Koban: Rise of the Kobani (46 page)

Jorl waited until he saw the first man drop into the ravine, and the other was walking on the edge above, away from him. Both were apparently following his double foot trail towards the stealthed single ship.

He placed his right hand under the rabbit’s rump, his left still pressed hard over the muzzle, holding the wriggling animal in his hand as he drew his right arm back. With a Kobani muscled powered throw, the nine-pound animal (jackrabbits were technically a hare, not a rabbit), flew in a high arc out over the flats away from the ravine, just beyond the two men sixty feet away.

In an appreciated bit of cooperation, the terrified animal made no squeal until just before the arc reached the ground, perhaps twenty feet ahead and to the right of the searchers. Whether it saw the ground coming or finally recovered from the fear it was about to be eaten, it squalled more than squealed, with the sound interrupted as it hit the grass. It survived that impact and promptly squealed again, as it found its feet and started running.

Jorl had not waited to see if both men would react and look where the noise came from. He simply leaped up and over the ravine rim an instant before his internal timer said the impact would occur. There would be no better moment for him to be exposed, and he landed as softly as possible and dashed towards the nearby fence.

He glanced once over his right shoulder as he ran, and saw both men, now on the far side of the ravine, running away from his position. Energy coursed through his body, and he made a headlong leap up and over the fence, clearing it by at least five feet, and did a tuck and roll in midair to land on his feet, bending knees nearly to the ground, also using his hands to absorb the impact as softly and quietly as possible. He stayed low and raced directly for a hard packed area with hundreds of footprints, and angled towards the barracks.

He used his transducer to send in the blind to the Avenger. “A perimeter road patrol spotted me outside the fence, but I got away. I’m safely inside the camp, but you need to fly the single ship away before they find it in the ravine.”

The reply from Karl surprised him. “Sir, I picked up your transducer signal from the relay in the single ship. I have just lifted it off as quietly as I could, and it is now well to the south and climbing. The onboard visual sensors showed the patrol never turned around as it departed.”

Jorl slowed as he approached the lighted area, and went around his assigned building, and casually walked in a door on the side away from the track and practice field. He nodded to a couple of men he saw, and thanks to his mods and gravity adaptations, he wasn’t even sweating. His heart rate was up a little from the rush of excitement, and he forced his breathing to be normal, but he looked cool and casual. He didn’t even have dust on his black jumpsuit. He did a local Link to Fred and Yil, and asked them to retrieve the “object” while he took a shower. They had made certain they had conspicuous alibies while he was out of the compound.

He was still in the shower when the attention getting horn sounded on the speaker system and an announcement was made for everyone to assemble in front of the barracks in platoon ranks. “NOW!” was the emphatic final word.

Naked and wet, Jorl retrieved his spare clean jumpsuit, checking the one he’d just worn that day to confirm the bag was gone. He tossed the jumpsuit in the common use cleaner module closest to his bunk, and ran outside carrying his boots and fell in at his usual position on the front right corner of the formation. He wasn’t the last to arrive, and under the glares of a corporal and a sergeant, he slipped his bare damp feet into his self-sealing boots.

In the ranks of the facing men for the barracks next to his, he saw Fred in the first spot of the second row, for the second squad of his platoon. He looked over at Jorl and nodded slightly, confirming he was the one that retrieved the data cube.

The six barracks were in two rows, and now the two buildings at the end were darkened after two platoons worth of washouts or dropouts had cut their numbers down to four platoons in a single “hell week.” The rumor mill had it that the washout and dropout rate would slow now, but certainly not end. They would be fortunate to have two full platoons remaining when time came for the surgical implants, in four more months of training time.

Thirty-two men left out of over two thousand hopefuls that arrived at the orbital station. Many of those arrivals were selectively recruited and filtered before then. The high numbers of “walk-ins” were normally the first to be eliminated, and less than ten percent of those people made it down to Port Andropov. Not many of those made it to SOB-1 for “hell week.”

