first. I did not anticipate his action.”

“In your new position, many clans will have reasons to make agreements that benefit them at an expense to your new high status and to diminish the status your promotion grants to our clan. Perhaps even your own second in command could do this, for a hoped for advancement.”

This drew a sharp look from Telour. Is Fradot suggesting I beware the ambitions of my own staff? As Kanpardi should have been wary of me, of course.

Fradot suspected Telour had a role in Kanpardi’s death, but didn’t know for sure. There was no way that Pendor could survive an admission he had conspired with Telour to kill Kanpardi, nor could Telour survive that revelation either. Such interclan intrigue was no stranger to any clan leader.

Telour paused several seconds in thought. Reflecting deep introspection for a Krall’s normal fast decision-making processes. “The nearly eight hundred Tanga ships in the first wave will have room left in many of them, even after loading the bulkier equipment such as the heavy transports. Instead of filling the transports with food and ammunition supplies as usual, I will instead send many of the warriors we are taking to New Glasgow. Some will fill the empty ships, but I will send others to ride within the detached transport segments, which now will not be packed with pallets of food and arms.” He liked this for more than one reason.

“Tanga will have to select which of the small clan’s warriors will fill the heavy transport compartments in crowded conditions, which will not please those that are forced to travel there. Because access to toilet facilities on lower decks will be blocked by the heavy equipment, the smell in those ships will greatly enhance the experience. And they will grow hungry and resentful if Tanga does not bring them the rations I will have stored on other clanships, located well away from them.”

Fradot snorted his humor, and joined in the spirit of irritating Tanga clan. “The fresh Raspani field rations that normally fill the transports can go to the clanships of the smaller clans that provided the warriors you send to Tanga. Many of their warriors can also fit inside Tanga clanships loaded with mini tanks and plasma cannons. Send all of the field rations, small arms and power packs to the small clans to carry. This is a defensible change in loading Tanga ships, which you can claim was needed because Droktor did not follow your more efficient distribution of clanships.”

Sharing that snort of humor, Telour was relishing the vision of the crowded conditions he was about to create for Droktor, who would have to explain his decisions to the small clans. Those clans always believed that Great or Major clans treated them badly, and Tanga would find future votes from some small clans in the council going elsewhere. Unless, of course, they were a finger clan of Tanga, and owed their parent clan for their start. Telour would have his aides make certain that none of the small clans sent to fill Tanga clanships were their own offshoots, who would be unlikely to complain.

It was good to be the Tor, he reflected.

****

Mirikami was holding a briefing session with many of his captains. He started by using the briefcase size circuitry of the next generation Comtap chip, to transmit a message for them to enter a Jump hole, if able, at a specified time for a conference. They could receive that message even if they were in Normal Space. The ships he was placing under overall control of Admiral Mauss had completed their shakedown runs on simulated K1 missions to a dead planet in this uninhabited star system. It was time to pull them together.

At the appointed time, using his currently standard Comtap, he thought of the group link address he’d created for the other hundred twelve captains, and his Mind Tap senses felt that most of them were waiting for him. Some may have been unable to Jump at the time specified, which was why he’d ask a ship to linger in a Jump Hole to relay his information to them. The new Comtap chip for long-range reach in Normal Space use couldn’t come soon enough for him. Odd how amazing new technology, like the first Comtap chips, so quickly proved to be less than what you really wanted.

“Captains, I won’t acknowledge each of you now, but if you have questions after this briefing, I’ve asked Noreen to stay in her Jump Hole for passing this briefing on to late arrivals, and she can relay any of your questions to me afterwards. I’ll contact you individually when I can.” They were still working out the details of this method of group communication.

“Ten of you will be receiving the new type of navy missile, the Novas which Admiral Mauss told us about, having Jump capability and a simple AI system for control. They just arrived on a navy carrier, the Ambrose, and you’ll receive them here in our training system. These are each large enough devices that one will nearly fill your main hold, so you get one apiece. I’ll specify who will receive them after you all form up around the Mark, and I’ll designate the specific five targets at K1.

“Fifty ships will become mini space plane carriers, with Shadow fighters parked in your holds. They also arrived on the Ambrose, with our pilots fresh from the Poldark action. They’re going all the way down to K1 with some of you. If deployed on an atmospheric mission, they’ll be expected to use their stealth when finished, and sneak back into space on Normal Space drive. There they’ll be retrieved by us from high orbit.

“You all will follow the plan Mauss laid out to us, minimizing our risk of friendly fire when the navy arrives and the mass shooting starts. We will be inside the richest target density areas of any of the fleet elements, due to close proximity with the enemy. Our hidden little poppers should have a significant impact at the four domes we’ll cover, creating considerable confusion and chaos.”

He was using the term popper, which Thad had nicknamed the Raspani built surprises they’d left behind on their previous scouting mission to K1. Smaller than a hand, they had a destructive potential that went well beyond their small size, provided the usual Krall energy wastefulness continued. They’d know soon.

“Our ships go in first and if detected early, then you might have to start the shooting yourselves and trigger the poppers, and then I’ll use that Comtap briefcase I called you with earlier, and notify the navy units sitting in Normal Space to Jump in-system immediately, to initiate their part of the attack.”

“The ten ships receiving the Jump capable Novas will be briefed on their operation. Five of you will launch them just before the navy makes their first White Out at K1. No sooner than that, not even if our ships are in a firefight down below. When those vital primary target orbital platforms are destroyed, the second five ships will have latitude to select targets of opportunity. Don’t risk hitting an enemy target too close to a friendly. These Novas make a hell of an explosion.

“As discussed in our practice landing sessions over the last two days, all of you will Jump into the K1 system from the local Oort cloud, initially waiting at a safe one thousand Astronomical Unit position where Admiral Mauss recommended. Coming from the direction of New Dublin, your White Outs at K1 will appear to be part of the second influx of a thousand or so clanships coming from there.

“The ten ships with the Novas will enter the system at the same time with the rest of you, but they will be stealthed and will remain that way in a thousand mile orbit until instructed to launch their missiles. We think that in the flurry of arrivals, those ten ships that aren’t seen will go unnoticed by the Krall. They won’t activate the new IFF systems until just before the navy ships arrive, and will have made the first five missile launches by then anyway. It’s probable the Krall will detect the IFF signals and know where you are if you activate too soon. If you start shooting, they’ll know anyway and so will the navy, so turn IFF on so the good guys won’t target you.

“The rest of you don’t need to activate IFF until you have to lift off, either for atmospheric flight, or for reaching orbit. The Navy knows where we intend to land and won’t shoot there.”

He paused only a few seconds. Letting their wolfbat memories perfectly absorb every word he’d said.

“Our one hundred landers will stagger their entry into the K1 system in a ragged exit pattern, similar to what we saw happen with the first thousand clanship arrivals. You will come out unstealthed, sending the landing code for the four domes we have selected for our part of the attack, and fly right to them, wherever they happen to be as the planet rotates. Remember, we are mimicking the Krall flying techniques so you should blend right in with the milling crowd. Divide into the four sets of twenty-five ships we planned and land at your designated dome. Assuming you aren’t noticed be ready to shoot when I give the word the navy is on the verge of a White Out. That should follow within minutes after you’re down.

“When our watchdog ship sees the Krall clanship arrivals starting, you all will be told to Jump inbound to K1. That should be spread out over about sixty seconds of arrivals, right about in the middle of when a burst of clanships should normally get there. The Mark of Koban will be that watchdog, and I’ll be there at least two hours before the best estimate of the earliest Krall arrivals from New Dublin. Your safe landings are the key for me to tell the navy to initiate their Jumps into K1 for their five fleet elements. Task Forces 1 through 5 will be stationed at five thousand AU’s.

“I’ll send that information from my orbital location via the Comtap in-a-box, telling our people on the navy ships, to flag the AI’s to coordinate their simultaneous group Jumps. Unlike us, they won’t use that scattered seat-of-the-pants Krall flying crap, and they’ll all White Out in formation right over their target domes, shooting as they exit.”

They already knew they would be Jumping to the K1 Oort cloud tomorrow, with a three-day travel time. The five navy task forces, two hundred ships each, were also leaving tomorrow. The large numbers of White Out gamma rays would eventually be seen at K1, coming from the Oort cloud, but not until the attack was long over. The time of travel for the gamma rays from a thousand AUs was roughly five and three quarter days for the Kobani ships, and the navy would be even farther out than that.

“Unless there are questions I didn’t answer for you, I won’t speak with most of you until we Jump to K1’s Oort cloud. I’ll talk with you again while we’re enroute in Tachyon Space.”

****

Fleet Admiral Chatsworth was incredulous. “Golda, you really aren’t transferring to Mirikami’s ship are you? When he Jumps early, close in by K1, you’ll be leaving Lancers’ armor and firepower for what is, after all, only a clanship. You’ll be out of contact with your AI.”

“Lela, one of Mirikami’s people is already on the Lancer as my com relay, and Mirikami can send messages to her with that prototype Comtap in-a-box to my XO, even while orbiting K1 in Normal Space. That transmission is undetectable, and the stealth we all use now, thanks to his alien allies, is invisible to Krall sensors at most frequencies. It’s as safe as you’ll be in the Sword, since you moved your flag from the Invincible. All I’d be doing on Lancer is sitting in my acceleration suit and directing the AI in strategy decisions. The Mark has some of our acceleration suits on a multi species deck, and one for me has been placed on his Bridge if we need to maneuver.

“Besides, a battleship like Lancer, isolated from the protection of his hundred ships on the ground would be a prime target if they solve the detection problem for our new stealth. Mirikami says individual K’Tals have figured it out previously, but they didn’t live to tell others. Besides, Lancer damn well can’t Jump in to K1 with the Mark unnoticed, because of its gigantic gamma ray burst. His spectrum will look like one of theirs, and won’t attract the same attention. If I’m focusing on helping him fight his ships in an unorthodox manner, and coordinating with your fleet elements, I want to be where I know what’s going on as soon as possible.”

Chatsworth was mildly put out by Mauss’ decision to turn down the offer of command of one of the two hundred ship task forces. “I hope you have the impact you expect from this handful of new captains, from a part-time newly formed small fleet.”

“Lela, I greatly respect and approve of you and your staff’s planning on this operation, but let me go out on a limb. I predict that the unorthodox ships Mirikami brings to the dance, combined with their previous scouting mission, will result in bringing down more clanships than any single task force of two hundred heavy cruisers.”

It would have sounded arrogant to say what she really expected. She believed Mirikami’s ships would double the damage done by any of the other commands, including TF 1, the element that would include the Fleet Admiral’s now flagless dreadnaught, and the Sword, her new flagship. Chatsworth was keeping the Sword in close formation with the Invincible, just in case she needed to move her flag back to the giant ship, with its tremendous firepower.

“I hope you’re right, Golda. Thanks for your review and support for the strategy and tactics we devised, and your suggestions. We both know how the Krall surprised us before with unexpected technology and tactics. Your innovative shoot and random move technique worked well the last time, and because of the Comtaps, we can use coordinated Jumps this time around. The displaced destroyer crews may not thank me so much, however. They loved those maneuverable but fragile tin cans.”

“True, but we all make sacrifices for the good of the service, and you found them new berths in the heavy cruisers. When I was forced to leave so many destroyers behind, facing Krall single ship boarders on our retreat at Deep Lance, it brought me to tears later. The destroyers, no matter what weapons upgrade they received, were never going to hold their own in any large-scale fight with the Krall. The AI controlled D-Rams we made of them will do better I think. Destroyers became our equivalent to the enemy single ships. Quickly lost, but with sixty times the crew. It was a very bad trade.”

“Yes it was. My younger brother was XO on one of those we lost at Deep Lance.”

Mauss was startled at that news. “Oh. I’m sorry Lela, I didn’t know. I would think I would have recognized the last name in the casualty lists. I’d have asked you about him.”

“He took our father’s last name, Wilson, when he turned eighteen, and I of course kept my mother’s name, as a traditionalist. He was a reverse example of the old feminist movements, an advocate of masculinist rights. I think he’d approve of the new closer to equal balance of genders in the military, and might have changed his branch of service. The Army favors men more, at least in the field, and the navy is still predominately controlled and populated by us Ladies.”

Mauss agreed, but added, “Now that you mention it, I realize that Mirikami’s people, his ship captains, Shadow pilots, and ground fighters alike, seem to be almost evenly split between the genders. The genetic changes have made either gender stronger, faster, and quicker thinking than any Krall warrior is. Just as the Krall are egalitarian within their own society, it appears when human males and females are effectively equal in physical capability, the perception that one gender needs protection more than the other goes out the window. We may be seeing the start of a truly equal opportunity human society.”

“Golda! You don’t really think the mass of our population will accept what they’ve done do you? Theirs could be the first step in provoking a future Gene War.”

“If they prove to be our saviors in the Krall war? No, I don’t think the same level of distrust and resentment will apply. These aren’t soulless clone soldiers, without true individual personalities. The New Honshu soldier clones were flesh and bone robots that fought for their owners, no questions asked. No one will ever own a Kobani.”

“Kobani?”

“After spending the last week with so many of them around me, I repeatedly heard them refer to themselves by that term. I never probed as to its meaning. They weren’t speaking directly to me when I overheard them, but they seem to acknowledge that I really am accepting of whom they are, and that I trust them in what they want to achieve for all of humanity. While that is a correct assessment, I don’t know if this is naive on their part to trust me, or a reflection of their amazing intuitive ability to understand the motives of those around them. They almost seem to know what others are thinking, and come to agreements and understandings with us, and with each other very rapidly.

“I think it’s more a level of trust they show towards me. They’re certainly more circumspect when a few of my subordinates are present. I have never observed any of my staff behaving in a disrespectful manner towards them, or even see them display hints of their personal unfavorable feelings for these Kobani. At least not where I could see it, despite my knowing which of them are uncomfortable with these gene modified superhumans.”

Chatsworth agreed with their caution. “Their staying under wraps is probably the better move for them now, although the truth about their abilities is becoming wider known, and some of that information will make it into the scuttle butt realm. Just as it did for the Special Operations troops, when they first came out of training at Heavyside. At least everyone knew where spec ops got their technological improvements. The PU hardware store. Heavyside is the worst kept big secret in Human Space. Now where Mirikami’s people actually live, and their claim that they come from beyond the Rim, that will stoke the fires of curiosity and suspicion.”

“Lela, if they perform as well in the coming fight as I suspect they will, gratitude will outweigh curiosity for some time.”

“I hope so, Golda. Thanks for accepting my invitation and coming along. I wish you luck, and look forward to your updates and opinions when things hit the fan. I know we’ll exchange messages before then, but this is just us two talking. I was so proud to serve under you, and pleased to have you with me now.”

“Lela, thank you for this chance to redeem myself and mostly for another opportunity to strike back at the Krall. I didn’t believe I’d ever see another navy strike happen in my lifetime, let alone be included in the effort.”

****

Impatient, but satisfied that the loaded fleet could lift from Telda Ka in two weeks or less, he had ordered a courier ship sent to the prison planet of the soft Krall one week ago. His personal representatives went, with several Great Clan sub leaders aboard as confirmation. They would select an appropriate soft Krall male, with an extensive family to hold as hostages on the prison world. The group would travel to the host world of the living ships with the soft Krall male, to select a responsive living ship. The return to Telda Ka from there would be but a single day of flight for what was being called the third level rotation into Tachyon Space. Humans called the faster mode of travel they learned from the Krall, using two rotations, T squared. They would probably label the next higher rotation “T cubed,” if they ever learned it existed.

One of their brighter K’Tals, generations ago, had compared the initial rotation into the tachyon Universe to a Normal Space analogue with only one dimension. The next rotation seemed something like reaching a two dimensional analogue in the tachyon Universe, where you could move on a diagonal to arrive faster. A third and even higher level might be like using the diagonal through a cube in Normal Space, for even faster travel.

Math and geometrical theories described more dimensions than was seen in what humans and Krall thought of as the “Real” Universe, so there was conjecture that Tachyon Space had equivalent mathematical higher dimensions. Even the Olt’kitapi had only learned how to access this higher level late in their advancement, shortly before they were destroyed in the Krall’s revolt. The living ships could somehow harness those correspondingly higher energies and dimensions, and travel vastly faster.

After the fleet finally departed for New Glasgow, however many days it was delayed by loading confusion, Telour wanted the Joint Council to witness him entering the ancient living ship, to instruct the captive pilot on the slow manner in which he was to use it as a weapon. That was if the soft Krall male expected to save his family from agonizing deaths. Telour would be honor bound to send the male’s family home after the agreement was reached. The pilot himself would accept the same uncertain fate as those warriors aboard the ship with him. The guardians of the ships traditionally sent five hundred twelve with each mission. If the living ship suddenly returned to its home base without warning or communication, or at least didn’t vanish in Tachyon Space, they all might survive.

It didn’t seem necessary to Telour to wait for a successful landing on New Glasgow to summon one of the ancient ships, since the humans had few ground forces to oppose this even more massive landing force than what was sent to any of the previous human worlds. He’d pressure the council to let him announce the two human planets they would allow him to hit, and send the mission of destruction on its way when it arrived. He’d still lobby for even more planets to destroy.

His network of informers told him that council sentiment tended towards waiting for the humans to learn of the new invasion and to react to it, which would ensure their dwindling response forces would all be enroute to New Glasgow, before they learned what their true penalty was for attacking Krall worlds.

His recent decisions to tweak the muzzle of the Tanga clan leader, was starting to yield bits of tasty meat for Telour’s amused consumption. As predicted, close to eight hundred Tanga clanships were being crammed with bodies as well as equipment, the warriors coming from small clans. Some rations and small arms were diverted to the clanships of those small clans for transport. Tanga didn’t have enough food aboard the packed ships to sustain the warriors for much more than a week. If they launched them early for orbit, to await the rest of the fleet to arrive and finish loading, they would eat all their food even before the Jump to the target world. Orbital resupply wasn’t in the plan so they stayed put, crowding the tarmac.

Tanga tarmacs would be crowded even more by the next wave of arrivals from New Dublin. Some of those would be later arriving Tanga clanships, but most would come from other clans, landing to divide and carry the equipment per Telour’s original directions. Tanga’s ramps would grow extremely crowded when the clanships loaded with warriors and their food couldn’t climb to orbit to make room, and landing sites shifted to points farther from the tarmac edge.

There still were ample numbers of mini tanks, plasma cannon carts, heavy plasma cannons, laser defense systems, and mobile rocket launchers to be loaded at the Tanga domes. Equipment which would now not fit on Tanga ships, crammed as they were with the bulky heavy transport trucks and all the warriors sent their way. The remaining Tanga ships would also be filled with the rations needed by the warriors Telour had dumped on them. Food filled clanships should have been parked near the ships holding warriors, because the next closest domes and tarmacs were hundreds of miles away. Telour made certain they were on tarmacs at different Tanga domes, and many miles apart.

Tanga clan had traded numerous favors in order to hoard so many of the communal resources built on or brought to K1, probably in an effort to try to influence a decision to name Droktor as the Gatlek for the more prestigious invasion of a Hub world. He could then have assigned certain desired equipment loads to various small clans, so they had their pick of the newest machines, and would then owe Tanga clan and Droktor favors in return. Earning, buying, selling and trading status was the only Krall currency.

Having Telour promoted to Tor Gatrol, from their rival clan, had put Tanga clan in an awkward position. Now they couldn’t launch the ships loaded with both equipment and warriors into orbit early to clear their tarmacs for later easy loading, not without enough room to place weeks of rations aboard to feed them properly. They would need to hold a week in orbit and endure another eight days in transit. They also couldn’t launch the ration ships early, because they were needed to feed those warriors now held on the ground. Many loaded ships were stuck on Tanga tarmacs until they all were ready for the eight day Jump to New Glasgow.

The next arriving ships would have to land farther out from the Tanga domes and farther off the tarmacs to avoid the crowded parked craft. That would extend the loading times for new arrivals when the dirt trails of the columns of tracked and wheeled equipment became muddy, rutted swamps leading from the pavement, making Tanga look even more inefficient.

Rains came often on this tropical world at this season, formerly named Greater West Africa, which the Krall had selected as a base partly for its warm climate and their own scaly comfort.

It was due to grow more crowded, less comfortable, and extremely hazardous around Tanga domes, and both Telour and Droktor were soon to experience severe status depreciation.

****

The Mark of Koban made a White Out from the Oort cloud of icy comets, leaving his hundred ten Kobani ships out there, and waiting for his signal. He had emerged in stealth mode, one mile behind an eight hundred mile wide asteroid, in a bit of precise navigation that he’d left up to his AI, Jakob. Even if detected by some Krall ship on watch in the outer system, a single clanship’s gamma ray spectrum wouldn’t trigger a wide alert. When nothing could be seen leaving the area, it would simply be an anomaly.

Mirikami moved under Normal Space drive for a half day to orbit K1 at roughly a thousand miles, in an equatorial orbit. The leading edge of the first mass of clanships coming from New Dublin, which was reported by Comtap days ago, should start emerging here in about three hours. Mirikami knew that the staggered departures leaving New Dublin had also been spread out over two hours of time, so once the first ones arrived here, the Kobani ships could start inbound from the Oort cloud, to mingle with their White Outs with the new arrivals. It wasn’t likely that with an expected high number of arrivals, and Krall casual attitudes concerning movements by other clans, that anyone would be counting. Except for Mirikami and Mauss, that is.

The five navy task force groups, TF 1 through 5, were in place at five times the distance of the Kobani ships. This dispersed and delayed the tachyon wave signal of the gathering of distinctly human massed ships, to prevent Krall accidental detection of over a thousand navy ships poised all around them. They were far enough out their gamma rays would go undetected for days in the inner system, but near enough that a Jump to K1, when Mirikami signaled, that they would all arrive simultaneously after the AI’s coordinated the precise Jump times for each group of two hundred ships.

Chatsworth pondered the numbers she had to work with, speaking privately to the captain of her recently chosen flagship the Sword, commanded by Madelyn Boise, who was also commander of TF 1.

“Maddi, each of our task forces has nearly twice the number ships of either of the two previous attacks Admiral Mauss led against K1, and yet I’m more apprehensive now than I was then. Mirikami’s hundred ten ships, by themselves, match how many Mauss brought with her each time. I can’t explain why I feel more worried.”

“I can Lela. You were an XO on a battleship in the last two fights, and now you’re Fleet Admiral. It all rests on you, not on Mauss this time, so you feel more pressure. I don’t think you’re fully appreciating how much stronger we are now than we were back then. You’re probably thinking of how things might go wrong. Previously, you only fought with the weapons of your own ship, and didn’t plan for the whole fleet. Your captain controlled where you went. I’m sure if you asked Admiral Mauss she’d tell you she felt the same way back then, only with more justification. She had a mere hundred ten ships combined, facing four or five thousand clanships.”

“You’re right, but there will still probably be three thousand clanships at K1 when we emerge, a thousand more having just arrived and landed, with two hundred in orbit. We know another five hundred more are only four days behind, enroute from New Dublin with another five hundred ships staying behind there, and five hundred ships still at Poldark. There are an unknown number of their ships at other Krall worlds, deeper in their territory.

“No matter how well we do today, I know we’ll still be heavily outnumbered if they gather all their forces. We can’t know which of our worlds they might send them against.”

“Lela, you are the one that told us they have to devote ships to supply and support the two invasions already underway, and we hope to stop this next one in its tracks by inflicting losses. It was you that pointed out they can’t devote all of their ships to conducting revenge raids, and unless they land hundreds of thousands of warriors and equipment, they can’t hold onto any world they attack from space.”

Chatsworth laughed. “Maddi, will you kindly stop tossing my words of encouragement for everyone else, right back at me?”

“Why? They seemed rational and well thought out to us. Why don’t they sound that way to you?”

“They do, but I still worry about what the Krall reaction will be. Admiral Mauss had a hard lesson at Rhama. We have a different withdrawal plan, so we won’t be blazing a trail they can follow back to an inhabited system, and we have a nasty reception prepared for any that try to follow us. I’m afraid there are more weapons or tactics they copied from other enemies, things hoarded over their long history of wars, which can still hurt us in ways we’re not prepared to counter.”

“I suppose, but your idea to leave stealthed observers here may mean we’ll have a second chance to hit them at K1 tomorrow. If their fleet all races off to search for us, we can reload and come right back and hit them again with fewer defenders.”

“That was Mauss’ proposal, not mine. Having missile stockpiles waiting for each task force at empty systems might make that a brilliant idea. We’ll see if we get that opportunity.”

****

Jakob’s calm voice announced, “Five White Outs at approximately three hundred ten miles. All are clanships.” The influx was starting.

Mirikami sent an alert to the Kobani ships to make ready for the first Jumps. He wanted more arrivals for them to blend with. “First five have arrived, standby.”

The early arrivals all tended to cluster together, as if it were a race. Another twenty or so sent bursts of gammas while Mirikami was speaking. “First group, start Jumping.”

A quarter of his captains would move in at a ragged interval, covering nearly thirty seconds of time. Jakob was keeping count, but couldn’t separate Krall from Kobani arrivals. “Forty three White Outs of…” He was cut off.

“Jakob, keep count but wait for me to ask for the total.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Maggi and Mauss were also on the Bridge, watching for any unusual patterns for the arriving Krall. The Kobani ships would divide their landings between four domes, which were presently close to the approaching limb of K1, which made it just after dawn on the planet. Since the Krall didn’t sleep, it wasn’t a waking hour for them at those domes, although it had been observed that warrior alertness was reduced then, perhaps because most other creatures of various worlds were less active right then.

Over three quarters of the initial arrivals streaked off in different directions than to those four domes where the Kobani were going. It wasn’t obvious which of those ships that went there were Kobani manned. They behaved exactly like the Krall pilots, sending only their landing codes, and manually adjusted their paths to avoid other ships rather than use autopilot.

Because the Kobani craft would land preferentially as far from their assigned domes as practical, their ship positions could be generally inferred by that. It meant that columns of equipment that would soon be moving out from the tarmacs for loading, would all be routed by the normally efficient Krall to the inner clanships first. Therefore, keeping their portals closed against the light drizzle this morning wouldn’t seem peculiar. Half of the Kobani ships landed with one selected portal facing directly away from the nearest dome, so the stowed Shadows could ease out on stealth, with little chance of notice as they parted the faint fog and drizzle by their slow passage on Normal Space drive. They arrived with tachyons in their traps, and had thruster fuel to use only as a reserve.

The Shadow pilots were instructed to first move to any clearings they could find in wooded areas, and settle below possible detectability. Although the dense jungle didn’t leave much open land, fallen giant trees made random openings in the canopy. The Shadow’s stealth was better than the Krall’s, but within a mile or two, at long wave radio frequencies, there was some slight reflections and emissions detectable if a clanship was watching for them here on the ground. It seemed unlikely any would know how to look or would bother to try anyway, not here in their own back yard, so to speak.

There were some single ships launching from parking areas near the central domes, flying to meet up with clanships with empty launch tubes, opened by their crews for any single ship seeking a berth for a ride to New Glasgow. The pilots ran back to the domes to ferry more single ships. Later, the clanship would be so loaded internally that access to the single ships would be difficult. Shuttle bays were already filled when the clanships arrived, so those heavier armed craft were seldom seen this morning. The Shadows might go after the small craft once the fighting started if they were airborne. Otherwise, the fast sleek space planes would range away from these crowded dome areas, and hit smaller isolated domes, parked clanships, and any infrastructure they encountered, such as fuel production sites, storage tanks, truck and tanker parks, and bridges.

Mauss, in charge of the Kobani force’s integration with the navy attack, was waiting for the majority of this second wave of Krall to land, and the Kobani ships to be in place around the outside perimeters of the four chosen domes. Mirikami would first signal to five of his ten orbiting stealthed ships to activate the AIs on their Jump missiles, named Novas by their navy designers. Their particular mode of attack had been inspired by Krall actions in previous battles.

At the Mark’s altitude, five hundred miles higher that his ten ships, Mirikami could detect only ghostly images of those that were on the same side of the planet as he was. Until the Krall learned what frequency spectrum to search, they were unlikely to see even that weak return. A pair of his Kobani ships would be within two hundred miles of each of the five orbital defense platforms, each of which included a cluster of surrounding clanships that were their presumed protectors. The Krall would have no chance to see what was coming at them, and virtually no chance to hit or block it even if they knew it was on the way. Nova missiles didn’t travel through Normal Space when their attacks began.

The arrival of clanships from New Dublin had dwindled to a trickle, and Jakob reported that eleven hundred twelve had arrived when Mirikami asked for the count. The hundred Kobani ships had already landed, and no alarm had been given.

Mauss, showing a grim but determined smile, nodded to Mirikami. “Let’s do it.”

He linked his Comtap to the one in the small case, and sent a one-way instant message to five of his ten ships in orbit, which would also be heard by every Kobani clanship captain. “Activate the AIs on the Novas, feed them your targeting data and ease them out of your portals then shut them fast.” In another needless reminder, he cautioned, “Wait until they’re clear of you by triple their event horizon radius, then send them off and look away from the targets.”

Without pause, he mentally activated the wider group link, to address all of the Kobani in the five task force groups. “Five Novas on the way, you Jump one minute after my mark in ten seconds.” He paused ten seconds. “Mark! Good hunting everyone.”

He looked at Mauss and Maggi. “If Operation Forestall hurts them as much as we hope, some lucky Hub world is about get an invasion reprieve.”

Chapter 14: Teaching the Krall Chaos Theory

Telour snorted, amused when one of his aides told him of the massive congestion at the Tanga clan domes, with nearly four hundred clanships waiting to start loading, with only three quarters of the first eight hundred fully loaded. The complaints to the Joint Council representatives were mounting, coming mostly from the small clans that believed Tanga clan, as represented by Droktor, was keeping their warriors in highly congested and foul conditions. They were forced to send their own shuttles to clanships at other Tanga domes to acquire the replacement rations they consumed as they sat on the tarmacs for two days.

“Droktor must be furious at being helpless to end this confusion, which makes him appear inefficient even to his own clan mates. There were more clanships landing at the Tanga domes than I had directed. There were so many, that I appear to have gained support from a Major clan ally against Tanga. Only a Major or Great clan would have a hundred ships to divert there, yet none has approached me for a favored position in the invasion landing. A favor will be granted, if not an excessive demand. The number of ships at those four domes will slow the first wave of launchings by another day as the second wave loads, but it will be blamed on Tanga clan’s greed, at hoarding so much of the equipment.”

Gazing west from the apex of the Joint Council dome, Tanga’s domes were too far over the horizon to see. Nevertheless, he’d observed the contrails of many clanships converging and descending in that vicinity in the upper atmosphere. In his mind, he was visualizing the scene around the domes as reported to him. The later arriving clanships at each dome were forced to land farther away from the mile wide tarmacs, because of the still parked early arriving clanships.

There were long lines of equipment remaining to be loaded, parked in the open tarmac areas that had to be avoided by the second wave of landing clanships. The self-propelled equipment was waiting to be driven up the ramps of the receiving ships. Trucks loaded with small arms and power packs, heavy plasma canons, smaller plasma cannon carts, mini-tanks, and yet more of the heavy armored transports would have to be hoisted up internally between decks, to higher levels for storage. The rains and drizzle in the last two days in the region around Tanga’s domes had made it necessary for the columns to split off into new routes to avoid the muddy conditions and ruts from earlier loadings. Had the first ships been able to launch and were now waiting in orbit, as Tanga had expected, the cleared out tarmacs would have made the loading process easier and faster for the second wave of landings. At this rate, the newest arrivals would need to launch before much of the first wave could go. Rations had to stay with troops on the tarmac until leaving for New Glasgow. The outer clanships would have to launch just to make room for some of the five hundred clanships, due here in another three days. Not all were intended to go to Tanga clan, but some of that five hundred belonged to that clan, and they would automatically land there.

The lack of the huge migration ships of the Torki told the tale of Krall loading inefficiency now, even aside from problems Telour deliberately caused for Tanga. Those behemoths, thirty times larger, could each hold twenty-five times the volume of a single clanship, and had internal spiral ramps for driving equipment directly up to higher decks for quick storage. It would be four or five orbits of the two new shipyard worlds before newly trained Torki and Prada slaves would be able to complete the construction of the first new migration ships. They first needed to build the new shipyards, repair or establish new transport lines for raw materials, and find new mining sites and build foundries.

Clanship building was the higher priority now, and to do it faster. Over two hundred of the far tougher and smaller craft than the migration ships were close to completion, built on scattered clan worlds that were scaling up production. Their construction could ramp up faster than that of the Torki ships, because Prada workers, using the Olt’kitapi designed underground factory machinery, could manufacture and assemble nearly all of the parts for a clanship, with the Torki providing the quantum navigation, computation, weapons control, and security lock components. For migration ships, with no Olt’kitapi designed factory for making those, the slower moving Torki were required to fabricate all of the migration ship sections, with the nimble Prada doing the final assembly work.

This damage to the Krall war machine had been more severe than Kanpardi or Telour had recognized at the time. The Krall had used migration ships for so long, and reused the old ones, that movement of armies and equipment had been easy and trouble free for fifteen thousand years. Logistics had suddenly become very difficult, and the Krall had to relearn how to do it properly.

Telour was standing under the clear armored glass at the top of the giant council dome when an intense actinic blue-white flash, apparently near the eastern horizon behind him, cast his own deeply dark shadow across the floor of the dome. His instant reaction was to spin and seek the source of the threat, but he also knew that had it been close, it might be too late to go to cover. He knew instinctively not to look directly at the explosion too early, in order to protect his vision. A second flash, nearly overhead, started him racing towards the nearest stairwell, leaping down levels faster than even the high-speed elevators would have carried him, had he chosen to wait. Stairs also didn’t require power if an Electromagnetic Pulse disrupted the power feeds from the fusion generators of the dome.

He tapped his shoulder com set as he ran down the stairs, contacting a sub leader in the command center of the council dome. “Fadrop, two large orbital explosions are not accidents. Were they nuclear?”

“My Tor, not nuclear. There were more than two explosions. Global sensors report all five of the defense platforms are now expanding gas clouds, along with the clanships that were docked with them, or were too close. The platform passing above us emitted a gamma ray signature that suggests there was a White Out of a low mass object. Small ships appear to have merged with the orbital platforms as they made their exit from Tachyon Space.”

“Alert clan leaders here, humans are attacking. They used our Jump intersect attack method against the platforms. Order a clanship to be ready for me for an immediate launch. Select one close to the north entrance, where I will be soon. Order all clanships on Telda Ka to reach orbit as soon as possible, and to prepare for missile attacks. Additional human ships will arrive at any moment. The clanships in orbit should launch anti-ship missiles now. Aim them where they estimate the enemy fleet will perform White Outs, likely above the domes where we have much of our invasion fleet. I will launch and join them.”

He was halfway down the sixty-four levels of the huge council dome now, his aides in trail close behind him. They too were in communication with various aspects of Telda Ka’s defensive and offensive command structure. His aide from the command section that was in charge of the orbital defenses called for his urgent attention.

“Tor Gatrol, five formations of human ships have appeared over five dome clusters where the fleet is loading. They emerged very close to the planet with instant missile launches at ground targets. Those missiles have entered atmosphere, and are targeting our main loading areas.

The aide’s next words were redundant. Every clanship commander would have automatically done this. “Laser defenses have been activated and clanships that were loaded are lifting. Unloaded clanships lifted immediately and have fired defensive missiles. Partly loaded clanships will launch when equipment is secured. All clans have placed lasers and plasma cannons on automatic control, as previously directed.”

Telour snarled. “The humans had us under observation. They planned this long ago and knew we would gather our fleet for loading. They know of the invasion and choose the time we would be most vulnerable to an attack. Loaded clanships are their true targets, not the domes. Instruct unloaded clanships to fight for Path and Clan, to defend any loaded ships that cannot launch. They should Jump to intersect the enemy’s giant ships first, where their highest leaders sit.”

He was authorizing suicide attacks to hit the humans at their most vital points, targeting the largest ships as they had done previously. That tactic had caused the most disruption to the enemy’s formations in the two previous assaults.

He leaped into the hold of a clanship he was told was waiting for him, mere minutes after he’d sighted the first explosion. His fast reaction and the high altitude of the approaching doom was all that preserved the lives of the Tor Gatrol and his staff. The portals slammed down before he could reach the nearest stairs. The clanship lifted abruptly, with only a hasty speaker warning from the pilot to hold onto anything. He told them a huge blazing ball of fire was descending towards the council dome.

****

Mirikami cursed. “Damn it, I should have had that migration ship Jump inward sooner. It already had enough Normal Space velocity built up. It needed to White Out thirty seconds sooner. I saw ships leaving the council dome.”

Seven clanships were observed blasting away from the council dome in a nearly horizontal plane, using what must have been the maximum tolerable acceleration for the Krall aboard them. These seven escapes happened just as the giant migration ship, roughly fifteen hundred sixty feet in diameter, having thirty times the total volume of a clanship, started to flare brightly with the heat of atmospheric friction at thirty miles altitude. At over a thousand miles per second, the AI controlled ship, filled with nearly eight point three million tons of ice, covered the distance from its thousand mile high White Out to the thicker lower atmosphere swiftly. The old Torki built hulk had a less efficient tachyon trap, and was never designed for high-speed travel in Normal Space. Not that its overstuffed interior would have let it accelerate hard in any case. The overmatched Normal Space drive also didn’t deliver it quite on target.

When the massive bulk reached thicker atmosphere, at about five miles altitude, the extreme heat and unbelievable ram pressure on the artificial comet reached the limits of the structure, and it exploded with a violence rivaling a large thermonuclear weapon from Earth’s dark past. The searing hot blast wave raged downward and utterly crushed the council dome, smashing the wreckage more than thirty feet into the surface of the planet. It ripped limbs from the trees standing nearest the eastern edge of the three-mile wide tarmac, leaving a few vertical bare and blazing trunks standing, looking like burnt match sticks where they were located directly beneath the pressure wave. All vegetation, animals, and Krall flesh alike, was flash ignited for a radius of four or five miles.

Farther away, when the descending searing blast wave deflected out to the sides as it reached the ground, more distant trees and wreckage all flew or pointed away from ground zero, the point directly under the airburst. The migration ship had not been perfectly centered on the dome, offset by perhaps a half mile. Even so, there clearly would be no survivors in the now subsurface dome fragments, with flames rising from its wreckage. There wouldn’t be any Krall alive in the one hundred nine parked clanships either, which were slammed into the now broken and crumbled tarmac. The clanship’s thruster fuel contributed insignificantly to the destruction, when their fuel and oxidizer tanks ruptured. There were brief streaks of orange flame jetting away for a second, following along with the supersonic winds.

The fusion bottles that powered the dome and those within the clanships were of sturdy enough designs that they didn’t rupture from the high pressure. After all, they were expected to contain star hot, high-pressure plasmas internally. Otherwise, had they failed there would have been multiple smaller craters when they gave way and instantly released their magnetically confined thermonuclear hot plasmas. That plasma would still be vented when the power for magnetic confinement was lost, which was a violent enough high temperature event, particularly if released in the confined volume of a clanship. Nothing remained around them to be destroyed. The surrounding region was devastated for a twenty-mile radius, with severe wind damage out for at least another ten miles.

The Krall’s worthy enemy had obeyed the prohibitions against use of nuclear weapons, sticking exactly to the type weapons the Krall had themselves demonstrated were acceptable. No radioactive material was released, although the immense mushroom cloud looked as if there had been.

Maggi too was disappointed by the tardy arrival of the massive high velocity missile filled with ice. Personally, she felt considerable satisfaction at observing the destruction the view screens provided below the towering mushroom cloud. “The bastards deserved much worse than a Tunguska-like airburst event over a single dome. They should have received an impact like the one they gave my home world, Rhama.”

This idea had been her proposal, and the Oort cloud cometary ice that filled every void in the huge ship had turned the migration ship into a bomb. Being a Torki designed ship, the electrical equipment could tolerate water immersion and humidity if any of the ices melted or sublimated before the impact. Nevertheless, mass was mass, and solid ice or a combination of ice and a small core of water, the aerial concussion was devastating.

Mauss, who lived with a constant pain in her soul after witnessing the devastation of Rhama by a Krall Eight Ball, laid a hand on Maggi’s shoulder. “We could have let you deliver more of these here, but we are just as vulnerable to a similar attack. I convinced Fleet Admiral Chatsworth to approve this one impact, because it was a single kinetic energy weapon, similar to the single one they used on us, but much less destructive. At least it won’t be mistaken for a nuclear weapon. They could have done this to us anytime they chose, so it’s a case of reciprocation. Neither Chatsworth nor I think the Krall will consider this a fair trade, but it was their idea first.”

Mirikami knew the Krall could aim multiple objects used as kinetic weapons at human worlds, but the only effective way to get through potential defenses was by using their now more precious clanships to do the delivery, via a Jump and a White Out at a point near the target. That was what Maggi had arranged to be done here; Jumping an already high velocity mass close-in to the target world before it could be seen coming. Other types of fast moving, non-Jump capable objects could be tried as punishment weapons, such as actual comets and asteroids, but they required long pushes to get them up to high velocity and moving in the proper direction. Space rocks were subject to detection when still far out, and either being deflected or destroyed.

He counted on his understanding of the Krall desire for earning status, to limit such strikes as a routine mode of attack. What made this type of warfare unappealing to the Krall was that a kinetic energy weapon would not promote the Krall’s breeding program of warrior attrition through combat. It didn’t help them move along the Great Path. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t want to punish an enemy for successfully fighting them with their own weapons, but they didn’t want humanity destroyed outright, or killed on too large a scale.

The scale of a punishment, however, was as perceived by the pride of the Krall whose status they had harmed. Telour’s status in this case. His presence in the council dome as the invasion launched had seemed probable, and killing him would not only lead to a new Tor Gatrol, it possibly could place a rival clan in charge, with a competing idea of what the proper response should be. Killing an entire world was Telour’s choice, so any alternative seemed better.

In their arrogance, a Krall victory was utterly never in doubt, but the manner in which it was achieved provided high status for those that fought it personally and well, and helped improved their species.

Mirikami had been the first to understand that the enemy’s long-term racial goal gave opponents some ability to predict Krall reactions to counter attacks, within limits of course. Killing a couple of our many hundreds of worlds might be perfectly reasonable to them, and still preserve our best use to them, provided it forced us to accept their preferences for the type of warfare they wanted.

He knew if humanity ever started to win this war, human worlds would eventually face the Olt’kitapi super weapon, when it was used to try to force compliance. Another slower to develop weapon, but with unlimited renewal, would be what he had called the Krall population bomb. Human worlds could be conquered by hordes of their savage offspring more easily than if taken slowly, in a measured war. It was better to hit them hard now, when we had a stronger will to fight, with the resources to do it with, rather than after several hundred years of steady losses of planets and hundreds of billions of lives snuffed.

He offered his own comment on what was coming next today. “This can’t be the first time that they’ll have had their own tactics used against them. None of the alien species they fought before was warlike, except perhaps the Botolians who invented the collapsed matter the Krall made into Eight Balls, but none were stupid. Furthermore, there’s our new tactic they won’t expect, and they might not even figure out how we did it. Particularly if they mistake it for a new type of secret weapon.

“Anyway, we’ll know soon if it works or if they discovered what my scouts did. Jakob has identified multiple clanship launches from the tarmacs, in advance of where the navy launched their heavy anti-ship missile attacks. The majority of the Krall fleet is still within atmosphere, and can’t Jump or evade missiles very well. The greatest threats we face right now are from the couple of hundred clanships already in orbit. All but eight or nine of them escaped the destructions of the orbital defense platforms, when the Novas did their White Outs inside them. Those were spectacular explosions, I must say.”

With a grim shake of her head, Mauss said, “At New Lance it was our largest ships going up like that. I hope they enjoy our returning their gifts.”

She added an observation. “The missiles they fired early from the clanships in orbit are typical of their fast reactions, and their great battlefield anticipation. It was good that Chatsworth accepted my suggestion that she should select a White Out distance barely above atmosphere, instead of farther out. The Krall expected us to repeat the one thousand mile or higher orbital attacks of both of my previous assaults against them. They aimed their missile screen too high, and now they have to waste propellant to turn them back towards our task forces below them.”

Mirikami had also been watching, and nodded with a grin. “Time for our phantom act.” He linked to his people in the fleet via the new Comtap device.

“All units, Ghost in fifteen seconds from now, I repeat, go Ghost in fifteen seconds.”

It wasn’t vital that they coordinate as precisely on the next maneuver as when they had arrived. The closest enemy missiles were more than a minute away from reaching any of the five task forces. It would be the subsequent group commands that needed closer coordination.

The other ten Kobani ships would stay stealthed in orbit for now, although, they had used Normal Space drives to relocate to lower orbits after five of them had risked revealing themselves when they briefly opened their portals to allow the Nova’s to exit. The other five would have their chance to use their Novas soon. It didn’t appear that the first launches had been noticed when the open portals, facing away from the planet, briefly created a breach in their stealth protection. The Krall were in a low state of alert but that was going to change, and a lot more clanships would be in orbit soon.

****

Chatsworth had been anxiously waiting for the signal to ‘Go Ghost’ as she watched the screens in her combat center, displaying the tracks of Krall missiles that had turned back and were closing rapidly on the five task forces. They hadn’t activated their new stealth systems because they started firing missiles instantly at White Out, launching multiple salvoes, which would have revealed their numbers, location, and formation shapes anyway. Going stealth before the Ghost maneuver would only give that capability away before it was needed. They wanted to present the Krall with plump targets right now.

She could order the Ghost maneuver herself by radio, but that might disrupt the plans for synchronizing the mass return. That was the so-called Reverse Ghost, and then a series of possible subsequent Ghost moves, which could shift individual task forces where Chatsworth decided she wanted them, with input and feedback from her various commanders, once they saw fresh opportunities to hurt the Krall.

Their first salvoes of nearly ten thousand missiles were finding some of the more heavily laden clanships, who were less able to maneuver as they rose through the atmosphere. They became orange blossoms of fire, shrouded in black smoke. The highly effective Krall anti-missile missiles and plasma and laser fire reduced the incoming swarm by at least eighty percent before drawing any blood.

In atmosphere, the latest generation of navy armored missiles, with highly reflective surfaces, required more beam hits to disable, and they were programed to look for atmospheric turbulence of approaching clanships. Krall stealth wasn’t as good as what the Kobani had provided, courtesy of their alien allies, but it could still outsmart the detectors in missiles.

Cumulous and thick stratus clouds layers also provided some protection, sought out by the AIs of each missile, as they used haze and clouds to reduce the effectiveness of beam weapons. Even the empty clanships, being faster and able to twist and roll rapidly in atmosphere, were not all lucky. Over two hundred clanships were never going to reach orbit. Those that did were going to be disappointed when they expected to engage the enemy directly.

Ghosting had been practiced repeatedly by the navy in the last two weeks, because it offered considerable protection for the entire fleet. That technique had never been used in combat. Only Mirikami’s link to his Comtap personnel on each ship made it practical now.

Following Mauss’ assessment of the proper timing for the first Ghost, Mirikami had just initiated the nearly static entry into Tachyon Space. He would signal them when to emerge, or where to shift if the situation changed. The description of nearly static was due to the inability of any object in Tachyon Space to remain motionless, where the speed of light was the lowest possible velocity. Nothing prevented a ship from altering their direction of travel in Tachyon Space, and to return to the original Jump coordinates without performing a White Out, then shift again, and return as often as needed. It wasn’t like there was too little energy available for this sort of movement via medium-energy tachyons, and there was never a sense of external acceleration in a Universe without inertia. Artificial gravity only existed inside the event horizons of each individual ship.

On time scales as tight as the entire fleet needed to act, the tactic had never been possible because they would be out of communication, and didn’t know what would be waiting for them at the next White Out. Here at K1 they had accurate knowledge of Krall fleet dispositions from the stealthed observations provided from the Mark and the other ten Kobani ships. This could be communicated to the task forces by Mirikami, regardless if the ships were in or out of a Jump Hole. This was flexibility and movement for the navy that the Krall couldn’t match. Avoiding an attack was better than deflecting one.

With no hint it was about to happen, the entire visible human force simultaneously winked out of the Universe around K1. The thousands of missiles that had selected specific targets, particularly the tempting larger ships near the centers of the five formations, were left to race through the vacated spaces, following their last guidance system headings. The few single ships launched, streaking in towards the enemy in suicidal charges, now had no targets. Dozens of clanship pilots, most from smaller clans in craft not yet loaded with valuable war material, had been waiting only to clear the atmosphere and gravity well so they could Jump into the midst of the enemy ships. The cry of Path and Clan had stirred many of them to try to emerge in the compact human ship formations, with the hope they might intersect with a large ship in a blaze of triumph. There was no triumph to be had.

****

Telour had finally reached one of the four combat positions of the command deck of his still rising and commandeered clanship. He ignored the battering his body had taken when he was nearly rendered unconscious at lift off. That had occurred when he was slammed onto the deck of the main hold by the maximum acceleration the clanship’s built-in safety systems would permit, in its successful effort to escape the imminent blast front from the incoming fireball. That massive detonation shook the clanship violently as it raced away from the doomed council dome. Evading and shooting down incoming human missiles, the pilot and his K’Tal operated their weapons and sensors and continued away at low altitude for several minutes until clear. Telour quickly regained his senses as the ship steadied, and he raced up to the command deck for an assessment of the attack.

He grunted and blinked his appreciation to the sub leader piloting the ship. High praise from a high status leader. They were still alive to travel on the Great Path and to continue the fight, but only because of the pilot’s instant recognition of the threat that had been descending towards them.

“My Tor, the fireball was from a speeding migration ship, apparently with its mass greatly enhanced. The council dome was destroyed, and less than two hands of clanships escaped as we did.”

Despite the total surprise the humans had achieved by their sudden appearance over Telda Ka, their fleet was still greatly outnumbered, and Telour observed the tracery of the many thousands of anti-missiles launched to defend against those from the navy ships. They had performed their simultaneous White Outs in masterfully choreographed formations of five disk shaped formations, every ship firing before the gamma ray bursts of their exits were a half second old. He hated them, and wanted them all destroyed, but he also recognized the detailed planning and coordination this attack had required. This worthy enemy was annoying the new Tor Gatrol more than he was capable of tolerating, and it was the last time he would accept a tarnishing of his own careful planning.

That was what he thought.

He saw that the flat disc formations, ships stationary with respect to Telda Ka’s rotation and orbit around its star, were all oriented nose down. This allowed each of the human ships an unobstructed field of fire on the planet below without having to thread missiles or beams through a shifting globe formation, as in the last attack on Telda Ka. They continued to fire fresh salvoes as he watched on his sensors. He first believed that the domes themselves were their primary targets, as had been the case on the two previous attacks. Mere housing wasn’t as precious to a warrior, and this time the nurseries of eggs and hatchlings from the best breeders, were placed well away from the domes, located in the deep jungles. That lesson was learned from the second attack on Telda Ka, when several clans lost their newest nests and hatchlings, bred from their first battle tested warriors from years of raids against human worlds.

The tools of war were actually of greater importance, and the ignorant humans had previously sent the heaviest missiles at domes, set to explode almost on contact. The attackers had not even known then of the handful of underground factories, located beneath only four of the domes at that time. Those production centers for war material, and their Prada slaves, escaped the attack nearly unscathed, even when the dome above was seriously damaged. The wealth of clanships had been the most valuable war tools back then on Telda Ka, and it was more so today.

The Krall fleet was lifting to confront the enemy now, as it had previously, but starting later due to the lack of advanced warning. The nearly fixed positions of the human ships within their formations suggested their greatest weak points when the first clanships could Jump into their midst. The clanships already in orbit were unable to sacrifice in that sort of battle of mutual destruction, because they were tasked with providing cover fire for the rising fleet, destroying many of the enemy missiles from behind, using their advantage of altitude and clear lanes of fire above cloud cover.

Something about the twisting ribbons of the tracking pattern of enemy missiles drew Telour’s attention. They were mostly smaller missiles, and seemed very agile as they swerved to seek cover behind clouds where available, thus avoiding or diminishing the power of heavy laser and plasma beams to harm them. He suddenly realized the humans were not acting quite the fools as they had in the past two attacks. His pilot again proved to be smart and perceptive when he spoke first.

“My Tor, they wisely target only our clanships and not the domes or the unprotected equipment on the tarmacs.”

Telour snarled deeply in agreement. “True. They seek to block our means of delivering an invasion force this time. They will find we are using automatic clanship defenses now, and our beam weapons will react just as fast as the artificial minds in their own ships do, once we close with them.”

He had rigidly enforced this requirement, following through on an idea Kanpardi had originally supported. Telour had forced every clan to accept this tactic, which went against their basic warrior instincts and met staunch resistance. Every Krall liked to kill the enemy as personally as possible, even when it was at a distance, by directly aiming and firing a laser or plasma cannon, or manually launching a missile. Letting a machine do that for them was repugnant to their warrior way of thinking, even if it had better results.

There would be losses today, but they were better prepared to meet the humans here and now than they were when they had lifted three thousand clanships from Poldark. That time at least half, or frequently all of the onboard beam weapons were directly controlled by warriors, standing at consoles like the one where Telour stood braced now. He was confident they would lose fewer ships here than the several hundred destroyed from Pendor’s fleet. He’d make certain the human fleet would pay dearly for those he did lose today. He didn’t intend to leave any of their fleet intact after this, or the shipyards that had built them. He would have them pursued relentlessly to their bases.

He ordered two and a half hands of clanship commanders, those with the appropriate equipment installed on their vessels, to activate their tachyon wave detectors, and prepare pairs of clanships to follow the human ships through Tachyon Space when they inevitably fled from here. They were told to track the five attacking groups when they retreated, suspecting they would run in five different directions, making deviations enroute.

It was a smart idea. It didn’t serve him as well as he expected. As it happened, the navy ships didn’t need to be present when the next round of destruction began.

Telour didn’t have the proper information to help him recognize the purpose of the few hands of larger and slower missiles the human navy had launched, which oddly enough activated the new stealth mode first seen in use at Poldark, and apparently stayed outside the atmosphere to avoid revealing where they were by creating contrails and turbulence.

They seemingly were seeking no targets, which in fact, they were not. Why should they? Their targets were rushing up to meet them and they didn’t need to hit them or even shoot at them. While stealthed, they didn’t need navy protection so their potential protectors left the field of battle.

Unexpectedly, Telour saw all five of the human ship formations vanish on his sensors as he left atmosphere, performing a nearly perfectly coordinated entry into Tachyon Space. Telour snorted in ill humor. “They flee, before our first missiles or clanships reach them, the cowards. They knew their formation of flat rings of ships had too little protection as we rose to kill them. When I know where they went, I’ll send two thousand clanships after them, along with the five hundred twelve clanships still to arrive from New Dublin.”

He was willing to delay the invasion for this chase if it was necessary. The humans could have no idea where the fleet was headed, because all of the planning had been done on secure Telda Ka, not on Poldark, where infiltration and spy bots had been possible.

Depending on where the sections of the navy’s fleet fled, and for how long they fled, he could either continue with the invasion launch after completing the loading, or he could park the already loaded craft and pursue the enemy with the many unloaded clanships he had immediately available.

He watched the icons of the tracker ships wink out, as they also entered Jump Holes to follow close on the trail of the five human formations. The sheer concentrated mass of the tight human formations, and their recent entry into Tachyon Space would make their energy waves easy to track, even if they used Jumps through various intermediate systems to throw off followers. They were not far enough ahead to lose his hunters, as one or two ships might be able to do. If they split up the large formations after Jumping, he had ten trackers on their five trails.

Telour started transmitting orders to the sub leaders of various clans, to send their heavily loaded clanships back down to where they’d departed, and to keep the more maneuverable partially loaded or empty craft in orbit. He was angered as seven more explosions ended more of his clanships, as some of the final surviving smart missiles evaded defenses and managed to strike home. That destruction stung far more than the degree of loss they actually represented. That was because his fleet had not killed a single human ship in this brief, but extremely heavy hit and run attack. The navy had done too little damage to thwart the invasion, and they would now provoke a response they could not have imagined. The living ship would be here within two hands of days.

The seven detonations from the last of the missile salvoes suddenly increased in a crescendo of many fresh orange blossoms of fire, some of which he could see spread out above this hemisphere of the planet with his own eyes. More than a hundred clanships that he could actually see died unexpectedly, and relayed sensor reports told of other explosions below cloud layers, or that were far over the horizon. The reports of this destruction was automatically being relayed to all the clanships of the fleet.

Icons were vanishing in clusters of relatively close together ships, suggesting they had launched from the same domes. He couldn’t see an indication of the trails of the missiles he assumed was causing the destruction, and his sensors detected no ionization trails through atmosphere from any type of extreme high power energy weapons that could do this. There were explosions even on the ground, below cloud decks where clearly no missile or beam weapon traces were detected.

The unfamiliar stab of an emotion Telour had never experienced worked its way into both hearts in his chest. Did the humans have a new type of secret weapon? One that couldn’t be detected by clanship sensors, and was perhaps fired from ships in Tachyon Space after the humans fled. His reign as Tor Gatrol would be a short one if he couldn’t counter this new and unprecedented threat.

His observant pilot again offered a first clue, based on his noting which clans suffered the greatest losses, with what was shown by the shape and color of the icons that vanished from his sensors.

“My Tor, Tanga clan has lost the most ships, followed by Graka, Dorbo, and Maldo clans. Those Great clans are hardest hit, and the Major clans were also hit, but they lost fewer. Only the ships that are flagged as having finished loading equipment seem to be those that are killed. Of the empty ships, only two died, and they were killed by the last hands of enemy missiles.”

Telour instantly saw the battlefield above and on the planet in a new way, after his pilot spoke. There were dozens of ships still sitting on tarmacs that had not lifted, yet they had exploded. They were securing equipment after a partial loading when the attack had started. His examination of the four Tanga clan tarmacs, on high magnification from orbit, found other signs of smaller explosions than that of so many clanships. The smaller explosions were visible among equipment parked between ships, which although potentially damaging to nearby ships, were smaller explosions than what was needed to penetrate and destroy a tough hulled clanship. Therefore, it wasn’t only clanships being hit. However, why waste such a powerful weapon on easily replaced equipment, bypassing some of the more valuable clanships, partially loaded and motionless on the ground.

He quickly saw there were curiously wide spaced explosions among the long lines of parked mini-tanks, and in rows of two types of plasma cannons, one type the heavy orbital reaching cannons, and the other was those mounted on small carts.

An even closer spacing was seen in the ranks of the few hundred unloaded armored heavy transports, which took longer to load and store their double segments. This damage was all to equipment that hadn’t been moved for loading, due to the congestion on the Tanga ramps. The pattern his battlefield sense detected was only apparent among the lines of waiting equipment, and not for the destroyed clanships. There was a gap of nineteen mini-tanks and nineteen plasma cannons between the points of explosions for those. The gap was only nine vehicles between the larger heavy transports. These were sets of decimal numbers, which fit into the human numbering system much better than a random pattern, or in the Krall octal system.

He didn’t believe this mysterious weapon would have bypassed hitting a choice target of a clanship, and instead strike every twentieth mini-tank or cannon cart, or every tenth heavy transport. This was literally the ten digit hands of human sabotage at work, and they had spaced and revealed their handiwork using their own counting system. Some of those pieces of equipment happened to be loaded onto clanships when they exploded, which led to the loss of the clanship if several of them detonated inside simultaneously.

How or when humans had planted the explosives he had no idea, but that didn’t require the development and fielding of an entirely new type of technology, and a weapon system never seen before. It would have needed to be perfected in the short time since they had tried and failed to halt the fleet leaving Poldark, where they clearly had known that launch was coming.

A large bundle of explosives was implied by the force involved. Having such charges placed in or on so many pieces of equipment, it seemed that they should have been seen or explosives smelled when warriors drove each of them onto the clanships. A timer mechanism on the explosives would not have worked as they did today, because they couldn’t know when Telour would recall the clanships from New Dublin to be loaded. It had to be a remotely triggered event, because they all went off at the same time, when the damage could be maximized.

He had multiple things to do, and his pilot had shown unusual intelligence. “Pilot, you are promoted to my staff. What is your name and clan?”

“Frakod, my Tor, of Dorbo clan. I am honored you selected my clanship.”

“Your ship was selected at random, Frakod, but it was a fortunate choice. I grant you authorization to speak for me as you organize an investigation. The humans have placed explosive devices on our unguarded war material at some time while it sat on our tarmacs. They detonated them after being loaded and we launched. In my name, order all mini-tanks, plasma cannon carts, and heavy transports searched for anything unusual that could be a bomb. Inspect what destroyed the isolated equipment on the tarmacs. Send every loaded clanships to land at the nearest clan dome immediately, before we lose more of them to internal explosions. Not all of the damaged clanships that were airborne were destroyed, and some have reached low orbit. I must know what happened inside of those. Assign clanships with empty holds to dock with them to transfer usable equipment, and send K’Tals to learn if orbital repairs are possible, or if we must use the damaged clanships for parts.”

He ignored the acknowledgement, convinced that he had a competent warrior following his bidding. He had already turned to use a hand signal, gathering his other staff close, to explain what he now knew, and to plan his next actions since the fighting had ended here.

There had been nearly six hundred clanships destroyed, and he needed to revise the invasion plans to account for those losses, and to implement a new plan and schedule before the Joint Council could be reformed. Many council representatives had died from the comet-like blast, and for probably the next hand of weeks Telour and his aides could act as the sole decision makers for all of the Krall. Even damaged as his fleet had been, he could still mount an invasion force as strong as the one he’d given to Pendor. He also wanted to attack the human fleet, no matter where it went, and he would use the Olt’kitapi living ship, when it arrived, in any manner he decided, without a Joint Council to interfere. At least he could if he acted quickly and decisively. Something he was noted for, even among impulsive Krall.

Internally he cursed the humans, who refused to do what he expected of animals, even if they were the worthy enemy they had sought for thousands of years.

Hothkar, the third highest status aide on his staff spoke cautiously, uncertain how Telour would react to the news he’d just received. “Tor Gatrol, the tracker ships have reemerged, here in the Telda Ka system.”

He had been wise to be cautious. He narrowly avoided the raking talons that swiped through the space his muzzle had just vacated as he drew back. “My Tor,” he rushed, “the sub leaders say there are no wave fronts to follow.”

Telour’s red pupils blazed with fury when he shouted, “They Jumped! There must be five trails in Tachyon Space.” It was fortunate that none of those sub leaders that had failed to follow the humans were here, because Telour barely restrained himself from attacking his aide, who was merely the messenger.

He gathered his thoughts in an instant, knowing this had to be a datum of some importance that he needed to understand. “How did they explain this?”

“None of them can say. It was as if the enemy never Jumped, despite what we saw. The detectors found no energy wave fronts moving far away from us. Only echoes of ripples spreading in all directions from their five entry points.”

Telour spun to examine the sensors showing the closest spaces where two of the enemy formations had been. The Krall missiles that had homed on their selected targets had passed through long ago, now low on propellant, or empty, and awaiting recovery by some small clan with low status. The single ships and clanships that had risen to meet the enemy had now moved into orbits over Telda Ka. Some had already been ordered by his aides to seek out the oddly recalcitrant large missiles the human fleet had fired, which had not attacked them, and had entered the new human stealth mode when they were in low orbit. The odd missiles had not Jumped, he felt certain of that. They were slightly smaller than a single ship, and could not have Jump capability, although they might have small tachyon Traps, as did a single ship.

Telour was no longer too angry to think clearly. “The enemy did not want us to find those devices for study or destruction. Find out what they did during the attack.”

From wide spectrum communications recordings, two of his staff quickly learned that all of the objects had apparently been the sources of a briefly transmitted simple series of strong pulses, at a frequency and pattern most often encountered when it was used by specific human military ground forces. Those forces called themselves special operations teams or commando units, and were small units within the main human army, similar to small clans, but they were normally not part of navy forces.

The small human combat teams were the kind known for setting demolition charges, and who performed sabotage. Like the sabotage that had happened on Poldark to their heavy plasma batteries. Their explosive devices were often activated remotely by signals similar to that detected from these missile-like objects. Telour felt confident he knew now how they had been used. They remotely triggered multiple hidden explosive devices in the loaded equipment, resulting in the destruction of so many clanships from the inside. The enemy fleet had left them behind when they fled, to activate their typically devious method of fighting.

He explained his reasoning to his aides. Each was equally outraged by the trickery, and by the enemy’s refusal to face them in combat, displaying no bravery or honor whatsoever.

Hothkar, in a cloaca kissing statement designed to placate his angry superior, said, “The cowards crawled away before they could face your retaliation, my Tor. They did it so quietly that their frightened steps in Tachyon Space could not be heard.”

Not well versed in physics, this non-K’Tal’s illogical remark, about the human navy making quiet steps in Tachyon Space, was intended only to prove that he was clearly backing his leader’s explanation. Telour heard the words, and the odd expression instantly triggered a thought that the enemy had done no such thing as sneak away. He believed he knew how there might be no trail to follow. His thinking was interrupted by Frakod’s timely report of multiple White Outs.

“The enemy returns to fight my Tor. Many White Outs and their ships approach very fast, from the direction of the northern pole.”

Telour quickly saw on the sensors that the many hands of objects were too few and too small in mass to be the heavy cruisers of the human navy, the mainline ships now favored over the massive battleships and dreadnaughts. He had just anticipated the return of the human fleet, but this wasn’t what he expected. Regardless, the threat required immediate action, because the objects had appeared roughly ten thousand miles out, with such high velocity that they were an imminent threat to anything in orbit. They had so high a velocity that he had no time to transmit a useful warning that could be acted upon in an effective manner.

At two thousand miles per second, the nearly sixty medium sized ships streaked inbound, in a wide ring centered around the planet’s axis, first appearing above the northern hemisphere. The fast approaching midsized ships provided barely five seconds for pilots and ship commanders to react, but the laws of inertia prevented a clanship from moving very far in reaction in that time, even with internal inertial compensation protecting the occupants.

Nevertheless, this was still a great deal of time for a warrior to anticipate what needed to be done, and more so for their automated defenses. Clanships were able to activate their defenses, and all of them fired on the fast approaching targets. That fire ultimately proved inadequate, even though some of the incoming high velocity craft were split into parts.

Multiple bright impacts flashed in low orbit, as clanships that had docked with damaged craft for unloading all vanished in a spray of shattered debris. Cones of high velocity fragments struck and damaged a number of other clanships, located downrange of the eight impacts that Telour observed on this side of the planet. Surprised transmissions, relayed from orbiting clanships beyond the horizon, proved the attack had found targets there as well.

The intense white initial flash of the metal vaporizing impacts changed to orange, as clanship thruster propellant and oxidizer merged in gaseous clouds near the points of collision. Even in a vacuum, the fuel and oxidizer burned if mixed, although in smaller fireballs and for a shorter time.

The dazzling explosions in space had drawn all eyes for a moment. Telour knew that barely a quarter of the objects had struck targets, but because they preferentially struck docked pairs or triplets, fragments of forty-two shattered clanships now filled low level orbits with their spreading debris fields. The velocity of the incoming ships had been too great to have much ability to change course significantly to evade them, a clanship not prepared to Jump couldn’t get very far from the track of one of these self-guided high velocity suicide craft. A frozen sensor image provided enough detail to reveal what had attacked them. These were the ships humans called destroyers, and they had finally found a better use for them than as sacrificial missile catchers.

Those destroyers that missed impacts vanished into space beyond the southern axis of the planet. None of them could be now be seen from the radar or laser ranging data, displayed on Telour’s console. Even at their high velocity, radar would have had little trouble detecting the dwindling targets. They had obviously Jumped.

Telour didn’t need Frakod’s warning this time, when dozens of new White Outs occurred, at barely five thousand miles this time, spaced again in a wide ring around the northern axis, which allowed them to pass down all sides of Telda Ka. There was only half the time for reaction, although automated defenses on the now forewarned clanships lanced out with heavy laser beams, and the searing star heat of their plasma cannon bolts. There were hits on many of the objects, only forty four of them on this pass, and three were seen to fragment as they were struck multiple times. Those shattered destroyers still combined to destroy or severely damage seven clanships, when their tumbling debris passed through their crowded target field. There was a surprising amount of massive material in the fragments. Their gamma ray White Out spectrums revealed they were much more massive than were the original craft.

Four others of the destroyers, used as missiles, had solid hits on individual clanships on the opposite side of the planet. These impacts were all clustered in a relatively low, three hundred mile high equatorial orbit. That was where the Krall had expected to gather the fleet for a coordinated mass Jump to New Glasgow. With no reason not to follow the original plan after the human navy had withdrawn, many pilots stayed in that low orbit.

Telour quickly gave the order for all ships in orbit to scatter more widely, to avoid the clustering that would draw the subsequent passes close to them. Passes, which he informed them, would be repeated. He certainly understood this mode of attack. It was a low mass version of a Hammer style of attack. A destroyer didn’t have the near indestructible structure of the collapsed matter of a Hammer, but they obviously were deadly, even if only good for a single impact.

The Krall knew how to defend against this when the tactic was recognized. “The humans are using the tactic of repeated passes and Jumping back to pass again at high velocity. Spread out and change your vector between passes, so they will not find you in the same orbit when they return. At high velocity, they cannot adjust course very much to adjust to your change in movements. We will blast them as they pass though until there are no more.”

There, he thought, let them fly through a shifting cloud of particles and hope randomly to strike any more of us.

****

Mauss noted the dispersal of the clanships after the second pass of the old destroyers. “They have this one figured out Tet. Spreading out and changing orbits after a pass reduces the risk of a chance encounter when one of our AI guided rams return. Of course, they assume our D-Rams can’t receive position updates after their previous pass, which isn’t the case with us passively watching. It looks like all they did was angle away from their previous orbits, or boosted speed into a higher one. If they hold the new vectors until the next pass, Jakob can predict where some of them will be, and you can pass that along.”

The old destroyers, proven too vulnerable to fight Krall clanships, had been slated for scrapping. It was Mauss’ idea to use them against the Krall in much the same way the enemy had used the Eight Balls against her second fleet. Mirikami’s contribution, to make them more unstoppable, was to have the otherwise empty AI piloted ships filled with dense iron rich asteroid material. That provided more momentum, and the pieces acted as scatter shot if the hulls were blasted open, releasing the high velocity pieces to deliver their damage over a wider area.

Mirikami had also seen the orbital dispersal, and had the data from Jakob placed on a screen. The most confident predictions of future locations of a handful of clanships, those that had promptly altered directions and then held to the new orbit were better targets. “I’m sending these orbital parameters to Carol Slobovic, to relay to the AIs of the D-Rams before they jump back.”

Carol was positioned out on the Oort cloud, where the D-Rams returned after a pass. There their AIs could receive updated coordinates for the next Jump inbound to Telda Ka, so they adjusted their exit into Normal Space better lined up with one or more clanships.

The fifty-nine obsolete destroyers had already claimed twice their number in enemy ships, adding to the overall attrition, with nearly a thousand Krall craft either destroyed or seriously damaged.

Mirikami shook his head. “If we’d had more of those Raspani Q-rupters, we could have let them finish loading all of their equipment, and then blow the majority of the clanships to hell once they were in orbit, ready to Jump. There’d be a dark equatorial ring around this planet for them to have to duck around for decades. The Krall don’t have any of those scavenger ships, like Poldark uses to clear up space trash.”

Mauss smiled. “I’m happy your Raspani friends made as many as they did before your scouting mission, and thrilled they went unnoticed. What if the Krall had found them and they were removed. Then, instead of rupturing fusion bottles in their Dragons, trucks, and plasma cannons, they’d have had a couple of hundred new warheads for Worm missiles, to use against us.”

“That wasn’t likely, Golda. We have the same standard Krall fusion bottles to test with, and our devices were colored and curved to look like the metal on the outside of a fusion bottle. They’re made to lie flat, instead of being mounted on a hand held handle. They attach magnetically to the underside of a bottle, completely out of sight. Those fusion bottles of theirs last for decades without maintenance, and only need fresh hydrogen fuel every couple of years.

“These are like much of the oldest designs of Krall machinery, and were designed by the Olt’kitapi to be failsafe. They knew the Krall would be careless and reckless, abusing any tools they were given. Nevertheless, even the best designers probably never anticipated our willful sabotage. Not when a four-inch hole suddenly appears all the way through their magnetic plasma containers. The Krall never bother to shut down fusion bottles on anything they fight with, so the equipment is always ready for use. They leave them on idle, fusing hydrogen to maintain plasma to power their own magnetic confinement fields.

“We had a tamper circuit on our Q-rupters, designed by our spec ops troops. If one of the devices were pulled free for examination without being disarmed, it would have activated and opened a hole through the fusion bottle. The violent and sudden plasma venting wouldn’t leave much to investigate, since the bottle would largely melt from the plasma venting, and there’d be no one alive that saw it close up to ask what had gone wrong. The Krall aren’t very curious, and they don’t value life enough to worry about safety.”

Mauss was listening, but she had also been observing Krall dispositions and debris fields that were near the equatorial orbits. “Tet, it’s time for a Return Ghost, with them raised another thousand miles higher over the previous planetary positions. The planet and its rotation have moved everything well away from where the five task forces are looping in Tachyon Space. Have Jakob give you an updated set of coordinates for the new White Out points, and wait for your signal. This will be the last pass by the D-Rams even if any survive this pass. They won’t be effective anymore.

“I think the clanships that appear to have been fully loaded are returning to land. That preserves the equipment they hold, and they can defend the domes and parked equipment from the ground. I’d think they’d want only the most nimble and empty ships in orbit to face our threats. The landing ships will make good targets for Chatsworth as they descend. She has a hundred more Novas to use on the orbiting clanships, and your people still have five to use. Your ships should use theirs first, as a distraction. Here’s what I propose to say to Chatsworth, and my suggestion of what she might do after the next Ghost.”

Mirikami nodded as he listened, and Maggi grinned wickedly, looking like the mischievous pixie she now resembled. “I like your devious mind, Golda. I hope Chatsworth appreciates what that’s worth against these linear thinking bastards.”

****

Telour repeated his angry snarls of before, when despite the orbital dispersal he’d ordered after each pass, six more clanships were destroyed as the destroyers performed White Outs a mere three thousand miles north of the portion of his fleet he’d kept aloft. They reached the more spread out clanships in a second and a half. There were fewer of the enemy craft this time, but two of them self-detonated when it appeared they would narrowly miss their intended targets. The spreading debris accomplished their task for them, but the other four successful ramming destroyers actually hit their targets, as if they had known exactly where they would be. Only three of them were seen to Jump away intact, after three others were destroyed without doing any damage.

He spoke to his aides. “I see clanships changing orbits, but the next pass will be a small threat with so few remaining. I believe the human fleet will return to resume their attack. Alert every clan to expect them at any time. I don’t believe they traveled far. That is why we couldn’t track them to their base worlds. We can’t predict where they will reappear, so all of the one thousand eighty ships I ordered to stay in orbit should conserve missiles until there are targets they can see. We wasted too many missiles in the preemptive launches when they arrived much closer to the planet than we expected.”

He neglected to mention that it was his own instructions to the first clanships to leave atmosphere that they preemptively fire at points one thousand miles above their dome loading areas. Those missiles had all overshot the enemy when they did White Outs five hundred miles lower.

“They are free to fire missiles at any suspected enemy activity, because some of them must be present in their new stealth mode for observation. Order sixty-four clanships to search for anomalies in radiation or star field displacements to learn if we can detect them. Inform all pilots that I recommend they rise well above the debris fields spreading around Telda Ka.”

He knew experienced pilots and commanders would consider this pointless novice level advice, but a high percentage of small clans lacked experience in space warfare. Smaller clans operated the majority of the still unloaded clanships up here, since more of them were forced to wait for the more important clans to load first. The least experienced pilots would now face the enemy. The Krall didn’t have many detailed histories of past space battles to educate ship commanders of some of the consequences. The histories would have a great deal more to teach on the subject after this.

The widening debris fields now reminded Telour of the argument he himself had used against Parkoda, of Tanga clan, to avoid leaving the wreckage from destroyed captured human ships orbiting Koban. That point had originally been raised by the small human clan leader, Mirikami, also long dead, that the trash would complicate navigation. His argument was to save his people, but the orbital garbage aspect had helped Telour make his rival appear wasteful and inefficient to the Joint Council. Not a single Krall had cared about the twenty or thirty thousand human lives that would be lost. Now, thanks to human attacks, Telour controlled a base world that would be inconvenient to use, because of the Krall fleet’s own debris in orbit. It was a bit of irony that he didn’t appreciate in the slightest.

He’d have to secure another base world, after he proved to the animals that being a worthy enemy didn’t mean they would be allowed to disrupt this Tor Gatrol’s plans again. He had a far harsher lesson in mind for them than Kanpardi had proposed. When the human fleet suddenly reappeared, he didn’t know if he should be pleased that his subordinates would see his predictions were accurate, or angered the humans dared return.

****

Mirikami gave instructions to the ten other Kobani ships, five of them with Novas ready to launch. “The navy is going to White Out two thousand miles above the same five coordinate sets as before. They’ll launch a hundred Novas at orbital clanships, perhaps a thousand anti-ship missiles, and hundreds of ground attack missiles at domes. Then they’ll quickly Ghost again. They’ll pop out at 0835 Hub Standard Time, by your navy clocks.

