The deliberate arrival timing worked extremely well. The advance craft were out of the passes with the dome in sight, just in time to see it explode like so many tinker toy parts, pin wheeling up and outward, then falling back. The parts of the dome not hit directly began to slump awkwardly, in fits and starts, as one collapsing section pulled another down. By the time the entire assault force was out of the passes, the six hundred foot high, half-mile wide dome looked more like a fifty foot high broken pile of sticks and shiny armored glass fragments, sparkling in the bright cheerful sunshine, which beamed its way through the pall of dust. Because there had been no clanships parked here (that was a surprise revealed by observations at the moon), there was no billowing orange and black column of fire and smoke from an exploded fuel tank.
Thad, checking the AIs communications report on one of the screens, verified there had been no outgoing Krall signals detected. The two ECM systems were both online, and their drogue chutes were still lowering them gently over the wreckage of the dome. Surprise was complete, and no warning had made it to the rest of this world. Yet.
Keying a push for the entire flotilla, using their reserved low power frequency band, Dillon told them, “Set down on all sides except the west, to allow Prada evacuations there. Let’s see if the missiles left us any Krall to kill.”
****
No warrior would ever admit to boredom, because that suggested they were less alert than maximum. The Krall had bred the need for sleep from their species thousands of generations ago, without regard to how a long day of wakefulness could be filled, if the enjoyment of continuous personal combat were not a constant mental stimulant. To fill the time on duty when on alert and nothing exciting was happening, most warriors relived past combat kills or actions from near perfect memories of battlefields. They repeatedly analyzed their own performance, and that of warriors that had been around them. Considering how they and their clan mates could have fought better, or more efficiently.
Because their minds were extremely active, they considered themselves to be at maximum alertness, ready to instantly detect and react to any threat. In effect, however, they were retroactively replacing the Krall brain’s equivalent of REM sleep in humans, where the day’s events were dreamed about and moved to long-term memory. The Krall’s brain wasn’t disabled from muscle control, as humans were when dreaming, however the bout of “daydreaming” did not truly make them more aware of their real surroundings than normal. That was an artifact of the daydreaming thought process, where they were keenly aware of the past battles they were reformulating, to do it perfectly the next time.
As a result, the four warriors placed on duty at the top of the dome were technically wide-awake, each constantly scanning their quarter of the observational hemisphere with their eyes and heads moving, more or less on autopilot. They were unconsciously relying on visual movement detection to cue their real world attention. This was far better than human ability, but short of the Krall’s expectation.
The two ECM missiles, when they appeared barely over the top of a ridge at five miles distance, were flying directly at the point of view of the Krall observing that quadrant. Their apparent motion was effectively zero across her field of view. She finally noticed their increase in size at about the halfway point.
Her proper first response was to alert the entire dome, relying on the other three warriors to overhear her report to the warriors stationed below. The second response was to try to survive the inbound attack so she could fight back.
Fashtok keyed her com button for wide broadcast, even as she leaped down the adjacent stairs, speaking loudly as she dropped. “Two missiles inbound low from south.”
She couldn’t see her clan mates, but knew they had heard her and would have reacted as she had, and be on their way down after a quick confirmation glance where she indicated. That would put them a second or two behind her, so she assumed they might not survive the expected impending explosions. As she dropped rapidly below the third level, still going down at max break-neck speed, leaping landing to landing as the stairs turned, she heard the echoing voice of one of her clan mates, at least a level above her in the same stairwell, reporting multiple missiles inbound from three quadrants. Leaving seconds later, he had seen more. However, there was something wrong here!
She didn’t hear his report through her com set, but by the echoing sound of his high Krall speaking voice, reverberating down the stairwell. Her own first warning should have been heard by him and every Krall in or near the dome, and in the factory below by radio. She had not heard an answer from her sub leader to her first broadcast. Not only that, but her warning should have resulted in this stairwell now containing warriors evacuating levels she had just passed. Where were they?
She tried another message, as she passed the fifth level below the top. The echo of that transmission should have reached her ears from her trailing clan mate’s com set speaker, when it repeated what she transmitted. She didn’t hear that. That meant none of the broadcasts had been successful. As she passed the eighth level from the top, something else she didn’t hear yet struck her as peculiar. There had been no explosions from those two missiles she’d seen, which had had more than enough time to strike the dome by now.
Her confusion was short lived. Fourteen other high-powered rockets answered her expectations that her three late departing clan mates would not survive. Unfortunately, the onslaught of explosions reduced her survival chances to zero as well. As the wall of debris that would end her life raced in from the sides, she hoped the warriors massed below ground, defending the factory, would avenge the dome’s destruction.
****
The eight shuttles landed on the tarmac and eighty four of their ninety six troops charged out the two open side hatches, with a pilot and two side gunners staying behind on four of them. The stowed plasma cannons were swung into place and the four shuttles lifted again to provide coverage of the dome rubble and surroundings from the air.
