Koban 4: Shattered Worlds

by Stephen W Bennett

  They definitely scored hits on the near phantoms, but their constant twisting, turning, changing velocity, and their indistinct stealthed shapes distributed the power of the hits over more of their hulls, and prevented accurate targeting of weapons ports and thrusters.

  The Plasma cannons of both groups of combatants quickly exceeded the rate of plasma regeneration, and it became a close order laser duel with less powerful weapons, because it was impossible to fire missiles at this close range. The Krall had poor tracking on the human ships anyway. After observing the confusing mass of mingling ships, with the humans apparently achieving the upper hand, Telour ordered additional clanships to jump into each congested region. Amazingly, there had been no major collisions with the better stealthed ships, because the enemy displayed an astonishing ability to outmaneuver the Krall pilot’s efforts to ram them.

  Just as new White Outs of fresh Krall arrivals began, the forgotten waves of incoming missiles penetrated the three entangled swarms of clanships. Explosions started happening throughout the outer edges, and worked their way towards the center. The automated defense systems of all of the clanships, most without the depleted plasma cannons at their disposal, took defensive control of the heavy laser systems of the ships that had been fighting the longest.

  Now clanships started to fall to the suddenly more effective laser fire of the Kobani ships, which with their IFF systems active, devoted no effort to ward off the swarms of missiles that refused to target them.

  The debris from damaged or destroyed clanships began to make the scrambled regions hazardous to navigate, and random impact damage took its toll on both sides. Mirikami reluctantly Jumped away when the Mark lost three attitude thrusters on the same side, and he knew even his milder maneuvers, made at the periphery of the fighting, had rendered Mauss either unconscious, or at least unable to issue command to the navy ships. He knew that the transfer of crews from the damaged ships was nearly finished, based on direct reports of his Comtap people.

  The rescue ships intended to Jump as soon as they had the last of their people aboard. Mirikami, with Mauss unable to communicate, instructed the Comtaps to pass the word to their captains in the three crippled task forces, that they should all Jump to Wait Point 1, their first planned wait point. The Kobani ships, and the two mostly intact task forces, would disengage as soon as the damaged task forces were safely gone.

  In just a few minutes, the remnants of TFs 1, 3, and 4 Jumped, in poorly coordinated and ragged looking exits from K1. However, they were gone now, with all those hundreds they saved.

  Next, Mirikami ordered the Shadows to withdraw. “All Shadow pilots. Head for the southern pole at suborbital velocity, climb to two hundred miles when reaching there. Stay on stealth and we’ll Jump to get you.”

  He knew their smaller radio wave profiles and low altitudes wouldn’t be easily detected in their stealth mode, and they would be just above the atmosphere with a turbulence free back trail. He’d perform the extraction above the southern pole, which was mostly covered by ice and water, and therefore unused by the Krall.

  Mirikami had just passed word to the commanders of TF 2 and 5 to Jump to Wait Point 1, when he saw a brilliant blue flash from at least a thousand miles away, where he knew TF 4 had just departed. That was Marlyn’s position.

  Using Comtap, he tried to open a connection to Marlyn, but he felt no mental connection. There had been frequent flashes of gamma ray bursts from her group, and she had let him know they were trying micro Jumps as a way to keep Krall pilots confused. A larger number of clanships had shown up there to fight, only because they happened to be in a closer orbit to TF 4, and could get into that fight sooner. As Marlyn’s group performed rapid micro Jumps, they were successfully keeping the enemy pilots off balance, because they were unable to concentrate their greater firepower on targets that stayed in Normal Space.

  The mental icon for a failed connection indicated the Comtap address wasn’t found, in Normal or Tachyon Space. With a sinking heart, Mirikami knew what that flash had represented.

  Suddenly he felt a highly distressed and emotional link from Carson. His recently captured ship was flying with Marlyn’s group.

  “Uncle Tet, Aunt Marlyn’s gone. Everyone on the Beagle is. We can’t contact any of them and we saw a flash. We were Jumping in and out, and when the missiles arrived and the Krall lost manual fire control, they followed our example and started random Jumps to avoid the missiles and us. It may have been accidental, because there’s no way to pick out fast moving targets… Hold it…” There was a momentary pause.

  “Ethan is calling, he’s with my mom. They know about the flash over here. What should I say? Mom couldn’t raise her on Comtap either. Uncle Thad will want to know.” His mental anguish was obvious and his normally cool manner was absent.

  “Don’t answer any of them yet. I’ll speak to them shortly. I’m pulling everyone out of here but my group. Standby.”

  Using the Universal Comtap link, he sent a simple message to every Kobani in the system, which was now represented only by the hundred nine Kobani ships, because TF 2 and 5 had departed in the seconds of time needed to receive Carson’s emotional link.

  “All Kobani ships but those in the Mirikami group, Jump to Wait Point 1, Ghost there and watch for Krall pursuit. Break: all of the Mirikami group, Jump to two hundred miles over the K1 southern pole for Shadow recovery. IFF switched off and stealth disabled before you White Out. Open all portals for recovery. Jump now.”