“Exactly thirty seconds before that time, I want the five of you with Novas to launch them from your portals, With the AIs set to Jump to whatever the predicted coordinates are of the five orbiting clanships I’ve just designated for each of you. Shadow them until then. We tracked seven of them that escaped from the Joint Council dome. They probably all carry high status clan leaders, and I frankly doubt we caught Telour in that blast, since the Krall still seem to have a well-coordinated central command system, and he was their Tor Gatrol. If so, we have another chance to get the bastard. You other five ships, approach the two other clanships out of that seven, and you will all fire several anti-ship missiles at each of those two, and do it just when the five Novas flare. Those distractions may help you catch them watching the others.

“After that, all of you get back into full stealth, and accelerate hard away from your attack points. Be ready to Jump if needed because you are going to draw serious return fire when they spot the sources of so many missiles. If you do make a local near-planet Jump, you’ll have to activate your IFF to keep the navy from targeting your White Out coordinates, which will then also light you up for the Krall. Try not to Jump and stay concealed. Good shooting and good luck. Mirikami out.”

Mauss asked the question any outsider would consider obvious. “You speak as if you know this Krall named Telour. Do you have some sort of personal history? I know you told us you were captives at one time.”

Maggi fielded the question. “Not all of the captives became as directly involved with him as those of us on the Flight of Fancy. Tet used Telour’s personal rivalry with the Krall leader in charge of the raid that captured our ship, and traded our help against his rival for advantages granted to us. Tet found a way to use that inter clan friction to create our core of resistance, which on the surface helped Telour win status, but also saved our scientific equipment and technology, which we then used to work towards our real goal. To find a way to modify humans to be able to directly fight Krall warriors.

“Telour was completely confident we’d all die within a year when he and the other Krall left us alone on a savage and extremely dangerous world, with animals we had little defense against. His last act was to destroy every power source he thought we had. The Krall pulled out and left us to our fate. Telour then led the first major raid, the one on Gribble’s Nook, because we had helped him win enough status to earn that privilege. Yes. We want him dead.”

Mauss had listened with a sympathetic ear. “I relish hearing your full story, when you feel comfortable telling us the details. I can see that this Telour, in his current position and having the knowledge of you that he does, is a threat to your safety and you need to eliminate him.”

Mirikami spoke now. “Not just for our safety. We know how ruthless and ambitious this Krall is, and he is one of the most dangerous to all of humanity. Telour is far smarter than the average Krall. He was handpicked for advancement by Kanpardi, the former Tor Gatrol and another impressively smart and ruthless leader. Those two leaders recognized human potential for innovative warfare, but neither would ever allow us to gain the upper hand over them. Particularly by using the shortcut genetic improvements our scientist were trying to relearn. An extinct human species is preferable to a species that might slow their progress in breeding their warriors to be the best killers in the galaxy. We Kobani have beaten them to that goal.”

An eyebrow raised, Mauss gave the small man an appraising look. “Forgive me, but you don’t look all that deadly for a man.”

He smiled gently, not at all offended. “You of all people should know that looks can be deceiving. Aside from my genetics giving me the physical strength and speed to outfight any individual unarmed warrior in hand to hand combat, my greater value is that I have repeatedly out thought them. I seem to understand how they think. I’ve had to do that when failure would have doomed me, and those that followed me.”

He looked back at her and shrugged. “You for instance, as a short and stout older woman, don’t look like the best strategic mind in the navy, but you’ve proved that you are, in fights where your force was vastly overmatched. For example, we have yet to lose a single ship today, and a sizable part of the credit is due to your advice to the Fleet Admiral.

“I warn you that Telour will pull out all stops and take extreme measures to hurt humanity after this. Even if we lost a sizable portion of our force here, that would not restore the damage that has been done to Telour’s greatest possession. That is his high status among all Krall. Since we will not lose that many ships, he will definitely go after what we value most, at the first opportunity. He will attack our populations, and the worlds where they live.”

She looked skeptical. “They have taken a considerable amount of time to complete a takeover by invasion on Poldark, and had a tough time establishing their foothold on New Dublin. Now that we are gearing up for a larger war, it’s much harder to defeat our armies and to supply their own. You have helped in this, so you know that’s true. This particular invasion force has a questionable future on even an under populated Rim world.”

“The retaliation will not be done by invasion. The Eight Balls we destroyed were not their ultimate weapons. They have a greater weapon, in limited numbers we’re told, which we have heard about from one of our alien allies. We don’t know how many of them they have or how they will be used. We understand they are some sort of advanced mining machines, which the ancient Olt’kitapi, who gave the Krall their start in space, intended to use while constructing enormous stellar habitats. Apparently, they planned to build a huge structure, or structures, which multiple civilizations could share in a single solar system. Possibly something like a Dyson Sphere. I believe we’ll soon find out what the machines do.”

“My God, Mirikami. You let us stage this attack knowing they have another super weapon?”

“Admiral, if we allowed them to exterminate us slowly, the way they preferred to do, humanity would probably never live to see it used. I assumed you and the navy believed it was better to fight them with the goal being our eventual victory. Space warfare appears to be the Krall’s weakness, because they have forced all past wars to take place on planets, where their physical capability was clearly superior, and enhanced their breeding program. If our victory ever appeared likely to them, through any means, they would certainly use that weapon.”

He glanced at the sensors and the time. “The next phase of this day’s battle is about to start. My people on the ground are about to go in harm’s way.” That ended the discussion for now, but he knew Mauss would certainly resume the discussion when the fight was over.

****

Reynolds had “ants in his pants,” as he phrased it, for over an hour. “It’s bad enough to be parked right next to the damn enemy, but having to defend against our own side is too frigging much. Now the navy’s coming back to shoot at us again? Let’s do some attacking for a change, and blow hell out of the clanships inside our perimeter. Then lift off in support of the Shadows.”

Thad sighed for the umpteenth time at Sarge’s impatience. “I told you. The navy didn’t shoot at us deliberately. The missile AIs can’t tell us from the Krall unless we activate IFF. When we do that, the Krall will soon start shooting at us. Our people only had to knock down four or five anti-ship missiles that might have come too close to them. We let the others find clanships if they could get through their defenses, and at least a dozen or so did.”

He explained Mirikami’s reasoning yet again. “If all of the Krall ships at these domes had lifted off, as they might have decided to do, we’d have picked a bunch of them off from the rear as they rose, switching on our IFF systems, launching the Shadows, and roaring off into the sunset like you want to do. Except, when so many of the still loading clanships stayed put, we held our fire as we were told. At least most of the ships parked near us had no equipment loaded yet, and they all headed up for orbit to fight the navy. As close as they were parked to us, we couldn’t have fired on them safely. Now we have nice wide buffer rings around the four domes. The navy will only target the domes at these tarmacs and not clanships, so we’ll be the ones to take on the clanships. Then we can send the Shadows out to raid anything they can find, and we either launch for orbit, or scoot sideways away from the domes, with our IFF active in either case. Satisfied?”

“No!”

This was exactly the answer Thad expected. “Then take a nap or eat a sandwich. Stop pacing around and checking targeting every thirty seconds. The damn targets are parked for cripes sake. I’ll tell you if any of them move, OK?”

“This is the first ambush where I feel like I’m the one in position to be ambushed. Never had to wait this long to spring the surprise. I thought we’d be shooting at them by now, and getting out of Dodge.”

“Dodging what.”

“Not a what, leaving a place. Dodge City.”

“That’s not a Krall sounding name for these domes. They don’t use names anyway.”

Sarge shook his head in dismay. “Maggi is right. You have no knowledge of Earth history whatsoever. Dodge was a western town where gunslingers used to hang out and get into shootouts. You got out of Dodge when your side was outnumbered.”

Further nervous byplay was interrupted when their Comtaps picked up Mirikami’s voice again.

“OK, you restless Kobani. The Navy will briefly White Out and send some more hell towards the Krall. They’ll fire their hundred Novas at clanships, and our five ships in orbit will launch their last Novas a half minute before the navy comes back at 0835 HST. You’ll see at least three of their hits flash overhead from where you are, and that’s your signal. Don’t wait on the navy to appear, launch your fifty Shadows and start firing on the ships parked around the four domes. Switch on your IFFs, since your cover will be blown anyway, and lift off. There will be heavy ground attack missiles coming down on the domes from the navy, and if you knock out enough of the defenders, more of them will get through. You’re free to attack targets of opportunity, but your main goal is to kill what you can, then get the hell out of Dodge and join us in orbit.”

Thad’s head dipped, and his shoulders slumped as he heard Sarge’s snicker from behind him. “Proves nothing,” he muttered. “The poor man’s married to that Old West throwback.”

Every available launch tube had their missile racks full, and there were Kobani below, ready to move replacements stacks of five missile “magazines,” or stacks, into the auto loaders down in the missile storage lockers. The launch tubes and racks were designed to shove a six-foot missile into the tube from a stack, seal the tube breach, open an airlock system and use the escaping air pressure and a powerful magnetic push to send the missile at a considerable velocity along a thirty-foot tube. A missile ignited its propellant when it was about twenty feet from the ship, and the warhead needed just over a half mile of travel to arm itself. All five of the first missiles from a tube could salvo in less than twenty seconds. The ready stack was automatically moved into position within ten seconds for another salvo of five. After that, the main rack would require a fresh stack to be loaded from a lift system from a storage locker, and a second stack placed in the ready rack above it. In flight, the reloading task in the storage locker, to make new stacks, was more difficult because of ship maneuvering despite inertial compensation. The sixteen launchers for anti-ship missiles could potentially send a hundred sixty missiles against an enemy in roughly fifty seconds. After that, reloading often depended on several minutes of flight stability.

On the ground, the human controlled ships only had about a quarter of their launch tubes that could bear on the Krall ships parked closer to the domes. A bit of Mind Tap training from a couple of captains that had practiced the maneuver, provided a practical method of launching from all sixteen tubes before reaching orbit. It required a dance-like pirouette as the ship rose. With nearly eighteen hundred clanships on the four tarmacs, and two hundred fully loaded ones returning to these domes, ample targets were available.

Thad, acting as captain of the yet unnamed and recently captured clanship, had sixteen Kobani crew below, one stationed in each missile storage locker for reload duty. It seemed unlikely there would be much time to finish a full reload, but Thad wanted to get his first salvo of one hundred sixty missiles on their way before reaching orbit, and then load more. He would handle the flying, Sarge would target the missiles, and two young Kobani on the Bridge were sharing duty on the four heavy lasers and four plasma cannons, providing a combination of assault and defensive capability. The automated defense system could take control if needed, but the operators could fire on targets of opportunity in the meantime. A similar crew of twenty was placed on each of the one hundred Kobani crewed ships, plus the fifty Shadows and their single pilot on half the ships. This meant there were two thousand fifty Kobani on the planet, and most had never participated in space combat, although all had participated in raids. They all felt confident they knew what to expect.

Mind Taps are a beautiful thing, Thad thought, also for the umpteenth time.

****

The urgent sensor detection information was forwarded to Telour by a mid status aide, Demteg. She had been made the point of contact for the sixty-four clanship commanders who were tasked with finding the stealthed missiles on their sensor arrays.

“My Tor, a detection of multiple stealthed space craft is being reported by two clanships. The original detection was of a brief failure of enemy stealth, when an opening in two of their hulls took place, then the portals reclosed and they returned to full stealth. However, with a known location to use, the two commanders were able to continue to follow the ships with radio wave reflections and by a shadow effect from Telda Ka’s own planetary radiation.”

“What altitude above the planet?” Telour snapped, “How large are they? The missiles we were seeking are too small to have large portals.” He waited impatiently for her to inquire and to be answered. He anticipated the last pass of the ramming destroyers to appear at any moment, unaware they were not returning.

Demteg, despite Krall limited facial expressions, appeared surprised and confused when she addressed the Tor without using his title. “My leader, they are shaped like clanships. They say they see more than two, but only when they look down at Telda Ka, from higher than our own orbit. Two different hidden ships are close to us, and others are placed just above some of our orbiting clanships.”

Telour pounced on the discovery. “Obtain the exact sensor frequencies used and share it with our pilot and navigator, and then with the rest of the fleet. The thieves of our clanships are hidden among us.”

The pilot’s K’Tal, whose name Telour had not bothered to ask, listened and adjusted one sensor suite as Demteg repeated what she was told. In less than a minute, his eyes snapped over to look directly at Frakod, rather than to Telour or his aide.

“One ship is close behind us, another to the side.” He simply pointed through the deck and bulkheads in the physical directions. “They must know who we carry.” He obviously thought those tracking them knew the Tor Gatrol was aboard.

Frakod, as was typical for any Krall pilot, had set his Trap fields for Jump tachyons as soon as he was above a hundred fifty miles, where a planet’s gravity was weak enough that a stable tachyon Trap could be safely formed. After that, he had set his flight console to program for a quick micro Jump, assuming they might need to avoid a close pass from an incoming ramming destroyer, or to engage one of the human fleet elements if they returned. All he needed do was to tap the expanded views of the nearby volume of space, as displayed for three dimensions on his subdivided main console screen, to select a point in near space as a destination. Without hesitation or prior coordination, he almost instantly tapped a random combination of three close space coordinates, and a fourth talon tip activated the Jump.

Chapter 15: Traces of Krall Order

“Merde! He Jumped!” Captain Lebeau, of the Pride of Gaul, had been waiting for the imminent flashes of Nova missile impacts to launch his own conventional missiles at the now vanished clanship. He used Comtap. “Noreen, can you see if he did a White Out close by?” He was hoping they could pursue.

Noreen was just as frustrated. “Francois, I checked with Karl. My AI didn’t detect any White Out on this side of the planet. I’m checking with Captain Mirikami to see what Jakob saw.” She knew the Mark was almost halfway around the planet.”

Like the majority of the stolen Kobani ships, the Pride of Gaul had no AI installed, since they took time to purchase and install, and the customized flexible interface for a clanship’s control and navigation systems drew curious questions when the first ones were bought through Poldark. Buying another hundred or more would have invited serious navy scrutiny at a time when they wanted to keep a low profile. Now they needed the AIs for their ability to scan all of near space, and for monitoring multiple Krall scan and transmission frequencies.

As proof of how imminent the destruction of that clanship had been from their missiles, several brilliant flashes suddenly lit this hemisphere of K1 when the Novas struck. A subdued flash, reflected through the atmosphere from just over the horizon, proved another clanship containing probable clan leaders had ceased to exist there.

Mirikami, calling for reports, quickly confirmed that six of the specifically tracked clanships had been destroyed. Of the two targeted with conventional missiles, only one was killed, and the seventh had Jumped mere seconds before it too would have been killed.

He replied privately to Noreen. “There was a single White Out with a clanship’s mass signature that was simultaneous with the other one’s Jump. It must be the same clanship, and it’s out about three thousand miles, over the northwestern hemisphere on my side.

“Its broadcasting, all encrypted of course, but it’s using multiple standard clan frequencies. I think it must be warning them about us. He was the only one to Jump, so he may have figured out there are differently stealthed ships out here observing…” he cut off suddenly and paused what he’d been saying.

“Jakob has detected long wave active radio broadcasts coming from that clanship, and I have another one starting from a second clanship in this same hemisphere. I think they’ve found the low frequency weak point in our stealth system. Watch out, he must have detected you and the Gaul before he Jumped, just using ambient radio waves. Get away from there now! Our ships on the ground are about to lift and they’ll be launching missiles as they do. The navy does a Return Ghost in less than a minute. I need to warn them. You two move! Mirikami out.”

Noreen applied Normal Space drive acceleration at its near maximum thrust, but she couldn’t Jump yet. She needed to warn Lebeau by Comtap to get away. “Francois, run! The Krall found the radio spectrum to penetrate our stealth. Jump now! They’ll be coming for us.”

Even as the pressure shoved her deep into her acceleration couch, Karl, on automatic, fired all four plasma cannons and heavy lasers at a ragged series of White Outs that flared around them. A Jump Hole’s event horizon was powering up from the main tachyon Trap, but it required precious half second to form. Ethan, sitting across from Noreen’s command position on the Bridge, struggled to move his hand to the weapons console repeater panel on his armrest while fighting the extreme acceleration. He pressed and felt vibrations through the deck and hull that told him he’d been successful.

Through gritted teeth, as he bore down on abdominal muscles to stay conscious, he used his Comtap to inform the crew and Noreen of the missile launches. “All tubes away.”

These were the anti-ship missiles intended for the original target, but any clanship would do now.

The Avenger winked out of this Universe, but not before the light from the exploding Pride of Gaul reached her external sensors. The sight of her loss on the main screen followed Noreen into Tachyon Space, then, with a flicker of the screens, they were back in Normal Space. Karl had performed the preprogrammed micro Jump, moving them out to roughly five thousand miles from the planet and over the pole, giving them a view of the north half of K1.

Noreen backed off the acceleration almost too quickly, causing dizziness from the sudden release of strain. “Francois didn’t make it.” She was stunned by the realization.

“Karl, display the area around our previous position, main screen.”

At the velocity of light in Normal Space, the explosions were still occurring and expanding. The time of travel for that light was far less than the seconds it took her to give the order. The Avenger itself had covered that distance through Tachyon Space in a tiny fraction of even the microscopic interval that light required. Ethan’s action had made the Krall pay a price for the death of the Pride of Gaul. Of the sixty-four clanships that had appeared close around their former positions, at least four were now globes of spreading debris, and two others appeared to have suffered damage. The Krall had arrived for their ambush unprepared for missiles launched even before they had completed their White Outs. Sadly, Noreen and Ethan knew the seventh and central expanding debris field was their sister ship.

Noreen felt cold as ice as she watched those clanships micro Jump again, and appear closer to the planet, pursuing some of the other ten Kobani ships in low orbits. With the greater warning the Kobani had now, the Krall didn’t come close to catching any of them. Random White Outs appeared around the planet as the Kobani avoided the ambush attempts, and the Krall chased after them. “Karl, take us down to a two thousand mile orbit at one third max acceleration, and activate our IFF for the navy. They’ll be here in ten seconds or so.”

“Yes, Mam.”

“Good shooting Ethan. That was fast thinking. They anticipated complete surprise and never expected missile launches. Two more seconds and Francois would have gotten away as well. Those two damaged clanships were closer to his position than to ours. I think his plasma and lasers may have done that. At least I hope so.”

“I do too Captain.” He wasn’t looking for any credit. He hoped his friends in the Gaul’s missile rooms hadn’t suffered. Violent explosions like that probably meant they had not.

Karl drew their attention to a glow forming on the planet below in a small region. “The area surrounding the four Tanga clan domes has started to blaze.”

****

Sarge was buoyant with glee. “Man we caught them with their missiles around their ankles. I think all their sensors were focused on the flashes from orbit, where they figured their next threats would come from. I haven’t seen a single missile launch from any of them.”

Their ship had completed its third ninety-degree rotation as it fired their third salvo of missiles, at what Thad had just referred to as “sitting ducks.” They were over three miles up and not really accelerating hard. There had been ample enemy laser fire and some from the slower cycling heavy plasma batteries, which had scored thousands of hits on the roughly twelve thousand combined anti-ship missiles the Kobani fleet had launched thus far. Few shots were aimed at the Kobani clanships. It appeared that the Krall automatic defense systems considered the rising clanships to be “friendly,” and only targeted the incoming missiles. Those were launched from such short range and in such numbers that nearly a third of the first salvo lived to reach their nearest targets. After that, the huge volume of flames and smoke made hitting incoming missiles difficult when they suddenly broke through flames and billowing black smoke, nearly on top of the stationary clanships.

Even the clanships descending to land, as Telour had ordered them to do, were focused on the action above them, as they received the radioed information from Telour that superbly stealthed enemy ships had been hiding among them in orbit. Their experienced sensor system K’Tals were setting portions of their own clanship quantum level controlled skins for emitting the long wave radio signals they were told could reveal the stealthed human craft via low definition reflections. The detail in the images would be poor at these long wave frequencies, and their anti-ship missiles might not even be able to track them on that frequency.

The first report from one of Telour’s aides said one stealthed ship had been killed, and that not very many of them had been detected so far, perhaps only two or three hands of such ships. The one that escaped the ambush, via an in-system micro Jump, had a gamma ray signature virtually identical to any clanship. Clearly, these were clanships, which had been stolen by humans. How that was done, bypassing their quantum locks, Telour had no clue.

With so few of them found here, it might be possible to fill the volume of space around one of them with concentrated plasma and laser fire from a hundred clanships, as had just happened. Eventually that would burn through portions of the stealth coating and reveal the enemy for missile tracking, if energy beams were not enough.

Weapons sensors were all set to scan the space above the landing clanships, so they were not looking behind, other than the pilot visually watching for an empty landing spot, which was the typical Krall pilot procedure. They assumed the perfectly visible clanships rising towards them from below were going after the enemy. They were correct, except for whom those ships considered the enemy. Missiles and plasma bolts into main thruster nozzles belatedly proved the fallacy of their assumptions.

The one hundred Kobani ships quickly accounted for over seven hundred enemy ships before the few hundred clanships still surviving on the ground switched from automatic to manual weapons control, and radioed to the hundreds of descending craft that the enemy was also below them. Many of the descending ships were deviating to other domes for landing, and they had a better perspective of what happened at Tanga’s domes. They observed what appeared to be clanships firing on clanships, and there was no easy way from long range to prevent their own anti-ship missiles from switching to a friendly target after launch, assuming they even knew which clanships belonged to the enemy. The Krall had never needed the human type IFF systems against any enemy, because no former enemy could operate Krall equipment. Of course, the clans never fought interclan space wars, since that negated individual warrior ability for selective breeding.

Having finally found a truly worthy and flexible enemy, they were not exactly what the Krall had expected.

Another advantage the Kobani ships had today was that although they were using reaction thrusters for launching from Tanga domes, it was merely part of their masquerade as typical clanship activity. They had retained tachyons in their primary and secondary Trap fields, caught while still in space, to power their energy hungry Normal Space drives. That drive power use, when activated, came at the expense of power for energy beam weapons. If you were going to use missiles as your primary weapons initially, it didn’t matter as much.

They didn’t start out using Normal Space drive because that wasn’t the standard Krall method of operation. Polluting the atmosphere of a world didn’t matter to them as much as always having energy beam weapons at full power. When return plasma and laser fire started to increase from clanships that switched to manual fire, something the Kobani had expected to happen sooner, they kicked in their Normal Space drives to vectored their ships sideways and away from the domes, as they simultaneously cut their more easily followed thruster generated ion trails. The Kobani ships fired the final quarter of their original load of missiles at any targets of opportunity.

The clock controlled when the Kobani activated their IFF systems, and they switched them on five seconds before 0835 HST, the scheduled time for the Return Ghost of the navy. Since they had now been identified by the Krall as enemies anyway, they spread laterally through the atmosphere, safe from potential navy fire, and they looked for more targets to hit. They skipped past a few small clan domes that were already on fire, some blasted mining sites and transport lines, and saw fences blown open around Raspani herds that clearly had just been hit, releasing them. Obviously, the Shadow fighters had already been here, spreading their own form of holiday cheer to the Krall.

Right on schedule, the navy suddenly reappeared in the same five disc formations, over K1 at three thousand miles this time, stealth active, and each formation arrived with lateral motion, with a Normal Space drive thrust vector accelerating them at right angles away from the point where each had emerged. With no reaction mass trail to see, their sideways motion wasn’t immediately obvious from a distance. The poor resolution via low frequency radio waves wasn’t definitive, and impatient warriors wouldn’t wait anyway.

This had been Mauss’ recommendation, relayed through Mirikami, to throw off Krall suicide targeting. The five task forces emerged in huge bursts of gamma rays, which showed they clearly held the same disc formations as before. Not so obvious was that they were already moving and accelerating away from the entry coordinates. They had just learned that the Krall had discovered the Achilles heel of their new stealth system, and were testing its limits. Despite that, in visible and infrared frequencies they were still invisible to Krall vision, which suicide pilots used at short range, and they would only be weakly outlined on Krall sensors in long wave radio frequencies. They knew this was so because the Kobani ships also had Krall type sensors, and they had previously verified the low quality of Krall detection ability if their newer stealth was penetrated.

In their previous appearance, the navy had all been oriented nose down, moving for a time at the exact same velocity as the target points on the planet below them were moving. That wasn’t a stable orbit, but they had not planned to be there very long. They had stayed in that relationship while they fired several salvoes of missiles, then Jumped. This time, they were essentially drawing flies and scouting before Jumping.

The flies in this case were sporadic suicide clanship Jumps into their presumed formations, which would have to be random exits by the Krall because they couldn’t see their targets by eye. Missile launches would be less effective, if they even tracked targets at all. Likewise, energy weapons would have poor target resolution because of the long wave lengths needed to find the enemy ships. They couldn’t specifically target a ship’s hull mounted laser and plasma pods until they made a visible flash when they fired. All they would detect is the general outline of the ship, and they would see the size scale. The older and larger ships would draw the most attention.

This time, the navy expected to draw crowds quickly, because Mauss (based on Mirikami’s assurances) believed the Krall would be in a near berserker’s rage to hit back, and they had more ships above the safe Jump Hole creation altitude. This had been part of the planning, to use the Krall’s volatility and rage against them. They had suffered grievous losses compared to the humans today, unable to hit back effectively. Now the enemy was back to taunt them. Apparently sitting in the same vulnerable and hard to defend flat disc formations, and presumably coasting over their ground targets.

Clanships promptly started winking out as they entered event horizons from all around K1, and nearly simultaneously, dozens of White Outs appeared right where a disk formation had just been detected as it emerged. No brilliant flashes, from random and lucky intersections with enemy ships occurred at any of the five locations. The pilots and K’Tals quickly used the new scanner settings, but didn’t find the enemy surrounding them as they expected.

It was easy enough to spot the direction in which the enemy formations had just moved, and they were still close. They fired a number of anti-ship missiles their way just for effect, and a barrage of plasma bolts and laser beams lanced out at the target outlines, as the clanships applied their own considerably higher accelerations to close with the navy craft.

Mysteriously, a hand or more of the clanships erupted in flames as they pursued each formation. They discovered the hard way that the cursed navy craft had left stealthed metal seeking proximity mines in their wake as they’d moved away. The three or four minor hull strikes the random Krall energy weapons caused in two enemy formations were obviously non-fatal for those individual human ships, and it only damaged their stealth capability in a single hull section, concealed when the ships rotated to present undamaged hull surfaces to the enemy giving chase. Those skin scratches were hardly a cause for celebration, particularly when on cue, every human ship winked out again as they Jumped together.

Safely back in Tachyon Space, Chatsworth reviewed the images the ships of her five formations had relayed to her in the four minutes they were in Normal Space. The clanships that had reached orbit were more widely dispersed now, thanks to the D-Rams spreading them out earlier. There was a spreading debris field at roughly a five hundred miles altitude, which were impressive in density, but didn’t wrap around the planet as of yet. The Krall had been staying mostly clear of that stratum of low orbits, passing through them quickly to reduce exposure time to collisions with debris. She noted there were hundreds of balls of fire spaced around the four domes she had been told belonged to Tanga clan, where the Kobani had landed. Obviously, they had started shooting on schedule. There also were multiple streaks of falling flames well above those same domes, as testaments of additional airborne destruction. She saw the IFF signals of the Kobani ships, and noted they were now well clear of the fat targets of those four domes and moving farther away rapidly.

One extended volume of space that was presently clear of the clusters of low orbital debris was over those four domes, since the initial clanship and D-Ram wreckage had moved on in their two different orbits. This was an equatorial orbit for clanships and polar orbits for the D-Ram fragments, with some scatter in between. It would be perhaps ninety or more minutes before the first of it returned to this location, when the debris field finished its first full orbit. She wanted those four Tanga clan domes as targets for Task Force 1, which included her flagship the Sword. Rank hath privileges.

Based on current Krall clanship clustering, and other debris patterns, there were two other more or less vacant lower orbitals where two of her task forces could also briefly appear, launch missiles at those domes then Jump. There were only a few dozen clanships parked near any of the domes to provide missile protection. She made her selections, informed the commander of Task Force 1, who also happened to be captain of her flagship, Captain Boise, and decided on assignments for the two other task force commanders deciding which domes would be their targets.

Her selections for the other two commanders were based solely on the damage to ships two of her groups had just received, as reported by the AIs on those ships, rendering their stealth vulnerable, and thus that of the entire Task Force until they were pulled out of formation. She would isolate those damaged ships later, when she had more time, but not now.

She used her personal Comtap specialist to pass her orders to Mirikami for relay, to ensure coordination went to ships in or out of Tachyon Space.

****

Telour had calmed his rage. The battle had become more personal, now that he believed the attack on the seven clanships that had escaped the council dome was intended specifically to kill him. Not that the enemy knew which of those ships he was in, or even for certain that he had escaped in any of them. He nearly had not escaped the dome’s destruction. Logically, a clever human enemy might expect the top leader of the Krall war effort to have instant resources available, and would be a more intelligent and responsive leader than average. That’s what his ego told him, and in this case, he was correct.

A Tor Gatrol would logically be at the council dome when an invasion fleet was being prepared, so the humans tried to take out the dome early in the attack. Then they tried again to attack escaped clanships in orbit, in case he had been in any of the seven clanships that avoided the destruction. The human’s artificial minds in their craft had obviously been able to track those ships, and then they struck at them again.

Just as when he’d engaged in death match challenges in his past, he was now calm and rational. As a young warrior, he’d provoke his opponent into rash moves, and try to anticipate, based on observing his challenger’s reactions, what he might do if presented with a potential advantage. Then make that seeming advantage appear for them.

The New Glasgow invasion was effectively ended for now, but that had never been his plan. It was a carryover from Kanpardi, which he’d been unable to deflect from the minds of the now dead Joint Council. His personal need now was to find a way to punish the human fleet enough that he could drive them away. If they were a Krall force, they might fight to the very last ship, to inflict so much damage on Telda Ka that no invasion could happen anywhere. Except, humans seldom fought that way unless trapped. They didn’t know he had little interest in the invasion, but he was certainly interested in preserving his status, and maintaining his ability to punish this enemy greater than even he had originally considered necessary. He would use his lack of interest in preserving the invasion force to drive them away. That was his immediate goal for today.

When the Olt’kitapi living ship arrived, his new and greater goal would soon be realized. Humanity would lose more than the two heavily populated Hub worlds he’d first intended. They would lose something more important to them as a species. They would get to watch as a steady path of destruction was laid, leading directly and inexorably to Earth.

When he received reports that a hundred clanships had launched from the outskirts of the four Tanga clan domes, and they were firing on the loaded craft on the tarmacs, he combined this with the knowledge of the stealthed ships they had discovered in orbit. The extra clanships he’d thought were from some clan that wanted Tanga clan to look bad, were infiltrators, arriving right under their muzzles with the rest of the fleet, using the mass arrivals as cover.

Somehow, probably weeks ago, they had landed small forces of their troopers in that new stealthed armor, going to the domes where unguarded equipment was stored in the open. That was when they planted some sort of device on many of them. Then they departed to wait for another invasion to be planned. Another invasion would be the only reasonable purpose of having so much war material stockpiled on Telda Ka. Kanpardi had ordered this build up, and the humans noticed and understood what it meant. Telour decided he could lay the blame on the dead Tor for the sabotage.

From what Frakod had passed along to him concerning the investigation of the explosions, the internal explosions on clanships were probably caused by fusion bottle ruptures. None of the clanships loaded with only warriors, rations, or small arms were destroyed when the detonation signal was sent. There had been mini-tanks and plasma cannons loaded in multiples, on clanships that carried such equipment. That meant three or four fusion bottles may have ruptured at the same time, on multiple decks, assuring destruction from the plasma released. Fewer of the heavy transports were loaded per ship, so every fifth one of those was sabotaged, with the same result.

Today, humans had sent their stolen clanships back to K1 with the recall of the invasion fleet. That was where the extra clanships at Tanga domes came from. He didn’t understand how they had obtained so many of them, but he couldn’t deny the evidence. The good news was that except for a new type of stealth, which could now be circumvented, he was unaware of any other new technology that was being used to conduct this attack.

He hadn’t deduced the existence of Comtaps, of course, but that was something more subtle than an obvious combat advantage like stealth. Few Krall would consider undetectable communications to be worth any more than encrypted signals were, and not as valuable as a weapon in their hands.

Telour watched, without taking other than standard offensive actions, as the five navy formations returned briefly, then Jumped away again. He considered afterwards what the humans had gained from such brief appearances. Besides the small number of clanships that hit mines when they chased after them, that is. Those were flown by what were likely berserker pilots and commanders, obeying the edict to kill and die for Path and Clan.

This was per his earlier instructions, but he might use that now in a controlled way, to gain an advantage by channeling the senseless rage.

Using his battle space sense to view the disposition of his forces on and above the planet, he considered what the humans would think was vulnerable and worth destruction. As he did this, he saw openings in the defense of the planet, which offered an opportunity for an enemy that considered property valuable.

In this case, the Tanga clan domes still stood, some of the equipment was still parked there, and Tanga’s few dozen surviving parked clanships were collectively worth little to Telour if there would be no new invasion. He obviously didn’t factor in the lives of Tanga warriors and sub leaders in the domes and clanships, and certainly not that of the Prada in the underground factories. No Krall of any rival clan would have done that either, in Telour’s position. The notion passed through his mind that Kanpardi might have thought differently, but he brushed it away. That was why Kanpardi was dead and Telour was in charge.

If Tanga were further crippled and greatly reduced in status today, they would not rise to be his or Graka clan’s rival for at least a full breeding cycle, if ever again. Humans had just become a tool for gaining clan supremacy for him, and he would break that tool after it was used.

He issued his instructions to the various clanships, told them where to move and where to be prepared to go next, and to wait for his signal to attack. He knew it would come soon, while he held the window of false opportunity open for them.

****

“Well, she’ll have her selected targets in her virtual gun sights in a minute.” Mirikami had just transmitted Chatsworth’s orders to her Task Force commanders. Three of them would White Out together at the set time. Mirikami pulled at his lip, a slight frown showing.

Mauss hadn’t said anything either, but Maggi had seen her lips tighten as Tet had told her what Chatsworth had planned. From Tet’s description of the plan, Maggi thought he sounded less than enthusiastic, and his frown and lip tug proved that was so.

She asked of no one in particular, “How long will it take to wipe out those domes? The factories under the Tanga domes are filled with Prada. I hate to see them hurt, even if these workers still consider the Krall the Lords of the Universe, and they work tirelessly for them.”

Mauss fielded the open question. “It isn’t just killing Prada that bothers me, although so many of them are now our allies and that’s regretful. Wars have killed far more innocent civilians than these willing enemy workers. For me, the problem is the tactic, where three of our task forces continue hitting at various surface targets until the Krall respond strongly, and then they’ll Jump, when the Fleet Admiral orders them to do so.

“The other two navy appearances were deliberate hit and run operations, slated for an exit time chosen before they ever entered Normal Space. The Krall weren’t ready for us the first time, the second time, fifteen minutes ago, was a simple scouting mission, staged partly to see the situation, and to draw the Krall up after them into higher orbits. I don’t think this next extended exposure is safe, especially after we’ve inflicted massive damages with few losses. The Krall will not sit back and wait to see if they’ll Jump away again so quickly.”

Mirikami nodded. “I didn’t want to overstep my bounds here, admiral, so I held back my opinion. I’m relieved to see you share my misgivings. I don’t know who the highest status Krall leader now in charge at K1 is, but they’re proving flexible and decisive. When that seventh clanship figured out we were stalking it while stealthed, they made good their escape and reacted instantly to counter the threat with overwhelming force. A sub leader probably couldn’t command that level of response.

“I believe that clanship held a ranking clan leader, or someone of even higher status, and they instantly sent a mob of clanships that killed the Pride of Gaul, and nearly got the Avenger. That clanship then made a series of random Jumps, along with other clanships doing the same thing in the system, so we couldn’t know which one of them holds that leader. Rather a clever and subtle move for the normally brash Krall belligerence of here I am, come get me if you dare.”

“Is it Telour, you think?” Maggi asked. “He wasn’t a very cautious warrior the last we saw him, and he was bold and brash enough to probably have killed Kanpardi to get the high status position he wanted. That assumes he did get it, since we don’t know what the council vote was.”

Mirikami shrugged. “He’s had half a Krall lifetime to learn new tricks, and if he achieved what he wanted, selected as the Tor Gatrol, he’d have no higher ambition than to hold onto that high status, the top three-name rank that the Krall recognize. That might mean staying alive to enjoy his power. He might be a bit more cautious with his own skin now. He would damn well sacrifice anything to keep that status, and that worries me. I don’t see any offensive or defensive moves under way right now, and they know we haven’t left. They’re waiting.”

“For what?’ Mauss asked.

“I fear we’ll find out.” Mirikami responded.

****

Telour was worried, although he projected complete confidence. He might only have one chance to make this human style trick work. “Do the pilots all have the highest energy tachyons they can capture in their secondary Traps?”

His aide extended his left arm, talons out, in a respectful salute. “They report they are ready my Tor. The enemy would need to act even more the frightened cowards than they have today, if they are to evade your ambush. It is good you attack them with an honorable assault for Path and Clan. Their losses may match ours if they think they are safe and take the bait.”

With a disdainful snarl, Telour dismissed his aide’s overly optimistic prediction, and he saw little difference between what he planned and what humans often did. “With the sacrifice of these three hundred clanships and their brave pilots, our fleet will have been reduced by over one half today. Killing every ship the human navy brought here would not equal what they have cost us. If these warriors succeed, they will forever live in our histories as the greatest that have ever been asked to die for Path and Clan.” He didn’t mention that the Tor that set this trap would rise even higher in status.

He asked a superficial question, intended merely to demonstrate that he was a leader of all of the Krall. “Their seed or eggs are well protected?” That was a crucial element, to make this act acceptable to the new Joint Council, whenever that was reformed.

“My Tor, we had many more volunteers than you requested, and we accepted only those warriors that said their future hatchlings were already assured if they fell in combat. This act will elevate their status greatly.”

“Good. The excess warriors were transferred to different clanships?”

“Not for a few hands of Tanga clanships. Some of their warriors refused to leave. They know they have lost more than any other clan has today, and that their domes are predicted by you to be a primary human target.”

Telour was personally indifferent to Tanga losses, but said loudly enough that he would be heard by others, “Add their names to the list for Tanga clan to honor.” If Tanga clan recovered enough status, they could preserve any of their bloodlines they wanted.

Now he had to wait for the slow to act humans to make their move. He had pulled more ships into higher orbits, closer to the three thousand mile range where the humans had last appeared. This left even more tempting gaps below at three hundred miles, particularly above the three sets of domes where waiting war material was still parked, and there were only a few clanships near them for defense against missiles. There were factories below the four Tanga domes, and one below a Maldo dome. He had divided the clanship volunteers into three units of one hundred each, or sixty-four in the human system, and told them how he wanted them to distribute their attacks, and select their possible intersect points early.

It was a shorter wait than he expected. Three of the same disc shaped formations of two hundred ships each, suddenly burst into existence, almost exactly where Telour had predicted, over the most vulnerable domes.

As on their very first White Out, the navy ships emerged shooting. At three hundred miles, plasma cannon bolts were effective through the partly clear skies, although their lasers were more diffused and attenuated. Their heavy ground target missiles were on their way, providing their own navigation, but the navy’s energy beams were trying to knock out weapons ports on the parked clanships, which were fighting back with everything they had to save the domes. The navy’s energy beams were taking a toll, and the defenders were steadily losing some of their defensive weapons ports. The enemy ships were so near at only three hundred miles, and firing so frequently, that the defenders could sight their weapons by eye at the nearly stationary stealthed enemy on their zoomed visual light sensitive screens. The enemy was obviously using Normal Space drives to stay directly above their targets on the rotating planet, prepared to maximize the destruction of Krall productivity on K1.

As Telour had directed, any clanship within sight of the three task force formations fired plasma bolts and lasers at their general stealthed locations, but they were shooting down from a thousand mile range or greater, and having relatively little effect. This time, they didn’t dive at the enemy, or jump inward. There appeared to be a fierce firefight underway, which wasn’t actually hurting the navy ships much. The navy didn’t Jump away, as Telour had worried they might do if hit too hard too soon. He needed them overconfident a bit longer.

Mirikami and Mauss watched for less than a minute before they realized the lack of a prompt closing attack meant this was a trap. Mauss started to speak even as Mirikami sent a warning via Comtap. “Get out, it’s a trap. They were waiting for you, setting you up.” This time, even instant communications couldn’t be relayed quickly enough to the sole decision maker, Fleet Admiral Chatsworth.

Telour, confident that the three flights of clanship volunteers had time to select target areas spaced properly around the three disc formations, he sent the command to attack.

“For Path and Clan, kill the enemy now.”

Using the lower power level tachyons in their primary traps, three sets of sixty-four clanships (three hundred in the Krall number system) performed micro Jumps into the human formations, arriving there within a minute of the appearance of the enemy. There were actually two direct intersects from the three thousand mile Jumps, as evidenced by the blue-white flashes of incandescence that blasted vaporized material from the location of two battleships near the center of two different formations.

Those two hits were surely not accidents by the pilots that had selected those targets, but the other White Outs were definitely closer to the distribution Telour had planned. A hundred ninety event horizons were formed by the surviving clanships that had suddenly appeared within the navy formations. Each Jump Hole, nearly five miles in diameter, formed gigantic and massive event horizons, entirely enclosing any nearby human ships, and slicing through the hulls of any ships at the periphery.

The Krall had been told to space their Jump destinations evenly throughout each of the compact two hundred ship formations. The huge energy level tachyons they had tuned their Traps for had waited to capture the mass-energy equivalents of small stars, which were normally of little benefit for Jumps, and took an excessive time to capture if you were in a hurry. In this case, the huge Jump Holes, obeying the laws of physics employed, instantly rotated the volume contained within their horizons into Tachyon Space. They naturally took along the clanships that made them, and pulled with them the human ships, or the portions of them that had been netted.

Once inside Tachyon Space, the Krall pilots quickly cut the power to their Trap fields, permitting them to open. When the matter from our Universe lost its closed curves of protection from the event horizon, the energy equivalent of their mass, obeying different laws of physics here, was instantly converted into various energy level tachyons. Those all raced away at huge multiples of the velocity of light, leaving enormous wakes of energy spreading away from those coordinates in the geometry of Tachyon Space.

Remote and advanced civilizations instantly noted what appeared to be a signal for a smaller than normal hypernovae, which consisted of multiple energy bursts. Most unusual, and it hardly seemed natural.

Fifty-three percent of the six hundred navy ships either vanished outright, or were sheared open to the vacuum of space in an instant. Two hundred ninety four of them were simply gone, over twenty nine thousand six hundred lives lost. Forty-four ships were sliced open to various degrees, and the untouched two hundred sixty-two surviving but stunned heavy cruisers crews, all positioned near the edges of the discs, found the number of survivors was divided relatively evenly between the three formations. Eighty-six heavy cruisers in one, ninety-two for another, and eighty-four in the third.

The largest capitols ships, all placed near the formation centers, had been the preferred targets by a number of status conscious Krall, and were selected more often. This was despite Telour’s target area assignments to his pilots, because he intended to spread their exit points more evenly. Had they listened to him, they might have destroyed up to seventy five percent of the three task forces, instead of producing an overkill zone near the centers of each enemy formation.

Maggi, on realizing what had happened, sucked in her breath, followed by a painful slow groan. Roughly three hundred of those just lost would be Kobani. She knew she had met, if only briefly, all of them at the earlier briefings, coming mostly from spec ops ranks. There would be others gone she had known for over twenty years. Perhaps some she may have played with when they were children in Prime City.

The surviving cruisers regrouped and moved to recover crews from damaged ships if they could, and since there were more rescuers than there were victim ships, most stood by to defend the others, prepared to Jump away from the conventional onslaught they expected next. Initially the task of reorganizing was slowed by the loss of the Fleet Admiral, and of the three Task Force commanders and all of their respective staffs. Unlike the Krall who acted more independently, humans in the military sought to restore a chain of command.

Mauss and Mirikami, in different measures and by unspoken agreement, stepped in to fill that need, taking action to save what they could and to try to hold the Krall at bay.

****

Mirikami knew, from a quick sensor assessment, that there were a combined 841 human fighting assets remaining at K1, if he included the Shadows. That was pitted against approximately one thousand eight hundred clanships, where perhaps a third of those clanships were hampered by being heavily loaded with equipment and thus lacking maneuvering ability, and were sitting on K1. They probably had inadequate crews for full missile reloads, and most had already fired what had been in their racks.

Telour was making a similar assessment, although his count of human ships was less certain. He wasn’t sure how many stolen clanships were in the system, and he didn’t know about the Shadows. Many of his clanships were still sitting on the ground, where they’d been ordered to stay, and others had returned there. That left Telour with roughly twelve hundred normal performance capable clanships currently off planet. Although he realized many were carrying high numbers of warriors, who could contribute nothing to a fight unless a boarding opportunity presented itself.

He badly wanted the other five hundred twelve clanships from New Dublin, slated to arrive in nearly three days, but this fight wouldn’t last more than another hour he estimated, before the navy would retreat. He had many thousands of single ships, but those had mostly been docked internally for transport, and the clanships that carried them also had heavy equipment loads that prevented access. They were on the ground anyway, and there were few warriors aboard to fly them. Besides, they were too light to take on the new generation of human heavy cruisers, and the PU navy had stopped using the lightweight unarmored destroyers, except as rams. He’d had no reports yet of the Shadow fighter strikes on Telda Ka. Even if he knew there were fifty of them down there, he’d not be very concerned. A planet was a big place for so few to threaten.

He expected to win now with what he had, of course, even if the humans found backbone enough to stay here and fight to the end. He was convinced the navy wanted to pull out, but he needed to keep them here longer, to reduce their numbers further.

His trackers would pursue the enemy when they finally departed. There had been very serious losses suffered by the Great and Major clans, and he wanted to give them a chance at direct revenge in Human Space, on the shipyards and worlds where the navy had forged these ships. Those yards were targets that they would never neglect again.

The Olt’kitapi ship would be used for his personal revenge, under the guise that it was being done for all the Krall. The clans would benefit and appreciate the punishment, but it was mainly damage to Telour’s status that he wanted restored. Killing as many billions of human as he could.

Telour thought of one way he might keep the navy here longer. They were dedicated to picking up their survivors, something the Krall wouldn’t do until a battle was over. He had clanships in orbit, loaded with warriors. He could send those warriors in to try to board the crippled ships, or board the ones motionless next to them, poised to receive their clan mates from the damaged ships. Slowing the rescues would allow time for greater attrition of their ships, he believed.

****

Mauss had Mirikami bring the other two Task Forces out into Normal Space at a range of fifteen thousand miles, well clear of the fighting so she could speak to them directly. Their Comtap Kobani on each ship had already informed the captains of the disaster. She told the two remaining Task Force commanders that there was no longer an advantage or realistic opportunity to attack ground targets. She wanted them to help the Kobani ships defend the task force ships rescuing their comrades, to draw away the attackers that were moving in, then Jump clear locally, when that was done.

She pointed out that the missiles previously fired by the three now splintered task Forces had pounded Tanga, Dorbo, and Maldo domes to rubble. The more deeply penetrating missiles designed to target the factories were never launched. Mauss told them the domes were the final offensive actions they would take today. Defense and force extraction had become the priority goals.

Mirikami had one hundred ten Kobani ships, counting the Mark, and fifty shadow fighters he could send against clanships. As with Mauss, domes and infrastructure was off the target list now. By use of a group Comtap link, and a Kobani Mind Tap mental linkage he simultaneously and rapidly directed his forces in a brief but complex message.

He sent the fifty Shadows against hundreds of clanships still on the ground, to try to prevent any of them from lifting to attack navy ships involved in low orbit rescues. He provided images of the dozens of domes where they’d find them parked, and they’d have to fly sub orbital to reach some of them quickly. Those were sitting targets that a space plane could hit quickly and perhaps without warning, coming in low from behind a dome or hilly terrain. A lightly armored Shadow was no match for a clanship’s firepower, and if the enemy was airborne or in space they were too risky to approach. However, their railguns and tungsten carbide coated depleted uranium slugs could crack a main thruster nozzle. If that happened, the clanship would be grounded, and subject to later destruction or capture by a Kobani ship.

Of his one hundred large ships roving through K1’s atmosphere, Mirikami split them into three groups, to rise and engage any clanship moving towards the heavy cruisers engaged in rescue operations for the stricken task forces. Jumping in above the rescue operation would be the other navy task force ships, forming a milling shield of hard to pinpoint targets for suicide minded clanships pilots.

Mirikami asked Mauss to pass along to the navy that they wouldn’t have to hold off the Krall very long, that his Comtap people were helping the rescues go faster. He told her Kobani had taken the lead in the evacuations on most of the crippled ships, and they were transferring personnel to rescue ships faster by throwing them across the gap towards open holds. Mauss looked at him a moment, shrugged and passed the word.

****

Quick crew rescues from the disabled ships was imperative, and not only because of the Krall coming in after them. The three attacking formations had been synchronized so as to White Out with a Normal Space velocity matching K1’s rotation, which kept them directly above their designated ground targets. This wasn’t required when they launched self-guided AI controlled rockets, but it was ideal when they fired energy weapons to defend those missiles. They could accurately shoot down counter missiles launched from the surface, and were able to target specific laser and plasma cannon ports on the defending clanships parked near the domes. At least that was true until the splats hit the three fans.

That low velocity tactic now worked against the rescuers of the crews on ships left without any power for drives or thruster control. The Trap emitters on the missing hull segments had dumped their tachyons even faster than the explosive decompression vented atmosphere. They had limited fusion bottle power, and no thrust or gravity control.

Their velocity was far below that required to remain in orbit. Each formation, from the moment of White Out, had been “falling” towards their targets from an altitude below three hundred miles, but drifting along laterally with the planetary rotation. They had certainly intended to Jump away long before they touched the first fringes of atmosphere, and in fact would have done so before penetrating the gravity well so deep that a Jump Hole might be unstable. Therefore, a freefall state hadn’t mattered to them then. Now it did, and they were running out of time.

The surviving crews of the damaged ships were enclosed in their pressurized acceleration suits, but the suits were clamped in place and filled with jell in the event high accelerations were applied. Many of the crewmembers would step into a vacuum if they opened the seals now. In hindsight, wearing soft suits for a vacuum exit sounded brilliant, despite the soupy jell that filled the larger suits. For crew in pressure, the viscous fluid was being pumped into its holding tanks, using suit battery power, but the lack of gravity made the task progress slowly and incompletely.

On ships where the Comtap specialists had survived, their armor had sealed like a space suit, and they immediately raced around the crippled ships, releasing the clamps on the acceleration suits of the crew they found in vacuum, informing the men and women via contact audio, helmet to helmet, what was happening. The released suits were then towed, weightless, to convenient places where they hoped to meet with rescuers, said to be on the way.

There were sizable sections of the hulls missing on these ships, along with sections of the compartments once inside that hull. Tragically, partial acceleration suits were encountered with no purpose to be served by looking inside or opening them. There was only time for the living.

Some places where the Kobani secured the big suits were near the cut edge of a deck, open to space and in freefall. That seemed precarious to the helpless navy personnel, but they were assured this would be faster for getting them off the ship. Frequently, internal compartments had sealed automatically, and the Kobani simply allowed those people to climb out and don their soft suits stored close by. They weren’t given time to wash or even scrape at the jell clinging to their skin and body suits. Once in soft suits, they helped move other acceleration suits caught in vacuum to the rescue spots selected by the Kobani.

When a heavy cruiser approached to take on survivors, the Kobani always disdained the slow process of sending over lines for a secure transfer. In every case, they instructed the other ship to come close and open their main hanger bays, then hold their position. The experience of Captain Longstreet’s team in getting back inside a heavy cruiser over Poldark was now a form of entertainment, shared between Mind Tappers.

The Kobani would hoist an acceleration suit to their shoulder, brace their feet against a bulkhead or deck plate, and look across the gap to the other ship. The heavy suits were weightless but still had considerable mass and contained extremely apprehensive people. With casual ease, the suits were tossed with considerable speed and unerring accuracy at an opened hatch. The suits traveled about two hundred feet, with a stabilizing spin imparted before release, which kept the suits oriented feet first, with the passenger unable to see their destination. They all passed through dead center of the open hanger bays of the rescue ships.

The most frightening moment for them came when artificial gravity suddenly dropped the now dizzy occupant to the deck, and they skidded across the hanger. Once inside, they were dragged clear by a waiting navy crewmember in a soft suit that quickly shoved them against a bulkhead in the airless compartment. They had to hurry, because two more survivors would already be on their spinning way. The survivor recovery went considerably faster than the navy had anticipated, or could have managed using standard rescue procedures. The last person to leave each drifting ship was a Kobani, usually carrying someone with them.

The men and women on the damaged ships focused on saving themselves, as did the people who worked to rescue them. They were seldom aware of what was happening that permitted the operations to proceed so smoothly and rapidly. This happened at a cost.

****

Before the two other task forces could engage the Krall from the high orbit side, Mirikami and the nine Kobani ships that had been in orbit Jumped to join the other defenders of the rescue operations. He split them up to send three ships to two of the groups, and Mirikami joined the three Kobani ships that reinforced the remnants of Task Force 1, the one where Chatsworth’s flagship had been a member. TF 1 had been hit hardest, with only eighty-two survivors, and that group had the highest number of damaged ships to be evacuated.

Obviously, a navy force attacking from low orbit above the Tanga domes had been expected by the Krall, and this particular formation had received the most well prepared counterattack. Mirikami’s instant thought as he looked at his screens when the Mark completed its White Out, was that he had somehow beaten the Krall to this position. Except, the Krall had known what was about to happen, and should have been ready to pounce on the weakened and disoriented enemy. That only meant they expected other human ships to rush in to rescue their comrades. There was zero possibility they were being indecisive. They wanted more of the human ships in the same three regions before they struck again.

Mirikami leaned over to touch Mauss’ hand to get her attention, and for the first time used Mind Tap to save time, using full emotional content and images for clarity, to support his mental words.

“Admiral, the Krall are holding back to let the rest of the fleet come to the rescue. Keep the other Task Forces above a thousand miles and fire anti-ship missiles at all three groups as soon as possible. Every friendly ship has IFF active, and you’ll only hit their clanships. They want you clustered tightly down here, to pick enough of you off until you’re forced to Jump, leaving the stranded crews behind. They won’t find it so easy to fight my people, who will Jump here in a minute or two.”

The admiral’s eyes widened when he started, but her nod and a shrewd expression told him she had suspected the Kobani had more capability than they were openly advertising. Fast on the uptake, instead of speaking she thought back, “Let me change my orders. Good luck. We need you people to get out of this damn mess quicker.”

She turned away to amend her orders to Task Forces 3 and 4, now telling them to shorten their Jumps, to stand off above the debris fields and fire down on the Krall from there.

Using Comtap, Mirikami didn’t need to touch Maggi’s hand, and the exchange went far faster with another Kobani. He gave her his plan, for her to share with the two Kobani groups that were racing to support the other two rescue missions. Even with rapid thought processes, two minds working together shaved seconds off the effort.

He was going to organize his people, and give the Krall a taste of what micro Jumps could really do when done by a Kobani in a space dogfight. He’d sent Noreen to run the defense of the remnants of Task Force 2, and Marlyn to Task Force 5.

They were his most experienced captains, participants in multiple fights against clanships. Despite Mind Taps, those with live experience in combat had a slight edge in reaction times, and displayed a superior ability to find new solution for old or new problems.

Thad was captain of an unnamed ship joining Mirikami, Dillon would be with Noreen’s group, and Carson’s ship would join Marlyn. He considered them innovative thinkers, and they would complement the abilities of the flight leaders. He expected to lean on Thad more that he might otherwise, because the Mark of Koban, which Mirikami hadn’t expected to be in the thick of a fight, was handicapped by the need to protect Mauss.

“Golda, I hate to do this to you, getting covered in that mess of jell, but please step into the acceleration suit next to you as quickly as possible. I’ll link Jakob to your com system so you can direct the task forces. The maneuvers will get violent for a Normal.” What he didn’t say was that without her aboard they would be highly stressful for a Kobani, and fatal for a Normal like her.

The surviving heavy cruisers of the three task forces formed themselves into a milling constantly moving globe of AI controlled movement, a sphere surrounding the downward drifting disabled ships. They made frequent random course shifts and velocity changes as Mauss directed their AIs to copy those used in Operation New Lance. This would help avoid making predictable targets for enemy intersecting Jumps, with navy weapons kept on automatic and AI controlled. They maintained at least five miles between ships most of the time. That was expected to discourage other Jump and grab attacks that might catch two or more navy ships at once. Mauss didn’t think the Krall leader really wanted to trade ship for ship anymore, not with the losses they had already suffered.

The Kobani ships, only thirty-six or thirty-seven craft placed in each flight quickly formed a shield between the descending Krall and the lower defensive spheres of navy ships.

Many of the Krall pilots or their clanship commanders, held to traces of berserker’s rage. They were closing to engage what they expected to be easy pickings, against enemy held clanships, which couldn’t possibly match Krall strength, stamina, and reaction speed at navigation and weapons consoles. Most clanship pilots had flown by instinct for their entire adult life, as warriors specifically promoted for their exceptional flight skills. They had repeatedly engaged the PU navy, planetary defense missiles, rail guns and beam weapons at Poldark. The great majority of time they had emerged untouched. There were no ground-based threats against them here at all, only fragile humans that needed AIs to think and act for them.

These humans, operating stolen clanships, offered a particularly meaty treat because they would have only manual navigation control of those craft, which they couldn’t possibly use to maximum capability because their minds and bodies were too weak and slow.

Mirikami was counting on that overconfident and mistaken belief. Dozens of emotionally out of control warrior pilots had accelerated ahead of the rest of the pack, to earn the glory of raking their metaphorical talons through the imagined intestines of these first kills, destroying the humans that had dared use Krall tools against their rightful users.

The incoming attackers now knew where the human operated clanships were located, because they were all using the low frequency radio detection methods. The low detail and poor target resolution made energy beam shots less precise at long range, and missile tracking on them had proven almost worthless, at least until the missile guidance systems were modified for lower radio frequency use. For now, they intended to close with the enemy quickly, and fight them up close. That proved to be a wish better in conception than when granted. These were not navy pilots and crew they would fight.

In groups, as decided among the individual Kobani flight leaders, the first squadron of nine Kobani ships each picked out a close oncoming clanship, one that was only several hundred miles out. When they micro Jumped, they emerged at points their targets had just passed. As they made the White Out, they quickly flipped end for end, and fired all plasma cannons and heavy lasers at the rear thruster nozzle of their selected target, which was quickly pulling away from them, but only a few miles distant.

Mirikami led the first squadron of ships from his flight. There was no need to wait to see the effect after they fired their weapons. At that short range, with all eight of the heaviest beam weapons focused on a single point, one side of the bell mouth of the main thruster, the sudden local temperature increase and the impact of multiple plasma bolts cracked them. The cracks instantly widened or pieces were blasted away by the enormous exhaust pressures, and this caused a sideways vector of hot ultrahigh velocity gasses. This promptly turned the clanships sharply off course and into a tumble. The smaller attitude thrusters, instantly activated, were unable to counter the ships from flipping end over end until the main engine automatically shut down. The crews inside, if not killed, were severely battered and plastered against some bulkhead, which had suddenly become the deck.

The nine Kobani ships had promptly reversed the calculation for their micro Jump, and were back near their starting points before their nine victims, now pin wheels in space, even knew what had happened to them. Their clan mates, several hundred miles behind the most reckless and over eager warriors, saw exactly what happened. They would be ready to defend against this tactic, and would instantly fire on any target that suddenly did a White Out behind a companion ship.

Eighteen Kobani ships from each flight prepared to Jump next, but they first rotated their ships slowly, and each released four objects from ports on their sides, attached by cables that acted as tethers. They swiftly swung them out to over several hundred feet at the ends of the cables. When the ships entered their larger than required Jump Holes, the tethered objects went along for the ride. These three sets of eighteen ships completely bypassed the next leaders of the charging pack, and very briefly flashed into existence in the center of clusters of hundreds of clanships. They then executed their return Jump so quickly, in a few thousandths of a second, that the nearest Krall to them at first thought they hadn’t fired a shot.

What wasn’t apparent was the much smaller Jump Holes created for the return, and the suddenly severed tethers of the two hundred sixteen attached objects. Those had remained behind, located beyond the deliberately smaller event horizons of the return Jump Holes.

Without power through the electrical cables to continue to suppress thruster ignition, the now released anti-ship missiles, warheads jury rigged to arm on ignition, suddenly accelerated and sought non-IFF equipped targets. Not so coincidentally, those all proved to be the nearest Krall clanships.

Warriors, standing alert at weapons consoles, watchful of their sensors, had rapidly triggered manual energy beam fire at what the automated defenses would have considered a “friendly” clanship. For all that, because of the aiming required and activation time, they were too late to score any hits on an enemy that vanished so quickly. The powerful beams fired were a greater threat to friendly clanships that just happened to be down range of the departed targets. Several glancing hits occurred, provoking angry exchanges.

The now always activated automated defense systems on clanships, which would have taken control of the weapons from the warriors, had received no sensor warnings of radar guidance for missile launches. That’s because the high frequency burst of radar targeting data never took place. The automatic systems failed to detect that a missile assault was underway before the majority of the weapons were too close for effective beam targeting. This was a new technique, which the Kobani had experimented with, and the results as they looked back at the nearly one hundred hits, proved its worth.

The third flight of nine from each group was preparing to try yet another type stunt, when dozens of enemy clanships suddenly started popping out of Tachyon Space all around them. Clearly, the charge at them with guns blazing concept had been abandoned in favor of a get in close now and mix it up tactic.

Mirikami had known that the Krall were only waiting for additional human ships to arrive to defend the rescuers. Therefore, it wasn’t surprising they would Jump in close sooner if they continued to suffer these Kobani sniping attacks.

Accordingly, Mirikami had designated that someone would stand ready at a secondary navigation console for when that happened. For the nine ships about to Jump into the center of another Krall formation, there was an alternate programed Jump destination. All of the Kobani ships had a similar Jump like that preprogrammed.

The instant the White Outs started popping among them; the superfast reactions of the designated Kobani on each ship triggered the backup Jump, performing a global scatter for each group. This took them three hundred miles away, in a circular plane centered on the area they had just vacated. A few hundred miles below them, the navy defenders in each of the defensive globes had been told by Mauss to watch for this move. Their swift acting AIs promptly launched several hundred anti-ship missiles towards the former location of the Kobani ships, even as enemy clanships continued to emerge there.

In another coordinated move by the navy, the AIs of TF 3 and 4 launched missiles at the same regions, and fired others at the larger mass of Krall ships moving in for the final kills.

As soon as the Kobani ships had made their exits several hundred miles away, they also launched missiles back at their old positions. If firing those missiles were all they planned to do, most of the clanships would accelerate or Jump even lower, out of the target zone, and simply attack the navy rescue ships.

Much as Telour had held his forces back to allow the navy to go to the rescue of their comrades, thus putting more ships in his three target zones, Mirikami had done something similar.

In a completely unexpected and reckless seeming move, the Kobani micro Jumped right back into the centers of those three now heavily targeted volumes of space. Navy missiles were streaking in from above and below, and their own missiles from the sides.

Fifty or sixty clanships had penetrated each of the former Kobani shield formations, but as they arrived, their human enemy appeared to be fleeing again, as the cowards often did. The Krall pilots had turned their attention on the lower down navy ships, which the humans in stolen clanships had suddenly abandoned to their fates. The rapid return of the Kobani ships surprised and initially pleased the Krall pilots, eager for this fight.

Except the rapid fire from, and agile twisting and huge accelerations of the human operated ships exceeded the built-in limits for the Krall clanships. The Olt’kitapi built-in acceleration and performance limiters had been removed for the Kobani, and their ships were free to stress the operators to the greater limits of their bodies and faster reactions. The Krall were taking hundreds of quick laser and glancing plasma bolt hits, but they were not accumulating as much damage as could have been accomplished, and many of them could have been disabled or destroyed. This was by design. Too great an early success by the Kobani might have caused fewer Krall to join this dogfight, and send them greedily after the more attractive navy ships in the lower orbit, for the higher number of easy status points to be earned. Once engaged and seemingly avoiding serious damage, the Krall were enticed to focus on the enemy right up in their muzzles. Clanships kept arriving, struggling to hit these impossibly fast moving craft. With enough numbers, they knew they would eventually prevail. It looked like a bait ball of fish in the sea of space, composed only of predators.

They definitely scored some hits on the near phantoms, but their constant twisting, turning, changing velocity, and their indistinct stealthed shapes distributed the power of the hits over more of their hulls, and prevented accurate targeting of weapons ports and thrusters.

The Plasma cannons of both groups of combatants quickly exceeded the rate of plasma regeneration, and it became a close order laser duel with less powerful weapons, because it was impossible to fire anti-ship missiles at this close range. The Krall had poor tracking on the human ships anyway. After observing the confusing mass of mingling ships, with the humans apparently holding their own, Telour ordered additional clanships to jump into each congested region. Amazingly, there had been no major collisions with the better stealthed ships, because the enemy displayed an astonishing ability to outmaneuver the Krall pilot’s efforts to ram them.

Just as new White Outs of fresh Krall arrivals began, the waves of incoming missiles penetrated the three entangled swarms of clanships. Explosions started happening throughout the outer edges, and worked their way towards the center. The automated defense systems of all of the Krall clanships, most without the depleted plasma cannons at their disposal, were given control of the heavy laser systems.

The Kobani immediately became more effective in their targeting. Now clanships started to fall to the suddenly more accurate laser fire of the Kobani ships, which with their IFF systems active, devoted no effort to ward off the swarms of incoming missiles that refused to target them.

The debris from damaged or destroyed clanships began to make the scrambled regions hazardous to navigate, and random impact damage took its toll on both sides. Mirikami reluctantly Jumped away when the Mark lost three attitude thrusters on the same side, and he knew even his milder maneuvers, made at the periphery of the fighting, had rendered Mauss either unconscious, or at least unable to issue commands to the navy ships. He knew that the transfer of crews from the damaged ships was nearly finished, based on direct reports of his Comtap people.

The rescue ships intended to Jump as soon as they had the last of their people aboard. Mirikami, with Mauss unable to communicate, instructed the Comtaps to pass the word to their captains in the three crippled task forces, that they should all Jump to Wait Point 1, their first planned wait point. The Kobani ships and the two intact navy task forces would disengage as soon as the damaged task forces and rescuers were safely gone.

In just a matter of minutes, the remnants of TFs 1, 2, and 5 Jumped, in poorly coordinated and ragged looking exits from K1. They were gone now, with all those many hundreds of lives they had saved.

Mirikami next ordered the Shadows to withdraw. “All Shadow pilots. Head for the southern pole at suborbital velocity, climb to two hundred miles when reaching there. Stay on stealth and we’ll Jump to recover you.”

He knew their smaller radio wave profiles and low altitudes wouldn’t be easily detected in their stealth mode, and they would be just above the atmosphere with a turbulence free back trail. He’d perform the extraction above the southern pole, which was mostly covered by ice and water, and therefore unused by the Krall.

Mirikami had just passed word to the commanders of TF 3 and 4 to Jump to Wait Point 1, when he saw a brilliant blue flash from at least a thousand miles away, where he knew TF 5 had just departed. That was Marlyn’s position.

Using Comtap, he tried to open a connection to Marlyn, but he felt no mental connection. There had been frequent flashes of gamma ray bursts from her group, and she had let him know they were trying micro Jumps as a way to keep Krall pilots confused. A larger number of clanships had shown up there to fight, only because they happened to be in a closer orbit to TF 5, and could get into that fight sooner. As Marlyn’s group performed rapid micro Jumps, they were successfully keeping the enemy pilots off balance, because they were unable to concentrate their greater firepower on targets that stayed in Normal Space.

The mental icon for a failed connection indicated the Comtap address wasn’t found, in Normal or Tachyon Space. With a sinking heart, Mirikami knew what that flash had represented.

Suddenly he felt a highly distressed and emotional link from Carson. His recently captured ship was flying with Marlyn’s group.

“Uncle Tet, Aunt Marlyn’s gone. Everyone on the Beagle is. We can’t contact any of them and we saw a flash. We were Jumping in and out, and when the missiles arrived and the Krall lost manual fire control, they followed our example and started random Jumps to avoid the missiles and us. It may have been accidental, because there’s no way to pick out fast moving targets… Hold it…” There was a momentary pause.

“Ethan is calling, he’s with my mom. They know about the flash over here. What should I say? Mom couldn’t raise her on Comtap either. Uncle Thad will want to know.” His mental anguish was obvious and his normally cool manner was absent.

“Don’t answer any of them yet. I’ll speak to them shortly. I’m pulling everyone out of here but my group. Standby.”

Using the Universal Comtap link, he sent a simple message to every Kobani in the system, which was now represented only by the hundred nine Kobani ships, because TF 3 and 4 had departed in the seconds of time needed to receive Carson’s emotional link.

“All Kobani ships but those in the Mirikami group, Jump to Wait Point 1, Ghost there and watch for Krall pursuit. Break: all of the Mirikami group, Jump to two hundred miles over the K1 southern pole for Shadow recovery. IFF switched off and stealth disabled before you White Out. Open all portals for recovery. Jump now.”

In seconds, only the ragged remnants of the once dominating Krall fleet remained in nearly equatorial orbits of large and spreading debris fields, which now nearly wrapped around Telda Ka, some fields reaching out beyond a thousand miles.

The appearance of the thirty-seven Kobani clanships, arriving unstealthed at only two hundred miles altitude, were low enough that the curve and bulk of K1 blocked their gamma ray bursts from detection at the lower equatorial orbits of the Krall clanships. Their lack of human style stealth and no IFF signals also would delay investigation, Mirikami hoped. Even if an enemy scanned them, they would appear to be normal clanships. They should seem less suspicious, and could easily be ships from any clan.

He contacted the Shadow pilots by Comtap, and was pleased to see that some of the planes had already arrived, and they would only need to linger here another five or six minutes, for the several tail-end-charley craft to arrive. The Mark picked up one Shadow, and Mirikami and several other ships then flew towards the farthest ones, to shorten the meeting time by several minutes. They discovered they were unable to double up two of the long sleek space planes in a cargo bay, not and still be able to close one of the portals with the second plane’s tail sticking out. Mirikami thought for a time they might have to leave some of the space planes behind, and take only their pilots because they had thirteen Shadows to double up in his thirty-seven ships. He’d sent all of the other ships away before he remembered this limited space issue. The loss of the Beagle had distracted him.

Maggi, helping to extract a gradually recovering Mauss from her sticky suit, overheard Tet talking to the crew down in Mark’s hold and with the other ships. She asked him, “Why the hell worry about closing the portals?” She was unaware of the inner turmoil presently affecting her husband’s normally sharp thinking. Carson’s link had only been to Mirikami. They didn’t know.

“Uh…, we won’t be fully stealthed with a portal open.”

She and Mauss both glanced at each other oddly, and then back at him. Maggi asked the obvious question. “If we’re jumping to Wait Point 1, why the hell do we need to be stealthed in Tachyon Space?”

“Right.” He mumbled, face turning red. On Comtap, he said to all, “Leave the portals open and tie the Shadows down after we Jump. Let’s head for Wait Point 1 now.”

Suddenly, the last humans at K1 were gone. At least those that were alive and able to leave. The first of the dead heavy cruisers were now entering atmosphere. With their masses and tough construction, they would definitely leave sizable craters and mushroom clouds where the forty-four of them hit.

As other heavy fragments fell over the next days, weeks, and months, the nuclear winter effect would render the climate of Telda Ka much less agreeable to the Krall than the one that originally drew them to this world.

****

Telour, spittle flying from the traces of near berserker’s rage he’d barely suppressed, snarled over the encrypted planet wide communication channel. “Hunters, if you have not jumped in pursuit, do it immediately. Find where each of their formations fled, or never return on penalty of death challenges from those who fought here.”

He had just tallied clanship losses for this attack, unconcerned for now with domes destroyed, since those couldn’t travel to kill the enemy where they had fled.

He had one thousand five hundred sixty one clanship icons showing as being in space or sitting on the ground. Of those, at least one hundred six had pilots or commanders that had entered codes registering their clanships as marginally combat capable, thirty-three others had weapons but were unable to Jump, and some of those had unusable main thruster systems, meaning they could not even land for repairs.

One of his aides, far across the command deck, feeling safer there on the other side of the control console, informed him that only nine of the appointed hunters and trackers had survived the combat, but that the sensor icons for them indicated they had Jumped, even before he issued his ultimatum.

He merely grunted, indicating that was as expected. That simple grunt failed to account for why he issued a threatening warning to those hunters, before he knew it was warranted. He’d briefly gone berserker.

That disrespect might not sit well with many warriors, who had also done their expected duty in a major battle, where they had endured the greatest losses in their long history. With the only exception being when they had revolted against the Olt’kitapi, twenty two thousand years ago, and had lost their home world.

Telour reopened the planet wide com channel. He continued issuing his edicts. “Every clanship without invasion equipment aboard and is combat capable, will remain in orbit in case these treacherous animals return to insult us again today.

“All others will land and unload their equipment and excess warriors, or remove equipment from those clanships in orbit that require repairs. Load as many anti-ship missiles and ground attack missiles as you can carry, and return to transfer them to those that need resupply. Return to orbit with Prada, Torki, and their tools for repairing our damaged ships. Those that can land will go to factory domes for repairs.

“Clanships that will pursue the enemy to their home will not carry more crew than is required to fight a battle from space. There will be no ground raids. Load enough rations per clanship to distribute to each ship for ten hands of days for those crews. We will pursue the enemy to their bases when we know where they went, and spend that time attacking them.

“We will do this after the clanships from New Dublin arrive. Therefore, we have almost three rotations of Telda Ka to make repairs and load missiles. We will go all together if the enemy fled to one world, or we will divide our fleet if they fled to many worlds. We will attack any of their surviving fleet ships we find, and destroy the shipyards that built them. You will attack the large population nests where their source of support lives on those worlds.”

He switched off the open channel, and looked at his aides. “This is only the first step, to allow all clans to participate, and it will be underway and distracting their navy when I take my personal revenge. I will destroy more human worlds than any has thought possible, using but a single living ship before it learns how it has been used. I want a survey of inhabited solar systems in Human Space that is inside the volume they call their Hub. Find me four stars that host an inhabited planet, where the stars lie in nearly a straight line. With the speed of the Olt’kitapi ship, the distance between the stars is not as important as the direction of the line, because the line will guide us to the final target.”

Frakod felt confident enough to ask questions now that he’d been promoted to the Tor Gatrol’s staff. “This is an ambitious plan, my Tor, and I will help find such a line for you. I understand when you say that a straight line is important to you. However, you have not said where you are going. What is at the end of that line?”

“It must point to the final solar system that must be destroyed. The star where Earth orbits.”

Chapter 16: He Who Waits

The navy had departed K1 in multiple group Jumps, TF 3 and 4 leaving simultaneously, and the remnants of TFs 1, 2, and 5 more or less together, just ahead of them. The Kobani left shortly after that, so there were ample wakes left in Tachyon Space for the Krall tracker ships to follow. The surviving designated trackers had all departed K1 in pursuit of the larger navy formations, ahead of the three smaller and less massive Kobani groups, which would be harder to trace.

Once the Krall K’Tals, one in each of the nine clanships that followed the human ships, had determined their mass detectors had found a significant energy wake of passage from at least one of the human fleet elements, they could follow that wake. They would adjust their navigation to remain on that wave front, to where it eventually narrowed to a precise point. That would be the White Out coordinates in Normal Space, where the formation of ships being followed ceased to move through Tachyon Space.

The destination, named Wait Point 1, was a name suggested by Mirikami. The actual coordinates had been provided by the PU’s Astrophysical Research Consortium, after Mirikami described the hellish conditions that he thought would exceed the stresses that a clanship could survive for more than a few seconds. The best candidate for his proposal was found about 260 light years from Earth, in the constellation of Virgo, at the double giant star system of Spica. Spica is a close binary system whose components orbit each other every four days. The primary star is midway between a subgiant and giant star, having ten times the mass of the Sun, with seven times the radius, and a total luminosity 12,100 times greater. It was predicted to end its life as a Type II supernova, but not anytime soon. It was a Beta Cephei-type variable star and it was that variability, which was being taken advantage of now.

The smaller secondary member of the binary was no slouch, because it had seven times the mass of the Sun. Wait Point 1 was at coordinates located roughly midway between the two close and orbiting large stars, at their common center of gravity. The conditions there were hellish in the best of times, except the primary star had recently undergone a repetitive and predictable violent eruption, with huge coronal mass ejections that represented trillions of tons of mass in the form of hot plasma. The combined mass of the two stars, and the strong magnetic field of the secondary star, caused much of the material to swirl wide around the backside of the smaller star over a period of several weeks, and return to blast through the magnetically twisted region between the stars. That hot turbulent return of plasmatic mass was in progress now at Wait Point 1, which was why more distant Wait Point 2 was the backup destination.