The hundred twenty eight four-ships spread out on three sides, as previously directed, and their former crews, five hundred twelve strong, scaled the mostly collapsed structure to seek the warriors normally occupying the upper levels.
All of the forces had stealth activated on their armor, making them ghostly hollows in the settling dust and swirling smoke, and pale shadows with an icon displayed on their helmet visors. The initial task of the crews of the four-ships was to clear the dome of any still living Krall. Despite the destruction, experience had proven that the resilient Krall could survive what seemed unsurvivable, and even with major injuries, could fight back with significant effect.
The missiles had spared the lowest eight levels of the thirty-two level structure, but the collapsing weight of the upper stories, and the penetrating effect of the spoke-like support struts allowed many to stab downward to reach ground level. In some cases, the struts poked slightly below the ground level floor, because underlying the dome was the upper level entrances of the subsurface factory.
As predicted, there was sporadic plasma fire in the crumpled mess of the dome in the pile of debris overlaying the heavily damaged, but largely intact, bottom levels. Previous attacks on other domes had revealed that any Prada housed in the domes over a factory occupied the lowest levels, often the ground floor. The shorter distance to their work areas made this practical, and in this case, the relatively clean environment would suggest many of the Prada families would live in the nearby forest. That was the hope, anyway. The reaction speed of the Kobani meant they could hold their fire for a moment, to better ascertain if a motion detected in the wreckage was a Krall or a Prada.
The sporadic sizzle-crack of plasma fire up high proved Krall were being found alive in the rubble, and some of the shooting, from the slightly different sound, was from plasma rifles, rather than Kobani helmet plasma bolts. Because only the Krall would have those rifles for this mission, that sound drew Kobani attention to surviving clusters of the enemy. Most would be killed, but if any wer
e found that appeared to have higher status, based on their tattoos, they would be captured alive if possible for a Mind Tap.
The shuttle teams carried the cases of explosives to use in the factory, and had a number of the recovered Raspani boring tools, found on captured clanships or recovered from weapons belts of dead high status warriors. The tools were to be used to destroy fusion bottles, both at the base of the dome, and down inside the factory, after first shutting them off. If breached while in operation, the fusion generators became potent “bombs.” The Raspani invented tools could bore holes up to a hundred twenty two feet deep in any substance thus far tested. There had been a bonanza of the tools recovered at an orbital station, where the Torki technicians had used them to delicately dissolve away some of the collapsed crystal material of the Eight Balls, to make them hollow, and provide an opening to install Jump drives, fusion bottles, and pilot controls.
The Raspani name in their language for the tools, was three sputtering lip smacks, a snort in the middle, and a deep grunt at the end. That native pronunciation lead Sarge to suggest the human description of them to be loosely translated as some form of the sound of a “wet fart.” His own rendering was made by blowing with his tongue between moistened lips.
He pretended to be offended when the consensus from all of the names proposed for them was chosen to be Q-rupter, for quantum disrupter. “What a boring name for a device that turns any material it’s beamed at into a gas of atoms. Fart Blaster was a better name.”
Dillon was flying one of the shuttles with side gunners. They had found only one target worth their plasma guns attention thus far. An unattended Krall shuttle was parked nearly under the overhang of the east dome entrance. The two gunners each got a shot at the cockpit, cautioned to avoid the reaction mass fuel tank at the rear and its fusion generator. Once in space and out of the gravity well, shuttle Traps could snare tachyons to power the Normal Space reactionless gravitational drives.
The Kobani shuttles and four-ships had all retained tachyon power in their Traps, and could launch directly back to space without using reaction fuel. The cleaner and cooler trail made for a more difficult to follow IR or radar signature if an anti-ship missile were fired at them.
Thad was in charge of the factory destruction, and Ethan and Carson were leading two of the teams that would descend into the factory levels. They had entered via the east entrance, just before the Krall shuttle was made useless. Sarge, his own shuttle left empty and on “idle,” as were all of the parked four-ships, led his demolition team in from the north side. Others teams entered at the south dome entrance. All of the factory entrances were at the base level of the dome, reached either via the swift elevators, or by stairs. The elevators made for potential traps, so they would take the stairs, located at the inner large ring of elevators and stairs, surrounding the central hall. Every dome so far found followed the same unimaginative design that the Krall appeared to find satisfyingly efficient, if boring to a human.
Today, the frequently encountered collapsed ceilings and penetrating dome support struts required some detours from the well know paths to the ring of stairwell openings. Although the teams were encumbered with the stealth-coated explosives cases, carried between pairs of armored and equally invisible troopers, they were hardly unprepared for a fight.
The front of their helmets contained all of the firepower it was decided they would require on this quick in-and-out raid. A thought to the suit could initiate two types of laser beams, a plasma bolt, or a microwave heat beam in an instant. The weapons would hit what you looked at, and had indicated mentally was the target. The suit could lock on and continue to fire at a target, even if the wearer looked away to lock onto another target and fire. The only limitation was that firing all weapons at once reduced the energy available to produce the most powerful plasma bolts, at the maximum fire rate.
