Koban 6: Conflict and Empire (4 page)

“Obviously, it will be up to your specialty to locate the genes in the kuttlefish for growing that layer of film. Then unlocking how it achieved a mechanism for producing the observed sized gaps in the nanotube film, discovering how it evolved so that it doesn’t pass a specific frequency. That frequency needs to be considerably higher than what the Koban fish predators use, requiring much smaller gaps in the film. Then, there needs to be two of those layers, each one a different specific sized gap. Daniel and I,” he indicated the technician, “can tell you the exact sized gaps required. Naturally, we can’t tell you squat about how you would do that with gene control. Your department will have the hardest, most time consuming task, assuming it’s even possible.”

Rafe chuckled, while Aldry gave him a wry grin. She said, “Gee, mister whiz bang physicist, couldn’t you also give us an impossible deadline to meet?”

“How about any time before the Empire finds Koban?” Was his amused but sympathetic reply.

“That won’t do,” Rafe said, with a grimace. “Finding out how to do it isn’t the same as retroactively adding this mod to all of our people. We are probably adding new Kobani to our ranks by more than a thousand converts a day, and soon we hope to make that number ten thousand a day, if we can find the volunteers.”

Max shrugged. “If we don’t solve the problem, there won’t be any more volunteers to convert to a race of supermen slated for extinction.”

****

Maggi walked in on the K1 based planning session unexpectedly, sporting her most mischievous grin. “Hey, Gentle Men, boys and girls, you having fun yet? Bet you didn’t expect to see me today, huh?”

Thad quickly looked away from the wall display he’d been explaining, which suddenly went to plain white. Sarge, at the computer controlling the presentation, grinned at her inanely. “Hi Maggi, how ya doing?”

Ethan and Bradley Greeves, Carson and Alyson Martin, Jorl Breaker, Fred and Bill Saber, Carol Slobovic, and Sergey Medlov, were seated at tables and chairs, with notepad computers they’d been using to make notations, or marking portions of the discussion that pertained to them, or flagging sections where they wanted to suggest changes.

They all smiled, called out Hello’s, some even seemed genuinely happy to see her, but that was the two girls and Sergey, a couple of boys wore guilty or uncomfortable forced smiles, and two young men looked downright nervous.

Those two nervous young men were Carson and Ethan. That was because they had spent a good deal of time in Aunt Maggi’s care when younger, and that smile, combined with an unexpected appearance by her, had taught them that she’d often just discovered whatever prank, stunt, scheme, or what she termed
shenanigans
, they had planned or had accomplished. The repercussions from her discoveries had rarely led to much fun at all.

“What brings you to K1?” Thad asked brightly.

“The Mark of Koban, of course. Although, I hear the Planetary Union wants this planet renamed Greater West Africa again, just as soon as Nabarone’s forces root out the last of the hidden holdouts of the small Krall clans. There’ll be a new influx of colonists after that.”

“Ahh, of course.” Sarge said, as if that had been the answer to what they really were asking. “Uh, did Tet come with you?” He added. That might extract from her what really concerned them. Had they been found out?

“No, he doesn’t know I’m here. I came alone. He’s much too busy with ship and body armor modifications, and deploying Nova II’s as they’re produced, sending them out to watch over our colonies, making sure they take roundabout paths so they don’t reveal Koban to the Empire.

“I wanted to see how the planning for your mission into the Empire was going, and if you needed anything in the way of supplies, such as additional crewmembers. But I see you have more help than just you and Thad. It’s odd they weren’t mentioned in your Comtap reports to Tet.” Her smile widened, the blond locks and dimples not softening the devilment implied, which her friends had previously experienced.

“Oh, them.” Thad smiled towards his coconspirators. “We invited the others to go along so they could help us monitor all of the possible targets, which the three ships can attack, to provoke the Crusher into using its Decoherence bombs against them.”

“You don't think them simply appearing at Meglor would do that? I don't believe the Thandol are particularly reticent about using that weapon.”