  In seconds, only the ragged remnants of the once dominating Krall fleet remained in nearly equatorial orbits of large and spreading debris fields, which now nearly wrapped around Telda Ka, some fields reaching out beyond a thousand miles.

  The appearance of the thirty-seven Kobani clanships, arriving unstealthed at only two hundred miles altitude, were low enough that the curve and bulk of K1 blocked their gamma ray bursts from detection at the lower equatorial orbits of the Krall clanships. Their lack of human style stealth and no IFF signals also would delay investigation, Mirikami hoped. Even if an enemy scanned them, they would appear to be normal clanships. They should seem less suspicious, and could easily be ships from any clan.

  He contacted the Shadow pilots by Comtap, and was pleased to see that some of the planes had already arrived, and they would only need to linger here another five or six minutes, for the several tail-end-charley craft to arrive. The Mark picked up one Shadow, and Mirikami and several other ships then flew towards the farthest ones, to shorten the meeting time by several minutes. They discovered they were unable to double up two of the long sleek space planes in a cargo bay, not and still be able to close one of the portals with the second plane’s tail sticking out. Mirikami thought for a time they might have to leave some of the space planes behind, and take only their pilots because they had thirteen Shadows to double up in his thirty-seven ships. He’d sent all of the other ships away before he remembered this limited space issue. The loss of the Beagle had distracted him.

  Maggi, helping to extract a gradually recovering Mauss from her sticky suit, overheard Tet talking to the crew down in Mark’s hold and with the other ships. She asked him, “Why the hell worry about closing the portals?” She was unaware of the inner turmoil presently affecting her husband’s normally sharp thinking. Carson’s link had only been to Mirikami. They didn’t know.

  “Uh…, we won’t be fully stealthed with a portal open.”

  She and Mauss both glanced at each other oddly, and then back at him. Maggi asked the obvious question. “If we’re jumping to Wait Point 1, why the hell do we need to be stealthed in Tachyon Space?”

  “Right.” He mumbled, face turning red. On Comtap, he said to all, “Leave the portals open and tie the Shadows down after we Jump. Let’s head for Wait Point 1 now.”

  Suddenly, the last humans at K1 were gone. At least those that were alive and able to leave. The first of the dead heavy cruisers were now entering atmosphere. With their masses and tough construction, they woul
d definitely leave sizable craters and mushroom clouds where the forty-four of them hit.

  As other heavy fragments fell over the next days, weeks, and months, the nuclear winter effect would render the climate of Telda Ka much less agreeable to the Krall than the one that originally drew them to this world.

  ****

  Telour, spittle flying from the traces of near berserker’s rage he’d barely suppressed, snarled over the encrypted planet wide communication channel. “Hunters, if you have not jumped in pursuit, do it immediately. Find where each of their formations fled, or never return on penalty of death challenges from those who fought here.”

  He had just tallied clanship losses for this attack, unconcerned for now with domes destroyed, since those couldn’t travel to kill the enemy where they had fled.

  He had one thousand five hundred sixty one clanship icons showing as being in space or sitting on the ground. Of those, at least one hundred six had pilots or commanders that had entered codes registering their clanships as marginally combat capable, thirty-three others had weapons but were unable to Jump, and some of those had unusable main thruster systems, meaning they could not even land for repairs.

  One of his aides, far across the command deck, feeling safer there on the other side of the control console, informed him that only nine of the appointed hunters and trackers had survived the combat, but that the sensor icons for them indicated they had Jumped, even before he issued his ultimatum.

  He merely grunted, indicating that was as expected. That simple grunt failed to account for why he issued a threatening warning to those hunters, before he knew it was warranted. He’d briefly gone berserker.

  That disrespect might not sit well with many warriors, who had also done their expected duty in a major battle, where they had endured the greatest losses in their long history. With the only exception being when they had revolted against the Olt’kitapi, twenty two thousand years ago, and had lost their home world.

  Telour reopen the planet wide com channel. He continued issuing his edicts. “Every clanship without invasion equipment aboard and is combat capable, will remain in orbit in case these treacherous animals return to insult us again today.

  “All others will land and unload their equipment and excess warriors, or remove equipment from those clanships in orbit that require repairs. Load as many anti-ship missiles and ground attack missiles as you can carry, and return to transfer them to those that need resupply. Return to orbit with Prada, Torki, and their tools for repairing our damaged ships. Those that can land will go to factory domes for repairs.

  “Clanships that will pursue the enemy to their home will not carry more crew than is required to fight a battle from space. There will be no ground raids. Load enough rations per clanship to distribute to each ship for ten hands of days for those crews. We will pursue the enemy to their bases when we know where they went, and spend that time attacking them.

  “We will do this after the clanships from New Dublin arrive. Therefore, we have almost three rotations of Telda Ka to make repairs and load missiles. We will go all together if the enemy fled to one world, or we will divide our fleet if they fled to many worlds. We will attack any of their surviving fleet ships we find, and destroy the shipyards that built them. You will attack the large population nests where their source of support lives on those worlds.”