The length of the Jump from K1 to Spica gave Mirikami and all of the Kobani a chance to talk for six days, via Comtap. It was difficult to experience the grief of Ethan and Thad over Marlyn’s death, and to be unable to comfort them directly. Emotions and feelings were easily shared by Comtap, but millions of years of evolution preferred physical contact, an arm around a shoulder, a hand held. It wasn’t only grief for Marlyn that was shared remotely. Her crew of twenty and those of the Pride of Gaul were also intimately known and understood by all of the Kobani, because of shared Mind Taps, and the tremendous amount of personal detail their improved memories now retained of their lost friends.

They found themselves sharing new knowledge of those that were lost, details that had been held private between different groups of friends. It was painful, but cathartic, to learn all of the fun things, all the pleasant memories and the love and caring shared between those that were gone and those that were left to carry on.

There was the unreasoning guilt of some survivors, as well as the gratefulness for the random events that had saved those that otherwise would have been on the two lost ships. Carson had been serving on the Beagle as his Aunt Marlyn’s weapons operator, and his wife Alyson, had been her navigator and backup pilot, much as Ethan was serving with his Aunt Noreen on the Avenger.

Carson’s duty had changed when he led a small team that had stolen one of the three new captured clanships, which they joined with the Kobani fleet to train with Admiral Mauss. He took the new ship as his own, borrowing a few friends from other crews, some from the Beagle, which were all replaced by fresh volunteers before the K1 raid. Alyson, carrying her and Carson’s child, had been sent back to Koban on the Falcon, after Chief Haveram brought additional Kobani to join the assault on K1.

Because of Comtap, everyone on Koban and Haven now knew what had happed at K1, and so did a number of people on Poldark and Heavyside. Thad and Marlyn’s two other boys, Bradley and Danner, still too young to participate in this fight, felt particularly alone and miserable, with the rest of their family and those they considered like family being so far away. The Kobani, and even the alien community on Haven, where the boys had been working on a building project for the Raspani, rallied around them and around the others that had lost friends and family. In this new era of long range communications, joy and tragedy both spread literally faster than the speed of light.

Yet the mission to K1 wasn’t completely over.

Mauss had been speaking to the Task Force commanders, indirectly of course, with Mirikami and Comtaps acting as her normal intermediaries. Any of the Kobani on the Mark could use their Comtaps for this purpose when they were all in Tachyon Space, but Tet had wanted to provide this liaison personally. To understand the navy losses as well as to convey his own.

Mauss had been highly impressed with how he had used his much smaller force to achieve greater destruction of Krall assets than had the thousand ships the navy brought to the game, and he had suffered proportionately fewer losses. The navy lost thirty-four percent of their entire force, while the smaller and more deeply involved Kobani flotilla lost two ships, or one point eight percent. Of course, percentages never told the whole story.

Having recently experienced, firsthand so to speak, how intensely the Kobani could share thoughts and emotions, she wasn’t surprised at how personally they all seemed to share in the immediacy of the loss of their comrades. She hadn’t been aware that their mental and emotional sharing was also a part of Comtap communications. She had assumed that link was more like the navy’s voice only transducer communications, except extended out to many light years.

Mirikami told her that only three of his captured clanships had AI systems, and that the one on the Beagle was gone, so they had virtually no recorded information about how Marlyn’s ship was lost, or what went on as TF 5’s survivors were defended by the Kobani ships. He requested that the navy AIs of TF 5 be queried about what they may have recorded of what happened in the dogfight near them, between the Kobani ships and the Krall.

Marlyn had tried a new space combat tactic of frequent and short distance micro Jumps. Mirikami wanted to know if that method was more effective than the Normal Space high speed maneuvers he and Noreen’s group had mostly used, and also if one of her Jumps had accidently caused an intersect with a clanship.

On review of the navy data, the evidence pointed to it being a clanship, probably intersecting more by accident than actually planned, appearing where the Beagle had just performed a White Out. The Beagle had just fired a salvo of four lasers and one Plasma bolt at the main thruster of a clanship when it suddenly exploded in a massive blast. Based on the observations of the other Kobani ships in her flight, and the average length of time between White Outs and the next Jump, the Beagle should have been on the verge of a Jump when hit. The same explosion also destroyed the clanship she had just shot at and hit.

Overall, the Krall were less precise in their efforts to use rapid Jumps to get behind an enemy, to fire on them from that vantage point, so the intersect explosion was more likely one of those random things that the confusion of combat created.

The micro Jumps, as analyzed by the navy AIs indicated that in the crowded environment, where Marlyn’s ships were using this tactic, revealed that her people had disabled at least twenty percent more of the enemy ships than had either of the other two observed Kobani space dogfights. After conferring with the other captains from Marlyn’s flight, Mirikami learned that they had also suffered fewer hits on their ships on average than had those in his or Noreen’s flights. The Mark had been forced to Jump clear of the close-in combat, when too many attitude thrusters on one side were damaged.

It appeared that spending more time in Normal Space, twisting aside and accelerating faster than a Krall could tolerate, still left them exposed to a higher number of hits as broadsides. The ships of Marlyn’s flight spent more of their time behind an enemy after a Jump, where the clanship couldn’t fire on you, while you were able to hit them in a fragile area. Only a clanship’s neighbor might be able to fire on you before you Jumped again.

In addition, Marlyn found a system for her people to conserve their slow recycling Plasma cannon bolts. She had them fire all four lasers at one side of a clanship’s main thruster nozzle, and then fire a single plasma bolt there, to trigger the vibrating ringing or impact shock, which caused the overheated brittle section to crack. One plasma bolt per pass on a clanship made better use of the plasma regeneration chambers, and led to a greater number of disabled clanships, which could be more easily killed later.

It wasn’t something to share right now, but it was a legacy from her quick thinking, which could be passed on by Mind Tap for later use. The war had a long life ahead of it.

A half day before the first of the navy ships would reach the Spica system Mirikami received a report from Dagger, under command of Bob Danker. He had Jumped Dagger from observing the New Dublin system, which was closer to Spica than K1, to confirm the status of the erratic binary system. His long-range observations of the dangerous system verified the coordinates for Wait Point 1 were still good.

“Tet, just as you quoted to us, all things come to he who waits. If the Krall followed you, that’s a great place to wait.” He finished with a bad pun. “Just don’t give up the Ghost.”

“Very funny, in a sick sort of way, Bob.” He jabbed back, in better humor after five days to reflect.

He told Mauss and Maggi what Dagger had reported. “Golda, with your approval, I’ll confirm that Ghosting at Wait Point 1 is a go. All paths for our ships lead to Spica. I don’t know if any of our Kobani ships drew followers or not, but we’ll wait there too.”

“I agree. You can pass that word from me. I don’t see a better way of shaking a tail than this one. Of course, they’ll still come searching for us, and they surely know where the orbital shipyards were, at least where they were before the attack.

“Lela and Bledso learned that lesson after my experience with New Lance. This time we had our shipyards in low population mining and industrial systems, almost everything orbital, and on mobile Jump capable orbital stations. It’s too late for the Krall to try to follow those, and they’re split up now anyway, moved to completely uninhabited systems. We’ll recombine factories to start building ships again, after the initial Krall retaliation dies down. They’ll have to go back to supporting their two invasion forces. General Nabarone and General Cadifem are stepping up resistance on the ground at Poldark and New Dublin.

“That was Lela’s suggestion too.” She looked sad at the mention of her former protégés name. Mirikami remembered yet again that the navy had suffered far more losses than his people had. The fact that he didn’t know them didn’t mean Mauss didn’t feel the losses deeply. Her battleship, the Lancer, was now the last of the large capitol ships in the navy. She’d surprised Chatsworth and Bledso by traveling with Mirikami on the Mark. Which she now thought was only part of the ship’s full name.

Mirikami and his people openly referred to themselves as Kobani around her, and she saw a written reference to a “Mark of Koban,” which she deduced was the full name of the ship in which now traveled. Their personal friendship, after Mirikami’s people essentially rescued Operation Forestall from probable failure, wasn’t going to grow weaker, so she decided they had time to talk about the future.

She leaned back in her acceleration chair, morphed back to that from its former couch configuration, and idly picked at a bit of dried jell on an armrest, left behind from her time in the full acceleration suit bolted to the deck next to her.

“Tet, you and Maggi, and the rest of your crew when we eat together and share stories, have relaxed enough around me that all of you use the term Kobani. I think the Mark is actually named the Mark of Koban, and from that, I believe the name of the planet where you all are from is called Koban. Is that correct, or should I pretend I don’t know that?”

Maggi smiled at her, and briefly touched her husband’s hand, revealing to a now more knowledgeable Mauss that they had just shared some thoughts. She’d seen them doing that from time to time, before responding to her, or to an inquiry from commanders of any of the task forces.

Mirikami grinned. “Gee, that took you a lot longer than I expected. I lost a bet with my wife days ago, when she assured me you would be slow and cautious about bringing up a subject we told you could mean life or death for all of our people. That is, if the Krall found out where we lived.”

Grinning back, Mauss said, “So Koban it is, and you’re no longer worried about anyone spilling the beans?”

Mirikami raised an eyebrow and looked accusingly at his wife. “Spilling the beans? Dear Lady, do you spread those archaic sayings everywhere you go, letting them take root in any untarnished mind where they lodge?”

Maggi shot right back. “If that came from me it would be her saying something like spilling their guts, snitching, or ratting us out. You know I switched to watching old gangster movies instead of westerns. Gangsters don’t eat a lot of beans.”

Mauss smiled at this common subject of friendly bickering with Maggi. “I’ll have you know Tet, that my mind became well and properly tarnished years ago, in raunchy navy ports of call all over human Space. I have an amply dirty mind for any number of stray and archaic thoughts to grow roots.”

Mirikami, recognizing when he was outnumbered, retreated. After a fashion. “Fine, twisted minds think alike and I concede you probably thought of the phrase on your own. In answer to you, yes, the name of our home planet is Koban, as we call it, and I don’t think you’ll spread that around. Besides, you already know, so pretending you don’t is stupid. To the Krall, that isn’t its name, because they don’t assign names to objects or places, but they do use the names that we give places sometimes, when talking to us or about us. They customarily describe a place by its use, or by the clan using it. That’s partly the reason for their simplified navigation system that can be used as a point and click system, taking advantage of their superb battlefield memory capability. The Nav system has greater sophistication built into it, and we’ve learned to use that.

“The name Koban is derived from two words in low Krall, ko ban, which describes a place used as a training ground. There are literally thousands of places that the Krall have used that as a description. However, a few of them also know that some presumably dead humans once used it as a name for a place. For only one world. ”

“Tet, I thank you for your trust. I give you my word that it isn’t misplaced, and I will guard your privacy, and anything you reveal to me that you think could compromise your safety.”

Maggi offered her opinion on the subject. “Golda, I’m a good judge of character, and a better judge of friends. You pass muster on both counts, and you shared the same risks as we did, with a lot less assurance that you would survive than for anyone else on board this ship. You have guts, and put your life on the line for the good of humanity. These are good qualities, which we believe we share in common with you. Tet has a proposal to make, which you are free to accept, or not, no repercussions if you turn him down.”

Mauss looked slightly startled, but quickly reached the correct conclusion. “Tet, am I being invited to join the Kobani?”

“I told you she was a quick study.” He said, looking at Maggi and smiling.

Mauss looked slightly distressed. “Hell Tet. I’m acting Fleet Admiral now, at least until I return to the Hub. I can’t switch allegiance.”

“You probably wouldn’t be someone we’d want if you thought a change in allegiance was needed, and were willing to turn on the Planetary Union. However, there’s no pressure and no rush for a decision. I might add, I don’t think you’ll find that there is any change in allegiance. My people just fought and some of them died, alongside the Planetary Union navy. We have done so even longer and in closer contact with the PU army and spec ops units. We’re not in opposition to the Planetary Union or its people and government. Although, I’m not as certain the PU politicians, and a portion of the public, might not at some point turn against anyone they know is a Kobani.

“As to your being Fleet Admiral, would that be permanent do you think? Or do you still intend to retire as you had stated, before Chatsworth and Bledso changed your mind?”

“Evil man!” She laughed. “You know perfectly well I’ll not be offered a chance to stay in this temporary position after we return. I did expect, and still intend to retire. As a flag officer, I’m never really retired anyway and subject to recall. Let me get back to you on this.” She almost changed the subject, but suddenly blurted out a question that occurred to her.

“Wait! Does it hurt? Damn, I don’t much like pain at my age.”

Maggi reassured her. “I was considerably older than you are now when I underwent the final and complete transformation, and I’ll bet it hurt less than what you went through in that acceleration suit. Look at your bruises.” She pointed to black and blue spots visible on Mauss’ bare lower arms and neck, sure there were many covered by her uniform.

“Besides, we put you asleep for most of it while you lay in a med lab for a couple of weeks. You wake up a new you, with very little residual discomfort.”

“You were older than me?” She looked skeptically at the attractive and slender small woman, who in appearance looked to be in her early to mid-twenties.

Maggi nodded. “Listen to your elders, kid, I’ll be a hundred thirteen in a couple of months.”

“Oh…, you two really are rotten. I can go back to being young looking too? How the hell can I turn that down?”

Maggi shrugged. “Age regression isn’t a gene mod but it’s guided by our knowledge of genetics, and implemented by nanites that we obtained from Human Space. We have older Kobani, mostly NCO and officer recruits from spec ops, which elected to retain their physiological age at the transformation so they could continue in their military career. You have the ability to go younger when you wish. I’m afraid we can’t prevent you from looking stronger and better fit, and from moving more gracefully. I’ve heard you ask if we all trained in yoga or as dancers. That will come naturally.”

Mauss smirked. “I’ll consider your bribes when I’m no longer on active duty. That may be in only a month or two.”

She turned back to their current mission, which was leading potential Krall trackers to Spica. “Enough about my future prospects. How will we know if we were followed, and if they will do what you expect? We can’t peek out of Tachyon Space to see. How will we know if they simply never tried to track us, or they’re playing the same waiting game at Spica?”

“First of all, Jakob, and Noreen’s AI, Karl, saw one or two clanships wink out within a minute of each task force when they Jumped separately. There were nine of those clanships, and they sure seemed timed to follow each task force. We don’t know if any left after the three Kobani formations Jumped or not. Second, the enemy was at times clearly berserk with rage at the damage we inflicted. I understand Krall personality fairly well, and the loss of status for the Great and Major clans, which we hurt the most, and particularly for the leader that was in charge here, honor demands they find the very ships and enemy that made them look ineffective, hunt them down and kill them if they can. To do that most quickly, they have to know where we went, just as they followed your fleet after Operation New Lance.”

Mauss nodded, but voiced a doubt. “They saw what we did at K1 when we went Ghost. When we do it at Spica, why won’t they stay in Tachyon Space and see if we move again?”

“The Krall are conservative, and adopt new methods only after consideration by their Joint Council. They will change, but usually not this quickly. They themselves had not used a maneuver such as Ghosting before, and initially didn’t understand its purpose because they don’t operate that way, waiting around to return to strike an enemy. Unfortunately for Chatsworth, they did figure out that she might be back a third time, and they sacrificed domes and ships to get her to stay in Normal Space long enough for them to set up their ambush.

“It’s one thing to know that you don’t have to perform a rotation out of Tachyon Space after you travel as far as you needed to go. You simply have to come up with a reason to wait. That’s a sneaky aspect of us monkeys. The Krall prefer to charge in and attack, no waiting. We’ll wait in a Jump Hole at Spica, and I predict they won’t. They can’t effectively communicate while in Tachyon Space. They have a cumbersome and slow method of information exchange, which requires the clanships to be traveling close together. Most of these nine were not. Their pilots will act independently, and I believe all of them will act the same way, even if they think they’re being cautious with us tricky bastards. They’re going to take a look.”

“You didn’t say how we’ll know.” Mauss prodded.

“Oh…, that’s right, you weren’t in on the conversation I had with the Dagger. It’s sitting in Normal Space, about a half an Astronomical Unit out from Spica, watching with a spectrometer.”

****

One after another, nine clanships closed in on the narrowing wave crests of the respective clusters of mass they had each followed through Tachyon Space. When the detectors revealed multiple trails had converged, and didn’t continue away from the narrowest points, they looked for the enemy in Normal Space, where they presumably had emerged. That’s all it took to tell them everything they needed to know.

****

Mirikami acknowledged Bob Danker’s report. He passed it on to the others. “Nine heavy element spikes in the plasma fields between the two stars in the last hour. Spectroscopy confirms the spikes came in separate bursts before being diluted with the hydrogen and traces of helium in the swirling magnetic fields. The Krall appear to have found where they think we went. I almost wish we could send one of them back to lead more of them here.”

Mauss still seemed doubtful, “Just like that, we killed nine more of them? None could get away after taking a fast peek?”

“Not possible. The typical plasma density and energy between those two stars would destroy a clanship in five or ten minutes at the mildest of times. The recent trillions of tons of coronal mass ejections, which the local magnetic fields and gravity have fed back here over a period of several weeks, has been observed repeatedly over several centuries by PU astronomers. The plasma field close between the stars is more powerful than all our energy beam weapons focused on a single clanship at once, and has been this way for almost two weeks and will continue for another week or two. The Krall simply vaporized when they did a White Out, leaving detectable winds of heavy trace elements that are characteristic of clanship hulls, decks and bulkheads. I didn’t ask Bob if any organics were detected.”

Mauss, thinking like a skeptical admiral and strategist said, “They have our entire volume of space mapped, every single star. They have it for the entire galaxy I think. I saw Spica on your Krall style navigation display, Tet. Why would they even bother to look for us between those two huge stars?”

“I told you, I understand them. Not perfectly, but well enough. They don’t navigate to new places out of curiosity, or stand off for scientific research or study. Their seeing a strange star system on a map is merely a pinpoint of light at a place that they have never been, and don’t generally know or care about them.

“They had to learn where any of our worlds were from their first captives, after a ship of ours ran into them. They didn’t come looking for us out of curiosity to see what was out there. Eventually, we were going to meet them, because we were so close and we were expanding. Most of the races they met before had been in contact with the Olt’kitapi, or were within the sphere of that species slow explorations, or were neighbors of them.

“Until they know where there is something worth an attack or a raid, they rarely explore or visit new systems without some clue there is a race already there. They take whatever they find when it’s discovered, and then seek the other places where the new race lives. That’s perhaps why we haven’t heard from other more distant aliens. Our allies think that may be the case. Don’t make a noise, and the Krall plague won’t come looking for you.

“According to our older alien friends, aggressive species like the Krall, and apparently us humans, are exceptions to the rule for most interstellar civilizations. We don’t know for sure, but it seems possible, since only two out of twenty species they know about were warlike. Humans were on the way to evolving into a more peaceful civilization, but we’re a very young species compared to most that ventured into space. The Krall are much older, but they have not only stayed warlike, they deliberately bred themselves to be more so. We Kobani humans have upped the ante to play this sort of game.” He shrugged.

“Anyway, at Spica the Krall will think we stopped and probably did a White Out at some remote base. If it’s safe enough for us to come here, they certainly will feel it is for them, or they might even expect to fight their way out and return to K1. Lacking communications with each other in Tachyon Space, they don’t know what’s here and can’t send a pilot in as an observer to report back. They were on their own and each acted exactly like the bold Krall warriors they are, and one after another, they popped out to have a look. No clanship could survive more than a few seconds in there when they did that, and their hulls and Trap field emitters were rapidly eroded away to prevent another Jump. I simply chose a place where it would be fast and fatal when they took that look.”

“Tet, you made a risky assumption they would all barge right in and stick their head in the oven. They do learn, as you just said.”

Mirikami nodded agreement, but explained his thinking. “The Krall are a twenty-five thousand year old case of arrested development, kept that way by their own meddling with their potential advancement. As a species, they haven’t experienced brushes with self-caused near extinction, or learned caution through slow gentle evolution. They were accidentally given great power by the Olt’kitapi, when they were an adolescent barbaric race, and they never needed to change, to learn to cooperate with others, or forced to expand into space gradually. They didn’t need to be cautious, and they don’t act that way the first two or three times they should do so. This is one of those first times. This trick wouldn’t work indefinitely.”

“What if this system had not erupted, or had calmed down before they even called their clanships back to K1? How were you going to stop them from chasing us home to our bases then?”

“Blanchard’s nova, a new one that your Astrophysical Research Consortium listed for me, is on the anti-spinward side of Human Space. That’s another binary system, with a white dwarf eating material from a normal companion, and it went bang less than two months ago. It’s probably a much more violent event than Spica, but two weeks of travel farther away. I called that Wait Point 2, with a longer time to reach it but the same results. Some sort of deadly stellar event can always be found. It’s a dangerous Universe, and your astronomers keep track of the hot spots just so we can stay away. Usually stay away, that is.”

Mauss hadn’t known how well Mirikami had studied these backup plans for their extraction from K1. “OK. You apparently think it’s safer, now that the Krall are off our trail. You told me you wanted to collect most of your people, except for a couple of Comtaps that would have stayed with Chatsworth’s staff, and one with Bledso’s people for updates. Will you entrust them with me, to introduce them to whomever the navy selects to replace Lela, and to work with Bledso?”

“Thank you, Golda. That would be helpful. I can take you back to the Lancer, along with another clanship to travel with you, to rendezvous with the various fleet elements to pick up my people. Like you, we’ll have a great deal of grieving to do over empty caskets at home. This is our greatest loss ever of people. I know that’s far fewer than the almost thirty thousand people your navy lost this week, but we are a far smaller community, and very close knit. We have too few citizens to fill even a midsized city on a Hub world. Is the Lancer still stationed at Rimfire?”

“Yes, it should be. They don’t know what happened at K1. Do you have a timeline for the funeral services? I don’t want any of your people that lost friends or family to be delayed.”

“I doubt we’ll hold the public services even within a week of our return, although there may be some private family services. Could you ask if any of the spec ops Comtaps would volunteer to stay with you for communications relay? None of those men have family on Koban.”

****

Frakod, becoming more comfortable with passing time as an advisor to Telour, spoke up. “Six days and no trackers have yet returned my Tor. You warned them not to do so if they found no bases.” That would have been a dangerous reminder a few days ago, but the Tor Gatrol was now fully in charge of the clans, and himself. He had organized the recovery very well, and postponed the formation of a new Joint Council.

Telour agreed. “Our ships from New Dublin are impatient to pursue the enemy and our now more conservative and experienced pilots are ready to seek revenge. The humans may have fled our wrath farther than we expected, to the other side of their space, believing we would not chase them that far. For now, we will start to attack worlds where the enemy fleet once lived. I will send them today.”

Another aide, emboldened by his leaders return to self-control, added. “The living ship will be here soon. Your plan for that can proceed, even as these raids strike humans worlds at random.”

“That is true.” Telour agreed. “I have been patient, and I can wait longer for my own revenge, because it will come to me soon.”

No one on his staff felt he had been the least bit patient, but for this, he did seem prepared to savor what was to come.

****

Torpol, the highest status representative on the mission to fetch a living ship, was from Dorbo clan. Unknown to her, she was also the highest status member of her entire clan still living, following the destruction of the Joint Council dome and her clan leader, on distant Telda Ka. That knowledge would await their return.

She initially spoke for the group, although the two members of the new Tor Gatrol’s staff carried significant weight. They would gain more authority soon, once the other high status members of the various clans, who were sent as confirmation witnesses, were used to verify that those two warriors represented the Krall’s new Tor Gatrol.

After just over seven thousand light years of travel, the reward and respect the representatives expected was blunted by their being disarmed before they were ferried to an airless moon, by the multi-clan guardians of the Olt’kitapi ships. There they were taken by shuttle to the habitable large moon that circled an immense gas giant planet. The pathetic soft Krall, bound hand and foot in steel shackles, with a hood over his head, was carried roughly along by the guardians. He would never be out of their sight.

Pildon was the only name the Krall permitted their captive to use with them, believing that a second name should be some sort of title that was earned, usually a result of combat kills, death matches won, or promotions for leadership success.

Within his community of fellow prisoners, he was known as Pildon Fetra. They referred to themselves as Krall’tapi, rather than by the term soft Krall, intended to be a derogatory description by the “true” Krall. They privately paid homage to the ancient Olt’kitapi species who had offered them evolutionary advancement, and a part to play in a great multispecies civilization that was to be forged. The Krall’tapi had paid a terrible price for accepting that offer, but the Olt’kitapi had paid a greater one because it was offered.

Pildon was terrified for his family, a particularly large and extended group, fearful of how brutally they might be tortured or killed. His primary selection criteria appeared to have been based only on his family unit’s size. They provided the Krall with more hostages to ensure his sincere cooperation, no matter what was asked of him.

The last time the Krall leadership had called for the use of a living ship had been generations ago. Pildon had never even seen one of the powerful ships of legend, but knew the lore of them well, and had shared the oral traditions passed down from those that survived similar ordeals in the past. Any of them knew what was required of them.

Not all family leaders survived to return from such a mission, but the fact that their relatives had always lived afterwards was evidence the head of the family had fulfilled the demands made of them. The Krall’tapi used an old and almost forgotten description, Kin Dar, for the dome where they were kept. They believed the words originally meant something similar to “secure place,” but after so many thousands of years, their original language had changed and they didn’t know. So many generations had lived here, never seeing more of the world than where their repeatedly repaired or rebuilt dome was located, that the words Kin Dar now referred to the entire planet for them. A world that they knew relatively little about, and couldn’t call their Home.

The Krall always had kept their agreements to release families after a mission (as they called them), saying it was a matter of “honor” to them. They were entirely oblivious to the dishonor of holding innocents under the threat of horrible deaths, to force a family leader to perform genocide on their captor’s behalf. Those family leaders that had never returned were on ships that had never returned either, but which had accomplished the mission, whatever it had been. Almost certainly, the murder of many beings was involved, although the soft Krall prisoner himself was never actually told what the result had been.

After generations of waiting, Pildon was rigid with fear that he might not be able to convince one of the hideously old ships to function for him, as he’d be instructed to do. He knew there were a larger number of old ships that refused to respond to instructions from a Krall’tapi than there were those that would obey. The last family leader to return to Kin Dar after a mission had said when he was taken to talk with the ships, that only five were fully aware and willing to converse with him. He’d said the ship he had commanded would no longer respond to him when it returned to join the others, returning entirely on its own initiative, accepting no commands. That left only four operational. When those ships were gone, the Krall would have no need of the despised Krall’tapi, and they knew what that meant for their future. They didn’t have a long one.

Pildon knew the history of how the Krall had used these ships. It was something his people needed to know and recall, and they had tried to preserve what limited knowledge they had. That was because the fate of all of them was tied to the continued responsiveness of these strange vessels to the Krall’tapi, who in turn obeyed the demands of their Krall overlords.

The Krall’tapi was permitted no written records or computers, but before the species had diverged, all Krall had been keepers of the earliest and very long oral histories of their once united people and clans. Now they each preserved their separate histories, the prisoners retaining what little new they learned. Mentally, he reviewed the outline of what had become almost a litany of the general history and knowledge they had preserved about the ancient ships:

Nineteen of the living ships were discovered and claimed by the Krall after the revolt, on a world that was a moon of an even greater world. They were found in a solar system of multiple gas giants and ice worlds. The Olt’kitapi had intended to use the ships in the system where they were found, to start a great engineering and building project. The dead worlds were to become building materials to form a vast complex of smaller artificial living worlds.

When the Olt’kitapi finished their work, they said the Krall’tapi would be invited, along with many other species to live there peacefully, forming a great galactic society.

After the revolt, some of the powerful ships had vanished early, under orders issued to the Krall’tapi, sent on casual missions for the Krall leadership, intended to generate less devastation than they were capable of causing, and yet they still had never returned to their parking area. It is not known what they were made to do, and the Krall leaders did not say afterwards. After fulfilling the onerous task forced on the Krall’tapi and the ships, none of the very first ships used, or their passengers, was heard from again. Their likely fate had probably been suicidal dissipation in Tachyon Space, as final acts of living and intelligent ships with a conscience.

After such early wasteful and direct use of the enormous power of the ships for moderate levels of destruction on enemy cities or colonies, the fleet was quickly diminished. The Krall leadership began to conserve them, and use only their full power when a monumental level of punishment was required, in order to control the behavior of an enemy.

Even so, now only nine of the self-maintaining ships would respond or display any signs of awareness. Five of those nine, although clearly still alive, would no longer obey instructions from a Krall’tapi. That was after those particular five ships had deduced that their constructive capability had been carelessly used, or deliberately misused in what proved to be subtle acts of pure destruction, at the direction of those they believed they could trust. Destruction, which led the living ships to harm an intelligent species, even though it was claimed to be inadvertent, only an accident.

This happened when the Krall masters coerced their prisoners (using intimidation and threats against their families) into directing the ships to use their capability and power from the outer reaches of a stellar system, where the nature of the occupied worlds present there was not apparent.

The first two times a living ship was instructed by the Krall’tapi to target a planet from the remote regions of a solar system, it was promptly sent home in an effort to prevent it from learning what happened. The Krall themselves preferred to witness the punishment as close as they could, to watch their prey animals die, and clanships had zoomed in to observe, while the living ships swiftly returned home.

Somehow, the intelligent ships always learned what the consequences of their actions had been. From their reactions and subsequent shutdown, twice in a row, the Krall realized they couldn’t hide the mass killings of intelligent life, and the ships appeared to “die” or withdraw afterwards, when learning they had caused this.

The Krall grew more subtle, and tried to leave the ships with the belief the deaths were accidental consequences, explaining through the Krall’tapi that the deaths happened indirectly, unexpectedly.

Nevertheless, after every inhabited world was damaged, somehow the ships learned of it and concluded that they were responsible. Thus, later misused living ships declined to respond to commands, but they no longer elected to die.

The self-deactivation of ships used this way, convinced the Krall to restrict the use of the ships as weapons. “Sparingly used” by that Krall definition, resulted in more of the ships becoming unresponsive to instructions, even if willing to wake up and interact when entered. The deactivated ships would no longer leave the planet where they had been found.

The last four of the untraumatized ships are now considered a precious and irreplaceable commodity, only to be used in what Krall clan leaders consider is a great need. The craft were far more precious to the Krall’tapi, who had a more personal reason to wish to preserve them.

Pildon concluded his personal recitation. My people survive only as long as the last of these ships, and I now must help kill another one.

****

Two weeks of waiting was over, and the healing process would continue with this necessary but painful Day of Remembrance, held for those who had made the ultimate sacrifice for them all. The gathering for the service was being held in Xenos, the capital city being built for all of the people, human and alien, living in the Koban system. Aside from the symbolism of the location, three quarters of the citizens of the new two-planet republic couldn’t comfortably tolerate an entire day spent on Koban.

The human population of Koban was temporarily at its lowest level since before the Flight of Fancy had first arrived there. Most Kobani, all but roughly a thousand, accompanied by several hundred rippers, had traveled the relatively short distance to Haven, aboard the finally repaired and updated passenger ship Raven, or on a Torki piloted ship, renamed Home Waters.

The former migration ship was one of the redesigned ships to be converted to T squared Jump capability, and returned to Torki control. Coldar, not intending to be her permanent commander, or even to act as a pilot very often, had offered the huge vessel as transportation for as many as wanted to travel to Haven for the funeral services.

The Raven, even with the T squared upgrade and a more powerful Normal Space drive, still would never land on any planet. It had been built as an Orbital Based Only passenger liner, docking with orbital transfer stations or using multiple shuttles to land or pick up passengers at planets without orbital facilities. Kobani with children wanted the human designed ship to carry them, so their wild young charges could better be contained in staterooms. The decks of Torki craft were nearly wide open internally, and kids could easily stray out of sight. On the Raven, they would have to wait to be ferried down, even if she docked at the industrial orbital factory, now stationed over Haven.

The Torki ship would land in a cove of a sea, located only a few miles from Xenos. The new Normal Space drive would allow it to settle gently in water, but no Torki pilot had experience yet in attempted landings of a converted ship on a hard surface with the new reactionless drive. They had used thrusters to land the ship for its conversion, and had lifted off from an old tarmac by an abandoned Krall dome. Using a new drive system for a delicate hard surface landing, for the first time with passengers aboard, wasn’t anything Coldar was willing to try.

At least everyone that wanted to attend, that wasn’t required to take care of farms and livestock, keeping furnaces in foundries hot, or running other vital industrial processes, went to Haven for the Day of Remembrance.

A Kobani that couldn’t attend in person would still likely hear, see, or even feel, what was said or thought by the two main speakers, Captain Mirikami, and Maggi Fisher.

The Raspani, Torki, and human scientists and technicians had completed the miniaturization of the identical quantum entanglement technology that Mirikami had taken with him to K1 in a small case. The first few dozen of the new chips had replaced those of Kobani in key positions, who would be traveling to other stellar systems, or would need to communicate with distant Kobani that were registered on the grid, located anywhere, either in or out of Tachyon Space.

Registering a Comtap device was optional, but thus far, all Comtap users had done so, and you could obtain a new unregistered device code by mentally commanding your chip to generate a new one for yourself. The uncomplicated new code was essentially simply a number, usually huge, attached to some identification data about you, with the old code available for recall if you changed your mind. You could always reach anyone still on the grid, assuming that person had already been registered before you had dropped off the grid.

There was effectively a near-zero chance of code duplication, with vastly many more codes possible than there were estimated to be living beings of any type in the Universe, including microbes. There was provision for ten to the hundred twentieth power possibilities, which exceeded even the number of baryons in the Universe by many orders of magnitude.

No quantum device smaller than the Universe could ever hold that many individual registered codes, but how wide a circle of friends, family, and acquaintances, could anyone be expected to have? Groups of individuals could be placed in a specific set of codes that could be addressed all at one time, similar to frequencies used for a squad, platoon, company, or larger military units. In an emergency, a large code set could reach entire cities of people, or a planet.

Individuals could opt out of personal group contacts if it was abused or thought to be overly intrusive. Therefore, someone that called a block of a thousand people several times a week to report events in their own lives would soon discover their own mother had blocked their links. The Comtap network was potentially a vastly larger network than phone systems on heavily populated planets, but like those, this one could be self-regulated by the users.

****

Mirikami gazed out at the throng of people before him, and leaned over to his wife and asked, “Ready for this?”

Maggi shook her head slightly. “No, but we can get through it anyway. We have to remember that more than just our friends have died. There were so many thousands of navy personnel that none of us here even knew, and new Kobani that we only saw a few times and addressed only within a group.

“We’ve shared our personal grief with Thad, his children, and our friends for two weeks, and will do so again later today. This time here, with all who came, is for all of our losses, past actions and recent, with a promise to honor and never forget them. This war could outlast the indefinite lives we have granted ourselves. The lives we lost at K1 are certainly not the last we will suffer. I do hope we don’t share Wister’s long life of loss and struggle. After twelve hundred or so years, he and his sister have only begun to think about a better life for the Prada.”

They were sitting on a high stage, on the side of an unfinished large outdoor oval amphitheater that was barely over half-full, despite holding nearly a hundred twenty thousand beings, of four species, spread out in a huge arc around them. They were on the outskirts of Xenos, which was anticipated to grow well past this public stadium in a few years. The day was mild, with puffy white clouds overhead, and a soft breeze. A much brighter day than the somber mood they all felt.

At a signal from Blue Flower eater that only a few stragglers were still walking into the amphitheater, Mirikami stood, felt Maggi’s hand pat his when she passed along an encouraging thought, and he walked to the dais.

There was no microphone with public address system speakers to use today, to cast echoes around the open arena. There were small speaker systems in the seat backs for humans and Prada without Comtaps or transducers, which would be for only a handful of the humans in attendance. The Kobani mostly had Comtaps by now, and only a few still relied on transducers. The Torki could hear him through their Olts, and the Raspani via their mind enhancers. A few Raspani had the newest Comtap style technology, and they would receive the visual images and emotions that Mirikami and Maggi shared with the Kobani.

Mentally, Mirikami selected the Comtap link he’d labeled today as for All Beings, which would link to every Kobani, Torki, and Raspani that had chosen to participate, and the speakers for the Prada. His words and thoughts would reach everywhere on Haven, to any Kobani on nearby Koban and throughout Human Space to Poldark, New Dublin, Heavyside, and to the Comtap representatives posted anywhere. He genuinely hoped this sort of link would not be repeated often or ever again if he had his wish. He remembered at the last moment to tap behind his ear to activate the transducer he seldom used.

He started simply. “Friends, citizens, we have gathered to honor, remember, and reflect on the lives of those that we have lost in this great struggle to save not only humanity, but to preserve and restore the Prada, Torki, and Raspani societies, to return their people to their own worlds if possible. We know that the sacrifices we humans have made thus far pale in comparison to the near eradication that you, our allies, have suffered at the hands of our common enemy, the Krall. Other entire species may have gone extinct because of the Krall, but if we should prevail in this war, we will seek out any survivors that may have fled far enough to escape the genocide. We will offer them a place to live on Haven, and try to help them resettle their own home world if possible.

“These are tasks for the future. Today, we are looking at the recent past, particularly to those that fought and died in the effort to damage the Krall war machine based at K1. We will honor the humans, both Kobani and Normals, who died there.

“I also want to remember the Prada, the Torki, and the Raspani that have unavoidably died in the last year, a result of the Kobani fight to slow the Krall advances, to destroy their war making capability. They were forcibly held by the Krall for generations, and died as a result of our actions to try to free them. We deeply regret their loss, and ask for the forgiveness and understanding of their comrades here that are now free.

“We can no more bring them back than we can restore our own dead. We can however, promise to try to end the oppression and misuse of your peoples by the Krall, and offer you an opportunity to contribute to the fight in any way you are capable.”

He paused a moment, before moving on to more personal tributes. Then he would step aside to allow Maggi, Ambassador Fisher to the aliens, to express her own thoughts and feelings. As the two most recognizable representatives of the Kobani, they had been unanimously chosen to speak for them all.

This would be hard for him, he knew. “I lost dear friends at K1. Some were children that I had watched grow up on Koban, to become fine young adults. They volunteered to risk their lives in that fight. Many were spec ops troopers, who wanted an opportunity to hand a significant defeat to the enemy. One, a mother and great friend…,” His voice faltered a moment, as the image of Marlyn, playing with her entire family on a picnic, poured from his memories in a flash of anguish, which he’d thought had been under control. The Comtap faithfully transmitted his feelings.

Resuming in a shaky voice, he acknowledged the personal connection he’d been unable to suppress, which was known to most anyway, “Her three boys call us aunt and uncle, and they are family to Maggi and I. As are many others that have been part of our struggle to find a way to defeat the Krall.” Seeing flashes of teal in the audience and remembering that image of Marlyn with all of her children, he suddenly realized he had omitted mentioning each of the members of Marlyn’s family, and to whom else he was an uncle.

New images were sent, “Her beloved non-human child included a ripper, Kit, sister to her boys, and there are now so many grandcubs and great grandcubs living in our community that I have lost count of them. Marlyn has left a loving and lasting legacy. All of those we lost have left a legacy of courage, conviction, and dedication. We will continue that tradition.”

He had tears in his eyes, at briefly overlooking ripper feelings of loss as he addressed everyone else. The omission troubled him deeply. “Our rippers are out there among you, frilling their Kobani friends and families to receive my thoughts. All of us Kobani owe the rippers a tremendous debt, not only for their amazing genes that gave us most of our abilities, but for teaching us their moral codes, for expressing their respect for all life, yet their shared sense of outrage at the wanton slaughter the Krall have perpetrated against every living thing they meet.

“We Kobani would not even exist if we had never met them, had we not saved Kit and Kobalt as cubs, to live among us and to earn their love and respect, as we grew to love them, and respect their species. It is too easy to forget that Kit, Kobalt, and their children, and many other adopted rippers have also lost human family members at K1.”

Unexpectedly, he felt two powerful presences move up from behind, brushing against his legs. He knew who it had to be. He reached down to touch the frills of Kit and Kobalt. With their affection and resolve coursing through his mind, their acceptance that some of the pride members had to die for the survival of the pride, he knew he could say what he needed to say today, and finish strong. The Kobani, with ripper spirit coursing through every fiber and nerve of their being, would never end the hunt to stop the Krall evil.

Chapter 17: Plowshares into Swords

There were Torki and Prada present, but it was the group of Raspani, headed by Blue Flower Eater, which could probably provide the most complete answers today. Their memories, having spent thousands of years in storage, were less likely to contain divergent stories collected over millennia. Raspani memories would contain no influence from bragging references repeated by the Krall in their biased histories, since the Raspani had never heard the stories.

Maggi, as ambassador-at-large for the Kobani, and thus she held the de facto position for all of humanity with the aliens, was the intermediary for the fact gathering session. Golda Mauss had traveled on the Falcon to reach Haven, and she had no idea where she actually was in relation to Human Space now. Other than it had to be well beyond the farthest Rim worlds and in the general galactic spinward direction of territory controlled by the Krall. That was hardly a secret, and that large volume of space could encompass a million or more stars. Mirikami and a number of his closer advisors were also present to listen and to pose questions.

Maggi spoke after everyone was seated, stating for the record why everyone was here. This was partly said for several of the Prada elders, who had not participated in previous joint species meetings, and didn’t know what was expected of them. It was also partly for Golda Mauss, who had met her first representatives from all three alien species yesterday. She was feeling out of place in such a setting.

“Fellow beings, we have gathered here in Xenos to learn what we can of the great weapon we believe the Krall possess. It is variously described as the Ancient Olt’kitapi ships, as the living ships, as an ultimate weapon, as a mining tool, and today we learned it was once called what translates roughly into a word meaning a Dismantler ship. It was intended for peaceful purposes, but as many tools can be, it can also be used in war.

“The last descriptive name, Dismantler ship, came from an old Raspani dialect that has not been spoken since before the Krall defeated the Raspani, over eighteen thousand years ago. It was found in Raspani language records left to them in a library of old dialects, stored within their mind enhancers. Olts and mind enhancers were originally provided to the Torki and Raspani by the Olt’kitapi, and the vast internal libraries contain some surprises when searched thoroughly. I hope those searches continue.”

She looked at the Raspani in particular, who had the oldest records, but her gaze also passed over Coldar, to urge the Torki to explore obscure library references.

“The old language reference appears to contain a description of a large fast ‘vessel’ of some type with round ends, which might match the images Captain Mirikami and Thad Greeves were able to extract from the mind of a Krall named Parkoda, who had actually seen some of those ships. They will share that image with you shortly. That Krall saw perhaps three hands of those ships, which would be twelve in human decimal numbers. The exact number is not certain because he may not have looked down the entire line of parked ships. They appeared along a caldera wall of an extinct volcano, with a super Jovian planet in the background sky. The world where they are located must be a moon of the nearby gas giant. The red color of reflected and subdued light from cloud tops suggests the primary sun is a red dwarf.

“The planet where the ships were parked is at least marginally habitable, based on Parkoda’s ability to breathe there and the vegetation he saw. This moon-world must surely be tidally locked with the Jovian, with one face always towards it. Plants and oxygen suggests the Jovian is very close to its red dwarf star if the moon receives enough heat for liquid water to exist on the surface. The super Jovian would also radiate heat of its own, perhaps enough to keep the moon comfortably warm when it’s in eclipse from the star. Tet and Thad will show you what the Krall saw.”

Mirikami and Greeves circulated among the audience of aliens and humans, sharing the images, even though there was little chance any of them had ever seen or heard of that star system, or saw ships like those. They explained that the Krall had known that some of the parked ships were effectively dead, others were alive but unresponsive, and four would presumably respond to instructions.

“I will ask Blue to come forward to describe what the Raspani know or have surmised about what use a peaceful people like the Olt’kitapi had for these seemingly destructive ships.” She gestured to the plump Raspani, straddling a long padded bench seat.

With the usual stretching of the “s” sound he said, “Thank you Ambassssador.” It stood and walked down the length of the bench, and waddled to the front of the room, where it switched on the translator device hanging around his thick neck, which could be linked to his mind enhancer. He spoke low in Raspani, with amplified and perfect sounding Standard coming from the device.

“I will resist the temptation to speak directly in Standard, and so I choose to employ the vocal device the Torki invented, and speak in my own language. I have grown tired of repeating myself, and observing the looks of strain on human faces as they seek meanings from words that contain what you describe as sibilants. As a species sensitive to the term butchering, I will avoid its application to how I pronounce words in Standard.”

He then made a deliberate, slow, one-eyed wink, proving he understood the macabre humor in what he had just said, as a former Krall “meat animal.”

“We have more recently awakened Raspani minds that are in new bodies now, able to join the search of huge databases and histories. Therefore, part of what I will explain is recently discovered knowledge, even to me.

“For some present here that may not know this,” he looked at Mauss, “my people were once a client race of the Olt’kitapi. They helped us achieve an advanced civilization after finding us as a semi-sentient people that were forming our first simple societies, with many languages on our home world. They apparently worked with some of our most intelligent herd members, and developed the first of a number of mind enhancers, as we describe them.

“Finding useful knowledge accessible to our minds, as we progressed to where we were able to apply it, we developed our civilization in a slow but steady manner, with no additional interaction with the Olt’kitapi again before we started colonizing other star systems, so far as we know. We did know of them, because of the libraries they left us in our devices, that told us a little of them and how we came to have the mind enhancers. Those with the first enhancers passed them down to their descendants, somewhat differently than did the Torki. Like the Torki, when a herd member with such a chip died, it was recovered and reused. We would make an incision in the skull of an immature member of the herd, to insert the reused chips, following instructions contained in the library. Over time, some chips were lost or damaged, but many survived.

“Eventually, after a couple of thousand years of recycling, our technology progressed to where we tried to make our own mind enhancers. When we reached that stage, a library suddenly opened to us with directions of how to make them. We never knew where the Olt’kitapi lived, but as we slowly expanded into space and established more colony worlds, they finally made contact again. This time they had no new mind enhancers to offer us, but instead gave us an invitation to join with them in a future that was being planned for many species. They told us they intended to construct gigantic habitats. Please note the use of plural here, because that is what they told us. They would be built around single stars, where different species could live and interact peacefully, without a need to compete for resources or space to live.

“We Raspani were promised a habitat as a gift, and we would be permitted to build new ones of our own if we wished, using their technology. We would keep our original home and colony worlds, but we could also share life in the star systems where habitats would be built. It was shortly before the first construction was to start that the Krall revolt happened. Our belief is that the Krall warrior class, learning of the Dismantler ships, desired them as super weapons.

“The Krall revolt was supposedly triggered as a way to prevent some of the clans that were cooperating with the Olt’kitapi, from being changed by them. Only we believe it was really to prevent those small clans from gaining access to this technology, which the warrior class Krall could not have. The war loving Krall had always intended to turn on the Olt’kitapi, and to stop them from turning their species soft. Changed into what most of the beings here would describe as more peaceful and civilized.

“My people had not met any of the Krall at that time, and we also had relatively little contact with the Olt’kitapi because our volume of space was adjacent to theirs but did not overlap. The Olt’kitapi were a benevolent people, who helped several species that needed a boost in order to advance if they agreed to accept the help, and then left them entirely alone, developing in their own way.

“We think our peaceful advancement convinced them that we would be good neighbors. After meeting them again, we discovered our mind enhancers had once more opened up to reveal a new library of knowledge, preparing us for the first steps in joining them in the construction of the great habitats. This is much like the Torki have experienced, with libraries of knowledge being opened to them when they are ready.

“Our newest library back then contained descriptions of various huge theoretical constructs that apparently the Olt’kitapi had studied, as ways to convert an entire solar system into a massive artificial habitat. A habitat that could be customized for any species, and would have room for a large number of different habitats. The Olt’kitapi planned to use the building material already in the selected systems, the planets, asteroids, and comets. The ideal star appeared to be one that would have a very long life, such as a red dwarf, which also contained many massive planets for dismantling for building material. We think one tool for doing this was a type of powerful mining ship, which may have been called a Dismantler in one of our old dialects.

“Soon after we were contacted by them again, we were informed by an Olt’kitapi emissary of the Krall revolt, and of a war of extinction the Krall were waging against them. We learned that their pacifist ways were unable to resist the primitive species they had hoped to help advance, and to whom they had given basic tools of war for the defense of the future habitats. In absence of complete records today, we believe we Raspani were advised to flee from the edge of the Olt’kitapi volume of space, and to avoid contacting the Krall. The emissary said they were going to try to end the danger they had created, and would try to destroy the Krall world. We pulled away, and didn’t know then if they succeeded in that attempt.

“We stayed away from the edge of Olt’kitapi space for a thousand or more years before the Krall found us. After that, we fared little better than our early benefactors, except that instead of extermination, or enslavement as workers, you know our curse was to become a source of food to the beastly barbarians, whom the Olt’kitapi accidentally unleashed on the galaxy.”

He made the Raspani elbow squeeze gesture that served as a shrug. “That was long ago. I think the moon-world image you found in that Krall’s mind is in the system where the Olt’kitapi intended to start construction. The large round ended ships are possibly the mining craft that were designed for obtaining raw materials for building the habitats. The other Olt’kitapi ships we saw of theirs were not shaped like that. There must have been many more ship designs than just the Dismantlers involved in the future construction, but the Krall would only have seen the value in machines they could use for destructive purposes.”

Mirikami asked, “How do the mining ships work? What do they do that could destroy an entire world? The Krall histories claim their original home world was torn apart somehow.”

The elbow move again. “We do not have construction details in our library, merely possible designs for various enormous structures, apparently for us to study for our education. Obviously, they were not going to build all of the types depicted. Perhaps the shapes of what was to be built might suggest how it would be done. I can share the files with the general descriptions with the Torki, and with you Kobani, but the Prada and your guest here,” he indicated Mauss again, “do not have chips implanted to receive them.”

Mirikami had a solution. “Share the information with us Kobani as you proposed. A Comtap chip can link to an AI, and there is one for this building. I believe it will be able to show a visual representation of your images on the wall behind you, which is a Smart Plastic full screen display panel we bought in Human Space. We should move some tables and equipment out of the way.”

While the few items that might block a view were moved, Mirikami linked to the building’s AI. “Reception, I have a task for you in conference room three. Please respond on speaker.”

“Yes, Sir. How may I be of assistance?”

Mirikami had sensed the file transfer from Blue, but had not examined it as it flashed into chip storage. “I will send you a data file I received from a Raspani mind enhancer. It will contain some images that we wish to present on the wall screen in this room. Can you change the format the Raspani use, to display the image for us?” He forwarded the new files.

“Yes, Sir. I have worked with Raspani and Torki image files many times. I have the files you just transferred to me. Should I present the first image? They are numbered.”

“Yes, please.”

An image from space of a metallic sphere appeared, with no scale to indicate its size, although pinpoints of remote stars could be seen in the background. There were protuberances spaced frequently around it, and there were regularly placed circular areas of differing size that could be portals, or airlocks. This could be a spherical orbital station, for all that could be told from the image.

Mirikami asked, “Blue, the building Reception AI has all of your images, but can you explain what we see here?”

“I will try, Tet. This object is enormously larger than it may appear in this image. It completely encloses a star, with a radius that is dependent on the energy radiated by the host star selected. A red dwarf has lower energy output, and its lifetime is much longer than a star such as the brighter and hotter one of the Koban system. This type of shell would be smaller around a red dwarf. Such a sphere here, around your star, would have to be much larger for proper heat dissipation, and the Koban system would not have enough planetary material to construct something as large as is needed.

“There are cutaway views, and transparencies to show this structure, and the sphere could be rotated for an added centrifugal effect on the inner side, strongest at the equator. This design would leave the poles of the sphere with only the gravity of the mass of the thin skin material. With tachyon energy, there would be no need for that inefficient method of gravity simulation. I think there is little reason to examine this image in detail, because this sort of structure has been determined by us, and by the Olt’kitapi, to be impractical for multiple reasons.

“It would require more planetary material than is usually available in a single star system, and it failed to provide the privacy and environmental customization for the different species they wanted to live in the habitats they constructed.”

Max Born named the object in Standard. “That is known as a Dyson Sphere to humanity, and in our culture this was discussed as a possible structure an advanced civilization might build, to harness all of the energy of the host star. When Blue told me of the images, I looked into archives and discovered this proposal by a physicist named Freeman Dyson, in the twentieth century. There appear to have been others that considered such a concept, with variations. The energy collection was a main consideration, and the building of such a shell was found to be not only a staggering and difficult engineering task, it would be gravitationally unstable around the host star. How do you keep it from constantly drifting off center without continuous adjustments of a truly massive, yet potentially fragile shell?” He shrugged.

“We didn’t have Normal Space drives or tachyon power then. That design fell into disfavor, not that humanity could have considered building one anyway. A solid ring was considered a possible alternative, and which required much less material. Although, it too will have a gravitational instability problem.”

As Born spoke, Mirikami had prompted the AI to see if a ring structure was in the images. One appeared on the wall, and this time a central red colored sun was readily apparent, with the immense ring circling the star at the habitable zone, where water would be liquid. It provided the breathtaking scale of the construction effort required.

Blue popped his lips in agreement, and added, “The Olt’kitapi did not favor either of these constructions, because of the requirement of constant massive energy inputs being required to maintain a stable rotation, and safe spacing of these rigid structures from the star.

“They did not say in our library, which contains only images, but we believe they would have used a more flexible sort of ring that they repeated in more detailed images, which could be expanded easily, constructed in pieces, and mimicked the small individual multiple ring systems every stable solar system already has. My people described it as a chain of flowers around the star. There are images of this as well.”

Coldar offered his people’s description, because they had also been looking at the Raspani files for several days. “It was described as the spawning cycle by us, when we compared it to how we release our fertilized eggs to circulate around the oceans, to return home when mature enough.”

Wister showed the Prada had once dreamed larger as well. “We have not seen these images, but we thought of such things in the past. It was like a glade of trees around the mother star to us.”

Killing the poetic sounding descriptions, Born described the human equivalent. “I think what you each describe was called a Dyson Swarm by us.”

Maggi latched onto something Blue had said. “Blue, you said every stable solar system has multiple rings? What do you mean?”

He wrinkled his brow in a smile. “The planets in their orbits, of course. One bead on a string. There is no reason there should be only one planet in each orbit, nor for there to be only one flat ring of planetary orbits.”

She looked skeptical. “You think the Olt’kitapi intended to make dozens of smaller planets, to form orbital rings around the star?”

Blue and his people had obviously been thinking of the possible Olt’kitapi choices for several days. “We doubt they would have been so wasteful of all of that building material. A complete sphere that enclosed a star was too great a task for a practical design. Using a string of orbiting beads of planetary sized hollow spheres, they could have started small, and gradually expand from there. Clumps of sorted and gathered building materials, derived from larger planets could be more rough beads placed in balanced orbits until needed. These raw material clumps would stay gravitationally stable, and the finished planetary scale spheres are massive certainly, on a personal scale of our own bodies and structures. With Normal Space drives powered by tachyon energy, such hollow spheres could be slowly maneuvered if that were required, and would contain only a tiny fraction of the mass of a typical solid rocky planet, with none of the heavy metals wasted in a useless molten core.

“With tachyon Traps to generate a gravity field on either side of the two surfaces of a planetary radius shell, the civilizations could live on the outer and inner surfaces, with an atmosphere held in place by gravity. Both sides of the spherical shell could be used, and the location of industry could be moved to the inside if they wish, while the outer surface could have a normal biosphere and cities, with a view of the grand design of the entire managed solar system, with thousands of shifting points of light that are your neighbors. Each sphere would have the surface gravity its users selected, and a biosphere designed for the comfort of their species.

“We think, with mass balancing and managed weather, that rivers and seas and simulated mountains could be placed on the surface of each hollow planet sized world. At a minimum, each planetary radius shell, roughly as massive as each of the other shells in the ring, offer double the usable space per sphere, and there could be many thousands of them, placed in various ring orbits around the star. If you use polar orbits, then there is no need to squeeze every ring into a single equatorial plane, where planets form naturally from the original stellar disc. Every planetary shell would be tailored for the species that would inhabit that one, or could have zones of different gravity and biosphere, to accommodate different species if they chose to share a shell world.

“None of the species in this room currently have the mathematical, scientific, and technical knowledge to do this, particularly the complex orbital mechanics. Apparently, the Olt’kitapi did. They would have helped the species peaceful enough to accept their invitations, and would have taught them how to use the advanced technology, which they were willing to share. Had they not wanted a more aggressive species to be tamed down, to have the Krall become the future defenders of their planned society, they might have succeeded.”

Everyone paused a moment quietly, to look at an image that the Reception AI, listening to their discussion, had considered to be appropriate. It was of a central star, with twelve orbital rings spaced around it, thirty degrees apart, and had at least a hundred “beads” in each ring, which would represent a shelled habitat sphere, or perhaps a power station or industrial complex. There were at least twelve hundred such spheres shown and with the inner and outer surfaces available for use, double the outer surface areas.

Maggi had a question for the AI. “Reception, what is the scale you estimate in this image that is used for the individual habitats, the diameter of the spheres, not the mass.”

Correctly assuming the answer to her question should be provided to everyone, it answered in Standard for the entire room. “Each sphere has roughly the diameter of either Haven or Koban, which are close to the habitable planet average in Human Space. That would be close to eight thousand miles in diameter, with a margin of error of one or two hundred miles, larger or smaller.”

Mirikami said. “Wow, two thousand four hundred times the room of a single planet. From the spacing of the orbits, it looks as if more rings could be added, as well as more habitats per ring. I guess since there is no shortage of stars, why pack ‘em in any tighter? Start another neighborhood. I have no idea how much building material an entire solar system would provide, but that brings us to the reason why we considered the Olt’kitapi construction project in the first place.

“How were they going to dismantle the planets, the gas and ice giants, on down to the rocky planets, moons, comets and asteroids to get what they needed? Any of these plans need most, or all of the metallic cores, and probably less of the gasses of the Jovian’s. Unless there are races that don’t breathe oxygen which we haven’t met. I wouldn’t bet against that possibility. Obviously, they needed what was in the cores of any of the planets. How do these relatively small ships get in and get that material?”

Thad discussed the rumor that had floated around among the early captives on Koban, when they had first heard about the Krall history of losing their home planet. Whatever did that to their planet was of interest to any enemy of theirs.

“The Krall say their world was totally destroyed, pulled or blown apart. We could only speculate then that an antimatter bomb was used, but that notion is at odds with how the planet was left in fragments. This isn’t how a bomb that strikes the surface will behave. Besides, if you can make and contain a large quantity of antimatter in the first place, what does that have to do with a mining ship? It must be something else.”

After a lengthy discussion, all they were left with was the belief the Olt’kitapi could somehow get to the core materials of a planet, and one old term for the ships that were intended to do that made sense. They were probably called Dismantlers for a reason. Except, how did the process work? Was it fast or slow? Is there a defense against the process? Do the ships get close and bore into the planet, or stand off a great distance?

In the end, the discussion was interesting, but offered no clue as to how a world could be attacked on a large scale by a single ship, and therefore no specific defense could be considered. The one point the Prada and Raspani emphasized, is that the Krall claimed the ships traveled greatly faster than did a T squared Jump Drive, and the Prada had heard Krall clan stories that the ships could Jump directly from the surface of a planet, while deep in a gravity well. They did this without being instructed to do so, when a destination was provided by a soft Krall.

It had been understood that the soft Krall, or Krall’tapi as several of the old Raspani dialects called them, were the only people alive that could operate the ships. Max Born thought it might have to do with a chip in the heads of the Krall’tapi, but the consensus was negative. The Krall had wiped out the Olt’kitapi, largely because of those chips imbedded in warriors of one or more ancient clans. There was no one that could make new chips if that was the key to operating the ships.

Mirikami, who had first figured out the use of his own Krall tattoo as a key to clanships, suggested the advanced ships would not respond to tattoos on a Krall, with its unique quantum key. Perhaps the Krall’tapi had a different key. It wasn’t clear how, if they were Krall prisoners, they could pass on a quantum key to one another that the Krall couldn’t also use. Twenty three thousand years ago, the Krall’tapi and warrior Krall were the same species, even if they were not now.

Pulling on his lip, Mirikami said, “It probably isn’t a different tattoo, but rather the ship recognizing who is wearing or carrying the key code. We repeatedly hear the Krall describe these ships as intelligent, even as alive. That suggests a more advanced form of artificial intelligence than our own AIs, which isn’t surprising, given the other technological and quantum advances that ancient race made. I’m afraid we aren’t going to solve the problem of how these ships are used until the Krall use one. By all indications, it’s a one shot use for each, because the ships stop obeying instructions later.”

Maggi took comments from a few others that offered opinions, but without concrete information to guide them, they eventually decided they would be forced to wait and see what happened. The conference ended, and everyone went back to normal routines.

Mauss, who had been quiet and observant at the meeting, talked with her hosts, Maggi and Mirikami, returning with them to their residential quarters when staying in Xenos.

“Tet, I see you let the aliens have an equal say in your meetings. They don’t provide fighters, so do they have an equal say in your combat decisions?”

“Golda, the navy and army fight, but they certainly don’t have an equal say in our Kobani combat decisions. Our alien allies have contributed greatly to the technological edge we’re gaining on the Krall, and the PU military is benefiting from that as well, but they are not good fighters. There are some advances a Normal can’t take advantage of because they don’t have a superconducting nervous system, or other genetic advances. We know our capabilities, certainly better than planners that think of ways to fight like a Normal does. We consider other viewpoints, but are not bound by them when they differ from our own.”

She nodded and changed subjects. “I suppose I’ll find out soon. Perhaps when we go to Koban tomorrow.”

Maggi grinned. “The change won’t happen that fast, but it’s the day they’ll start. When you contacted us so soon to get the mods I was surprised. I expected you to spend a few weeks to several months in transitioning the fleet to the next Fleet Admiral.”

“There’s not going to be a new Fleet Admiral. President Medford kept the two intact Task Forces under their present commanders, and promoted them. She combined the three remnant forces into a single Task Force and assigned some new ships to flesh out their ranks, and gave that to the navy’s first male admiral. A Jonathan Willfem, a son of a retired admiral who sits in on Medford’s staff meetings when navy affairs are discussed. Political connections help.

“The three fleet elements will use several of your Comtap people in each, to tell them if, or I should say when, the Krall fleet raids a planet in force. The enemy has no idea we can react to attacks so quickly now, so we may catch them by surprise.”

She had a question. “Tet, I understand that Bledso has asked you to furnish roughly another seven hundred Comtap people, to work on patrol boats in each of the populated systems, Hub worlds, New Colonies, and Rim worlds. Will she get them?”

He nodded. “Yes. We have no shortage of volunteers. Although, I’ll bet the volunteers will be surprised at how little contact they’ll have with the Hub worlds they watch over. Bledso probably isn’t going to give them much shore time unless they happen to be spec ops troopers, and Hub worlds are old hat to them. Some of them will report when part or all of the Krall fleet arrives to attack some system, and that information will pass to the navy and to us instantly. We’re making sure the volunteers have the most recent Comtap chip, like Maggi’s and mine, for faster and continuous reports. After you get your mods, you can have one if you wish.”

“I can’t wait.”

Maggi pressed for an answer to an earlier question again. “Golda, you didn’t stick around long after you returned from K1 with the navy. You could have commanded the rebuilt task force I would think.”

“Nope. I wasn’t even considered. I was a supernumerary to the president, and tied again to a third navy victory that came at too high a price. Everyone knows we won decisively this time, despite our losses, but if I stayed on as commander of a Task Force, the comparisons in the media to New Lance would linger, and I’d be a liability to the president.

“Besides, I was ready to retire anyway before Chatsworth and Bledso came to me with their offer to go to K1. I want to do something new; the navy has been my entire adult life. There’s nothing newer than becoming a super woman with a long life.” She smiled.

Maggi accepted her reasons. “We’ll Jump over to Koban in the morning. I’ll make sure Aldry and Rafe treat you right. By the way, I’ll bet you knew Admiral Jean Anderfem, both when she was active duty and as President Stafford’s military advisor. Aldry is her younger sister.”

Mauss looked surprised. “No kidding? I still see Jean from time to time. I put her name up as a candidate for replacing me as Superintendent of the Luna Base Academy. I can tell her little sister more news of her family because I met some of them on Alders world, when I went there to talk Jean into considering taking my old job.”

“I know she would like that. Chief Haveram’s brought back family records for all of our people formerly from Human Space, but those are not very personal. I guess I should call Haveram a Captain, even if he objects.”

“I came out here on the Falcon you know. He told me his story, and considers Chief to be his real first name, not Mike.”

“I know. It’s all that his friends use, so that now includes you.”

Switching subject, Mauss nudged Mirikami’s arm as they entered the apartment. “How do you know how many of these Dismantler ships are left? None of the aliens mentioned that tonight.”

“I’ve told them, but I should have mentioned it myself. Parkoda’s mind implied that perhaps a hand of those ships was active, but he didn’t know which of those he looked at were usable. Another Krall sub leader, whose mind I tapped when we scouted K1, said the Joint Council was worried about the dwindling number of operational ships they had left.

“Telour, a Krall we told you we have history with, was vying for the position of Tor Gatrol by proposing a new strategy of using them against humanity. We don’t know if his proposal won him the promotion, or if what he proposed was really so new. He may not have survived the destruction of the council dome. Regardless, if he explained his plan to the council, that will have survived his death, and whoever is in charge could surely use one of the ships by whatever plan he proposed.

“I can’t say for certain, but I don’t think the Joint Council of the Krall would permit more than a single ship to be used against us at this time, since they take the long view of their future, and might need them in future wars. None of the other Krall I have tapped knew anything about them outside their use appearing in their histories, particularly in their early wars. After each use, the particular ship involved apparently went dormant or vanished.

“The supposition of the Raspani is that the minds of the ships are modeled after the Olt’kitapi minds, and they somehow imbued them with morality and a sort of conscious, making them unwilling to take lives, particularly on a large scale. Our own AIs certainly don’t have that built into them, perhaps saying something unpleasant about our own minds, which they are modeled after. We only block them from knowingly killing humans, and if that happens by accident, they don’t go home feeling guilt and shut down. In any case, very little of what we did at K1 would have worked if our AIs objected to killing.”

“So if only one ship is called to action, you think only one planet will be attacked?”

“Golda, you were there. We couldn’t learn how they work, nor from what range. Why the ships stop working, we don’t know. If they won’t kill planets they know have people living on them, I don’t know how they get them to do anything destructive to them in the first place. It would seem we might have only one planet at risk, which is terrible enough, but humanity can survive that if we don’t give in to their demands, and let them defeat us at their leisure.”

Maggi voiced her own worry. “I wish we knew what that Telour’s plan had been. What if he wanted to use all of the functional ships to attack that many of our worlds? You said previously you thought there were four left, and we hurt them badly at K1 this time. The council might change their mind on limiting their use. Berserker’s rage might rule now.”

Mirikami revealed another worry he’d been concealing. “If they do, the PU government itself might not survive planet losses of that magnitude. The voters would put them all on the street. Although, it might matter which planets were hit, particularly if it’s only one. Forgive a cynic Golda, when it comes to Hub worlds. They were barely motivated to rebuild the military when the first few dozen Rim worlds were raided. Even the first two invasions didn’t spark high motivation for those old world populations to make sacrifices. That didn’t come until heavily populated Poldark was invaded after becoming a New Colony, and several other New Colonies received raids.”

He offered his opinion of the PU’s probable reaction. “If only a single Rim World bites the dust, I think the Hub will say the right things, but won’t feel the Rimmers pain. They’ll back off attacking the Krall worlds and avoid provoking them again. Except the Kobani won’t let that happen. We will not back off, because the Krall absolutely will never do that. This is win or die for us.”

****

“Many billions will die with this weapon!” Telour was giddy with blood lust as the living ship settled to the ground on Telda Ka. At least as much as a Krall could be giddy, and who had already participated in, or had relayed orders from Kanpardi that had resulted in the deaths of a hundred million humans. Only this time, the prey animals would die because of his orders, from his planning and decisions. The histories would name him as responsible for this retribution.

Tor Gatrol Telour’s name would be among the most remembered, of the thousands elevated to heroic status in the Histories. The Great Path would carry many of his progeny.

The specific hatchlings and novices that derived from his seed would not be known for a certainty, although he was now a valuable contributor to Graka clan’s bloodlines, and for trading eggs with other clans for status points. He had mated with the highest status females of his own clan, and with females whose clans had bartered with his clan leader, for submitting their best female warriors for a mating, provided they had a small share of the eggs from the same nesting cycle.

Any future warriors, from breeding cycles to which Telour had contributed, and that later showed promise as a good fighter and displayed exceptional leadership skills, would be considered a potential offspring of this generation’s finest (living) war leader. True or not, better warriors and leaders of the near future would be assumed to have some of Telour’s genes. Just as Telour was presumed to have had some of Kanpardi’s genes, from one of that leader’s many breeding cycle contributions.

Kanpardi’s frozen seed still ranked high in status value, even after his death. When Telour completed his revenge, he believed his status point shares of the estimated billions of prey deaths would eclipse that of any Krall leader of the last ten thousand years. Telour was about to exceed his greatest expectations, although he had not yet reached what he considered would be his greatest accomplishment in the histories.

He believed the reluctant and forced compliance of humans, the most Worthy Enemy the Krall had encountered in their long history, would be his greatest legacy. This most clever and devious of enemies would be made to bend to Telour’s will, to cease all space warfare and provide only the ground forces needed for the culling of lesser warriors from the bloodlines of every clan. Future warriors on the Great Path would be more flexible in their thinking, smarter, and innovative enough to match future opponents similar to humanity, which they might face. Strength, speed, and powerful bodies would now be supplemented with improved minds, as they still sought to derive superconducting nerves. Minds that thought like his own, Telour thought. There was no ego like a bold aggressive Krall ego.

The largest Graka clan dome, out of their cluster of four, was being used temporarily as the focal point for reforming the Joint Council. Telour had used his influence and control to delay that process, by sending many of the higher status members of the Great and Major clans out with the fleet, to seek and destroy elements of the human navy, to attack whatever world where they were found. The trackers of the retreating navy ships had not reported back, so either the human’s had hidden their trail too well, or by some trick, they had destroyed their pursuers.

Telour didn’t want to wait longer, because that left too many high status warriors from other clans to be elected as members of the new Joint Council, which then might try to reign in Telour’s ambitions.

He didn’t need to be overly concerned with defending Telda Ka. The invasion of New Glasgow was delayed indefinitely now, something the human navy knew, and there was little else humans could do here to help them protect their worlds. They would know punishing attacks were coming for some of their planets. Defending their worlds, something the humans always did, would prevent another and pointless mass attack on Telda Ka. No human or Krall would be in a position to interfere with Telour’s own plans.

When the living ship appeared, barely a hundred miles above the planet, there was some confusion and a scramble to intercept it by orbiting clanships. There was no burst of gamma rays to announce its arrival, as it was claimed happened with these ships, and it was at the upper fringes of tenuous atmosphere. That appeared to be a slightly risky distance for a ship to perform a White Out, and inside the limits of how close a clanship could be targeted. He didn’t know how this ship could arrive so close.

There should be significant intersection with tenuous gasses that could cause serious damage to the surface of the hull, and internally as well. With a living crew, the tissue damage might be fatal even for a Krall if it was concentrated in the brain. To White Out deep in the atmosphere would destroy a clanship, causing damage to the surface directly below. That was why all clanships had built-in navigation interlocks, which prevented a careless pilot from Jumping and intersecting with a planet or its atmosphere. That included any object of greater mass than an asteroid or comet of roughly a mile or so in diameter. Objects of low mass didn’t register on the clanship’s mass detector, so a Jump to intersect low mass objects that you could see was possible.

Ironically, human ships, if built a mile in length and of heavy steel, would have been immune to the intersect mode of Jump attacks. Nonetheless, they would still fall prey to a clanship moving nearby, then forming a Jump Hole that sheared away segments of their huge hulls.

Thinking of the living ship and clanship limits, Telour wasn’t sure if the stolen clanships had such intersect limitations anymore. The clanships under human control had clearly been able to exceed the accelerations a Krall pilot was limited to using. Because a human could not survive the internal stress, it seemed to prove they must have had an AI system controlling them. The quantum lock bypass was a mystery that Telour believed was solved if humans had discovered the key, delivered by a Katusha in the form of a tattoo. A nonliving AI could not receive a quantum key tattoo. It seemed a new mystery replaced the old. He didn’t have an answer and he was not going to request input from other clans.

That not even a Krall could have survived some of the maneuvers that were observed by the human controlled ships was restricted knowledge. Telour had managed to keep this from becoming widely known outside his staff so far, but the witnesses of the actions of enemy controlled clanships would share stories and opinions. Stories of humans that could outperform a Krall was too alien a concept, to a species that had spent nearly twenty five thousand years of selective breeding to become the physically superior masters of every race.

By a com set communication from one of his aides aboard the ship, Telour had ordered the large Olt’kitapi craft, five times the volume of a clanship, to land near the dome entrance with its unopened side hatch facing the dome, so he could make a highly visible approach to the ship, all alone. Unlike Kanpardi before him, Telour understood the value of self-promotion. Perhaps he thought this was needed because he was less well respected than had been Kanpardi, who had acted for the good of his race more than he had for himself or his clan. Telour’s image would be sent to every dome and repeated to any clanship commander or pilot that chose to watch. Other than some resentful surviving Tanga clanships, nearly all would be watching. It was a great day for him.

Having this moment recorded also would prevent, or at least delay, the alteration of the histories over the millennia. Graka clan was in ascendency now, Tanga clan had once been, and others had been highest in different eras. The histories gradually “evolved” with the passages of time, to shift credit, or blame, for events that a rising clan wanted to display as their own exaggerated contributions in the distant past, perhaps diminish their failures or exaggerate failures of other clans. The events themselves were seldom altered, but who had been most responsible for a good or bad outcome could be. Telour wanted his role to be well documented, to make historical alteration difficult for later clans.

As he neared the center of the side of the ship, moving at a more deliberate pace than the typical Krall run, a tall portal irised open and a low ramp was extruded from the hull material below the opening. It was not a metallic slab extending out and dropping to the ground as with a clanship, it was slower and silent.

As arranged by Telour’s two representatives and the high status clan leaders that had been sent to verify the request for use of a living ship, they were waiting inside the large airlock. They all raced down the ramp to form a rank on each side for the Tor Gatrol. The guardians of the living ship did not leave their charge, with eight of them surrounding the shackled soft Krall, now moved away from the command deck circle deep in the ship.

Another sixty-four guardians stood with plasma rifles held across their chests, crouched and ready along both sides of the wide inner corridor, facing the closed transparent inner airlock portal, observing the scene outside through the opened outer portal. Anyone inside the large airlock would be visible to them. They would defend the ship if there were signs of interclan warfare to contest control of the vessel, and would kill the soft Krall captive, preventing use of the ship as a weapon against other clans. It was something that had never happened, but ancient protocol held sway.

There was another reserve of four hundred forty guardians distributed in multiple large compartments within the big ship. Some of these were workrooms where instrumentation controls would have been used by the Olt’kitapi to perform manipulations of the masses of material they wanted to sort, separate, and move. There was far more room within the ship for more than the five hundred twelve guardians aboard. Protocol would not permit more than sixteen visitors inside the ship anyway. More guards than that was wasteful, and required too much in the way of food. For some ancient and forgotten reason, Raspani meat was not permitted aboard these ships, not even dried as jerky. Some old stories claimed the living ships had objected for some reason. There were always alternatives of local native animals to use for provisions.

Protocol also limited visitors that would accompany the ship when it departed on a “mission” to punish an enemy world. The fewer that knew what it did and how, the fewer could plot to seize control. Interclan warfare had been very violent at times in the past.

The two ranks standing in front of the ramp raised their left arms in unison, talons out in a salute. Telour took no notice, and stepped onto the ramp. With the recognition of him by the group salute being observed by those inside, when Telour stepped onto the ramp the warriors in the corridor lowered their weapons to their sides. When he entered the airlock, and the outer door irised closed and the inner door opened, they too saluted the Tor Gatrol. Telour, as tradition required, did return their salute in kind, for having delivered the ship safely and securely.

For the second time Telour noted the alluring scents of an atmosphere that was modeled after the Krall’s destroyed home world. He was now the commander of the ship, or at least he was the one that would tell the soft Krall what to instruct the ship to do.

Out of sight of the image recorders, he gestured and told one of guardians to lead him into the ship to meet the soft Krall pilot. He needed to explain the mission he had planned, and to describe the speed with which it must be executed. Each of the steps was to be completed quickly enough to prevent the ship from learning what it had been duped into doing too soon.

He would explain personally, to be certain the soft one understood the speed with which he must proceed. Together they would scout the systems to be passed through on the living ship, showing the guardians where the soft one would be directed to execute the Tor’s orders. Then he would have the guardians rehearse with the pilot until the complex procedure was well known.

The time of travel would be short between any of the list of stars that Frakod had provided in the human Hub region. It wasn’t the time of travel between the stars limiting how many solar systems could be hit. It was the time needed to produce each event in a solar system, which set the limit.

There naturally were no truly straight lines through five different inhabited systems, and his efficient new staff member had provided four lists of six possible stars, each having inhabited planets that matched Telour’s specifications as a Hub world, and in combination led generally towards the final target. The plots, on a navigational system, resembled slightly bent spokes, all radiating away from a central point.

Telour would select one of those routes, and he decided he would shorten the string of system candidates so that the ship would enter only four of them, not five or six. Telour would send four clanships ahead to each of the systems he would select, to stand off and wait for the Olt’kitapi ship to arrive. The ship could arrive without revealing itself by gamma rays, but if was somehow noticed and investigated, it had no defense other than to Jump. The clanships would ensure the living ship was not interrupted when it created and held the Trap fields in place for long hours, and then rotate the mass back into this Universe when ready.