“Not that. It will be a target rich environment, so quickly finding the best targets in the brief time we have for an attack increases the actual damage we can cause. At the same time, we’ll learn what we’re there to discover.”

She grinned at Ethan and Carson, as she had done so often when they were preteens, before they acquired their Kobani mods. “You two cowboys were convinced to participate just so you could help them find better targets? That’s a remarkably secondary role for the two adventuristic boys I remember, and admired.”

“Admired?” Carson looked surprised. Ethan just left his mouth hanging open.

“Of course. Had I not painfully taught you the value of careful planning, you two would have gotten into worse predicaments than you did, wouldn’t you? I might not have had the pleasure of seeing you live to grow into men. Although, I was worried about
how many times I had to catch you
, before you finally became better at thinking through the flaws of your nutty schemes. I mean really! Saddles for rhinolo?

“Nevertheless, had I chosen to interfere with your personal exploits with members of the opposite sex, I might have taught Ethan how to avoid being shot by an enticing female, when he turned his back with his pants off. A woman that he should have had every reason to be suspicious of.”

“How…? I mean, what do you mean?” Ethan flushed. Carson, Kit, and Kobalt had promised not to tell anyone of an embarrassment he’d experienced on a trip to Chisholm, a Rim World colony.

“Don’t insult my intelligence.” Maggi responded, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Anyway, anytime you and Carson quietly disappear at the same time, there historical reasons to ask what you’re up to now. Then, when I find myself being asked by Grandma Noreen to watch little Calvin for a day, means his mom, Alyson, was off somewhere as well. Grandma Noreen was asked if she would watch your Calvin for at least a week.” She looked pointedly at Carson and Alyson.

“After that, I looked for some of the usual young suspects you three hang out with, people you would trust to keep a secret. Some of them were gone too, or at least weren’t on Koban or Haven. With Thad and Sarge working on a special project here, I suspected where you all had to be.”

“Well,” Sarge offered, “we didn’t want word to get out about what we were up to here. Lose lips sinking ships, and all the normal security precautions, you know?”

She scoffed at the lame excuse. “What, by protecting us from the unseen elephant, or 400-pound gorilla hiding in our midst? How in hell would the Thandol or Ragnar discover your plans? You aren’t worried about the enemy picking up local radio transmissions. Not within our own star systems, or else we’d already be ass deep in their attacks. That means you were keeping word of what you were doing from reaching Tet and Stewart, the men that gave you the task. Am I getting warm?”

Thad shrugged. “I don't think Tet or Stewart wanted to be constantly bothered by our pestering them with every detail of how we were progressing, or told of every person we added to our crew on the Sneaky Bastard.”

“Oh, I don’t think so either, but use of significantly more material might matter to them, and an expansion of the original mission as well.”

“I don't think our extra personnel count as material,” he countered.

“Me either,” she answered, her smile growing sweeter. “Yet, I’ll bet seven more clanships, and the purchase of ten basic AI’s do. You failed to tell General Nabarone that he shouldn’t discuss the shuttle AI’s he furnished to you if anyone asked, or about the additional missiles taken from the clanships that were left disabled on Poldark. That was far more stuff than you needed for equipping just your approved three clanships.”

She smiled. “Pants on fire, my friends.”

They knew they were found out, but Sarge didn’t understand her last remark. “How are you gonna set fire to our pants? They’re made of Smart Fabric now days, and won’t burn. What the hell does that mean, anyway?”

“Old twentieth century reference. Liar, liar, pants on fire.”

Sarge frowned, but not at being accused of using one of his best developed talents. “Okie dokie, so you found us out, now what? You gonna shut us down? We have a damned good plan to punish the enemy with minimal costs.”

“I’ll not rat you out if I get to hear what you have planned, and see more of the Meglor system layout, including the orbital repair docks I saw on the wall when I walked in. I knew you couldn’t obtain all of the ships you wanted on K1. But, if I tell you where there are another couple of damaged clanships you can get from Poldark, will you invite me to go with you?” She didn’t say she’d blackmail her friends if they said no, but with Maggi, her impish grin told them anything was possible.

