Koban 4: Shattered Worlds

by Stephen W Bennett

  It was a prototype weapon based on the railgun concept. It fired a one point five gram, slender tungsten carbide and cobalt covered sliver of metal. The small projectile contained a bit of cobalt to provide the magnetic fields a better means to shove the sliver at an unbelievable rate down the ridiculously narrow barrel. The tungsten carbide prevented it from melting from air friction on the way to its target. Only about the diameter of a thick sewing needle, and an inch and a half long, it had barely perceptible groves at the butt, which imparted a stabilizing spin. The weapon’s users had started calling it a sliver gun, because it accelerated the small projectile along a tiny tube placed between two superconducting magnetic rails, exiting the barrel at hypersonic velocities with an essentially flat trajectory for its usable practical range.

  The specific exit velocity could be varied, depending on the current fed to the rails. The maximum of nearly one million amperes of spiked current could easily be handled by the high temperature superconducting material of the power cable and rail material. The strong length of slender ceramic that held the rails steady against the pulse of energy, also helped dissipate the heat of repeated shots of the semiautomatic weapon. So long as the rifle’s length was kept inside the extra draped material of the chamie, its heat and electromagnetic pulse was redirected and radiated towards the ground by the suit, rather than radiating in all directions for an enemy to detect.

  Like the new plasma rifle, the slightly lighter sliver gun was still a bit on the weighty side, but not an objectionable burden when that trooper was a Kobani. However, despite the tiny size of the projectile, the short barrel length for acceleration to reach the maximum velocity of ten miles per second could deliver a surprisingly hard kick. A scaled down inertial compensation circuit, similar to that used on ships with tachyon powered Normal Space drives, kept the kickback to manageable levels, and a sniper could return his gun sights to the target quickly.

  At max sliver velocity, roughly 36,000 miles per hour, the range at ten miles per second was surprisingly short if fired horizontally in atmosphere. The sliver might not survive to reach a too distant target if it overheated from air friction, or struck a raindrop, leaf, or larger explosive debris dust particles. It had a melting point of over 2,800 °C, but grew softer and lost some of its penetrating power before reaching that temperature, after roughly a mile and a half.

  Factors such as barometric pressure, air temperature, wind, humidity, and even atmospheric particle density (or dust) was measured by the gun sight’s small computer. The shooter’s stalking ability, deployment, tactics, and their decisions to shoot or not were all their own.

  At times, a lower velocity shot had a greater practical horizontal range. If fired nearly vertical at max power when up in the mountains, a sliver could punch through the thinning atmosphere and retain gravitational escape velocity from a terrestrial mass planet. Orbiting ships and stations would probably frown on celebratory firing into the air.

  One of the proposed uses of the sliver gun was to penetrate the new heavy armor the Krall were now using. A precision shot could easily penetrate one of the flexible armor joints at considerably lower than maximum velocity, at speeds of one or two miles per second. However, a Krall hit with one could easily continue fighting after such a wound, even if the limb were disabled. That was why there were partly hollow slivers provided, selectable from within the dual projectile magazines.

  The rear third of a partly hollow sliver version contained the active neurological component of the Death Lime extract. The leading part of the sliver would disintegrate as it punched and melted its way through an armored joint, or even through the thickest part of armor at higher velocities. In tests, the toxin would usually survive penetration, with the trailing portion of the sliver making the delivery through the small opening.

  Outside of a native Kobani, nobody knew where the toxin had originated, and it was no longer extracted from the wax on the thorns of Death Limes, once it could be produced artificially. Less than one minute after being wounded with one of those slivers, a warrior would collapse in agony, progressively unable to move its limbs as the toxin spread. It wasn’t directly fatal to them unless they were shot multiple times, but the effects could last for about thirty minutes from a single hit.

  If a quick kill were required, and the sniper was less than two miles mile away from an armored target, a solid, faster moving sliver could penetrate the helmet for a head shot to the brain. The slivers would often spall off deadly metal fragments from inside a Krall’s helmet, and even if it didn’t, penetrating hypersonic carbide tungsten slivers tended to ricochet and make a mess once inside. However, because of unpredictable sliver fragmentation and internal spalling, it might require second hits on a helmet to kill the tough warriors. The toxin version of the slivers on armor was generally ineffective at over a mile for the highest velocity shots, because air friction and intense heating of the projectile caused the chemicals to breakdown before it arrived.

  Crager had asked for two of the new weapons for his platoon, for evaluation. One of them was issued to corporal Dalton, their school trained sniper, a rating that Crager had once held in his bygone days in field operations, but using a very different weapon. Crager kept the second rifle, confident he had retained enough of his old skills. The fifty caliber rifles formerly used against the old style Krall armor would seldom penetrate the new heavier armor. Prior to there being fast reacting Kobani troops, failed kills on any Krall seldom allowed the shooter a second chance to take out the target.

