Koban 6: Conflict and Empire (43 page)

“Yes it was,” she told him. “Not for long, but at a high strength.”

“Huh?” Was his clever comeback. Followed by an inane sounding question. “Why aren’t you dead?”

She quickly pieced together what he’d thought happened. “Well, the thump was to verify the door was securely shut, which we do every time on that old style hinged door. That was as I confirmed we had an indication of a good electrical seal with the copper mesh, via the door monitor panel. I’m alive, because the kuttlefish is alive.”

“Wait. You mean the kuttlefish is alive because the it has Debilitater protection.” His eyes widened as the truth came home to roost. “You have the same mod?”

“Wow, and we’re counting on your quick mind to save our butts?” She grinned.

Mirikami, relieved, paraphrased as he mocked himself with a lip tug.
“
The wheels
may turn
slowly
,
but they grind exceedingly fine.”

Rafe, a bit annoyed that Mirikami thought he’d have been so careless where his wife’s safety was concerned, complained, “Had you let me give you my carefully rehearsed briefing, we’d have told you all of this.”

Excited, and ignoring Rafe’s tone, Mirikami asked, “Does it work at the full range of frequency adjustment they use? How about power levels and range? Does…,” Aldry put an index finger on his lips.

“Have you got time for a fuller briefing now?” She laughed at his blush of embarrassment.

“I’ll make time.” And he did, for the next two hours. He watched an uninterrupted test this time. He was told by Aldry that she had to physically tense up or relax her skin surface via the early clone heat or cold mod adaptations. This was to adjust the gaps in the two carbon nanotube films under her skin, when the Debilitater beam modulation was adjusted.

What Mirikami had first thought was Aldry’s slightly deeper Koban suntan, proved to be from the double layer of carbon nano tubes, grown under her normal skin color.

“Length of time for completing this mod on a new subject?” He asked.

“With the new generation of soft tissue nanites we have for this, we can get it done in a week, accompanied by an annoying feeling of itchiness, which requires a skin cream and moisturizer to sooth. We didn’t produce these nanites ourselves, by the way. They were an outgrowth of our setting up field hospitals on migration ships, for PU casualties that were injured when fighting the Krall. We discovered that laser burns on PU soldiers were healing faster than they were on our spec ops Kobani, using our specialized med labs. We bought the nanites from the Hub provider. Naturally, we stole the templates and modified them for our purpose, and our physiology.” She didn’t sound the least bit contrite at the admitted theft of valuable proprietary technology.

“Well, it isn’t the first time we swiped that sort of tech.” Mirikami admitted.

“The same Hub medical provider has obtained dozens of samples of ours, which we modified from those we obtained illegally years ago. So I think we’re even in that department.”

“Was itchiness the only side effect?”

Rafe scratched his forearm as he considered this. “No, but Aldry has to demonstrate that. My mod is only two days old.”

“It’s in progress on you? No long term med lab treatment needed?”

“Just an hour for the complete virus carrier injections. After that, you eat a bit more and you should bathe twice a day, to shed replaced skin above the nanotube films being grown.”

He turned to Aldry. “What side effect?”

“I disagree with Rafe that it’s a side effect. Do you remember that we said kuttlefish were bite resistant from predators that managed to get hold of them? The carbon nanotubes are very tough and resilient, as well as very flexible. See if you can feel a difference.” She offered her forearm.

A series of touches, and squeezes, and Mirikami admitted he felt no difference. “Do you want me to bite you?” he laughed.

“Dull human teeth aren’t a good test, and I wouldn’t want to temp a rhinolo’s horn, or a rippers fangs. Thorns only cause shallow and trivial surface scrapes, and no blood, and can’t penetrate. I used an anesthetic to conduct a test I was afraid to try otherwise, and I’d still be fearful to let anyone else try it on me. I tried to cut myself with a sharp pointed blade, and when it had no more effect than the thorns, I stabbed more forcefully at my forearm, the one you just felt, and I didn’t break skin on what would have previously penetrated at least an inch I think.”