Thad looked relieved. “Humph. I believe some smart ass just told us it’s properly called Greater West Africa, not K1. And we did run out of Jump capable derelicts here that we could use. You are hereby invited to participate, even if you can’t get us two other clanships and AIs.”

“Excellent! Your secret’s safe with me, because I just became a coconspirator. This should be fun.”

Even after two days of discussing alternatives, Thad wasn’t sure using the ruse Tet had at Wendal would work again. “Maggi, they’ll be watching for ships in T-cubed travel that are masquerading as Thandol Crushers. That’s one reason Tet didn’t want us going to the capitol planet, aside from the shit we’d stir up if we did. We might not get a chance to test our gas filled ship defenses against Decoherence bombs, not if the test ships were hit with missiles, plasma, and laser fire the instant they White Out. They’ll see us coming, so pretending to be several Crushers won’t fool them again. There wouldn’t be three of them arriving at the docks without forewarning anyway.”

“Not Crushers, lunk head. How about three Smashers? Those are only several times more massive than a single clanship, and Smashers are far more common. Four clanships at the corners of a smaller pyramid can leave similar trails in Tachyon Space, and with the ships I acquired several days ago from Poldark, we’ll have twelve ships to simulate three Smashers in formation, provided Sneaky Bastard is at one of the corners.”

“That might work,” Sarge agreed. “Especially if we come in from the direction of an adjacent and deeper sector of Empire space, leaving a long back trail. Then they’d have no reason to think it was humans spoofing them again. We’d have to fly a long way around Meglor undetected to do that, probably several days of flying wide of Empire controlled space. Smasher class flights must be common in the Empire, so coming to a repair depot as a three-ship detachment from deep inside their space might look like a routine repair visit.”

Thad conceded. “It’s worth a try, and we’re no worse off if they do figure out who we are, since they’ll see us coming no matter from which direction we arrive. At least that suggested track doesn’t lead back to any particular place in the Federation. Although, the instant we White Out they’ll know we represent the Federation. At least for the other eleven ships, that is. The Sneaky Bastard has a gamma ray suppression modification now, and with our better stealth, we’ll be able to safely observe the attacks and alter what we target, based on what we find there.”

Maggi smacked her hands together enthusiastically. “So, Colonel Boss Man, when do we leave?”

Greeves grinned and turned to walk out of the briefing room, “Everyone get your butts in gear, else your killer drones will launch without your lazy asses.”

****

As a warhorse without a war these last two years, his wife dead and his youngest children independent, Thad was happy. They were about to strike back at the Empire, even if it was with a small force. On a surface examination, it was a vastly lighter attack force, compared to what the Empire had sent against the Federation colony world of Zanzibar
Redoux
. Only twelve ships were being used here, versus the four hundred fifty-four ships that the Empire’s Force Commander had used. That Empire fleet had essentially been forced to withdraw without taking possession of the Federation colony world. The only ships that touched down on the planet had done so as flaming wreckage.

However, if a casualty count was considered a measure of success at Zanzibar, the Empire had won handily, because they killed or crippled twice as many Federation citizens as they lost in Ragnar combat forces. Greeves didn’t know this, but fortunately, for the Ragnar Force Commander, the Thandol
did
consider body counts of value, and Thond had inflated the counts of enemy killed.

This retaliation attack wasn’t intended to kill civilians, but it had the potential to do damage to the Empire’s largest repair docks, to hit another one of their seven surviving giant Crusher class weapons platforms, and destroy more of the ships of the Ragnar fleet that had hit Zanzibar 2.

“All hands. We exit in ten minutes. First priority is to start gathering target coordinates for the first six Nova bombs, which will hit targets on this side of Meglor. Alyson, Ethan, and Carson, it will take up to a minute for your drone AI’s to obtain the mass concentrations and locations, calculate the Jump coordinates and upload them into the Nova bombs. I want you to launch quickly at your targets, and then move to where you can slow down and directly engage that Crusher, to draw its fire.

