Koban: Rise of the Kobani (68 page)

Mirikami shrugged. “OK, I don’t think we can get any more prepared for whatever surprises they have for us by standing here.”

“How about asking Jake? He sees everything,” Sarge suggested.

Mirikami brightened. “Good idea. That could be considered being a spoilsport, but what the hell.  I’ll give it a shot and we can all act
as if we didn’t know.

“Jake, reply on speaker, please.”

“Yes Sir,” came from an overhead grill.

“What surprises do the Ladies and Maggi have prepared for us in the conference room?”

“I’m not at liberty to tell you, Sir, without permission.”

Mirikami almost sputtered. “What? I’m the captain of this ship. I’m authorized any level of access to your data.” He had
never
expected this.

“Sir, you are now the captain of The Mark of Koban, a different ship. You may recall that this ship was decommissioned, and made a property of Prime City as the communal power plant.”

“Of course I know. I did that myself, back when I was Commander of the dome and everything inside the compound. I certainly did not deny myself access to your data before or later. You have never refused my orders. Why now?” He felt as if a friend had turned on him, not an AI that obeyed impersonal rules.

“The Mayor of Prime City specifically instructed that I not provide the information you requested, for today only.”

Mirikami fumed and turned red in the face. Trakenburg asked, “Who’s the Mayor?”

Thad was laughing. “Maggi Fisher.”

There was nothing left but to head to the central lift, and go discover what else the Ladies were holding back. Mirikami savagely mashed the summons button when he arrived. Once inside the lift, he pressed for deck 8 much harder than necessary. Dillon smiled, hoping that this meant that Maggi had another target for her humor today.

As Mirikami led the party to the set of double doors off the main corridor, they found them closed as they approached, manned by two of his former stewards, Nory Walters and Mel Rigson. They were in their old Interworld company livery tonight, their white vests looking bright and new, the black pants sharply creased. They nodded and pulled open the doors as he approached, saying nothing.

As he swung into the room, he saw there were only perhaps fifty guests present, of the two hundred people the largest room on the ship could hold. There were no living plastic chairs extruded from the floor today, but there were extruded tables holding snacks and drinks along the sidewalls.

Despite the forewarning, they each experienced a brief partial loss of equilibrium as the gravity field lessened when they crossed the threshold. It was as if the corridor behind them were trying to hold them back with its higher pull of gravity. This certainly supported the notion of guests that preferred a lower gravity. 

They were greeted as they entered, and Marlyn and Noreen detached from the milling and clustered social groups and linked arms with their respective husbands. Aldry and Rafe were broadly introduced to all ten new comers, and Mirikami exchanged greetings with various city officials from both Prime City and Hub City that caught his eye. Nory Walters brought Tet his favorite drink, a glass of Death Lime juice with a bit more than a dash of rum. It seemed more like a purely social gathering than a diplomatic one.

Maggi was nowhere to be seen. However, a podium was in the back of the room, to one side of the seldom-used second set of double doors.
Deanna Turner, Tet’s friend and former combat team member, left a group of people and walked to the podium. She was the Deputy Mayor for Maggi, and often filled in for her at functions.

She tapped her finger on the gavel button to create a rapping sound for attention. A slender audio pickup extruded from the podium top towards her lips.

“Distinguished visitors, guests, new citizens,” she nodded to the nervously clustered spec ops soldiers, uncomfortable in this civilian social setting, “and dear friends.” She looked to Tet, and the Inner Circle’s “movers and shakers” of Koban’s past, present, and future.

“Today we are celebrating the return and reuniting of our intrepid heroes, who risked not only bearding the Krall lion in its den on K1, but also by entering Human Space. To contact and seek assistance from those that could easily have chosen to turn on them, as criminals guilty of Purge era crimes against humanity. They were successful in both undertakings, as our welcomed new citizens and wonderful new technology are proof that we can cooperate in our joint fight against the Krall.” She beamed, and there was light applause.

“There have been strides made here at home, in a very short time using this new technology, the nanites and modern med labs. To more effectively and more widely employ the genetic enhancements that make our defeating the Krall possible. Not a guaranteed victory by any means, but now possible in principle.”

More applause.

“Aldry and Rafe will speak with you individually about the marvelous steps recently taken in genetics. I’m certain you who have returned home today have heard rumors that the procedures used to create our TGs and TG1’s, and now some TG2’s, will function with more subjects than Koban-born children of Second Generation parents. Thanks to the war driven new nanites and med labs from Human Space, our gene mods also can be applied to their parents, who were not born with the organic superconducting nervous system. This means that any human, whether living on Koban or not, can be enhanced to become a member of the Kobani race of man.”

That drew a loud round of applause, and Mirikami assumed that a triumphant and physically enhanced Maggi Fisher was about to come through the prominently exposed rear doors. Not yet, as it turned out.

Maggi addressed the ten newer men.  “Your trip to K1 had the fallout of acquiring two more clanships to convert to our use. One of those, the Beagle, went exploring locally and found a second home for some of our own people and for the expected influx of Krall slaves, as we raid their production worlds. As you know, it was given the name Haven, and was found to already have a small population of left-behind races the Krall probably considered expendable, or replaceable.”

Now Mirikami expected Maggi, and some aliens, to walk dramatically through those rear doors. Only partly right.

“Ladies, and Gentle Men, we have the privilege of presenting representatives of each race, the Prada and the Torki. We ask that you refrain from crowding them until they are more familiar with our customs, and we with theirs. Some of you here have met with them previously, or have seen them in Tri-Vid recordings. Our wanderers and new citizens have not. I present to you Ambassador Wister, of the Prada on Haven, and Ambassador Coldar, of the Torki on Haven.”

