Mirikami explained, for Stewarts benefit. “We know the Empire has infiltrated tachyon wake monitor ships, and they’re trying to find our worlds from tachyon traces when we’re in level two or three. We’re dropping down to level 1, where we can’t be traced, and do that while we’re not moving directly towards any star system. We’re still ten light years from a colony when we turn towards them, and even farther away from the Koban system. It adds days to the transit, but it doesn’t lead the enemy straight to a potential target.”
“So? The Empire already knows where Zanzibar is. That cat’s already out of the bag.”
Cal told him what Mirikami expected, and dreaded to hear. “Sir, the Streaker was followed back to Tanner’s world. There was no second burst of gamma rays here, but we know the Empire uses ships that swallow them. I checked with an automated patrol boat we posted near Zanzibar, about twenty light years out from them, closer to the Empire to watch for traffic from there.
“With roughly a 200 light year radius for tracing T-cubed travel, and about 150 lights for slower T-squared movements, it recorded the Streaker’s arrival and departure, exiting from level three right over the colony. However, when the Streaker left, a second T-cubed trail started behind them inside the Zanzibar system, and followed their path to the limits of the monitor’s detection range. The monitor didn’t have a record of the second ship ever arriving at Zanzibar, so it came in using level one at some earlier date, and sat there waiting. I’m certain that Tanner’s world has been found by the Empire, which means the rest of Human Space will be identified soon as well, since there are two other Rim worlds within 200 lights of them.”
Tet agreed, with a distinction. “The enemy will think they’ve found higher population Federation worlds, since they don't know there are two political entities in this galactic spur. It’s only a matter of time before they follow the web of Jump traffic to other Rim worlds and from them to the Hub.”
Stewart reacted as Mirikami expected, and approved. “We have to warn not only the President of Tanner’s world, we need to meet with President Strickland, to let the PU know what’s coming. It may not be pleasant making contact directly with her, if the attempt leaks to her political opposition. Perhaps you can use your friendly relationship with Vice President Bledso, who surely still has connections within the navy. You worked with one of her Admirals at Poldark. If she’s still active duty, perhaps you can reach Bledso through her?”
“That would be Admiral Foxworthy. She’s been promoted since her defense of Poldark, and she has command of the PU’s first fleet now. Henry’s troops are transported by, and provided support by first fleet elements. I can find out from him how to reach her through backchannels. It’s too bad we don’t have any Kobani with the navy anymore. Comtaps are so much faster. We need to convince them to mobilize quickly, because we know the Empire is ready to pounce. I’ll get right on that.”
****
Bledso beamed, “Captain Mirikami, I’m delighted to see you again. I presume you’ve still not allowed President MacDougal to give you a more deserving designation or official title?”
“Madam Vice President, I’ve fought a constant battle in that regard. Captain of a ship is what I’ve always wanted to be. If my poor old Flight of Fancy could have been given new T-cubed Jump engines, and converted to a warship, I’d be at her helm. I’m proud to captain the Mark, but she wasn’t intended for humans. However, the title Captain is the one I relish most, on the Bridge of any good ship under my command. I’d be surprised if the same wasn’t once true of a former admiral who rose through the ranks, surely aspiring to command her own ship.”
She laughed, and agreed. “It was my fondest aspiration as an ensign, to be captain of a warship seventy years ago, so I sympathize with your reluctance to allow anyone to take it away from you. I wasn’t nearly as resolute as you.”
She smiled and shook her head, “Even so, I can’t pretend that’s all you are to the Federation. Admiral Foxworthy is not given to hyperbole, and she told me that it was vital for the future of the Planetary Union that I meet with you as soon as possible. I commandeered a cruiser yesterday, to meet you here, in orbit around a Rim world with a name I hardly remembered.
“And before we get bogged down with the use of cumbersome titles, you invited me to call you Tet when we first met on Poldark years ago, and I’d like you to call me Adriana. I know you know I’m the VP of the Planetary Union, just as I know you are effectively the Secretary of the Navy, or maybe Military Chief of Staff now, or some equivalent title, since it’s been a couple of years since Medford refused to recognize the Galactic Federation. What do you know about something that threatens the PU? I don't for a moment think it’s the Federation itself threatening us, and it certainly isn’t the Krall.”