“Your gas-filled ships are what got this mission authorized in the first place. If possible, keep both Trap Fields filled with a Jump energy tachyon. If your drones survive multiple Decoherence bombs, use them as larger Nova bombs or simply as rams if you can’t Jump.

“Before that happens, all the rest of you need to be firing missiles, lasers, and plasma bolts at anything you find worth your time, and keep your drones moving constantly. You can use Comtap to coordinate your combined fire if you wish. Once we collect data on Decoherence bomb strikes on the three test ships, that Crusher is dead meat any way we can get it done, thus poking a finger in the Empire’s eye again. But not like a
goose in the ass
, as one uncouth team member described it.”

Sarge only sniffed at being called uncouth. It was hard to refute a self-evident trait.

Greeves continued, “Let Grumpy help your drone AIs with target calculations as much as possible, and to relay them to your AI’s.” Grumpy was the name Sarge had given the Sneaky Bastard’s AI system.

“The PU military doesn’t use a particularly high level AI on its shuttles, so they’ll need some help to operate a clanship. Stay focused, and be patient with how slowly your drones respond after you decide what to do, and the command has been sent to the drone. The AI interface with the Krall weapons and navigation controls are slower than we’re used to on our ships, even though the Prada tachyon communication devices are instantaneous, unjammable and untraceable. Those basic AI’s can’t work instantaneously.”

He concluded. “Good hunting and good luck. Captain out.”

He’d used a group Comtap link, because eight of the Kobani aboard the Bastard were scattered around the ship, partly as a precaution if the ship was hit, something they considered unlikely with their advanced stealth, but mostly so they could reload missile racks if Sarge found time late in the attack to fire on additional targets.

There was only room for four people on the Olt’kitapi designed Bridge control console, which had been the number that the Krall had wanted. Human modifications there were mainly an advanced AI interface, and four acceleration couches. Thad would coordinate the overall attack from a com station, and control his own drone ship. Sarge would navigate the command ship and engage in limited fighting with missiles, and target his Nova.

Ethan and Carson split control of the Bastard’s four heavy lasers, and its four plasma cannons between them, which were another set of weapons that should see limited use today. Firing anything from the stealthed Sneaky Bastard eliminated the
Sneaky
aspect of its given name. They too would each control a drone ship. None of them expected to do much firing from the command ship itself, since that cost them the advantage of their covert observation post.

The other eight Kobani, posted near missile bays down below, were also linked to a drone ship AI, and unless Sarge fired missiles, they wouldn’t have any reloading of empty racks to do. The Thandol had stealth and detection systems that matched what the Krall had possessed, because the Thandol had made certain they had the equivalent capability the Olt’kitapi had provided to the Krall so long ago, to fight the enemy the Empire had expected to face eventually. The Thandol had taken pains to verify the Krall had never improved on that stealth system, and none of their own alien opponents had ever matched that capability.

Absent a major war to push military technological developments, the Thandol had remained conservative in their acceptance of change, as was a common attitude of most successful, slow evolving space going species. Their trunks were about to be tweaked, yet again, by upstart humans.

The Thandol knew the Federation possessed those former Krall clanships now, but until the fight at Zanzibar 2, no member of the Empire had any way of knowing the Federation had improved their stealth systems. It was a hard sale, by the Ragnar to the skeptical Thandol, that the same clanships operated by humans, seemed to be invisible in the electromagnetic spectrum. It was dismissed as an excuse for their weak showing.

The Emperor’s cousin was sent along on that attack as an observer, but he had zero military background, with his sole claim to that position being that he was a supportive noble of Emperor Farlol the 84th’s family. He’d naturally not noticed anything unusual, including the fact that his ship, a Smasher, had been disabled in the fight and he’d been deceptively moved to another Smasher without him even noticing. Not even the Ragnar had yet discovered the limited visibility of the Kobani ships at long wave radio frequencies.