The look, shoot, and forget, target tracking mode meant that a single spec ops trooper could take on multiple opponents at once, and focus on a different task while the first designated targets were under continuous fire. They each also carried a waist load of eight grenades, concealed under a disposable belt of stealth-coated material. While attached, or in contact with the suit, they could select the mode of operation of any grenade number by thought (small digits 1 through 8 could appear on the bottom of their inner visor, and brighten when touched for removal).
The timing before detonation could be set verbally, manually, or by thought. They also could choose the proximity mode and set the range for a booby trap (nearby friendly suits would block triggering), and there was a ten step range of explosive power. The lowest three levels threw the depleted uranium pellets with less force, so that their own armor could resist penetration, but a nearby Krall (out of armor) would be perforated like Swiss cheese. At higher power levels, which could kill a Krall in armor, their own suits were equally at risk if they failed to take cover or were too close.
As a precaution, based on recent experience, additional armor thickness had been added in two areas to reduce the risk of nearby grenade use. The top of the helmet and over the shoulders was thickened, and on the feet, butt and crotch. If you threw the grenade yourself, you could point the top of your head and shoulders at the impending explosion (arms pressed against your sides), in presumably a prone position. The alternative was to lay flat in the other direction, with your feet and butt pointed at the detonation. So far, this strategy had only been used on empty suits in testing; with mixed results if the explosive power was set at the highest two power levels and went off too near. You literally risked your head or your ass if you tossed them too close.
Thad and Ethan, each carrying a case of explosives approached the inner hall, their visors showing them icons of teams arriving from other directions around the hall. They both had eliminated icon reports from more than thirty feet overhead, because of the clutter of overlying icons of the swarm of troopers searching and clearing the upper levels. There had been perhaps a hundred twenty warriors up there, and nearly a quarter of them had survived the explosions and collapse. That was more warriors than had been previously found on the other raids on factory related domes, so perhaps this clan had beefed up its complement of guardians. That should have been a clue.
The two of them paused as a voice in low Krall spoke from the other side of the debris cluttered large hall. That it was spoken in low Krall, and was being helpful, proved it wasn’t from an actual Krall. At their thoughts, their visors showed them it was Sarge speaking.
“Leave here by the east exit and go to your village. Do not return and you will not be harmed.”
There was some scuffling noise from the other side, and a chittering sound that particularly young Prada made when frightened. Reynolds and his team had apparently found some of the workers, and he was trying to direct them to safety. Thad, as a team leader, selected a view from Reynolds’ visor, which appeared in a small, fully colored translucent square on the lower left side of his own visor. He could see through the image, but saw a group of four frightened Prada, one was probably a female, with a child clinging to her fur and clutched to her chest. They were scurrying around fallen ceiling sections and broken armored glass pieces, looking back over their narrow shoulders, not certain where the orders came from. However, they were following instructions, and moving quickly towards the dome exit they were told to use.
There had been multiple feeding stations for Prada, set up in the center of the hall, and that and debris prevented an easy passage through the middle. The four went around, and were approaching the south side, where Thad and his teams were about to enter the huge room. To avoid spooking them, he spoke on his group’s channel.
“All teams hold back, and stay quiet. Let these Prada pass. They won’t hear us if we don’t step on anything crunchy.” The workers couldn’t hear him speak of course, unless he selected external speaker mode.
That kindness and consideration was negated, when a shoulder fired rocket blazed out of a stairwell
opening. The same one Thad had been moving towards for their descent. It was a high velocity, armor penetrating rocket. The same type that had nearly killed Ethan, when he was driving a Dragon on Poldark.
It didn’t explode when it passed through the body of the mother and child because they didn’t represent a hard enough surface. It tore them apart, however, then exploded against the top of an elevator door on the far side of the hall, where the molten copper core of the warhead instantly burned its way through the metal plate of the lift door. It likely splattered the inside of the empty elevator carriage with red-hot droplets.
There was no doubt the rocket would have killed any of the armored raiders it struck. The Krall that launched that missile either didn’t see the target clearly, or assumed an invisible human in stealth armor was walking with the Prada near the head of the stairs.
The other two Prada froze in terror and horror at the falling and ruined corpses of the mother and child. There was no way to know the relationship of the other two Prada to the dead ones, but any speculation was short lived. Multiple plasma bolts from Krall rifles blasted the other two into charcoaled remnants of smoking and burning gray and brown bits of fur.
On a general push, Thad heard Sarge state the obvious to all teams. “Ambushes set at the stairwells. They’re waiting for us. Use grenades.”
Thad was in overall charge of the ground assault against the factory, but that was sound advice. He let go his side of the explosives case nearly simultaneously with Ethan. Before the case could hit the floor, he had selected a grenade for level 10, a two second delay, as he detached and flipped the fist-sized bomb into the stairwell, where the known ambushers were concealed. Ethan’s grenade was simultaneously clattering with his on the stairs when the one two punch of the explosions shot more dust and smoke out of the stairwell.
Koban 4: Shattered Worlds Page 3