  He switched off the open channel, and looked at his aides. “This is only the first step, to allow all clans to participate, and it will be underway and distracting their navy when I take my personal revenge. I will destroy more human worlds than any has thought possible, using but a single living ship before it learns how it has been used. I want a survey of inhabited solar systems in Human Space that is inside the volume they call their Hub. Find me four stars that host an inhabited planet, where the stars lie in nearly a straight line. With the speed of the Olt’kitapi ship, the distance between the stars is not as important as the direction of the line, because the line will guide us to the final target.”

  Frakod felt confident enough to ask questions now that he’d been promoted to the Tor Gatrol’s staff. “This is an ambitious plan, my Tor, and I will help find such a line for you. I understand when you say that a straight line is important to you. However, you have not said where you are going. What is at the end of that line?”

  “It must point to the final solar system that must be destroyed. The star where Earth orbits.”

  Chapter 16: He Who Waits

  The navy had departed K1 in multiple group Jumps, TF 2 and 5 leaving simultaneously, and the remnants of TFs 1, 3, and 4 more or less together. The Kobani left shortly after them, so there were ample wakes left in Tachyon Space for the Krall tracker ships to follow. However, they had all departed K1 in pursuit of the larger navy formations, ahead of the three smaller and less massive Kobani groups, which would be harder to trace.

  Once the Krall K’Tals, one in each of the nine clanships that followed the human ships, had determined their mass detectors had found a significant energy wake of passage from one of the human fleet elements, they could follow that wake. They would adjust their navigation to remain on that wave front, to where it eventually narrowed to a precise point. That would be the White Out coordinates in Normal Space, where the massive formation of ships being followed ceased to move through Tachyon Space.

  The destination, named Wait Point 1, was a name suggested by Mirikami. The actual coordinates had been provided by the PU’s Astrophysical Research Consortium, after Mirikami described the hellish conditions that he thought would exceed the stresses that a clanship could survive for more than a few seconds. The best candidate for his proposal was found about 260 light years from Earth, in the constellation of Virgo, at the double giant star system of Spica. Spica is a close binary system whose components orbit each other every four days. The primary star is midway between a subgiant and giant star, having ten times the mass of the Sun, with seven times the radius, and a total luminosity 12,100 times greater. It was predicted to end its life as a Type II supernova, but not anytime soon. It was a Beta Cephei-type variable star and it was that variability, which was being taken advantage of now.

  The smaller secondary member of the binary was no slouch, because it had seven times the mass of the Sun. Wait Point 1 was at coordinates located roughly midway between the two close and orbiting large stars, at their common center of gravity. The conditions there were hellish in the best of times, except the primary star had recently undergone a repetitive and predictable violent eruption, with huge coronal mass ejections that represented trillions of tons of mass in the form of hot plasma. The combined mass of the two stars, and the strong magnetic field of the secondary star, caused much of the material to swirl wide around the backside of the smaller star over a period of several weeks, and return to blast through the magnetically twisted region between the stars. That hot turbulent return of plasmatic mass was in progress now at Wait Point 1, which was why more distant Wait Point 2 was the backup destination.

  The length of the Jump from K1 to Spica gave Mirikami and all of the Kobani a chance to talk for six days, via Comtap. It was difficult to experience the grief of Ethan and Thad over Marlyn’s death, and to be unable to comfort them directly. Emotions and feelings were easily shared by Comtap, but millions of years of evolution preferred physical contact, an arm around a shoulder, a hand held. It wasn’t only grief for Marlyn that was shared remotely. Her crew of twenty and those of the Pride of Gaul were also intimately known and understood by all of the Kobani, because of shared Mind Taps, and the tremendous amount of personal detail their improved memories now retained of their lost friends.

  They found themselves sharing new knowledge of those that were lost, details that had been held private between different groups of friends. It was painful, but cathartic, to learn all of the fun things, all the pleasant memories and the love and caring shared between those that were gone and those that were left to carry on.

  There was the unreasoning guilt
of some survivors, as well as the gratefulness for the random events that had saved those that otherwise would have been on the two lost ships. Carson had been serving on the Beagle as his Aunt Marlyn’s weapons operator, and his wife Alyson, had been her navigator and backup pilot, much as Ethan was serving with his Aunt Noreen on the Avenger.

  Carson’s duty had changed when he led a small team that had stolen one of the three new captured clanships, which they joined with the Kobani fleet to train with Admiral Mauss. He took the new ship as his own, borrowing a few friends from other crews, some from the Beagle, which were all replaced by fresh volunteers before the K1 raid. Alyson, carrying her and Carson’s child, had been sent back to Koban on the Falcon, after Chief Haveram brought additional Kobani to join the assault on K1.

  However, because of Comtap, everyone on Koban and Haven now knew what had happed at K1, and so did a number of people on Poldark and Heavyside. Thad and Marlyn’s two other boys, Bradley and Danner, still too young to participate in this fight, felt particularly alone and miserable, with the rest of their family and those they considered like family being so far away. The Kobani, and even the alien community on Haven, where the boys had been working on a building project for the Raspani, rallied around them and around the others that had lost friends and family. In this new era of long range communications, joy and tragedy both spread literally faster than the speed of light.