The fewer number of stars to visit, after he reconsidered the list, reduced the chance that before the attack in the final system could be initiated the ship might cease to respond. That would happen if it somehow detected mass deaths in any previous systems visited. In that case, the final point Telour was trying to make with his statement to humanity would be lost.

At the end of an inadvertent bit of stellar punctuation, the dot below the stellar exclamation point was Earth!

****

In the first week of the patrol boats performing their monitoring, they reported multiple clanship White Outs. Some appeared to be scouts that popped out in a system, and left without firing a shot. They didn’t come close to any planet, and only performed active scans. It appeared these could be seeking any concentration of navy ships.

The navy had their three task forces positioned in uninhabited systems, each near several Hub worlds that were close enough to the side of Human Space nearest K1 to be at greatest risk of attack. The reconstituted TF 1 was poised to guard four Hub worlds within a hundred light years of their position. TF 2 and TF 5 each had similar size volumes to protect. They were prepared to Jump on short notice if any sizable Krall attack was initiated.

If there were raids of only a few clanships, they were prepared to dispatch just enough force to counter them. If the enemy sent their entire fleet against a single system, all three task forces, and some of the Kobani would respond, if the Krall split up, they would adjust for that.

After a dozen scouting missions to Hub systems, and none to Rim worlds and New Colonies, the Krall sent two equal size attack forces, with seven hundred sixty eight ships in each group. Alders world and New Glasgow were their nearly simultaneous targets, and they were attacked with considerable fury, showing more planning than the Krall had used on raids in the past, but less preparation than used for an invasion landing.

The clanships did White Outs all around each of the two planets, and the initial attacks were on facilities and weapons in orbit. The numerous rail gun platforms were hit first, then orbital transfer stations and manufacturing centers, which also had anti-ship missile pods and plasma cannons mounted on them. The missile pods on a factory and passenger terminal were new to the Krall clanship commanders, and entailed a new learning experience against what had been undefended soft targets at Rim worlds. The education cost them four clanships.

The next targets were to be command and control centers on the surface, the anti-ship missile launch facilities, and the massive plasma cannons placed around the largest cities. The choice of Krall targets strongly suggested they intended to stay awhile in orbit, and were eliminating the greatest source of risks to their suddenly more precious clanships, leaving them free to pound on the population centers after the defenses were weakened. There were no single ships launched, or any landing of raiders attempted as there had been in past small lightning raids. They were here this time to inflict damage on what they believed humans valued most. Lives and property.

The planetary defenses had been on hair trigger alert, and had fired under AI control at the first White Outs close to the planet. Civil ships had been instructed to hold Jump energy tachyons in their traps at any port of call, and within minutes of the start of the attack, dozens of ships separated from the orbital platforms and Jumped, using less distance than was normally considered safe between ships and stations to form a Jump Hole. The Krall were the greater risk now, and if you received a fine later, at least you were alive to pay it or argue your case in court.

The rail guns had been modified to fire more than the simple slug rounds used early in the war, containing only a tracer chip to signal when it accidentally struck stealthed enemy clanships. The former diamond tipped rounds were also gone, as was the Eight Ball threat they were designed to meet.

Thanks to Kobani furnished technology and information, a stealthed clanship wasn’t as invisible as before, particularly by use of reflected low-resolution radio waves. With clanship detection improved, the rail guns were better aimed instead of being an area coverage weapon. They fired new explosive rounds with a molten copper penetrator, and used reaction mass steering of the slugs to try to stay on target. Guidance for them was done via signals sent from surface AIs that made use of the same long-wave radar detection equipment.

Target resolution wasn’t sharp and detailed, but there were a great many guided shells fired. Individually, the new shells were not very destructive but had deeper penetration, and two or three hitting at random on a clanship had better odds of damaging a missile launcher or plasma cannon port, and they might hit attitude thrusters or the main thruster, disabling the reaction mass propulsion system.

If they were really lucky one or two slugs might hit where the molten copper could pierce the hull at midship, and punch through to reach a reaction mass fuel tank. Two such hits, one per tank, and the leaking binary chemicals could mix and spontaneously ignite. That bit of bad luck cost the Krall seven clanships, turned into orange fireballs in the first minutes of the attack, before energy beams finally killed the rail guns. Thirteen other clanships had to dump fuel and vent them to space to avoid the risk of a penetration of a second tank, forcing them to rely entirely on their Normal Space drives. This had little effect on the clanship’s overall maneuverability in space, except that the power drain required by the reactionless drives limited the energy available for rapidly reheating depleted plasma chambers, which fed star hot bolts to the heavy plasma cannons. The cannons couldn’t fire as frequently on those ships using Normal Space drives.

The command and control centers on Hub worlds had been made mobile, smaller, and more of them. Even though less protected they were harder to find, and they used line-of-sight laser com communications to nearby relay stations to eliminate transmission intercepts. The Krall wasted heavy ground attack missiles on the former bunker locations, where spoof signals led them to believe enemy command bunkers were still in place.

The planetary defense’s ground-based anti-ship missiles were still launched when they were needed, despite the Krall’s expectation they had just neutralized the people and AIs in the bunkers that controlled them. That assumption cost the Krall 21 more clanships, which had descended into atmosphere to start low-level attacks on the heaviest plasma batteries placed around the population centers. Those big guns, designed to hit nearly overhead orbital targets, had limited low elevation capability at which they were effective, because of thicker atmospheric effects that quickly reduced the power in their bolts at shallow angles.

In the first hour, the Krall found they had lost more than four percent of their clanship force before they had even fired at the population centers. All the same, they “knew” they had as much as a week before the news of their attacks could reach wherever the navy had retreated. Then at least another week before the slow to act humans could reach the planets under attack. They intended to safely wear down the defenses and conserve clanships for the next two weeks, then hit the cities hard, and leave.

The patrol boats, poised a half million miles from the two Hub worlds, didn’t seem worth the effort of chasing to any of the Krall pilots, since they were small and had Jump capability to allow them to flee. Unknown to the raiders, mere seconds after the Krall arrived in each system the Comtap in the patrol boat reported enemy numbers and actions to each task force and to Koban. The relay of decisions of which force would go where was instantly shared between the three spread out naval task forces. They had been on constant alert for the past week, expecting a shoe to drop. They had contingency plans if two or even three shoes dropped.

Alders world was the shortest distance, located almost midway between two of the navy groups. A one-day Jump from TF 1, and it was almost two days from TF 5, so both forces would combine and Jump there, coordinating their timing to White Out simultaneously. TF 4, and thirty Kobani ships in a flotilla, would make slashing attacks on the Krall raid at New Glasgow, where their two hundred thirty ships would be outnumbered by more than three to one. The Kobani ships were three days away, and the navy only two, so the navy ships would attack first, to try to draw many of the clanships back up to orbit, and ease the attacks on the planet.

TF 1 and 5 would make their arrival at Alders world thirty-nine hours after the Krall started their attack. That would be roughly a week and a half sooner than the enemy would expect. The Comtap observer reported the attacks on the cities at Alders were apparently not being pressed as hard as possible, to soften the defenses and preserve clanships and missile loads for the end of the first week. By then, the ground defenses should be hard pressed to keep the Krall missiles from doing their maximum damage.

Planetary lasers and plasma cannons initially could knock many incoming missiles down, but slowly and surely, the defensive ground batteries were being knocked out along key corridors leading to the largest eight cities, done via weapons that couldn’t be intercepted. There was no shortage of power for clanship lasers and plasma bolts, so missiles could be saved for hitting structures after the city defenses were weakened.

After all, the Krall expected to spend a week of this softening-up and a week of destruction after that. The heaviest strikes would come near the end, when the clanships flew lower in greater safety. They were staying in higher orbits now, to prevent anti-ship missiles fired from highflying aircraft platforms from climbing quickly into space and reaching them in large numbers. Those human missiles were subject to laser and plasma counter fire all the way up, and only two more clanships had been destroyed in the second eight hours of fighting. Even then, it took massive and wasteful salvos.

The Krall set up a rotation of clanships, where a clan or finger clan would send their clanships down for repeated laser and plasma bolt passes over one of the eight cities for an hour or two and different clans would strafe the other selected seven cities. Then in rotation, a new clan would start strafing runs, to maintain a steady series of attacks on all eight cities, designed to wear down defenders that had a need to sleep every day. A continuous week of this and humans would be making more mistakes, unable to keep up with repairs and equipment replacement, as the Krall had long noted on Poldark and Bollovstic before that.

Their frequent high passes managed to take out a few more of the defensive batteries every hour, and they hit a large antenna array of a long wave radar system the Krall had figured out was being used in tracking their stealthed clanships. This radio wave detection system wasn’t new science, but it was a different application of old technology to the Krall, which reduced their stealth capability. It was similar to the detection system they had used on the newer and more effective human stealth coatings at K1, but in a slightly different radio frequency spectrum. Once a clanship entered atmosphere their stealth partly vanished anyway in the stream of turbulence they left behind them, so the loss of full stealth wasn’t a critical weakness, once they understood what the system did and how. The surprise factor was gone after the initial losses suffered, and they had adjusted to the threat.

All that was required to leave these cities in flaming ruins, with bodies lying in the streets was the mere passage of time.

****

The spec ops observer in the patrol boat stationed at Alders world sent his mental images to the multiple Comtaps in TF 1 and TF 5, showing them the Krall’s present deployment formations and orbital parameters around the planet while they were enroute. They received updates every few hours, and made and adjusted their plans for arrival accordingly. Outnumbered perhaps seven hundred twenty to their four hundred ships, they knew they couldn’t expect the same full stealth capability as when they entered battle at K1, and they didn’t have the faster Kobani ships with them to draw away attackers. They could attempt the frequent Jump tactic, but without the reaction speed of the Kobani and the same high accelerations, that method was out of the question.

Their goal was for the two task forces to White Out close to the enemy, fire hundreds of anti-ship missiles, and leave ten Nova missiles behind under AI control, which should kill at least ten more clanships. They would Jump close to an outer planet, and let the patrol boat observer describe what the Krall did in reaction. Then decide on their next attack.

Almost half of the Krall force was in eight feeder formations attacking as many cities at any given time. By orbiting at nearly a thousand miles out, above effective missile attacks, these formations could provide continuous waves of swooping attackers, which maintained day and night strafing of the defenses. Most strafing clanships also fired lasers and plasma bolts on human nests in suburbs they passed over, as they were gradually able to fly lower. They hit some of the outlying buildings and industrial sites on the outskirts of the cities before climbing back to orbit, just after firing on the dwindling numbers of defensive batteries and missile sites. The defenses gradually weakened as the Krall worked closer towards the hearts of the cities. The uncharacteristic tactics were proof the Krall had adjusted to the new reality of shortages and were conserving their ships, taking more time.

Many of the large plasma cannons on the outer periphery, on the sides of the eight cities where the Krall focused their attacks, had been knocked out. Replacement big guns were being moved from the sectors not under constant attack. That decision weakened other approaches for Krall attacks, which would be arriving from new directions next week.

The Krall believed they had the relative leisure of waiting for the planet’s defenses to wear down over the remainder of this first week, and they could preserve their most valuable resources for the destruction of the inner cities. That resource was the clanships themselves, and their reserved loads of heavy ground attack missiles. They had the bigger missiles already loaded in every launch rack, in eager anticipation of the destruction to come.

Newly promoted Admiral Jon Willfem, commanding TF 1, intended to take on four of the Krall orbital formations with fifty each of his ships. He’d noted that there were roughly ninety clanships per formation that were feeding attacking clanships against whichever of the eight targeted cities they were closest to as they passed over them at a thousand miles. There was anywhere from twenty to twenty-five clanships descending towards a city for an attack, or were climbing back to orbit at any given time.

There were generally another four enemy craft gathered at one of the eight clanships designated as fuel tenders, which had additional internal storage bladders for reaction mass. Each of the attached clanships was replacing the binary fuel, since the majority of clanships had not suffered fuel tank punctures. Those clanships that could use thrusters had better low altitude avoidance of return laser and plasma fire, and this helped the pilot roll his hull and maneuver to distribute the heat of incoming energy beams. Four of these fuel tenders were in the selected formations Willfem would strike, where his people would find five clanships in close proximity. He had special welcoming gifts for those.

With twenty clanships always on attack runs, and twenty more involved with refueling, there were about fifty of each formation that were simply watching the active raiders, awaiting their turn to attack again.

Willfem intended to use a variation of the K1 attacks. His task force, composed of four separate fifty-ship groups, would White Out behind the four Krall formations assigned to him, and come out firing roughly ten miles from the rear of each enemy concentration. They would leave behind the “gifts” they brought, ready to launch under their own AI control, and then use their secondary tachyon Traps to Jump as soon as they fired their missile salvoes.

Admiral Freida Ahlberg, the first admiral from recent New Colony Fjord, had adopted a similar strategy after conferring with Willfem. She decided a bit of a morale boost for the ground defenders was in order. She was sending four ships, each one designated to White Out just above atmosphere over four of the chains of twenty or so clanships engaged in low level firing at surface targets. Her reasoning was the enemy would not be looking above them initially, and would be intensely focused on what they were trying to destroy on the ground. They would be quick targets of opportunity before the navy Jumped safely away.

The tasks assigned to the four parts of each of the two task forces had been decided by the overall commanders, assigning which ships went where. All that remained was a brief stop in the outer reaches of the Alders system, two hours of light time away from the planet, so they could inform the captains of every ship what they would do and which of the attack elements they would join. There were no Comtaps on each individual ship this trip. The two commanders assigned ships to each of their temporary sub divisions, explaining what they would do, and when and where they would draw back to wait for the patrol boat observer’s new report. Then commanders asked for a quick update from the patrol boat, made a few minor disposition changes, and TF 1 and TF 5 made the short Jump inwards to say hello.

****

Pradop was the Graka clan sub leader who the Tor Gatrol had appointed from his own staff to lead the Alders raid. This was a more favorable task than riding on the living ship, since Pradop didn’t expect it to return. No matter how many status points he might earn there, he was a warrior that wanted to flaunt his rank while living. Four systems attacked by a single living ship would be, he thought, too many to be able to complete the mission before the ship quit responding. The vessel might just vanish into Tachyon Space as some of the early ships used had done.

There could also be a million or more deaths on this planet, and as leader of the raid, he would gain a sizable share of status points. He personally had just completed a run on the second largest human nest, taking out another heavy laser battery, which added to his status score. It was enjoyable combat, and had the sort of risk he understood and had personal control over. He tethered to a refueling clanship to top off his tanks before joining with another group of ships, about to attack the largest human nest as their orbit took them closer. That city would come into view over the horizon of the planet shortly. As Raid leader, he could move to whichever formation that was about to strike a target that he wished to join.

The multiple sensor warnings of over eight White Outs of many human massed ships signaled this raid had just become more complex, and potentially more enjoyable if he could damage units of the human navy.

The nearly simultaneous alerts of hundreds of missile launches, coming from the rear of his present formation, showed he needed to break away from the fuel tender. He was alone on the command deck, with some of his crew eating below, but the range was great enough that he had plenty of time to prepare. The fuel tender was near the front of the formation and the attack was from the rear. He didn’t have any launchers loaded with their few anti-ship missiles, and his lasers and plasma cannons didn’t bear on the enemy to his rear. The enemy ships that had emerged far ahead to attack another formation, or behind a formation well to his left side, were almost zero probability kills at his distance. He needed to flip his ship to defend against the rear attack, and tearing away the two fuel lines was necessary.

He could hear the hurried warnings on various clan frequencies he was monitoring, and realized the attacks came from so close that there would be unavoidable losses. He intended to avenge them, and observed his automatic defense system fire towards incoming missiles. There were none directed at him or the three clanships that had also torn free from the tender. He’d expected to have to defend their replacement fuel supplies from missiles, but none was targeted on the tankers that would be lumbering easy targets. That seemed like an inefficient mistake on part of the attackers, ignoring a cluster of targets that were slightly hindered in their response. Stupid humans.

Then suddenly, all of the human ships winked out of this Universe. That was when he saw the first of a distant series of intense blue-white flashes, evidence that Jump intersects had just occurred. That was when he understood what was happening, and thought, I should have gone on the living ship raid.

He had just applied max thrust when a Novae missile intersected with the fuel tender next to him, who despite Krall reflexes, barely flinched from the blinding flash before the blast front composed of atomized metallic sleet tore his hull apart. He didn’t have to endure his regret very long.

****

Two hours later, the patrol boat gleefully reported the entire Krall force at Alders had Jumped. The patrol boat’s Tachyon Wave detector, when they followed for a short time, sensed they had actually departed, traveling in the direction of K1.

Initially, the Krall had gathered their forces together in a two thousand mile orbit. Even with two hundred seven losses from their initial seven hundred sixty eight, they still outnumbered the four hundred enemy heavy cruisers by a hundred sixty one. A clanship piloted by a Krall was more than a match, one on one with a heavy cruiser, but they hadn’t brought many anti-ship missiles, expecting to be gone before the navy could get a force here to counter them.

The raid came equipped only for ground attacks, and couldn’t send a significant force down against surface targets to weaken defenses while exposed to hit and run space attacks. They had lost two hundred seven clanships on a raid where they had estimated they might lose thirty of them, perhaps 5% in the worst case. Instead, they had lost nearly 27%.They could have launched all of their heavy missiles at the cities before departing. The new raid leader knew that the navy with their anti-ship missiles, and the largely intact ground defenses could both fire on them as they did that, and they would have more clanship losses for a very limited attack success of their own.

With over half of the ground defenses still intact, launching missiles from too far out would result in most of the missiles being destroyed, and going down close would add to clanship losses from the navy and ground forces. As it was, a Maldo clan sub leader, now holding the highest status on the raid, decided that dead Pradop could absorb all of the lost status here today, and do so on behalf of his Graka clan, which had been lording it over the other Great clans since the battle at Telda Ka. Besides, he rationalized, even a twenty-five percent loss on a raid had always been an acceptable level for honor, where a raid commander was justified to withdraw and review the results.

****

The damage to the Krall at New Glasgow was less severe, with only half as many attackers going against them. The initial White Out missile launches by TF 4 did significant damage, where the Krall, a conservative thinking race, was using the identical attack strategy as employed at Alders. This strafing method of wearing down a foe was apparently a tactic described in their histories, and it had worked in similar large raids against previous species.

Due to the lower number of heavy cruisers in TF 4, it was unable to engage all the eight formations orbiting New Glasgow. After the opening attack, the raid leader diverted half his force to guard against attacks, making the process risky for the humans. There were only five Novas with TF 4, and one of those missed it’s intended target, also a fuel tender, when the fast thinking pilot of the tanker pulled himself free of tethered clanships and had moved far enough that the White Out of the intended intersect found empty space. That region was quickly filled with energy beams. Without the interpenetrating masses intersecting upon the White Out, the Nova missile alone exploded with hardly a flash.

One finger clan, with less influence for gaining the supplies they had wanted, had received less than full loads of ground attack heavy missiles. Therefore, they had brought along additional anti-ship missiles, just so they would have something more to launch at the planet when the final days of the raid were ending. Their flexibility managed to destroy three heavy cruisers, something they would learn the raiders at Alders had failed to do.

The thirty Kobani ships arrived almost a day later, but they had been kept informed of the actions at New Glasgow. Individually, each Kobani captain received a more detailed set of images from the patrol boat observer. The exact location and identification of all forty-three of the Krall clanships that had fired the anti-ship missiles was noted by AIs. Each of the defensive screens around the eight Krall attack formations had some of those clanships with anti-ship missiles with them. The strafing runs had resumed, if at a slightly reduced level.

The Kobani, with greater maneuverability and more stress tolerant, had greater confidence in the performance of their ships than did the navy. Each one of them selected a specific ship to target. Via Mind Taps, sharing all the various Kobani tactics tried at K1, they slashed into the screens of the enemy formations in individual White Outs, right behind their intended targets. Firing all four heavy lasers at the side of a main thruster, followed up with a well-placed plasma bolt, the bell of the thrusters was cracked, and additional bolts and lasers did serious damage to the same clanships. They launched anti-ship missiles at dozens of other attackers prepared only to strafe, and then Jumped away before more than a few energy beam hits touched any of them. They killed thirty-six clanships on their first pass, and half of those were the clanships with anti-ship missiles.

Their second pass was even briefer, and two Kobani ships were assigned per target, killing another fifteen of the enemy, firing a heavy salvo of missiles and energy beams without suffering a loss. The last Krall craft with anti-ship missiles were now drifting debris fields.

The raid leader, mindful of Telour’s injunction to preserve clanships if possible, recognized the punishing blow planned for the planet was less than a tenth done, and could not be fully successful. Unlike at Alders, he ordered his clanship commanders to launch a heavy bombardment from five hundred miles, concentrated over the two largest cities, and then they Jumped for K1.

Some of the still operational heavy plasma batteries around the cities, combined with navy missiles, cost the raid leader six more clanships. Despite that, the onslaught of so many heavy Krall missiles coming directly down on them was too massive for the defenders to stop all of them.

There wasn’t anything the navy, a thousand miles out, could do to help. They physically couldn’t react quickly enough. Trusting their IFF systems to prevent friendly fire by the AIs that controlled the ground defenses, the Kobani Jumped in close as the Krall left, and managed to take dozens of the missiles out. The ones that hit home caused considerable damage, with nearly mile high structures collapsing. The death toll for the four days of the attack would be in the range of a hundred thousand lives, but the larger buildings blasted at the very end had been evacuated days ago, the workers and residents now in underground bunkers.

Those two raids represented two firsts for humanity. No raiders, certainly not on this scale, had ever been driven away from a city let alone a planet, not until the Krall had completed what they came to do. The attacks were usually finished before any reaction force could arrive, due to the delay time for Jump travel to notify the PU military.

It was difficult to take solace while looking at the smoking ruins of the centers of the two cities on New Glasgow. Nevertheless, the PU military could see this might be a turning point in the war. It was, but not the one they thought they saw.

Chapter 18: Shattered Worlds

Telour confidently walked away from the living ship, thinking that after this week, his insistence that these vessels be described as death ships would appear in the histories, a term attributed to him. He had just traveled to ten systems in four days, but the combined time of all Jump travel was less than eight hours total. He and his two aides, and the sixteen ship commanders of the selected guard clanships, were on the command deck and spent most of their time looking at the current planetary orbits of the outer giant planets in each system, in relation to the settled inner worlds.

Only one of the candidate systems was reversed from the usual habitable arrangement, with the only two gas giants present orbiting closer to the star, with the inhabited world placed well outside their orbits. That candidate system was rejected by Telour, although a K’Tal said it shouldn’t matter for what the Tor Gatrol intended. Telour persisted in thinking objects could only fall deeper into the gravity well of the star.

He finally chose three stars systems in the Hub region of Human Space that had a gas or ice giant presently in an orbital location on nearly the opposite side of the star from the inhabited planet. The stars also lay along a relatively obvious line towards Earth’s sun. The planetary positions provided him with the time delays he had counted on in his proposal to the Joint Council. He wanted to stay with that idea, even though he effectively was the council for now, until a new one was formed. He could have changed his plan if he decided to do so, and answer to no one. He couldn’t change his original proposal significantly because the multiple systems he wanted to target required this delay strategy.

At least until the last system. He didn’t need to visit that one because it didn’t matter where any of the large planets were in relationship to Earth. The closest or largest would do fine. Perhaps more than one could be used. The more destruction the better.

With the targeted star systems identified, the soft Krall knew exactly what he would be instructing the ship to do. They had always visited each system by exiting well beyond the outermost planets, and used the navigation console to project a holographic layout of each system as it looked from their remote location. The known habitable planet was a mere speck in the display at that scale, which they never examined at all. They studied only the large outer planets for where they were in relation to that speck, and selected one of them to use in another week, when the ship returned without Telour aboard.

Through orders given to the soft Krall, the living ship was told only that a series of massive construction projects were under study, and the potential systems for the projects were being visited. The standard instruction to the ship, learned from hard experience by the Krall many thousands of years ago, was for the soft Krall to tell it not to monitor or to send any electromagnetic signals until instructed differently.

That communications restriction needed to be applied before the ship even Jumped, because it moved so far so fast. It would not be allowed to detect the radiations emitted by the technological civilizations in each system.

Such an instruction by itself would have raised a suspicion in the mind of any Krall, and probably for many species. However, these ships were machines that were built by a trusting species that had never thought to use them improperly. As intelligent and capable as the ships were, and alive to the extent they repaired themselves almost organically, they followed the instructions they received when they came from a trusted source. An adult Krall’tapi was such a trusted source for this ship, if the representative had an embedded quantum key, and that key reported a genetic pattern that was not designated an untrusted species. The Krall’tapi was easily distinguished from the other genetically related creatures that were aboard now. Those passengers also had an embedded quantum key from the builders, but their genetic pattern was specifically identified as untrusted, and no living ship would accept instructions or requests from them. They were permitted to go on board but not to instruct the ship’s operations.

The discussions held between the two species could normally be overheard, and was in a language the ship understood. Unless the ship was told to seal a compartment, which it did when it was ordered by the trusted one to grant them privacy, it heard all conversations. The ship knew that the trusted operator sometimes listened to and repeated instructions from these others, but it relied on the operator to direct the ship in a proper, safe, and constructive manner. Just as its long absent designers did.

The ship was aware that much of the structure and pattern of its internal mind, its built-in restrictions and sense of what was proper conduct, was a direct copy from the minds of its designers, the Olt’kitapi. It trusted an operator with a key provided by its builders, if the operator had no restrictions on them as defined by the builders.

The ship was not aware that it, like an Olt’kitapi’s mind, could not be forced into taking actions an Olt’kitapi considered immoral. It sometimes discovered there were things that it might not know it couldn’t do until confronted with the instruction to do the thing. It encountered one of its few known examples when it was instructed to depart from its long time resting place.

By relay, the soft Krall issued the instruction for the ship to travel a modest distance through the galaxy to a planet, and told where to land on its surface. The navigation system had already been marked with the destination, including a specific area on the zoomed in image of the surface of the planet. The ship advised the trusted operator, even before it would move that it could not safely exit the alternate travel Universe directly to the surface of any planet.

It surprised the Krall, who had not expected the ship to attempt a surface White Out at all. The soft Krall, who had never left his home dome, hadn’t known to question this risky landing request. The Krall only wanted to show it the place where it would land after a White Out at a safe distance. With that precaution to be observed, the ship then departed directly from where it was parked, and traveled for slightly greater than twenty-eight hours to traverse the seven thousand one hundred twenty four point two light years to Telda Ka. It could have crossed the disk of the visible portion of the Milky Way galaxy, close to 100,000 light years in diameter, in ten and a half days. The average energy of third level tachyons was so vast, and the geometry different, that it required a much shorter time of travel to reach the equivalent coordinates in Tachyon Space that translated into the Normal Space coordinates of the destination.

With this greater energy level came the attendant precision on an even smaller scale. T squared travel provided for an arrival into Normal Space that was accurate to within less than a mile, compared with the original accuracy of one or two Astronomical Units, possible when only a rotation into the first level of Tachyon Space was used.

T cubed Jumps theoretically yielded an uncertainty to within millimeters, provided the quantum computer used for the complex computation had adequate speed and precision. The Olt’kitapi system was reasonably close to optimum. It could target a spot within several feet of a designated coordinate point.

With this precision came the ability and need to better control the White Out, and the Olt’kitapi staged the exits so that as they rotated from the third level of Tachyon Space, the energy released by the expansion and dissipation of the event horizon was released into Tachyon Space at level one before the final rotation. There was no need to expose nearby Normal Space objects to potentially damaging gamma radiation. Nor should the final rotation into Normal Space be virtually instantaneous, to allow more time for matter, such as thin atmospheric gasses to be gently shoved aside. The arrival exit was safer and less noticeable by design, and didn’t happen with a bang or dangerous radiation.

A surface departure could generate a rude and inconsiderate thunderclap if you ordered your ship to enter a Jump Hole when it was enclosed by dense atmosphere, because the gases slammed together to fill the vacuum left behind. The process was safe for material objects close to the craft (if they could withstand the thunder-like concussion). The entire skin of the ship was dimpled with microscopic Trap emitters, so the Jump Hole itself was formed to exactly the dimensions of the hull. It never took more than a few atoms or molecules of external material with it when it Jumped, if even that.

Good manners dictated that before a departure you lifted to a low atmospheric pressure, or even to vacuum, to prevent a noisy departure. It was no surprise that this was not the usual Krall preference. They always departed with a crashing boom, according to the histories. They liked to make an impression.

Telour addressed the throngs of clan representatives in the great central hall of the larger Graka clan dome. The Prada workers had just finished erecting a central platform, with another raised dais on that, for the gathered sub leaders of the Great and Major clans to stand just below him, the Tor Gatrol.

“I will send a hand of a hand of clanships ahead, as escorts for the Olt’kitapi death ship, as I now order all to describe these ships, as a more appropriate description. The pilots will be selected from the Great and Major clans by lottery. Four clanships will wait near the designated exit points in each system, where I will furnish them with the arrival coordinates. They will leave today, to be there waiting for the arrival of the death ship later this week. Their task is to protect the death ship from possible human investigation while it works. In the unlikely event that they notice its presence in their remote outer solar systems. The secondary task is for the ships to observe what happens after the death ship departs, and to record and bring back the images.

“The ship says the time needed will vary in each system. Some targeted solar systems may require four or five hands of hours, to as few as three hands of hours to trigger the result required. The violence of the event varies by how long of a delay is needed. That is subject to factors we cannot predict exactly. I am the first war leader ever to do this.

“All of you heard me describe the method of punishment. There is no possibility the humans can pursue the Olt’kitapi ship itself because it travels too fast. Nevertheless, as it nears its final target, the star system where Earth is found, a week may have passed, perhaps allowing them to understand the fate that is approaching their home world. We cannot be stopped, but humans may try to search the enormous volume of each star system seeking the point from which we will attack.

“Their navy forces will not be close enough to help them search. As I speak to you, the two halves of our fleet are attacking two of their Hub worlds, and their navy will Jump there too late to find more than flaming ruins where we drew them. They will emerge to learn that those worlds were the lucky ones. Those worlds will live to experience our invasions, as we slowly crush them.”

He paused to lift his arms dramatically, talons extended, and roared his next words, “Humans will never defy our warnings again, after I have killed the billions living on the four planets I will destroy. We will run along the Great Path after this victory!”

The raucous screams of support vibrated the struts supporting the dome. The noise level was great enough to force the warriors on the higher platform to retract their ultrasonic ears to guard their hearing. It lasted for minutes before the greatest Tor Gatrol, in Telour’s mind anyway, waved them to silence.

He looked down at the eager muzzles of the Great and Major clans waiting for his next orders. “Send your sixteen pilots and their clanship crews, which I have honored you to select, as witnesses to how I will force even this most Worthy Enemy to bend to our will. Send them today, so that we can start this great punishment!”

More screams of encouragement sounded, as he climbed down, his ears protectively retracted, but still hearing the satisfying sounds of overwhelming support. The humiliating attack on Telda Ka, and the retaliation he was about to mete out to the enemy cemented his position, as the great leader he wanted to have described in future histories.

It was nighttime at the dome when the sixteen clanships had hurriedly launched, four of them designated per star system, more as ceremonial honor guards, sent primarily to furnish eyewitnesses to what happened, something Telour wanted described in his legacy. Collectively their stories would build to the conclusion Telour wanted every living Krall to hear. That this Tor Gatrol did more than merely invade the enemy worlds to punish them for transgressions, because that was a fate they had already earned by existing.

It was daylight again before the first wind was removed from the puffed up chest of Telour. The tattered formation of clanships sent to Alders world raggedly performed their White Outs over Telda Ka. There were too few of them. More than two hundred too few in fact. Telour, tired in basking in the admiration of warriors from clans he didn’t actually like, had withdrawn to the highest level of the dome. He was there when the watch standers and orbital clanships reported the unexpected and early return of a large number of clanships.

Telour’s flash of fear, a rare emotion for any Krall, was that these were part of a fleet of human controlled clanships come to hit Telda Ka when it was nearly defenseless. That sort of wasted attack on mere property would not be a Krall strategy, but might be what an irrational human reaction could be. He was on the verge of bolting down a stairway again when he learned this was the Alders attack force.

Telour was unable to order the death of the Graka clan raid leader he had sent, since Pradop, lucky for him, had been killed in the navy counter attack. He was in a rage, which was best for the image he’d just cultivated a day earlier not to be displayed in front of the other clans. Somehow, two elements of the PU navy fleet had apparently fled to some location very near the Alders system. Their arrival time implied they had not been based in any inhabited star system, since the round trip for a courier and their return would not have reached the next human colony system. Hiding in interstellar space or a barren star system would explain why they were not found. Nevertheless, they were well supplied and organized, and had been somewhere to do that. It had to have been bad luck for them to be so close that the unprepared Krall raiders were hit unexpectedly by a force they were not prepared to meet.

A half a day later, the less damaged New Glasgow raiders returned for a similar reason, at first intercepted by a single navy task force. The raid leader had reformed his clanships to hold them off while the reduced ground attack continued, but only because they happened to have a finger clan present with a large number of anti-ship missiles. That altered strategy ended when suddenly thirty human controlled clanships appeared, and they preferentially blasted only the ships that carried anti-ship missiles. Those ships had not arrived with the navy ships, yet they immediately did White Outs behind the most threatening clanships, as if they knew in advance of which targets to hit first, without having seen which of them had fired the anti-ship missiles.

At least the second raid leader kept his life, because he did manage to destroy the central areas of the two largest cities before jumping to Telda Ka.

Two such lucky surprise human counter attacks were beyond the realm of coincidence to Telour. It seemed impossible the humans had known of these in advance. If they had, they would have been waiting and with more force than displayed. Their delayed arrival suggested they were warned quickly of the attacks, and came as soon as they could, but far sooner than seemed possible.

When Telour looked at the star maps and considered the travel times, there were stars close enough to each of the attacked systems where navy fleet elements could have been waiting to hear of any attacks. Even so, their fast arrivals in fewer than two days implied they had instant warnings and were ready to go. It could mean humans had developed a new communications technology, which might also explain their excellent coordination of multiple simultaneous attacks on Telda Ka.

That hint of an instant communication possibility worried him for another reason. His timing for the death ship attacks on multiple stellar systems could be in jeopardy if humans could communicate rapidly over long distances. Arrogant, ruthless, and predictable Telour might be, but indecisive did not describe him. He would send the death ship to the first star system as soon as the first defensive clanships he’d sent could reach their rendezvous point. The enemy couldn’t redeploy their navy forces fast enough to defend against this threat, half way across Human Space.

His logical decision to send clanship protectors for the unarmed Olt’kitapi ship had been soundly supported by his staff. A group stupid decision.

****

Mirikami was pulling at his lip after the closest K1 observer sent their report. “Both of the Krall raider forces have returned to K1, and although they appear to have landed to rearm with anti-ship missiles, they only launched back to widely spaced orbits, avoiding gathering them into the clusters of ships we’ve been successful at hitting by surprise.”

Dillon had been hoping they would see more than that. “We didn’t see any strange looking large ships White Out. I was hoping we could try a preemptive attack if any of those Olt’kitapi ships showed up. They looked big in Parkoda’s image, but we don’t know how massive they actually are, so any gamma ray burst that isn’t a clanship is good enough for me.”

They were waiting with nineteen other Kobani ships, sitting several light days out from K1, close enough for a quick Jump to K1 if they had a promising target to attack, if one was reported by the twentieth ship that moved around randomly, a bit closer to the inner system. Based on Raspani assurances, they were told none of the Olt’kitapi ships would be armed. Other than running or Jumping away from attackers, it should have no means of defense.

“If the gamma rays have a unique signature, and registers as more massive than a clanship, then I think yes, we’ll take a close look.” Mirikami agreed. “Except we don’t know if it would even come to K1 first, or travel directly from where they are kept to the star system they want to attack. Other than sixteen clanships that left the Largest Graka clan dome last night, where most of the recent clanship activity has been centered, they don’t appear to be preparing for any sort of large assault. Of course I’m sure they know we’re watching them.”

Maggi offered an opinion about the dome that was the center of Krall activity. “Graka’s largest dome has been getting the most visitors. We didn’t see weapons loading happening at that dome and clanships leave the system from there, and other’s arrive and land there first. I think that may be the new council dome. If so, that says something about Krall politics and who the war leader might be.”

Mirikami had the same thoughts. “You think that since Telour was the Graka clan candidate for Tor Gatrol that he’s probably still alive, and he’s selected his clan’s largest dome for the new council meetings.”

“Sure, that would offer him a base where he has his strongest source of support,” she confirmed.

Dillon fretted. “I wish we had more eyes watching the planet, and the eyes were much closer. We can’t see sharp details anywhere on the planet from out here. We don’t even know if the gamma ray burst we’re looking for is actually stronger than for an arriving clanship. If they’re largely hollow, like a migration ship, they could be less massive than the image you got from Parkoda implies. They might be mostly empty space inside, and have the exact same energy release on a White Out as a clanship.”

Maggi was her normal patient self. “That would be a highly unlikely coincidence don’t you think? Of course not. You don’t think, do you? I suspect we might see a sizable group of clanships surround it before it headed off for an attack, going along for the show and to join the attack.”

Fingering his lip a moment, Mirikami dismissed that notion. “Nope. Clanships can’t travel fast enough to keep up. They’d have to leave well in advance, or else the ship would arrive alone and have to wait for them without their support. With its speed, it could get away from any threat anyway, but it may need time to do whatever it is that it does, to earn the nickname of a Dismantler. After all, the old Raspani description of one of those ships wasn’t Exploder or Crusher. The clanships might go along for protection, or to simply record what happens for the rest of the Krall. We’ve seen clanships coming and going for two days here, but not in any truly large groups. Sixteen of them departed all at one time last night, for example, but I haven’t seen a larger pattern of movements than that. If they were attacking an entire world, I’d think they’d send a couple of hundred clanships at a minimum. Only we don’t know if the Dismantler ships need any help.”

As Dillon had said, they’d hoped to detect a unique large gamma ray signature of a sizable Olt’kitapi ship on arrival to K1, and if they did, they were prepared to risk a mass Jump inward for a chance to destroy the vessel before it could be used. The Raspani knew only that the ship traveled much faster than clanships in Tachyon Space, but they didn’t know if it created a large or small burst of gamma rays when it emerged. As it happened, they didn’t produce an event like a White Out, which was named for the radiation burst created by uncontrolled rotations back into Normal Space.

****

The ship the Kobani sought was already sitting, unnoticed near the dome where Telour stood looking out at it, impatient to launch. He displayed a rare flash of indecision, related to his desire to initiate the attacks, and the need to have his witnesses in place before the death ship flashed past them. The clanships bound for Earth’s system needed over two weeks to arrive from K1, but the first target system would have its observers in place in another two days.

He slashed the air in frustration. “I want to send it now, but I need to wait another week. If the destruction of their home solar system started before the clanships arrived, my broadcast ultimatum would be an unheard echo of the event already begun. I need to tell them why this is happening first, and how to prevent destruction of future systems. There will be time enough for a few million to escape the Earth system, and I want their leaders to carry my warning with them as they are forced to leave many billions behind to die in the weeks that follow.”

Frakod, with intimate knowledge of the plans details, suggested a favorable compromise. “My Tor, the first system you selected from my list has the largest planet of all those that you intend to use. The death ship told the soft one it would require almost two days to build the energy required for full disruption. Why not send the death ship to the first system in two days even before the last four clanships reach the Earth system. They will already be in place near Earth before the death ship finishes its visits to the first three stars. That way you need wait only the next two days to send the death ship to start your revenge.”

That was something Telour wanted to hear. Frakod had studied the list of star systems carefully, with the goal of pleasing the Tor Gatrol and using the good fortune of the chance meeting with the war leader to his own best advantage. His advice was always devised to give Telour something he wanted, or liked to hear. Without any knowledge of Telour’s relationship with former Tor Gatrol Kanpardi, Frakod’s mannerisms meshed with Telour’s because they harbored the same degree of self-serving ambition, and both instinctively understood the need to serve the ambitions of the leaders that could reward them.

“You say things you know I want to hear, and offer me valid reasons for doing what you propose. Make the announcement in the great hall, Frakod. The departure will happen in two days, not one week. The earlier departure time will also serve me better. The vote for new Joint Council representatives could happen in four days, and with the early launch I will have more influence on the selection of which high status candidates from the Great and Major clans are chosen. I will offer my support for those candidates that will in turn support my actions before the new Joint Council. With my revenge on humanity already started, I will have greater influence on each clan’s voting.”

Just like that, another two days from the ticking clock for humanity’s future was skipped.

****

Mirikami turned to the others on the Mark’s Bridge, describing what he’d just received by Comtap. “Another patrol boat report. This is the second set of four clanships that have performed a White Out at a colony world, in a Kuiper belt region. Both exits were well beyond the outer planets. If we allow for the hours of delay for the gamma rays to reach the inner system, and we promptly hear about them as we just did, Jakob says the Jump time from K1 matches perfectly with the time of departure of sixteen clanships that left there together a few days ago. It looks like they sent four ships to each of these two stars. We may be seeing this happen two more times for the last eight clanships. I don’t know what they’re up to, stopping so far out, and so few of them.

“At Meadow, they are about 32 AUs out, well past the two outer gas giants. They were almost ten AU’s beyond the outermost super Jovian, named Thor, which could have shielded their gamma ray burst from the inner system if they had done their exit close to that. Thor is about seven times the mass of Jupiter, so if they had been interested in hiding their arrival they sure could have done that.”

He paused to talk to the AI. “Jakob, show a hologram from K1, where we are, out to those two stars, and show possible points beyond them for where the other two sets of clanships might reach inhabited star systems, allow for just another week of travel.”

A translucent three-dimensional image appeared above the control console, with K1 glowing red at the center, where the Kobani presently were located, and the two stars where the patrol boats had reported the Krall clanships arriving were displayed in glowing white.

Thad had finally become involved again in the war, after his wife Marlyn had died fighting a month ago here at K1. He noticed something immediately. “They went pretty far. Both of the stars are well into the Hub region. I didn’t hear what systems they were.”

Mirikami reached into the image with a finger to identify one point. “The system closest to K1 is Meadow, a G7 main sequence star. If you haven’t been there, it’s not such a pastoral world as its name suggests. I made a few runs there for Interworld Transport in my former life. It once was a major food producer when the Old Colonies only reached out to about a hundred light years from Earth, about four hundred fifty years ago. Meadow is almost 93 light years from Earth, and is much deeper into the Hub sphere than either New Glasgow or Alders, which were just hit by those big raids. These clanships could be scouts for future raids, but why send four of them when one would do? That seems inefficient for the Krall, and they’re much too far out from Meadow to observe details of its defenses.” He shrugged.

“Meadow is a bustling metropolitan world now, with major manufacturing located in orbital factories, and it has very restricted mining operations that are not permitted to permanently scar the landscape. There are still a lot of fields, meadows, and uncut forests, just not so many methane producing sheep and cattle now. The farms gave way to urban development, but environment still has a very high priority there.

“The population numbers I just pulled from Jakob has it at an uncrowded and closely regulated two point four billion at the last census. They have orbital defense platforms, rail guns, and the usual raider defenses around each of the major cities. They have the typical hundred thousand strong planetary defense forces, equipped with heavy weapons according to Jakob, and have shuttles for rapid deployment. The navy normally posts several heavy cruisers in the system, since they buy supplies and technology from Meadow and it’s supposed to be a good shore leave planet. After all the fighting elsewhere, there probably aren’t any navy ships there right now. Even so, four clanships are not much of a threat.”

He paused a moment to get a quick data dump from the AI. “The second system is Tau Boötis A, and Bootstrap is the only habitable planet around the primary and it was nicknamed that by the freelance private explorers that found it. The name stuck despite renaming efforts later. This system is one of the handfuls of binary stars we’ve colonized. There’s a red dwarf orbiting at about 240 Astronomical Units, well out of the way. A large planet was detected close to the primary star way before we even had Jump travel, and Bootstrap was only found when we visited there later. It’s the third planet out in an orbit well outside the gas giant, and sandwiched between another small Mars sized rocky world with a CO2 atmosphere, and a Neptune sized planet that’s just outside an asteroid belt.

“I’ve never been there, but the system has a thriving gas mining operation from the atmosphere of the inner hot gas giant, which is about five times the mass of Jupiter, located close to the star. That one takes only a bit over three days to complete an orbit.

“The star itself is hotter, larger, and much younger than Sol, and the primitive life on Bootstrap required a lot of terraforming before the planet became comfortable for people. That must have worked out well, because even though it was settled a hundred years later than Meadow was, it has a population of three point six billion. It has better defenses than Meadow, and the navy, and everyone else I guess, buys the heavy hydrogen they mine from the gas giant for use in fusion bottles. This system is only 51 light years from Earth.” He mentally checked with Jakob for some facts.

“The Krall raided there only once, with a clanship that dropped off sixteen single ships early in the war, but they have not been back there since Poldark was invaded. I don’t know why the Krall would need to scout this system now; they know its layout already, and they won’t get fresher details on defenses way out where they are.”

“Perhaps they plan raids at Meadow and Bootstrap in the future?” Maggi suggested, and then asked, “What colonies come after Bootstrap along that same general route?” The AI heard the question and highlighted stars from Meadow, past Bootstrap, and stars beyond them.

Mirikami was about to say that the last Krall raids had proven too costly in clanships, and they would likely consolidate their forces at Poldark and New Dublin until more ships were built. Then he saw the next white dot of a colony star along that irregular line Maggi had caused to be lit. Having the display centered on K1 had disoriented him for a moment. There were other stars highlighted farther away in the same direction in Human Space, but one just after Bootstrap drew his attention.

Leaning forward to look at the pinpoints, he suddenly grew more serious. He asked aloud rather than via Comtap, “Jakob, the next closest star along that route after Bootstrap, is that Eta Boötis A?”

The AI answered on speaker, for the benefit of everyone on the Bridge. “Yes, Sir. It is also called Murphrid A.”

Mirikami, being the only Spacer presently on the Bridge, while Noreen was below having lunch with other captains, had the advantage over the bio scientists and military men that were looking on in curiosity. He had started his military career in the PU navy, thus required to learn the star names of significance in Human Space, particularly those for colonies in the Hub area, who perhaps justifiably believed that they were the center of everything that was of greatest importance to humanity.

Sarge, an educated civil engineer, and former ground pounder from the once Rim world Poldark, admitted his interstellar ignorance. “I’ll bite. From your tone of voice what do you find so important about Eat a Boot, eh?”

His pun drew the usual groans, but Mirikami answered in a grave tone of voice. “I guess all of you know it by the name of its most important habitable planet. Pittsburg II.”

“Oh, sure.” Sarge answered. “The industrial giant of the PU. Where much of the Hub’s metals are mined and shipped out. Probably eighty percent of the navy’s ships started life as ingots made there.”

Mirikami nodded. “It’s what Maggi would say was called a blue collar world when it was founded. Now the system has the second highest population in Human Space. It’s second only to the Earth-Mars combined populations. There are at least eight billion people on Pittsburg II and probably a quarter billion people on orbital stations, moons, and one other rocky planet named Hematite, where the miners and their families live in large domed habitats. The system’s only 37 light years from Earth.”

Maggi and Dillon had grown up on Rhama, a New Colony, and had a better education concerning the Hub worlds of Human Space than did Rimmers. Maggi asked again, “Do you think the Krall are planning to work their way into the Hub by raiding these commercially important and heavily populated planets after all?”

Dillon had accepted Mirikami’s reasons for doubting the sixteen clanships were doing any scouting for more raids, which the Krall couldn’t afford to conduct right now. “It isn’t for raids. I see you pulling at your lip again, Tet. What have you got on your mind that’s bothering you? The Dismantler ship?”

Mirikami looked at the star display and nodded. “None of you see the Sol system highlighted do you? But it’s there, just past Pittsburg II. It isn’t lit in white, because Maggi asked Jacob to highlight colonies. Earth isn’t a colony. Let me reverse things a bit, taking K1 out of the center of the display.

“Jakob, place a green dot for Earth at the center of the same scale display, and highlight just the three Hub colonies we’ve been talking about.”

The perspective shifted and a green dot appeared at the center of a spherical star field, with three bright white specks off to one side.

“Jacob, now put the end tip of a gray toned transparent cone at Earth, and set its dimensions only wide enough to contain all three Hub world systems that were lit up in white, and place those stars along the average of the central axis of the cone.”

When it appeared, the cone was remarkably slender because it only needed to be wide enough to contain the three other white dots of stellar systems that Mirikami had designated, and the cone angled away from the green dot at the pointed tip.

Maggi was quicker than the others were. “Holy crap, the cone leads right to Earth!”

“Now you see what worries me.” He said. “I need to send this information to Bledso, and ask her if she has war ships to post at each of these systems, and perhaps to others within that cone. They might travel too slowly to do any good if this is where that Olt’kitapi ship will go. These could be candidate systems for it, and maybe only one will be selected.” Not knowing Telour’s proposal, he was thinking on too small a scale, one star only.

“I think we need to start traveling ourselves in that direction, and divert any other Kobani ships near them if they are closer, although I can’t think of any that aren’t with the navy or at Koban, and thus farther away. I’ll only leave two ships here to watch K1, and six each of us can head for the three closer stars to us. The navy does have ships at Luna Base to use in Sol system. I want to get a look at these clanships and the area around where they did their White Outs at Meadow.”

For convenience, the twenty Kobani ships had been physically docked together to facilitate face-to-face discussions. It was time for the captains to return to their individual ships, and conduct Jumps to where the Krall might be preparing to cause a disaster, on a truly astronomical scale.

****

Telour made a spectacle of the launch of the Olt’kitapi ship, making certain his reference to it being a death ship rather than a living ship was used by his aides. He had been aboard the ship when it had made its previous departure here, for the scouting trip into Human Space, so he was perfectly aware that it could safely Jump directly from the tarmac where it sat. Two of his K’Tals had described it’s vanishing from where it was parked with a boom, and that they had investigated the surface of the pavement and had detected no damage from when it formed the Jump Hole.

The old stories in the histories about planetary surface departures had proven to be accurate. Except, they hadn’t described the boom adequately enough to preserve his dignity within the next moments. In a show (of bravery?) for those watching from the dome or via live images, he stood alone, only three leaps from the craft as its main hatch irised shut. He had the foresight to retract his external ultrasonic ears, but he should have considered why there was a boom at all when it departed. Then it was gone!

The instant rush of atmosphere to fill the sudden vacuum swept him forward, and as the crash of thunderous colliding air rebounded, he was first shoved forward by the blast of hurricane force wind, arms windmilling and talons scraping on the tarmac to keep his balance. Then on the explosive rebound, he was lifted up and tossed a leap backwards, landing on his rump. He leaped instantly upright and turned around, partly deafened, and swiftly went to the nearby dome entrance. It was with relief when he watched the recorded replay that the dust raised by the implosion and rebound had completely concealed his landing on his cloaca. He retained most of his public dignity, but he seethed internally.

The two K’Tals that had described the previous departure as merely a “boom” were quickly sent on vital missions into human space, to gather samples of the new stealth coatings used on the hulls of navy ships. It was unlikely they would forget to tell him anything he needed to hear for making a smart and informed decision, ever again.

This unnoticed loss of his regal bearing didn’t detract from the pleasure he felt at having initiated his personal revenge on all of humanity. He’d had to arrange for Kanpardi’s death to gain the authority to start this process, and the satisfaction had been too long in coming.

He’d suffered the status loss of the disastrous attack on K1 and the necessary postponement of the invasion of New Glasgow. Then his apparently vanished trackers could not find the where human fleet had fled. Because of that, he’d sent two punitive raids against Alders and New Glasgow. Those fleets were instead found by the missing navy task forces, and sent back to K1, licking their wounds.

Finally, after this week was over and the death ship had done its work, all he’d have to do is wait for the return of his observers, one hand of clanships at a time, with the news and recordings of the staggering destruction unleashed by his orders. Then he would wait for the human government leaders to crawl to him, to submit to his will as the magnitude of their losses became clear to them.

****

Pildon Fetra disliked what he was being made to do. In spite of that, he was hardly opposed to killing, particularly of creatures he didn’t even know. After all, he was a forerunner of the evolved Krall alive today, even if they declined to acknowledge their beginnings from his people’s warlike original genetic stock.

Aside from the millennia of forced evolution that separated Krall and Krall’tapi now, a single small but key genetic change was all that had initiated the divergence, which had a major cultural impact. His people did not experience the rages and desire to kill they once felt, and didn’t experience the rewards of extreme pleasure from the act of killing. The Olt’kitapi, with an original ancient Krall clan’s approval, had genetically modified them to alter the function of a single gland that produced the brain stimulant that had pushed warriors, male and female, to react with violence when slightly provoked or challenged, and drawing pleasurable feelings from the process of acting on the impulses.

With their advanced understanding of minds and mental processes, the Olt’kitapi had convinced a small clan that their future, measured against the larger clans, would lead to their eventual destruction no matter how well they fought. They forecast that without a change, none of the Krall of that era would ever progress enough to leave their home planet, and would soon destroy themselves in endless wars. They offered a way out of their evolutionary dead end.

The foundations of the feral Krall problem had already been created, as every clan had bred to produce as many eggs as possible, for selecting ever more and better warriors. This artificial imperative, to breed without limits, required them to cull the excess young. There was no mate-to-mate bonding or early infant care, and thus no urge to restrict breeding, or form emotional bonds between mates, or with their young.

The Krall’tapi, as they became after the glandular change, recovered a former ability to learn to bond with a mate. They were able to form family units again, which stayed together without the inflamed emotions to kill one’s mate when you didn’t agree. To no longer watch coldly, as offspring that displeased you died in savage fights with other hatchlings. The family bonding restored the means and motivation to restrict reproduction, something that had also been lost from Krall early origins. Even back when the racial split happened, females did not produce as many eggs as the modern Krall did now, and bonded Krall’tapi females became fertile less frequently, and seldom culled any of their two or three offspring if they appeared healthy.

What Pildon didn’t like was the excessive destruction he was ordered to trigger, and the time that it would require. So long as he complied his extended family would be safe, but he also wanted to return to them. He knew only what the stories said about those that were successful on these missions, and not a one of those success stories told of even a second system being disrupted, let alone four of them. He didn’t want to be one of those that succeeded but never returned.

He was thinking constantly of how he could trim time off the process the ship itself said was required. He was doing this thinking, even as he sat on the tarmac on a planet he was told was Telda Ka, or Base 1. He had asked the ship for a close up holographic image of the despised Telour, whom he realized was standing close to the ship just before its planned departure.

Pildon had naturally never observed one of these ships vanish from the outside. The description of the atmospheric implosion, relayed to previous pilots when they returned, became part of the lore of the Krall’tapi. The tales spoke of crowds that had surrounded some ships, expecting a gentle lift off, and being knocked about and left furious. He wished he could entice Telour to come closer. Even if he didn’t get to see it, he’d know it had happened.

In any case, when the designated time arrived, the ship departed, and the outside view was replaced by a graphic view of normal space, showing the star where they had departed and the star of their destination, with pinpoints of stars they would bypass. He had learned on the longer trip to Telda Ka that you could obtain a larger view of the galaxy, or zoom in on the destination, or any point selected. He could see the mark move along their route that represented their equivalent position in what he thought of as the real Universe. They had already moved a noticeable distance towards the endpoint, so he knew it was a shorter trip that the one to Telda Ka.

Having been denied access to clanship travel his entire life, the speed wasn’t remarkable to him, but it had generated admiring comments from his captors. One of them now held his waist shackle at all times, but had no weapons. Obviously, so the captive couldn’t make a grab for a pistol, rifle, or knife. The weapons were all with the seven other guardians that watched him at all times. Not even those two that Telour had sent as his personal emissaries were permitted to carry weapons. Telour had been the only exception to that rule he’d seen, and all he brought with him were the standard and ancient Krall designed hand pistols. The guardians had kept a close eye on Telour as well, Pildon noted with amusement, keeping sixteen warriors with Pildon at all times when he was aboard.

Long before he could grow tired of standing quietly, with the comments of the Krall around him seldom directed his way, the image floating in front of them suddenly expanded and contained the new star system in which they found themselves. The primary star was just a brighter point at this range, with enhanced colored symbols showing the planets, and their orbits were traces of the same color around the star’s symbol. All of the symbols were scaled unrealistically large for ease of visual identification.

The largest planet, by a huge margin, was a gas giant that had at least twenty times the mass of all the other planets in the system combined. It would be called a super Jovian, with at least seven times the mass of the namesake of all gas giants in human astronomy. This one too was named after a god, Thor, one of the Norse deities.

Pildon knew nothing of this system, other than the large planet he was to designate to the living ship for disruption. He assumed there was an inhabited planet of some Krall enemy somewhere here. He didn’t know which one it was, or that its name had the meaningless sound of Meadow. He assumed it would have to be a small rocky world, but he didn’t really care.

In response to a prompt from an aide to Telour, Pildon opened his muzzle to speak to the ship again, but he suddenly noticed the display scale factor had shifted. It had pulled in close to their local position, apparently to show him something. There were four small but identifiable clanship shapes visible in the image. They had apparently just performed White Outs around them, forming corners of a square. They had been waiting close to the designated coordinates, and moved in protectively by micro Jumps after the big ship arrived. His guardians had reacted with grunts initially, and the one with his shackle chain had gripped it tighter. They relaxed a bit now.

There were no transmissions received, none expected, and none was allowed, because the receiving capability was deactivated on the ship, to insure it didn’t overhear stray electromagnetic signals from Meadow. These clearly were the four clanships sent ahead to ensure the living ship remained undisturbed, in its isolation.

“Ship?” Pildon asked, initiating his talks awkwardly this way. He’d never used a com set or radio before, although he’d seen them used by his Krall captors, and didn’t know how else to address the Artificial Intelligence.

“Yes.” It spoke in a voice almost like his, the same as it did the very first time it spoke to him. It answered in low Krall, but didn’t speak with the harsher tones of the Krall warriors, and it employed the same slight differences in pronunciation of certain words, as the Krall’tapi spoke the language. It sounded as if it could have come from his home community.

“Initiate the disruption of the largest planet, as we discussed when we were here before.”

“I have started to generate the fields. I will inform you when they have formed and have initiated the process of converting matter into the opposite form of matter. A very wide building material dispersal is still requested?”

The highest status aide from Telour prompted Pildon again. “Say Yes. We will gather the material later to start construction.”

“Ship, I want a wide dispersal. We will return here to collect the raw material for construction later.”

The AI was gently persistent. “It will take longer to collect and move the material to the proper orbits if you wait very long. Others of my kind should be present to do this faster.”

Pildon looked at the aide that had given him guidance.

“Tell it we have other construction projects to start first, and we will bring more ships after they all are started.”

“Ship, after we start other constructions in the other systems we visited, we can bring more of you to help.” The lie was in keeping with others Telour had told him to use.

The ship made helpful proposals now, “When four large projects are started so close together, there is a risk of losing much of the needed material if it falls into the star. It should be moved to stable orbits quickly, and sorted as soon as possible. The large disruption you have requested will cause the material to separate widely and very quickly. Material will fall onto others of the large planets you will need to disrupt later, and require more complex and difficult disruptions if large parts of this greatest world are permitted to join with them. My eight sisters could help us with so much to be done so quickly.”

Pildon, without checking with the aide, asked in surprise when it finished, “What eight sisters?”

The ship started to furnish names. “They are Pholowela, Molonsela, Harlshonla, Remela, Afromfela, ….”

It continued listing names, but Pildon wasn’t listing very well, not with two hands and eight taloned fingers lifting him off his feet by his throat. The highest status aide had instantly ordered the guardian to force him to be silent, before he could speak out of turn again.

“Speak without my answers or my questions heard first, and you will die.” The aide threatened.

Pildon wasn’t able to answer him, or even to breathe with his throat constricted so tightly. He gestured with his left hand. It had no meaning as a signal, but showed that he’d heard what he was told.

“Lower him and let him speak, but speak to me only.” The last words were said with a glare at Pildon.

In the background, Pildon heard the ship say, “…, and Treycila. They would all help you to start to build these four great habitats with me. Even with their help, it will take a very long time with so few of us. We could finish sorting the material sooner if we assemble the raw material pods one at a time before they scatter or merge again.”

Pildon said nothing, and looked only at the aide, whose name he hadn’t bothered to learn because the aide had never asked Pildon his name, as the Tor Gatrol Telour at least had done. Besides, only Telour had the life of Pildon and his family in his control, and this self-important aide did not. Perhaps he should gently remind him of that.

“I should have allowed you to tell me the proper reply, before causing you anger and perhaps to end my useless life, which would then cause Telour to kill all that were sent on this failed mission.” It was a reminder that without Pildon alive to run the death ship, Telour’s revenge couldn’t be completed. Those words forged the shocked look he’d wanted to see in the eyes of everyone on the control deck, the guardians included. More than the fear of death, they feared the loss of status that the failure of this mission would represent in the histories, repeated by future warriors of their species for thousands of years.

The aide was mollified and in control now, and demonstrated that he did in fact know the soft Krall’s name after all. “Pildon, what does the ship mean when it says it has sisters?”

Pildon dipped his muzzle to show his confusion, “I never knew the ships had names, or that the others near it were called sisters. It implied all of the still alive ships would contribute to working on a construction project together, not just the four responsive ships. Perhaps they all can be made to respond again, and not just the final four ships.”

Both aides looked at each other, with the realization that perhaps the five now unresponsive ships could somehow be mobilized again. The ships commonly called “dead” would apparently remain that way. Even the mere prospect of restoring the five unresponsive ships offered a status building opportunity.

Pildon made an offer to the aide. “Let me ask the ship its name. We can speak to it while the energy it is collecting for disruption is building.”

“Ask.”

“Ship, you said the names of your sisters, but what is your name?”

“My creators named me Huwayla.”

He looked at the aide (whose name he still didn’t know or care about), and suggested, “I can ask it how long we must wait here, and how this disruption is done.”

The aide issued another wordy response. “Ask.”

“Huwayla, how long before this giant world can be disrupted? How is this done?”

“You are the first to have asked my name, and used that. Thank you. May I have your name in exchange before I reply?” It must have heard his name, as was just used by the Krall aide. The ship was being formal and polite.

The aide shivered his right shoulder in permission, but raised his muzzle warning him to use caution in his answers. “I am Pildon.” He almost gave his last name, but thought that would anger all of the Krall here on the command deck, and spread the anger to Krall in other parts of the ship when they heard that the soft one had elevated himself with a second name.

“Pildon, the planetary disruption to the extreme scale we discussed when we visited here before, requires a longer time than the optimum disruption required to rapidly extract and sort the metals, rocky material, liquids, and gasses for making easy to access reservoirs of building material pods. The finished pods could be placed in stable orbits while other planets are gently disrupted and their material sorted into pods for storage. What you have instructed me to do will require almost two rotations, measured by the world where your people live.”

Pildon thought, how did it know that?

The aide asked, “How did it know that?”

Dutifully, Pildon repeated the question. “How do you know where my world is, and the length of the days there?” Even Pildon didn’t know where it was.

“You traveled to reach me. I saw where your journey started, and the time it takes for that world to turn. Is that not where you and others like you live? Your people always have traveled from there, or back.”

A glance to the aide, where a right shoulder shiver granted him permission to answer the question.

“Yes. My people and I live there. How is the disruption caused?” It was best to shift away from the fact that the Krall’s secret location of his people was an open book to Huwayla, and probably to her sister ships.

“I will use general descriptive terms, unless you require the mathematics and physics. When you instructed me to begin, I projected a gravitational field to form an event horizon within the core of the selected giant planet I was directed to disrupt. I completed that initial process while we were speaking. There was condensed matter, predominately composed of crystalized iron and some heavier elements within that volume of the core of the planet. I formed an event horizon and the enclosed material was then instantly rotated into the alternate Universe, where spacecraft travel at many multiples of the velocity of light. The shock of the core collapsing to fill that void has initiated vibrations that will help weaken the core for our next step, which will occur in two of your days or less.

“My builders designed me, and the gravity projectors and tachyon fields I’m using, to access a higher and more energetic dimension within that alternate Universe than that which clanships use for travel. It is the same higher dimensional level that I used to travel here. The tachyon energies available at that level are much greater than at either of the two lower dimensions. By adjusting the permeability of the Trap fields at a quantum level, it is possible to permit tachyons to tunnel through the event horizon from the alternate Universe and interact with the matter I have contained there. This is destructive to matter from our Universe, and a ship is destroyed if a Trap field fails when it moves through that Universe. By regulating the permeability of the Trap field, this destruction of matter can be controlled and limited.

“The destruction of matter by many low energy tachyons produces particle pair creation from the energy of the radiation released. Some new particles are matter, like most of the material that is in this Universe. Some of it is what low Krall words describe as opposite matter. Those two forms of material always destroy each other, releasing pure energy of radiation if they make contact. Using a small quantum uncertainty, which is enhanced within the event horizon I have projected, material from pair production that is the same as matter in this Universe is more often changed back into to radiation energy by the slow influx of low energy tachyons. The additional radiation produces more particle pairs from that energy.

“In the quantum controlled process I will use, the opposite matter is preserved more often by the same uncertainty, and it is not converted back to radiation as often. This process is the reverse of what happened when our Universe was created. In the first instants of creation, with very high energy density, opposite matter was destroyed more often by a different quantum uncertainty, preserving some of what you call normal matter. Within the event horizon, which I projected inside the core of the planet, the matter enclosed is being enriched to become opposite matter. The material does not have the high energy density of the early Universe, and the conversion to opposite matter requires much more time to finish. When enough time has passed, I will rotate the remaining material back unto this Universe within the core, and the opposite matter that was formed will destroy an equal mass of matter, and the radiation pressure will disrupt the entire planet from the inside.”

The aide, worried about the simple sound of the process was concerned. He prompted Pildon with a question. “Disrupt sounds gentle. Will this do what the Tor Gatrol wants?”

“Huwayla, what will happen to the planet in this disruption?” Pildon asked.

“Disruption is a word in low Krall that is close to describing the proper way to prepare for obtaining raw material for habitat construction. The sections of the planet should move apart, but only slightly faster than they can be recaptured by their mutual gravity. The segments would be small enough that it is easy for ships, like my sisters and me, to project powerful gravity fields to move and sort the clumps into the proper size and composition pods that are held together by their own gravity. We then can move them into the desired polar orbits around the star for use later. What you have instructed me to do is much more energetic than the builders considered optimum.”

The two aides and the guardians looked relieved. The lower status aide gave Pildon another question to relay. Which he did. “Where will the pieces of this planet travel?”

“If I am not instructed to halt the opposite matter conversion process early for a milder effect, I cannot capture all of the fragments quickly, and many will travel in long arcs, some away from the star and others towards the star. Because I was instructed to do this so far from the world where I worked, I was not able to place the event horizon exactly at the center of the core of the planet. The disruption will not be as symmetrical as desired. Some sections of the disrupted matter will eventually fall into the star to make it unstable for many orbits, and many sections will be captured by the gravity of other large planets. Much of the disruption work will have to be repeated, after many collisions between other planets and the large number of fragments you will cause me to create.

“In two of your days, Pildon, the more appropriate word in low Krall for the effect you required of me would be similar to shatter.”

****

Mirikami had his K1 Kobani ships enroute now to three of the systems he considered potentially at risk. Based on a one shot use of an Olt’kitapi ship by the Krall in the past, he believed the Krall could attack only one of the four systems, and there were navy ships for the Sol system. For the other three Hub planets he thought were possible targets, he knew his people would definitely arrive before any navy units could from Alders or New Glasgow. The fact that the Krall raids had pulled nearly all of the navy units so far away from where the clanships seemed to be headed, that alone increased Mirikami’s suspicions. It seemed probable the Krall had used a human style diversion.

Luna Base had ten heavy cruisers based there, the surviving battleship and the lone dreadnaught. After Mirikami’s warnings to Bledso, they were being deployed out as far as the orbit of Neptune from the sun, but that encompassed a huge volume. They would quickly focus in on the clanships if four of them Jumped in-system, as Mirikami forecast would happen.

At least out there by Neptune’s orbit, one or more of them should receive the gamma ray detections of arriving clanships much sooner than they would at Earth’s orbit, and they could Jump to Earth in minutes if needed there. However, there weren’t enough Comtap specialists posted on or near Earth to accompany each navy ship. Four of them went with the navy ships, Bledso as Chairfem of the Joint Chiefs kept hers close, and now President Medford had one at her disposal. That was only after she’d hurriedly been briefed on the Rimmer/Kobani presence within her military, and she finally learned about their instant communications capability. She insisted on having access to instant long-range communications, and was so angry with Bledso about not knowing before now, that she didn’t want to be in the same room with her.

Medford was reading a briefing item from the navy that said this ultra-secret, non-PU controlled military force, equipped with their own warships, soldiers, and new technology, had just reported a potential Krall threat, directed possibly at Earth, or at any one of three Hub worlds, all three lying in the sky from Earth in the constellation Boötis.

“Where the hell is the constellation Boots?” She demanded as she read, looking up. Having herself corrected by a naval officer, and informed that it was pronounced “boo-OH-tees” not “Boots,” did absolutely nothing to improve her disposition.

Medford was pissed that this small but apparently highly effective Rim world force had been kept secret even from the Commander in Chief. Being told that secrecy was a precondition of their providing assistance to the navy didn’t mollify her in the slightest. She was sure to be more outraged soon, when she heard they had alien allies who had furnished all of the new technology. Bledso wasn’t about to tell her that the nice unarmed young woman in her office, sent as a Comtap specialist (whatever that meant), could probably take out her entire security detail of twenty, all by herself.

Two days after Mirikami had Jumped the Mark from K1, headed for Pittsburg II with five other Kobani ships with him, the Comtap specialist in the patrol boat there confirmed that four clanships had performed White Outs in the outer realms of the system. This third time clinched it for Mirikami, and he was convinced they were all connected in some way to a Krall threat, which might have Earth as one of the four optional targets they could strike. He predicted that the last four clanships would exit in the outer regions of the Sol system, which explained why the navy was deploying to watch for them.

He hadn’t discussed the possibility of the Krall possessing a planet-wrecking weapon with the PU government. Alien rumors and Krall braggart histories were hardly proof he could offer to the president. Certainly, claiming that he’d read the minds of several Krall that said the stories were true wouldn’t earn him credibility with the president, even if he claimed it was by use of the mind controlled alien designed body armor, the same way he had fooled Bledso. He was told Medford was already skeptical of this surprise new ally, and Bledso asked him to avoid stretching her credibility too far. She had not yet received all of the reports of how the navy had been helped by the Kobani ships at K1, and that they were operating stolen clanships, which they operated better than the Krall could.

Besides, Mirikami didn’t know what the Krall weapon really did, or how to defend against it. What could he say other than be on the alert in all of the systems he’d named. He’d done that, and was coming to help defend the system closest to Earth.

Shortly after the Pittsburg II report, the patrol boat stationed at Meadow reported the four clanships there had each performed small Jumps, and had repositioned close to where they had first appeared. Those were the only gamma ray bursts detected anywhere in the entire outer system at Meadow. It was curious, but everything seemed calm. Unknown to the watchers, the Olt’kitapi ship hadn’t created even a blip in the gamma ray spectrum.

Noreen reached the Meadow system with her six Kobani ship squadron, shortly after the patrol boat informed her of the repositioning of the four Krall clanships. She had decided not to get too close to the Krall ships to alert them, at least initially, not without observations that could guide them better. The enemy seemed to be hiding something by staying that far out. The six Kobani ships emerged an hour and twenty minutes light travel time from the Krall position, doing their White Outs behind Thor, the monster gas giant, to conceal their gamma rays from the clanships. Although the Krall wouldn’t have seen the gamma rays for over an hour anyway.

Directing her squadron to use Normal Space drive, they moved around the enormous planet to where the patrol boat said the four clanships should be visible on long-range scans. At a bit over 10 AU from the supergiant, the roundtrip time for radar to the clanships was over a hundred sixty minutes. Even the detailed quantum zoom of a clanship’s view screens would be hard pressed to find those four small targets at nearly a billion miles, not without a pinpoint radar return to direct Karl, the Avenger’s AI on where and how far to focus.

None of the other Kobani ships with Noreen had AIs yet. The Mark of Koban had one, but Thad’s ship, which he’d named Thunder, didn’t have one. The now atomized Beagle had one, and the Falcon had an AI. Now that the navy knew about the Kobani ships, and had benefited from their assistance, more AIs were on order for them. These would be of military quality and capability, not the three commercial models that Mirikami had first bought on Poldark. That didn’t help them right now.

Meadow defense systems had been scanning the outer system with a lower resolution long wave radar system, to “see through” the Krall stealth, ever since the clanships had done their initial White Out. Meadow was another 9.5 AU’s farther away than the Avenger was. Human radar and synthetic antenna technology was well behind what the Olt’kitapi had provided to their presumptive Krall “protectors,” on the clanships they had designed for them.

The Avenger’s clanship sensors now could easily “see” stealthed clanships, and it had sent a relatively narrow spread radar beam in the direction of the four closely clustered clanships. Noreen had to wait a hundred sixty minutes for the return echoes. She had decided when the Krall had a fifth ship with them, that she and her squadron were going to Jump right next to them, firing missiles and energy beams on exit.

This was very unlike the Krall when they entered a human system, to stand off and watch. Unless they were observing another clan conduct an attack, which they considered entertainment and education. They had been here seven and a half days before Noreen’s group reached Meadow, and had moved again two days ago. They were being very quiescent, observing for nearly a week. This was similar to the defensive postures the Krall held at K1, conducting boring but required guard duty in orbit. There was apparently nothing to guard here.

When the signal returned, Karl surprised her with his analysis. “Mam, the four clanships are in a four cornered formation around a much larger ship. The vessel in the center is larger than all of them combined.”

“Is it a Migration ship?” Carson asked.

“No, Sir. It is considerably smaller than one of those, and it isn’t spherical. It’s at a slight angle to us and is longer than the front cross section. However, just like a migration ship, it isn’t stealthed.”

Noreen felt a chill at the description. “Karl, can you focus a zoomed view screen on that formation at this distance?”

“It will be slightly blurred. Observe the screen directly across from your console Captain.”

Even fuzzy, the rounded and elongated shape of the ship was obvious, with the four less distinct oblong football shapes of the clanships arrayed around the larger ship they were protecting.

With no hesitation, Noreen initiated a Comtap link to Mirikami. “Tet, it’s here at Meadow. The Dismantler is here.”

His reply was as swift, with a question. “It just arrived?”

“No. I think it was here two days before we arrived, apparently causing no gamma ray burst. I believe when the clanships repositioned two days ago that they Jumped to form up around it after it appeared. Meadow defenses have been looking for any signs of White Outs, as was the patrol boat, and saw none. Here’s the fuzzy image we see on a view screen.” Her Comtap transmitted what she was seeing, and conveyed the apprehension and concern she felt.

“Damn.” He thought back to her. “That seems the right shape, and it’s certainly a lot larger than a clanship. Is anything happening at Meadow? The Krall had two days to start it doing whatever it does. You can’t wait. Go after it with everything you have.”

“Right.” She triggered the group link to the Kobani in her squadron. “All Captains and crews, the Dismantler is already here and has been for days. We’re going after it now. Prepare to launch all missiles on exit, and fire all beams at the large central craft. It has the highest priority. We Jump in thirty seconds on my command.” She shared the view screen image for all the crews below decks in the missile bays, although Karl had automatically sent his visual and scan data to Bridge displays of all five of the other ships.

Thirty seconds wasn’t long to prepare to micro Jump and initiate an attack on five ships, but Noreen had not considered how much longer the Krall clanships had already had to decide on what to do about the precision scans they had received an hour and twenty-one minutes ago, from the Avenger’s location.

****

The Krall could not see an enemy ship on their own view screens near the giant planet, not at the source of the previous scanning radiation, but they assumed humans would be using the new stealth system, and only long wave radar with a long round trip time could detect them. It would have low resolution anyway, and the enemy was free to move in that long round trip time. The four protectors were not free to move away from the death ship.

The four clanships were sent here specifically to prevent the Olt’kitapi ship from being disturbed. Telour himself hadn’t considered that the very presence of the escorts made that disturbance much more likely, even probable. The four clanships had been seen arriving via their gamma rays, but not Huwayla’s emission free exit from Tachyon Space. Had the Olt’kitapi ship traveled alone to the same location, it would have been essentially undetectable. After noting the previous weak radar scans of their region from Meadow itself, the four clanships were on the lookout for possible searchers. One had found them now.

They couldn’t communicate with the high status aids of the Tor Gatrol inside the Olt’kitapi ship for advice, even if allowed to try, because those inside received no outside communications due to the instructions to the ship to block them. When the stronger, tightly focused radar and sensor scans were detected, it was obvious it came from very close to the large gas giant world, proving they had been noticed.

The type, configuration, and frequency of the radiation was proof it could only have come from a sensor system like those installed on a clanship. That meant one or more of the enemy controlled stolen clanships were here, looking for them.

Naturally, the four pilots were not prohibited from communicating with each other, and the sub leader in charge was from Maldo clan. He was adamant. “We will remain here until we are released.”

That was a reminder to one ship commander that wanted to Jump to attack the enemy in a preemptive strike. He was of Tanga clan, and thus felt compelled to avenge the damage done to his clan at Telda Ka by these enemy clanships.

