Koban 4: Shattered Worlds

by Stephen W Bennett

  The set up was clever, and almost worked like a charm…, except unexpected company arrived.

  Breaking radio silence, Noreen suddenly warned them by narrow beam laser com, “Fast One. Don’t reply and risk revealing your location. A suborbital clanship launched from a dome about fifteen hundred miles west of you. It’s obviously headed your way.

  “The ship isn’t under maximum acceleration, so I don't believe it’s been warned about the raid. However, your presence there or lifting off will be a dead giveaway when they see you. You have plenty of anti-ship missiles, but going to an active scan too early will warn them, and you have at least five minutes before the overhead orbiting clanship passes the pole and out of sight. Whatever happens, that guard ship will see a big explosion in atmosphere, or hear a radio call from the inbound craft. Let them come in and prepare to fire at least four missiles when they are so close they have too little time to use laser defense or make counter missile launches. I’m coming down to cover your retreat. I’m hoping without any White Out gamma rays that they’ll be slow to sound an alarm when I’m seen. The Slasher is also standing by for cover fire.”

  The mass departure of all hundred and thirty-six small craft had been scheduled to happen during another one of the imminent radar coverage shadows, caused by the non-overlapping and repetitive orbits of the two guardian clanships. Even with the final explosions inside the dome ready to “celebrate” their lift off, they couldn’t risk climbing out in the face of a clanship that could pick many of them off even before reaching space, let alone reach the moon.

  Dillon, waiting to detonate the ECM pods on departure, had an idea. “Thad, we can try moving all of the ships to the east side of the dome, parked close to its sides among the debris. We may not be noticed there. If that clanship comes in from the west and lands, the ECM will suppress their communications before we launch the missiles.”

  “How far out does the suppression work?” They didn’t have much time to plan.

  “The pods silenced the dome from about five miles away. Should be the same for the clanship.”

  “Colonel Greeves? I may know something about the inbound ship.” His visor told him that it was Fred Saber, a squad leader under Dillon, who had been part of the dome assault group.

  “Speak. We don’t have much time Fred.” With a thought to the suit, Thad put him on the link with everyone.

  “Sir, I was Tapping a dying warrior when you called us down to help counter the ambush. She was expecting their sub leader to return this morning from a nearby dome. This should be him. I never got a chance to report becau…” Thad made his decision and cut him off.

  On the low power general push, Thad gave instructions. “Everyone, stay low but lift to get as close to the east side of the dome to hide as well as possible, the eight shuttles need to get the closest because they will stick out more. Park at angles among or under debris to make a jumbled appearance. Move now!”

  The ships, already prepared for liftoff, moved quickly. The fast reaction speed of the TG2 pilots was all that prevented the small ships from banging into one another in their haste.

  Feeling like he’d sounded too abrupt with Sabre, who had furnished good information, he gave him a responsible task as reward. “Fred that was good work. I want you to choose another four-ship to help you, and one of you move into the debris field on the south side of the dome, one on the north, so you can both cover the approach from the west with your missiles. Be ready to fire if I give the word or if the clanship opens fire, or it suddenly appears about to move away, as if it spotted us. Got it?”

  “Yes Sir!”

  Shifting to broader icon coverage with his helmet, and selecting ships rather than personnel, Thad watched on his visor window as Fred’s craft, and one flown by Richard Yang, a former classmate of Fred’s, moved to take up the designated positions. The ship icon movements got a bit confusing as small ships moved to join Dillon in his shuttle, as it parked next to the dome.

  They all had moved into their new locations, and all were motionless when the approaching sub orbital clanship’s bright deceleration burn became visible. That’s when they were startled by multiple simultaneous explosions, which shook the ground and blew more fragments flying up from the center of the collapsed dome. The dust was still rising as the center of the broken dome slumped into the huge hole blown into the roof of the underlying factory.

  Obviously, at least one Krall pinned down in the stairwells had gotten curious about the strange regularity of the automatic plasma fire and clambered out. Like the proverbial dead cat, his curiosity was now satisfied. He had triggered a proximity detector.

  The question now was would the fresh column of dust, and a lack of response from the dome cause the approaching clanship to pull away?

  The apparent answer was no, when the clanship continued its approach. However, Dillon and Thad had sensors that detected an encrypted transmission from the clanship. From Thad’s visor, when he expanded the image, or selected views from other helmets, it was obvious a number of the closely packed smallest ships were now buried under fresh debris. The larger shuttles, sitting closer to the vertical wall of the demolished dome had far less scraps of structure tossed onto them. However, Thad realized that many of the four-ships would need to be uncovered before they could lift.

  Just then, the side walls of the dome on the east side, with no attachments to the center to hold them in place, and leaning outwards from the force of the last blast, slowly leaned and sagged out to drape over five of the eight shuttles. There was no way of telling if the shuttles would have the lifting power to get clear, or could do so without damage.