Mirikami was definitely interested in this. “You saw what happened to my knuckles, when I smashed them through Telour’s chest and ribs in that melodramatic fight on Earth. They were badly cut, right down to the bone in multiple places.”

“Not with this mod, Tet. You might bruise some tissue, but it won’t rip open or cut easy, and our bones don’t break. I’d say punch away. It might hurt some, but the actual damage should be slight.”

“Let me call Maggi, to see if she has an hour to spare. I want her to be Debilitater ray proof, before we enter Empire Space again.”

Rafe smiled knowingly. “We already had a med lab set up for you, and we can do another one for Maggi.”

Not surprised at that admission, he told them, “I want you to scale up for mass mods. We’ll free as much capital as it takes to provide this for every Kobani. I don't know how difficult this would be to do for nonhumans, probably impossible for a Torki. At least discuss it with them, even though they’ve turned down our other offers. I think our rippers might consider this, since it isn’t a hunting advantage if a rhinolo still has the strength to kill them with its horn.”

“Oh. And let me tell you how proud I am of you two. We ducked Debilitater attacks on Tanner’s by staying in armor, and the orbital lasers there were new to the Ragnar, so they kept the Stranglers away from the cities they attacked, intending to knock those batteries out first. The population had fled their homes and towns ahead of them, so not very many suffered from that weapon, but the couple of hundred that did, died very badly. With this new nanite tech, I’ll bet even a Normal human might want to be protected by this mod. I’ll ask Stewart to bring up the subject of this protective gene mod with the PU ambassador, when he arrives. At some point the dam will burst, and waves of Normals are going to want what we have.”

****

Mirikami was well behind on his scheduled visit to the physics department. “Sorry I’m late, Blue, Coldar. I’ll apologize to Max later. I understand he had somewhere else to go. Like I mentioned by Comtap, our gene lab solved the problem of Kobani vulnerability to Debilitater rays. Maggi will be in a med lab for another half hour. Aldry is already immune to the radiation, and Rafe is about half done growing the same nanotube radiation shield. Maggi and I let them initiate the mod for us, and it only takes six or seven days to achieve complete protection. Excuse me if I seem preoccupied with rubbing my skin today, there’s a temporary side effect while the nanites do their work.”

The Raspani understood human gestures fairly well now, and he shook his head to portray a human representation of the dismay he felt. “Many times you have seemed brilliant and highly rational to me, Tet. Then you display the group insanity that humanity is well known for, doing something incredibly dangerous to yourself, or for your species. This is a gene modification from an alien animal, transmittable to your offspring. To my people, that represents a greater risk to your species longevity than the problem you faced. If the enemy discovered you here, Kobani survivors could flee to a distant region of space and start again.”

Mirikami wasn’t the least receptive to that suggestion. “How well did that tactic work for the Olt’kitapi, some of whom ended up hiding in the Empire, or as captives of the Thandol. Would running have helped the other species that faced the Krall, if they had eventually spread throughout the entire galaxy, as they planned to do? In the Sagittarius Arm, besides the Thandol presence there, we know there are the Ragnar, Finth, and Thack Delos. No matter where you go, a warlike species will eventually find you.

“What would
you do
for the preservation of your species? When there is nowhere left to hide from aggressors? We humans would rather stand our ground here, where we have all of our resources. It’s our best chance at victory. We’ll win any way we can, or we’ll die fighting.” He scratched his arm.

“Or die itching.” Coldar observed, provoking a laugh from Mirikami.

“It’s temporary, and preferable to a torturous and permanent death.” He rubbed in the skin cream he’d been given, but only on his bare arms. He didn’t drop his pants to do his legs, or the equally uncomfortable private regions.

He damn well didn’t want to hear alien comments about his
ridiculous need for clothing and modesty
, in the face of what they claimed was
excessive
human interest in non-reproductive sex. To their way of thinking, his going naked would reasonably complement that odd human preoccupation.