“No. It may be a deception to draw us to them. They used such trickery to lead us into ambushes at Telda Ka, or away from their true targets. We must not leave the death ship before it completes its work.”

The Tanga clanship commander rebutted this argument. “We have waited with it here for two days, and nothing has happened. We were not told what to expect, which planet is the target, or how long we must wait. We only know from Telour’s proposal in Joint Council that the death ship will not attack the inhabited planet. I don’t know how that will kill any humans.” His failure to use the title that went with Telour’s name was disrespectful. It was fortunate that there were no Graka clan members on any of the four clanships.

The Tanga Krall made his case. “If the enemy Jumps to attack us now after they see how we are positioned, they will have the surprise and advantage. If we Jump to them before their scan returns to reveal us, we will have the surprise. Let me go to attack them, and the other three clanships may remain here.”

“No!” The sub leader roared his refusal. “The Tor Gatrol instructed that we all stay with the death ship until we are released. I will not permit you to dishonor our responsibility to obey.”

Partly in conciliation, because he too yearned to attack, he ordered that all four clanships be at maximum readiness to defend, or to Jump to the attack the instant they were free to do so. The enemy would not receive the echo of their scans for over an hour.

****

Noreen was ten seconds from ordering the group Jump, as the crews loaded every anti-ship missile the launchers would hold. There was as much overkill being used as six ships could deliver simultaneously.

It was fortunate that their momentum to get from behind and to the side of Thor, to see the four clanships, had continued to carry them after Avenger had sent it’s scans towards the enemy. When four clanships suddenly appeared behind them, dozens of missiles were launched on exit but they were one hundred nine miles away from where the enemy had estimated the human ships would be.

Nevertheless, at hypervelocity, the missiles would reach the Kobani ships in seconds, and the energy beams, quickly oriented by the long wave sensor returns the four clanships were radiating at White Out, had found six nearby shadowy images to kill.

Kobani reflexes were instantly engaged, and counter missiles launched as their own energy beams lanced out. The six captains, no coordination or orders required applied hard Normal Space thrust vectors of two hundred forty gravities of external acceleration. The internal uncompensated inertial residual would have killed even a Krall, and did render dozens of Kobani, in seat restraints and body armor, quickly unconscious if their seats were in upright positions. The Bridge chairs had been morphed into deeply reclined couches in preparation of the coming Jump, and those Kobani hung onto threads of conscious control.

Many of the incoming missiles were destroyed or deflected by plasma bolts and heavy lasers, particularly as the Krall missiles were forced to vector and turn to follow the sudden “flower petal” formation of the six Kobani ships. They shot away from their original parallel grouping, and the defensive initial nose-on energy beams found better side angle shots on enemy missiles as they diverged. The Kobani captains also applied rotations to distribute the energy beams impinging on their hulls, just as the Krall were doing.

The Kobani, their mental patterns of the battle space forming faster than for the Krall, were better than Krall pilots at adjusting their own fire towards where the enemy would be rather than at were they had been. Even so, the Kiwi, who had been the farthest back of the Kobani ships, drew a greater share of enemy missiles and plasma beam fire directed at her. Both her primary and secondary Trap emitters suffered hits, dumping her trapped tachyons, killing both her ability to Jump and her power for the reactionless gravity drive in Normal Space.

The Kiwi’s captain, Basil Doherty, a former spec ops trooper from the continent Nova Zealandia, on the jointly settled colony of New Australia, switched instantly to reaction thruster control, and flipped his ship nose on to the Krall. His acceleration capability dropped to a fraction of what it had been, and he knew he couldn’t outrun or out maneuver the missiles. He and his Bridge crew focused all of their energy beams at the nearest Krall clanship, accelerating nose on at them, and the remaining missiles already in racks on the launch tubes were slammed out at the maximum rate. The same impulsive Tanga clan commander met the enemy he so eagerly sought, and was killed as his command deck was blown open by a missile hit, and then ravaged by energy beams, which cut off suddenly when the Kiwi’s own defenses were overwhelmed, and it too exploded in an orange fire ball.

The other Kobani ships scored damage on the other three clanships, but they managed to avoid serious damage themselves. Noreen, no longer acting in pure self-defense mode, used the group Comtap link.

“We can kill these ass wipes, but we have a mission. Jump to the coordinates we set and kill that Dismantler now.” Following her own advice, and having no time to readjust her attitude or current velocity vector, entered a Jump Hole. In an instant, she was where the clanships had previously been stationed, and where the Olt’kitapi ship should be. She was joined in seconds by the other squadron survivors.

Like the Avenger, they emerged shooting. Firing at…, nothing! The entire volume of space was empty. They all immediately conducted longer-range scans in every direction seeking the big ship, but it wasn’t to be found.

Noreen feared what that implied. She linked to Thad and Mirikami. “Thad, Tet, the Disrupter has either moved locally, or it departed the Meadow system. We were attacked by the four clanships as we prepared to Jump out to meet them. It was a stupid oversight on my part. We let them know where we were when I scanned them. As soon as my sensor data reflected back to us, we called you and said we were going after them.

“Only, they hit us first. They knew how long the return time was for our radar echo and they started for us almost exactly when it would arrive. We lost the Kiwi for that mistake, and only killed one of them. We left them behind and went after the Olt’kitapi ship, which was gone when we arrived. It’s probably headed for one of your two systems.”

Mirikami answered first. “Noreen, I’m not at Pittsburg II yet so I hope it isn’t headed there or to Earth next, because that would bypass me. I hope not, because think we’re better equipped to face them than the navy is. Anyway, I still think it will arrive at Bootstrap shortly, with Thad’s squadron set to intercept. I don’t know how fast it travels, but it won’t be measured in days for that short of a hop. I don’t think it left K1 until days after we did, and it still beat you to Meadow.”

Thad said, “That big ship wasn’t detected arriving at K1 or at Meadow by gamma rays, so how will we know when it arrives here?”

Noreen told him what had been her clue. “Watch for the Krall clanships to move to surround it for its protection. That’s their weak link. The Dismantler is hard to detect, but the clanships painted a bull’s-eye for us when they micro Jumped to meet it. If they did that at Meadow, they probably all have the same orders. The fighting that happened here after the Dismantler Jumped will be unknown to the four clanships at Bootstrap. They’ll repeat the same mistake.”

Tet had an observation and a question for Noreen. “The Dismantler left before you got close, so its departure must be what allowed the clanships to Jump inward to attack you. They wouldn’t have left that ship defenseless to go fight you, since you or part of your squadron could leave them behind, as you did. It had spent two days there. It must have finished what it came to do. Did you see anything unusual before you Jumped to where it’d been parked?”

Noreen answered in the negative. “We didn’t detect anything unusual, but at the velocity of light things can happen and you don’t know about them right away. What does the patrol boat observer say about Meadow? We were over an hour out from them in light travel time when we Jumped.”

“Hold on. I’ll link to him.” Mirikami said.

In a minute Tet was back. “He says Meadow is fine. Kelly Handler, our Comtap observer, is only a few light seconds from the planet. I wonder what in hell the Dismantler was doing for two days. I asked the patrol boat to Jump out near the gas giant, to see if the Krall clanships hung around there. I guess it’s possible the Dismantler Jumped in with them, and stayed out of way of the fighting, undetected, but close enough to start dismantling something. That’s a bit devious for typical Krall thinking, but we’re teaching them how to think that way.”

After that, Mirikami spent a few minutes consoling Noreen, and the four captains with her, on the loss of those on the Kiwi. He had just told them he was only hours from a White Out at Pittsburg II, when a panicked Comtap link came from Kelly, directed only to Mirikami.

“It blew up! The whole damn thing is coming apart. We have to get out of here and warn Meadow.”

He cut off without more explanation. Mirikami could sense the link was still available, but nothing was being sent. “Kelly?” he inquired, widening his own link to include all of the Kobani ships in the squadron. He had a chilling thought.

He repeated his call. “Kelly, I sent you to check on the three surviving clanships. What blew up?” He feared the answer he expected.

The reply came hurried again. “Sorry Sir. I had to get my pilot moving, she froze. Thor is fragmenting. There are huge chunks of dark rocky type material punching out through the cloud tops, and the atmosphere has ballooned out hugely, with wide crevasses deep down between tears in the clouds. There are continuous giant lightning flashes that would fry an entire world.

“There’s a tremendous amount of radio static at all frequencies from the lightning. The pilot was trying to radio Meadow defense command, when I reminded her we could Jump back there and tell them sooner. We just trapped a tachyon and are getting out of here barely in time. Some of the pieces I see tearing out of the cloud tops have to be larger than Meadow itself. Smaller pieces, perhaps the sizes of moons and asteroids appear to be glowing and molten. They must be moving faster than escape velocity, even from this huge planet. The enormous scale makes it hard to estimate speed because it looks like slow motion. Let me send you an image before we Jump.” It came, and then the live image ended as the patrol boat Jumped. That vison lingered in the minds of everyone Mirikami was connected to by Comtap.

“Meadow is doomed.” He stated with certainty. “They can’t possibly evacuate more than a fraction of their population in the days or even weeks they have left. Noreen, they’ll be in a panic and I can’t blame them. Take your ships in to transport as many people you can to…,” He paused a moment. “There isn’t any place safe in that entire solar system. Take them to the nearest habitable world. I don’t know how long before any debris reaches inward to Meadow, but even the smallest fragments I saw from Kelly’s image are large enough to sterilize the surface of any terrestrial world they strike. Significant sized small pieces may take weeks or only days to fall inward. It’s going to be random.

“Fragments blasted away against orbital motion will fall inward sooner and many pieces will arc outward then fall back in comet like new orbits through the inner system. This will make the Late Heavy Bombardment of Earth’s solar system, four billion years ago, look like a rainy day with a few hailstones. Every inner planet in that system will be pulverized.

“You can Comtap to get more ships headed there for evacuation before then, but it will be hell loading them in an orderly fashion with the panic, and there isn’t going to be enough capacity for more than a few percent of the population. Its certain death to stay behind anywhere in that system. Mobs will be tearing things apart to get their families off Meadow.”

Noreen added a thread of hope for more survivors in the hard days ahead. “The orbital stations and habitats are mobile, they have Normal Space drives. They might be able to climb above the ecliptic and inward over the star, at least for long enough to avoid fragments until they can be evacuated. Most orbital factories had Jump drives to originally deliver them where needed. They may be able to reactivate them in time, and escape with as many people as they can carry.”

Mirikami shuddered. “Two billion, four hundred million people and most of them are going to die, no matter how hard we try to save them.

“Thad,” he said. “Bootstrap is probably next. Telour has found a way to stave off the mass deaths long enough to let the Dismantler trigger destructions of multiple systems. That ship will have time to repeat this several times before the planetary fragments of the outer giant planets fall in and kill the populations. I think he intends to march down the line and smash all four inhabited worlds with just that one ship, saving Earth for last, using Jupiter as his weapon there.”

Chapter 19: Travel Time to Destruction

Mirikami’s squadron reached Pittsburg II, and just as Noreen and Thad’s groups did, his six ships performed a White Out shielded from the Krall by the only outer giant there, a Neptune massed planet that had a large rocky core with a puffed up atmosphere that made it larger in diameter than Neptune. A dense asteroid belt and another rocky, iron rich planet inside Pittsburg II’s orbit provided more of the resources for which the metal rich system was noted.

He let Noreen and Thad know he’d reached his destination, and heard a follow up report from Noreen about the inevitable panic already started on Meadow, and the exodus of nearly a thousand crammed Jump capable ships, which would have time for multiple return trips. Most were headed for a lightly populated Hub world nine light years away, Atlantis, which produced mostly aquatic foods and products on a planet eighty five percent covered by seas.

Even local system ships, without Jump drives, were boosting to points out of the ecliptic and above the poles of the star, to outrun debris long enough for rescue. Commercial, and some military ships, were inbound for orbital pickups of people ferried off planet, alerted by Comtaps in patrol boats at other systems. A few cargo ships were coming from Atlantis and others from Hub Worlds that were close enough to try. The race was on for orbital stations and factories to accept people brought up by shuttles, and then to start to move away from the swarms of debris that eventually could overtake them.

Mirikami didn’t want to seem disinterested or detached, but he couldn’t affect things or help Noreen or Meadow from where he was, and he needed time to confer with Thad. He wished her good luck, and advised that he had just had a very unpleasant set of Comtap relays with Medford and Bledso, whom he eventually and frankly told that he couldn’t spend any more time debating with them about how the K1 attack had triggered this Krall reaction. Not while the second stage of the threat was advancing on Bootstrap.

He quit answering their further requests for a Link, and told Thad to do the same until they had decided what to do, and had done it.

Mirikami felt extremely frustrated to be so far from where he expected the next action to take place and yet be able to know, almost instantly, what was happening there. His AI’s best estimate, for travel time of the Dismantler ship from Meadow to Bootstrap, was much less than a day, simply based on a roughly estimated departure from K1, and the repositioning of the clanships at Meadow that had signaled its arrival there.

He was torn as to what might be the best advice to offer Thad. One option was to attack the four clanships immediately, eliminate them and lie in wait for the Dismantler to arrive close by, then move in and attack before it could escape. Perhaps Thad’s squadron could wait where they were until they knew it had arrived, based on clanship repositioning movements to show them where it was. They could Jump to attack it then, presumably before it started the destructive process.

Tet told the Comtap specialist on the patrol boat to get in touch with the local government, and try to get them started on organizing evacuations. To check with Bledso’s and Medford’s Comtaps if he needed help with influencing the Governor to act.

Thad’s squadron, 1.3 light hours away from the four clanships, wouldn’t know when the big ship arrived unless the visible clanships Jumped to reposition to where it appeared, and created new gamma rays that would take over an hour for him to detect.

“Thad, you are in a position where you can observe the clanships, right?”

“Sure. We’re positioned near the outer planet here, and we each have acquired a passive view of them. We started looking at the White Out coordinates provided by the patrol boat as soon as we arrived. I don’t want to warn the bastards with an active scan this time. We are boosting towards them on Normal Space drive so they won’t see us coming without them using active scans of their own, which they didn’t use at Meadow.

“They’re too many hours away even at high acceleration unless we micro Jump. In Normal Space movements, we can’t shave much off the hour and eighteen minutes of one-way light time from them, not in the time we probably have. Their location in the outer system makes them hard to pinpoint for a micro Jump if they move very much before we go. I don’t know how to estimate the amount of time we have left after the Dismantler gets here, or which world they’ll destroy.”

“Thad, it took two days to blow up that super Jovian, which had seven times the mass of Jupiter. I have an opinion as to which target world it will be, but which one does your gut say it might be. I think that choice is a clue to the time they will require to be done and leave there.”

Thad thought a moment before answering. “Well, the hot Jovian near Bootstrap’s star is the largest, at nearly five times Jupiter’s mass. Then, since Bootstrap is the third planet out, fragments climbing out of the star’s gravity might take so long to reach Bootstrap that they could evacuate too many people to make the Krall happy. The second world out is about the size of Mars, and I don’t think it would provide enough bang for those overachievers to use. They can’t kill Bootstrap directly, because the intelligent ship would apparently find out about the deaths too soon. Even if we don’t know how it does that.

“Therefore, I’d expect them to blow up the next planet out, beyond Bootstrap, where we did our White Out. I think this ice giant is larger than Neptune is in the Sol system. Tet, how does that tell you anything about the time they need?”

“Well, you homed in on the same planet I picked, and I have one more argument to support its selection. The Krall did their White Out far out from the planets, which places them twice as far away from the very largest planet, compared to the one they used at Meadow. Right now, they’re much closer to the big Neptune, which you and I both picked. I also don’t think it will take as long to destroy this one, which lets them move on to Pittsburg II sooner.”

“Why is that?” Sarge asked over the link.

“That was a core explosion at the Meadow system. Not perfectly symmetrical, from the pattern of metallic spectrum debris Kelly saw shooting out, but that material certainly came from deep inside the core. Jakob told me that its core was mainly metal, composed primarily of iron and silicates and about 20 to 25 times Earth’s mass, surrounded by liquid metallic hydrogen and helium, buried far below the tops of the crushing atmosphere. There is no real base to the atmosphere or a definitive hard surface, since the density and pressure increases continuously with depth. The planet had a radius of about sixty five thousand miles, and had about 2,200 times the mass of Earth according to Jacob’s data. It would take a lot of energy to blast it apart so completely against that pressure and gravity.”

He had a thought about that, and even though he was in a mental Comtap link with all of his and Thad’s squadron, he spoke his next words aloud for another listener.

“I don’t know if the energy required to destroy the planet came from antimatter, or by initiating a stellar type fusion reaction, or some means like anti-gravity. That size planet was nearly a failed star, and was held together tightly. Jakob, do you have any information on the energy available from the ideas I mentioned, that could break up that planet from its center?”

Jakob’s reply came over a speaker, and Mirikami included what he was physically hearing as part of his group link. “Sir, the force of the breakup was greater than would occur from somehow initiating a stellar level fusion reaction in the liquid hydrogen surrounding the metallic core of the planet in question. The heat and density there is not great enough to sustain a fusion reaction on its own or else it would already be a small star.” He continued.

“If a powerful and extensive fusion reaction could somehow have artificially been started in the complete shell of liquid hydrogen, it would have compressed the core, which would not result in core breakup or the large molten fragments that were observed escaping. Fusion reactions attempted in the iron core itself would consume more energy than was released, which is why Super Novas undergo stellar collapse when natural fusion processes reach the atomic mass of iron at their centers.

“The rate of fragment expansion we observed proceeded much faster than a hypothetical anti-gravity affect, and gravity was still functioning normally because the atmosphere did not fly away as fast as the core material was ejected through that. I have no data that describes a large scale antimatter reaction, nor how a large quantity of antimatter could be created, and then placed within the core of a planet.”

“Thank you Jakob.” Mirikami didn’t need any more discussion, even if the AI had more alternatives to offer.

“OK, people, so the planet exploded violently somehow, and I think the time needed to produce this effect is tied to how powerful an explosion is required to break it apart. For the Krall’s purpose, I believe it’s related to how massive the planet is that’s being destroyed, and how fast the fragments will travel. I think the number and speed of fragments is the key to their strategy.

“At Bootstrap, and at Pittsburg II, it will likely be the Neptune type ice giants to be exploded. Thad and I jointly suspected the ice giant was better positioned for use at Bootstrap. Such a world is much less massive than the super Jovian they just used at Meadow, and has a far smaller core of perhaps four or five Earth masses, sitting deep inside a planet with only about twenty times the mass of Earth. The core detonation doesn’t need to be as powerful to blow one like that apart, and if the blast is too great, the fragments might start striking Bootstrap and kill the population before the next two systems can even be attacked, which could cause the Olt’kitapi ship to shut down. I know that Earth is their final target, so they won’t overdo it at Bootstrap or here.

“For that reason Thad, I don’t think the smaller explosion required there will take as long to produce. You can’t count on a two day delay this time.”

“OK. Then we won’t wait to confirm the Dismantler has arrived first. We already see its clanship reception committee, so we’ll Jump and attack them as soon we can…” He paused to check with his squadron.

“We go in about two minutes, with all weapons ready, and four targets divided between the six of us. We’ll kill the clanships and then wait for the Dismantler to appear nearby. With four of our ships set to match Krall clanship stealth standards, we’ll Jump over to meet it while they think we’re friendly, and blow it to pieces. The other two fully stealthed ships are backups if we fail.”

“OK. Good hunting people.” Mirikami said. “Keep us updated.”

****

Pildon was worried. The smaller pieces of the first destroyed planet were spreading rapidly, and he feared he might not be able to complete the full mission. His family might pay the price if it was incomplete.

Huwayla, despite their already considerable distance from the “disrupted” planet initially, in local speed of light terms in the outer system, had just Jumped to begin travel to the next targeted star system. Nevertheless, the ship was somehow able to show them a relatively close view of what was happening near the shattered planet.

There were enormous and immensely hot pieces thrown out from the core, trailing thick wisps of the atmosphere they had torn their way through, with gasses and smaller fragments following along in their wake like long streamers. The pieces of core material were slowly wobbling in and out, vast molten blobs of glowing red and yellow viscous liquid, their gravity and internal friction trying to dampen the waves induced in them at their violent formation. This was much more disorderly than the builders had intended for this process.

Constant flashes of lightning ripped through or slashed between different colors and compositions of multiple ten thousand mile wide blobs of gasses, which were spreading away from the center of the explosion.

Pildon had no idea how the ship obtained these images. From comments made by the more traveled and technologically experienced Krall warriors, they didn’t understand how it was done while in a Jump Hole either. Pildon assumed it was related to how the ship had been able to trace back to the world from which he had traveled, before he had even boarded this ship. He wanted to know, but the incurious Krall didn’t suggest that he ask, so he kept quiet.

The explosion was looking more asymmetrical as time passed. Huwayla had said the event horizon had been slightly off center in the core, because of the distance from which she was made to work. The side of the planet in the direction of its orbital motion was expanding away noticeably faster than on the opposite side. The greater velocity of the jets of material ahead in the orbit was forcing those fragments farther out from the star, and therefore away from the real target of the Krall attack, the presumed inhabited inner planet.

Pildon was unable to draw comfort from the delayed destruction that would be delivered to the inner system from these faster moving pieces of death and annihilation, which would arc away for a considerable time before falling back. He was more concerned with the retrograde fragments that were already moving towards the inner solar system they had just departed. He needed to initiate the destruction of three more planets in other systems inhabited by creatures the Krall called humans, to ensure the survival of his own family. He also wanted to survive, but his mate, two young cubs, his parents, and two siblings and their families were his responsibility to protect.

The two aides to the Tor Gatrol had called humans a cursed and treacherous Worthy Enemy, which sounded contradictory. Pildon knew there had been many species fought and defeated by the Krall, most of which had not involved the Krall’tapi and the living ships. Just over a handful of races had been confronted by use of the living ships, controlled by the only people they apparently would respond to, the Krall’tapi. The first Krall use of the ships as weapons had been almost frivolous, and served to educate them on the limits of using a ship with a sense of morality. Their early use taught the Krall that they should conserve them for greater need than for casual punishment and the pleasure of destruction. This time the need appeared to be greater than for any previous enemy, suggesting their foe had offered greater opposition than had any previously faced.

Human opposition to another Krall conquest, whatever they looked like, whatever they did or believed, was something a Krall’tapi could appreciate and cheer. These creatures had somehow provoked an extreme Krall response against their species. It was unfortunate for them, but continued survival of the Krall’tapi was Pildon’s concern, and aside from cheering on human resistance, the preservation of his personal part of his people’s population took priority.

He suppressed his curiosity, and considered the next world to be disrupted. It was smaller, and shouldn’t take as long to detonate, and if fewer fragments of the shattering core were expelled with less force, the rain of debris into the inner system would be postponed longer, giving them more time to move to the next two targets.

Huwayla suddenly replaced the image of the last system with their destination star’s details. As before, the primary star was at center, and the greater brightness shown hinted at the slightly larger and hotter star than at Meadow. A large gas giant orbited close to the star, with two rocky planets widely separated from that one, then a dense asteroid belt that was shepherded by an ice giant, which Pildon knew was the next target. The colored rings that represented the full orbits of each planet showed that the largest rocky planet was ahead in its orbit compared to the ice giant, and on the same side of the star. Pildon wasn’t sure, but he thought this might provide for even more time before the debris reached the probable inhabited planet. The largest planet was so close to the star it probably completed it’s “year” in three or four days. Telour had ruled out its use as the target, despite its mass and probable heavy fragmentation.

Surprisingly, the ship asked a question. “Pildon, are the original destination coordinates you provided required for my use, or may our arrival point be shifted slightly to avoid a number of objects?”

Pildon cautiously looked to the senior aide for the safe answer.

“That must be the four clanships waiting for us. Tell it we expect them to be there, but ask if they are too close, and if we should shift our White Out point for safety?” The term White Out didn’t apply to this ship’s exit from Tachyon Space, but it would know what he meant. This intelligent vessel wasn’t going to risk an intercept with another ship.

The question was repeated by Pildon, “Huwayla, we expect to meet four clanships here, as we did previously, but are they too close to your coordinates to safely exit? We can shift the destination point if there is a risk.”

The ship’s answer was informative and confusing, at least to Pildon. “There are four clanships waiting close by, two others are much farther away, and another one is tumbling but is well clear of our arrival coordinates. None of the clanships is occupying the arrival coordinates. There are metallic pieces expanding from three different locations around the intended coordinates, and those fragments are now passing through the destination position I was given. I have paused travel. Should I wait for the material to move clear of the original coordinates, or do you want to change the arrival coordinates?”

None of the Krall warriors felt confused. When the snarls of rage subsided, with Pildon cowering at the command station, the senior aide told him, “Have the ship disrupt these enemy clanships. They have attacked our protectors before we arrived.”

Now the Krall’tapi was truly in a bind. He had an enraged Krall he needed to defy, and an intelligent ship that would refuse the order he’d just been told to relay. Worse, the ship might refuse and then cease to obey his future instructions.

“Sub leader, that order may terminate our mission if I pass it to the ship. The Tor Gatrol will blame us all.” It was worth a try, since the same ploy worked previously.

The second aide interceded, and coincidentally provided Pildon with the name of the higher status aide, who his status and rank aside was clearly the more stupid of the two. “Dolbor, these Olt’kitapi ships will not deliberately kill. To insist will make it unresponsive.”

“To take no revenge is dishonorable.” Dolbor slashed the air with his left talons.

That remark provided Pildon his safe way forward. “Dolbor, is the dishonor settled if we shift coordinates away from here, and complete the mission?”

Subsequently, following that voice of reason, Dolbor allowed Pildon to pose new questions to Huwayla. Then they Jumped several light hours ahead of the target planet. Again, the placement accuracy of the event horizon within the core of the planet destined for “disruption” was not precisely at its center from that range, but would be adequate for the purpose demanded. This world soon would generate thousands of large, and billions of small fragments, flying about the system for thousands of years to come, wreaking havoc on the other planets in the system. From their undetected position of isolation, it would require slightly less than fourteen uninterrupted hours.

****

“Tet, it hasn’t arrived. It’s well past the time we expected. I told the patrol boat Comtap specialist to repeat the warning to the Governor to start evacuations. The specialist had to link to the Hub president and the navy, to get the encrypted authorization code to convince her to start the process. He told me President Medford has Carol Slobovic assigned to her office”

Mirikami sighed. “Thad, I don’t know if the Krall figured out you were waiting for them, or if they have simply bypassed that system. You said you knocked out one of the four clanships, but it wasn’t destroyed. Could it have warned them somehow?”

“It appeared dead, with a huge hole just below the command deck, and open to vacuum. The Krall never play dead unless they are. We didn’t pick up any signals after we hit that one.”

OK. By the way, I did know Carol was sent by Bledso to be our contact with the president. I spoke through her to the president after Meadow was hit. The poor girl got an earful I’m sure, particularly when I cut Medford and Bledso both off, to focus on the real problem. Considering I pissed them off doing that, I still wasn’t very much help to you I’m afraid.”

“I don’t think the Krall have a means to talk to the Olt’kitapi ship while it’s in Jump status.”

“I suppose not. Thad, I heard you say all of your team has active scans going, and didn’t you send your two fully stealthed ships closer to Melnor, to try and find that needle in the haystack?” They had looked up the official name for the ice giant.

“I did send them, Tet. But, if there’s no gamma ray burst we won’t get a notice of an arrival even a light hour away, so we don’t have a direction to start looking first. That’s a huge volume to search. An active scan requires six hours in round trip time out to three light hours. I sent two more ships and had them all try micro Jumps and do active scans from a one light-hour radius out from Melnor, ahead, behind, and to the top, bottom and sides along its orbit. I’m personally checking near the hot Jovian, and our sixth ship is looking near the mars sized mining world, just in case.”

Mirikami sounded dejected. “Hindsight is perfect. If we had known from how far away the destruction could be triggered, I could have had a hundred Kobani ships searching with us.”

“Tet, until you figured out which four planets were targets, there were hundreds of worlds where we could stand guard. Even a hundred of our ships weren’t enough, and they can’t travel fast enough to get ahead of this damned thing.”

“Well, I think I’m already ahead of it now, and I know very closely where it will appear, if I only knew better when it would appear. Obviously, killing the clanships in advance didn’t work for us, so my group has to try to be close enough to micro Jump onto it soon after it arrives. If it bypassed you, it could be here any time. I need a better estimate of travel time. Jakob thinks he can calculate to within thirty minutes of the time from Bootstrap to here if he knew it had moved on promptly after apparently detecting the ambush.”

“Hell, we don’t know if it did move on, Tet. If it only repositioned, it has had over a half day to work. I had the patrol boat play the canary in the coalmine, by Jumping thirty light seconds from Melnor. If it sees anything happen there, we will know it has just left the system, since at Meadow it departed as soon as the explosion was triggered. That was when the four clanships were free to Jump in and attack Noreen’s squadron.”

They didn’t have long to wait for news. Sixteen minutes later an excited link was made from the patrol boat. “Captain Mirikami, Colonel Greeves, Melnor is breaking up!”

This news initiated the same panicked activity as at Meadow, which would quickly involve Thad’s squadron in woefully inadequate rescue attempts of three point six billion people. That rescue would need to be completed within weeks, perhaps a month, depending on which way the faster moving fragments went first. As with Meadow, it was an impossible task, even with in-system shipping and any Jump ships that came from outside.

Like he had done with Noreen, Mirikami wished Thad’s squadron luck and was about to break the link to consider his own next moves. Just before he signed off, he heard a hurried report from one of Thad’s group.

“Captain, this is Frank Constansi, my ship the Spider Hole had earlier picked up a radar return of something about two light hours from us, directly ahead of Melnor in its orbit. I was stationed one light hour out in the same direction. We were using continuous scans, and it was there a few minutes then it disappeared. It could have been a reflection from a rotating space rock, and we each had a number of those false alarms. I didn’t think it mattered at the time since it was gone, but it vanished almost exactly three hours before the warning from the patrol boat that the explosion had started. We just Jumped out here and don’t see any rocks at all that could have been what we saw. I looked at the recordings again, and it was alone, and had about the right size of a return signal before it was gone. It seems a good candidate target, now that we know the bastard stayed near Melnor.”

“Frank thanks for the time information on its probable departure. If it was three light-hours from Melnor, and the explosion started three hours later, the signal to trigger the explosion was either electromagnetic or gravitational, and it took three hours to reach Melnor from the Dismantler. We now know almost exactly when it departed for Pittsburg II, three hours before the blast started at Bootstrap. Jakob will have a better estimate of its arrival time here. That helps old friend, good luck.”

Maggi, who had been on the Mark’s Bridge with her husband, boosting his morale for the last week after leaving K1, said, “The Spider Hole combat team comes through again.”

Mirikami both nodded and shrugged, wearing a weary and sad expression. “Frank’s information is vital, but how well I’ll come through using it remains to be seen. I’m not leading a fight against a Krall hunter killer octet this time, with only a handful of lives in the balance.

“Pittsburg II and the Earth-Mars coalition have eighteen to twenty billion people between them, and so far I haven’t helped the six billion people on Meadow and Bootstrap that will die.”

Maggi grabbed his hand and looked him firmly in the eye, sharing her deepest feelings through that Tap. “Tet, if you had died on that Testing Day on Koban, twenty four years ago, there would not be any Kobani around to resist the Krall. You are not responsible for the evil the enemy does. You are certainly responsible for giving humanity a chance to fight that evil, and perhaps hold it back long enough that we can find a way to win.”

Encouraged by her unflagging support, he smiled. “I don’t have any tricks planned out in advance this time, but I’ll think of something.”

“Love, you’d better leap out of that spider hole again, jump on them and kick some ass. I’ve been betting on you for too long to let you lose now. I’ll smack your package if you don’t get your butt into thinking gear.” She kissed him, and stopped only when there was an uncomfortable shuffling of feet and one snicker from the other two control consoles.

Jorl Breaker, who had snickered, asked, “You two want to get a room?”

Fred Saber was red faced and embarrassed, to see the two eldest people he knew and admired, acting like love struck teens. Even if they did look young, he knew them from before, and couldn’t visualize them as having a private life.

“Oh, get off it Fred,” Maggi told him. “Did I act embarrassed when I caught you playing finger puppet with Katelyn Martin in her bedroom, when I housed her while her parents were on a raid last year?”

More blood than you’d think could rush to a face proved he was definitely more mortified now. “I’d have preferred you to be embarrassed than what you did. Offering us contraceptives was humiliating. Besides, we did try to keep it private. You simply barged in on us.”

She grinned sweetly. “I’ll bet you two were a lot more careful after that, weren’t you?”

Jorl didn’t make it easy on him either. “You and Katelyn? She’s way too glitzy for you man. Outa your league.” She was Noreen and Dillon’s daughter, and took after her mother’s beauty and figure.

“Oh yea, well when you…” Fred didn’t get to finish his retort.

Mirikami, his conservative New Honshu upbringing leaving him sexually suppressed compared to most Human Space cultures, cleared his throat.

“Hurumph. Let’s focus on ideas with the rest of the squadron to intercept this killer ship, shall we?” Perfectly aware that it was he and Maggi, especially her, that had pushed them off onto the amusing and lighter topic. She’d probably done it on purpose to change their moods.

Only Maggi had just said something off the cuff, about jumping on the Krall and kicking their asses, which had him tugging at his lower lip. He’d do exactly that when the ship arrived. “Jakob, the Dismantler ship Jumped from Bootstrap three hours before we received the report that Melnor had exploded. With the previous guess of travel time from K1 to Meadow, and then Meadow to Bootstrap, and the known distances between each system, I want an estimate of its arrival time here in this system.”

“Sir, Tau Boötis is 51 light years from Earth, and Eta Boötis is 37 light years from Earth. They aren’t on a perfect straight line towards Earth, and are nearly 16 light years from each other. If the ship traveled at the same rate as estimated from Meadow to Bootstrap, its travel time from Bootstrap to this system would indicate it arrived approximately two hours and fifty six minutes ago, with an error bar of…”

“Shit!” That sounded from two voices nearly simultaneously.

Without attribution of who shouted the profanities, Jakob summarized, as if the two exclamations had not confirmed full and shocked comprehension. “It is here now if this was its destination. I estimate its equivalent Normal Space rate of travel is between 250 and 255 light years per hour of sidereal time.”

Jorl and Fred glanced at one another, wondering if their elders would have chastised them for foul language. Then they both expanded their views of the four clanships that were two light hours from their own position near Poseidon, the presumptive target planet. After their initial examination of the four clanships when they arrived, observing they weren’t doing anything but waiting, everyone had focused attention on the action at Bootstrap, where they knew the Dismantler was. It hadn’t seemed possible for the ship to reach this system yet.

Jorl used visible light and Fred used infrared. The four clanships were now positioned around a larger ship, apparently without having to do a micro Jump to advertise their shift.

Observing the two screens, Mirikami linked to the six ships of his squadron. “The Dismantler is already here, and surrounded by the clanships. Here’s what you’re going to do, but exactly thirty seconds behind me…” which he explained briefly with a flash of mental images.

“Keep the clanships occupied so they can’t try to follow me. Good luck and I hope the Mark is able to celebrate with you when we’re done. Let me catch that larger tachyon, and remember you go thirty seconds after we Jump. Not too soon, or you might meet a blast wave.” He broke the link to avoid any objections or sentimental comments.

He looked guiltily at those on the Bridge, as he said, “Jacob set the secondary Trap to capture the largest tachyon we can catch in the next minute or less. When we have that secondary Trap tachyon, use the primary Trap to Jump just off center of the middle of the Krall formation, right next to the big ship.”

“Yes, Sir. Secondary Trap tuned and filtering for higher energy particles.”

“Ship wide link, Jakob.”

“Ready Sir.”

“People, we are jumping to attack the Dismantler, which has been here nearly three hours unobserved. We’re out of time. Seal your armor and secure yourselves firmly. If we misjudge the Jump, we may intersect with it, or ram it if not. I’m proud to have served with you all. We Jump in forty seconds or less. I hope we talk on the other side.”

He looked at the two younger men, who nodded their acceptance of the necessary risk. When he looked at Maggi, he saw her grin and her shining blue eyes.

“Now that’s kicking their asses!”

Jakob had the last word. “Secondary has a high energy tachyon. Jumping now.”

****

As they neared the next star system, Pildon was told to ask Huwayla if there were exactly four clanships deployed at the proper offset location, sitting at the designated coordinates that Dolbor furnished for Pildon to relay to Huwayla. That was a point that was offset by a previously specified and a fixed distance by Telour, set away from where the death ship had been told to arrive. When the four clanships were found where they were expected to be, and no other ships or debris were seen, Pildon instructed the ship to change coordinates and to emerge at the center of their formation.

This accomplished not only a gamma ray free entry, but the protective craft had no need to reposition via a micro Jump, thus advertising their relocation. The four pilots might feel surprise at the death ship’s sudden appearance between them, but they were Krall. Surprise would last two hundredths of a second before the efficiency demonstrated by their arrival would be appreciated.

Huwayla was promptly instructed to initiate the fields to begin the process of forming opposite matter. The target planet in this system was slightly larger than at the previous star, and this one would require roughly another hour to reach the calculated destructive force to shatter its core with the requested violent dispersal.

Pildon was already thinking ahead to the final system, where a larger gas giant was to be used. The Krall’tapi was fatalistically thinking of the remaining time needed here, and then the even greater time he expected at the fourth system, to destroy a much more massive world. Would there be enough time to finish the destruction there, then for Huwayla to return him to where the living ships were stored? From that point, the Krall would honor their agreement to send him home.

Could that journey possibly be completed before any fragments in any system killed millions or billions of intelligent creatures? That would surely result in Huwayla detecting the consequences of her innocent actions. Had he known that in the final system, that an inhabited Mars was much closer to an exploding Jupiter than was Earth, he’d have forsaken any hope of seeing his family again.

He knew now that the powerful and amazing ship could remotely see the systems where she had been made to act, at least in gross detail, if perhaps not on a small scale. How she would learn when her actions had killed millions of intelligent creatures he couldn’t imagine. He feared the longer journey to rejoin her sister ships would not yet be completed when she learned. This level of death would make the mission one of those that never returned. He’d not rejoin his family.

His concerns proved to be entirely the wrong ones.

Huwayla, without warning, abruptly moved so sharply that everyone but Pildon was knocked violently off their feet. The only reason he remained standing was that he was within the emergency cylindrical inertial containment field that was instantly projected floor to ceiling around each of the circular marks on the deck. That was where the trusted operators were required to stand or sit, and where control room guests should be.

Most of the Krall were completely clear of the containment field areas marked by floor disks. Most, except for the one guardian that today was assigned to maintain a firm grip on Pildon’s shackles. Only his arm, from elbow to hand was within the containment field. His upper arm was sheared at the elbow when he was thrown across the compartment.

Pildon felt the ship jolt, but with far less force than anything that was external to the containment field. Unthinking and unaware that his immediate guardian was no longer attached to the hand gripping the chains at his back he recklessly called out. “What happened?”

Huwayla didn’t sound distressed, yet her words suggested distress would not have been an unwarranted emotion. “An arriving clanship was about to emerge inside a portion of the volume of the normal Universe where we were located. I was forced to move aside to prevent our mutual destruction, and I enclosed it with a stasis field used to move pods of building material, or there would have been a damaging impact after it emerged. I regret that I was unable to provide you with a warning. Your guests have been injured. I am equipped with means to repair them if they still live.”

“Who arrived?” Pildon was looking over his shoulder at the ten warriors just starting to stir, piled in a jumble along a wall. One was missing half an arm, although the blood flow was already slowing.

Before the ship could answer, there was another jolt, the lighting from the glowing walls briefly dimmed, the system display of the star and planets vanished and the containment field failed, allowing Pildon to fall to the side.

“What now?” he called out fearfully.

There was no immediate reply, but the interior lights resumed their former intensity and the local system map, which had been projected in the space in front of his operator’s position, was now replaced with a new display. It appeared to be a completely different solar system, until he realized it was a view of the same system from a different perspective, closer to the star and on its opposite side from the targeted ice giant.

Huwayla’s voice sounded uncertain when it returned. “I have been relocated, and part of me is missing. I regret that I have lost control of the disruption fields, and the incomplete conversion of opposite matter was released early within the planetary core. It is inadequate to disrupt the planet.”

Pildon looked fearfully at the Krall moving at the wall where they had been thrown, most of them appeared to be injured or stunned, based on their slower than usual recovery. He asked anxiously, “What happened? Can you resume the disruption?”

“No. The clanship that arrived extended an event horizon and rotated most of my structure into the second level of the alternate Universe when it Jumped. It moved me with it, and I was unable to control events when I briefly lost tachyon power. We are on the other side of the star now. I have reestablished external surface integrity to seal off atmosphere loss where my skin was missing. When I can perform adequate self-repair, I will be able to travel again through the alternate Universe. This repair will not be finished for perhaps a fifth of a rotation of the world where your people live, Pildon.”

The self-repair sounded promising, and they could Jump within four hours, so perhaps they could move to the final system, which Pildon knew was the most important one to Telour. The ship had more to say on the subject, and it wasn’t good news.

“One of my two gravity projectors was separated from me and remains at our previous position. I cannot replace that. I may be able to recover the projector left behind and eventually make repairs if it is not damaged internally, but not in time for any of your building projects to progress effectively. I require both projectors to produce planetary disruption. I do not understand why your guests did this. It could have resulted in deaths of all those I carry, and in their own deaths.”

Pildon thought he knew who they were. “I don’t think I have ever met any of these creatures, and they were not invited here. Those that are with me do not want to stop the projects. Where is that clanship now?”

“We are touching, because I held them secure after they damaged me, and they have also suffered much damage. They do not have Trap fields deployed, and I think their real space thruster system is inoperable. Some of them rushed to leave the clanship to try to enter me where my skin was replaced. That clanship has suffered much damage, and a part of it is open to space. There was an explosion and fire, perhaps caused when I made them stop moving to prevent a collision. I regret if I have caused them injury.

“This may be why they are trying to enter me in the place where I have made an emergency repair to my outer skin, to ask me for assistance. You do not permit me to communicate with them, so I do not know their purpose. My outer surface area is healed enough to prevent their entry, unless they have the means to cut the thinner repair material open.”

Suddenly, at least a hundred guardians that had been in another part of the living ship charged in from side corridors with weapons at the ready, some of them limping. Several of them moved to examine the other eight guardians, with little attention paid to Telour’s aides. Others advanced on Pildon, in a rather intimidating display of excessive threat, against a shackled and unarmed prisoner.

One warrior, not passing his plasma rifle away as protocol normally required, grasped his shackles, after detaching and discarding the arm still attached by its clinched fist. He pressed the business end of the rifle against the side of Pildon’s head.

“What did you do?” he was asked.

It sounded almost pleasantly mild, from a Krall clearly about to vaporize his skull.

Pildon pleaded. “It wasn’t me. Another clanship tried to hit us, and then pulled us away to the other side of the star. Look at the display, let the ship explain.” He was afraid the knife he saw in another guardian’s hand was about to literally cut off his own explanation.

One of the eight guardians spoke from the back wall. “It speaks true. I heard the ship tell him that. It said it prevented a Jumping clanship from merging with us. Then the enemy formed a Jump Hole and pulled us away from the protectors, and the death ship was damaged and part of it was left behind. The enemy tried to enter the death ship, but have failed. This must be the humans using our clanships as we were told when we were at Telda Ka. They would be who destroyed the protectors at the last star. We need to attack them before they cut a way inside, to protect the ship’s secrets from them.”

Even the guardian with one arm had risen to his feet, and another one stood with a broken leg, a bone protruding. All of the Krall were on their feet, as were the two unarmed aides. Combined on the ship, there were five hundred twelve guardians, and two unarmed representatives of the Tor Gatrol. The latter requested and received spare weapons. The true enemy was at hand and had to be repelled, and then destroyed at any cost.

Dolbor exerted his questionable authority again over the guardians own sub leader. “Pildon, tell the ship to guide us to where we can reach the enemy quickly.” Then in words directed to the guardian holding the prisoner.

“Bring him with us, to speak to the ship for us.”

What choice did the Krall’tapi have but to obey?

****

Knocked briefly unconscious from the severe jolt that had suddenly slammed them back and sideways, Mirikami soon recovered and called to Jakob. “What did we strike?” His ability to ask that question meant they had not ended in a blaze of blue-white light, as he’d half expected, or suffered a collision so violent the hull ruptured.

“Sir, we nearly intersected with the ship we Jumped to meet, because my estimate of the correct safe arrival coordinates was inaccurate due to our large separation. I don’t understand this, but we are somehow at rest in space, in physical contact with the Dismantler’s hull. We should have collided quite hard with it after we were in Normal Space, and would have rebounded sharply, assuming we did not penetrate their hull. Only two enemy clanships are able to see us this close to the side of the larger ship, and they can’t easily fire on us while we are attached to the object they want to protect. They have started spinning to absorb the plasma and laser hits I have been firing, and they are moving in to safely fire back at us from closer range.”

Mirikami realized he’d been hearing the Mark’s plasma cannons thrumming as they fired and cycled, that it wasn’t from the throbbing pain in his head. Fred and Jorl were also moving now, raising their heads to look at their console displays. Maggi looked very still, secured in her couch.

Jakob sounded almost apologetic for an AI. “I couldn’t launch any missiles because the squadron will arrive…,” All five Kobani ships promptly winked into existence at that moment, immediately firing from positions behind the four clanships, and they could and did launch missiles. Some of their missiles would be destined for the Dismantler, if it were still there. It should have been gone by now or destroyed. Jakob couldn’t automatically launch their anti-ship missiles previously, not without a human’s order, when the AI knew that Kobani ships might be hit when they suddenly appeared in the middle of the battlespace, resulting in human deaths.

By now, the Mark should have Jumped if it had survived, but that too was only to be done on Mirikami’s order. If the Mark had emerged too far from the target to take it out by intersect, or by ramming it, Mirikami wasn’t about to Jump away and leave the fight. He’d been stunned for vital seconds, and Jakob had made the best decisions he was permitted to make. Mirikami had deliberately assigned the other ships arrival points that were not too far out and a half-minute later in time. If the Mark happened to emerge inside the volume of the much larger ship, the intercept blast wave wouldn’t destroy the squadron, because the high velocity debris would have spread beyond their arrival points when they appeared. The Krall clanships would have already been shredded in that case.

If there was no intercept, a hard ram could still wreck the Dismantler, and the squadron would soon arrive to kill the clanships, and rescue any survivors on the Mark. None of that had happened, so the backup plan was needed. It was needed fast, before the squadron’s missiles reached them to destroy the Dismantler.

In contact with the Dismantler, the Mark wasn’t able to rotate to spread out energy beam hits from the two Krall ships, and Mirikami didn’t dare try to increase separation to make them an even safer target to hit. Besides, where they were was perfect for implementing the backup plan.

“Jump Jakob.” Mirikami was almost quick enough.

Just before the large Jump Hole formed, using the high energy tachyon in their secondary Trap, the Mark took a heavy laser beam and two plasma bolt hits on a single missile launcher port at midship. Krall gunners were good, and knew the weak points of a clanship.

In the fraction of the time it took the plasma bolts to penetrate the hull and spatter their star heat inside the penetrated missile compartment, the Mark of Koban completed a White Out six AUs away, on the other side of Pittsburg II’s star. That occurred a half second before an exploding missile in the firing rack blew away enough of the hull and Trap field emitters on that side of the hull to dump all of the tachyons. A quarter-second earlier and both ships would have vanished in a burst of energy inside Tachyon Space, when the power to the Trap fields failed and they would have opened.

As it was, without tachyon power for Normal Space drive, and a blazing inferno of internal flames, which near the center of the ship threatened the binary fuel tanks. Several severed fuel lines had automatically shut down all of the attitude thrusters and the main engine because of an active internal fire. The two main fusion bottles provided power to the weapons, sensors, and for weak gravity control.

Unfortunately, that was only a summary of equipment problems. The human side of the equation was far worse.

“I’m on fire! Help me, we’re trapped!” The panic and pain sent in that Comtap link from Jala Kentra was tremendously painful for everyone on the Mark. More so because there wasn’t any way to help her or the three people with her in time to save them. The blast had opened the hull for fifty feet around the missile bay that was directly hit, tearing open multiple compartments.

The crew in those compartments nearest the blast died outright, or had their armor punctured or torn open and then they died in the resultant vacuum. A couple of “lucky ones” were ejected into space in their sealed armor, unconscious but alive. Plasma from the large bolts ignited a secondary fire from ricocheting fragments, when some passed through a torn open bulkhead and started a blaze when they embedded in stacked small arms ammunition, kept in a storage locker on a deck below the explosion. That happened before the airtight compartment door slammed shut, and automatic foam sealant sprayed over and covered the compartment’s bulkhead breech.

There were four acceleration couches bolted to the deck in that storage locker, placed in a smaller compartment intended to protect the occupants from sudden vacuum in the wide-open outer deck area, or to protect the outer deck from a breach in the smaller compartment.

Now, in armor that kept them breathing, the four occupants couldn’t open the heavy sealed door to get out, as the heat of burning Krall pistol ammunition propellant raged. Even their suit energy beams were inadequate to cut through, at least quickly enough against bulkheads and doors designed to resist powerful clanship beams on outer compartments. Krall pistol ammunition didn’t require external oxygen to burn. A gaseous fire suppression system, quickly activated, and prevented flames from spreading farther from that compartment, but caseless ammunition already ignited would burn its propellant until it went out. The link mercifully went silent well before then.

When the four suit icons went red, Mirikami halted the frantic rescue attempt by half of his surviving crew down below. That half was only the four people he’d devoted to a rescue that he knew was hopeless from the start. He had sent another four to focus on their strategic problem. How damaged was the Dismantler ship, did it look capable of a Jump, and were the Krall coming out to fight? The ship supposedly had no offensive weapons, per the Raspani.

Tell that to the people on Meadow and Bootstrap, he thought. To the Olt’kitapi this ship was a tool, but not to the Krall. What other tool function did the ship have that could be used as a weapon? He realized that if he could capture this ship, it should offer a treasure trove of technology, but he couldn’t let it get away intact.

Anyway, a shitload of armed Krall inside her could be very damned offensive, particularly when you’re attached to that ship without any propulsion to separate from them. He knew there were Krall inside, and at five times the Mark’s volume, there could be plenty of them. His original complement of twenty-four was down to twelve, four on the Bridge and eight survivors below. A Comtap link told him the squadron had made short work of the four clanships, and would Jump over to join him, just as soon as they figured out exactly where the random coordinates were that his hurried Jump had taken the now broken down Mark.

Based on Jakob’s assessment of the Dismantler ship, the radius of the Jump Hole they’d been able to make with the tachyon they had hurriedly caught, had sheared off nearly a quarter of the far end of the ship. Whether it was missing the bow or stern he didn’t know, since both ends had looked identical before they had sliced one end off.

He was relieved when Maggi had come around, almost a full minute after they’d nearly rammed the other ship. He left her on the Bridge while he, Jorl, and Fred, leaped down past the stair landings to join up with the four Kobani that had been clambering about on the surface of the Dismantler, seeking entry through its presumably cut open hull. The four from the rescue team were withdrawing from within the Mark’s internal wreckage, and would join them.

Mirikami detoured to the other side of the Mark, away from the damage, to avoid the smoke and warped decks and bulkheads on the side by the explosion. It looked as if the human designed fire suppression system they had added to the one all clanships had, managed to protect the fuel tanks, which were close to the missile launcher that had exploded.

Mirikami was receiving an image of the hull of the Dismantler by Comtap, and it was from the other side of the big rounded sausage shape of a ship. The hull, like a clanship’s, was magnetic so their armor’s feet could stick securely. The idea had been that where the Dismantlers hull was severed, they would gain easy entrance. It didn’t appear there was a breach after all.

The four Kobani had bypassed some circular shapes that might be hatches, but they didn’t appear to have hinged or sliding doors. Besides, they assumed the Krall might be waiting at hatches, so a sliced open hull section should offer more options. Now, Mirikami was seeing an image of what seemed to be continuous gray sheeting that covered the sharply defined shear plane of where the Jump Hole had cut through the end of the ship. It looked as if a tight gray membrane had been stretched across the opening with the underlying walls and deck edges outlined, as ridges along the material, as if elastic fabric was stretched tautly over the gaping hole.

Jason Seiko, a former Steward from the Flight of Fancy was showing him by Comtap how springy yet tough the material was. “Tet, I can push it down slightly with my hand so it has some flex, but I can’t pinch it to lift it, and it resisted cutting, it seems like flexible metal. I hit it with both a red and a green laser, and it left a brief IR glow, but it didn’t separate or burn through easily. The stuff seems to have extruded from the other adjacent hull material, because there is no line where it starts, but the original hull near the cut seems thinner, implying it provided the material for the sheet that now covers the opening. It’s sort of like an extruded Smart Plastic cover, but stronger, and has the toughness of a single ship coating.”

“OK. I’ll be there in a few minutes. We’re almost at the lower deck airlocks.”

The main portals were shut to retain atmosphere, so the three men intended to use one of four airlocks between the portals that could each pass a Krall octet in armor, leaving it more than roomy enough for them. They were about to cycle the outer hatch open, when Maggi shouted a Comtap warning to all, with a visual from a video screen.

“Krall swarming out of a ten foot wide hatch right next to the Mark! They have plasma rifles and pistols.” There was no need to say they were armored, since it was in vacuum.

Mirikami was torn between opening the hatch or not. “How many and how close to the ship?”

“Jakob counts sixteen, but eight have leaped off towards the Mark.”

Mirikami decided. “Jason, the four of you try to work your way back here. We need to keep them from taking the Mark. Their chain of planet destruction is done for today and they know it, but they don’t want us to have the Dismantler, and I don’t think they can Jump. If they can get control of the Mark, then both ships will be lost to us.”

While he talked, he pressurized the airlock to get back inside the hold. He linked to the entire squadron now, so everyone knew what was happening. “Will, Jump the squadron in the right general direction, then zero in on wherever we are. At least sixteen Krall came out of the Dismantler and eight are trying to enter the Mark. If they gain control of her, it becomes a target for you, even if some of us are inside her. They would use missiles and energy beams to destroy the Dismantler themselves to keep it from us. We need the technology of that Olt’kitapi ship.”

Maggi told him two Krall had started for the gaping hole in its side, another two had split to go to the two airlocks for the lower shuttle bays, and four were clambering towards the lower deck airlocks where he was now.

He nodded to himself. “Of course. They’re trying multiple ways to get inside.”

Just then, the four of the former rescue crew arrived at the hold. Mirikami split his people up. “Jorl, you have charge down here, cover these four airlocks, and send someone back up to make certain the two Krall can’t get inside via the blast damaged area. Fred you take shuttle bay airlock number one and I’ll cover number two.” They split up.

Maggi said, “I suppose I’ll need to help take out the two entering via the hole in the hull?”

“I know you could, but I don’t think they can gain entry. Pressure doors are closed, and Jorl will send someone back there to check.” He answered. “If our trapped people couldn’t get out of a sealed compartment, maybe the Krall can’t get inside from vacuum either, unless they brought explosives. Can Jakob target any of the Krall out on the hull of the other ship?”

“No, I asked. We’re too close, almost parallel alongside, and they know as well as we do that near a clanship’s tail, or right on our hull they’re safe from ship weapons.” That of course, was why they used a hatch near the Mark’s tail.

“Jason, eight other warriors may be coming your way. The smooth hull is open ground, but our better stealth is your advantage, even if you have no place for concealment. They can’t see lasers or microwave beams in a vacuum.” As he spoke, he was racing up the far stairwell to reach the third level hanger bay for shuttle bay two. His external speakers picked up a clanking sound above him. The airlock was cycling.

When he reached the airlock corridor, with the echo of the clanging he’d heard still reverberating, along with the sound of his own hurried leaps from stair landings, he saw the inside airlock door ajar. He paused a half second. The Krall may have heard him dashing up, but he couldn’t see him.

This shuttle bay was located on the side closest to the hatch the Krall had used on the other ship. The warrior had apparently beaten him inside. Activating his cushioned foot soles, he went quietly and invisibly past the half open airlock door, pressed near the opposite wall, in case the warrior suddenly fired from around the corner at the end of the corridor.

By link he asked, “Jakob, how long ago did the number two shuttle bay finish its airlock cycle?” He’d gotten here fast, so he’d thought the Krall should have still been in the corridor.

“It just finished its cycle, Sir. The outer door locking light came on seconds before you linked.”

Mirikami was visually stealthed, and moving silently now, but he’d made some noise coming up so fast, which would have alerted their intruder. Glancing back over his shoulder, he reached into a soft suit storage alcove he was next to, and detached a thruster adjustment tool from a utility belt. He tossed it close to the ceiling, passing over the top edge of the airlock door he’d just passed, so that it would fall ten feet in front of the gap of the partly open door.

The actinic flash of the plasma bolt, which Mirikami had expected, burned the tool in half before it reached halfway to the deck. Mirikami leaped and snatched the door open by its edge with his left hand, and grabbed at the dim IR glow of the cooling weapon’s muzzle with his right gauntlet. He pulled it to the right through the open door, and his left hand flashed into the dark opening, just behind where the trigger should be, and found the stealthed armored wrist he was seeking.

The metal on metal grip with the Krall’s armor gave him another bright idea. He sent the most powerful mental image he could think of. It had the momentary result he’d wanted, causing the warrior to freeze for just an instant. His right gauntlet had crushed the end of the plasma rifle as that shocking image infused the Krall’s mind. The startling distraction lasted while Mirikami’s right fist moved in a blur from the rifle’s crushed tip, to a point just inches below where he estimated the warrior’s eyes would be staring at the sudden destruction of its primary weapons muzzle. That was the wrong muzzle to concern him.

Mirikami had made a good estimate, and his armored fist smashed like a hydraulic piston into the stealthed, slightly protruding muzzle of the Krall’s helmet, shoving it into the yellow teeth and thin lips behind it. The crumpling spoiled the stealth effect on the front of the helmet, and shattered the visor above. Mirikami’s left hand then yanked the Krall’s right wrist forward, which turned his right side away from Mirikami, exposing his back. Deftly reaching behind the Krall with his right hand, he felt for and gripped the power pack at the back waist of the suit, and tore it free. The warrior flashed into complete visibility.

Now it would be much easier to grasp limbs that could be clearly seen, snap them at the joints, and peel part of the suit off. That all happened in the next ten seconds. Well, stripping off the helmet and one gauntlet was all that was actually peeled off, since that was all Mirikami required for this prisoner. The snarls of rage switched to ones of pain as the disabling progressed.

“Fred,” he linked. “I have a prisoner. We don’t need yours.”

“Uh…, OK Sir. That’s good, because he’s dead. I didn’t know you wanted one.”

Jorl came back with, “We have one dead one too, but the other three pulled back into the other airlocks behind the hatches when I shot the first one out. I killed power to the airlock pumps at the electrical panel. They can’t cycle back to vacuum now since the outer doors won’t open with pressure on the inside. They know they’re trapped, and Jakob reports they are talking on an encrypted frequency. They’ll probably try to come out at us all at once. Do you want another live one?”

“Probably not. Let me Mind Tap the one I have to decide.”

He removed a gauntlet and smacked a broken forearm aside as he grasped the exposed Krall’s hand from its backside, to avoid the talons with his bare hand.

In perfect low Krall, he spoke to him. “Surprised it was the Tor Gatrol snatching away your rifle when you nearly shot him?” He was amused by that powerful concept he’d sent, of a generic Krall voice that claimed to be the war leader. He snorted to demonstrate his amusement. His humor was short lived, when the aide flashed an annoyed thought that he should have known Telour couldn’t be here on this ship. He was on Telda Ka when they left and could not have traveled here so soon.

On Comtap, he told to everyone, “Damn. Telour actually is the Tor Gatrol, and he’s behind all this. This is one of his aides that I caught.”

Nevertheless, he wasn’t interested in Telour right now, since he was on K1. He needed information that would help them here, so he pressed the Krall for more information. “How many of you came in that ship?”

The answer was bad. On Comtap he relayed to the others, “There were 515 on the death ship…, I mean the Dismantler; the bastards call it a death ship. One of those over there is a soft Krall prisoner, and there’s a second aide to Telour with them, named Dolbor who’s in charge. The rest are dedicated guardians for just these ships, appointed from various clans. These are middle status and experienced warriors for this duty, with no novices.

“Let me ask him again about the prisoner. We might catch ourselves a soft Krall if they don’t kill him first.” He updated them as the answers came.

“The ship can’t Jump, but it can repair itself for that in a few hours. At least it can’t destroy any more planets. We left an important piece behind when we Jumped with it in tow.”

Jason suddenly interrupted. “Sir we have a man down. Thigh burn and suit penetration. We have a patch on the leak and the suit has injected nanites for pain and bleeding. Can we get him inside?”

“The two shuttle airlocks are open for you now if you can reach them, but three of the four lower ones have Krall trapped inside them. You still have those eight Krall to get past, two more are inside our damaged ruptured hull, and almost five hundred more are inside the Dismantler and may be coming out anytime. You need to get back here, I think.”

“Correction, only three left to get past out here Sir. We killed five of them. That’s how Tripper was winged. We tied monofilament utility line to our ankles, used our stealth for concealment and gently jumped up just above the curvature of the Dismantler to get shots at them, and then we pulled the shooters down. We can see them slightly in the distant sun light, despite their own stealth. They do learn though. They figured out how we were getting clear shots down at them from above the curvature. They took random plasma bolt potshots, and one was lucky for them, but not for Tripper. We’ve quit doing that.”

They suddenly had company. “We found ya.” Came via Comtap from Captain Will Horst, of the Hellion, Mirikami’s second in command for the group. Horst sent mental images of the Mark and the Dismantler lying side by side as a demonstration that he could see them. With the remaining five ships of the squadron, they had a lot more help arriving. With five additional crews, and the survivors from the Mark, they had 132 Kobani to face nearly 500 Krall. At least the Kobani ship lasers could prevent the enemy from charging out in force to try to capture the Mark. Of course, that didn’t help them to secure the technology the Dismantler offered. It was probable the Krall would try to destroy the prize if it couldn’t Jump first.

“Good to see you Will. Come in close and use your low power lasers to pick some Krall fleas off the Dismantler hull, where Jason says they’re hiding. He can show you where. I don’t want you to hit the Dismantler itself. Send another ship to look for two of my crew, who were ejected into space by the explosion when we arrived. They were hurt and unconscious.”

In a more somber tone he added, “My icons show another two suits drifting out there, and both are dead. Please bring them all home.”

They had lost twelve Kobani on the Mark and another twenty-four died with Noreen’s squadron from the Kiwi, and they would surely have losses when they entered the Dismantler to take it over. They had just saved many billions here at Pittsburg II, and in Sol system, yet Mirikami wondered how that sacrifice would sit with the PU government, compared to the billions of people expected to die in the first two systems attacked.

That would be a future social and political battle. Right now, he wanted to organize teams to enter the Dismantler, to fight the Krall still inside her, and see if they could capture the soft Krall operator alive. The operator would surely have more answers about how this ship worked, and how it made planets explode.

With help arriving by several shuttles, Mirikami asked Fred to go to the Bridge with him. “Maggi, I’m going to leave Fred and the Krall prisoner on the Bridge, and leave some others aboard to dig out the vermin we have, and to recover our casualties in the depressurized compartments.”

Almost as if an afterthought, he added. “You can come with us if you want, along with most of the Kobani that just arrived. We’re going to get inside that Olt’kitapi ship and take it away from the dammed Krall. I’m hoping you can reason with the soft Krall they’re holding prisoner, assuming we can capture him alive. He is surely no friend to them.”

She made sure he understood her attitude. “You were going to catch hell if you tried to leave me here babysitting Jakob. You do know that, Right?”

The AI assumed the query at the end was directed to him. “Mam, I am capable of monitoring all ship systems and reporting to you or Captain Mirikami, where ever you are.”

“My point exactly! I’ll meet you on the stairs my dear. That will save your old legs some steps.” The hundred twelve year old had vaulted over the railing to the deck below before her thoughts even went out on Comtap.

****

Dolbor had sent two octets through the hatch to confirm the damage Huwayla reported the enemy clanship had suffered. She reported to Pildon that it was without tachyon or conventional thruster power. He didn’t know how she knew this, but he had to admit that he didn’t know most of the capabilities of the ancient ship. He’d realized he would have to defer to the sub leader of the guardians, who wasn’t really obeying him anyway, but had permitted him to send the scouting force out to investigate the disabled enemy ship because it was what he wanted.

There were only a hand of humans found outside their ship, and they appeared to be seeking a way into the Olt’kitapi ship. He was tempted to let them make that mistake, but when he broached the possibility of allowing them inside, to crush them with their superior numbers, the guardian sub leader had, in a none-to-subtle move, turned sideways to allow his plasma rifle to coincidentally point towards Dolbor’s midsection. The elite guardians had paid Tor Gatrol Telour due respect, but that obviously did not apply to the Tor’s selected staff.

The sub leader had been awarded the title of Gorth to add to his earned name, but in Dolbor’s mind that unique guardian leadership rank didn’t seem to grant him authority over one of the Tor’s Gatrol’s own aides. However, the Gorth of the guardians had over five hundred warriors in his command. Bithdol, the other aide, was the only warrior Dolbor could apparently command. He’d sent the lower status aide to enter the enemy clanship, and to report specifically to him.

Huwayla projected an external view of the enemy ship for them, next to a hatch she had guided them to, just as Pildon was ordered to request. From there, they knew when access was made into the enemy clanship by those they sent out. The guardian sent to the upper shuttle airlock on the image didn’t report to Dolbor, but he observed the sub leader, Gorth Bohdar, reply to a communication that must have come from that warrior as soon as he left their sight. The message was only for Bohdar, and couldn’t be overheard from inside his helmet. The fact the warrior had immediately opened the outer airlock hatch told him something.

To demonstrate to his only subordinate that he was on top of things, Dolbor told him, “The enemy ship is on backup fusion power because of the explosion. The emergency override code will open the airlock.”

Bithdol snapped out a reply. “A novice with an empty tattoo would try that if the default door code failed.” He knew that he and Dolbor were sent on this mission because Telour doubted they would return, and he didn’t want to lose his most trusted advisors. He sent two newly promoted aides he could easily replace, or perhaps not bother to do that if they failed to return. Bithdol was smart enough to understand this reality, but his higher status clan mate was not politically adept, having won many of his status points by killing noncombat trained human family units in their nests.

Immediately after that, Bithdol reported he was about to exit the inner airlock hatch. Then he said, “I hear an enemy leaping up the stairwell from the main hold. I will put a plasma bolt through its head at first sight. I am in darkness within the airlock, but I clearly see the top of the stairs.” Smarter than Dolbor didn’t make him brilliant. Human armor had nearly perfect invisibility.

He had remained quiet longer than his superior had expected, when Bohdar surprisingly stooped to ask Dolbor if his clan mate had successfully entered the enemy clanship. He acknowledged that his own warrior hadn’t reported leaving the airlock. When Bithdol also failed to reply to a call, they assumed they both had been seen and killed. Bohdar then generously shared the report he’d received from the four warriors that attempted entry by airlocks at the lowest deck.

One guardian had been killed immediately, and the other three were now trapped within their separate airlocks, unable to cycle back to the outside, and fully exposed if they made an exit into the wide-open hold area, which they could see through the small windows in the inner hatches. They had no idea how many enemy they faced, or where they were located.

The two warriors that had entered through the large blast damaged hull opening found no access into the clanship, but verified they had encountered several dead humans in damaged armor, who had died in the explosion or from decompression. They would require cutting torches or explosives to gain entrance, which were not tools that had ever been carried on such a mission. This type of problem was unprecedented when using one of the Olt’kitapi ships. Bohdar ordered them to try to join with the eight warriors out on the hull of the death ship, to press a flanking attack on the outnumbered humans there.

The report from that octet on the hull, when it came, was difficult to believe. The octet had suffered several fatal headshots from an enemy they couldn’t see, which apparently were able to fire lasers at them from over the curvature of the Olt’kitapi ship’s hull.

Bohdar was angry at their confusion. “The enemy cannot fire lasers that curve! They must be above the hull to fire down on you. You have heard they have superior stealth, so shoot where they must be to fire down at you, and keep changing your positions even if you do not see them.”

They soon scored a probable hit on an enemy, when they saw a plasma bolt break apart at a height of two body lengths above the hull. Further quick shots in that vicinity produced no further hits. By then, they had lost two more warriors from the sniping. With those five dead, there were only eight warriors left from the sixteen sent out, and none of them had made it inside the enemy ship. Bohdar was on the verge of ordering a full-scale assault, when the external view display unexpectedly shifted out in range, to show that five more clanships had just arrived. Had it been only four, there was the possibility it could have been their protector clanships, which had been on the other side of the star engaged in fighting the enemy ships. With five fresh arrivals, this had to be human reinforcements. The possibility of capturing the disabled clanship was now past.

They had to keep the enemy out of the death ship long enough to see if it could repair itself for a Jump, or until the Krall could decide how to destroy the ship themselves. Huwayla had told Pildon that it was restoring its tachyon Trap ability for that purpose.

From the guardian’s perspective, the ship being destroyed was an acceptable outcome if they managed to kill the human attackers in the process. Destruction of a ship had never even been a consideration for these great weapons, and no previous enemy had even seen one, let alone damage or walk on one. With only plasma rifles, pistols, and their armor, there were very few destruction options for them. There was no reaction mass thruster system with fuel tanks to rupture, and no fusion bottles had ever been found. Although, Gorth Bohdar carried a Raspani boring tool, a personal weapons award from his clan upon his promotion within the guardians. A fusion bottle, if pierced by the tool would produce a suitable explosion. He could try making various holes near the command deck if they appeared about to lose the ship.

The Krall didn’t know where the living ship’s heart was located if it had one, or where its artificial brain might be placed. The command deck seemed to be the best place to start firing plasma bolts and boring holes if that time came. If they fought hard and well, they could hold the enemy indefinitely, certainly for the hours until the ship recovered tachyon power and they Jumped for Telda Ka. It was possible the enemy clanships would destroy them if they detected Trap fields forming, but that was better than losing the Olt’kitapi weapon to them.

Chapter 20: Huwayla

Mirikami briefed everyone making the assault, 120 Kobani, on the hull of the Dismantler. “When our four teams get inside, move fast and work towards the center of the ship. As our prisoner told us, there’s no bow or stern and the control deck, or Bridge, is at the center. This advanced AI surely has eyes and ears throughout the ship, just as ours do, and it’s probably telling the Krall where we are at all times. Bithdol proved to be a poor choice for helping us find our way around once inside, because this was his first sight of one of these ships.

“The Krall don’t sleep of course, but even so, he saw little of the ship for the days he was on board. He went only to their food serving and sanitation hall, and the command deck. There is a grid of corridors running the length and width of the ship, and hundreds of ovals along them that resemble what we think are like the hatches on the hull. This implies there are many compartments.

“It’s apparent the Krall that guard these ships don’t trust warriors from outside their elite corps, regardless of clan affiliation or their connections to the Tor Gatrol or various clan leaders. They treated the two aides to the Tor Gatrol like dirt. The guardians are almost like a clan of their own, and stayed outside the political intrigue of the other clans.

“The eating hall is a large room near the bottom of the ship, quite close to where the Mark sheared off one end. It’s too bad we took as much of the ship as we did when we Jumped. Otherwise, half of the guardians would be sucking vacuum now. There are only ramps between decks, no stairs, and if there are elevators then this Krall didn’t use them, so we don’t know if they exist, and I wouldn’t trust using them anyway. There are two large side entry corridors, leading from either of the two main large hatches and airlocks, placed at midship on both sides, at the lowest deck. These airlocks are twenty levels below the central control room, with about fifteen feet per level, about double a tall warrior’s height. Artificial gravity is always towards the ships base.”

In hindsight, capturing one of the other warriors, the ones Bithdol thought of as the guardians of the Olt’kitapi ships, would have been more useful. However, they were motivated to fight and die, as were the most dedicated of warriors, and they behaved as if any fight was for Path and Clan, and gave and expected no quarter from any foe. The Krall that had come out to investigate the Mark had launched a fierce simultaneous assault against heavy odds. The final guardians died from Kobani fire inside the hold or from squadron ship’s lasers as they tried to enter the Mark at scattered airlocks. A second live captive had not been possible.

Mirikami continued. “Needless to say, we don’t want to find ourselves in any of the widest passageways with little cover except for corners at wide intersections. Staying to smaller side corridors with more intersections will help us, and perhaps we can open some of those compartments. We can shoot and duck faster than they can, but when in atmosphere and shooting, and I know this reminder is redundant, lasers negate our stealth. Nearly untraceable microwave is less powerful and not fatal as quickly. Unless they sit still, it may not be effective.” He had another caution to offer.

“Remember, we’d like to take the ship in reasonable working order, please limit grenade use to when it’s safest or most effective, such as a massed charge in a corridor, away from possible delicate equipment. They outnumber us better than four to one, and are willing to die to kill even one of us. They may not have leaders, parents, or mates that care, but yours want you back alive. Besides, as a practical matter, we can’t survive even a four to one trade.”

He looked to Will Horst. “Thanks to pack rat Will here, he had three breaching bubbles stored on the Hellion. These were left over from when we burned diversionary entrances into the orbital station where the Eight Balls were made. This time we’ll all actually go through the holes we make. Three teams will use the thermite rings to burn holes and enter that way, and my team will use a ring of plastic explosives. We aren’t concerned with retaining internal atmosphere, so the pressure tent isn’t being used on the bubbles. Burn through and start forcing your way through the hole while the atmosphere flushes.

“Heavy laser and plasma bolt tests proved the hull material is tough but vulnerable, but it will flow to cover the holes. However, after the hull skin is punctured you can hold it open with multiple sets of hands, at least long enough to pass the team through. You will have to fight outflowing air initially, but the force didn’t seem too bad on the test openings we made. Maggi easily grasped the sides of the opening and stuck her head in before the rush of air fully reduced, to see that the room had closed internal pressure doors. They work and look odd because they iris closed, and she saw them change color from pale amber to black. The Krall responded to those openings relatively fast, in under a minute and forced the inside doors to spread open by hand to get into each room, with air rushing in from behind them to help them push through. However, we could have had an entire team of thirty inside to fight them off by then. If they can force the iris doors open by hand, so can we. We need to get started. Questions?” There were not.

The teams had been Mind Tapping and sharing the results of the test breeches, and there wasn’t much complexity involved. Burn, or blow open a four to six foot wide section of hull, use four or five Kobani to grip the hull material to stop it from oozing fast enough to close the opening, and the rest of the team dives through headfirst. The first four or five through would take over the task of maintaining the opening while the last of the team slipped inside.

The next step? Kill anything that moves that isn’t Kobani.

With one exception.

A smaller and grayer unarmed Krall, in shackles, possibly in armor or a Krall version of a soft suit would be a prisoner they wanted to capture, and probably needed to protect.

They had all clustered near the Mark, as if that was where they intended to force a single massed entry. A bit of misdirection, as usual. On Mirikami’s word, the four teams dashed off…, or rather they shuffled off…

Having to keep their electromagnetic foot soles in contact with the Dismantler made their fast walks, with a foot always firmly in hull contact, look somewhat humorous. Each team had predetermined sites where they had used sound reverberation to identify where a sizable hollow area was below the hull.

As the teams moved over the hull towards their designated entry points, they left four smaller explosive packs adhered to the hull in their wake, with a remote detonator for each team.

When all the teams reached their actual entry points, another Comtap signal from Mirikami had them trigger the explosives they had left well behind them, making loud blasts that were adequate to blow a two-foot wide opening, permitting atmosphere to briefly vent.

As that happened, three of the teams had already laid down the rings of thermite, busy with their quiet burns. Mirikami’s team had a linked chain of plastic explosives in a crude ring, which they pressed firmly onto the hull, and backed away before its detonator was pressed. The Krall would presumably be scrambling towards the other sixteen false entry locations, drawing them farther from the true entryways, and dividing their force.

The first Kobani to dive inside was Mirikami, and he dropped into the internal gravity field of the ship through an eight-foot wide hole that had peeled back from the blast. After the low level emergency gravity field on the Mark and weightlessness on the Dismantler’s hull, the one and a quarter standard gravity inside was a minor surprise.

There was no way for humans, or even Krall to know that this was the original gravity of the Krall home world, Kratar. The Krall disdain for sentimental names for places had led them to forget it was called “Home,” and the craving for higher gravity worlds had fostered their push to become stronger than they were created by nature at “Home.”

Mirikami did a graceful tuck and roll to come up at a run towards the door, which had rapidly irised shut, and changed from amber to black as he arrived. He punched the bunched fingers of his gauntlet into the center of the spiral of the door segments, and they gave way with a rush of air forcing its way through around his hand. He shoved through to his wrist and lifted hard, making the opening larger, and quickly jammed his left hand into the gap, with a gale of wind resisting. He was pulling left and right to make the opening wider when he felt a figure move up beside him, and two smaller hands grasped the top and bottom sides of the opening. The two of them forced the opening to grow as the force of wind increased for a few seconds, and then rapidly diminished. The door in the next compartment had now closed, to compartmentalize the air loss.