  Each one of the twelve plasma batteries the team was assigned to spike was watched over by a single brown suited K’Tal technician. The six platoons of the full team had two batteries each to knock out, using charges carried by two squads armed only with stealth, and small hand beam weapons powered by the mini Trap fields. This deep inside Krall lines, with the offensives happening hundreds of miles distant, the Krall clearly thought this ring of one hundred and twenty eight cannons was safe from any human ground threat, and could detect and ward off any atmospheric or space attacks. That confidence was about to be proven misplaced.

  Ideally, the K’Tal at each battery could be taken out quietly, without an alarm or warning given to the other K’Tal’s, located just over a mile away to either side, at the next battery. The Gatlek’s bunker was under a low mountain peak roughly thirty miles distant, near the center of the defensive ring. Preventing a radio warning to that bunker was vital, because that would trigger the Krall to initiate backup cover fire for the gap made in the defensive ring. At a designated time, each platoon would activate the ECM modules provided by the Torki, to switch off Krall radio communications within a two-mile radius of each of the twelve plasma batteries.

  The K’Tals might happen to see a neighboring warrior go down, or perhaps escape their own initial attack, but they weren’t going to give a radioed warning to anyone. A K’Tal was apparently only present at the remotely operated batteries for taking manual control if needed, or for onsite repair with spare parts. Eliminating those redundant warriors might go unnoticed for hours, but destruction of the remotely controlled cannons would be detected instantly by computer link. The plan was simple. Kill the K’Tals as quickly and quietly as possible, plant the stealthed charges for remote detonation, get several miles away and wait until it was time to blow them up.

  With a dozen batteries destroyed there would be a seventeen-mile gap in the southern part of the defensive ring, located near a mountain pass three miles away. South was the direction from which terrain following cruise missiles would approach, shielded from detection in a string of connected mountain passes, with no defensive fire available from the closest destroyed batteries. The missiles would be inside the defensive ring quickly, to wreak havoc on the parked clanships.

  Crager had video feeds to his eye implants from other squad members, showing him where his two targets were at all times. He had assigned himself the role of taking out the two K’Tal for the batteries seven tenths of a mile t
o either side of his position, midway between them. The other sniper was placed between the next pair of batteries, two miles around the circumference to the east.

  Other team members were positioned to get up close and personal with their targeted K’Tal. They didn’t intend to use the new heavy plasma rifles, to avoid the associated flash and bang effects on the receiving end. While it was true that a dead Krall told no tales, one that was brightly blown to pieces by plasma fire was a message of another type that couldn’t be suppressed by ECM. They intended to step up behind them and sort of break their metal shells open, and kill them by hand. Just the way the Krall liked to fight. They had been asked to bring back several sets of functioning armor for some use or other.

  When the window opened for the kills to start, Crager was sighted in on the flat side of the helmet as his first selected Krall target was about to turn around in his predictable pattern of pacing around the outside of the protective revetments. The hypersonic crack was somewhat muffled by the brush around the shooter. The ten mile per second sliver had already left a pinprick hole and a brief flash of white light on the K’Tal’s helmet, even before the weapon completed its recoil and was back on target. Crager saw the warrior sagging and decided a follow up shot wasn’t needed. His concealed sappers would be there in seconds anyway.

  Turning around, he knew from his data feed that his second previously motionless target had moved into the opening of its revetment just before Crager had fired at his first target. The Krall now was looking farther east, towards the next battery. Something had caught his or her attention from there. Crager had a shot only at the thick armor of the left shoulder and upper arm because his view of the warrior’s helmet was blocked by a duracrete wall the K’Tal was leaning around to see to the east. He was likely trying to radio to that warrior at the next battery, and receiving no reply because of the ECM suppression. The K’Tal used its left hand to reach back and check its power pack at the small of its back, confirming a secure connection, and briefly shifted a leg so that the backside of the left knee joint was visible.

  In two hundredths of a second, Crager had thumb selected a hollow sliver from his magazine, sighted a line along the back of the knee joint with his optics and fired. Before the sound of the crack even reached his target, the Krall had jumped as the needle with toxin penetrated the weak point. A space only three inches wide and a half-inch high on the back of the knee, where a thinner armor layer was briefly exposed.

  Exposing a bare hand from under his chamie he signaled with fingers to the sapper squad that he knew was near that battery. One man, designated to watch his position, saw his signal directly, and the others saw it via the repeat in their eye implants of Crager’s hand from his own eye’s view. Target hit with a two, not down.

  A number two hit was a toxin sliver. The warrior would be capable of activity for two more minutes. With ECM suppression active, they knew he couldn’t transmit. However, if he figured out he had a radio problem he might start shooting plasma bolts high towards the ring’s center and draw attention from warriors there.

  Crager cursed his decision to try the long-range solution, just to try out the new weapon. It worked, in as much as it assured a soon to be disabled warrior, but the toxin sliver wasn’t effective quickly enough when you had simultaneous targets to eliminate immediately. He had intended to use two quick headshot kills. He’d let his new ability and new rifle convince him to take an unnecessary risk. He’d been out of the field for too long.

  He checked his data feed, and saw that the other sniper had signaled two targets were hits with a one, both targets down. They would be headshots like his first one, with solid slivers and quick kills.

  Crap! I’ll hear about this one. He thought.