  They had arrived with additional passenger capacity, in the event some of the ships suffered damage. However, they didn’t have as much space as they would need if they had to abandon all the craft that seemed trapped. The “huddle close to the dome” idea seemed a hell of a lot less brilliant in Thad’s hindsight.

  As the clanship moved more directly overhead it appeared to hover a moment, and Thad was about to order Fred and Richard to fire their missiles, which could lock onto a visually sighted target and alter course to climb up and pursue. It was nearly six miles up, and only slowly descending, as if looking the damage over. There was another brief encrypted transmission, before the thrust backed off and the pilot appeared committed to landing.

  ****

  Droktad was disinterested in the return flight itself. This was not a duty posting that he desired. After a year of fighting on Poldark as a rising status warrior and a promotion, his first sub leader assignment was of leading untested warriors, who only monitored willing slaves. Slaves who were building weapons he wasn’t going to get to use in battle.

  This was an unpleasant task, even if a necessary one. Particularly after the humans had displayed completely unexpected capability and initiative in attacking war production facilities. The war leaders had not believed the humans knew of, let alone had the ability to strike those facilities. He wanted more than ever to be back at the war. Sharing rotation time for combat duty with other clan mates was tedious.

  He had just been to visit his next level leader, to request permission to join one of the new invasions forces, to escape the lackluster, slow status building position he now held. The cursed human attacks, he was told, made his responsibility to his clan and the Great Path even more vital now. To defend the production of their tools for making war. He selfishly asked if the greater importance of his role in defending this dome would earn him more status points, to enable him to buy his way into combat sooner. The answer was no, and he was returning to spend a full orbit watching his warriors watch workers. His inexperienced force merely waited to defend against an impossible human attack.

  His K’Tal pilot was only slowing slightly, intending a typically rapid descent from a suborbital path that would put them over the dome soon. It was the pilot’s comment that drew him away from cleaning his plasma rifle for the hand of hand of hand times. He would wear out
the sturdy parts cleaning them well before he wore them out in combat.

  “Droktad, something has just happened at the dome. Dust or smoke is rising. There was none seen when we came over the horizon.”

  The sub leader rose and tapped his view screen controls, and selected a zoomed image of the approaching destination, presently below and behind them as their main thrusters added its plasma glow to the edge of the image. There was a column of gray and white smoke rising vertically over the site, and he suddenly realized that the structure was far too flat, and even as he watched, and increased magnification, the center of the building sank farther, leaving the sides standing higher than the center. The dome was collapsing into the factory levels below! There was no way from this view that he could tell this was the second round of destruction. To his mind, it must have all happened as they approached.

  He selected the ship’s radio on his console, and called on the clan frequency set aside for this dome in an attempt to reach his second in command. “Bolgar, what is the status of the dome? Was there an explosion in the factory?”

  There was no answer, and he immediately thought of the subject he’d just been advised was so vital to be prepared for. A human attack. He’d been required, with other sub leaders, to observe recordings and listen (again) to descriptions of tactics used against them by humans in recent raids, and how carefully maintained Krall ambush postures would block the effectiveness of those attacks, should they occur.

  He had a clan-approved strategy already in place, and there was no sign of human clanships on the tarmac, or of humans or warriors swarming over the broken down structure, as was the case in the recent raids. The static sounds of plasma rifle discharges would also be apparent if there were fighting, and he had just checked the sensor that could detect if these were happening in large numbers. There were always some static or electrical discharges, which could pass as single plasma bolts, but a raging battle would be full of discharges. At this moment, there seemed to be no more than would be expected if there were electrical shorts in the factory and dome, from the collapse.

  They reached a point over the disaster, one he knew he would be blamed for, even if he were not responsible. He had been away from his post when it had happened.

  He gave Fangar an order. “Slow our descent. If there are explosions from munitions in the factory, I do not want to land on a place that will collapse beneath us. The factory roof has given away below the dome’s center. I will try to contact the warriors in the factory on an emergency radio frequency.”

  He was reluctant to use that widely monitored frequency, because it would be picked up by the orbiting guard ships, and probably by several domes at their present altitude. Not that this catastrophe could be covered up or hidden in any way. He simply wanted to be the first to learn what had happened, so that he could portray himself in the best manner possible, perhaps shifting blame to an underling, or better yet, claim it was a Prada industrial mistake.

  Those were exceedingly rare, but had happened in the past. His thinking now followed his preconceived notion that a human raid here was unlikely, and his own precautions had made it impossible for one to be this thorough anyway. Besides, his K’Tal had seen it happen and there was no telltale human presence visible.

  He made his broadcast. “This is sub leader Droktad. I observed what appears to be an accidental explosion as we approached for landing. The dome is heavily damaged. Is there any octet leader or warrior that can say what has happened?”