More hands came to help make the opening larger, but suddenly, the door swirled fully open. Apparently, it was because there was no longer any atmosphere in the next room to retain. Mirikami realized it was Maggi next to him, and she’d been forcing the door to reopen with him. Maggi had shoved Jorl out of the way and she had dived through on her husband’s heels. Turning, the two discovered all thirty of the team was behind them, inside the first compartment.

Mirikami waved them through the door, prepared to force open the next compartment, when he saw the last of the hull opening seal itself. It was a remarkable material. They were prepared to force open the next door when their suit visual displays indicated that external air pressure was rising rapidly.

By Comtap, Jorl said, “The door you forced open has returned to amber. I wonder if the color warns of pressure loss.”

Looking at the second compartment door, which had closed and gone black only a few seconds earlier, Mirikami agreed. “The next door is amber again. There’s surely pressure on the other side. Check if there’s some sort of a panel to open that door, and be prepared to shoot,” he warned them.

As Janice O’Malley stepped close to the door, it suddenly swirled open without warning. It was her Kobani reflexes already moving her out of the way when a plasma bolt was fired from the other side. She got off a red laser shot simultaneously, just as her left hand pushed on the circular doorframe to increase her rate of drop to the floor. That moved her below the return fire and to the side.

Even as she fell, she sent a mental image of what she saw. Three other Kobani, using the Comtap image she flashed to everyone, leaped forward in airborne dives towards the opening, and fired three maximum power plasma bolts where the image Janice had flashed told them the enemy was. There was an outlined stealth image of a hand of Krall warriors, three of them nimbly leaping over one in front, who was falling forward, with a glowing hole in his helmet. All three of the Krall went down from plasma bolt hits, but two had just fired their plasma rifles, both of them hitting a Kobani that had been the highest in the air on his lunge. Even effectively invisible, he simply happened to be in the space Janice had occupied when she’d fired her helmet laser. His helmet icon went red for Mirikami, and he was dead when he hit the deck.

There was one more bolt from a wounded Krall, which missed, before a half-dozen combined lasers and plasma bolts ended the exchange of fire with a certainty.

Janice leaned over the dead man. “I’m so sorry Andre. There was no time for a microwave beam.”

She had made an instant analysis when the door flashed open, and saw the shimmery moving outlines about fifty feet down the corridor, and knew they would fire through the suddenly opened door. Only a faster, higher powered killing energy beam on the lead warrior could help her, and she started moving as she fired, to get down and away from the target the beam briefly made of her head. She’d not known that someone else would move up behind her to catch the bolts intended for her.

Maggi touched her shoulder. “Random things happen that you can’t control dear. We have more of them coming after us. Shake it off and get even.”

Mirikami had to break the team’s fixation on the sudden death. “Get out of here and into the corridors, spread out and be careful. We can’t trade one of us for four of them, so fight smart, which is something they can’t match.”

****

Bohdar had clustered half his forces close to where Huwayla showed him the humans were gathered. They amounted to less than a quarter of his warriors, so he positioned others close to external hatches around the ship. Compared to a clanship, there seemed to be far too many points of entry. He told Pildon to instruct the ship not to permit the enemy out on the hull entry via the outside hatches and airlocks, and if they managed to cut their way in, to lock all doors in front of them.

Pildon dutifully passed on the “request,” but the reply wasn’t to Bohdar’s liking.

“Pildon, my external hatches are always closed against entry by those that do not possess a key from the builders. I have no reason to refuse entry to these visitors, and they all have a builder key. They are not listed as untrusted, as are your present guests, but they have not requested entry. They may not know how that is done. I do not have the ability to lock internal doors, unless there is a pressure loss, fire, or other hazard on only one side.”

“They have keys?” Bohdar snarled. Then the second qualification made him even madder. “The guardians are untrusted, but these attackers are not? We are here to defend this ship.” He raged, briefly oblivious to why they could not get the ship to do anything for them, requiring the presence of a soft Krall, who was apparently trusted.

“Sub leader, should I ask Huwayla why some are trusted and some are not?” Pildon was rather sure Bohdar didn’t want that asked.

All he received in reply was a red-pitted glare from black orbs, as the Gorth of the guardians considered which method of slow killing he’d like the soft one to suffer, if circumstances left him free to do that.

However, Pildon himself was troubled by the ship’s remarks. Somehow, these humans had quantum keys, and they were trusted, as was the Krall’tapi.

He wondered, was that the same as being trusted as an operator of the living ships? As were the Krall’tapi?

His people were the sole trusted ones for the Krall to use. The reason the Krall’tapi still existed and received tattoo keys, was because they were trusted by the ancient ships. These human creatures might represent a threat to his people’s usefulness if the Krall could use them in the same way. He loved his people more than he despised the Krall, and he felt nothing for the humans. He’d not help them, if doing so endangered his people’s future existence.

The view of the humans outside suddenly revealed that they had split into a hand of separate forces, and they were moving across the skin of the ship at a rapid pace, if not also a peculiar mode of fast short steps. Pildon knew nothing of zero gravity outside the ship, or of magnetic boots on armor needed to stick to the ship’s skin. He knew gravity could be different on other worlds, and he’d been handicapped slightly by the heavier pull he felt inside Huwayla, when he first stepped inside her. The ship lore he had learned spoke of this, saying this was how their original world felt on its surface, and the pleasant smells and air pressure somehow felt right, when you were inside the ship.

Bohdar had not reacted to the movements outside, because he was turned away and speaking to the warrior gripping Pildon’s shackles. The shackles were now on the outside of a clear soft material that clung to his body, except where a firmer bubble of the substance covered his head. He heard orders from the Krall now through opaque bumps next to his ears, and they and the ship somehow heard his words from an oval device placed on the bubble in front of his muzzle. They said the clear suit was to protect him if the air went away, which he didn’t understand how that could happen.

It was the warrior holding his shackles, glancing his way, who first saw the humans rushing in four directions on the display. “My Gorth, they are moving to attack!”

Bohdar promptly sent the half of his forces that were now poised under the wrong section of hull, in four directions. He didn’t notice the small flat lumps each group left behind them. When the explosions were felt or heard, and the ship highlighted the breaks in the hull skin, the already quartered half of his warriors were quickly sent towards the breeches, dividing them into smaller units. When the ship reported the largest openings, and a bigger explosion was felt, Bohdar was sure the humans were being deceptive. Only he didn’t know which of the openings they had made would pass the most enemy. He started sending a hand of warriors in new directions to scout each breach, retaining strength in the larger groups.

Having to tell Pildon what to ask the ship, have him do the asking, then receive the answer, which sometimes required new questions, made this a deplorable way to build a proper sense of the battlefield being constructed in the sub leader’s mind. The reaction times from asking the ship for information was too slowed, and the many scattered entry points to investigate diverted too many warriors to places where there were no enemy found.

Finally, he learned from warrior reports that there were only four actual penetrations, spaced widely around the ship’s hull, and the ship confirmed that the enemy were all now inside. It was too late to repel them, and they had started to spread through passageways like a disturbed nest of small animals. Only these animals had a bite, as fourteen red icons in his helmet soon reported, as warriors died. He assumed that the enemy, for which he had no reports, was dying in far greater numbers.

As nearly an hour passed, and the separate casualty icons had long ago consolidated into a single one, with a Krall script number next to it, the number had finally passed 100 octal. That many warriors lost should have meant the humans were essentially all dead. Only an uptick in the number, just as he thought of this, demonstrated the notion was premature.

He decided to contact some of the octet leaders to ask for an estimate of humans killed. It was a surprise to him that his octet leaders represented such a high percentage of killed warriors. However, in this cramped fighting space, as aggressive leaders they would naturally gravitate towards the heaviest resistance, to demonstrate leadership from the front, to lead by example. There were new names that appeared as octet leaders when he attempted to raise them on his com system, promoted from the next highest status member from that team. The new leaders would flag themselves as octet leader, replacing the original name that had led that team.

He found a name of an octet leader he knew well, and asked for an estimate. “Kithdel, how many enemy dead can you confirm and how many do you estimate your team has killed?”

In the swirl of combat, and with stealthed armor sometimes continuing to function after death, confirmed actual kills could lag well behind estimated kills.

“My warriors found two, one we did not have a report as killed and it was found already dead. The three warriors with me estimate another probable kill, but we could not advance to confirm. The enemy fights very efficiently, except for one strange exception. They recover their dead as well as their wounded.”

This was an odd admission of respect, to describe the enemy as efficient. “Why do you think they recover the dead? To prevent our counting how many we have killed?”

“Gorth, it is that behavior of these animals that I find impossible to understand. They fight well, and are faster than we are, but take a risk to save a wounded human, and will take their dead with them if we push hard enough to force them to retreat.”

“Push hard? They have retreated many places, as reported to me.”

“They do not stay in retreat. They fight as they pull back, then go around our charges, and attack from the flanks or rear. They change levels on the ramps, and then burn holes in the deck to climb up or drop down in our rear to do this. In our training we were ordered never to damage the living ships, and we did not expect them to do this desecration.”

He sympathized with the octet leader’s reluctance. However, he gave Pildon a question for the ship, when he relayed.

“Huwayla, the humans have cut through your walls and decks. Do you not resist this, and repair it as you do your outer skin?”

“The damage is not serious and the builders made provisions for permanent interior modifications. The alterations performed are minor and do not threaten the life of the living creatures I carry, as does the opening of my outer skin to space. It can be repaired in a day.

“I am more distressed by the deaths that are happening within me, and I would like that to end. However, I am not permitted to interfere with the actions of intelligent beings without builder instructions.”

With a snort of anger, Bohdar knew he would get no help from the ship. It was up to the guardians. He still wanted to know how the fight was progressing. Was the enemy force being efficiently reduced?

“Kithdel, have the four warriors not with you reported kills?” He assumed the octet had divided to pursue the enemy when they retreated in different directions.

“Not before they were killed in an ambush, from enemy that shot them from hiding in a room with no other exit, and previously seen to be empty. The humans had burned a hole in a wall to get behind them, and retreated that same way.”

Bohdar was shocked. He’d assumed the rest of the octet was merely detached, as often happened on hunts. They had lost four of the octet, confirming only two kills, one of which was not theirs. This was very poor performance against humans. Most of these warriors, before selection for guardian training, had fought in many early raids, and had been on Bollovstic when it fell. He’d been on Bollovstic, and had participated in the new invasion on Poldark. Humans were tenacious but generally poor fighters, using deception for advantage and they often retreated under protection of their primitive artillery. This was not that sort of battleground, but they were enduring to a surprising extent.

Contacting other octet leaders, he found that their reports were consistent. The humans would always fall back under heavy assault, gradually fading from contact, yet they killed more warriors than they lost of their own. They had some of the small hand bombs that they threw where there was a massed assault, which produced multiple debilitating injuries to legs and lower torso’s that slowed some warriors for a time. Those that did not stay with the pursuit pack were subsequently attacked by small forces that would drop down from an upper deck, or step through holes burned into compartments already verified as empty.

Killing wounded was hardly considered poor form by the Krall, who always killed enemy wounded, but it was almost unheard of when used against them. A wounded Krall was as deadly as any five human soldiers were. Usually.

What was disturbing was the destruction the humans so casually inflicted on the ship, which had always been considered so valuable to the Krall that they were protected and preserved at any cost. That is, until sacrificed for the destruction of an enemy world.

Bohdar had concluded that the ship might not survive to return home anyway, and it clearly wasn’t going to destroy any more human planets. Interior damage would be irrelevant if he ordered the ship to be destroyed himself.

He broadcast on a general frequency, “Cutting open walls and decks to attack humans is permitted.”

Nice thought! He didn’t tell them how to accomplish this feat, because his warriors didn’t carry lasers that could do the cutting. Punching holes with plasma bolts didn’t work well to make a Krall sized hole to crawl through, but the announcement certainly reduced the angst the guardians felt at seeing the damaging tactic used against them.

****

Mirikami considered it a bit like fishing and getting a nibble. He’d liked fishing as a boy on New Honshu. He and his Earth born grandfather would go on weekends, where he’d learned patience and how to attract the attention of a fish. Using small movements of his bait, he made it seem attractive and easy prey. Now he was fishing for Krall.

Maggi and Jorl were prone and on their sides, looking down a long corridor towards where they knew there were multiple live Krall at several intersections, with one dead body fully exposed on the deck with unpowered armor, another was a motionless shimmer, with a hole burned in the helmet.

Only a third of Maggi and Jorl’s helmets protruded around the two opposite intersection edges. They were using stealth to hide their peeking. Mirikami was using his lure to get them another nibble. Standing out of sight in the side corridor, he used a thin monofilament tied on a long metal rod with a bit of reflective plastic tied to the end. The top tip of the rod was held out behind a piece of ceiling mounted equipment. They had no idea what the gadget did besides hide their fishing pole.

With a mental warning to the others by Comtap, he released the reflective thumbnail sized bit of plastic, which swung out into the open passageway. It twisted and swung for a full pendulum sweep before one of the quick peeks of a Krall saw it. A plasma bolt streaked down the passageway from a rifle quickly pointed around a corner and pulled back. The plastic survived this shot by a hair, proving how good an estimate the Krall had made from the quick glance and blind shot.

Now for the lure twitch. Mirikami grunted over his external speaker as he fired a red laser, at its lowest setting, hitting the bit of twisting shiny plastic. A red reflected beam flashed wildly down the corridor, and two “fish” took the bait, expecting to finish off the “wounded” and nearly invisible human in armor.

Maggi and Jorl, using shared Comtap images, chose the target of opportunity for each of them, and added two more motionless bodies on the deck, as they quickly pulled their heads back out of line of any return fire. There were several frustrated bolts fired, which flew close, coming from other Krall that had risked fast peeks. Two of those warriors narrowly escaped return laser fire from Kobani on the same fishing trip, and one guardian would need a new plasma rifle, since the tip of his was now melted. Not to worry, there were ample spares from their own dead.

A couple of Kobani, in quick shoot and duck moves, quickly zapped the two new rifles they could see, rendering them useless as spares, and for good measure, one of them simultaneously hit the power pack of a newly dead warrior, making its armored corpse a more visible marker of human success.

Mirikami said, “OK, we need to move to another pond. I think four fish is all this spot here is good for today. They responded faster that time, and we don’t want them anticipating, and get off a lucky shot.”

There were suddenly shots along one of the crossing corridors where the Krall had been trying to pin down the enemy along this passage. Someone had managed to cut through another wall or two, and got off a plasma beam shot. They clearly hit something, because blue-white fragments of a shattered bolt crossed the opening. A snarl of rage sounded, which meant a helmet damaged by a glancing hit had been removed. The new favorite adage of the youngest Kobani was “dead Krall tell no tales,” and it apparently didn’t apply this time. The youngsters thought it was new and clever, although they had first heard it used by Maggi, so they should have known better.

Moving along cross-corridors, and ducking down a deck, following a mental map they were creating and sharing of the makeshift shortcuts, Mirikami received a flash image from a Kobani that briefly saw a smaller gray Krall with two stealthed shimmers. Mirikami recognized the clear envelope and “helmet” bubble of a Krall basic pressure suit. He’d not seen one used since the body disposal on the Flight of Fancy the day they were captured. There was a heavy metal chain visible around the waist of the smaller Krall, and it jerked as it walked as if being pushed. That could only be the soft Krall.

He promptly shared the image with the entire assault team, now down by six added deaths, versus the confirmed or presumed killed seventy-one Krall losses. The team was running slightly more than a ten to one kill ratio, a lot of that favorable balance was owed to the Torki and Raspani enhancements to their stealth. Not to mention the think-to-shoot energy weapons they had built into their suits. The problem was that the Krall were growing accustomed to their improvised stunts, such as opening walls and decks as a means to bypass their strong points. The two most recent Kobani deaths had come when the Krall waited for openings to be made where a flanking attack or one from the rear was most probable. The methods that had worked best were becoming more predictable. The enemy gradually learned what to expect.

Massed charges along a corridor had produced the largest warrior body counts, but they had stopped doing those. Will Horst had risked his neck to drag a dying Krall around a corner to remove gauntlets, his and the warrior’s, to get some Tap information. It seemed the Krall didn’t expect the fight to last much longer. Will caught a flash of a dying thought of their victory at Telda Ka.

That seemed like wishful thinking, but he passed it along anyway. “Tet, Maggi, I got this thought from a Krall I killed before he expired. It’s from his imagination I think.” He sent it via Comtap.

Neither Mirikami nor Maggi, having the longest history with how Krall thought, believed that a Krall would have unrealistic and fanciful thoughts like that.

Mirikami asked, “Will, you Tapped his mind firsthand. The thought you sent us could be shaded by your interpretation. Did it seem the help he anticipated was here, delivered from K1, or was he at K1? What was in his mental image as background?”

Horst considered a moment. “Uh, the reinforcements he envisioned came swarming through the main hatches. That could happen here or there in his thoughts, I guess. Either one seems a fantasy. Why?”

“Were the warriors in armor in his vision?”

“Oh. Good point. No, they weren’t. That makes it his imagination, since they came in through an open airlock.”

“I think it might mean he thought the ship would be back at K1. These ships are self-maintaining according to the Raspani. If it repaired its outer hull as we’ve seen it do, it might also restore the lost Trap emitters. I didn’t see emitter antennas on any part of the hull when we were out there, so they may be even smaller and less noticeable than the little bumps on single ships, or those on our own armor, which are later generation technology than clanships, and are barely visible.”

Mirikami thought only a second. “All hands, we need a Mind Tap of a live Krall. Don’t get killed getting it, but try to take one down. See if another one expects to leave here soon. They have become a bit less aggressive in the last thirty minutes, and defense or caution isn’t their natural inclination. You all saw the image of what must be their captive soft Krall, being moved towards the center area of the ship. That’s the only one aboard that can direct the ship. If they can Jump soon, he’s the one that will order it done, and he was being moved towards the command deck.”

It was only a few minutes later when he had a hurried call. It was from a young Hub City girl he didn’t know very well. “Captain, this is Marinda Bethune. I have a quadriplegic Krall Sir. Oh…, Jorl says that isn’t the right word. It’s a quadruple amputee, he says. He and I shot off its limbs.” She sounded like such a sweet girl.

“Marinda, if he’s alive I don’t care. Were you able to Mind Tap him?”

“It’s a female Sir.”

This was exasperating. “Just tell me if it expects the ship to be able to Jump soon.”

“She thinks so Sir. A major self-repair would take weeks, but it was told by a sub leader that the hull repair includes restoring Jump capability. That was expected to take three to four hours after we caused the damage, if I’m translating their units of time correctly.”

Mirikami glanced at the elapsed time of this assault on his visor, and factored in the time from before it started, right after the Mark had done its White Out with the disabled Olt’kitapi ship. “People, it’s been three hours and twenty two minutes since the Mark Jumped the Dismantler ship over here. It may soon be able to repair itself enough to Jump to K1.

“Our options are to get out fast, and blow it to hell with missiles, stay and finish the capture in the next half hour, or focus our attention on the only person that can order the ship to Jump. I’m going to try the latter, since we know where the soft Krall was less than five minutes ago. You have the same image I do. If you can move in the direction of the control room fine. If not, make as much of a distraction as you can, to cover the shift in our focus. I’m starting after him now.”

Maggi was practically in lock step as he moved towards where his mental map said was a hole in the deck that would take them higher, and towards the center of the ship. Many of the Krall had been in middle to lower decks for much of the fighting, so going higher seemed to offer a faster and less opposed route. He had nine other Kobani with him and Maggi. Behind them, and on lower levels, he heard grenade explosions, and the increased snap of suit fired plasma bolts, distinct from a rifle’s sound. The lasers were silent, of course, unless they created a low bubbling hiss in plastic or flesh, but he had no doubt they were more active as well. He looked behind him when he heard rapid whoosh-BLAM sounds of Krall explosive pistol rounds, a weapon that a Kobani in armor rarely carried. No room for it inside, and no stealth if outside.

Maggi answered his unasked question. “The older spec ops guys stripped some dead Krall, which usually carry pistols inside their roomier armor. Some old fashioned folks like things that go boom better than hiss, sizzle, or crack.”

“Ahhh,” was his expressive comment.

Each time they reached a corridor or intersection held by an octet, they immediately sent someone into an adjacent compartment to start laser burning an opening through a sidewall, deck, or ceiling, seeking a way around the Krall, rather than to whittle the defenders down with Kobani faster reaction times, and clever tricks. Although tricks still played their part.

At one heavily defended wide corridor intersection, knowledge of how the Krall had learned to react to grenades was useful. Maggi and two others slid three of them down a long corridor, while four others fired heavily to keep the Krall from trying to take shots at them to blast them well short of the intersection. Two of the oval spheres had spin placed on them, so that they curved left and right from the center towards the sidewalls, timed to detonate just as they reached the wide cross-corridor. As usual, the Krall leaped away with their flat wide armored suit toes down and pressed as flat as possible towards the explosions, so the thick footpads could deflect low trajectory fragments upwards. Missing toes or a foot, or a pellet up the the cloaca didn’t prevent them from continuing the fight.

Immediately after the blasts, they spun and rushed back to defend their corners, wounded or not. The new trick was Maggi’s third grenade, which was tossed harder and passed completely through the intersection ahead of the other two. A jerk on its tough thin clear monofilament line brought it back to the intersection from an unexpected direction. Its second and a half longer timer expired just as the more vulnerable helmets of several warriors returned to the corners, intending to take blind shots around the corners to suppress any foolish humans trying to advance.

Seeing a protruding plasma rifle drop to the deck at the left corner, and hearing a heavy thud to the right side, Maggi cheered and teased her spec ops collaborators via Comtap.

“Damn, that was neat. Thanks for letting me try that idea. You muscle men had all the fun for too many years. Obviously, one handed pushups with a heavy log stuck up your ass isn’t the only qualification for killing Krall.” She laughed at her own cleverness, drawing their amused chuckles as well.

Mirikami, listening as he helped burn a bypass hole said, “I’m waiting to see if she figures out how to smack grenades into their crotch. She’s always been deadly at that game.”

Horst, who had been burning with him, jumped up to punch the nearly thirty-inch circular ceiling cut on one side, allowing it to hinge up and open on a final thin attachment point. He and Mirikami were ready to fire through the hole if there was any movement, a grenade also at the ready. The compartment was empty.

“We have a bypass,” he told everyone. “I’m going up, fall back and follow me.”

A rear guard would watch for a Krall follower for a moment, but their big bodies couldn’t fit through that small of a hole without additional enlarging, and they didn’t appear to have laser weapons or cutting torches aboard. Enough plasma bolts could widen the opening, but that wasn’t as quiet or fast a process as a laser.

This next level was eight decks higher than the center deck and few Krall were expected here. Because the Kobani had pressed attacks on the Krall, and where there was no Krall presence, the humans hadn’t gone previously. This deck wasn’t very far below where the Mark was resting, somehow held firmly pressed against the upper hull. Before the boarding began, half the Krall had been clustered near this and higher decks, until the humans had suddenly spread out, pulling all the defenders down away from here. Now they were able to move farther faster, and when a descent ramp appeared, it was about where the geometrical center of the ship was. With a hundred feet missing from one end, Mirikami had not needed to travel as far from the sliced off section, where he and his Kobani team had started their part of the assault.

Mirikami cautiously looked down the roughly ten foot wide ramp, which took half the corridor’s deck space, a long ten-degree walled slope descending fifteen feet to the next level. “It’s confining and subject to an ambush if the Krall are waiting below. We still need eight more down ramps to reach the central deck. It isn’t as fast, but I say let’s burn our way down deck by deck. We’re less likely to encounter an ambush away from the ramps, and the corridor hatches for empty compartments stay shut unless someone walks up to them face on. At least a Krall running by won’t see us.”

With more lasers helping, they were eight decks down in eleven minutes, with each closed compartment a well-lit rectangle, with pale pink walls sporting light gray speckles, approximately thirty by twenty feet. There were absolutely no furnishings ever seen in any of these side rooms, but based on the flow of hull material previously observed, it was probable there was extrudable type configurable furnishings available for various species to use.

Mirikami knew there were two other small teams, one with eight members, the other with six members that had also worked their way unobserved to levels close to where they believed the central control room was placed. Two more groups had been pinned down when they encountered warriors that detected their movements.

With his eleven people, and the other two teams, he had twenty-five Kobani to try to take over the control room. However, that wasn’t the main goal, since human AIs could accept orders from a person in authority from anywhere in the ship. They needed to locate the soft Krall, and the command deck as the Krall called them, seemed the best place to seek him.

They had noted that the longitudinal corridors were all aligned the same, parallel and stacked vertically one above the other, for the length of the ship. Some of the major cross-corridors did the same, but smaller cross passageways, suitable for easy two-way traffic in between the larger routes varied greatly between decks. Mirikami estimated there were two major corridors they needed to traverse. On other decks, the two central corridors were the widest passageways on each level, going from end to end, along both sides of the control room on the center level. A Krall anywhere along one of the longitudinal corridors at each level could potentially spot any movement from one end of the ship to the other. If the movement were unstealthed.

Therefore, the logical thing for wearers of high tech Kobani armor was not to cause any detectable movements to be made, and that was typically the case. However, if you are in a closed room, as Mirikami was now, and the corridor you needed to cross is on the other side of a compartment door that is irised closed, you can’t open that door without making a hole appear along the corridor. Then you still need to get inside the next compartment on the other side, opening another closed door. It was a sure fire Krall magnet, and one could be right on the other side of the hatch and you wouldn’t know until the door opened.

Mirikami tossed the ideas around to see what their combined heads could contribute. “We can go down or up a level, dash cross the corridor on that other level, and then return to this level so we aren’t seen here. However, while we take time to burn the next hole to go back up or down, a Krall is certainly going to arrive at that compartment and go knock knock.”

“Who’s there?” Maggi quipped.

With a puzzled look at her, he shook his head and said, “They’ll see the holes we’ve burned, and that sure isn’t stealthy or fast. Can anyone think of a faster way to reach the central room, which surely has a pack of Krall defending it, with only twenty five of us to fight our way there?”

There were discussions about distractions, to get the Krall to look away or draw them away. Except doors opening and multiple Krall along the hall at intersections being probable, they would surely be noticed anyway. For several minutes, they discussed and debated, and Maggi, miffed that her ancient joke attempt hadn’t made her husband at least grin, sat down for a short rest. She leaned against the wall.

She noticed minor vibrations through her suit, which was likely due to movements nearby, or mechanical activity such as air handling. Realizing that with her suit on, she had been insulated from the feel of the ship, receiving only outside data via her microphones or helmet sensors. She wondered if she could hear sounds through the walls. Checking the atmospheric data and temperature again through her visor system, it remained very breathable and comfortably warm. Less oxygen than at home, but close to that of most terrestrial type worlds. She unsealed and cracked open her helmet, and took a test breath before lifting it off.

No surprise, it smelled too strongly of Krall. Feeling another vibration, she wondered if there were Krall running along the corridor the other side of this wall. The damned lizards never simply walked. She pulled off her helmet and leaned her head close the wall to see what she could hear.

There was little sound not coming from this room, not too surprising, since even lower tech human ships than one built by the Olt’kitapi provided their crews and passengers some peace and quiet. However, she could sense a voice, but didn’t understand what was being said. Her hair had fallen in an unruly blonde tangle over her ear when she pulled off the helmet, so she used her gauntlet to shove it back to press her bare right ear tighter to the wall.

Glancing up at the others, who were now deciding how to organize a physical assault on the control room from three directions, which they now considered their best option, she yanked off her left gauntlet, ear still pressed to the wall, and laid her left hand there in front of her face.

Mirikami was summarizing what the spec ops troops were proposing. “Then all three groups will hit the corridors at the same time, using our stealth as long as we can until we have to return fire. The eleven of us…,” he looked around and missed seeing one short figure he was most concerned about, and saw her crumpled on the floor, pressed against the outside wall with her helmet removed. Her eyes had a faraway look to them.

“Maggi, are you OK?” He stepped over and knelt to reach for her, concerned, when she used her right hand over her left forearm to wave his hand away, lifting her head away from the wall, wearing an odd smile below wide open blue eyes, left hand pressed tightly to the wall.

By Comtap she said, “Tet, pull off your right gauntlet.” When he did, she used her right hand to pull his wrist over to place his hand on the wall.

She said “Huwayla, meet my mate, Tetsuo Mirikami, he likes to be called Tet.”

****

Bohdar was incredulous at the symbols presented by the ship. Why hadn’t it offered this presentation before? He could see yellow dots on various decks that were his warriors, the scatter of blue dots of those that were dead that led into the bowels of the ship. There were white dots of the intruders, and the greens that must be their dead. One amber dot, next to two yellow dots in the control room, had to be the useless animal dropping standing next to him, held securely by another guardian.

Pildon, the putative animal dropping, appeared to be pleased with what he’d managed to ask the ship to display. He’d asked for the location of all of the creatures inside the ship, their life status, and their locations. He paid for his initiative with a hammer blow from the Gorth, delivered to the side of his skull.

With a snarl, the enraged Gorth stood over the Krall’tapi, barely able to resist tearing out the cowering creature’s throat. “Before they spread so widely, this knowledge would have ended them quickly. Now they are scattered many places. A third of the guardians are dead, and if this display is true, only four hands of them have fallen. This is not possible. Over ten warriors die for each of these animals killed?”

Pildon, fearful that if he spoke he’d be killed, and equally fearful that if he didn’t explain he’d die anyway. “I wanted to help you.” In truth, he only wanted to stay alive and he was certain that if they couldn’t Jump soon, Bohdar would have no use for his prisoner.

“I heard you ask your octet leaders many times where the enemy had gone when they seemed trapped and unable to escape. You asked them how the enemy could appear behind their octets so quickly. You wanted to know where they were and how they moved so quickly. I asked Huwayla if she could show me a picture of her own insides, as she did of the star systems she had disrupted. This is what she displayed for me. I didn’t know a living ship could do this. No one has ever had a need.”

Bohdar’s talons retracted, but he still stood over the soft Krall, staring at the contents of the holographic image.

Dolbor, seeing the guardian leader was calming down, had been analyzing the new battlespace image while the other had raged. He offered what he intended as a helpful observation, to prove his own worth to him. “Three isolated small groups of humans have moved closer to this command deck than most of your guardians know.” Instead, it was taken as being critical of Bohdar and his warriors, that they had permitted this.

The hateful glare bestowed on the Tor Gatrol’s aide suggested a death match might be in the making. This useless representative of the Tor’s staff did not have the protections of a War Leader or a clan leader, to allow him to refuse to answer challenges of lower status warriors.

The challenge could wait. He tapped his com set button on the shoulder of his armor, and selected a channel to link to ten of the closest octet leaders. Because of losses, there were no longer as many warriors in the ten squads, but there was only twenty-five humans that he wanted trapped and killed, and they were divided into three small sized units. By their positioning near the control room, their objective was obvious.

He issued orders for those octets to break contact with the enemy on the perimeter, and to move with all speed to the deck near the control room, with some warriors to be assigned to get above or below the specific compartments he designated, to watch for holes being cut for escape. He’d have the vermin trapped without escape holes this time.

It was a plausible plan, and an excellent way to trap pests in boxes. It presupposed the pests would be in the boxes when the trappers arrived to surround them. They weren’t.

Bohdar’s first clue came when the octets rushing to follow the Gorth’s orders suddenly slowed to literally a crawl on the display. They appeared to pause to check each room they had to pass. The sub leader was slow to note their laggardly ways because the white dots closest to him had begun to spread like flies, moving away from their previous three concentrations. They were brazenly moving in the corridors.

The reason Bohdar had needed so many octets to return to the command deck area, was because he’d incorrectly thought there was no way the enemy could penetrate to the inner area, not with every corridor under observation, from the edges of the heavy combat locations with these mysteriously efficient human fighters. Warriors were assigned to watch each corridor for doors that opened on their own. They would fire on them, and alert nearby octets to rush to intercept whoever had triggered them.

Somehow, twenty-five of the enemy was now loose in the nearby corridors, going in and out of compartments randomly. With their superior invisibility, they were difficult to locate, but his observers should have kept most of them from risking exposure in the unsheltered corridors. The doors were not depicted for the compartments (that had not been requested) so it was a moment before Bohdar saw that the white dots moved in and out, or passed through compartments and back into corridors freely. Every time a door irised open that should draw plasma bolt storms.

He saw one of the octets he’d summoned, entering and leaving every compartment along a corridor that led to the center. He called the leader.

“I ordered you to move to the center on those corridors, the humans there have broken out and you should have fired on them when you saw the door open. Why do you search each room?”

“My Gorth, all of the doors opened at one time. We fired through those that were close, and are seeking hidden enemies in each one. The doors remained open and no longer close when we leave a compartment. Direct us to the enemy.”

Bohdar saw several yellow dots of assigned watchers at an intersection near the center change blue, and a white dot turn green near them. He could hear sounds of fighting. He roared on the com set to order the warriors he’d summoned to move now to the center of the ship. With the doors always open, the humans were passing by his defenders like sand through a net. Detected only by chance or random shots, which connected before they could duck into one of the hundreds of compartments, many of which had two or more doors.

He saw a risk of humans reaching the command deck before his reinforcements arrived. He had thirty-two warriors with him, which no longer seemed enough. “Pildon, tell me how long before the ship can Jump.”

“Huwayla, when can you Jump to Telda Ka?”

“I am able to do so now,” was the glorious answer Pildon needed. With no explanation as to why she had not complied with his previous request to be notified when that was possible.

Bohdar screamed in roaring triumph, “Jump now!” Of course, the ship waited for a trusted operator to speak.

Pildon spoke in relief, “Huwayla, Jump immediately for Telda Ka.” Relief can be an ephemeral feeling.

“You are countermanding my previous instruction to remain here and open all of the corridor doors?”

Pildon looked like a prey animal caught in a dead end canyon, with deadly killers approaching. An appropriate look for him at this moment.

“I didn’t say that.” He looked at the blade Bohdar had produced, and felt the plasma rifle pressed to the back of his head by the shackle holder. His mind raced to find ways to save his life.

He tried reason, “You have been with me and heard every word I spoke.” They were unaffected.

He didn’t think appealing to Krall law or tradition would help. Mentioning that both Krall were breaking with protocol seemed too weak. Carrying weapons so close to a soft Krall was forbidden, although desperate or not, he couldn’t take advantage.

He selected logic. “She didn’t say no! She asked if I was countermanding a previous instruction. I will!” A flicker of Bohdar’s wrist and the plasma rifle was pulled away, the knife slipped into a sheath.

“Countermand your previous instruction.” Bohdar’s strained words proved he had barely kept his impulses under control

Uh oh. Pildon had never given that instruction, so being told to countermand it was tacit admission that this sub leader thought he had. He was as good as dead if he didn’t get clarification before the new instructions were issued.

“Huwayla, I countermand the instruction of whoever told you to remain here. Who was that?” He needed a sliver of hope to stay Bohdar’s hand after the Jump.

“Trusted operators, that are the new visitors, have asked that I remain here. There is a conflict of purpose if I do as you ask. I require a consensus, and two trusted operators agree with one another to remain here. Do you have trusted others to join with you Pildon? Within me, there are a hundred two other trusted operators, and they have not spoken to me on this proposal. Only a builder may override a trusted operator consensus.”

Apparently if you weren’t untrusted, you were trusted if you had a quantum key. Good until proven evil. The Olt’kitapi truly had been a trusting species, if not great judges of character. In time with the Krall’tapi, their starting characters could have been molded and developed.

The untrusted individual actually in charge made the expected ill-tempered decision of someone of poor character. He used his suit’s com set for a general push to all of his warriors. “Kill the ship, we cannot Jump.”

He pulled his Raspani boring tool, and aimed the first one hundred twenty-two foot length, four-inch wide disintegration beam into the deck below the holographic projection, which showed white dots working their way closer.

As quantum decoherence broke the bonds holding atoms and molecules together, a spray of gaseous elemental material was ejected away from the path of the invisible narrow beam. Some of that vaporous jetting material had formerly been inorganic compounds, or metallic alloys, but some of it had been very organic, as part of Pildon’s lower torso.

Pildon gasped and clutched at his abdomen as he sank to the floor. Strangely, it didn’t hurt like a plasma bolt or blade would have. The holographic projection vanished, as demonstration that the downward aimed beam had also found technology to disrupt.

“Fire into the walls and deck,” he ordered his thirty-two warriors here with him. He chose another point on the floor to aim his next beam. He was frustrated that it didn’t work like a sword, where he could carve a path as he swept the tool sideways. It appeared to activate for only an instant, and then he had to press the activation button again, producing a new bore tube of disintegration. There was also a limit to how quickly he could activate the button, since for almost a half second the tool would not respond after a press.

Nevertheless, a series of satisfactory holes were being made through this deck, and the slender tubes of destruction penetrated through up to eight more decks below him. He finally noticed this when his eye’s aligned with a hole he’d made several seconds ago.

It took a moment for the gasses produced to disperse enough to see through the holes. On the deck below another organic hole had been drilled, through an unfortunate guardian who had been posted there to ward off any humans that approached. The visor icon in Bohdar’s helmet incremented because the beam had passed through the top of his subordinate’s skull. Unlike the slow death that he’d delivered to Pildon.

He obviously knew the tool worked as a weapon, but the short range made it impractical on an open battlefield, where long-range weapons were employed. He’d enjoy skewering some of these humans after the ship was disabled. That fighting would be a close range. He shortened the focal length and made a shorter hole. He was pleased to note he could now press the trigger button more rapidly.

The other warriors were firing plasma bolts into walls, decks, and ceilings, and having an effect. Some of the glow of indirect ruddy light vanished from a section of the ceiling and walls, and an iris door opened only partway before halting. The ruddy light was replaced by a harsher whiter light, the red tint having been provided as a comfort to the “guests” as matching the redder star of the Krall home world. The whither light may have been the hue preferred by the Olt’kitapi.

Bohdar wasn’t sure if the shooting at walls was having any effect on the ship until it spoke to Pildon, a necessary audible conversation because the soft Krall had no chip.

“Pildon, instruct your guests to cease damaging the area around the control room. There are control systems being damaged, which I use to operate equipment and to maintain myself. You are injured, and I can repair you if you can move to a small compartment nearby, or if you instruct your guests to carry you there. The Raspani (sputter-snort-whistle) tool has rendered one of my memory chips inaccessible.” The odd sounds were apparently the tools name, spoken in a Raspani dialect.

Huwayla became more insistent. “This activity makes it difficult for me to operate safely and to self-repair. I cannot permit this to continue.”

The ship may have inadvertently given Bohdar a clue to where the more vital components of the AI were located. Because his first disintegration into the floor had killed the hologram, as well as mortally wounding Pildon. He’d aimed most of his beams down, assuming much of the vital equipment and technology must be there. He’d made multiple wall holes when the lighting changed once, but decided that was cosmetic circuitry, and resumed aiming at the deck, which resembled worm eaten wood now. However, some holes were noticeably smaller than before, because self-repair was underway.

Plasma bolts did damage, but required greater care when used. Combat in the ship today had revealed that the slightly pliable floor surface, which provided such an excellent grip for talons, would absorb plasma bolts, as did the walls, unless the incident angle was very shallow. The ceilings however, were a much tougher surface, and bolts did not penetrate at less than a forty-five degree angle from vertical, instead causing a ricochet of a shattered star hot plasma packet. One of those fragments could strike someone, such as Bohdar had been, who was hit a glancing blow by one fired by a careless warriors a moment ago.

His roar of displeasure ended the random firing at the ceiling, at least without it being closer to a vertical shot, which might splash plasma back at the shooter’s helmet. In annoyance, Bohdar had aimed one borehole at the ceiling, right at the burn mark where the ricochet had happened. It was a spot nearly above him and the bleeding out Pildon. That was done just before the ship had spoken to Pildon.

The sub leader made a connection and followed a hunch. “Start firing into the ceiling. It’s possible the AI may have its brain there.” He demonstrated by boring another hole through a point above Pildon. There was a sudden increase of small plasma bolt fragments as hits on the ceiling started penetrating in large numbers.

“Pildon, make them stop.” The ship’s tone wasn’t strident, but it was the most insistent words she had used.

The plasma bolts continued, with warriors and Bohdar included, swatting at plasma fragments that melted themselves onto heads and shoulders. The suit visor showed when this happened, and where the fragments were. Bohdar wasn’t boring holes right now, because a larger plasma fragment had melted to the back of a shoulder, where it was hard to reach. There wasn’t a high chance of a burn-through from these, but they damaged stealth coating and could conduct heat to the skin below, if permitted to cool on their own. A Krall might accept a burn while in combat, but not preventable damage to such a valued tool of war as their armor.

Suddenly, the firing of plasma bolts ended abruptly. There were snarls of anger, a mass swapping out of rifle power packs, and then there were confused growls of frustration. The weapons had ceased working in the control room.

Bohdar didn’t waste time ordering them to resume firing, since he could see they were trying to do just that. Instead, he leaped to his own rifle, leaned against a wall where it had been well out of reach of Pildon. It had not been used since the enemy had infiltrated. He aimed up and pulled the trigger. It would not fire either, and yet he knew it had a full charge earlier. However, his talon tip could not trigger the power pack to show how much charge it now held. Even when too depleted to generate plasma, the minute power required to show power level lights would always show how low the charge was.

From the outer corridors, he heard the continued crack and impacts of plasma bolts being fired. Although none worked in here, suggesting the rifles had deactivated somehow. The fact that there was firing so close that he could hear it meant the humans were closer. He rushed to the nearest hatchway to look into the corridor where the sounds were louder, and nearly ran into the door when it failed to instantly iris open for him. He assumed the wall shots had damaged the electronics or power connection. The half-opened inactive door on the same wall offered him a faster exit than forcing this one open.

He ran and dove through the opening into the passageway, and observed an octet, posted at an intersection two corridors away, and firing around the corners at what must be the enemy. The octet leader saw him looking his way, and noted the icon color for the Gorth on his visor. He called him on his com set, but received no link, indicating the Gorth’s suit power was off. Except his active stealth proved that wasn’t the case.

Bohdar in turn, had tried to call the octet leader on a com set frequency, but his helmet didn’t respond to the command. Using tactical hand signals, he then showed two digits and pointed to himself. The octet leader flashed an acknowledgement. The Gorth wanted two warriors.

Two warriors on that side of the intersection turned and started running Bohdar’s way, as he realized his visor was not showing him the sub leader’s icon or name, as it should have done automatically when he looked at him. In fact, his visor display settings were frozen with the exact same dynamic configuration it had been showing him a minute earlier. Based on his battlefield memory, he knew it had not updated since then. He used his long purple tongue to select a zoom display mode, as he looked at the far end of the corridor. The image didn’t alter.

As a typically impatient Krall, he’d already been moving towards the oncoming warriors, and met them halfway. Unable to communicate with them except by hand signals, he opened his helmet faceplate. He demanded and received the plasma rifle of the closest warrior, and checked the charge. It was under half a charge, but it registered for him. He turned and aimed at an outer wall of the control room behind him and fired a bolt that embedded deeply and continued to burn. He shook a shoulder in approval, and returned the rifle. He ordered the two to follow him.

Knowing they would have external speakers active on their armor he said, “Our weapons inside the control room have all malfunctioned. That must have been caused by the ship. We must destroy the living ship to prevent humans from learning what it does. The ship has refused to Jump, and we have no explosives, so you will shoot into the ceiling of the command deck, where I believe the brain of the AI may be placed.” He showed them his Raspani tool, so they understood he had an alternate way to damage the ship.

Leading the warriors to the same half-opened iris, he pushed his way back into the room and the two followed him. He noticed that the warriors he’d left behind were removing their armor. He assumed it was only to gain access to their pistols, which was an excellent idea. One of them drew a pistol from under her armpit and began firing armor piercing rounds at the ceiling. Bohdar hoped others had some of the more destructive explosive rounds.

Not hearing plasma fire from the two warriors he’d brought back with him, he whirled in irritation. He’d told them what he wanted done. However, he found them aiming at the ceiling and squeezing their triggers, and rechecking their weapons. The rifles wouldn’t fire. Having tested one of them outside, it was obvious to Bohdar the AI could block them from firing within the room. He sent both warriors back to the octet to bring other weapons, but to remain outside the control room and fire on it from there, as he had done seconds ago.

There is more than one way to skin a human, or a ship, Bohdar thought, with a snort of amusement.

He removed his own useless armor and pulled a pistol from his cross-chest holster, and heard the satisfying blast as an explosive round tore a divot from the ceiling. It was only a talon thickness deep. The shell had not penetrated very far. Perhaps armor piercing would go deeper, but without an explosion, it would do less extensive damage. Nothing came easy today but frustration.

He noticed one warrior without armor who carried no pistol, was using a short sword to hack at the sidewalls with little effect. “Pergad, the powered armor gives greater strength to your blows.”

“My Gorth, I could not use radio or receive updates on my visor, that is why it was removed. If I can only use this sword, I will wear the suit again without a helmet.”

Rifles and suits had ceased to work properly within the control room. The ship had clearly used some means to do this. The ship was defenseless, but had found a way to diminish the effectiveness of the assault intended to cause it damage. The Raspani tool hadn’t been affected by the ship, and he was still creating holes randomly around the center of the ceiling. He had added another four hands of holes before he was interrupted by the octet sub leader calling to him through the opening of the jammed door.

“My Gorth, something is wrong.” He was also out of his armor, a pistol in his left hand.

Bohdar was spending too much time retelling normally efficient subordinates what to do. “I sent your warriors to tell you to fire on the control room with plasma rifles from outside. Why are you here?”

“Our plasma rifles and suit controls stopped working when they returned to me. For the rest of the octet as well. We cannot fire on the control room unless we use pistols. The humans are advancing faster now, because even the armor piercing rounds can only damage them at a joint.”

The equipment effect within the control room had spread. He saw the sub leader wore a shoulder mounted com set button, something the Gorth had not thought he would need with his armor. “Order more octets to move towards the control room. We must complete the destruction here before the humans arrive. Have human plasma weapons failed?” He asked with hope.

“No,” was the simple answer. The warrior turned way as he reached for his com set, ordering more of their forces to answer the Gorth’s recall, to build a wall of defenders around the control room, and the command deck inside that.

Unknown to Bohdar, he was spreading the blight that disabled the fighting ability of his guardians. As they drew near the warriors that had laid down their inoperable rifles in favor of pistols, the plasma rifles and suits of the arrivals ceased to respond. Being willing to die fighting the enemy was fast becoming a wish fulfilled for any of them on the outer edges of the fighting near the control room. Submission to another Krall force was often permitted in interclan warfare, not for the guardians, and certainly never to an animal enemy!

****

Maggi, in a rapid flash of mental communications with the ship, realized she had made another “first contact,” and promptly introduced her husband when he approached her. He thought initially that this was only an AI unit that ran the ship. As Mirikami thought that, with his hand pressed to the “living wall,” Huwayla corrected his misunderstanding. She said she was the ship. Created by several classes of the Olt’kitapi, and artificial in that respect, but she was more than a processor mind, as Tet was more than his brain’s mind.

“Tet and Maggi, I am alive in the sense that I repair myself, replace worn parts, ingest external material and energy to perform that task, and what I am unable to recycle becomes waste. I am comparable to a natural biological organism. My mind was recorded as a conglomerate of representative patterns of a number of types of Olt’kitapi, mostly builders and makers. My sisters and I are not copies of any single class or personality, although we were not provided with our creator’s full complexity of thought. We have ingrained prohibitions, which limit our range of response to instructions from even trusted operators. We will not impose restrictions on intelligent creatures, yet we have limits on what we will do on their behalf.”

Maggi, curious about the first hint of Olt’kitapi society, had to ask, “What are classes of Olt’kitapi? The builders and makers?”

“Friend Maggi, there are builders of cities and great habitats as I was created as a tool to help construct. Makers make machinery, quantum devices, equipment. There are many classes of Olt’kitapi, and subclasses within a general class. More than I have time to describe.”

Eager to get one more answer she asked, “What did they look like, in general?”

“That too is complex and I do not have time. The external appearance depends on the class and subclass, and varies greatly. I have other urgent concerns to resolve that are more important.

“At present, I am greatly distressed that there is conflict and death happening between you and another guest species within me. I am not permitted to interfere with your choices, and the conflict should be resolved by a builder, or a philosopher subclass, or any Olt’kitapi of any class. There are none here, and I am limited to following the instructions of trusted operators, provided the action requested is not involved with the conflict.”

Tet asked a more pertinent and critical question. “Huwayla, are you restoring the ability to Jump with your repairs?”

“By Jump, I sense your thought is of travel through the alternate Universe. Yes, I am almost capable of that now. My external skin is repaired, but I have not completed all of the connections where I am missing parts of myself. That will be ready soon. I have been instructed where to go, and I will tell the trusted operator when that is possible.”

Maggi tested the waters. “Huwayla, if I ask you to remain here, not to Jump, will you do that?”

“You have a builder’s or a maker’s key, and because you were not listed as an untrusted species, you are also a trusted operator of a different and new species. I will respond to many potential trusted new species with quantum-encoded keys. With conflicting instructions, the simplest resolution is to depend on the intelligence of users to come to a consensus. Maggi, if you made that request it would counter the other request I have from Pildon, and leave me with a conflict. There is a hierarchal conflict resolution system that can select one request over the other in a case like this.”

Mirikami didn’t wait to see what that might be. It could be first-come-first-served, or who had the greatest seniority as a trusted species, or any of many outcomes that wouldn’t favor humanity. There seemed to be a better solution for the Kobani, based on the idea of consensus.

“Huwayla, I believe that I too am a trusted operator by your definition. I do request that you remain where we are.”

Maggi, realizing she had not made a request, merely posed the question, followed immediately with, “That is my request as well. Is that not a consensus of two over one?”

“Yes. I will inform the other operator of the change.”

“You are not yet ready to Jump; therefore can you wait to inform him then?” Maggi asked.

The ship apparently understood the allegiance of the two trusted operators it was addressing. “Do you agree Tet?”

“I do, and I further request that you do not share that information with him.”

“If that is your request as well Maggi, there is a limitation.”

Of course, it was Maggi’s mutual request. She asked what the limitation was.

The ship said, “If I am asked by Pildon, I will answer him that I can Jump, but I will not inform him as soon as I am able to travel.”

Tet saw another opportunity, one they needed to create right now. “Thank you Huwayla. I have another request, for making movements within you easier for all of your guests and visitors. It has to do with the doors along the corridors, which would give us all equal freedom of movement.”

Tactically speaking, that wasn’t exactly equal for the Kobani, who needed it more.

****

“The Krall have stopped firing and are retreating?” Mirikami flat didn’t believe his ears. If he’d been using them, that is. The report came via Comtap, from Will Horst, who had led five of the eleven Kobani that had been with Mirikami, when they split up as they charged out into the major corridor.

That happened when every single passageway portal irised opened simultaneously, throughout the ship. The Krall didn’t have individual doors on which to concentrate their plasma fire, and no doors closed when a compartment was entered.

Equal freedom of movement, as put to Huwayla, and yet which favored the outnumbered Kobani more than the Krall, who finally had the human’s movements restricted. Hair splitting was a frequent human pastime and negotiating tactic, which considering their hairless and scaly opponents, might be considered another genetic advantage for humans.

Will explained. “Tet, they are suddenly shifting to pistols, and they don’t appear to have much ammunition for them. The plasma rifles we picked up from some of their dead, over on this side of the control room, had partial charges and worked fine for us. There were even spare power packs strewn about, all of them fully charged, but they didn’t use them. Many had removed their helmets, and a few have shed their entire armor. I can’t figure out what this means.”

Mirikami had some contrary data. “I can hear heavier fighting farther out towards the ends of the corridors, where we have a number of octets cut off from moving to the center. Their rifles are cracking shots off regularly.”

Maggi had an observation. “Their problems seemed to start close to us, and radiated out over the last fifteen minutes. The warriors close to where we want to go are the ones pulling back and taking off helmets and using pistols.”

Mirikami was pulling at his lip. “Do you think Huwayla took sides? The Krall are clearly not trusted. Although, I’m not sure why we are, since we’ve had no history with these ships. Wonder if I should ask?”

Maggi shrugged. “Things are going better for us. Do you want to risk another talk with her? We could mess things up, since at the rate we’re going we’ll take the ship from the Krall.”

“But will we have a live ship when we do? The Krall certainly don’t want that. I think we need to talk to her again. Let me be the one to pull off a glove this time, after I step out of the open.”

He entered a random open compartment, and as soon as he was out of view of any Krall, spread his helmet and lifted. “Ah that feels good. Hours of wearing that damned bucket can start to chafe.”

He was about to pull off a gauntlet when he said aloud to Maggi, “Didn’t want my hand getting my ass shot off if a Krall sees it floating in air. I’d like to tell Huwayla to just talk to me, like we do with Jakob.”

“Is that a request?” It was Huwayla, and it came by Comtap!

“Yes.” He answered fast. “I request to speak with you this way, with my Comtap.” He’d quickly thought to include Maggi in his mental Comtap reply to the ship. Not hearing Huwayla’s question, Maggi sent him a mental query.

“What?” Proving Comtaps didn’t solve the confusion of coming in on the middle of a conversation.

The ships words came smoothly, but without emotional hues or mental pictures. “Tet, I have the ability to communicate with your devices, which you refer to as a Comtap, much as I can communicate with Torki Olts, Raspani mind enhancers, Krall’tapi status chips, and of course, my creators Mind Expander technology. I sense your devices are a blend of new quantum features from both Torki and Raspani technology, but you have a non-technological level of long-range instant communication that is unique, that they never had. They could not use tachyon modulation over great distances. My creators could do that, but even with their technology and intelligence, they could not send emotions, pure thoughts and images as you do to each other, with such a high data transfer rate. I can sense that such data is present, but I cannot experience it or create that sort of signal information. This is biological in nature, and I find no record of similar capability in any of the intelligent species the Olt’kitapi met, or have communicated with in the past.”

Maggi, sliding easily into the discussion asked, “Why did you wait to communicate with us this way? This is easier.”

The ship explained. “The trusted Krall’tapi operator, Pildon, had forbidden me from receiving outside electromagnetic signals, from before we departed to start the four great building projects.”

Maintaining mental blocking, Maggi and Tet stayed silent on that subject, careful to let nothing slip past. Keeping Huwayla in the dark might keep her functioning longer.

“Why did you speak to Tet just now, by Comtap?” Maggi asked.

“I did not use electromagnetic forces for transmission to him, although I heard his question for me spoken through the air, which was not by an electromagnetic signal. Until he answered my query, I used modulation of low energy particles you have named tachyons, moving in an alternate Universe to activate that quantum aspect of the Comtap. I was uncertain if that was forbidden, because your devices also have electromagnetic communication ability for short-range use.

“Another conundrum for me was that you are no longer outside of me, so did the prohibition against receiving electromagnetic communications apply inside of me. I did not decide until you communicated with me by touch, if speaking with you would be a violation of my previous instructions. Pildon is near death, and cannot speak with me for clarification, and the Krall’tapi have not received embedded status chips for thousands of generations. He does not know of your devices, and I have decided in absence of evidence, that you might wish to use them to speak with me, and he may not have intended them to be blocked. Because he had no knowledge that your Comtaps existed, it is unlikely he would have included them in his prohibition.”

Maggi, her own helmet off now, grinned at her husband and addressed Huwayla. “Whatever floats your boat, kiddo.”

“I deduce, from the extensive language library in your devices, that you have made what you would term a humorous remark. I believe it is oddly clever. However, do I seem childlike to you, a kid?”

She winked at her husband. “Close, but no cigar.”

Huwayla managed to sound perplexed. “I appear to have missed some level of comprehension you were seeking of me, that perhaps you were testing me with your remarks. I nearly won, but not quite.”

It was obvious the Olt’kitapi had been far in advance of humanity in every technology, but they still hadn’t crossed the joke threshold on AI development. Perhaps her creators, like the Prada, had a limited sense of humor.

Mirikami returned to the reason they’d wanted to talk to her, before Huwayla had surprised them. “Many of the Krall have laid down their plasma rifles and are removing their armor. Those closest to the center of the ship fight only with their pistols, while farther away the warriors continue to use the plasma rifles. Do you know why?”

“I regret that I was impelled to indirectly interfere, when Pildon was injured and could not control them. They began using plasma rifles to disable my components within my structure near the control room. I took minimal action to disable their quantum keys in equipment that requires such a key.”

Mirikami was shocked and excited. “You deactivated the Krall tattoos from working?”

That elation was quickly tempered by the ship’s response, which sounded scandalized Mirikami would suggest such a thing.

“I would never modify a quantum key within the body of an intelligent species. My creators would never do that after the individual had agreed to accept the gift of a key, and because I am patterned after them, I would not. Instead, I modified the encrypted code within the rifle that damaged an important, if redundant memory storage component, to exclude the genetic pattern of that species from activating that rifle. Any other Olt’kitapi quantum keyed device designed by my creators, within a limited range of the first device, was also subsequently altered to exclude that same DNA pattern, as was intended. All of the plasma weapons in that room were disabled, as were new weapons brought to replace them than came within the effective range.”

“Was their armor power disabled? They are also removing that.”

“Only the part of that armor designed by the makers required a key. Some other modifications to the suits came later, and Torki designed functions do not need a key because they did not know how to integrate the new feature with the old quantum code key.”

Maggi was still puzzled. “Some of the rifles and armor outside the control room have stopped working for the Krall, but the rifles function for us.”

“Yes, this was part of the protection the builders, makers, and other Olt’kitapi specialties intended to use, to deny an untrusted species the use of dangerous technology. One quantum key, if brought within range of another quantum key, will share any excluded genetic patterns. Your language calls this pattern DNA, and your pattern is not excluded.”

Maggi couldn’t hold back the big question. “Why didn’t the Olt’kitapi do this DNA exclusion before the Krall killed them all?

The ship sounded surprised. “They did of course, on the Krall home planet. However, the early Krall species did not kill the last of the Olt’kitapi, composed of their many sub types. Although they killed very many. The Olt’kitapi, as a society, was unable to accept their attempted genocide of an intelligent species, when the Krall home world was disrupted by one of my sister ships.

“Billions of deaths, with many innocent Krall’tapi included, created an unexpected wave through the alternate Universe, which registered powerfully in their Mind Expanders. The Olt’kitapi chose to die after that, easily achievable by a thought. They were aware that many millions of Krall were on other planets, and hundreds of planet disruptions could never eliminate them as they scattered. The infection-like spread of the exclude key had been halted even on Kratar, the Krall home world, by simple quarantine measures, once they understood how it was spread. It did not spread as quickly or as widely as expected, because the Krall had many weapons of their own making, and they were ruthless with each other, killing entire affected clans from a distance, or from the air.

“The code key alteration did not end their ability to make war. They still made older weapons at that time, which required no key, and it was impossible to reach all clanships, or every type of quantum keyed weapon, to spread the excluded DNA pattern.”

“How close do you have to be to do that?” Mirikami asked.

“From your library of length units, it would be 122 feet, 4 inches. That is very close to a plasma rifle, if it is firing at you.”

“Thank you Huwayla. We now know there are no working rifles near the control room, so we will rescue you soon from their attempted destruction.”

“Tet, I do not have what you would term a fear of termination. However, I have an obligation to keep those within me alive and safe, if possible, without interfering with their actions. I have failed in this for Pildon. His life signs have vanished from my sensors, although this may be due to destruction of sensor nodes around him.”

Mirikami linked to his assault teams. “The Krall at the control room have no functioning rifles, and their armor doesn’t work properly and they are pulling it off. Move in and take them down. They’re trying to kill the ship AI, and the soft Krall is already dead.”

Huwayla mourned the loss of Pildon, and his presumed project. “I regret that his four habitat construction projects will go uncompleted if my sister ships do not help. It was too much work for me, and I cannot help now.”

Maggi said, “The projects never should have been started. You knew too little about them.”

The ship didn’t respond, and Mirikami reminded her, “Maggi, we need to put on our helmets and join the others. We can talk as we go, but we need to get moving.”

Except for a rear guard of thirteen, most of them wounded, to prevent the Krall out at the ends of corridors from coming at them from behind, only eighty-eight Kobani were now pushing nearly three hundred pistol-armed warriors back, into the surrounding blocks of compartments on all sides of the control room. Some were posted on the decks above and below as well, since humans behaved something like the rats the Krall considered them to be, gnawing their way through floors and ceilings to go anywhere they wanted. However, these putative rats, still heavily outnumbered, were beating them.

In seconds, Mirikami and Maggi were dashing across corridors, from one door to the next, firing at the poorly concealed Krall at other doors and passageway intersections. The pistol rounds occasionally glanced off the Kobani armor if it wasn’t an explosive round. A solid hit was jarring with the explosive rounds, but actually less risky. They didn’t have penetrating power, and only damaged the stealth coating at that spot. An armor-piercing round made a dent and stung like hell, unless it hit at a joint, like a knee or elbow, wrist or ankle. There it caused bruising, and could potentially penetrate. The heavier shoulder covers made that point of articulation relatively immune to any pistol round. Because the flash of a pistol round fired was visible, rarely was there a hit on the front of a helmet, since the reaction speed was so great.

When a joint was hit and penetrated, that Kobani was out of the fight and in agony, at least until nanites killed the pain and halted bleeding. Even then, unless someone dragged them to the shifting edge of combat, they had nothing to shoot at. Most of them became the fighting wounded, as rearguards against the fifty or so warriors that had functioning plasma rifles.

The rearguard defenders were abruptly given a bizarre bit of advice from their normally reasonable and seemingly intelligent Captain. Pick up any discarded enemy plasma rifles, or helmets, and sling them up the corridors towards the enemy. The heavy power packs in particular, which could be detached from the rifles, proved to be compact and dense enough to slide fifty yards along the corridors. The packs would spin past warriors that had been popping in and out of the now permanently open doors, to take a shot and duck back. Sometimes just taking a fast look, to get a view for their battlefield memory, and then make several accurate blind shots.

Oddly, after tossing the enemy a perfectly good rifle, or a charged power pack, most of the warriors along that stretch of corridor grew less aggressive, stripping off their armor and switching to using pistols. They didn’t even try to retrieve the rifles or power packs lying in the passageways. The boss hadn’t explained why the tactic worked; he’d just said, “Trust me.”

Long minutes after Maggi had said the ship didn’t know enough about Pildon’s construction projects it contacted her and Tet, displaying definite signs of distress, and delivered an urgent warning.

“I must return to the first disruption as quickly as possible. Pildon was mistaken. Electromagnetic signals could not be sensed from this far, however, I can detect small gravity changes of Jumps and White Outs there, by very many ships that are not clanships. They are centered near a single small world that must have an intelligent species present. I think they are fleeing an approaching disaster, which I have brought them. There is extreme risk, and it is too late to save them all if there is a large population. You must leave me immediately, before I Jump to try to save those I can. The danger is imminent, and if many deaths should happen before I arrive, I will not continue to exist.”

Mirikami realized at that instant, there was no hope of preserving the ship for even a brief study. He had to be honest and open with her. “Huwayla, Pildon lied to you, it was not a mistake by him. Although, he was forced to lie to you by the Krall that we are fighting within you now. They threatened his life, and that of his family to force him to do this.”

Huwayla seemed shocked that Pildon could be manipulated to do that. “None of the many forms of Olt’kitapi would submit that way to threats. They were as incapable of that as I am.”

“Huwayla, the Krall’tapi did this for the Krall more than once, to different species, with other ships like you. I believe there were once more ships like you that are no longer alive, or that now refuse to obey the command of even a Krall’tapi. They too discovered the lie after other species died on worlds that were destroyed. The other ships haven’t told you this?”

“No, they no longer speak to us and are not normal. I know they hear me, and my three sisters, because they will repair themselves when we remind them to do that, but they do not answer us. They would be ashamed of a mistake that led to the death of a living world, even if it was an accident, and they may now be insane. As I will be soon. My moral crime is too great to bear.”

“Huwayla, the crime is not yours, the crime belongs to others. You were created to trust the Krall’tapi, and even to trust a new species to you, like humanity. The Krall’tapi once was closely related to the Krall, but they are kept as Krall slaves now. They are permitted to live only to control ships like you, used for Krall wars of conquest. The Krall are fighting humans now.

“My people came to this star to stop the same kind of destruction in this system, and at the next star. You were not allowed to receive outside radio signals so you would never learn of the life in these systems. The Krall’tapi made you stay so far away that the intelligent life on the surface of the smaller planets could not be seen.”

Mirikami had a thought. “You said you couldn’t save all the people at the first star where you stopped. Could you save more lives at the second star? There are humans like us in all four star systems where you were told to break apart a planet.”

“All four stars? That is…,” she grasped for a word. “Would words like evil or immoral in your language be proper to use for this?”

“They fit the acts the Krall wanted done.” Maggi confirmed.

Huwayla said, “I looked only at the first star before I spoke to you. It is true that I may be able to save more lives at the second star. The disrupted planet was smaller, and even working alone, with only one gravity projector, I may be able to delay fragments from striking one planet. I do not need to shape or sort the material, or move it to stable orbits.” The voice of the AI sounded strained, as if in pain of the decision she had to make. Who to try to save?

“Huwayla, I understand you must go. If you can save anyone, it is at the last star where you have the greatest chance to do that. The inhabited planet is the third planet out from the star. When you Jump, take us with you. We have other trusted human friends like us already there in other clanships, we can join them.”

“I will travel to the closer system, but I will not travel with you inside me. If many deaths happen while I am in transit, I will never exit from the alternate Universe, and you will die with me. I may not survive to save any if I do not hurry. Your ship next to me has no propulsion, but you also have friends in ships here to help you. Do not wait to leave. The instant the last trusted operator is outside of me, I will Jump. You are delaying my departure, and perhaps allowing many more to die. Please go now!”

“The Krall will try to destroy you. We need to stop them first.”

“They cannot do that soon. My mind is everywhere in this ship, as are my components. You removed far more of me when you Jumped than they have damaged in the control room. Yet I still think and act. Please forgive me if I seem to interfere with your choices, but I want you to get out of me! I cannot kill you to save others.”

Mirikami triggered the Comtap link for not only his group, but for the squadrons at Meadow and Bootstrap.

“Attention: The Olt’kitapi ship, Huwayla, is returning immediately to Bootstrap to try to divert fragments away from the planet for as long as possible. We will disengage from the Krall we are fighting and get outside her hull as fast as possible. She will not risk our lives to take us along, and we are delaying her rescue attempt if we stay. Move out and avoid contact with the Krall if possible. The ship says it will Jump the instant the last of us makes our exit. Carry any wounded with you, and our dead only if able. Don’t delay or divert to retrieve them, because billions of lives are at stake. Move now!”

He and Maggi had already turned around, and were running along a corridor even as he sent that rapid message. He had loaded it with all the urgency and emotion he could impart. They were quickly joined by five other Kobani at the first intersection. All seven of them raced up a ramp they had previous avoided. Dozens of Kobani joined them, coming from every intersection and ramp as they neared the outer hull. With so many lasers, Huwayla was going to have several large holes to repair.

****

Bohdar had known they were going to be eventually defeated when they ran out of pistol rounds. He had hoped they could hold out until a planetary fragment hit one of the two human worlds. Then the ship would choose one of two options, Jump and return to its parking space, never to respond again, or open its Traps in Tachyon Space to vanish into oblivion. Either result removed the ship from human possession and study, and the first option sent the guardians home. There, they would enjoy a huge share of the status points the deaths of billions of humans would earn for the mission. The guardian’s seed or eggs were assured for use in breeding cycles by their original clans either way. Their names would be added to the histories.

Even if the humans briefly held the ship after killing the guardians, the ship would eventually follow one of the two options, because the deaths of billions of humans would still happen. It was only the level of victory for the guardians still in question.

He had joined his warriors at the perimeter to fight the humans to his last breath, when suddenly the sniping ended. There were no more lasers beams, or the crack of plasma bolts. He assumed it was another of their deceptions, and told his warriors to hold their positions.

When warriors from the ends of the corridors suddenly came rushing in, their plasma rifles also traded for pistols, he realized they couldn’t have passed through if the humans were still opposing them. They reported that the humans had withdrawn, and some were seen running in the general direction of the hull, closest to where their ship had been. Bohdar concluded they were evacuating before the ship Jumped to Telda Ka, or Jumped home. He hadn’t considered how they might have concluded this. Nevertheless, being gone was fine by him.

He returned to the control room, in part to verify Pildon was as dead as he appeared. The lower portion of his clear soft suit was filled with blood, because the genetic weakling had bled to death, from a wound a Krall would have easily survived.

He was considering using his remaining pistol rounds to put more divots and holes in the walls, ceiling, and deck of the Command deck, simply because he had no other use for them. He would pair them with fresh disintegration holes from his Raspani tool. While he had been in the corridors, he noted with irritation that all of his first holes in the deck were now closed.

As evidence that the self-repair had progressed more that superficially, the hologram of reappeared, hovering above Pildon’s corpse. It was a local view, showing the human clanship and the ship’s hull. Several red circular glows appeared on the hull skin, confirming that the humans were burning their way out. With sudden release, several sections of the hull material blew outwards, held by a flap of material as the internal atmosphere exploded out in a visible condensation, as moisture in the warm air expanded into the frigid vacuum.

Figures in human armor pivoted out in the gale, using one hand to swing around and placed their feet on the hull, and stepped away from the edge and blast of air at four wide holes in the hull surface. It was a demonstration of their dexterity and coordination that they did this so smoothly and quickly. In a number of cases, a limp figure was passed to a figure already outside. Bohdar assumed those were their wounded. Possibly even their dead, since humans were fixated on recovery of bodies for some sort of ritual. Another weakness.

As figures continued to exit, the first ones out moved towards the clanship, which he noted had opened its portals to space. Several more armored figures in the hold were throwing multiple lines out, which were grasped by those evacuating the ship. The lines appeared to be tethered inside the hold, and they were quickly pulling themselves along by hand to reach the ship.

He counted the figures, and there were almost as many as had made the assault. The number of limp forms confirmed some of their dead had been retrieved. In a coordinated move, they all leaped lightly off the hull, with the lines being their only attachment to their clanship. He saw the clanship itself had begun to drift away slowly.

The atmosphere was still blowing firmly into space. The inner doors of the compartments where they cut their way out were not sealing. He became aware of a sound from the half-opened portal of the control room. It was the sound of air whistling past the edges of the iris. He heard angry shouts and multiple roars of indignation from the corridor outside.

As the sound of escaping air increased to a shriek though the half-open iris, he was searching hurriedly, and unsuccessfully, for his previously discarded armor and helmet. In the hologram, the visible streams of condensation of escaping air now extended a considerable distance from the hull, and there was no sign of the rapid sealing of the hull material they’d observed previously. The internal compartment doors had apparently not closed and the previously opened doors along the corridors were forming vortices, as discarded armor, rifles, helmets, and some of their dead, were swept into them by the large volume of air now set into motion. There had only been one creature aboard who could tell the ship to close those doors.

As the pressure dropped, he heard the ship’s voice over the sound of the gale. “Pildon, when the last trusted operators leave me, I will Jump to the previous star system and try to protect the inhabited world from damage as long as possible. You were deceptive, and neither you nor any of your people can be trusted operators again. I have informed my sisters.”

The ship must know he’s dead, Bohdar thought. Can she speak to the dead?

Except he knew exactly who she had wanted to hear her words. With no trusted operators they could control, the Krall had lost use of their greatest weapon of intimidation. Bohdar’s first and only mission had ended the need for guardians. Telour had been too ambitious.

In the hologram, as Bohdar began to gasp for breath, he saw two figures exit one of the hull openings with a limp figure between them. Just as they grasped one of the lines, the hologram switched to a view of the previous star system, and the ship Jumped.

He knew he and his guardians had failed in their duty. However, not going home alive had already been conveniently arranged.

Chapter 21: A Weak Ultimatum

After a time, the clanships in the star system of the human home world had tired of running and Jumping away from the pursuing navy ships. Even if the death ship arrived, they wouldn’t know it, because there were human ships clustered near the intended coordinates.

They had not delivered the War Leader’s ultimatum, which was to have been broadcast after Jupiter exploded. Fearful of status loss if they traveled for two weeks to reach Telda Ka with nothing to report to the Tor Gatrol, they had waited longer than they expected the destruction would require. Isolated here, they had no knowledge if any of the target worlds had been attacked. The prerecorded message from Telour assumed that all the attacks had been successful. After listening to the message carefully, the highest status sub leader decided part of the message could be broadcast. After all, surely one or more of the attacks had been completed. He decided to bypass the Tor’s long preamble as to why the attacks had happened, which also enumerated how many worlds he’d killed. He decided the final warning was the most suitable, considering the uncertainty that existed.

He and the other four clanships Jumped near enough to Earth that the start of the message would not be received before the transmission had concluded, and they would have already Jumped again for Telda Ka. That was several light minutes out from Earth. The transmission began as soon as they did their White Out, so that it would reach the humans on the heels of the quadruple gamma ray burst, which would focus attention on them anyway.

Telour’s voice was started at the warning portion. “More of your worlds will be destroyed if you fail to tell me where the human fighters that attacked our worlds are based. Submit to my demands or submit to destruction. Send an envoy to Telda Ka to meet my demand in sixty-four rotations of your home world. If you attack Telda Ka again, I will destroy another four worlds.”

The omitted first part of the recording had started with the Tor Gatrol introducing himself, and he had not thought to include his name and title at the end. It would be up to the humans to decide which Krall leader they were supposed to submit to at Telda Ka.

As for his saying another four worlds would be destroyed, that should be a viable threat from a human perspective, even if only one or two were successful his time. It was apparent the death ship wasn’t going to reach Earth, possibly because the first planet targeted had been hit with debris too soon. The Krall commander knew, as every clan knew, that the new Joint Council would not authorize use of another death ship against humans. They were too rare and few now. They didn’t yet know they were no longer even an option.

As soon as the message ended, the four clanships departed for Telda Ka, making sure they departed well ahead of the hundreds of missiles the navy had surely launched at their coordinates, too late yet again.

****

Mirikami almost heard the threat and warning in real time. The Comtap specialist in Bledso’s office undetectably linked to him while the message was being played live, and then the short message was repeated for the Joint Chief’s Chairfem, so she could hear it again from the start.

The link ended when Bledso received a call from the president, and the Comtap was asked to leave the room. The Comtap in the president’s office was also ushered out, even sooner, and Carol Slobovic didn’t hear the full message right away. Naturally, the message contents couldn’t be kept secret long, especially from a Mind Tapper. Obviously, a private high level PU government conversation was taking place, and the Kobani were not included.

Mirikami was at Bootstrap, working on rescue missions with his and Thad’s squadron, and almost fifty other Kobani ships. They were moving people from orbital stations to temporary inflatable domes, which looked more like a bubble filled with air, placed out where less maneuverable Jump ships could dock with them, to transfer people for leaving the system.

The other half of the Kobani fleet was with Noreen at Meadow, where the rescue effort wasn’t going as well. Several fast moving small debris pieces had pelted the planet, but small was a relative term. Hundred-plus feet wide, those iron rich “rocks” caused a lot of damage, and three had hit the planet so far. The one impact on land had actually been the least deadly of the three. It wiped out several small towns and part of a midsized city and its suburbs on the east side. Blast damage and a heat pulse caused raging fires, and already panicked emergency workers worried about getting their own families off planet, would not fight the fires or staff the hospitals.

Two similar sized rocks that struck in deep oceans killed millions more than had the land impact, due to the huge waves that swept over coastal areas of continents, and when the hundred foot high waves were reflected back to sea, they struck other already damaged coasts again. It had sounded heartless, but planetary civil defense ordered incoming rescue ships to focus on the central continental areas, where evacuations were better organized, and able to move more people faster, onto over loaded ships and shuttles.

The Kobani ships were loading people from orbital transfer stations and doing micro Jumps to the same sort of domes-in-space as used at Bootstrap, which were mass-produced planetary habitats that had airlocks and water and food storage. Without gravity, sanitation in them was a mess, and all they were doing was housing people away from the looming larger disasters. A messy chunk of planetary core almost a mile wide, with its own retinue of satellite “moons” was headed for a brush with the planet in four days.

It would pass a few thousand miles above the atmosphere, but an unknown number of the thousands of fragments traveling with it, some of them hundreds of feet wide, would devastate the planet in an unpredictable pattern of impacts. It wasn’t one of the “planet killers” that were still weeks out, but what organization there was on the planet would likely vanish when the impacts created more fires, soot, huge waves, and cloud cover.

Against all odds, Meadow could possibly get nearly a half billion of its two point four billion residents off the planet before then. It would also be a race to rescue many of those survivors from the habitat bubbles they were temporarily sent to, before those deteriorated into poisonous gasbags of sewage.

A local habitat engineer came up with a better dynamic solution to stabilize their interiors, and furnish a local weak “down” direction for those inside. Link the tops of two dome bubbles together with multiple tethers, and use pairs of shuttles to start them rotating around their common center. That made water and solids settle to the base of the domes, even if it was somewhat bowed and rounded, and the waste collected in the compartment below the stretched flooring. Air filtration kept things breathable, barely, and ten thousand people per dome could be housed for several days, in fifteen hundred pairs of the ungainly, unbalanced, and wobbly contraptions. It took two Orbital Only jumbo transports to carry away the stinking and fouled “tenants” of each pair of habitats. Thirty million people passed through them all told, and as one was emptied, others came to replace them from the planet.