SFC Norris walked down the center lane between the rows of men, looking extremely unhappy. He was in charge of training, even though the day-to-day interaction for the last week had largely been with corporals for the trainees, and occasionally with several Staff Sergeants. “Hell week” was “weeding,” to remove the next weaker links, and didn’t require actual training, per se.

The staff’s AIs had already provided a complete head count, and even the arrival times noted for the last men to reach formation. However, Norris knew someone had certainly left the compound. Those trainees in the camp were free to dropout anytime, but there was a procedure for that, and climbing the fence and walking away wasn’t part of that process.

The seismic alarm that was detected at the perimeter patrol’s duty station, located by the main gate, had caused the diversion of the single mobile patrol unit from its random route. The unit was next to the civilian housing section, and was rushed over to the road that ran just outside the fence by the training course. The two privates IR senses saw faint heat traces on the ground that looked as if someone had walked away from the fence towards a nearby gully. The seismic sensor was buried under the roadway, as a strip that ran entirely around the camp. It was primarily intended to pick up vehicle traffic, but the AI was programmed to identify foot traffic as well. It had detected an impact of human-sized mass beside the roadway, as if a person had jumped down from the top of the fence, and who then crossed the road, moving away from the camp, fading with distance.

The two privates followed the fading heat trail to the gully, and could see double heat splotches in one direction along its bottom, and a single set in the opposite direction. To stay together, they went in the direction of the presumed double trail, while calling for another patrol unit to be dispatched.

They subsequently went running off into the open scrub brush on the other side of the gully, in pursuit of what proved to have been a jackrabbit. Because it had squealed loudly, they had assumed it had encountered one of the supposed individuals that made the tracks. However, all they spotted was the heat trace of the still running rabbit as it vanished over a small rise. Then they were told there were faint footsteps detected back on the roadway, so they rushed back in that direction, just as the second unit arrived from the other direction.

None of them had seen anything larger than a rabbit. However, when they used flashlights, they could easily make out boot prints in the gully. The dry road was so hard packed that it didn’t leave prints. There was no sign anyone had climbed a twelve-foot fence with coiled wire on top, and sharp edged mesh woven to keep fingers and toes away.

Nevertheless, the AI insisted that someone had run away from the fence, and ran back several minutes later. The inference was someone in the camp left and returned. That was when Norris was brought in, to have his people account for all the trainees, and get them into a formation for a head count.

When one of the original patrolling privates followed the double tracks in the gully, he noted by flashlight that a double set of tracks actually went both ways. He went to where they ended, and saw a smooth long depression in the sandy soil, and some crushed bushes pressed into the ground. There had been no rains to flood the area for weeks, so it had to have been formed recently and presumably that night.

Now the minor issue of perhaps a trainee climbing the fence on a lark, to see if the grass was greener on the other side, had been elevated into having met with someone outside, who had arrived and departed in some sort of small craft. When Norris heard that report, he called 1SG Crager.

Crager arrived from the adjacent housing area, where he’d been in a late meeting with Colonel Dearborn, concerning an equipment supply problem for a class farther ahead in the training cycle. Although SOB-1 was not a top-secret installation, at least on paper, Crager was on the inside of the small group of people that knew what direction Special Ops intended to move in the future. He personally didn’t know crap about genetics; he only knew that they were never going to produce troops with abilities to match the enemy with what they were doing now. He had expressed his opinion to some of the scientists, some of whom had agreed, and mentioned what had been done in the past that was now outlawed. That had been the start of the conspiracy.

Colonel Dearborn, in casual off the record conversations, revealed his similar sentiments, and it was apparent he also wanted to see the capability of spec ops troops greatly enhanced. Like Crager, he didn’t much care how they made the war winnable, so long as it was possible to do. A small seed had been planted and needed cultivation. SOB-1, in its isolation, and with black ops funding outside any audit trail, was fertile ground.

Tonight, Crager and Dearborn were concerned that some leak had brought a snoop into their midst. SFC Norris, who might even support their operation, wasn’t part of it simply to keep the number of those actively involved to a minimum. Frankly, it wasn’t certain there was much to be involved with, because the science was sketchy. The smart science people involved all knew it was possible, and the Clone Wars had proven what could be done three hundred years ago. However, they didn’t have the basic knowledge that had been destroyed in the Purge (so they assumed).