He needed to speed them up, to get back on schedule for the rest of the day. “Where is this new rail gun you want me to test against enemy ships?”

Coldar’s rigid crab features didn’t reveal his confusion, but Blue’s suddenly smoothed forehead, and sucked-in plump lips revealed his lack of understanding. He asked, “What new rail gun? It isn’t electromagnetic at all, which would spoil your stealth anytime it was used. I suppose you could call it a gravity tube gun.”

“Uh…, OK,” Mirikami said. “Thad saw one of them uninstalled, and said it resembled a very long rail gun.”

“Oh. I guess there’s a slight shape similarity I suppose.” Coldar admitted. “Although, it’s much longer than those rail guns you use on orbital defense platforms. Ours is almost as long as a Scout ship, and runs between the two gravity projectors, which will accelerate the projectile through the vacuum tube. The tube Thad saw didn’t have a rail gun’s coils around the barrel, no fusion bottle for power, or any surrounding magnetic shielding to suppress its signature when fired.”

“A gravity gun? Can that deliver much velocity? Gravity is the weakest force. I mean, a child’s toy magnet lifts a metal button against the gravity of an entire planet.”

Blue seemed amused. “Were the Olt’kitapi gravity projectors too weak to disrupt planetary cores?”

Mirikami, who knew the two scientists too well to make an unpleasant accusation, started with what little he understood. “Well, the projectors didn’t directly tear the planets apart with gravity. They formed a small Jump Hole inside them from a distance, with core metals trapped inside. Somehow, they allowed tachyons to leak in gradually, converting that matter into energy in the form of ultrahigh energy gamma ray photons. Those photons in turn would spontaneously form pair particles of matter and antimatter. By some probability manipulation that we don’t understand, possibly using the fifth force they discovered, they caused more antimatter to form than matter. The opposite of how matter formed the leftover excess in our Universe after the Big Bang. They preserved the gradually accumulating antimatter excess until it was allowed to rotate into Normal Space. That’s what tore the cores apart, not gravity.”

Now he wanted them to explain this unsettling reference to tearing planets apart. “I thought we didn’t know how to do that, and we all agreed that we didn’t want to learn how, as part of a weapons system.”

The shocked reaction displayed by the two aliens would have been apparent to anyone, even if you knew nothing about the Torki or Raspani.

Coldar dropped his carapace to the floor with a thump, as if his eight legs couldn’t support his weight. The Raspani flinched, his upright torso drawing back, arms crossing over his face as if Mirikami had moved to strike him.

Instantly apologetic, Mirikami said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to insult either one of you. But Blue, you implied a gravity projector had the strength to destroy a planet. How is that ability going to launch a high velocity projectile? By forming antimatter for propulsion energy? If we create antimatter, eventually our enemy will as well.”

The Raspani relaxed, replacing his previous expression with one of bemusement. “How would we make antimatter, and why would we do that even if we could?” He shivered, a reaction that was the same as in humans.

Only a suicidal human could even have contemplated such a dangerous possibility,
Blue thought, as his shock passed.

With Mirikami’s concern understood, misplaced as it was, Coldar said, “Please allow us to explain what we actually can do. Max Born’s design for the new gravity projectors can accurately focus a gravity field around an object, say an asteroid of a few tons, located millions of miles away from the ship, to move it, or even to form a small Jump Hole and rotate it into Tachyon Space for towing transport if desired. How small do you think we can focus an artificial gravity field within the length of a Scout, say between the projectors?”

“Uh…, I don’t have a clue.” Mirikami admitted. “Gravity isn’t exactly my specialty.”

“No,” Blue said, “but tactical and strategic thinking
are
your strong points, and we believe you can make use of what we can offer you. The focal region can be made miniscule at such a short range.” He held a thumb and finger up, with a gap between them that scarcely showed any separation.