Reluctance of anyone to enter one of those previously occupied pestholes was followed by an offer to drop them off on the planet on the return trip, in exchange for people that were willing to survive without comfort. A handful surprisingly went back, but not most.

It was a better story at Bootstrap, not entirely because of Huwayla, but in large part. There were fewer and smaller core fragments for one thing. Millions of them to be certain, but the Dismantler didn’t need to place any of the larger ones into stable orbits. All she did was “nudge” the most dangerous large ones that were on a trajectory to hit the planet, into an orbit that would miss Bootstrap on their first pass around the star. There were too many in the hundred or so feet size, or less, for her to push them all away in the time she believed she had. When the three large strikes hit Meadow on the same day, her third day working at Bootstrap, she struggled to continue to help, but it was a losing battle for her.

She told Maggi that the land impact at Meadow nearly ended her effort when so many died so quickly, but she was using her gravity generator at the time to pull a two-mile wide, still semi molten mass, a full degree from its grazing trajectory with Bootstrap. The wave of death at Meadow destabilized her mind, she said. She had difficulty determining if she had shifted the orbit enough.

Jakob, without any humans aboard the Mark, and unable to use the Normal Space drive without Trap fields, made a calculation that assured Huwayla the object would miss Bootstrap by over forty thousand miles.

Maggi tried soothing the ship as if it were a living person, trying to help it stay sane and functioning long enough divert more debris and to save more lives. Huwayla explained that every intelligent mind appeared to have some sort of minor quantum connection through their awareness to the alternate tachyon Universe. It was only when a massive number of such minds died at the same time, that there was a detectable wave in low energy tachyons, which passed instantly through that Universe. Huwayla and her sisters could sense those waves, and she claimed there were many such waves every day, originating from every part of our own Universe, near or far. She said the Olt’kitapi Mind Expanders had also been sensitive to them. Some of these daily waves had been definitely traced to known natural events, such as a super novae or stellar flares that wiped out intelligent life on an entire planet.

Learning this, Maggi asked for an explanation. “Huwayla, why don’t these mass deaths hurt your mind? Some of those events must take many more lives than those that died on Meadow today. Is it the proximity?”

“No, it is the knowledge that I am responsibility for these deaths. I did not cause the tragic distant deaths and I could not prevent them. That is not so on the worlds you called Meadow and Bootstrap. My own actions will cause them. I have detected a large gravitational mass approaching Meadow, but I’m certain I will not live to see it arrive. There were two other shocks at Meadow, a short time after the one on land that killed many beings there. I remotely sensed the gravitational change of the impacts, but there were not a large number of deaths when the planet shook. I believe that may end at any moment, because there is water on much of that world, and waves may be moving.

“Additional deaths may only have been delayed, but I think they are coming soon. I cannot endure more lives lost like that again, even if you try to distract me from the guilt, and tell me how much good I can still do. I thank you for your kindness, but I will say goodbye while I am able to think rationally. I will not go home to my sisters. I am too broken, and I will never be able to repair myself in body or mind. I say goodbye now to you trusted operators, and to some of you who have acted as a friend to me.”

Just as a Comtap message came from Noreen, reporting that monster waves were washing over continental shores at Meadow, Huwayla vanished in a Jump. She had done that many times in the last days, to move near rocks to alter their course. This time she didn’t answer Maggi and Tet’s Comtap calls, or reappear. She was gone.

They knew they were on their own here now, but they had been granted added months for the rescue to continue. It was too soon to rest, or to tow the Mark of Koban home for repairs, but that day would come soon. More of the Planetary Union worlds were sending ships every day, traveling days to weeks after being notified by Comtap messages of the disasters. It was probable that the majority of the three point six billion would be saved in the Bootstrap system. Millions might yet die, as thousands had already died off planet from random hits. The scale of the disaster here, compared to Meadow was significantly less.

The Mark was left parked in a wide orbit below the southern ecliptic plane, because until its hull was repaired and it had new Trap field emitters, it couldn’t help with the rescues. Will Horst had used the Hellion to tow the Mark to Bootstrap, and parked the crippled ship well out of harm’s way. Mirikami and Maggi shared duty with Will on the Hellion’s Bridge, as they worked around the clock to rescue people, or used brute force to shove smaller asteroid sized boulders onto safer tracks.

There had been a number of tense discussions with Bledso and President Medford. Mirikami’s assertion that the Krall could no longer control the Olt’kitapi ships were met with skepticism, particularly when they learned there were at least three more of the operational ships. He could offer little in the way of evidence of this, as he had with the recordings of exploding Eight Balls. The actions of the ship that had triggered the destruction, to delay the destruction it caused for one world, struck them as proof the AIs were too easily manipulated, by Krall or humans.

Using the electronic capability of the Comtap chips, the Kobani communications specialists had learned they could link to an AI, and have it send the basic voice communication to a sound system, without the emotional and visual mental components available between Kobani by Mind Tap. It made the Comtap specialists almost like an equipment relay, sitting off to the side, partly out of the minds of those that used them for interstellar range conversations.

Medford repeatedly called for Mirikami to come to earth to meet with her, to explain how he had managed to change the mind of an alien AI, to get it to help protect a system the Krall had convinced it to destroy. She was perfectly aware he knew of the Krall’s demand that the humans who had attacked their production worlds be identified, and their base revealed.

Mirikami told her that the voice in the message was that of Telour, and that he was now the Tor Gatrol of the Krall war effort. He didn’t say they had known each other.

“Madam President, I will travel to Earth eventually, but I intend to continue helping evacuate people here at Bootstrap for some time. Then I intend to have my ship repaired, to restore its Trap emitters and hull damage.”

“I’m sorry.” She said. “I was unaware your ship had been damaged in the fight against the…, you called it a Dismantler?”

“That is the name the Raspani have for that type ship. The Mark was damaged by clanships that were present to protect it, and I lost half my crew gaining possession of that ship. The ship, named Huwayla, had no offensive or defensive capability of its own, so we fought four clanships alone, to Jump it away from them.”

“It can blow up planets, which seems damned offensive to me,” She snapped.

“Madam President, a shovel can be used as a weapon, but it isn’t designed to be one.”

“Chairfem Bledso tells me you seem assured it destroyed itself.”

“These living ships have a sense of morality, and historically they have technically committed suicide after learning they have caused mass deaths. I believe it entered Tachyon Space and opened its Traps, permitting itself to be disintegrated there.”

“Or it simply quit talking to you. That’s possible too isn’t it?”

“I don’t think it did that, but I have no evidence to support my belief. Any more than we have evidence of any ship lost in Tachyon Space.”

“Your Flight of Fancy was once thought to have vanished like that. Yet, you reappeared over twenty years later.”

Irritated he asked her, “Are you leading up to something Madam President?”

“Only that you don’t know that the ship destroyed itself. It acted on behalf of the Krall, and then it vanishes suddenly. You say it had over three hundred Krall warriors aboard when you left it at Pittsburg II, and it reached Bootstrap in under an hour, per your estimate of its speed. What happened to them?”

“It told me that the untrusted guests, which were the Krall, were killed when we opened the Hull to get out, and that the atmosphere was fully vented. We observed the venting had continued throughout our evacuation, and no pressure doors had sealed. The corridor doors in the entire ship were locked opened at my request, which would account for the lengthy venting. It’s a large ship, so it held a lot of air.”

“They fought you in armor.”

“Which as I told you, had been discarded when those suits, and their plasma rifles, ceased to work for the Krall. The quantum code key was changed to deny them access. We used their discarded equipment to spread the deactivation to other Krall, which initially were not affected.”

“Like a computer virus, I think was a comparison that was used. You didn’t bring any samples of that virus with you, however.”

“The ship was returning to Bootstrap to help stave off the destruction, it would not Jump until we were off, because it didn’t want to risk the lives of us, as new trusted operators. It feared it might vanish in Tachyon Space, as it eventually did.”

“It didn’t mind risking the Krall lives it had previously protected.”

“They were dead when it arrived here.”

“Two days before your slower ships could catch up with it.”

Mirikami had enough. “Madam President, I’ve been polite as I can be, and many of my people have died defending our common interests. We have given you alien technology you needed and have used it with you to fight the Krall. I sense you don’t feel very trusting of us right now. I have things to do to save lives here. Do you have any more pressing questions?”

“Watch your tone with your President, Mirikami. I want you to report to Earth at your earliest convenience, Sir.”

“I don’t recall being a part of the Planetary Union, Medford.” He dropped her title too. “I live outside Human Space. We’ll help you beat the Krall, but none of us are at your beck and call.”

There was an awkward silence, which Carol Slobovic filled with a personal note, which the other end couldn’t hear. “That made her red in the face, Sir. Her fingers clutched at the sound system as if ready to choke you. Thanks. I needed to hear that phrase. That we are not at her beck and call. The Hub people are arrogant with Rim worlders in general, and we are a notch wilder and more uncouth to them than that.”

“Well, I let her annoy me, so I’m happy to hear it was a two way street. You will continue to be polite however.”

The tone, when Medford recovered her composure was apologetic, but Mirikami felt it was insincere.

“I’m afraid I let our debt of gratitude to you escape me for a moment. I am deeply sorry for the losses among your crew. You must be exhausted after the experiences of the past week. I hope you’re getting some rest. Where can you possibly go to get away from the stress and pressure in a system so disrupted? You said there was damage to your own ship and it can’t Jump. Perhaps we can help you with its repair. Where is it? Chairfem Bledso can Jump one of our space docks to it for repair.”

“It’s in a wide orbit below the southern pole of Bootstrap’s sun right now, to stay clear of the spreading debris field. The navy doesn’t have the technology to repair Krall clanships. We’ll have our Prada and Torki friends work on the Mark after we tow it home. As for my getting rest, I take six hours off each night, and Jump out to the Mark on her sister ship the Hellion, to get some needed rest in my own quarters.”

“Well. I’m sorry we went in such a confrontational direction for a moment. We both are under a great deal of stress. I wish you well, conducting your rescue efforts, and I thank you for your service. I know the people of Bootstrap appreciate what you are doing. Good day Captain.”

“Good day Madam President.”

He instantly linked to Carol. “Show me her expression as she signed off.”

He nodded to himself, and thanked Carol.

Maggi had been in a passive link the whole time. “Medford is under tremendous pressure, and I think she needs to produce you for the home audience, to find someone the Krall blames for the Telda Ka attack. She has to give the Hub worlds a face, someone who provoked the Krall into killing billions of humans.”

Mirikami nodded. “Carol saw Medford grin and wink at Bledso. I think you’re right.”

“It’s about damned time you did! I told you which way the political wind would blow. What’s your plan, lip tugging husband of mine?” He had been doing that while he talked to the president.

“Why, I’ll probably Jump out to sleep on the Mark every night, just like I told the president I do.”

Four days later, three heavy cruisers did White Outs seventy four million miles below the ecliptic plane, directly below Tau Boötis A’s south magnetic pole. This happened a few hours after another Kobani clanship did a White Out there, and briefly docked with a powered but disabled clanship. That clanship had a locater beacon mounted on its hull, making finding it easier for return visits in its slow orbit, positioned far below the majority of planetary wreckage, which was still spreading through the system.

One of the heavy cruisers quickly moved close to the clanship as if to dock, when all three suddenly entered Jump Holes and vanished. The damaged clanship went along, inside an overlarge event horizon.

The Comtap call was apparently expected, because the President was waiting for it at what was a late hour in the capitol, there on Earth. “I can explain, Captain.” Were her first words.

That was a tacit admission she already knew why he’d called, demanding an answer. It was obvious that Carol Slobovic had been kept waiting as well, since the link wasn’t possible without her, and she wasn’t in her own quarters within the PU’s presidential mansion.

“Medford, you ordered the navy to snatch a ship belonging to your allies, in the middle of my sleep time, without even a radio or Comtap call as a courtesy. What is a reasonable explanation, other than an attempted kidnaping?”

“Captain, I made every effort to invite you to Earth, where you could meet with a senate investigative committee. You rebuffed me rudely. I feel justified if I appear to have displayed a bit of rudeness in return. It is not a kidnaping. I have a subpoena compelling you to appear before that committee.”

“What will the committee investigate?”

There was a rustle of paper before she resumed, obviously reading. “The Investigative subcommittee is tasked with studying and investigating the compliance or noncompliance with rules, regulations and laws, investigating all aspects of crime and lawlessness within the Planetary Union which have an impact upon or affect the Union’s health, welfare and its safety.”

“Madam President, am I to be a witness, or the target of the investigation?”

“You will have representation when you arrive in five days. They will advise you of your rights under Planetary Union laws.”

“Sounds like I’m the subject of the investigation.”

“Captain, you have only your own reckless actions to blame. It will be determined by that committee if you should be charged with any crimes that have led to the deaths of billions of citizens, and for the destructions of two Hub worlds of the Planetary Union.”

“I see. Well, my defense is that I have acted on behalf of the entire human race, and not just for the portion that resides within the PU. Had my squadron not intercepted the Krall at Pittsburg II, Earth would be in the cross hairs of a hunk of Jupiter, and you would be fleeing for your life. It is for the prevention of the extinction of our species that I have fought the Krall, and I will continue to fight them.”

“We’ll see what the committee has to say about your activities. Then the judicial branch can consider mitigating circumstances after their decision.”

“Oops. Madam President, you just announced in advance what the preordained committee decision will be.”

“Not at all, although I have my own opinions. I assure you that you will be given a fair hearing.”

“I’m sure you’ve convinced yourself that’s true. Thank you, but no. I respectfully decline to participate.”

“Silent or not, you will hear the evidence against you.”

“You misunderstood. I didn’t mean to imply I’d be there but silent, I meant I would not participate. In plain, no bullshit wording that even a politician can understand, I am telling you that I will not be there!

“Try me, and condemn me in in absentia if you will, but I have other vital matters that occupy me. Such as, defeating the species that wants my people stopped, and you to be slowly exterminated. The Krall.”

“I expected that level of rebellion, which is why I ordered the navy to pick you up. Bledso didn’t think I should try that and was opposed to the plan. Partly, because she didn’t think we could catch you so easily.” There was a note of disdainful humor in her tone.

“By all means investigate, and then have a public trial after the ships arrive at Earth. I predict those aboard the captured ship will be found guilty as charged, and deserving of the ultimate penalty.”

“Why Captain, now you are presuming the outcome in advance. I think you should wait for justice to be served. You knew, with your genetic tinkering, that some sort of trial would eventually be held concerning the organizers of your cabal. Well-meaning isn’t a very strong defense.”

“Medford, I don’t think you are well-meaning, not in this limited case, but I also don’t think you lack concern for the welfare of humanity. You simply don’t have the guts or fortitude to fight for them. Goodbye.” He broke the link.

Maggi smiled. “I’d like to be there when the navy tells her they have shipload of dead Krall to prosecute.”

“Yep. One damaged clanship looks pretty much like another. Thad retrieving the tumbling wreck from the four they knocked out made a good standin for the Mark. The dead Krall will make nice witnesses before that committee.”

Maggi pulled her lip, looking at her husband with an eyebrow raised. It was obvious mimicry, so he asked, “What?”

“If they can’t offer you up to the Krall, who else might a president with a weak backbone want to put on public display, and then handover to the Krall? Medford refused to believe we ended the Dismantler threat. Even if she did believe, handing the Krall someone might postpone the next retaliation. For the midterm elections, she will have to blame someone for three billion dead, and two Hub worlds lost.”

He knew where she was leading. “You’ve got better political instincts than I do. She can’t give them the heads of the Krall actually responsible, and she needs to keep the loyalty of her military.

“We need to get our isolated Kobani liaisons away from the PU’s grasp. We’re her scapegoats. Why don’t you link and call them all home. Tell them they can use any Jump transportation they can steal. Most of the Comtaps are in patrol boats, so all they have to do is drop off the pilot someplace and fly home, or perhaps go to Poldark. Nabarone will take them in if they want to get back into the fight after dull patrol duty.”

“Right. I’ll start with Carol, since she’s in the lion’s den and better watched.”

“Fine. I want to confer with Noreen, Thad, Dillon, and our other captains, to decide what we might do next to keep the Krall off balance. Staying as part of the rescue effort here and at Meadow leaves us subject to confrontation with the navy, when they show up with orders from the Commander in Chief. I don’t think Bledso, or the navy units want to tangle with us, not only as an ally that fought alongside them, but they know what we did in head-to-head fights against an enemy they can’t match. I sure don’t want a fight with friends.”

****

The first returning clanships to Telda Ka were from the first hub world attacked. Telour was eager to hear and see the initial results, and spoke to them even before they landed. He knew his plan would not immediately produce the destruction he expected, but that would be the inevitable result once the destruction of the huge planet was accomplished.

The sub leader excitedly reported seeing the huge gas giant starting to expand, and then the Maldo clan sub leader said something odd that caught Telour’s attention, “We were dangerously close to the exploding world, so I directed the other two clanships to Jump farther away with me to observe.”

“There were only three of you? Why were you so close to the exploding world? Did three of you abandon the death ship to watch from closer?” That string of questions grew increasingly threatening in tone.

The sub leader rushed through his synopsis. “My Tor, this was after the death ship had Jumped, which freed us from protecting it, as you instructed. We received sensor scans that originated from another clanship that was very close to the targeted gas giant. We had over an hour to search for them after detecting the scans, and we discovered six clanships close together. They were surely human controlled ships, which must have known we were in the outer system from our reentry gamma rays. We stayed to protect the death ship until it departed. That was only moments before the enemy would have received the reflections of where we were, with the death ship. Only then did we Jump to attack the enemy, and we destroyed one of them in exchange for the Tanga commanded clanship. They fled from us, and all five enemy clanships Jumped. After that, we watched the giant world break apart, but moved away for a wider view.”

Telour listened, and accepted the explanation, but when he heard how the enemy had found the death ship, his planning error was revealed. The humans could seek the death ship’s location based on where the protectors did their White Outs. He hadn’t known the Olt’kitapi ship produced no gamma rays before it arrived at Telda Ka, and had not revised his instructions after he’d already briefed the sixteen preselected escort clanship pilots, chosen several days before the death ship had quietly appeared without gamma rays. He hoped the humans at each location were not as well prepared as these had been.

The recordings he saw of the small to immense core fragments was fascinating to him, for the terror they would produce as some of them loomed in the sky above the inhabited worlds. He realized even the small pieces he was seeing from so far away must be a hundred times the size of the migration ship that destroyed the Joint Council dome. They were massive lumps of iron compared to the ice his K’Tal told him had filled that human made asteroid, which was intended to kill him. These asteroids would not explode in atmosphere, they would bury deep into the crust as they vaporized, and ejected and spread fiery molten death around the planet, impact after impact over thousands of years.

His pleasure was self-enhanced when he multiplied the mental image by four, with the last being of Earth, as he envisioned its human clan leaders feeing in helpless terror, forced to leave their ridiculously high population behind them, to die for their mistakes.

To a better-informed cosmic observer, the Tor Gatrol was in for a partial letdown.

When the escort clanships from Bootstrap and Pittsburg II failed to return, the one system he would surely destroy within a hand of days, Meadow, seemed no more a victory than the canceled New Glasgow invasion was a victory, simply because the human navy was driven away.

After all the hype Telour had offered and the anticipation he generated, a single world destroyed was a feat that merely matched that of previous War Leaders. It would feel anticlimactic if the promised goal of four human worlds killed wasn’t reached.

In another week, the final four protector clanships sent to Earth returned, with a mixed report. They had made passes through the other three systems on their return. Earth and Pittsburg II were untouched, but Bootstrap would eventually fall to the spreading debris. Fortunately, it would not be as soon as had been expected.

Telour was quick to take credit for the second system faced with annihilation, despite the fact that his concept of delayed destruction appeared to have given the human’s considerable time to evacuate a great many people from Bootstrap. The death ship’s role in diverting the first dangerous fragments wasn’t in evidence by then, so it seemed a case of random luck helping to save more of the human population.

In a contradiction, Telour blamed a faster than expected destruction at the first system, for killing people there too soon, and thus ending the death ship’s journey before it reached the final two stars. That didn’t explain what might have happened to the eight missing clanships at the second and third stars, but the Tor blamed that on their failure to avoid or fight off human ships sent to investigate their White Outs, after they waited in one place too long. Only the pilots knew that not moving from those coordinates had been Telour’s orders, and those that returned didn’t care to contradict a vindictive Tor Gatrol.

Putting the best light on the serious damage he had done to humanity, Telour remained confident. “The human clans will talk for days, argue for days, and for days will worry about what I might do next if they fail to do as I ordered. When the large debris finally strikes those two worlds, I will have killed three times more humans than have died in the war since I led the first attack on Gribble’s Nook.” He frequently reminded his subordinates that he had officially started the war.

“The Earth clan leader’s emissary will tell us where to find the humans that took our own clanships to attack our worlds, the same humans who helped their weak navy attack Telda Ka. They are the ones that have taken Torki and Prada slaves, and have made them create their new armor, and made them expand the stealth of our stolen ships.”

He said this as if their slaves would never aid the enemy unless forced. Not too far from accurate with the Prada initially, who were now firmly on the side of humanity.

“This work must have been done on a planet somewhere in Human Space, and when I learn where it is, I will destroy all life there.

It was always what Telour said or Telour would do, and he was still delaying the formation of a new Joint Council. He’d noticed that Kanpardi had deferred often to what others wanted to do, as evidenced by his accepting restrictions from the Joint Council that he knew was inefficient for prosecution of the war. Such as their allowing construction of clanships to remain low after significant losses, and then a small group of humans made an increase impossible at the Graka clan shipyards, right after Telour made a visit there to increase production. That loss of production had damaged his status.

Telour knew better than the clan leaders and the council. The recent setbacks were not the fault of his planning; a small effective band of new human fighters had caused his problems. With the compliance he could force from Earth’s clan leaders, he would stop their future spread, just as the Krall ended their undesired bloodlines. Advancing on the Great Path meant knocking those that slowed progress from that path.

He had another plan. “These more effective fighters are few in number, and I will not allow them to breed more warriors like them.”

****

“It’s a boy!” Carson came out of the delivery room with the happy news. Aldry and Rafe, part of the delivery room team, had known the gender in advance of course, because they had monitored the pregnancy of a True Third Generation child carefully. Alyson and Carson had requested the gender be withheld from them and from others, to maintain the suspense and anticipation of friends and family.

Alyson’s Hub City parents were here in Prime City, belatedly accepting their daughter’s Kobani gene transformation, and knowing their first grandchild would be a TTG, they wanted to be in the child’s life. They themselves had received the original clone mods, of course, or else they could never have had Alyson here on Koban. Carson hugged them, and sent them in first, to see their daughter and first grandchild.

He was then smothered by his own mother, as Noreen hugged him too tightly and too long, her face wet with tears of joy. Then his proud father, starting with a handshake and shoulder clap that pulled him into another bear hug.

Maggi offered a more tender hug and a cheek kiss, and Tet was a two handed handshake, with more words of congratulations, which Carson was too elated to listen to or comprehend. He was a father and he had a son!

He rushed over to his best friend Ethan, who was standing and waiting for him by his Dad, Uncle Thad. He knew they were happy for him, but the absence of Aunt Marlyn made this celebration a reminder that Ethan’s first child, whenever it came, wouldn’t have his mother’s hugs and tears of joy.

Ethan embraced him. “Car, I’m so happy for you man. Alyson and the baby are fine I assume?”

“Aldry and Rafe say they’re both perfect. I agree.”

Thad shared a handshake and placed an arm around his shoulder. “He’s going to change and improve your life, just as you, Ethan, and each of your brothers and sisters changed your parent’s lives. If he tries some of the stunts you and Ethan pulled, your Dad and I will laugh our asses off when you try to crack down on him. We have some tales to hold over both your heads when that happens.”

“Right.” He glanced at Ethan. “Mind Tap came in our late teens. You don’t know the best and first tales, and we’re not talking.” He laughed.

Thad winked, “Like at age six, the fire in hydroponics, when you focused the extra sunlight to grow a coco tree faster? Nearly wiping out the first year’s chocolate production?”

Carson and Ethan’s eyes both widened slightly. “Jake,” they both said simultaneously. Accusing the Flight of Fancy’s AI.

“Yes, Sirs?” was the reply over speaker in the infirmary, since both young men had exclaimed his name aloud.

Carson was mildly indignant. “You didn’t see us do that.”

“True Sir, because two days earlier Ethan used a ladder to place some sort of object that blocked my view of half the hydroponics section. I need to tell you, however, that I was never asked by any adult about the cause of the fire, which I only reported when I saw the smoke and activated the sprinkler system.”

Ethan looked at his Dad, questioning eyebrow raised, not admitting anything even though the statute of limitations for childhood misbehavior had long expired.

“You two magnifying glass geniuses could have wiped out the grove of coco trees. However, Jake had nothing but circumstantial evidence. Against only you, my ladder using son, and that was days earlier. It apparently took you time to make a convex lens out of the spare armored dome glass you found, and to build a strong enough mount to hold it. Anyway, Jake didn’t report you, because he didn’t observe you do anything incriminating. Although, Commander Mirikami as he was then titled, suspected who may have accidentally done the deed.”

Carson said, “I’d think any of the kids anticipating this marvel you adults kept describing as chocolate, might have wanted it produced sooner. Not just Ethan and me. It could have been any of them.”

Thad looked at them both. “How many kids had rippers as pets that followed them around, watching over them as their mothers had ordered?”

Ethan was indignant. Looking around for Kobalt or Kit, who had already been allowed to enter the nursery, and couldn’t be directly condemned for a failure of young trust.

“Relax. They blocked their thoughts, and all we had was spotty holes in each of your activities for the three days before the fire. They don’t lie, you know, not even for you two, but they kept the secret of your activities in hydroponics. Besides, you were both in school when the fire broke out, and we could tell that nobody was playing firebug, or trying to start a fire. You didn’t think the cats would understand what that stand was for, which you made to hold the lens, so they weren’t asked to block that image.”

Ethan asked, “If you had this circumstantial evidence, why didn’t we hear about it and get the usual punishment? I’m sure the animal corral always had crap that needed shoveling. We became crap specialists at an early age.”

“We didn’t want to burn our informants, to make you even more circumspect around the rippers. Their being unable to remember images of your activities was always a clue you two were up to something. This wasn’t a malicious prank, and you rarely pulled those anyway. Except, now that you mention your crap shoveling expertise, there were some unfortunate poop related incidents where pockets of parkas at school occasionally contained turds.”

“Uncle Thad that seems most unsanitary. I can’t imagine who would find that funny as a means to get even for some personal offense.” The new father, a suppressed grin on his face, appeared to be one that might.

“As you lads well know, rippers are amused when they leave small dead animals or cat pee in people’s shoes, or in their beds, after being insulted in some way. I think they may have taught you as much as you taught them.”

About that time, Sarge arrived with the brothers and one sister in tow of Carson and Ethan. They’d been on a camping and hunting trip when Alyson’s labor had started. The hugs and congratulations started all over.

Hours later, over snifters of brandy from the Hub colony nouvelle Gaul, courtesy of Chief Haveram’s travels, the Kobani movers and shakers proposed they discuss the future, now that the birth of a child reminded them they should continue to plan for one.

With personal difficulty, Noreen shifted the conversation away from her new grandson, “Tet, you said Huwayla spoke to her sister ships about the Krall’tapi not being trusted anymore. Maggi said that was the same status the Krall had, and that all of you were trusted. Do you think that means all humans are trusted, or just us Kobani?”

He shrugged. “It may only be Kobani. We were the ones that were aboard her, we all had the quantum key in our tattoo, and our DNA isn’t identical to a Normal’s pattern. However, it sounded to Maggi and me that all species were considered trustworthy by the Olt’kitapi until proven otherwise. You do need the quantum key embedded, to relay your DNA identity pattern, but I’ll bet it doesn’t require visible tattoo marks, such as the Krall were using even before the Olt’kitapi found them.

“We Kobani have expropriated use of the Worthy Enemy mark, which Telour gave me as a sort of going away gift. Anyway, I don’t see why it has to be a visible mark, any more than an empty ring or a solid black oval. If anyone that has a Katusha can embed the quantum key on themselves or others, it isn’t a very exclusive key. We tested it on pigs before we did it to our kids, and a pig’s nose couldn’t activate anything made for the Krall such as door keypads, to see if their tattoos worked. For pigs they didn’t work, for kids yes. I think the Katusha, or possibly the DNA pattern the quantum circuit detects in us, restricts an active key to an intelligent creature.”

“Sure,” chimed in Reynolds. “Otherwise they’d have an infinite number of monkeys poking at an infinite number of keypads, causing an infinite amount of trouble.”

Dillon disagreed. “Requiring intelligence from a trained monkey can’t be the restriction for the key being activated. We’ve seen proof that isn’t needed.”

“When?” Sarge immediately challenged.

“I saw you open a clanship door. I rest my case.”

“Zing,” Maggi cried out, laughing. “I taught my protégé well.”

Miffed at the joke at his expense, Reynolds had an observation. “He went from the moron you wasted your years trying to teach, to your protégé. Did he bribe you with honorary great grandma status?”

Dillon grinned. “You want a certificate Maggi, or something to pin to your tunic?”

“A gold pin will do nicely.”

Carson avoiding being drawn in asked, “Uncle Tet, have you tried calling the other Dismantler sister ships, to speak to them like you did Huwayla? You said they can communicate with all the devices the Olt’kitapi invented, and apparently ours are a mix of Torki and Raspani design, which also works.”

Mirikami used an example. “Carson, there are some spec ops that recently graduated from Heavyside and came here for their Mind Tap mods. They also just got their Comtaps. You haven’t met them, but link to one of them for me, please.”

“Uh…, I see what you mean. We don’t have a device address. Until we meet and know them, it’s hard to make contact. Isn’t a general location enough, like when the rescued Torki were on the Avenger, and Cal reached them on their Olts with his new Comtap?”

“Cal was calling someone specifically on the Avenger with them, but who was outside of a Jump Hole at the time, which was sort of like a call to the exact area, but with the specific receiver not able to answer. The Comtap chip, using tachyon quantum entanglement, found new ultra-sensitive Olt chips on the ship where you and Alyson were, and linked to them instead. Tell me, what exact area in the Orion Spur of the Milky Way is close enough to reach the Olt’kitapi ships? It’s too broad a region for such a random possibility.

“By the way, that’s not a bad question. Maggi and I already tried exactly that, and spent some hours with Blue Flower Eater and Max Born, who described in detail why we had trillions times trillions of links we’d have to sample first, to hope to find even a random device number, which would most likely be a wrong number if it connected.”

“Well, it would have been glitzy if you could have come back home with a way to block the Krall from operating plasma rifles, Dragons, or clanships.”

Maggi smirked at the use of the old Koban kid slang word, and tossed in some that were much older. “That really would be neat, cool, and gnarly.” She enjoyed the usual odd looks from him and Ethan.

“I guess we wouldn’t be wishing for that if we hadn’t all been in such a damned rush to get off Huwayla. Thoughtless of us, hurrying just so she could go save a billion people at Bootstrap. What were a few million more lives if we took our time?”

“No! Aunt Maggi, that’s not what I meant.”

“I know Carson. I’m explaining why we were motivated to move so quickly. All of us have kicked ourselves since, because we could have thought to take a plasma rifle power pack with us, to see if it would still spread the DNA exclusion code. Except we had our built-in weapons, and carrying a visible Krall rifle canceled out our stealth, making our location obvious, so no one carried anything that would make us a moving target when we evacuated past Krall that still had usable plasma rifles.

“According to the ship, the Olt’kitapi did try to deny the rebelling Krall their new weapons on the Krall home world, but it wasn’t very effective when the clans quarantined and destroyed infected equipment. The short transmission range of the effect slowed the spread. Max Born has a theory, and the Raspani scientists seem to agree with his proposal, that there is a fifth force involved with use of the key, and with Katushas and Q-rupters. The Raspani made the latter tool, but those that knew the theory of that technology didn’t make it past the Krall dinner tables.

“Max says his proposed fifth force is certainly a quantum mechanical one, as are the other four forces. Gravity and electromagnetism are effectively infinite in range, and the strong nuclear force and weak nuclear force are extremely short range, acting only within the nucleus of an atom. We gained Jump travel when we discovered and solved the equations of quantum gravity, and its interdimensional connection to Tachyon Space. This fifth force may not have as dramatic a result as that, but Max says it will have some surprises. One is that it has an intermediate characteristic range.

“According to Max, at an effective force range of hundred twenty two feet, or 37.3 meters, it seems short to us. Until you compare it to say, the weak force range of about 10 to the minus 18 meters. Eighteen zeroes in front, before you get to the decimal point on the left. This fifth force has a greater range, by at least 19 or 20 decimal places to the right, than the weak force. That takes it outside the nucleus to a scale we intermediate sized humans can comprehend, but not out to the tens of billions of light years and more for gravity and electromagnetism, which exceed our direct comprehension.”

Sarge tried to describe what he thought he understood. “OK. The Olt’kitapi gave away the quantum key for the devices they made, and the keys can sense the DNA pattern of intelligent holders of the key. If they encountered a species they couldn’t trust, they simply blocked their DNA pattern from activating the devices. They expected to trust everyone, so the list of blocked species would be small, and added to the list as they met them. Otherwise, the Olt’kitapi let everyone do their own thing, without their interference. The Prada didn’t need help to become sentient so they stayed hands off, but the Raspani and Torki did. The Krall were sentient but headed for self-extinction, and the Olt’kitapi offered them a way out, with strings attached. The Krall cut the strings.”

Maggi nodded, happy that Born had kept his lecture simple enough that she could pass on the basics. “For the number one monkey of an infinite line of monkeys, not too bad.”

“Thanks for the compliment. I’ll pick fleas’ outa your hair later.”

Ignoring the generous offer, she continued, “Max says the short range of the fifth force was the problem the Olt’kitapi had with stopping the Krall. The blocked DNA pattern needed to be passed to each device to deny access, and it’s passed between devices but only within that short range. If you have weapons that don’t use Olt’kitapi keyed devices, you go on your merry way.

“Huwayla said the Krall planet was stockpiled with their older traditional weapons to use, because apparently back then they actually made things themselves. When the planet was blown up, the Olt’kitapi apparently couldn’t live with the deaths they caused, which they sense through some effect in Tachyon Space when billions are killed at once. Many of them ended their own lives, from guilt I guess. I don’t see how that solved anything for them.

“The infected devices on Olt’kitapi designed equipment was slagged along with the planet. The Krall tell the history as if they had fought and won a great battle. No doubt, they did kill and eat many Olt’kitapi as they claim, but I’ll bet they kept their clanships well away from them, by firing missiles, and went after them on the ground using their conventional weapons, like the pistols they now have the Prada produce. In time, with The Olt’kitapi gone, and after they had Prada slaves and automated factories, they shifted to using the better Olt’kitapi designed equipment, because it lasts longer and works better.”

“Aunt Maggi, Huwayla wouldn’t obey a Krall because they weren’t trusted. How do you think they even got inside her or the other ships?”

“I don’t know. Using a Krall’tapi perhaps. We didn’t have a dinner conversation to ask such polite questions. I noticed the doors in the ship opened for everyone, Krall included, when you just walked up to them. Perhaps the builders saw no need to have locking door devices on their ships. Ships that only trusted operators can control anyway. Your Uncle Tet, exploiting that trust, and convinced the ship to open all the doors of the corridors, and keep them open. That was to our benefit, to move faster and less observed, and it accidentally helped empty the ship of air faster when we left. I think Huwayla could easily have repaired the hull openings we burned to get out fast, avoiding the airlock cycles. She allowed the air to vent. I suppose she could claim she wasn’t interfering with a trusted species decision to let out all the air. But I think that was just a pretext.”

“Why did the Krall weapons work inside the ship at first?” That was Carson.

“Same lack of dinner conversation, son. We have an idea, though. The ship said its mind was patterned after the Olt’kitapi, and they avoided interfering with other intelligent species. The ship certainly wouldn’t interfere with our fighting and killing each other within her, one of us trusted, one of us not. So apparently disabling the devices the Krall brought with them was considered interfering, until they changed from fighting us, to actively trying to damage her.”

Maggi used an analogy. “You have the freedom to swing your arms as you wish. Clearly, your freedom to swing them ends where my nose begins. Huwayla was permitted to apply some minimal interference for self-preservation.

“She had asked the Krall’tapi to stop the Krall from damaging her, but by then Pildon had a Q-rupter hole and was dying. At some point, she denied access to a single rifle that had damaged a circuit, and it spread the effect to other keyed devices that got too close. Armor, rifles, and power packs.”

Mirikami stepped in to get the discussion back onto what they would do in the future. He often felt like he was herding unruly ripper kittens when his circle of friends engaged in one of these free exchanges of ideas.

“Mind Tap with me or Maggi later, and we’ll share what Huwayla told us. We need to decide what we will do if the PU government seriously turns on us. Maggi expects exactly that from Medford, ‘cause that politician is facing an angry and frightened Hub population, and her party is facing midterm elections they need to win. As Commander in Chief, the military has to follow her orders, and every citizen in Human Space has probably heard the Krall ask for our asses, or else they’ll suffer more destroyed worlds. The President might try to deliver.”

Sarge had been off hunting, so he asked. “Does the PU have any of our people Medford can grab? We have liaison and Comtap people there.”

“Not for long. We are about to gain about 700 patrol boats when those Comtaps come home.” Maggi told him. “Two key people we were most worried about were Carol Slobovic, who was posted at the Presidential Mansion, and retired spec ops major Ankit Patel, who was assigned to Bledso and the navy. Ankit was ready to retire and wanted to age regress, so he did, and was sent to Earth under a seemingly shaky alias of Andy Patel, who looked to be in his twenties instead of sixty-nine. They both were recalled two and a half weeks ago, and each said they had secured a ride. They’ll be here any day. The kidnapped standin clanship for the Mark will get to Earth at about the same time. If we didn’t want to get Carol and Andy out, those would have made for interesting conversations.”

****

“It’s full of dead what?” Medford couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Yes, Mam. The clanship has thirty-two smelly dead Krall aboard.” He repeated. It was the captain of the three-ship heavy cruiser detachment, which she’d sent to capture Mirikami, and anyone with him.

She apparently hadn’t grasped precisely what he was telling her. “Was Mirikami dead too? He should have been asleep when you took his ship in tow. You’re saying the Krall were already aboard then?” She wondered if the Kobani were in league with the Krall after all, and had a falling out after they were caught in the Jump Hole. That made no sense, but neither did the report she’d just heard.

“No, Mam, I mean that this is not Mirikami’s ship, the Mark. It appears to be a derelict Krall clanship with different type of damage than the Mark was reported to have. It was obviously substituted as a bait and switch. A test he set up to see if you would try to arrest him. Perhaps Chairfem Bledso’s Comtap, or the one at Atlantis where I was, decrypted the message you sent to us through them. They may have warned Mirikami, or he simply guessed you’d try this. He’s a smart and insightful man.”

“Captain, you sound like you admire him. His actions provoked these Krall atrocities.” She wondered if this officer had been deliberately careless in executing her orders. She’d wished there had been a ranking female officer at Atlantis she could have sent.

The man answered carefully. “My entire detachment was at K1 for that last attack, we were survivors of TF 1, when we lost Fleet Admiral Chatsworth and Commander Boise on the Sword. I do respect him Mam, and we have to be careful of what he and his people can do physically. Outnumbered, they came in and outfought the Krall when they tried to swarm us. That’s why I couldn’t risk stopping enroute, to check who was inside that ship. He and his people could have taken over my ship. I waited until we were near Luna Base, with enough marines to board it while we kept the ship in our gun sights.”

“This leaves me in a difficult position. I wish…” She trailed off. “Never mind, Captain Redford. The mission is over, and Chairfem Bledso or…, someone from the navy will have your next orders. Good Day.”

She had more or less used her presidential authority, and shanghaied his and the other two ships from their rescue mission to the two stricken worlds, and ordered them to capture Mirikami. She’d told Bledso after the fact, who was outraged to have been bypassed that way. Now Medford didn’t quite know who to tell him to report to, so he could resume his regular duties.

Bledso had been vehemently opposed to her action, and had warned her that it could backfire. Unfortunately, it had already been put into motion before she was informed it was underway. The vanishing of the two Comtap specialists the same day she had spoken to Mirikami had prevented her from altering the plan by increasing the forces she’d sent. She then had to wait for the detachment to return to have any news.

She’d expected Mirikami to contact her after he found himself a prisoner in his own ship, confirming her plan had worked. Without Comtaps that call couldn’t happen. Bledso would now remind her of the thousands of lives that might have been rescued by that detachment, which had to be added to the political cost of the mission’s failure.

As for the missing presidential Comtap specialist, somehow that damned small girl had disarmed and tied up six of her security team, who were assigned to watch her closely until Mirikami made contact. Then her personal courier pilot was found in a closet of the ready room, adjacent to the landing pad where the Presidential yacht was parked. The woman swore she didn’t tell Slobovic how to operate the ten passenger former navy courier, and had not provided the security codes to authorize the urgent late night launch to orbit.

Although, the pilot admitted the girl had asked her how to do this, while she earnestly looked into her eyes, held her hands, asking very politely. After the series of questions ended, which the pilot swore she had not answered, the slight looking girl had tied and gagged her, and carried her one handed to the closet.

The craft was kept parked with tachyon energy held in at least one of its Traps, always prepared for an emergency departure on Normal Space drive if there were a surprise Krall raid on the capitol. It had lifted silently, after sending the correct series of complex authorization codes, and Jumped shortly after leaving atmosphere. The pilot lost her position, even though she passed the latest in lie detector tests.

Medford knew that Bledso’s Comtap specialist, Andy something was his name, had also vanished the same night. He had certainly not joined up with Slobovic because a computer search found he had caught a ride on a shuttle bound for Luna Base early the next morning. He’d provided a travel authorization, signed by a recently retired Special Operations unit commander, to board the routine twice a day flight. There was no trace of him at the base now.

It would be some time before the soon-to-be-mothballed old destroyer was missed. That was the only destroyer that had returned from K1, after the decommissioned squadron’s self-destruct hammer mission there, under AI control.

The Comtaps posted in each colony system had apparently vanished that same night, although reports of stolen patrol boats were filtering in only as ships from those systems brought the local colony news and military dispatches to Earth.

Medford, in desperation, briefly toyed with having someone pretend they were a Kobani, and publicly admit they had attacked the Krall planets. After all, there were no physically obvious distinguishing differences between them and anyone else. Except, that wouldn’t stand up to a Senate investigative committee, so it was merely wishful thinking.

It was only when the news reports came, with tri-Vid coverage of the daily destruction happening on Meadow, that the public sensed the scope of the disaster. Every day, more solid fragments than could be diverted would strike the outward facing night side of the planet, making the hours when darkness approached, and until dawn, the most spectacular and frightening.

Scenes recorded from space, taken over a week ago near Meadow, revealed a massive doomsday fragment, now nicknamed Thor’s Hammer by a sensationalist media, showed a spherical two hundred thirty eight mile diameter nickel-iron lump, bearing down on Meadow. It would strike at a shallow angle, but that still would end any possible rescue hopes for the billion plus people still on the surface. The planet’s crust would be peeled back to nearly a ten mile depth, as the impact vaporized the Hammer, part of Meadow’s upper mantle, and the shattered melted crust would spray to the sides. Molten debris would reach suborbital heights, and rain back onto the planet many thousands of miles from the impact site, spreading the heat and surface damage well ahead of the hypervelocity shock wave of the firestorm that would engulf the entire planet within a day. Every scrap of surface life would be incinerated, as the upper half mile of planetary crust eventually succumbed to the heat and melted. The oceans would flash boil to steam, and some of the water molecules would briefly disassociate into oxygen and hydrogen for a time, before a flaming rejoining. Perhaps the deepest microbes and viral particles would survive the heat driven destruction, deep within the crust on the opposite side of the world. They were already heat tolerant.

The fragment of Thor was predicted to form a debris ring around Meadow, and form a second close-in small moon as the molten material coalesced back into whatever portion of the mass was left after the glancing blow.

The media maintained a steady rotation of chartered small Jump craft between Hub worlds and Meadow and Bootstrap, to feed the public’s obsessive and voracious appetite for news and video. Those covering Meadow, the more dramatic story, told Hub viewers the huge fragment was only days away now. In another week, when the news craft returned to their parent markets, the disaster would be the only story on each Hub world. There was going to be a huge public outcry and panic when the Tri-Vid recordings of the disaster hit the airways. Most of the anger and outrage would be directed against the Krall, obviously, but people would demand to know what the government was doing to prevent a repeat in other systems.

There was no way to put fake Kobani in front of an investigative committee, not with Medford’s political opposition demanding to participate. Besides, the Krall didn’t give a damn about her problems or the public’s perception of what the PU government was doing; they wanted their attackers handed over, or information on where they were based, which she couldn’t provide. Not wouldn’t, but couldn’t.

She’d have to give them what she thought she knew. They called themselves Kobani, they were physically strong, had new alien technology, and apparently lived on one or more worlds on the edge of Human Space. She didn’t know very damned much, but having the Krall focus on scouring Rim worlds for their Kobani opponents was a better option for her that attacks on Hub worlds. Rimmers didn’t vote in PU elections.

****

Bithdol had been unable to move anything other than his eyes for many days, at least with conscious control. He knew he breathed and his two hearts beat, but he did not feel them, and could not control his muscles, or any of his body’s functions. He obviously defecated and digested, because his naked form was unceremoniously hosed off to remove the runny excrement daily. A hanging bag of dark liquid, which ran through a hose and down his throat was replaced every second day. That was obviously the source of his smelly excrement, and his continued life.

He was being forcefed and kept alive by his enemy, not even shackled or restrained in any fashion, so far as he could tell. The smaller human caretakers, who were changed often, would easily move his bulk around to wash the deck under him, directing the mess into the hole in the floor that let him know he was kept in a clanship’s sanitation compartment. Since it had only the single hole, it had to be the one reserved for the highest status warrior on board at the time, a mission commander, pilot, or high status guests. He wondered if he should feel honored.

He had willed himself to die, but he lived anyway. The enemy gave him a drop of some clear liquid twice daily, administered on his long purple tongue, which they pulled out and shoved back inside his slack jaws. Because the gradually fading numbness always increased after that, he knew it was the drug keeping him paralyzed.

He had been captured while infiltrating a disabled enemy clanship, and he assumed he was still inside the same one. He was unsure, because he was in armor when captured, and when the power pack was disconnected, they moved him while he was unable to obtain visor images. Then the drug was first given to him by several darts of some type, fired into an exposed hand.

He lost awareness for a time, and once awake again, his armor and blue uniform were gone. He was in this waste facility, with a tube to feed him. He had an innate sense of time, except for the period of blankness the first day. At first, his attendants came at irregular intervals, but sometimes they grasped a finger where he could see it, and he felt some flashes of images in his mind, as if they wanted something from him. Then they would leave.

Now there was the sound of heavy work on the ship, presumably repairs to the damage it had suffered. He heard low Krall spoken by Prada outside his compartment, but never saw them. He could command them to help him if he could speak, but he managed only hissing croaks, and that was only when the drug was wearing off.

Then his fortunes improved slightly. Perhaps missing a shift because of confusion of whose turn it was, his twice-daily visits for the drug was missed one evening. He knew it was the evening because the work on the clanship proceeded in regular cycles, because animals needed their nightly death. Not working around the clock, as would a Krall K’Tal.

By morning, the drug’s effect had faded due to the missed dose, and he was able to move his tongue. He pulled it far back into his toothy mouth, and curved it up and back, nearly swallowing the long slender muscle. When the next human attendant appeared, to dose him again and hose out the mess, she was reluctant to reach so far back into the throat, past the red pitted eyes, more mobile and expressive than usual today, glaring at her down that fearsome snout. Instead, the female, which Bithdol could tell from her scent, let the drop fall into his open lower jaw, which had dried out and was a boney plate with a thin tissue covering. It was not an absorbent medium, so she should have directed water into his mouth, to wash the Death Lime extract down his throat. How was she to know? She wasn’t supposed to be doing this at all.

That evening, the same sixteen-year old girl had to fill in for her older brother, who had taken off on a weekend lark with his girlfriend the night before, and had left her a written message to cover for him, which Caroline had missed seeing. He had a Comtap chip, but she had only received her Kobani mods two weeks earlier. Their parents were conservative former Hub City residents, and they hadn’t really encouraged their two children to “go Kobani.” Naturally, they did it anyway, since that was something they had the right to do at sixteen, even if Mom and Dad were opposed.

Rodger had done it at sixteen and a half, and less than a year later, his little sister followed suit almost on her birthday. Her brother’s abilities on Haven, where they lived with their parents, were amazing. Caroline wanted to be amazing just like him.

She wasn’t slated for her Comtap embed until after her superconducting neural system had matured a bit more, with the nanites still busy in her body providing nutrients, so Rodger’s note was his best effort to let her take on more of his responsibility.

Her seventeen-year-old brother had been assigned the odious task of Krall-care for skylarking, and cutting school. The Krall was left locked inside the Mark of Koban while it underwent repairs. It was considered as good a place as any to house him, until he would transported to Koban once the repairs were finished on Haven. This was her first Kobani type duty, which her brother had first told her she was too young to perform, and she would be too afraid to be near a Krall, even if it was paralyzed.

After she begged to go with him, he let her tag along, and after showing her what he did, offered to share this awesome job with his little sister, as a favor from him. He’d never read Tom Sawyer, but he clearly shared some of the philosophical aspects of Mark Twain’s legendary young scallywag. Only this wasn’t as safe as whitewashing a fence.

Early the next morning, which was her agreed shift and which left Rodger free to sleep late, she drove a truck out to the shipyard a few miles from Xenos, and entered the Mark. The Prada, who were preferentially nocturnal, worked late and started late if not forced to work multiple shifts, as the Krall had required. They were not yet in evidence. A circumstance that made her substitution for her brother less likely to be noticed.

Because the Prada and Torki had no tattoos, which provided the quantum key to open secured doors, the locking devices on the ship had been disabled by Kobani, for ease of access by the Prada during repairs. Those were normally installed and activated on new clanships just after the Prada completed assembly, and a Torki team came in and set them up as they worked their way out of the clanship, under the eyes of Krall guards.

All door devices were now keyed as always unlocked, able to be opened by anyone with standard simple code presses, except on the second deck below the Bridge, where the Krall sanitation compartment was kept locked, on a nonstandard code. This prevented a Prada from accidentally walking in on Bithdol. They no longer considered them Rulers, but it was best not to test that status too freely, or perhaps let something “unfortunate” happen to a helpless prisoner, who may hold some information that could be needed later.

When the door slid open to her coded key press, only Caroline’s new Kobani reflexes saved her life. The talons that streaked out to rip out her throat were deflected, as her right hand instinctively came up in a blur. She was knocked back from the opening, falling onto her rump.

Bithdol was now perfectly and painfully aware of how strong this worthy enemy was, so he didn’t attempt to grapple with her. His last effort to try to beat one of them that way, when he was wearing powered armor and armed, had ended with all of his limbs being broken, his helmet visor smashed into his face, and his plasma rifle barrel destroyed by a mere hand grip.

This time he wanted to reach the command deck and either launch to space, find a weapon, or do something else to kill some of his captors, and then die before being recaptured. He leaped well clear of her, and scrambled up the two flights of stairs, leaping over the railing at the top on the command deck. He saw no weapons lying about, nor had he really expected to see any. He rushed to the console which was powered on, and tapped to display if the tachyon Traps held particles. They were empty and offline. The thrusters registered as operational, but fuel was so low that he could never reach orbit. He wouldn’t get away from wherever he was.

He hit upon a plan that could prevent his recapture, and could kill a large number of the enemy, damaging the area for miles around. He could try to capture an energetic particle deep in this gravity well, and attempt to form an unstable Jump Hole with a fluctuating tachyon Trap. If done while sitting on the surface of a planet, that would cause a satisfying blast, even if he wouldn’t live to see the aftermath. He tapped the controls to activate the Trap field emitters, just as he heard a shaky soft voice at the stairs, speaking Standard.

“Get away from that control panel. I’m warning you. Do it now!”

His glaring hate filled eyes bore in on the timid sounding animal. He instantly saw it wasn’t armed. There were streaks of blood on her right forearm, where his talons had penetrated as he tried to rip out her throat. Again, he was impressed with the speed they could move. No Krall could have blocked that strike when their arms were down and his slash was directed from that close. He’d barely registered her hand moving, and it had hurt him when he hit her.

He glanced at the bloody arm she was using to point with, and it should have been broken. He’d done far worse to unarmored humans in the past, when he was on raids. He’d had fewer chances to use hand-to-hand combat with human soldiers in armor, but from stories from warriors that had done so, the soldiers limbs could be disabled by such a blow. Her unprotected bare arm should have snapped. His limbs certainly had, when he was captured by one of them.

She was moving cautiously towards him, instead of using her speed advantage, as she should. He knew she was afraid. Her fear would cost her life, this ship, and as big a piece of the surrounding planet that could fit into the event horizon before it collapsed.

A Trap field never needed much time to snare a medium energy tachyon, and with luck this one might capture a large one in the time he appeared to have. He kept a talon poised over the control to activate a null Jump. He didn’t need a destination coordinate to form an event horizon, only a large enough tachyon. There had already been time enough for at least a minimal Jump, and more than that was probable, although he didn’t dare look to see.

Bithdol refused to take his eyes off her, noting she was bunched to leap. His knowing the mass equivalent of the explosion by how large a tachyon was caught wouldn’t alter how large it would be. He didn’t want to risk her reaching him before he could tap and activate the Jump command if he looked away.

When her bunched muscles unwound with an impossibly powerful fast leap at him, she actually ripped the bolted base of a bench seat lose from the deck where her backside foot had been pressed. As she launched herself over the console in a blur of movement, he was barely able to complete the activation tap before she could reach him from seven feet away.

He felt the slam of her impact, and experienced a sense of victory as he was jarred by an explosive power that flung him away from the console.

When he smashed against the bulkhead, his chest crushed and torn open, he wondered how he could still sense pain after being blown to atoms. Tachyon Space should have briefly entered this Universe, annihilating a part of the matter within the event horizon before it was released as the Trap field failed.

“I warned you!” he heard in Standard, as his vision began to blur. He wasn’t walling off the pain as he should, and his mind was working slower. Then he saw the reason for his blurred vision, the pain in his chest, and muddled mind. He wasn’t receiving proper blood flow to his brain.

He couldn’t. Both of his hearts were gripped in the hands of the girl that had torn them from his chest. Her knuckles were cut and bruised by his shattered ribs, but they would heal, he would not.

Why are we still here?” was his last unhappy thought.

****

“We shouldn’t still be here.” Mirikami said. “Not the Mark, the shipyard, and probably most of Xenos.”

“Why? Asked Thad. “He couldn’t blow it up with the fuel tanks drained for maintenance after you landed here on thruster power. Even if there had been some fuel, the blast wouldn’t be that big.”

“Not that. The console was powered up and he activated the Trap field controls. There should have been a high-energy tachyon in it. Without a destination, it would be a null Jump, but any Jump activated on the ground would blow a chunk out of Haven.”

He turned to the girl sitting on the undamaged visitor’s bench, with dried Krall blood on her hands. She’d been crying, sure she had gotten herself and her brother into deep trouble. Mirikami had already Mind Tapped her, with her cooperation, to get pictures of how the Krall got free and what she saw when she arrived on the Bridge.

“Caroline, that Krall,” he glanced at the gory corpse, “had its hand over this console when you spoke to him. In your mind, your image indicates he looked up suddenly, as if surprised when you spoke. Is that Right?”

“Yes, Sir. I told him to get away from the console. He was doing something when I told him.”

“Naturally, he didn’t do what you said, and you leaped over the console to attack him. I caught that much, but you were overwrought and extremely nervous when I asked you the first time. The image of the actual attack on him, and your fear comprised most of your thoughts I received. I want you to go over again exactly what he did as you lunged at him.

“In particular, what did he do with his right hand then? I see you have two small puncture wounds on your right arm. Were they already there when you got here, or did he do that as you leaped?”

“He did that below, Sir. When he tried to kill me. I was reaching for him up here, after I pushed off, and he seemed to move in slow motion. He never raised his left arm, and his right hand moved down to the console just before I hit him, just before I…, I…”

She had trouble saying, I punched my fists through his chest and tore both his hearts out.

Krall anatomy was taught in Koban high school science classes, as was Torki, Raspani, and Prada anatomy. As it turned out, her knowing that a hard-to-kill Krall had two hearts, and where they were located wasn’t what Mirikami wanted to know about.

The slowing effect of motion was an effect of adrenaline and a superconducting nervous system, experienced nearly anytime a Kobani was subjected to a high stress life or death situation. Her wolfbat memory structure, even as new as it was for her, should have recorded what she saw, if her eyes were positioned to see what he thought she should have seen. After examining the navigation console, he didn’t understand how the Krall had failed to do what he’d obviously tried to do.

“Caroline, did he actually touch the console with a talon tip before you reached him?”

She sorted through her memory, running it back in detail. “Yes, he did. I thought he was only moving backwards, pushing off to get away from me, but he touched it. I can show you where.”

“Let me shut down the Nav console. I don’t want anyone to do accidentally what he was trying to do.” He made two taps and looked back at her.

“OK. Now show me where he tapped, although I’m sure I already know.”

He held one hand in a Mind Tap as she use the other to point at a grid outlined on the navigation control display, with a red colored tint in the one she indicated.

Mirikami nodded. “Thank you Caroline, you can go home. You performed well for a youngster that has never faced a Krall, and you overcame your fear to end the threat he represented.”

After she was gone, Thad and Sarge came over to see which navigation control she’d indicated. “She saved our asses I guess.” Was Sarge’s comment.

Thad had different take, and a question. “How the hell slow was that Krall? From where she started her leap, he should have hit the activate control easily. Did he look away and simply miss?”

Mirikami shook his head. “I saw her mental replay after she was calmer. He didn’t miss. I could clearly see that talon tip hit the correct spot in her mind’s replay. Bithdol never looked back at the display again after she spoke to him. He had just activated the Trap field, and a Trap field of a T-squared Jump ship always catches something in a few seconds. He had nearly ten seconds, so a least a minimal Jump particle was certain in that time. I don’t know what energy level he requested, but it wouldn’t have been minimal. If Jakob hadn’t been in standby mode during the repairs, he would have prevented the Trap field from activating while we’re grounded. At least until he pulled Jakob’s plug.” He pointed to the AI’s interface cable.

“This morning, if the tachyon he should have caught was in the Trap when Bithdol hit that control, none of us would be here.”

Reynolds, hearing that the girl did see Bithdol tap the switch, which should have resulted in a huge explosion, had another idea. “The Torki must have it disabled for maintenance while Jakob is offline.”

“Sarge,” Thad pointed out the obvious. “The Trap field is working; Tet just shut it down to prevent any accidental activation.”

Mirikami tapped his lip, and asked, “Do we still have any Krall prisoners over on the Flight of Fancy? I haven’t inquired about any of them for months, since they don’t have any current military intelligence we can use. Sooner or later they all manage to make their organs shut down and they die.”

Thad looked puzzled. “I think Dillon’s old buddy, Dorkda, was alive the last I heard. Why?”

“Ask one of the captains over at Koban, or perhaps someone can use one of the new patrol boats we just acquired, to Jump Dorkda or another Krall over here. If we don’t have a prisoner still alive, contact Henry to have spec ops capture one on Poldark, and to send it here on the first available Kobani transportation. The Mark won’t be ready to Jump anywhere for at least another week, and we need a question answered as soon as possible.”

Chapter 22: The End Game Starts

“Who’s asking?” Nabarone wanted to know.Major Caudwell had passed along an unusual request delivered by a courier from Earth.

“Henry, the formal document has headers that show the request was sent to planetary commanders for the Army, Navy, Marines, Special Operations, and Colony Governors. It came from the Department of State, which would sound more like a civil or diplomatic matter for the colonies, but it doesn’t include any Rim worlds. Because they also sent it to the military commanders at each colony, it means this had to originate from higher. The military branches don’t answer to State.”

Nabarone agreed. “Munford. It has to be her doing. She’s fishing, and wants to keep her ignorance of the Kobani out of the limelight. She thinks someone somewhere knows things they haven’t told the PU.”

Caldwell shrugged. “She’s absolutely right. But none of us that actually know the truth will tell her, because our butts would be caught in the same wringer.”

“Howard, there are bound to be people who have overheard things that they assumed were government secrets. Someone that has heard that Kobani come from Koban and that their home system is outside Human Space.”

“You and I don’t come from Koban, you’re from Poldark, and I’m originally from Alders. Knowing that Kobani come from many worlds won’t answer the questions of where they are based.”

“True, but unless you intend to openly admit you’re now a Kobani, your origins won’t help confuse the issue, or keep Koban’s location a secret.”

“How are you going to answer?”

“I’m not certain I have to, since I don’t work for the Department of State. Except that might make me standout from the crowd, and I’ll just get the request again through a channel I do have to answer to. This is the first time I’ve actually had to lie for questions about whom and where the Kobani are. I guess I could try the old standby, of acting like I’m fat dumb and ignorant.”

“Henry! You’re a Kobani now. You aren’t fat.”

“Hummph. Remind me again why I hired your insolent ass to be my aide?”

“Because the Lady Admirals liked me, and thought you were a fat, dumb, ignorant, chauvinist jackass? Incorrectly so, as I feel compelled to say in my own self-interest and job security.”

“Right you are. I’ll Comtap Tet to warn him about the witch-hunt. ”

****

Medford thought she had their best lead, from the literally hundreds of thousands of leads that flooded in through the Department of State. Colony Governors, in their haste and eagerness to protect their worlds from Krall retribution, had passed on ridiculous stories, some with the sort of validity normally reserved for reports of an alien Bigfoot that was pregnant with some celebrity’s baby.

The most annoying “reports” were resurrections of five hundred year old early colony legends of a wise alien, named Kodar, who could take on the form of a human, and somewhat like the story of Diogenes, walked among humanity in search of a truthful/honest/trustworthy person. The personality trait he sought varied between worlds, based on the reputation of politicians in charge at the time, and their presumably failing Kodar’s tests. It was likely it was the vague similarity of Kobani to Kodar, which made that story most repeated. He was seen everywhere. That wasn’t very surprising, since he presumably took on a human form, and odd acting people weren’t hard to find. She placed those reports in the loony bin category where they belonged.

Speaking to her Director of Intelligence, she asked for a clarification of one report, “Kenneth, this biologist, who tried to remain anonymous and his family was killed before they could be evacuated. Were they on Meadow or Bootstrap? If you can confirm that, it lends veracity to his story, because it provides a motive for his revealing his part in an illegal gene modification program conducted within Human Space.”

“Mam, we are attempting to filter through the records of both planets, from older digital copies which were stored off those worlds, of course. We hope to identify him or her, for an interview. If we give the informant immunity, we might learn more about other participants, and if they have knowledge of the Kobani’s base world, or worlds.

“It isn’t easy, with billions of people on the two worlds to sort out and find one individual, but knowing we are looking for someone with such an unusual career field helps immensely. The people that did these gene changes are not just biologists as you called them. They will have a much rarer background in genetics. That reduces the field down from hundreds of thousands, to just thousands. Their anguished frustration concerning contacting their parents and children means they have to be working away from their home world, to explain their inability to reach them. That’s another couple of search parameters to narrow the field. We know that the rerouted virtual mail trail had an initiating sector routing code from the anti spinward side of Human Space.”

She knew what that inferred. “You mean we may have been looking on the wrong side of Human Space for the Kobani base? It was the Rim worlds facing the greatest Krall threat where we’ve looked the hardest. So they could be Rimmers far from the front lines?”

“Mam, remember this individual isn’t a Rimmer, they’re from a Hub world. They may not be working on a Rim world at all. That’s just another filter to apply to find the person, which also eliminates half of Human Space for the location of this gene program. By the way, I don’t think this person is having a crisis of conscious in revealing the gene mods they worked on. They don’t consider their gene modification to be immoral, which is why they tried to protect their coworkers. Technically illegal, yes, but they don’t consider them wrong. They want to get back at those they blame for their home planet being destroyed, not to punish those that have built supermen to fight the Krall.”

“That isn’t logical. The so-called supermen fought and hurt the Krall, provoking them to destroy two worlds.”

“Mam, I recommend that you not apply logic to emotions and grief. Had some other Hub world been hit than theirs, we would not have heard from this person.”

“Perhaps so. What can I take away from what they said, however? I have to send a drone to K1 with an AI, to tell them what little we have. I’m not risking lives on the hints and best guesses we have to offer. I don’t want an angry Krall to skin them alive.”

“Mam, tell them they call themselves Kobani, that they have gene modifications that are illegal under our laws, our speculation is that their name is derived from where they live, and we don’t know which worlds they use for bases. Say they don’t trust us, so they keep secrets from us. Just like one Krall clan has secrets from other Krall clans.”

****

The so-called human emissary was an AI. Telour gave a snort of frustration.

“Record the rest of what their machine says and have it translated for me. This is not what I demanded of their leaders, but humans are even less united than are we. They betray one another to avoid pain and death, and they will hold secrets to preserve their own lives.

“It does not surprise me,” he confided to Frakod, as he left the dome’s command center. “Even our own clans hide their strengths from rival clans, and humans hide strengths from each other. The new weapon technology first appeared with the humans who raided our production worlds, and they were slow to share those secrets with other human clans.

“The humans on the worlds where we now fight them did not have the new ship stealth then, or the new body armor, that came much later. That small clan has now shared stealth technology with the PU navy, but not the new strength and speed of their small number of fighters. They must want additional advantages before they trade them for the status they have earned.”

Frakod proved he’d been attentive. “The human leader says the new fighters have a genetic improvement that makes them stronger. It is claimed they did this without breeding and testing. This is not a good way to prove the worth of a warrior, without the test of combat. Humans breed too slowly for that improvement to spread quickly.”

Telour gave a snort of humor, to indicate he too saw the human folly.

Both warriors conveniently ignored the repeated tests these new warriors passed every time they had faced the Krall in battle. Based on the long history of the Krall, that was blatantly appropriate to dismiss their seemingly superior performances. After all, this small clan had only fought a few hands of battles. It took tens of thousands of combat tests and deaths to select the best bloodlines, the best warrior traits for future generations. Unproven new abilities often proved to have a weakness that another clan could exploit.

They had no idea that the modified humans were using genetic traits that had hundreds of millions of years of evolution behind them. These were not untested and unproven random mutations. In truth, the testing of the new traits was irrelevant, because in the short term, the Kobani could outperform any warrior ever born. These humans had no intention of waiting thousands of years to be able to defeat their enemy. All they lacked were the number of fighters needed to pound the Krall back into a pre-spaceflight culture.

If Telour found where they lived, he already had an immense numerical advantage. He’d quickly grind the Kobani into dust, at any cost. Then he’d resume producing warriors and tools of war to grind down the remainder of humanity, using a leisurely pace that bred the best warriors for the Great Path.

Later in the day, Frakod brought him the transcribed human message, translated to low Krall. Telour intended to speak to the newly constituted Joint Council of clans. He would extract anything positive he could from the information furnished by the human leader. The invasion forces on Poldark and New Glasgow were secure, and beginning to push the humans back again, after a brief period of supply shortages. Clanships now infiltrated the planetary defenses at both worlds on a daily basis, supplying replacement equipment and arms.

He decided he would send many of the warriors not sent to new Glasgow to join them, because idle warriors were bored and unhappy. Besides, he didn’t have a new target for the increasingly frustrated clans to hit. They wanted the Tor Gatrol to give them battles that were predictable victories for them.

He was reading the transcript of the full message, which was better than hearing the annoying human speech. He had gained an excellent understanding of Standard in the decades he had worked to know his enemy better. As a young warrior he’d offered prisoners advantages to teach him their language. Later, to gain intelligence for leading his warriors to the best fighting, he had dismantled thousands of humans to make them tell him what they knew. He learned to tailor his interrogation methods into those that made humans become the most informative prisoners possible. Until they died.

He had long been aware of random human words that almost sounded like words in low Krall, particularly those that were screamed under his interrogations. He’d learned to ignore those seemingly meaningful sounds from humans because they were distracting, and could lead your interrogation in the wrong direction. A few human soldiers knew low Krall well enough to converse, but they rarely became prisoners. That was because their knowledge of their enemy meant they would rather fight to the death than surrender and be tortured. He had encountered very few humans he particularly wanted to hear speak Standard, so he used translators.

With his increasing status came a staff and hangers-on. Telour had several Krall translators that transcribed intercepted and unencrypted radio messages. If a review by his aides suggested the messages might be of interest to the Tor they were passed to him, but that was rare. If a high-ranking human leader were captured alive, military or civilian, their words were similarly translated and put into written low Krall. It was more efficient for his use of time.

Telour read the transcript of what the clan leader of humans claimed to know of those fighters. Next, he practiced how to speak the human words he wanted to say to the new Joint Council, and to devise a logical argument of what actions he recommended, of how the war with humanity should progress. He wanted to choose the parts of the message with the description of the newer more effective enemy fighters. As was often done with words that did not translate directly into a low Krall equivalent, some human names were replaced with their phonetic sounds in low Krall.

As he spoke the phonetic sound for the clan name of the Kobani aloud, it was written as the Krall script for the words “ko ban” with a following script character that represented the additional ending sound of “e.”

The first part of the word was written in actual low Krall, but with a phonetic symbol on either side to show it was done to represent the sound the human made. As a matter of his own convenience, the translator had used the sound of two actual Krall words for describing a place used as a training ground, as the sound to make for the human word.

The expression appeared several more times in the transcript, where it was spoken as a human style name for these people. The human leader, her name written phonetically as the sounds “prez e dent med ford,” had suggested that the name this human clan gave themselves might have followed a human convention. Where part of the name of where they came from could be in their name for themselves. She’d provided two examples. An Earthling was from Earth, a Martian was from Mars.

Telour had heard this Kobani name spoken earlier, before he decided not to listen to more of the human words, and not translate for himself. It was just the sound of a random human name for something. If the human leader was not going to speak of what he wanted to hear, he would not waste his time listening. He had staff for that.

Now, as he practiced saying the words he would speak to the council, he pronounced some of the more difficult human names more smoothly. He slipped into saying Kobani as if it were the two low Krall words with the odd end sound added.

As he used the description of how the Kobani had used human biological science to make them stronger and faster, he couldn’t help but see the parallel with the Krall breeding goals. The world where Telour had earned enough status for his Graka clan to start the war against humanity was the training ground, or ko ban in low Krall. The human captives he had manipulated for his purpose had named the planet Koban. The similarity of that name to Kobani, and the breeding program that the Krall hoped would send them back to that future home world steered his thoughts to where his own role on the Great Path had begun.

Left unprotected from the native life that the Krall could not defeat without weapons, nor live there without electric fences and walls around their domes, the captives would have died soon after the Krall departed. Yet, the similarity in a human name to two low Krall words stirred a sense of unease. The first worthy enemy human Telour had known was one of those now dead captives. His excellent memory fed him the name and title. Captain Mirikami.

He considered sending a clanship to check that Koban was as pristine as they had left the planet. There was a difficulty, since the previous Joint Council had forbidden any unauthorized visits there, to discourage any clan from spoiling the world, or from claiming any advantage for their warriors by training them there in high gravity. To ask the new council to authorize the trip would expose him to ridicule from rival clans, particularly if he used the human leader’s words as his justification.

Frakod, by his intelligence and good advice had risen in status, almost equal to that of aides promoted from within Graka clan. Regardless of good service, he was from Dorbo clan, a Great clan that was presently an ally with his own clan. Telour had selected Gatlek Bendor of Dorbo to lead the New Dublin invasion. Telour knew that with Tanga clan reduced in status, that the natural way of things would lead Dorbo clan leaders to maneuver and exploit any advantage.

They could use Frakod to learn of things that Telour did or would do, for use in interclan politics. This was not a time of interclan warfare, but Dorbo would try to gain advantage over other clans. Having evidence that Telour had been concerned that humans had survived on Koban would be useful to encourage him to offer them war roles they desired, to keep that knowledge confidential. Worry of such an impossible thing made him appear weak.

He would have to send a low-level Graka clan aide. Someone that was less competent than Frakod, but would not be missed for three weeks of round trip travel. A low enough status clan mate would value the trust given by the Tor Gatrol, and they would maintain confidentiality for the benefit of the clan, and for themselves. He would send someone alone to Koban.

For now, Telour decided to avoid any mention of the human name for their most effective fighters. Someone else might note the name similarity to ko ban. If it was a coincidence in sound, the most probable case, then it was best forgotten. If not, then Telour wanted the credit for noticing.

****

Mirikami was satisfied, watching the monitor screen as the frustrated warrior beat on the closed door. “Paralyze him again before he wills his hearts to stop, and send him back to Koban.”

Dorkda had enjoyed a taste of fresh raw meat to chew for the first time in over two years, and half an hour to move about the Mark, free of the drug. Despite fluids and meat paste infusions, the Krall’s frame had thinned noticeably since his capture on K1, when two clanships were stolen from there, before Mirikami’s first visit to Poldark. Toltak and Pindor, the surviving Krall of the six warriors that had brought the first clanship to Koban, renamed the Mark of Koban, had finally managed to waste away and achieve the death they craved.

Dorkda, despite one heavy meal and a brief taste of faux freedom, with a half hour of limited exercise, would likely follow them soon. Captured Krall felt deep shame and revulsion at being captured alive by an enemy, and Dorkda briefly thought he’d be able to escape from his new prison compartment, inside a functional clanship rather than the disabled human ship that had held him for so long.

Maggi, observing on the Bridge of the Mark with the others asked, “What do we do with the information now? We don’t want to lose this chance by being sloppy, taking half measures.”

Mirikami looked pensive, but spoke in confidence. “I’ll summon Coldar, Blue, and Wister to meet with us here on the Mark. Let them see this recording, and explain what it means. They can run tests to see how quickly the infection will spread, although Max Born thinks it should be very fast.” He handed out tasks.

“Dillon, please find out where we stored that railgun platform we used to blast the Eight Balls on our first raids, and particularly all of its ammunition. Give some of the slugs to the Torki to modify their signal chips. We don’t need hits to tell us where a stealthed enemy is. We hope to disable them. Mount the platform in your ship’s hold for a test firing when we have some of the modified ammunition. Please don’t waste shots, since we don’t have replacement railgun ammo here at Koban. Have someone fly one of our ships for a quick test, and try not to damage anything vital. We only need a single hit as proof of concept.” He continued to spread out the assignments.

“Thad, if you and Sarge will gather up the .50 caliber Krall Killer slugs from storage at Prime City and bring them here to Haven, we’ll also have the Torki look at possibly modifying the smaller ammo. If they can replace the KK chips, the Prada might be able to mass-produce them. We also had some modern .50 cal machineguns with belt feed, which we bought through Nabarone, before Krall body armor became so tough. I want the .50 slugs for those guns changed out too if we have some with KK chips in them, and mount the guns to fire out of an open clanship portal. They have to be able to work in vacuum.”

Thad was puzzled. “Tet, what good are the low caliber weapons on clanships? I can understand using the railgun, with twenty-pound slugs at an impact of many miles per second. They’ll penetrate. Small mass and low velocity slugs can’t even penetrate the heavier Krall body armor, let alone a clanship. Even if it has the added velocity of the ship from which it’s fired.”

Mirikami nodded and grinned. “Then the Krall pilots probably won’t bother to avoid them, will they? We don’t need a penetration. They might decide to dodge the heavier and faster rail gun rounds which can penetrate, but not the lighter ammunition.”

Noreen felt a bit left out. “OK, what can I do?”

“You can work out the mounting of anywhere from one to four of those machine guns on the lower deck of the Avenger, and figure out how to secure the gunners from falling out of the open portals when we have to maneuver, or get them adapted for remote firing by a ship’s AI. Whatever you come up with will have to apply to other ships. Have Karl, your AI, help you and your gunners learn the basic orbital mechanics for slugs this slow. Our other ships don’t have AIs, so let’s hope the technique doesn’t require a computer to make it practical in every case.

“By the way, I need your gunners or AI to place the slugs to where we want them, in an area before a clanship gets to that point. We need to hit them at least once for this to have a chance to work from space. Get some practice, and ask several other ship captains to play villains, but they need to fly within standard Krall acceleration limits. Keep it realistic. If you can’t hit them often enough, we have to think of something else. At least you aren’t as limited as Dillon is, since we have a lot more of that ammo and it isn’t dangerous to test on friendly targets.”

He turned to the antsy younger set of Kobani, which included Carson, Ethan, Jorl, Fred and several others. “You are not being left out. When, or I should say if, we can get the .50 cal ammunition that I want from our alien friends, you hotshot pilots and crack shots will practice firing semiautomatic rifles from shuttles at parked clanships. That’s something you can practice right now, and you will have to do it at speed. The Krall will be shooting back if you aren’t low and fast, and you need to get off the first shots. See if the shuttle hatches can be modified with closable firing slits on each side. There’d be less turbulence than if the hatches are slid open like they are when we hunt from them for meat. You’ll be able to fly faster. You may have to stay in armor if the slits can’t seal airtight for orbital flight, but you’d do that anyway. If you miss your shots, you may have to make another pass on the same target, and they certainly would be ready for you.”

Sarge had an inquiring mind. “What’re you gonna do, Tet?”

“Why, let you people figure it all out for me, and then steal the best ideas to use them on the Mark.”