Norris, not certain why Crager was so intense as he stalked between the formed up platoons, glaring at every face, was startled when his Top said he would be going one on one, questioning each man. He told Norris to move them all, right now, to the auditorium dressed as they were. He also wanted the barracks searched, and a detailed examination made of the ground near the fence when daylight arrived, done by their advanced instructors from SOB-4, the Special Reconnaissance teams. In the meantime, he didn’t want anybody to walk all over the “evidence.”

Evidence?
Norris wondered.
Of what?
He couldn’t think of anything that warranted so much concern. Not even the impression in the sand from some small airship landing outside the base. That might only be a rendezvous of some horny volunteer and his girl, planned for celebrating after “hell week” ended. Top was treating it as if it was a life or death matter.

Colonel Trakenburg was stunned more than outraged, although his tone sounded more the latter. “Captain Longstreet, it has only been seven weeks! Mirikami
can’t
pull his people out of training this early. True, they started with physical capabilities much greater than our men possess, but they have too much to learn to leave here now. They could be the weapon we’ve been trying to make of Special Operations all along. They need to join with us. A weapon without the knowledge of how to use it is wasted. Captain Mirikami has to be made aware of this.”

Longstreet had tried to offer first name informality with his superior in private talks such as now, when he suggested the colonel could call him Joe, or Joseph. Trakenburg rebuffed that, as inevitably weakening the command structure. The captain didn’t take it personally, because he knew General Nabarone also had offered to allow Trakenburg to call him Henry in private. It was still “General” when Trakenburg spoke directly to the Planetary Defense Commander, in any setting. Some kinds of starch never washed out.

“Colonel, if they were typical trainees on Heavyside, even as physically capable as they started, the full twenty months of training should still be too little to bring them up to the skill level and knowledge of the men in my expanded platoon.” He shrugged.

“I can’t rationally explain it, Sir. They already can do everything the best of our people can do. Because of their speed and strength, and incredible coordination, any of them do it better and faster. Better than
any
of my men,
or any that I’ve ever seen,
including our legendary First Sergeant Crager, who taught me everything I know, at Heavyside and on live missions later.”

Trakenburg shook his head. “In just five weeks? We had them wasting time exercising for the first two weeks of the last seven.”

“That first two weeks wasn’t wasted, Sir. They are superhumanly strong and coordinated, but had never been pushed to their limits before we beefed up the regimen and made the course too tough even for us instructors to run. SOB-1 would have been a better location for that, but I’m positive they came from a planet with a bit more gravity than Heavyside.”

“There are no other
habitable
planets like that in Human Space.”

“That’s the point, Colonel. They said they came from a planet outside the Rim, left there by the Krall to die. We ran their DNA, compared it to their archived records for the four older men, and we know they have genetic enhancements to the normal genome that apparently make them a near strength equal to us in our Booster Suits.

“Sir, the scientists that General Nabarone brought in have reviewed the medical reports from the four TGs that arrived here wounded. They told me they’re stumped. The SGs have some mysterious nervous system features that seem redundant, and a strange second one is not used. The TGs also have redundant nerves, but do use the new set. They found other genetic changes that their DNA comparison equipment can’t recognize. The scientists claim we don’t even have experts any more that can decipher what those unknown genes must do.

“Colonel, the doctors and scientists may not know
how
the genes do what was done, but they can see some of it when the TGs are in a med lab’s scanners.  All of them, SGs and TGs alike have an extra tissue based superconducting nervous system, yet the SGs use only the same one you or I do. Of course, yours and mine have the supplementary platinum alloy nerve imbeds that drive our implants and Booster Suits. However, the SGs have essentially the same neuron connections at their nerve endings as we do. They have nearly the same reaction time as we do.