“No, it certainly isn’t us Adriana, but it’s indirectly tied to our joint defeat of the Krall.”
She was taken aback. “How so?”
“You know the story of how the Olt’kitapi inadvertently unleased the Krall on the galaxy, but even we in the Federation didn’t know exactly what the threat was they feared, which induced them to risk arming the barbarian Krall with advanced weapons, expecting them to become their defense force. In the last six months, we’ve discovered what that ancient threat was. It’s called the Thandol Empire and stretches along the Milky Way’s Sagittarius Arm, and a common boundary is located where our Orion Spur branches away.
“Apparently, as a result of our defeat of the Krall, the Thandol are no longer deterred by that species implacable ferocity, and have decided to take possession of the stars where the Olt’kitapi once lived, and which the Krall took away from them. They were the foe the Olt’kitapi feared. The Empire has already attacked three of our new colonies and announced their intent to annex all of our volume of space. We’ve hit back at them twice, to attempt to dissuade them, and we’ve guarded the locations of our other inhabited worlds. We have a thousand ships distributed among our new colonies, and more than that at Koban, but we doubt the Empire will hesitate to invade if they find a major population center.”
“Why does that automatically make them a threat to the Planetary Union? We’re a separate political entity from the Federation. As you well know, we haven’t even officially recognized you yet, thanks to the stubbornness of the LOR party. Our volume of space was never part of the Orion Spur occupied by the Olt’kitapi.”
Mirikami shrugged. “Claiming the former Olt’kitapi region is merely a pretext. They want the entire Spur. They’ve attacked two of our colony worlds that were never used by, or within the Olt’kitapi volume, or even used by the Krall.
“We don’t believe they know anything about Human Space, or even the full extent of Federation territory for that matter, since they haven’t found Koban, which is on the far side from them.
“After their first attack, we made peaceful contact with one of their conquered and subservient races, called the Hothor, and from them we have learned more about the Thandol and their Empire. They rule a volume of stars at least as vast as what the Krall controlled, but it’s not nearly so desolate and unpopulated. That’s because their strategy wasn’t to exterminate the twenty-six species they encountered. They don’t exactly enslave the species they meet, but they do control them rigidly and ruthlessly, taxing them and requiring them to support the Empire.
“They forcibly annexed each civilization they encountered, making them subservient to the Thandol and their Emperor, and although they’re being exploited, they’re allowed to self-govern their existing worlds within limits. Future expansion hopes and colonization by these species is terminated, and revolts, or even displays of resistance against the Thandol are brutally punished. They are allowed to conduct strictly regulated trade with nearby species, and of course they are required to trade with the Thandol at a market disadvantage.”
Bledso stopped him there, wanting to cut to the chase. “Tet, you’ve told me this mystery empire is a threat to the Federation because they want the
former Olt’kitapi stars. I have to ask, although I dread the answer because you brought me way out here to Tanner’s World. How are we involved with what sounds like your problem?”
“The Empire doesn’t know the PU exists, at least not yet. However, one of your new T-cubed merchant ships, the Streaker, came out here and talked a warehouse manager into letting them transport a cargo originally intended for one of our ships. It ran supplies and equipment out to our colony of Zanzibar Redoux, which is one of the three colonies the Empire had previously found and attacked. Our ships take precautions on such flights, to prevent their being traced in Tachyon Space to and from their ports of call. The Streaker was cautioned by the port authorities here of our required entry procedures, and given a copy of that in writing.
“That captain didn’t follow those precautions, and we now know that an Empire ship followed them back here. The Thandol will believe they’ve finally found a developed Federation planet, and we expect them to send a large fleet here in the near future, to either capture Tanner’s world, or destroy as much as possible if unable to hold it.”