The rear doors opened slowly, and side-by-side stood the diminutive Wister, and Coldar. The eight-foot wide crab was standing offset to the side, to accommodate Wister’s smaller frame in the doorway.

Wister’s head darted forward once, as he walked into the room, seeing humans that he knew and had gradually learned to tell apart. As he cleared the doorway, Coldar sidled to the left and then was able to fit through the wide set of doors.

Trakenburg was intrigued by the aliens, but still had to whisper a nitpicking comment on the presentation to Mirikami. “This doesn’t resemble any diplomatic function I ever attended, between the PU and colony worlds.”

“Well, Frank, we aren’t a colony world, and we don’t have anyone still alive with us that was ever an actual diplomat. The same is true for these former Krall subjects, I presume. We can ad lib diplomacy as we go, just as we have done on the military side of things.”

The last was a little dig at Trakenburg’s gripe that the Kobani didn’t choose to follow even a loose, let alone his preferred strict military rules of conduct. The closest they came to looking uniform was when they all wore their new Chameleon Skin flex armor.

This lack of military structure had its roots in the past of its two leaders with any military background at all. Tet had been in the PU Navy in his early Spacer career (not a satisfactory union), and Thad had been in a provincial militia on (the then Rim World) of Poldark, which had operated more like an adult Boy Scout troop with big guns. They had no desire to impose too rigid a structure on what was essentially an all-volunteer force of young and spirited, free-willed personalities, all with super human ability.

Mirikami still saw no sign of Maggi. He had grown fond of the sometimes irritating, older little woman. Over a private dinner tonight, he wanted to share with her the things he was planning, and to hear her tell of what she was learning from the aliens. The few months away from Koban had made him appreciate her counsel, advice, and company. They had been in near daily contact for over twenty years. He missed having someone he could confide in, on matters where he was uncertain.

He realized that Deanna was leading both aliens towards him, as the people in the center of the room gave the imposing looking Torki more room than they might have the smaller Prada. A four-foot long heavy right claw, and a smaller left one of three feet, tended to generate feelings of caution from soft bodied creatures.

Deanna made the personal introduction. “Ambassador Wister, Ambassador Coldar, this man is Captain Mirikami, our foremost citizen, who bears the greatest responsibility for our surviving our
interactions
with the Krall when they were here, and leading us as we sought to find ways to survive on Koban.”

Wister responded first, in very well enunciated low Krall, if higher pitched than when spoken by a Krall. “Ambassador Fisher has spoken of you often, and provided me with mental images of you, and of things you have accomplished. I am honored to greet you.” He bobbed his head vertically twice on his long neck, which Mirikami took as equivalent to a human bow.

Replying in low Krall, he said, “I am pleased to meet you as well, Ambassador Wister. I look forward to our future discussions.” He bowed deeply, certain he could not match the head bobbing motion on a shorter human neck. Besides, coming from him it might mean something completely inappropriate. He thought,
out of context, it might mean you look sexy for hairy squirrel.

He suppressed a chuckle, not certain what provoked the random thought. Alien gestures would have to be studied, and human one’s explained, before used or imitated. Simply looking into a Krall eyes could get you killed when we first met them.

Tet next was surprised to hear the Torki ambassador speak Standard, with no foreign inflection or accent at all. It was like hearing a high level AI speaking. “Captain Mirikami, your exploits and wisdom have been described to us by our mutual friend, Maggi. Her mind images are tinted with colors of fondness and admiration for you. I will be eager to mind share with you, after you achieve the genetic gift of what you call Mind Tap.”

“Ambassador Coldar, I admire our friend Maggi greatly. I am eagerly looking forward to the next series of genetic enhancements, one of which will enable me to mind share, as you said.” He repeated the bow, which Coldar emulated by lowering the front of his carapace, with a rustling and scraping sound as the hard surfaces rubbed together.

“I had not expected to hear you speaking Standard, Ambassador Coldar. That is quite impressive in such a short time after meeting us.”

Coldar was humbly dismissive. “That was only a translation of low Krall into Standard, from a software program I downloaded from an artificial intelligence machine on your clanship named the Beagle. I speak to you using a sound replicator, because the Torki natural speech would be outside of your physical ability to replicate.” The crab lifted its front to reveal a black six-inch oval device adhered to his shell.

“I also have an internal device of Olt’kitapi design, which has storage capacity for many things. One of those new things was a translation program from your intelligent computer, between low Krall and Standard. I already have a translator from Torki speech to low Krall and back. It seemed redundant for me to speak in the language imposed by my former masters. I was introduced as an ambassador in your language, although that is not a title among my species. I wish to be addressed in conversation as simply Coldar, a builder of quantum key devices.”

“Coldar it is then. I prefer to be known to friends as Tet, which is a portion of my first name, and Mirikami is my more formal second name. Please call me Tet.”

“The inference is that you wish to be a friend. I wish that as well. However, because the Prada do not know any language but low Krall, we should switch to that to be polite.”

Mirikami nodded before he could catch himself. No telling what that could mean to an alien. He responded verbally in low Krall. “Coldar, I do ask that you call me Tet as a friend. Ambassador Wister, I have invited Coldar to be a friend, and I extend that invitation to you as well. Will you accept my offer of friendly informality?”

A forward head dart, and he said, “This is the arrangement I have with Maggi, and she addresses me as Wister. Tet, I believe we can act as friends as well. I have started to learn words of Standard, however, Coldar has said a smaller modified sound replicator disk can be made by his people, which will use the same program for translation that I believe he used with you now. My words in low Krall will be repeated in Standard to you, and I will hear low Krall from those that speak Standard.”

“Excellent. We will have spoken words that we can share, and with my people, soon most of us will have the Mind Tap ability we gained from the rippers of Koban.”