“Our own nerve implants give us a slight edge on conductivity and speed of reactions over an SG. Although, the superconductor nerves they have do seem to help the SGs improve reaction speed by giving them advance sensory input to their brains. I think you and I still have a trivial speed advantage, sending information back from the brain to move our Booster Suits.”

This was actually already known to Trakenburg, but Longstreet thought he was the first to brief the master snooper of what Nabarone’s own AI data had revealed. “Captain, of course you know the real prize is how the TGs are able to use the second superconducting nervous system. That’s where they get that reaction speed. We know they start life with the muscle enhancements of the SGs, with the added carbon fiber within their existing tissues grown at a later age. Now it’s as if they wear a Booster Suit internally, and have powerful human muscles in addition to that. I had wondered how they were safely absorbing the tremendous impacts when I saw them risk long drops. How did they not break bones? You and I could drop just as far in our suits and still survive the impact. However, because we would have to crawl away with broken feet and legs, we would die if this happened in combat.

“A Magnetic Resonance Imaging system was brought in that went over Ethan Greeves, checking his rib regrowth from the plasma burn and chest puncture before we let him join the others on the obstacle course six weeks ago. I heard about the MRI results from a doctor, but dismissed it at the time, thinking it was the same substance as their carbon fiber muscles.

“I recently learned from General Nabarone’s medical team, (he had Max steal the report), that the carbon nanotubes in their bones and carbon fibers in their muscles are structurally very different, grown by completely different gene changes. The bones have interlocked carbon nano tubes built into them. Longer nano tubes just like those are the same material used to make the Space Elevator cables on Earth and Mars. The TGs don’t have pure nano tube bones, but they are damned hard to break, and they flex more before reaching the fracture point.”

Trakenburg realized he had been pulled away from his main objective, to discuss a way to keep Mirikami and his TGs here, to complete their training, and to convince them to join forces with Special Operations. General Nabarone did not have the reach, away from Poldark, to order or conduct the strikes Mirikami had said he wanted his people to conduct against Krall interests. Spec ops did, at least in principle.

“If we run some live missions with the TGs, where they put what we taught them into practice, they will see the value of our men’s experience, and one or more of the older SGs might come over to my point of view. I don’t want to lose this opportunity. I can’t let them leave.”

Longstreet was quite certain that other than disabling their ship, that they
couldn’t
stop them from leaving. The TGs could capture any other ship on the planet they wanted and only massively overwhelming deadly force could beat them. Not an action conducive to friendship and cooperation. He needed to get Trakenburg to accept a theory he now held to be true, and which explained why they were ready to leave training so early.

“Sir, we’ve both observed how quickly the TGs learn. I even see the four older men picking up tactics I’m surprised they learn so quickly. However, they don’t do it as fast, in a single one-day session, and they sometimes forget details a week later. That almost never happens with the TGs. They learn at a phenomenal rate. After a few sessions with different men acting as instructors, they combine the best parts of each instructor’s techniques, and I honestly can’t see a way I could teach them how to do it better. Then they practice some situations on their own, and damned if they don’t find ways to do it better, using moves we
couldn’t
teach them, because
we
can’t do them.

“I know you saw the recordings of how they cleared the Krall from each deck of that clanship as they went up, one deck, sometimes two decks at a time. They leaped up to flip in midair, firing as they did that, and planted their feet on the bottom of the next deck above to push off, flip, and land away from the stairs. They continued to shoot and cover the next TG coming a second or two behind them. They would have five or six TGs through in seconds, all of them increasing the rate of fire, and
they do not miss what they target
.” He added that emphasis.

“I sure as hell can’t do that. Almost everything we teach them is improved on by them when they are left on their own. I’m telling you, Sir, they somehow pass that learning on to the next squad, even if the next group never had a chance to see the initial demonstration. How do
you
think they do that, Sir?”

“Captain, you are with them every day, I have not observed that. By the tone of your question, you obviously have an opinion to offer.”

“I do, Sir. However, it will sound…, strange. I don’t suppose any stranger than how bizarre they already seem to us.