Bledso shrewdly pointed something out; uncomfortably aware of how cold it would sound. “You know that Tanner’s isn’t actually part of the PU. They’re in Human Space, where we provide interstellar security, but they’re an independent Rim world. You’re already fighting the Empire, so why don’t you ambush them here, with that five thousand ship fleet you so proudly showed off to former President Medford?”
Mirikami knew the game, and explained what he was confident this former Admiral already had deduced. “Even if we do that, from here they’ll definitely detect Jump traffic in and out of other nearby Rim worlds, and they will follow some of that traffic to the richer worlds of the Hub. Despite controlling a far larger volume of stars than in Human Space, we believe they have roughly a similar population to that of the PU, and little of it will be trusted to fight on behalf of the Empire. As I said, we’re sure they want to take possession of the entire Orion Spur, no matter who they find living here.”
Now the admiral, rather than the politician she’d become, asked a military question. “If you’ve fought them twice, how do they measure up to the Krall?”
“Does the fact that they hid from the Krall for nearly twenty thousand years tell you anything? They have weapons technology nearly as advanced as the Olt’kitapi gave to the Krall, and they have weapon types we don’t have, but which we understand and can copy if we wish. We’ve not seen or heard of anything they have to match the gravity control of the Dismantler ships. I think that weapon, which was only considered a construction tool by the Olt’kitapi, is what held them at bay from facing the Krall. They don’t believe we have that weapon, which is correct, we don’t. Nevertheless, I think the Federation and the PU match up reasonably well with them technologically, now that we both have T-cubed travel. Nova bombs have proven devastatingly effective against them, but they have a similar weapons delivery system that could be modified to do the same thing to us.”
“Tet, that was useful technology information, but I was actually asking about their physical capability. That was why normal humans couldn’t compete effectively in combat against the Krall, but you Kobani kicked their butts.”
“Oh, that. Well, we’ve only faced a security force species used by the Thandol in actual close space combat, called the Ragnar, which resemble an upright postured mountain gorilla of Earth, with longer human proportioned legs. We have two of them as captives, and they’re stronger than a normal human, but certainly not a Kobani, or even a Krall. They’re no faster than a normal human is, they prefer lower gravity than that of Earth’s, and they have nothing like the powerful body, redundant organs and self-repairing capability of a Krall.
“No offense intended to you at your age Adriana, but a younger you with a gun, facing one of them with a gun, in a one gravity field? I’d give you the mobility edge, since they evolved on a lower gravity world than did humans. I don't think, without powered armor, you’d want to go hand to hand with them. They have muscular bodies. But we Kobani could pull an arm off a Krall. This species is no contest one on one with us, but they’re smarter than a typical Krall warrior is. Like before, they also outnumber us.”
“So, the Ragnar are proxy fighters for the Thandol?” She asked. This made her wonder about their masters. “What about the Thandol? Are they tougher than their ape soldiers?”
“We also have two of those captive, and they resemble smaller sized elephants, four legs, with two very strong and flexible trunks below their mouths, paired with two somewhat smaller manipulator tentacles on the front of their faces above their mouths. They’re strictly vegetarian, have no tusks, and are almost seven feet high at the front shoulder. I think the Ragnar might be stronger, if not as heavy or massive.”
He mentally compared Maggi’s Mind Tap memory of interaction with prisoners of both species.
“Adriana, I don’t think either species would make better fighters than normal humans, because like our alien allies, they aren’t as adaptable or as innovative as humans have proven to be. They use fewer of the available habitable worlds if they’re too hot, too cold, extra dry or watery, and they both preferentially use worlds with less than Earth gravity.
“Bear in mind, these aren’t the Krall on their evolutionary Great Path. They’ll want to win as quickly as possible, not spread the conquests out over thousands of years for improving their breed. And with their technology, they might be able to do that. Win quickly, I mean.
“From information gained from the Hothor species, a sloth-look-alike people but faster moving, they have many more warships than we do, and that’s yours and ours combined. Perhaps as high as twenty-five thousand warships.”
Shaking her head, Bledso said, “Damn it, Tet. Can’t you people ever make an enemy out of a weak alien species?”