  There was no reply, and from the heavy damage, it was possible that confusion and noise was a factor. He motioned to the K’Tal. “Fangar, take us down. Do not land too close to the dome in case there are other explosions, or the roof of the factory settles from the weight above.”

  As they sank within range of the ECM pods, the loss of the com light on their communications control panels went unnoticed, what with their attention focused on the jumble of wreckage of the dome and parts lying on the surrounding tarmac. There was an unheard return call to them, from the orbiting clanship nearly over the northern pole, who had replied to the emergency frequency broadcast. Droktad had neglected to describe which dome had suffered damage, and had said it was an accident. This would be a simple matter to remedy, if he had heard and answered that next communication, or realized that he now could not use his radios. The orbiting clanship only knew the transmission came from the northern hemisphere of the planet. Instead of reversing course, it continued its request for more information, because the ship that made the call could be ahead or behind them. The name Droktad, as a sub leader could be tracked down of course, but there was no reason he would refuse to answer an inquiry about an accident he reported, was there?

  It wasn’t until the heavy landing jacks were deployed, at the normal altitude of just above a half mile that the mystery of the events below grew considerably clearer to both occupants of the clanship. That was when Thad ordered the two waiting four-ships to launch their anti-ship missiles.

  Droktad had his eyes focused on the tableau below, where some oddly smooth shapes were mixed among ragged debris, and seemed clustered more on the opposite side of the tarmac from where they were intending to land. He had just realized that they looked like single ships in form, but he knew the only such small ships available to his warriors at this site were presently in their internal launch tubes, on this very clanship.

  Two such smooth forms suddenly fired four missiles at them. Droktad was standing at his console already, and rapidly activated the target decoys. Those sometimes drew missiles away from their original target, provided the incoming seekers on the missiles saw the stronger signal from a decoy when it was still close to the original target, and just slightly diverging away, as was the case here. He also activated the instant-on automated laser defense system, another new tactic ordered for clanship pilots and mission commanders to use.

  This defensive procedure was imposed after the human raids had cost them so many undefended ships to missiles, some of which might have been defeated by the automated systems, even if no Krall were able to fire manually. Any true warrior preferred to control their weapons personally, and this seldom-used feature of the weapons suite, designed by the Olt’kitapi, was normally ignored. Those ancients had thought these types of computer systems would protect them from an enemy, but those aliens were all dead at the hands of the Krall, weren’t they? That was taken as evidence that the warrior’s way was best, despite the fact that manual control cost them more warriors in the end, and worse, cost them more clanships.

  Control of one of the four high-powered laser cannons was retained by the ship’s commander, who masterfully targeted one of the missiles and fired, all accomplished in less than three seconds. The multiple decoys managed to pull two missiles aside, where they detonated harmlessly via their proximity fuses, as they passed close to the false targets.

  The automated defense system used a heavy laser, the only one of those it controlled that could bear on one rapidly approaching rocket, to disable steering on that third missile. As it veered aside, it was cut in half by the computer tracked and controlled laser. The four missiles had not reached their maximum hypervelocity capability in that short a distance, so the automated system had no problem, at least with the sole target it was able to attack.

  The incoming missile that Droktad had fired on was grazed and slightly deflected, making it a pretty darn good shot, for an organic fire control system in such a short reaction time. However, that wasn’t quite good enough, as demonstrated when the warhead detonated against the left inside part of the bottom of the bell mouth of the large thruster nozzle. An automatic engine cutoff prevented the now missing section of the thruster from tipping the clanship over onto its side, from what would have been a horizontal vector of escaping plasma that the attitude thrusters could never have countered. The grazing shot had deflected the missile, and its warhead hit the toughest part of the clanship, the hardened ceramic material that could absorb the near star heat of
the exhaust. It saved the lower part of the ship and hull, at the expense of loss of main thrust.

  Ironically, the automated defense system would probably have claimed that missile as its victim as well, since the laser it was denied use of was the only one that could have done the job. Droktad’s ego could not relinquish full weapons control to a computer, so the laser that could do the job wasn’t tracking quite as precisely.

  As a result, the K’Tal pilot now only had the main attitude thrusters, located near the upper part of the clanship, to slow their descent. The earlier arbitrary decision to slow the approach briefly now meant their speed of fall was far less than would have been the case for a typical Krall pilot’s max performance landing. They still hit hard, heavily damaging the landing jacks, and they didn’t rise back on them as the springy actions normally did. The damaged thruster bell shattered as it sank low enough to strike the tarmac, with star hot black fragments spinning away. For a moment, tilted slightly, it appeared the ship might fall over, but it stayed upright, with a pronounced list.

  The two Krall, knocked to the floor by the landing, could have benefited from the human style acceleration couches that they distained (again for ego reasons). They sprang to their feet, ready to defend their grounded ship and avenge the loss of the dome, and possibly the factory.

  ****

  Sarge was impressed. “Whoever did the shooting, and deployed the decoys was fast.”