“We all have heard them speak of SGs and TGs, and they have explained a bit about what that meant. Did you ever hear any of the younger ones call one of the appointed squad leaders a TG1? I mean someone like the Martin boy, and Greeves’ son, that
Conrad Boston kid, and some others.”

“I think I recall overhearing the term a few times. I assumed it’s a sort of ranking they used at home. All of them are squad leaders for you I think.”

“Not all of them, Sir. I’ve heard some of them call Warren Brock a TG1, and another boy named Carlos, whose last name I don’t remember. Those two don’t lead squads because they are not particularly assertive or natural leaders. They both have excellent physical ability, but not leadership qualities. They are both called a TG1 at times.”

In an annoyed tone Trakenburg pushed him to make his point. “Captain, I don’t care what rank or honor they grant one of their TGs. You said they both had excellent physical abilities. That may be why any of them are called TG1s.”

“I think it has more to do with a mental ability, Sir.”

More annoyed now, Trakenburg asked, “Like IQ, memory, math? Or what?”

Longstreet had to grit it out, if he sounded like an idiot, so be it. “I think TG1’s use some kind of telepathy.”

Trakenburg blinked. “You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding!”

Yep, the colonel definitely thought he was an idiot.

“Please hear me out, Sir. It must be one of the genetic enhancements they appear to have, which we can’t identify, and may be tied somehow to their superconducting nerves. I don’t think it works like broadcast signals sent through the air. It is apparently connected to that touchy feely thing they do, every time one group is shown something new, or a squad leader is first to complete a new training exercise.

“They do this sort of group hug thing. I know you’ve seen it, because I heard you make a disparaging comment once when they did that. They all circle up and stack hands with the squad leader, or sometimes with Carlos what-ever-his-name-is, or Warren Brock, who offer the first hand at the bottom of rings they initiate. We thought it was a team building exercise of their own, except they also do it between different, supposedly competing teams.

“I’ve seen non-leader Brock finish a classroom session on methods to create diversions, or how to conduct hit and run actions, and non-leader Carl
os after a description of what favorable factors to look for when selecting ambush sites. Those two so-called TG1s always meet with the next class coming in, before they go off with an instructor to practice what they were just told, or sometimes simply go to lunch. Their own squad members don’t hang back to participate in the ring with the next group, and the incoming squad leaders are sometimes other TG1’s. They do their own rings during training.

“What became significant to me was that the next new group always had the answers to randomly asked questions on completely new course subjects, or can perfectly perform whatever the physical action is in the exercise being taught, even though they have never had it demonstrated for them. They already know what to do.”

Still skeptical, but willing to listen to one of his best platoon leaders, Trakenburg had a hypothetical question. “If they have such a farfetched ability, have you seen signs that the so-called TG1’s try do it with any of us?”

He was satisfied with the look of surprised wonder on Longstreet’s face as he considered an implication he had overlooked. The colonel thought he had forced a retraction of this preposterous suggestion, when the captain said, “I’ll be damned. That’s how he knew.”

“How who knew what?”

“Sir, I know you have the recording of the demonstration fight in SOB-23’s parking garage, between Warren Brock, Sergeant Jenkins and Corporal Bender. They shook hands before the fight, right after Thad…, I mean Colonel Greeves…, suggested he do that first. Greeves also said to think about what his first move would be in the fight. I automatically did that too, just as if I were about to fight some greenhorn kid with a highly exaggerated build up.

“I’ll bet Jenkins and Bender thought about it as well. Brock beat them both so quickly because he
knew
their first moves. At the end he was hurting Corporal Bender by nearly pulling his arms off. An object lesson that we now know he could have actually finished. He said something after that, which indicated he knew what both Bender and Jenkins had been thinking before the fight.

“He said Bender wanted to hurt him really bad, just to impress me, and that Jenkins simply wanted to knock him out fast and easy. The words he used were something like that, so we’ll have to watch the recording again to be sure. At the time, that sounded reasonably the same as I thought both men might think, knowing them both as well as I do. I only wondered later how the kid could have sized them up so quickly. It must have been during the handshake. That means they can read us as well.
Damn!
”