He gave her a sour look. “Hell, we’ve never made an enemy out of any of them we’ve met. It’s always been gifts of violence, which we couldn’t refuse. Besides, there were no Kobani when the Krall first invaded, so we can’t be blamed for triggering that war. Humanity needed a miracle to survive them, and we provided that miracle for us both. The Federation has the most warships, and of course a relative handful of Kobani fighters. The PU has tens of millions of soldiers, sailors, and many hundreds of populated and productive worlds. To me, an alliance seems advantageous to us both.”
“Don’t get your knickers in a twist, Tet. I’m not blaming you or your people for antagonizing this empire. At least not without strong evidence to the contrary. You have always acted honorably and aboveboard in my experience. Admiral Mauss joined you and became a Kobani, now with Mind Tap she tells me. That’s a powerful testimonial from a person I know personally, and I always trusted her judgment and integrity implicitly.”
“You know about that?” He hadn’t seen Mauss lately, after she volunteered to go work with Nabarone, cleaning out the last of the Krall.
Bledso smiled. “Yes. She’s managed to stay in touch. She congratulated me after Marlene Strickland, with me on her coattails, won the election for DEW. We’ve shared text messages several dozen times. They came through that amazing new Instellarnet system that one of your non-Kobani returnees to Earth established. I think Golda’s probably aboard one of the two huge Torki hospital ships in the Poldark system, or perhaps the one at Greater West Africa or at Bollovstic. She didn’t say, of course, but I think she’s involved with the Kobani conversions you folks are performing on our soldiers and sailors, before they get discharged as the Krall war winds down.”
Mirikami tried to hide his surprise. It didn’t work.
She chuckled. “As fast as your muscle reactions are Tet, it didn’t prevent your irises from changing slightly. President Strickland, when she found out, thought she was telling me something I didn’t already know, and I acted surprised. Admiral Foxworthy, who told me about it earlier, said she learned from scuttlebutt that some of her noncommissioned people took leave and traveled to
worlds with Krall extermination sweeps still underway, instead of at some luxury port of call. They may have visited one of those giant ships for the second week of their leave, then returned to duty seeming to be more rundown than when they left. Except, within another week or two, they become the most vigorous, healthy and happy crewmates on their ship. Foxworthy has secretly, and personally, tested some of them for Mind Tap ability, by directing surprising thoughts at them while shaking hands. No reactions, so none appear to have received that modification.”
She watched his eyes again. “I guess that’s reserved only for those that live on Koban?”
The question seemed a bit accusatory, but not hostile. Aware of his reaction before, his eyes revealed nothing now, but his mouth did.
“Excellent detective work. We’ve debated admitting what we’re doing, offering Kobani mods to enlisted military members that want them when they go on leave. They’re approached by Kobani, usually spec ops members, those that do have Mind Tap, to make the offer if they display strong and positive interest. We know what their reaction will be before we ever tender the invitation. They aren’t asked to become Federation citizens, or to give up their careers, or make any lifestyle change whatever. No strings attached. We do inform them of the appropriate military regulations and Hub laws.
“Although, as you might suspect, if we came forward to talk about this, I’d have been more comfortable telling you before informing the President, if that wouldn’t be politically backward. Our final position was that when this inevitably leaks to the press, and the public learns about it, plausible deniability that those in charge of the PU didn’t know what we were doing would be your political and legal shields.”
Nodding she said, “That’s why we’ve kept silent. The president needed a hypothetical question answered first. She asked her legal team to research the appropriate laws and military regulations that pertain to military personnel that accept gene mods. I was sure you had done this already, or that Mauss had done it for you, because we don’t know of a single officer to whom you have furnished this conversion. Several outstanding enlisted members have refused offers to attend officer training when offered the opportunity. Using a surreptitious test, we have determined they were already Kobani. We now have a quick passive DNA test, and damned if we aren’t riddled with you guys. It’s obvious it hasn’t had a negative effect, because our highest re-ups are from those with the mods. They volunteer to go where the Krall are still found.”
Koban 6: Conflict and Empire Page 13