  Suddenly fate smiled, and the obliging Krall sought the enemy that had given it what it presumed was a minor wound. Crager, his eyes never leaving his still mobile target’s hiding place, had already chosen a solid sliver for a possible second shot. He was rewarded as the edge of the Krall’s helmet peered around the side of a duracrete wall, looking for him. It required only .07 seconds for the next sliver to cover the seven tenths mile, and penetrate the helmet face, where the Krall’s right eye was directly behind the impact point. The warrior quickly slumped to the ground.

  He shook his head. Doesn’t matter, he thought. I’ll still hear about this! He knows the old geezer f’ed up.

  The troops didn’t cut each another any slack after the action was done, even if they would give their life to protect your sorry ass. The sliver rifle certainly had its use, but not in a poorly controlled situation, such as he had forced on himself. The chance that his second target would move out of position had been too great for the risk to the mission. Two perfect and vital shots had been needed in rapid succession, and little predictability for achieving both.

  He wondered how Dalton, the young sniper with the other sliver gun had managed. He told his AI to play back the recorded image from the younger man’s eye implants. He found his answer to what had drawn the attention of his second target. Dalton, unlike Crager, had had a clean easy shot on a Krall helmet for his number two target, dropping him instantly at the farther battery. Dalton’s first target, the one closest to Crager’s second shot, had been made ultra-easy because, incredibly, the Krall had removed its helmet and was grooming its deployed ultrasonic ears, squatting in front of the revetment. Presumably picking the Krall equivalent of earwax. He was like a sitting duck.

  A duck that, despite a sliver passing through the tempting exact center of the deployed ear, screamed its rage and pain loud enough that, without a helmet to muffle the sound, drew the attention of Crager’s second botched hit. That helmetless K’Tal had only lived to scream because a Krall’s ultrasonic ears were placed on their upper necks, inches lower than their brainpan. The first shot had passed through its ear and upper neck. Only a rapidly triggered second shot had created a shock wave passing through the skull, which literally scrambled the Krall’s brain, and silenced the scream.

  The sergeant grinned sourly. At least the kid isn’t going to offer me any shit tonight. There were two screwed up shots made today.

  Uh…, nope. He thought through it farther. Dalton could remind him that it was the sergeant’s idea to use the sliver rifles on two targets instead of one man per Krall. Damn. That training slot looked better right now than it had fifteen seconds ago.

  Anyway, the K’Tal’s at the other eight batteries had been eliminated the more reliable and proper way, and the stealth coated charges were being placed on and around the big guns. Crager’s platoon soon pulled back, and the team waited for developments. If the dead warriors were found and the charges were about to be discovered, the spy bots left behind would let them know. A burst signal to the commander of the waiting ranks of cruise missiles would launch them even before the cannons were blasted into rubble.

  Fully loaded clanships in liftoff mode would be juicier targets, but even empty and sitting on the ground they were still valuable targets, all clustered closely for convenience. It was obvious the Krall had never planned a retreat under fire in the past. No time like now to learn some hard lessons.

  ****

  Two days before Crager’s unit had planted their charges, the assaults on the eight cities had begun. The Krall came roaring though and over the abandoned barricades to enter the industrial city of Perm. By use of animated holiday figures and remotely operated, turntable mounted tri-barrel heavy plasma guns and auto-load mortars, the PU army here had maintained the pretext that the barricades were still manned.

  Enough Krall fell on that assault to piss them off when they discovered the ten percent culling had produced no kills for those that had fought through. These finger clan warriors, granted their first opportunity to lead an attack, were enraged to discover they only had machinery to destroy. Bad tempers make for poor decisions. They tried to tear the tri-barrels down using their powered armored hands, and blasted at the still firing mortars with plasma rifle
s, up close.

  Warriors of major clans, more experienced with tricky human methods, had fought human forces on initial assaults more frequently, by virtue of their clan’s political power in the Joint Council. They would have known not to make the destruction of automated weapons such a personal revenge. The blasts of all the stacked mortar ammunition, detonating at one time, accompanied by the planted charges along the berms where the tri-barrels were located, proved highly educational to the minor clans. Adding another five percent to the culling already experienced.

  For a change, the humans were treating their territory and property much like the Krall did. As something worthless, and not dying to preserve every precious inch or building. However, rather than measuring fighting success by status points earned for kills, the humans valued the lives preserved of their troops and civilians, who had quietly pulled back a day before the attack started.

  The warriors from the big clans that were to follow the first wave were smug as they passed the wreckage of body armor and the mini tanks of the lesser clans. They estimated the racial gene pool was improved, and decided that the small clans could still use more culling.

  The warriors in front were encouraged by the major clans to pursue the retreating soldiers of the human army and take revenge. It was their turn to learn that open roads and clear plazas were always mined or set as traps, that well lit and apparently occupied human family nests had a third of them rigged to explode if entered. In the past, these small clans had only entered a newly assaulted zone after the large clans had cleared the way, and then they joined in the killings in the less well-defended areas deeper inside the new human territory. This week they would learn to destroy a family nest without entering, and then check for bodies to add to their status points after.