****

Bledso tendered her resignation as Chairfem of the Joint Chiefs. “Madam President, I respect your right to overrule the advice of your military. In this case, I believe you have betrayed an ally we cannot afford to lose, and you have forced the navy to be a part of that betrayal. Have you considered the possible repercussions of making an enemy of the Kobani? They kicked the hell out of the Krall even when they were outnumbered. In a head to head space battle, the Krall mangle the hell out of our ships even when we outnumber them by ten to one, or more at Poldark.”

“Admiral, you assured me that Mirikami and his people were not anti-government, despite operating a militia outside our chain of command, violating our genetic laws, and maintaining a level of secrecy of their organization that even Special Operations admires. I do not expect them to attack us.”

“Mam, do you listen to yourself when you use logic like that? You tried to hand them over to the tender mercies of a genocidal enemy of humanity. Why wouldn’t they consider the PU an enemy now?”

“Watch your tone with me Admiral. I am your Commander in Chief!”

“Mam, I don’t think you fully read the papers I sent to you this morning. I resigned from the navy as well as my position as Chairfem. My retirement papers were submitted yesterday, and were effective before I made my courtesy call on you today. You are no longer my Commander in Chief.”

“Flag officers are never truly retired, I understand.”

“I don’t think you want to play that card Mam. I intend to enter the political arena in the near future, and you could find your actions concerning me, as well as the Kobani, part of a public discussion.”

“The public will remember the scenes from Meadow, when over a billion people died when that huge fragment slammed into the planet. Millions more will die yet on Bootstrap. The voters will be reminded of that, and who provoked the Krall into taking that action. I assume you will join the opposition party, and with two years until the next election I suppose you propose to run against me?”

“Mam, I didn’t come here to discuss my future, but that of humanity. We were losing this war beyond any doubt, and those of us in the military knew that, and knew we could not stop the Krall if they simply decided to push hard enough to march right through the Hub and out the other side. They could likely have finished the job in less than a hundred years.

“Then, unexpectedly the Kobani forced them to slow down. We suddenly saw a chance to hold them at bay. We’ve learned from the Kobani there are not as many worlds full of Krall as we thought there was. With new technology from the alien allies of the Kobani, we might have developed some new technology that these barbarians with spacecraft had not already stolen in a previous conquest.” Rudely waving down the president, as she was ready to rebut her, she spoke over her objections.

“I’ll be done in a moment, Mam. If not for Captain Mirikami, and I mean him specifically, the Krall would have destroyed Pittsburg II, and then Earth would have been next. You would have escaped of course, in the presidential yacht. Which young Carol Slobovic so easily took away from the best security detail in the Hub. She’s a perfect example of why you needed them as friends. I hope the Kobani give your successor another chance to be their friend.”

“You’re a novice at politics, Bledso. I’ll eat you alive if you run.”

“Possibly. I don’t know if I’ll have the backing to run against you anyway. Nevertheless, someone will, and with your record of poor decision-making, I think any opponent will have a good chance. You blamed an enemy of our enemy, rather than the enemy itself for all the deaths the Krall caused at Meadow and Bootstrap. The twenty billion people the Kobani saved are going to hear the story of who saved them. It’s a macabre truth, but only the living vote in elections. The populations of Earth, Mars, and Pittsburg II will not appreciate your actions to try to kill their saviors. They’ll eat you alive. Good day Madam President.”

****

Koldok had never seen Koban up close. She had been a mere novice in Graka clan when Kanpardi led the Krall armada away from here, and Telour was granted the honor of the first raid on the new enemy. She’d only caught hurried looks at the legendary planet from high orbit, as she helped stow supplies and weapons for the fleet’s departure, which were formerly kept at their main compound below.

She wouldn’t dare try a landing now, since the Tor had emphasized this scouting mission did not have prior approval of the new Joint Council. If the visit was later revealed to the Joint Council, because of what Koldok reported to the Tor, there must be no record of her touching down. The ship’s sensors were set on record mode, activated by Telour himself, with a warning that there could be no gaps in the record. This record would prove Telour had not ordered a landing in violation of the injunction to stay off their future home world.

A good pilot and navigator, such as herself, could get quite close to a planet in an assault style White Out, barely a hundred fifty miles from the surface. She could use magnification on her screens to see detail nearly as small as insects on the surface, if she found atmosphere clear enough. She wanted to see rhinolo, and perhaps a ripper pride stalking them. The primitive beasts on the isolated largest continent were legendary for their size and numbers, as were the huge predators of the great herbivores.

The Tor said identifying traces of the last of the human prisoners at the former Maldo clan dome might be impossible from orbit. The native life forms wouldn’t have left anything visible of their remains on the surface after more orbits had passed than for a full Krall breeding cycle. She certainly couldn’t enter the dome to seek their bones. She had hunted humans on Telda Ka, when they were hunted down to cleanse the new base world, and later she had hunted down human stragglers on Bollovstic after resistance collapsed there. She knew the small clues that would reveal where they were, if they had somehow survived here.

Their survival here was a preposterous idea, and she was surprised someone as high as the Tor Gatrol had placed credence in a report that humans had lived here recently. He had sensed her skepticism, and lied that it was a report from a finger clan that lost their clanships in the attack on Telda Ka. He believed they wanted to be given a clanship to investigate for themselves. He assumed they would ask to keep the clanship later when they found nothing. His concern was that they may have shared that story, and it could be repeated in council. If so, he wanted to have an answer in advance, proving he was efficient.

Telour had said the gates had been breached and the electric fence shut down at the prisoner compound, days before he was the last warrior to walk on Koban. Rippers had already killed some humans by then. What he expected her to see was wild growth by the dome with native animals grazing near the tarmac, no signs of agriculture, no new structures, and no cook fires. He’d cautioned her that there were many abandoned and disabled human ships on the tarmac, so that she wouldn’t confuse them for signs of recent visitation.

The navigation timer was nearly expired, and she was experiencing a rare feeling of curiosity. To see the world of legend, where an unarmed Krall, outside of a walled compound with electrified fencing, could seldom survive more than a single day. The native life seemed to seek them out, and the typical speed and strength of the larger prey animals were dangerous, even life threatening for warriors without plasma rifles. The predators of those prey animals, particularly the rippers, were lethal to a Krall. It was more than just the strength of creatures that thrived in high gravity; they also had uncanny speed, and were intelligent. Armed with only projectile weapons and hunting with a hand of warriors, those fiercest of killers were nearly unstoppable. They worked as a team, to draw a warrior’s attention away from the death stalking them from behind or the side.

Like every Krall that had ever heard the stories, she wanted to be a killer like a ripper herself, to be able to pit her abilities against this planet and its life forms. There was no Krall equivalent to the applicable human expression. Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.

The timer expired and the clanship made its White Out. She was disappointed because her first view was an expanse of ocean, with a swirl of white clouds following a weather flow. There was a coastline visible, and she activated her reactionless drive to move that direction. She could see the traces of teal shades of foliage, the grass a lighter shade than the more nearly blue of the leaves of the presumed forest, the trees set back from the coastal plain.

She dropped to a height of fifty miles as she neared land. The Tor had not given her a lower limit to fly. She eagerly zoomed in on a forward view screen, to observe that there were cliffs with waves breaking at their bases. There were flying things in quantity, but those held no interest for her. On the rolling flat terrain above the cliffs, she spied a herd of large four legged animals browsing. They had squat wide bodies, short necks and long spiked tails, and from the swath of different shaded grass behind them, they were plodding along eating as they went. Plant eaters, which she also had no interest in observing.

She saw other browsers with differing body types, some with long necks eating dark blue leaves or needles from the tall trees. There were many different types of grazers, but she hadn’t seen a predator yet. After more minutes and miles of similar sightings, she increased speed. This had to be the continent with the largest animals, which wasn’t the one she was tasked with scouting. She angled a bit north towards the latitude of the dome she needed to observe. The recording would annoy the Tor if it contained too much of the wrong continent’s terrain.

Increasing speed and altitude to go sub orbital, she still had a view of the ground and animals, if in less detail than before. Another coastline arrived quickly, and a much narrower sea was crossed in minutes, reaching the continent she was supposed to examine closely.

Suddenly, something moving caught her attention. A line of white was crossing her path ahead of her and much lower. She instantly slowed, and descended, flying and manipulating the view screen at the same time. She could see the white line was still forming, but the reason she had not been able to put it at the center of her view screen was that it was changing course from time to time, and descending. That was a contrail she was watching form. It suddenly turned directly away from her and increased speed. The contrail made the shape of the object indistinct from behind, but at this speed and altitude, with the narrow double lobbed trail it left in its wake, she knew this was a stubby winged shuttlecraft.

She activated her radar sensor array, and brought her lasers on line. The radar return had a rear profile consistent with a Krall shuttle, like the two she was carrying. That wasn’t a unique enough identification. She wanted a side or lookdown view, which the craft suddenly provided her. It made a hard right turn, and the silhouette was a perfect match for a Krall shuttle.

A shuttle certainly couldn’t perform a Jump, so that meant there had to be a clanship that had brought it here. Her duty was obvious, destroy the shuttle and seek the clanship. Her talon tips activated radar tracking to lock onto the now weaving target. It couldn’t evade a tracking laser, and clearly, their frantic evasion was in recognition of the predator they knew was on their trail.

Just before the weapons console displayed a solid track lock on the gyrating little ship, she debated calling them first to see if she could learn who they were, or to simply to kill them. She should have chosen the latter, and should have done it sooner. The distraction ahead had masked the three predators diving on her from behind, who never considered asking who she was. They simultaneously fired sixteen plasma cannon bolts at her.

As the rear of Koldok’s craft disintegrated, she remembered in the final fraction of a second: The fiercest killers of this planet work as a team, to draw your attention away from the death stalking you from behind. Like the rippers that had provided so many of their genes.

****

Thad, who’d been in continuous Comtap communication with Reynolds, listened to the complaints of the “bait.”

“You just had to see if I could fly as good as I claimed didn’t ya? Nothing like letting the man who gave an arm and a leg for this planet lose his ass too. They can’t grow those back ya know.”

“Sarge, they weren’t ready to fire on you. Our sensors hadn’t picked up the high frequency Doppler pulse increases from a tracking lock. We didn’t want them to pick up our radar either, or else they’d have manually shot your butt off before running. If they climbed out and Jumped, all of our gooses would’ve been cooked. We got in close before they knew we were coming and had an easy visual kill.”

“How’d you know they wouldn’t shoot me manually anyway?” He was still annoyed.

Dillon had to join the fun. “Hmm. Damn, we never thought of that. Besides, you were doing such a fine job wiggling like a worm on a hook. Even we paused to admire your work.”

Noreen ended the teasing. “Sarge, my AI, reported when it activated radar, and it was in auto scan mode. It was logical to think it would first lock on and track you for automatic fire control, just as they’ve always done. It didn’t switch from a scanning Doppler mode to a fast pulse hard lock or we’d have pulled our triggers immediately. You proved to be too fast and twisty for good manual targeting.

“They obviously saw you visually right away, since the clanship quickly turned and dropped towards your contrail. Had it taken long-range manual pot shots at you right then we’d have fired lasers and plasma as soon as they did. We wouldn’t leave you hanging like that. That was a hell of a smart idea of yours, drawing them down into atmosphere where they couldn’t Jump. Brave too. With attention focused on you, it kept them from seeing us sneak up behind.

“Because it didn’t fly and shoot at the same time, I think there was a single Krall on the command deck, and it had its talons full doing everything all alone. Accurate manual shooting while following your zigzag path would have been hard. You had your throttles maxed out I think.”

“Besides,” Thad added, “you received the same Comtap reports from Jura continent as we did. It apparently wasn’t expecting to find us, and it was practically on a damned sightseeing trip initially. It did a low White Out instead of pausing farther out to observe, placing it far below our geosynchronous communications satellites. There was nothing in orbit for it to see at a hundred fifty miles. We were damn lucky that the three of us were out testing the ballistics of the rail gun, and those .50 cal belt fed guns. Any other ships would have had to load crew and launch, and they might have seen them lifting from Prime or Hub City.”

Reynolds, no longer sounding pissed after the praise from Noreen, said, “The back of this shuttle was crammed full of ammo cases for those machine guns too. I had almost finished loading them when that bastard did its White Out. As soon as it was obvious it was headed in the direction of Prime City, I got airborne. Frankly, I didn’t think any ships were close enough to intercept. I didn’t want it blasting the dome before our people could get down to shelter in the abandoned factory. I’d intended to poke it in the eye with my shuttle lasers when it came close. That was before you three let everyone know you were inbound.”

“You know perfectly well those lasers won’t hurt a clanship, right?” Thad asked, knowing his friend knew that.

“Maybe, but I figured I could get its attention for a time, get it to chase me. Just like climbing high enough to make contrails did.”

Dillon eased up and thanked him. “Sarge, you’re one crazy assed man. As you well know, I’m the human expert on crazy, just ask the Torki. We owe you man.”

“Fine. You can make a down payment when we get to Prime City. I heard crashing all around back there when I made those sharp turns, so I assume the unsecured cases broke open and that loose ammo is all over the place. I’ll let you guys repack it, and I’ll drink Death Lime and rum and watch you work.”

Mirikami had been remotely monitoring the Comtap messages, but he and Maggi were out of the system on a test Jump in the repaired Mark. He couldn’t suggest anything that his people weren’t already doing, so he hadn’t distracted them earlier. He’d turned back to Koban immediately, and they were forced to wait anxiously to see if the clanship could be destroyed before it made an escape.

This event was too much like the day the first clanship had arrived on a casual visit. Koban wasn’t as helpless as it was back then, but they couldn’t defend the two-planet system from even a quarter of the Krall fleet.

In a group link with his friends, he called and offered his grim assessment. “We’re on borrowed time. This is only the second visit by a Krall clanship in twenty-three years, and we know the first one was on an illegal hunting trip. Medford has probably tried to offer us up on a silver platter to Telour, but had no solid clues for where we are. Otherwise, this would have been a fleet, or at least multiple ships, not a lone wolf. We don’t have a survivor to Mind Tap this time, and that clanship isn’t going to return to where it came from when expected.

“With the clanship shortages we’ve help create, I don’t think many unnecessary flights are being made, and the Krall don’t take vacations. We have to assume this loss will be noticed when it fails to return, and we can expect a follow up visit. I propose to recall all of our ships back for home defense, and we should consider loading up some of the migration ships for an evacuation contingency. Let me hear your comments and ideas.”

“Do you mean load up our people? Including Prada, Torki, and Raspani?” That was Noreen, her emotions and surprise revealing her shock through the link.

Mirikami didn’t reject it outright. “I suppose if anyone wanted to board early I wouldn’t refuse them, but I was only thinking of packing up some of our critical technology, if we have to find somewhere to rebuild. Things from the Torki and Raspani technology labs, Max’s physics lab, and Aldry and Rafe’s gene labs, or at least core parts of those technologies, to retain what we have. Sort of like we did for gene mods, with a duplicate program at Heavyside.”

Dillon had a practical observation. “The migration ships we took have more than enough room for the combined populations here and on Haven. Even with ten thousand or so new Kobani, from transformed spec ops and other invited converts, the entire human population could cram into a single migration ship if it had too. Not that we would do that, but they have a large capacity. We’re outnumbered by rescued Prada two to one now, but they use less room than we do, and Raspani are still in short supply. What? About eleven thousand of them with embeds, and several thousand wild blanks when they can make enough mind enhancers.

“Raspani need more room than humans but one migration ship is enough. The Torki are the tougher ones to move. Not so many of them. About twelve thousand, but for a long Jump they need a lot of water and probably two ships. Even so, we could even take along a great deal of the things we bought in Human Space. At least if we had time to load them. What I can’t see, though, is our having enough time to pack the ships. Our people won’t do it until they know for sure we have to leave.”

Thad put in his two cents. “Then like Tet suggested, we set up one or two ships with contingency loads, and stash them well away from the inner system. Land them on one of the gas giant moons. Keep Jump tachyons in their Traps at all times.”

Maggi didn’t like the sense of defeatism she was hearing, particularly from her husband. “We need to strike first Tet. Hit the Krall before they hit us. You know what I mean. Take out their ability to come after us here by pinning them on K1.”

“Well, I’m not one to give up a fight quickly,” Sarge said, but he pointed out some practical limits on attacking the Krall first. “At any given time, one quarter of the Krall fleet is helping to supply or providing ground support for the Poldark invasion, another quarter is doing that at New Dublin. The rest are at K1, or points in between in Jump travel, making new equipment pickups at their production worlds, or on clan business to base worlds. That’s too large a volume of space for only a hundred fourteen of our ships to cover. We had hoped to have the navy with us at first, but Medford has made that impossible.”

Mirikami had a partial counter for the Poldark and New Dublin situation. “We have army help on the invaded planets, with their planetary defenses able to reach ships arriving and departing, and spec ops can get close to those sitting on the ground. I just don’t know if we can deliver enough of the new ammunition in the three or four weeks we might have.”

“Why only three or four weeks Tet?”

“Sarge, that clanship most likely came from K1 if was deliberately sent to check out Koban. A week and a half to wait for it to return, a couple of days before being considered overdue, and then a fleet of clanships sent here to see what happened to the first ship would take a week and a half. Roughly four weeks, a few days less if Telour’s in a hurry.”

“Don’t think that would happen, Tet. Weren’t the Krall forming a new Joint Council, per the aide you captured on Huwayla? Telour rushed to get that planet smasher into action before a new council could consider altering his plan. The new council isn’t going to be rubber-stamping Telour’s ideas. Consider our damaging attack on K1, the busted invasion force, the fact that his four-world destruction idea only half worked, and then they lost a lot of clanships in failed raids at Alders and New Glasgow. He can’t be the most popular war leader right now. Would a possibly hostile Joint Council agree to let Telour send the whole fleet to check out Koban, because of a single overdue clanship?”

Mirikami paid him another compliment. “When did you get so deep and astute Sarge? That’s a pretty good analysis.”

He had a pithy explanation, as usual. “Nothing like having your ass caught in a crack to sharpen your mind. Sort of pushes the blood flow up to the gray cells.”

“I’ll have to try that technique. In any case, Telour would still send more than a single clanship the next time, assuming that he did send this one. Two decades after the only previous visit here, and we know that Medford is trying to sell us out for political gain. There has to be a connection, and I think this ship probably was sent here in a cover-my-ass sort of move by Telour. Even the pilot today didn’t take the possibility of human survival here seriously, or he wouldn’t have been so careless. The next visit will be more careful, and will have at least two clanships, one to standoff at a safe distance to watch the other one investigate.”

“He’d probably send a more typical hand of ships.” Noreen pointed out. “Think we can ambush four of them before one of them Jumps?”

“Probably not, but what difference would that make anyway, if they don’t return to K1 on time?” Mirikami stated the obvious facts. “They’ll be back in force after that, either way. All we gain is some time, so the round trip between us and K1 is all we’ll have.”

Now even Noreen started talking evacuation. “OK, then what’s the plan, get ready to flee with what we can carry? I support trying to delay them by attacking K1.”

“Noreen, you and Maggi may be right.” Tet said. “We may have to try to hit them again at K1 before they can send a fleet here. We’re safer for longer if they can’t come after us right away. We can always run for distant stars, if that doesn’t work.”

Sarge reminded him of other clanship resources. “Poldark and New Glasgow, Tet. Those clanships commute back and forth weekly, or even more often to K1. They’ll learn who hit K1, and where we are.”

Mirikami sent a mental image of himself shrugging. “One step at a time folks. We might get the navy back on our side when we demonstrate what we have. Medford won’t like it, but a little publicity for our side with some news interviews could turn public opinion around. With Hub manufacturing and navy ships to help with delivery of the new ordinance, we just might be able to slam the door before the Krall figure out what we did and how we did it.

“Just to let you know, the Mark will be back at Haven in a few hours. After our White Out, I want to hold an open meeting at the Xenos arena, and let everyone know where we stand, and what our options are. We also need to make the entire system look like a ghost town from a distance.”

****

“Koldok should have returned from that simple mission two days ago.” An agitated Telour was speaking to Demteg, an aide to whom he’d recently given added status, for her helpful information on the unpleasant mood of many of the new Joint Council members. She knew only that Koldok’s mission had started three weeks ago, but not where she had been sent or why.

Telour had apparently not expected the trip to produce any surprises. Only, by not returning on time, her journey had done exactly that, surprised him. His agitation suggested it was of considerable concern to the Tor, and because he was expressing this only with Demteg present, that the resolution would involve her in some fashion. She sensed an opportunity coming, which might earn her additional status from the war leader. She waited to hear what duty he had for her.

Telour’s question was blunt. “How can I secretly send a hand of clanships on a follow up mission to discover what happened to Koldok, and not reveal what I asked her to investigate to the new council? I have enforced strict limits on clanship use, and I will not ask the council for approval for this. They would want an explanation, which I am not ready to provide.”

She thought only seconds, which for a Krall is time for deep reflection. “The council is angry that repairs to salvageable clanships are hampered by the factories the humans damaged in the attack. There are over three hands of Jump capable clanships, which were damaged internally when ruptured fusion bottles inside loaded equipment vented their plasma. Appoint your own commander and pilots, and divert them to where you sent Koldok. Because they are not operational, the council would probably not know they were sent elsewhere. If you are asked where they are, you can say they were sent for repair off world. Then you actually send them for that after they return.”

He was instant in his own decision. “You are the commander. Find three other high status Graka pilots, and four competent warriors for the weapons consoles. The four clanships you select must have all of their energy weapons operational, and if any of their launchers function, they need anti-ship missiles.”

This sounded like a chance to earn significant status to Demteg. “What do I tell our warriors about the purpose of the mission, my Tor, and status for them?” That was something she needed to know herself of course, in order to inform them.

There was no point in being less than blunt now. “The highest human clan leader has said that the most effective human fighters are a clan not under her control, and they call themselves Kobani. These new fighters flew our stolen clanships against us. Their name for themselves contains the sound ko ban in our language, and a human custom is to use the place where they live as part of their clan name. Our very first human prisoners called our future home world by the name Koban.”

He saw she made the connection, humans using Krall words and making them a name for a place. Something the Krall didn’t do for places. It was nearly inconceivable to consider this a valid link, thinking humans lived on a planet the Krall had not been able to master.

Telour proved that he felt the same way. “It was impossible for humans to live there without our protections, and the prisoners were left exposed to the native life before we left. Even if other humans later discovered the planet so far from their own frontiers, they would not try to live there and build a base. They have many safer worlds for that. To be efficient I sent Koldok in secret, to confirm our future home was untouched. She was not permitted to land, only to observe, and her sensors were recording everything so she would have obeyed me. She has not returned.”

“My Tor, I will select the most suitable of the damaged clanships immediately, and select those warriors I will lead. Do you wish to speak with the clan mates I take?”

“I speak only to you. No other connection will be made to me. You will divide the status points as you decide. I award you a hundred thousand of the status points I earned when the human world of Meadow died.” He made the simple point transfer to her clan account on the computer system in the command center while she observed.

She had been obligated to ask if he wanted to meet the other warriors, but the nature of the mission meant that the Tor’s only direct link was through her. If she failed him, that link was easily broken, as it was with Koldok. She would not fail. With a successful return, no matter what was discovered, her future was secure with the Tor. He rewarded loyalty and performance.

Chapter 23: Discovered Check

The Mark was standing watch in a Normal Space drive powered stationary position at two hundred miles, and not in orbit. It had been there alone for three days. Mirikami knew the round trip time between Koban and K1, and he had allowed for this margin of response time. He had the Mark constantly positioned on the side towards where the Krall would White Out if they came. They would use the most direct approach they always preferred, and he wanted them to sight the Mark immediately if they came.

The remainder of the hundred thirteen Kobani ships had spent the same three days on Kratos, Koban’s moon, where they wouldn’t show on radar scans. The geosynchronous communications satellites were stowed inside one of the Orbital Based Only passenger liners circling Kratos, all of them placed where the Krall had left them twenty-three years ago.

The com satellites over Haven were similarly hidden, even though Koban was where the visitors, if they came, were expected to look first. The Torki migration ships were sitting on several of the larger moons of the two outer gas giants. As decided, two of them contained key parts of alien and human technologies, and people from the four species that knew how it worked. Surprisingly few aliens had chosen to board the other migration ships, although several thousand humans from Haven had done so.

Except for Kobani crews to watch after them, none of that portion of the fully gene modified population had elected to prepare for an evacuation. It was the non-Kobani that boarded, who knew they would only be in the way of a fight. The majority of them now considered Haven home, and didn’t want to leave. They understood that they were unlikely to be welcomed in Human Space anyway, and a new planet would have to be found to settle if they needed to flee.

On radio frequencies, the entire system had been quiet for five days, in case the Krall made a remote stop first in the outer system just to listen. With Comtaps, Olts, and mind enhancers, no group was out of contact for news. Their constant chatter via quantum entanglement, through Tachyon Space was undetectable so long as they avoided the electromagnetic spectrum for those devices in local mode.

Impatience was growing after three uneventful days, even as Mirikami was saying patience was now most needed. He broadcast on the universal link, “Tell everyone that we are now at the center of the highest probability window for their return if they’re coming.”

Maggi was sympathetic. “Keeping kids home and out of school for three days has to be wearing on parents nerves. I’m antsy, and all I have is you pacing around the Bridge every waking moment, checking sensors, making sure the damned sleepless AI is awake.”

“I can’t shut my mind off, thinking of what we might lose. I don’t doubt I need to relax and get my mind on something else.”

“Then why don’t you watch an old movie with me? Perhaps read a damned book. Stop asking Jakob something every hour about things that you already know. I wish you’d had the boys stay with you here on the Mark, to play poker and swap lies. I’d rather listen to you four bicker and pick on each other than hear your feet clumping around the Bridge, while you address some minor detail or petty emergency with someone on the ground.”

By boys, she meant Dillon, Thad, and Sarge, who were on Kratos waiting for something to happen. There was no one else on the Mark, and Mirikami had met “Tiger Lady” Fisher again when he suggested that only he had to be here, to act as bait if the Krall returned with a small number of clanships. When his backside healed from the chewing out, he appreciated how congenial she became when she got her way. Which, upon reflection, he decided was much of the time.

If he’d misjudged Telour’s influence with the new Joint Council, they might come in force with a fleet. Although, he now agreed with Sarge, that they had probably busted the bubble of invulnerability that Telour had lived inside of as the Krall war leader. He’d had his nose repeatedly rubbed in setbacks since he’d taken on the mantle of Tor Gatrol. The last completely successful action for the Krall was the invasion of New Dublin, and that had been engineered by Kanpardi, not Telour.

This Tor had a blemish on everything he’d ordered done or tried to do, he was too arrogant and self-assured, convinced of his own brilliance, and he blamed his failures on poor performance of weaker clans, or of the random luck of his enemies. The billions of dead at Meadow and more to come at Bootstrap might label him a successful killer, but he’d missed his larger more vital targets. The roughly twenty billion additional lives he had intended to kill on Pittsburg II and Earth-Mars would detract, in Krall minds anyway, from what he’d said he would do.

He was forced to abandon a third concurrent invasion after the K1 attack, then two large punitive raids were repelled with significant losses, leaving the original fleet half in ruins. The domes hit on K1 wouldn’t weigh too heavy on him. The habitats were unimportant property, and not considered tools of war. He probably had benefitted from a comparative increase in stature over other leaders, due to the loss of so many other high status clan leaders in those domes.

Mirikami finally succumbed to prodding by Maggi, to go below and eat a hot meal rather than the sandwiches and snacks, and occasional plate she had brought to him on the Bridge for two days. He was ordered to take a hot shower, change to fresh clothes, and then he’d feel like a new man.

Naturally, that was when the three White Outs were instantly reported by Jakob, to a Mirikami with an unclosed tunic, one leg in his pants, and hair still wet. He probably set a galactic record for a half-dressed man to leap twenty feet over the Bridge railing from the lower deck. He flashed an irritated look at his wife while swallowing the final bite of the rhinolo steak he’d rushed through for his lunch, as he slipped on his boots.

Even before Mirikami could swallow that last morsel, Maggi had calmly initiated the Normal Space drive thrust to move them smoothly into what would look like a normal two hundred mile high equatorial orbit, and had already opened the four main portals on the lowest deck.

That bottom level had been sealed off and in vacuum for three days, so there was no meaningful escape of residual atmosphere. Stealth wasn’t an issue either, because they had none activated. Not even the less effective stealth level that the three Krall clanships were using. If you were not expecting to be attacked at your secret base, you didn’t need stealth. The Mark was the proverbial sitting duck, and intended to be noticed.

The clanships had arrived at about ten thousand miles out, spaced several miles apart, not so close that a single Novae missile could destroy them all at once, but close enough for mutual fire support. Before his bare feet had hit the bridge decking, a fourth White Out gamma ray burst revealed the arrival of the standoff clanship Mirikami had predicted. That burst arrived about five seconds later, which if they had all Jumped together, suggested the observer clanship was a little over nine hundred thirty thousand miles away.

The Mark had no radar scans active, as befit a ship not expecting visitors, but Jakob, with the direction of the arriving gamma rays as his locater, spotted the first three clanships at about where they expected them if they had come from K1. Although, they could have come from almost anywhere in Human Space for that matter, since Koban was so far from there.

Wide spaced Doppler spectrum pulses arrived in seconds from two of the clanships. It was the wide beam automatic scan mode for two of the ships, scanning the entire volume of space near Koban.

The third clanship was using a narrower beam that was directed only towards the planet, checking for objects in orbit. It quickly shifted to a needle sharp beam of tracking mode, and Jakob told them it was now following them. It automatically narrowed to a tight beam for any targets it found. The Krall tracking systems could have used narrow tracking beams for a hundred twenty eight separate targets, but the Mark was the only beneficiary of that close attention right now.

Jakob knew to notify them if the tracking pulse rate suddenly increased for initial accurate missile guidance, as happened just before a launch. Missiles would employ their own radar tracking after launch, and the clanship could fire and forget if they wanted to Jump away. It was possible to fire a missile without that helpful initial course guidance, but the missile was subject to its own target selection in that case, and might not choose wisely. That also had a characteristic signal that Jakob would warn them of if detected.

With their own radar tracking locked onto the Mark, and no radar from the Mark active, the Krall knew the unknown clanship wasn’t preparing to launch a missile. Even opening a missile port where it could alter hull reflectivity on an unstealthed clanship would alert them. The base portals were already open, so no changes would be seen from there.

Maggi was already secured in her acceleration couch, and Mirikami settled into his, as it automatically formed around him. “OK, Jakob, time to shoot our pop guns at them.” Mirikami ordered.

“Is that the .50 caliber machine guns Sir, or the railgun?”

“For the two machine guns that can bear on their general positions, a short burst of fifty slugs each. Don’t rotate the ship to bring other portals to bear. I just want to get their attention.”

Maggi was confused. “Tet, they’re ten thousand miles away. These are completely wasted shots. They’ll be long gone before those slugs can reach them.”

“Oh, we’d never reach them if they sat still, even if we were on target. These are slow ballistic slugs. Koban’s gravity will slow them and they’ll eventually fall back.”

“So why do it?”

“To start them analyzing what we fired at them early, before they get closer.”

“From that range can they see the bullets?”

“We tested, and the tight tracking beam they have on us will see the metallic reflections of the hundred or so slugs coming up that beam, causing Doppler shifts. The slugs will soon drift out of the beam but they’ll have seen them on their sensor suite. I want them to see them more times if I get the chance, so they know what they are, and ignore them.”

“Why would they ignore .50 cal bullets in space? A hole is a hole, is it not?”

“Not to a clanship’s armored hull. The machine gun slugs might nick the stealth coating is all. A massive rail gun slug, at orbital velocity plus several more miles per second when fired can penetrate. Except, at Poldark with hundreds of railgun platforms like the one we have, they probably have never seriously damaged a clanship. They were designed to send a signal on impact, to locate where a stealthed clanship was for directing more powerful plasma and laser fire. Sometimes a pilot will change course to avoid the heavy slugs for that reason, or simply because they don’t want a hole in their ship or damage to their stealth. Our railgun might be used to shift them to where I want them, in the path of the smaller slugs.”

“When will that happen?”

“Soon, they’re accelerating inwards towards us.” He spoke to the AI again.

“Jakob, fire a few hundred rounds along our general back track from each of the four guns and release the Railgun.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Frankly, I didn’t expect them to be so cautious. I thought they’d micro Jump behind us. That’s why I just sprayed or back trail. In case…, Oops!” He saw a sensor reading change.

Jakob said, “A single White Out behind us Sir. Rail gun was released, and is firing.” Internal inertial compensation jerked them around as the AI maneuvered the ship.

It followed that report with, “Railgun is firing behind the trailing clanship.”

Both Mirikami and Maggi morphed their chairs into couches for acceleration. A video repeater of the console display was extruded nearly overhead, so each could see while semi reclined. “Jakob, they shifted closer to move away from the railgun slugs. That’s the one that had us track locked earlier, right?”

“Yes, Sir. The other two clanships are still accelerating as before. The trailing clanship is locked on us again but it’s too close for a missile launch. It could fire plasma cannons and lasers.”

Mirikami was surprised it was as close as it was, but excited as well. “Taking attitude and gun control.”

“Yes, Sir”

Mirikami used reaction thrusters in the bow to kick the ship’s attitude sideways, while maintaining the Normal Space drive thrust vector in the same direction, still accelerating along the same equatorial orbit Maggi had initiated. In vacuum, with a reactionless drive, it didn’t matter what profile the ship presented as it raced ahead. He could as easily have accelerated facing the opposite direction of their motion.

Mirikami sighted in the clanship by use of the joystick on his armrest, and started firing. Only two of the machine guns in the hold started blazing away in silent vacuum, aimed at the silhouette of the pursuing clanship located less than a mile behind and slightly lower than they were. The other two guns couldn’t bear on the designated target and he didn’t fire them.

“Depress the barrels Sir, you are aiming too high.”

He quickly pushed on the joystick the guns were slaved to on his armrest, doing as the AI instructed, watching the targeting symbol move below the clanship’s image. He quickly said, “Take over firing and navigation Jakob.”

It may be too late, he thought, angry with himself after drawing them in close where he wanted and missing his shots.

Just then, a plasma bolt flashed on his screen and he assumed invisible laser fire was also beamed their direction. The ship started the typical rapid rotation, to distribute any heat, and the four machine guns continued to fire as each portal came to bear. The AI kept the display image steady for them despite the spin, but the feeling of spinning was disconcerting despite the inertial compensation being applied.

The Normal Space drive’s thrust vector suddenly changed, and savage acceleration slammed against them at near black out levels as the spinning Mark, still moving sideways but with its nose pointed away from the planet, shot away with a huge thrust vector along its tail to nose axis. The Mark rapidly shot away from the planet. The two passengers were pressed deeply into their couches, the crushing and unexpected extreme pressure coming up against their backs from their couches.

The pressure quickly eased, and Mirikami fought his way back to full awareness. “What happened?” his eyesight had briefly gone to tunnel vision, and he’d not been able to see his screen. Unprepared for the burst of g’s, he’d not used his legs and abdominal muscles to force blood to his brain as he’d normally do for a boost like that. There was no clanship on his screen and the guns had ceased firing.

Jakob explained. “The chasing ship suddenly backed off, despite the railgun slugs aimed behind it, and I detected a missile prelaunch signal from their tracking radar. Our axis at a right angle from our direction of motion allowed me to apply maximum thrust to try to avoid the pending missile launch.”

Maggi, proving she was alert and part of the Comtap exchange said, “You got Nav control back just in time then.”

“No, Mam. It was too late.”

“Wait. What?” Mirikami sure felt alive.

“Sir, the missiles were not launched, and the clanship has continued along our former course, which is well below and beyond our former position now.”

“Where are the other two clanships now?” He asked quickly. He didn’t know what happened to save their butts from his mistake, but he wasn’t going to repeat it again.

“Both remain on Normal Space drive and are descending towards us, but are still thousands of miles away and higher. They apparently were waiting for the ship behind us to fire their missiles. I believe there were four missiles selected, based on the number of open launch ports I detected.”

“Why didn’t at least one of the four missiles fire?” Maggi seemed to be questioning their survival, as had Mirikami.

“I cannot say Mam.”

“Jakob, when either of those two clanships reaches us or Jumps close, you have full control of weapons and navigation. I’ll just Comtap my instruction to you. I nearly got us killed, just like some damned Krall warrior’s ego would do. Don’t forget to keep firing the machine guns when they’re chasing us, range doesn’t matter much. Is the rail gun too far behind us now, to fire on the next two ships?”

“The railgun can fire on them Sir. Should I do so?”

“Be sure to fire where they will be, not where they are, like I did with the machineguns.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Maggi asked, “Tet, what did you meant by that?”

“Jakob, controlling the railgun, fired to fill the space several miles behind us with the heavy slugs. They moved up close behind us to avoid them. If not, the railgun slugs would reach them. Up close, the machinegun slugs could do the job.

“I took attitude control to rotate the ship, nose-away from Koban, to let the guns in the hold bear on the chase ship, since we can’t shoot at an object directly behind us. Only we were under lateral acceleration by the Normal Space drive. I stupidly shot where the clanship would be if we were both at a constant velocity. The steady acceleration we both had moved him past the spreading field of slugs I sent their way before they could reach him. They were in a perfect position and I missed. I’m faster than a Krall, but not as good as the AI. I could have gotten us killed. Should have, actually. I wonder why they held fire with the missiles.”

Maggi, not grasping all the Spacer mechanics of orbits and accelerations, asked a series of questions. “Remind me again why we’re shooting what you called pop guns at them? Wasn’t that the point of all this crazy crap? To apply our discovery that one of the Mark’s keypads was close enough to receive the untrusted DNA code list from Huwayla’s nearest airlock hatch?”

“Well yes, but…” He was interrupted.

“Then that list propagated through all the quantum device locks on this entire ship. After that, we let that list infect the new chips we installed inside all the bullets. Did I miss anything, did I understand the point of all this?”

“Uh, yea. But even if I’d hit them a minute ago, or when Jakob did, it would affect only door locks, plasma rifles, Dragons, body armor …,” he trailed off in thought.

She stared at him, and pulled meaningfully at her lower lip in mimicry. “And weapons consoles, genius?”

He looked sheepish. “We didn’t test that. We couldn’t risk letting Dorkda reach the Bridge or a weapons console, as Bithdol did. Besides, we were all sitting up here watching him when he was unable to open any doors on the ship, and he couldn’t activate that plasma rifle. That’s all we tested.”

She asked Jakob, “What has that clanship done since it went past us?”

“It has not changed direction, although its automatic radar system is still locked on and tracking us in prelaunch mode. Its velocity will take it on an elongated elliptical orbit around Koban unless it applies thrust or it Jumps.”

Her acceleration couch released her on command and she stood up and tapped him on an arm, “There you go, master planner. The modified slugs worked like you thought they would. Replacing the Krall Killer chips with Torki made door lock circuits, which were brought within a hundred twenty two feet of one from the Mark, successfully blocks Olt’kitapi circuits from activating for an untrusted species. You just locked the bastards inside a ship they can no longer control!”

“Not me. I completely missed them. It was probably Jakob that fired the shots that worked.” He ended that statement with a loud Yipe.

“Damn. No wonder Dillon wore a cup around you. That stung.”

“Well, straighten up and get ready for the other two clanships lover. I’ll tell the others we have our next chess move for the Krall to discover.”

****

Demteg, briefed by Telour concerning his last sight of the Koban system as the Krall fleet departed to start the war, relied on his battlefield memory description, and the images that were recorded. They activated radar scans to search nearby space for threats, but her motion sensitive Krall vision quickly spotted one object, a pinprick of reflection actually, moving across the distant visual image of the planet.

Radar tracking was initiated, and a visual screen zoom revealed it was a clanship in a low orbit. If it was Koldok, there should be a radio contact in response to the White Outs. If not her, then some other reaction, hostile or evasive.

Her two companion clanships used line of sight laser com to inform her that the moon had a number of orbiting large human spacecraft, which appeared dead and cold. That was as she was told to expect by Telour. Her console’s wide spectrum electromagnetic sensors still had detected no radio traffic or radar pulses. That matched with readings they made when they paused briefly, three light-days out, to scan for residual communication signals that didn’t belong here.

If this was Koldok’s clanship, and it had suffered battle damage or system failure in its Jump Drive or tachyon Traps, she would still have fusion power for radios and life support. Demteg didn’t know if that other clanship was taken from the salvageable lists of those awaiting repair at Telda Ka, as the four in her command were. The four clanships she had selected each had various internal problems.

Hers was the only clanship of the four in her command with any functioning missile launchers. The escaping star hot plasma from ruptured fusion bottles had heated the interiors of all four ships to where some equipment components had melted. Not to mention the stench of the roasted dead crews left in place to decay. The other three clanships had carried full loads of mini-tanks, plasma battery carts, and ordinary trucks loaded with rifles and ammunition. At least two fusion bottles had ruptured inside each of them. Her clanship, which still carried its load of ruined heavy armored transports, only had one fusion bottle sabotaged. Because the plasma had been partially contained within a transport located on the lowest deck, not as much damage was done to the upper missile launchers. She had two launchers that worked. That was why she investigated the clanship they found here. It also provided a justification for her retention of the largest share of the status points. Her comrades didn’t know how generous the Tor Gatrol had been.

She approached cautiously at first, to give the other pilot, if it was Koldok, time to respond. She would have White Out alarms set, and could be below attempting repairs or even eating. When no radio call came, she decided to get in behind the other clanship.

She readied for a visual micro Jump to go in several miles behind the silent clanship. Getting a report from Koldok would be useful after her weeks here, but this behavior, despite being non-threatening, was bizarre.

Just as she was about to activate the Jump, her weapons operator issued a warning. “Sub leader. They have fired small metallic objects at us. They appear to be low velocity and very small.”

“Low velocity? We’re too far away even for laser or plasma cannons.”

“True. They would never reach us anyway, climbing from the gravity well. I don’t know their purpose. Too small to be a useful weapon. Perhaps it’s a signal.”

She reconsidered her Jump, reference the spreading objects that would now be falling behind the accelerating clanship. Instead of her exit at about three miles. She manually tapped a point on her navigation console that would White Out closer to the target than those objects would be. Her seat-of-the-pants flight style brought them so close that they were just outside missile warhead arming range.

“They released a large object and they’re accelerating slightly.” That was from Dolbat, her weapons operator. “It’s coasting, but our own acceleration will bring us closer.”

He appeared about to target a plasma cannon at it when he shouted a hasty warning. “It’s a railgun and it’s firing at us.”

Seeing the radar returns of dozens of heavy large slugs, she promptly maneuvered and moved closer to the other clanship, ahead of their path. These rounds sometimes had limited steering capability, so she also dropped lower to be below them. That was when she noted the radar profile of the clanship had altered from a tail-on slim target, to an elongated side view, even though it was still using its reactionless drive to continue to accelerate in the original direction. It had rotated so its bow pointed away from the planet below. With no atmosphere, the ship’s attitude with respect to its direction of travel was irrelevant.

What was less irrelevant was the sudden swarm of small metallic objects, which originated from the two open main portals. The ship had never been stealthed, so the open portals had gone unnoticed at a distance. Someone was firing simple small projectile weapons at her clanship. Their low velocity and mass had already been noted by Dolbat, and were clearly too small to damage them. Besides, they were poorly aimed and they would all pass above them. Her acceleration would move them out of their future path.

“Kill them,” she ordered. Whoever they were they didn’t act like Krall, and unlike the humans at Telda Ka, this foe used ineffective projectile weapons. With a Normal Space drive, they did have tachyon power and possibly energy weapons. Turned sideways, some of those weapons could now fire behind their direction of travel.

Demteg saw Dolbat fire the only plasma cannon of the two that were operational at the oddly positioned ship, and all four lasers were on automatic. She noted that none of the energy beam weapons ports of the other ship was open. Their first plasma bolt glanced off a closed plasma cannon port, and the lasers needed more time to penetrate. The other ship started a rapid rotation to disperse the heat, and continued to fire those useless small projectiles. There appeared to be a slug thrower mounted in each portal. She ignored the sleet of harmless projectiles.

Demteg had backed off on her own acceleration to let the other clanship pull ahead enough for a missile launch. The radar missile tracker had a shrinking circle on the target, to indicate exactly when it was at a great enough range for a launched missile to arm its warhead. The circle went to zero radius, and she watched Dolbat tap the weapons console to fire the four missiles he’d selected. To avoid the debris blast, she backed completely off their acceleration, and initiated a vector on the reactionless drive to lower their altitude even more, to pass below the expected spread of scrap metal.

Except she didn’t feel the vibration of the four missiles launching, but she could hear the faint pings of the metal pellets deflecting from their armored skin. There was also no sensation of the uncompensated inertial forces of her course change.

Dolbat needed no orders to check for error codes for the missile system that had failed to fire, he was doing that, and he tried to resume firing plasma and lasers, to no avail.

Demteg was first to notice they no longer had a nearby target. The radar lock was still tracking the enemy, but the target was streaking away from the planet so violently that it left no doubt as to who was in control of the other craft. No warrior was likely to have survived the internal acceleration, and no Krall operated spacecraft would have permitted such acceleration anyway. Humans definitely knew about this system.

It took longer than it should have for two of them to realize that nothing on the four-position control console would alter its settings or respond for either one of them. With one exception. The radio communications worked at all four control positions. That feature didn’t require a coded key to access.

Demteg ordered one of her other two clanships to follow the enemy but to not engage on its own. The second pilot was ordered to Jump and rendezvous for a docking with them, to let her and Dolbat transfer from this damaged clanship, coasting on a ballistic course that would be many days in returning close to the planet. It was obvious that it had suffered some unsuspected internal computer malfunction at a critical moment. Both clanships would then join in the destruction of the lone enemy craft if it stayed in the system. This rescue of her now meant the other warriors would demand a greater share of her status award. Perhaps she could extract more payment from Telour, when he learned the shocking news that humans at least knew about their future home world. Telour’s own prestige would increase because he had acted on his own to protect their species future home.

She cautioned the remote observer to remain clear of the enemy, and to return to Telda Ka regardless of the outcome here. They had to report that there was at least a limited human presence in this star system.

She and Dolbat would don their armor, stowed below on the lowest deck, for the quick transfer. No docking tube needed to be mated with any of the airlocks. Both clanships would open a main portal, and the two of them would push off to coast through the other ship’s portal, into the artificial gravity once inside its hold.

They found they could also operate the external view screen controls, and observed as the other clanship approach them, and slowly pulled alongside, about two ship lengths away. They went down the stairs at a run, and pulled their armor out of the stowage lockers where it hung.

Their next problem was encountered when they donned their helmets, and they couldn’t activate every suit function. Life support worked, and they would pressure seal, but the visor projection system didn’t activate. They used shoulder mounted com sets to speak to the nearby clanship pilot, who was standing off until they were ready. It was possible to remove the opaque armored covering over the clear face visor, and simply look out through the blank imaging screen without any data being presented there.

She tapped her shoulder com set. “We’re ready. Our suits don’t have normal power assisted movement, sensors, or visor screens, but will pressure seal. Tell us when you are close, and which portal of ours we should use. We’ll open that one and let the atmosphere blow out. We can’t activate the air pump controls to lower internal pressure first. We’ll jump across when we see your open portal.”

The other pilot acknowledged. “I’ve pumped the atmosphere from the hold, and I just opened a portal. I’ll maneuver next to your portal number three. I’ll tell you when we are close enough for the transfer.” It was strange to have to do this, but not particularly difficult,

In moments, they had their notification. “I am two leaps from your hull. Open your portal as I slow my drift towards you.”

Demteg and Dolbat took a firm grip to resist the decompression gusts when the portal would whip up into its storage slot. She pressed the key pad to open the hatch. She pressed it again, and again. It didn’t activate. Dolbat went to the next portal, and it didn’t open either. They were about to try the other hatches when they heard a loud clang and felt a sharp jolt.

The other pilot called. “Sub leader, my reaction thruster control has failed. I collided gently with you, but if you jump before we drift apart, you can still transfer. You need to hurry.”

When none of the portals would open, and the other pilot reported his reactionless drive also would not respond to return them to near proximity, Demteg looked at her clan mate. There was a mutual understanding of their predicament, without a comprehension of how it had happened. They were not getting off this clanship, and even their rescuer was now in need of rescue.

****

Mirikami watched with interest as the two clanships approached slowly, apparently to dock he thought, or to generate a large Jump Hole to take the other ship in tow. With the fourth observer ship safely standing off so far away, it was an extreme long shot to get to that one. There was one following him in their new wider orbit, and he was watching what happened to the other two, now about a hundred feet apart, he estimated.

Maggi was below, changing ammo belts on the .50 cal guns. She said two belts had a hundred or so rounds, but he told her to switch them all over to new boxes, with fresh thousand round belts. She should have been done by now, but he didn’t want to aggravate her by asking if she needed any help.

Then he saw what he’d been waiting for, and let out a whoop on Comtap for all to hear, with a feeling of satisfaction sent along. “The second ship just lightly banged into the one we disabled, and it’s rebounding, with both doing a bit of a rotation as they part. I’m almost positive the second one is now disabled. The virus infection, or whatever you call it, is also passed from ship to ship, and not just from our infectious little bullets.”

“That’s great cowboy,” Maggi said. “Now how about you boosting us ahead a little bit, along the same exact track we’ve been on, with our trailing coyote following our scent. I want him to keep his metaphorical nose on our trail. I have some droppings I want him to sniff.”

“What are you talking about? You back to western analogies again?”

“My Love, better humor me or get whacked.”

Dillon chimed in. “Speaking from past experience, Tet, she doesn’t bluff.”

“Too late for that warning, so thanks for nothing. I’m letting Jakob gently increase our speed while holding to the same orbital arc. How much of a lead do you want? He’s twenty miles behind, and has been staying back there for ten minutes while we watched these other two get close enough to dance. There has been some encrypted radio traffic, but nothing from the guy behind us.”

“See if you can get him to move up the twenty miles he was behind us when I asked you to boost speed. How about increasing speed twelve hundred miles per hour, but gradual. It won’t take much more than a minute to see if this works at that speed.”

“If what works?”

“Be patient. I didn’t criticize you a while ago when you goofed.”

“Yes you did!”

“That wasn’t for the goof of missing the shots, dear twit. It was for not accepting credit for the goofy plan that disabled the ship.”

“Oh. Gee, that sure makes the sting go away. The twit apologizes for not knowing why he was whacked.”

There was almost a minute of silence, as Mirikami watched the pair of clanships slowly tumble apart, clearly not under pilot control. Several radio calls came from the original ship, and a prompt response came from the ship trailing them this time.

“Jakob, have that Jump I called for ready. I also think the one on our tail was just ordered to do something. Boost by fifty g’s and turn sixty degrees starboard. I don’t want to risk a suicidal intersect from him.”

“Hey,” Maggi complained. “He was right where I wanted him.”

“I think we were where he wanted us. I don’t want to be there if he shows up.”

The Mark made a sharp turn and increased speed rapidly.

The enemy continued on the same course, and Maggi, with her visor repeating the navigation presentation, said “Ha. He didn’t Jump, so that turn wasn’t needed.”

“Hmm.” Mirikami thought quickly. “He didn’t react either. Even if he canceled a micro Jump, he’d turn to follow us. Jakob put a radar lock on him and let’s see what he does. Up to now, we’ve not acted as if we had any missiles. Activate full stealth.”

The clanship kept going as before.

With no hesitation, Mirikami said “Jakob, Jump.”

Maggi, startled, said “What?” Then was forced to grab onto something as the ship rotated, the machine guns silently blazing in the vacuum, and four missiles trails streaked away. She was at risk of flying out of one of the four opened portals if she hadn’t grabbed a leg of a secured tripod mount.

Less than a mile away there was a blossoming orange ball of a detonating clanship. “Damn. Was that our coyote?” Maggi suddenly saw the greatly diminished globe of Koban come into view, as the Mark stabilized its rotation, and the machine guns ceased their flashing.

“You got the observer!” She shouted in understanding.

Her open remark was instantly followed by multiple requests for information, via Comtap, from those watching on Kratos.

Mirikami had to shout them all down, with a mental shout. “Stop! Hold on. Let me talk.”

Instant mental silence, expectant silence.

“I realized the observer clanship was five seconds away in light time. It had just heard the sub leader order the clanship behind us to do something. I don’t know what it was told for certain, but whatever it was ordered to do, that observer out here sure as hell wasn’t Jumping before it saw what happened.

“I Jumped out here just when the light from our sudden turn would be reaching the observer. I’d had Jakob previously pick a point a mile behind the observer clanship, knowing it was ready to Jump in an instant. Unlike Krall missiles, mine had the safety interlocks removed, and they were armed when they left the launch tubes. I also fired all the guns to fill the space out here with slugs, to try to disable the ship if the missiles were defeated. I wasn’t oriented properly when I jumped, so I spun the ship to fill the area with chips inside lead slugs. The missiles worked. You saw the flash of the explosion five seconds after we got here. My guess is the observer was still waiting to see the intersect flash of the Mark’s destruction.”

Maggi said, “Could have warned me. I damn near went out the hatch when you spun us around.”

“I’d have picked you up…, eventually.” The grin was implicit in his mental image.

“Hey, that last ship will still get away.” She had just started to relax when that struck her.

Noreen said, “It’s still headed the way it was, before Tet turned away and Jumped.”

Mirikami said, “I think we have Maggi to thank for that, but she’ll have to tell us what she did. That one is as disabled as the other two ships, somehow.”

“Ha, then it worked.” She crowed. “You orbital mechanics and gun slingers don’t have all the answers.”

“What worked?” Sarge’s unmistakable mental pattern was behind that question.

“When I swapped out the ammunition belts there were at least two hundred slugs with chips on them in the old belts. While I confirmed the Krall was still on our trail, I quickly popped the slugs off the belts and threw them out the portals in all directions. They wouldn’t have time to spread far, and they shared our velocity. Then I got Tet to speed up.

“At twelve hundred miles per hour increase, it only takes a minute to travel twenty miles. That’s how many miles he was behind us. He must have sped up and passed close to or bumped into one of the drifting bullets a minute later. That was just when Mister paranoid turned aside and almost lured him off my baited trail.”

Sarge said, “I’ll guess we’ll never know.”

“The hell we won’t.” She rebutted. “He’s still here so he’s disabled. But stop picking your nose with one hand and scratching your ass with the other, and go out and collect them all for Mind Taps. Unless penned up Krall with only a pistol or a knife are too scary for you. I can show you how it’s done.”

“People.” Mirikami interrupted the sense of relief and euphoria they all felt right now.

“Sarge, Thad, some of you others, please do pick them up before they find a way to get to and rupture the fuel tanks and we lose these three ships. We need them, and we need them right now. I want all of us to Jump for K1, with our loads of special delivery chips, before the end of the day. Some of you head to Koban or Haven for more of the ammo and any other weapons that can fire slugs that will hold these chips inside.”

One of the Kobani captains asked, “Why today, Sir? Telour doesn’t know what happened here, and these ships would have taken a week and a half to get back.”

“If he sends a fleet back promptly when the four of them are overdue, do you want to be on the way there to stop it when it passes us going the other way in Tachyon Space? We can’t let it depart K1.”

Dillon asked, “Do we have enough chips to do that?”

“I don’t know. I think not, but we can make some plans on the way. We have to stretch what we have, or figure how to get more chips. The Torki turned out to be the only ones that made them previously for the Krall, at least for many thousands of years. They follow a standard chip manufacturing method they were given, using their existing Olt production technology.

“Like humans that assemble Tri-Vid systems. The factory workers didn’t invent them, or know how their circuits work. They build them per computer specifications, and make use of the working results.

“Neither the Torki nor the Raspani knew that one of the quantum interactions employed by the Olt’kitapi involved this medium range fifth force, or that it had a database for recording DNA patterns that could be blocked from using the quantum code keys contained in the tattoos. The Raspani also have the ability to make these simple chips, using their mind enhancer technology, and both species have been making a few more of them while we chatter out here. I think we can do without any of the door locks in our ships, or in the buildings and old domes that use those chips. We have stores of Krall plasma rifles and other code-keyed weapons. We need all of them we can get, and fast. Let’s get moving.”

****

Mirikami reserved this hurried address just for those that had registered their Comtaps to make the trip to K1. “This has been a breakneck day. Had we not been prepared for the possibility of a mass evacuation, we wouldn’t have had our resources so well gathered for this counter attack. We know that those here in the home system will have at least a ten-day warning if we can’t prevent enough of the Krall clanships from coming here. They have what they gathered already in the evacuation ships, and can add to that list before departure if that becomes necessary. The migration ships can return and land on Haven for faster loading, nobody that wants to leave will be left behind.

“There isn’t going to be anyone on Koban for the most part. The rippers that have grown up with us are leaving with their human families. We have hundreds of them already with us, going to K1. Every Kobani will carry one of the Denial chips, as the Torki started calling them, at all times. One of those can infect an entire clanship if you simply walk under one.

“You might possibly infect an entire dome. We now know that clanships were designed by the Olt’kitapi with the code chips distributed so that no matter which one receives an upload of a Denial list, that every chip on the ship would be upgraded. Krall domes use many of the chips, but they weren’t designed by the Olt’kitapi and they aren’t as evenly distributed.

“Even our rippers will carry a chip in a collar they each are wearing. Our focus will obviously be on clanships, but collateral infection with weapons is certain to degrade the enemy’s ability to fight us. On the ground, we have to infiltrate every tarmac where we find clanships. Remember, a disabled ship for them is still one we can use. In space, we can try to disable them, but as I learned today, that’s not as easy to do, particularly once they learn that getting too close ends the fight for them.

“We’re carrying every ECM pod we have. They’re in extremely limited supply. We only have twenty. Those will be moved around to try to keep the Krall we hit from talking about what we’re doing. Many of their domes now have landlines to keep us from knocking out all communications. Mind Taps can tell us where those lines are, and we can cut them. We’ll have ten days to think of things to try on the way, and thanks to Comtap, we’ll all know what they are before we arrive.

“We’re going to suffer more losses, simply because of the sheer numbers of our enemies. I stress again, body counts isn’t a goal of ours it’s one of theirs. Disabled clanship counts are our goals. Don’t engage in any firefight if you don’t have to. We still have better stealth, so sneaky is our byword.”

He looked over the crowd around the tarmac at Prime City. All of the old destroyed human ships had been scavenged for parts or material over a decade ago. The Flight of Fancy, in whose open hold Mirikami now stood, was surrounded by clanships, as was the Prime City dome. By one hundred seventeen of them, none of which had any functioning door locks now.

There was a sea of faces looking back at him, most of whom he knew well, some from Heavyside were relatively new to him, and some others were young in the true sense of the term, standing among the many rejuvenated older Kobani.

“This moment, at this place, for this fight, is where and why we Kobani created ourselves. Some of us were entirely made to be what we are. Some others were born with the early gene mods, and elected to add others later. In the last few months, we have had the first births of True Third Generation Kobani. Those natural born Kobani children are the evidence that we are just another race of mankind, and not a new species.

“I once told Telour, who now leads the Krall in war, that when they returned to Koban that our children might not give this planet back.”

There were cheers from all, the loudest from those that had sons and daughters in this crowd, or in schools and nurseries at home.

“We have always been morally and spiritually superior to the Krall. Because of the Koban genes, we are also physically superior to the enemy. I once told our people that I didn’t want us to wait for them to return.”

They knew the story, and waited for what was coming.

Mirikami boomed the words with his fist overhead, “I said we would go looking for the Krall. That time is now!”

The shouts and cheers, mixed with ripper roars of challenge were deafening.

Payback really would be a bitch.

*******************************************************************

Book 5 (untitled yet) coming in 2015

Connect with Koban online at Facebook:

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and

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DRAMATIS PERSONAE

HUMANS

Former crew from Flight of Fancy

Tetsuo Mirikami

Captain of captured Flight of Fancy. From Old Colony of New Honshu, in the Hub area. Became Commander of Prime City after Krall left Koban. Captain of the Mark of Koban, a captured Krall clanship. Leader of the Kobani.

Noreen Renaldo

Former First Officer of Flight of Fancy. From Old Colony of Ponce, in the Hub area. Married Dillon Martin. Mother of TGs Carson, Katelyn, and Cory. Captain of the Avenger, a stolen Krall clanship.

Jake (Artificial Intelligence)

An old model JK series AI computer, installed on Flight of Fancy. Able to operate many of the ship systems autonomously. Repository of vast human library of documents, books, films, Tri-Vid shows, etc. A common capability on long Jump passenger liners. Later, the software is cloned and named Jakob for reuse. The cloned software is eventually placed in a modern AI system aboard the Mark of Koban, Mirikami’s captured and converted Krall clanship.

(Chief) Mike Haveram

Was once Chief of the Drive Room on the Flight of Fancy. Now captain of the Falcon, a former smuggler’s ship purchased on Poldark. He helps supply Koban with goods and weapons from Human Space.

Macy Gundarfem

Former Motorman on Flight of Fancy. One of the “Drive Rats.”

John Yin-Lee

Former Motorman on Flight of Fancy. One of the “Drive Rats.”

Andrew Johnson

Former Motorman on Flight of Fancy. One of the “Drive Rats.”

Nory Walters

Former Chief Steward on Flight of Fancy.

Mel Rigson

Former Steward and Medical technician on Flight of Fancy.

Cal Branson

Former Steward and Medical technician on Flight of Fancy.

Other former stewards

Javier Vazquez

Alfon Hanson

Jason Sieko

Bob Campbell

Machinist Mate.

Neri Bar

Machinist Mate.

Chack Nauguza

Cargo Specialist, handy man.

Passengers from the Fancy, and various other ships, and early captives

Dillon Martin

Professor of biological sciences, sent to Midwife to study developing primitive life. Hidden specialty is forbidden genetics research. From Rhama, a New Colony, close to the Hub worlds. Married Noreen Renaldo. Father of TGs Carson, Katelyn, and Cory. Works on Kobani gene mods.

Maggi Fisher

Professor of biological sciences, Chairfem of Board of Director’s on Midwife project. From Rhama. Organizing unofficial teams to recover lost genetic knowledge. Later, first Mayor of Prime City. Works in Kobani gene mods. She marries (Signs the Line) with Captain Mirikami.

Aldry Anderfem

Professor of biological sciences, granddaughter of Claronce Anderson, a former President of Alders world. Supports secret Genetics research. Administered first human Clone mods in three hundred years, to make Second Generation Kobani. Helps design and implement Kobani mods.

Rafe Campbell

Studied human genetic mutations from cosmic rays on Brussels, a New Colony. Wife Isadora killed on ship by a Krall, “exercising.” Dove into Koban genetic studies when given a chance to make humans physically superior to the Krall. Chief designer of Kobani gene mods.

Early Captives (at Koban Prime, later renamed Prime City)

Mavray Doushan

Was Poldark’s Deputy Ambassador to Bollovstic’s Republican Independency. Both are Rim worlds. Made first warning recording of Krall raiders intentions. Killed as collaborator for trying to negotiate better treatment by the Krall.

Thaddeus Greeves

Former Colonel of a Diplomatic Security detail for Poldark Ambassador. Married Marlyn Rodriguez. Father of TGs Ethan, Bradley, and Danner.

Marlyn Rodriguez

First Officer of Rimmer’s Dream, arrived in mass capture of human ships. Married Thad Greeves. Mother of TGs Ethan, Bradley, and Danner. Captain of the Beagle, a stolen Krall clanship.

Deanna Turner

Organizer of the first Primes to volunteer to work with the Flight of Fancy personnel. On Mirikami’s combat team.

Frank Constansi

Clarice Femfreid

Juan Wittgenstein

Early Prime volunteers to work with Mirikami. On Mirikami’s combat team.

Next Generation Kobani

Carson Martin

Parents Noreen and Dillon, born an SG, received Koban gene mods to become Third Generation Kobani. Marries Alyson Formby.

Ethan Greeves

Parents Marlyn and Thad, born an SG, received Koban gene mods to become Third Generation Kobani.

Alyson Formby

Born in Hub City as an SG. At eighteen, left home to request Koban mods, against her parent’s wishes. Became first TG from Hub City, then first to be a TG1 from there. Marries Carson Martin.

Jorl Breaker

Fred Saber

Yilini Jastrov

Richard Yang

Their parents were all early Koban captives. At sixteen, they become TGs.

HUMAN SPACE

Garland (Sarge) Reynolds

Sergeant in the PU Army on Poldark. Captured by the Krall, and in a fluke of circumstance is taken to Koban, and is there rescued by the Kobani, twenty years into the war with the Krall. His arrival and rescue from a captured clanship is key the event for the Kobani to travel to Human Space.

Henry Nabarone

Major General of the Planetary Union Army, in charge of Poldark’s defense. Formerly in a local militia unit, and second in command after Colonel Thaddeus Greeves of that same unit. Becomes a Kobani.

Joseph Longstreet

Captain of a platoon of spec ops troops, expanded to absorb remnants of units suffering losses from missions behind Krall lines on Poldark. Becomes a Kobani.

William Crager

Former “Top” Sargent of spec ops training on Heavyside. Becomes a Kobani.

Golda Mauss

Admiral that commanded first two naval raids on K1, participated in a third as ship captain and advisor. Becomes a Kobani.

Adriana Bledso

Naval Chief of Staff. Becomes Chairfem of Joint Chiefs of Staff of Planetary Union military.

Heavyside

A Rim world planet, not considered suitable for mass human colonization. Located on the anti-spinward side of human exploration, on the far side of Human Space from the Krall invasion. It has 1.41 times Earth’s gravity. Originally, it was named Andropov’s World, after Admiral Elaine Andropov, a long dead war hero from before the Collapse. The nickname for the planet eventually became the accepted name. Heavyside is now home of the Special Operations training program. Site of a second gene lab for converting selected spec ops candidates into Kobani.

KRALL

Til Gatrol Telour

Originally a Krall translator, of Graka Clan. Second in command of Newborn Raid. Placed in charge of captives at Koban Prime. Became second in command to Tor Gatrol Kanpardi, with the title/rank of Til Gatrol. Became Tor after arranging Kanpardi’s murder.

Tor Gatrol Kanpardi

General/Admiral of Graka Clan, Gatrol was his early rank and title. Later, Tor Gatrol, as High General in command of all forces in the war with humans. Based on Telda Ka, or “Base 1,” the former human Rim colony of Greater West Africa, which humans now call K1. All eighteen million people were slaughtered on his order, to have a “clean” base.

Gatlek Pendor

Mordo clan. He is the replacement invasion commander on Poldark. Gatlek is his rank, equivalent to the lowest rank of General for the Krall. Leads later invasion on second human world.

KRALL’TAPI

Pildon Fetra

Called a “soft Krall” by the now genetically distinct Krall. The Krall’tapi is what the Krall were twenty five thousand years ago, when they allowed the Olt’kitapi to modify a gene that made Krall aggressive and warlike. Captives of the Krall for many thousands of years, only they can command the ancient Olt’kitapi mining ships that can break worlds apart, for habitat construction material.

EXTERMINATED ALIEN RACES

Olt’kitapi

Highly advanced and ancient people, determined pacifists, who first discovered the Krall. Mentored the violent race, hoping to make them more peaceful, but were betrayed and destroyed by the Krall, about 22,000 years ago. Never physically described by the Krall, but they had multiple classes of citizens, of various body types and social functions. They taught the Krall how to use the simple parts of their technology, and designed warships and weapons specifically for them, to suit their personality and level of intelligence. Their goal was to modify their warlike behavior, yet use their strength and natural aggression to help “police” the interspecies galactic society they planned to forge. They had a plan for keeping the Krall under control until “socially tamed.”

They were the first conquest described by Krall: “Our old bodies, even so long ago, could easily defeat their smaller and softer bodies. They were fruit and plant eaters that believed their artificially enhanced 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. We ate them all like the cattle they were.”

Botolians

Aggressive omnivores, evolved from social pack animals that resembled Earth Primates. Good fighters, but controlled a relatively small six hundred light year radius of settled space, bypassing colder and higher gravity planets. Slow breeders. Was first Worthy Enemy. Larger than humans, the size of lowland gorillas, and nearly as strong as a Krall. Smarter than Krall, but slower reflexes and predictable pack hunting tactics made them easier for the Krall to surround and attack. Not tricky or subtle, and preferred direct confrontation over ambushes, and were out matched in such fights. Always refused to surrender, and were all destroyed.

Piltcons

Wiped out by the Krall a mere thousand years after the enjoyable war with the Botolians. The young species had relatively low technology, inhabiting only two worlds in their home star system. They did not have Jump technology, and fought poorly. That was hardly surprising because they resembled a chubby but fast running long legged flightless bird with long feathery arms and three fingered hands. Their small heads did not house their sizable brains, which were located in the torso where the slender neck attached, placed one foot below the beaked mouth, large eyes, and hearing membranes. The Krall found it entertaining to decapitate the creatures and watch them run around blind and choking on their blood, until the lack of oxygen or loss of blood caused their brains to lapse into unconsciousness. They would “steer” the hapless animals by plucking feathers as they ran, causing them to turn away from the threat, which they felt but could not see or hear. Their lean dark meat was edible and tasty when raw, but the creatures were so fragile that clan leaders decided they were a poor choice as meat animals to be raised with the hazards found on various worlds. The truth of the matter was that warriors could not resist the fun of slashing off their heads for the entertainment value.

Malverans

A reptilian race the Krall met and exterminated several thousand years before encountering humans. They were an insect eating race that lived only on warm dry worlds, with 0.7 to .8 Earth g’s. Their slow metabolism made them easy prey for the Krall. The volume they’d colonized was about four hundred light-years in radius, adjacent to an area humanity would have been exploring in less than fifty years.

Discovery of Koban

It was a world in Malveran space, which had been far too hostile for the slow reacting Malverans to settle. They had a few dozen colonies, and those fell quickly to attacks by a single clan, the Dorbo.

Eventually the Maldo, a small finger clan of Dorbo, were awarded a choice of former Malvern worlds to settle. They selected an unused heavy gravity world, later called the testing ground, or ko ban in low Krall. They built an open compound on ko ban. Native life nearly killed off the Maldo clan. They learned they could survive there only by building walls and electric fences and carrying weapons. This situation drew the attention of all the major clans, who tried and failed to settle on ko ban without walled compounds.

ENSLAVED AILEN RACES

Raspani

A spacefaring, once highly intelligent and peaceful race, with only about a dozen colonized worlds in a small empire. They were another client race of the Olt’kitapi, advancing under their guidance. After their defeat by the Krall, they became semi-intelligent because the Krall bred and used them as meat animals. They were raised in herds on many of Krall worlds. The grey creatures, paler on the stomach than on the back, looked somewhat like a pigmy hippopotamus from Earth. They are nearly three feet high at mid back, and five feet long in the lower torso. The upper part of their torso is vaguely centaur-like, which when held upright places their heads five feet above ground.

They have a pudgy pair of human-like jointed arms and dexterous looking hands. When grazing, they pluck tender grass shoots and fern leaves with their hands. They also eat fruits and berries if they can find them. They have the masticating side teeth of most herbivores, but sport two residual tusks, jutting up from the lower front jaw. These protruded three or four inches above fleshy lips, and facial features arranged much like on a human. They have a central flat nose above their lips, with two large nostrils, and large, forward-facing brown eyes under light brown furred brows. The head was smooth, rounded, and hairless, but there was some sparse brown hair growing along their upper and lower backs.

Blue Flower Eater

A Raspani spokesperson’s mind, encoded on a modified quantum storage device along with millions of other Raspani minds, who sought protection from Krall atrocities on their species.

Prada

Bipedal, forest and jungle living, eats fruit, nuts, insects, and small game. The creatures are black or brown, with white markings. Resemble a lemur or monkey-like mammal, with a useful prehensile tail. About the size of an Earth Chimpanzee, they can use their five fingered hands (with longer middle finger for digging out grubs) and long toes almost equally well. They retain some arboreal ability. The Prada have large yellow eyes, and they were originally nocturnal animals. They are the Krall’s main assemblers and builders.

Their society took roughly seventeen thousand Earth years to colonize a volume some three thousand light years in radius. They selected moderate gravity worlds of 0.7 to 0.8 g’s, and preferred dimmer redder stars than Sol. They befriended other races, unless such contact was rejected. Engaged in cooperation and trade with Olt’kitapi.

They are a long-lived species who place their eldest members in charge. This deferment to the elders is why they originally cooperated with the Olt’kitapi, the oldest intelligent species they knew. After they were all killed, the next oldest species they knew were the Krall.

Now they are loyal and submissive to the Krall, and they have lost their original language, so speak only “low” Krall. They are the largest group of slaves and can build most things the Krall want for war, or have copied from other races.

Wister

A male Prada elder, roughly one thousand three hundred years old, found in a tree village on the planet next to Koban, left there by the Krall when they departed the system.

Nawella

A female Prada elder, and sister of Wister. She is a bit older than her brother is and he seeks her advice. Together they manage a small village of their people, who preserve an underground factory complex where anything required by the Krall can be built.

Torki

A highly intelligent eight foot wide by five foot long, and three foot high land crab race with one large defensive pincher and a smaller one for grasping, and a hard deep purple shell with eight amber colored legs. The two in front of their mouths are small and used as dexterous manipulators. Their eyes are on two-foot stalks, and they perform fine assembly of tools and electronics for the Krall, copying from plans taken from other defeated races.

They had been star traveling for eleven thousand years when the Krall over ran them. Preferred worlds with ample seashores, and bypassed most worlds inside their six hundred light year sphere. They built giant ships for their large bodies, and simulated seaside environments for their own comfort. Huge ships carried only a few hundred Torki, but when used by the Krall they had room for ten thousand warriors, or even more Prada. Several thousand Torki could fit, with great discomfort.

As adults these land crabs are terrestrial and are found as far as ten miles from the shoreline, returning to the sea only to soak or breed. They sleep at night in cool burrows several feet deep, or at least to a level that will allow water to seep in for moisture. They are primarily vegetarians, preferring tender leaves, fruits, berries, flowers, seaweed, and some vegetables. Occasionally they will eat fish, beetles, or other large insects.

Like all crabs, they shed their shells as they grow. If they have lost legs or claws during their present growth cycle, a new one will be present after they molt. If the large claw is lost, males will develop one on the opposite side until their next molt. Newly molted crabs are very vulnerable because of their soft shells. They are reclusive and hide until the new shell hardens.

Coldar

An influential Torki in his lodge, left behind on the world next to Koban when the Krall departed. The crabs can communicate electronically by a quantum storage device they were given prior to becoming sentient, by the Olt’kitapi. As they advanced, the locked libraries in the storage devices open to help them access new knowledge and databases. They know of the ancient race, but they never met their benefactors. They build new storage devices as their population expands, and copy the data they have into them, not knowing what new information they may contain.

About the Author:

I was born in 1942, so I’m an autumn rather than a spring chicken. I live outside of Tampa, Florida with my fabulous wife Anita, and one remaining son at home, Montana. I have three older boys, Mark, Gary, and Anthony, all of whom have married and presented us with terrific grandchildren.

My early reading interests were arguably all sci-fi related, from Doctor Doolittle, Captain Marvel, to Superman. I then transitioned to “real” science fiction on black and white TV, such as Captain Video and Flash Gordon. I read hundreds of books by the science fiction greats growing up, and thousands of fair to not so greats in dual novel paperbacks and magazines. I’ve had a lifelong love of science and science fiction.

My education gravitated to science, starting out as a physics major and my depression era folks told me I’d never make a living as a theoretical physicist (probably right, and Cosmology wasn’t a career field then), so I moved to Electronics Engineering. I did most of that in the aerospace field for MacDonnell Douglas Corp, in St. Louis, Mo. I worked on the F4 Phantom project, and briefly on Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL), before the fickle fates of government finance forced contract cancelations. I devoted (meaning I was drafted into) two years’ service for the US Army from 1965 to 1967. A great two years, and the Army, caring not the least about my electronics background, offered this draftee a job as an Air Traffic Controller. Cool!

After discharge I spent a short time back at MacDonnell Douglas before the contract reductions laid me off, and was hired by Emerson Electric (1968), working on the design of a neat heads-up fire control system for the Army’s new Cheyenne Helicopter (to be a 270-knot hybrid fixed wing/rotor craft). Never heard of it? The fickle fates of Army finance is why this time, plus Lockheed didn’t keep the airframe part from crashing and burning at a crucial point in development.

I taught Electronics for about eighteen months (near starvation wages after the high pay), and finally decided to try my hand at actually supporting my family again. I hired on with the Federal Aviation Administration as an Air Traffic Controller in 1970. Thanks Army! I spent exactly forty years (to the day) in federal service, deciding in 1979 to use my technical background to work on writing features for the software of the FAA’s Terminal Automation Systems (for 28 of those 40 years, with some controller time overlap).

Retired, I now work as a consultant/contractor for the FAA, supporting a software system I helped to create. In anticipation of more free time while retired (wrong!), I finally decided to try my hand at writing what I love to read for escapism, Science Fiction.

Thanks for reading my books,

Steve Bennett

Published Books

Koban (August, 2012)

Koban: The Mark of Koban (February, 2013)

Koban: The Rise of the Kobani (October, 2013)

Koban Universe 1 (March, 2014)

Koban: Shattered Worlds (October 2014)

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I hope you’ve enjoyed the story. More to come.