Today, the Sneaky Bastard’s raid could further complicate the Ragnar’s claim that they needed better detection systems, and better stealth of their own against human ships, because the eleven drones didn't have advanced stealth or gamma ray suppression. None of the pieces of Kobani ships destroyed at Zanzibar had been recovered by the Ragnar, which could have provided samples of the new stealth hull coating.

Sarge’s ship was the only one of the flotilla today that would arrive without a White Out burst of gamma rays, so the Ragnar claim of Federation technological improvements easily could again be discounted by the conservative Thandol. They didn’t want to provide new technology to their secondary security forces, particularly of systems that Thandol ships didn’t already possess. Military technology updates moved at a glacial pace in the vast Empire, where innovations were suppressed and controlled by the dominant species.

Thad linked for a final alert. “Not that any of you need this reminder, but White Out is in thirty seconds. Let’s hit them hard.”

The exit points of all twelve ships were in an arc around a quarter of Meglor’s equator, at roughly five hundred fifty miles. This was calculated to place them less than twenty miles below two of the largest, of eight huge repair docks, and close to two of the smaller docks. It was possible that these weren’t the most desirable docks to attack first, but the flotilla’s arrival timing was calculated to place the largest docks directly between them and the massive Crusher orbiting above them at a thousand miles. The interfering mass of the docks and tethered ships should delay that giant ship’s acquisition of their mass centers, necessary for it to launch its Decoherence bombs accurately at the internal voids within the clanships.

The two Ragnar prisoners captured at Zanzibar told them that the damaged ships of their former fleet, including the Thandol built Smashers they used, would be relegated to lesser docks, in an orbit nearly half way around the planet from the largest two Thandol used docks.

Eleven bursts of gamma rays sprayed in all directions, accompanied in seconds by the first salvo of missiles, fired in the general direction of the four docks, with the intent of providing them guidance as soon as active sensor scans provided specifics within another few seconds.

Carson let out a loud cowboy whoop on the Bridge. “Yee Haw! Ethan, look what we have on our dock. Stranglers being stored or still under construction.”

Their two drone clanships were right below a ten-mile long dock, which had several dozen Strangler class ships attached on the planetary side of the dock, all of them double docked in what appeared to be storage positions, with construction under way on ten Smasher class ships they could see, being modified to become Stranglers. This required most of one peak of the pyramidal ships to be removed, and heavy ground attack and defense armament to be installed, along with the Debilitater projectors on the wide base side that remained. FC Gimtal Thond hadn’t convince the Thandol to work on improved stealth, but the value of Debilitater projectors mounted on new Stranglers was something they would approve.

Ethan was quick to respond. “I’ll split them with you. I’ll do spinward. We’ll each need another missile salvo, unless we use our Novas.”

Thad interjected. “Only one of you use a Nova on the dock itself, find another target for the other one.”

Without waiting to hear which would do what, he linked to Maggi. “There are Smashers and Stompers on your dock Maggi. Nova the dock end closest to the Smashers, and use missiles for the Stompers at the other end.”

“Teach me to suck eggs why don’t you?” She had already directed missiles to hit the troop transport Stompers, which would cause them less damage than the Nova was expected to cause on the several miles long dock structure, and incidentally to the more dangerous Smasher weapons platforms docked close to that end. Thandol troop landers were only used after a planet’s defenses were severely compromised by Smashers and Crushers, and even then, only after one of the other security forces had worked the planet over.

Thad looked at Sarge, an eyebrow raised, knowing that he’d been linked in with him on the general Comtap circuit.

Responding verbally to Greeves’ implied question, Sarge smirked, “I don't have any damned idea what she means by egg sucking. But I’ll bet it means she knew what to do, so kindly piss off.” Thad grinned, shook his head and shrugged. Maggi often used incomprehensible expressions that were from centuries past.

Alyson spoke up excited. “I don't believe it. That Crusher we damaged at Wendal, when we destroyed the one over the Emperor’s palace, is right here undergoing repairs at the third spinward Thandol dock. That’s where my Nova is going, which will eliminate most of that four-mile long dock with it when it goes.”