Koban 4: Shattered Worlds

by Stephen W Bennett

  “Captain, I made every effort to invite you to Earth, where you could meet with a senate investigative committee. You rebuffed me rudely. I feel justified if I appear to have displayed a bit of rudeness in return. However, it is not an attempted kidnaping. I have a subpoena compelling you to appear before this committee.”

  “What will the committee investigate?”

  There was a rustle of paper before she resumed, obviously reading. “The Investigative subcommittee is tasked with studying and investigating the compliance or noncompliance with rules, regulations and laws, investigating all aspects of crime and lawlessness within the Planetary Union which have an impact upon or affect the Union’s health, welfare and its safety.”

  “Madam President, am I to be a witness, or the target of the investigation?”

  “You will have representation when you arrive in five days. They will advise you of your rights under Planetary Union laws.”

  “Sounds like I’m the subject of the investigation.”

  “Captain, you have only your own reckless actions to blame. It will be determined by that committee if you should be charged with any crimes that have led to the deaths of billions of citizens, and for the destructions of two Hub worlds of the Planetary Union.”

  “I see. Well, my defense is that I have acted on behalf of the entire human race, and not just for the portion that resides within the PU. Had my squadron not intercepted the Krall at Pittsburg II, Earth would be in the cross hairs of a hunk of Jupiter, and you would be fleeing for your life. It is for the prevention of the extinction of our species that I have fought the Krall, and will continue to fight them.”

  “We’ll see what the committee has to say about your activities. Then the judicial branch can consider mitigating circimstances after their decision.”

  “Oops. Madam President, you just announced in advance what the preordained committee decision will be.”

  “I have my own opinions. However, you will be given a fair hearing.”

  “I’m sure you’ve convinced yourself that’s true. However, I respectfully decline to participate.”

  “Silent or not, you will hear the evidence against you.”

  “You misunderstood. I didn’t mean to imply I’d be silent, I meant I will not participate. In plain, no bullshit wording that even a politician can understand, I am telling you that I will not be there!

  “Try me, and condemn me in in absentia if you will, but I have other vital matters that occupy me. Such as, defeating the species that wants my people stopped, and you to be slowly exterminated. The Krall.”

  “I expected that level of rebellion, which is why I ordered the navy to pick you up. Bledso didn’t think I should try that and was opposed to the plan. Partly, because she didn’t think we could catch you so easily.” There was a note of disdainful humor in her tone.

  “By all means investigate, and then have a public trial after the ships arrive at Earth. I predict they will be found guilty as charged, and deserving of the ultimate penalty.”

  “Why Captain, now you are presuming the outcome in advance. I think you should wait for justice to be served. You knew, with your genetic tinkering, that some sort of trial would eventually be held concerning the organizers of your cabal. Well-meaning isn’t a very strong defense.”

  “Medford, I don’t think you are well-meaning, not in this limited case, but I also don’t think you lack concern for the welfare of humanity. You simply don’t have the guts or fortitude to fight for them. Goodbye.” He broke the link.

  Maggi smiled. “I’d like to be there when the navy tells her they have shipload of dead Krall to prosecute.”

  “Yep. One damaged clanship looks pretty much like another. Thad retrieving the tumbling wreck from the four they knocked out made a good stand-in for the Mark. The dead Krall will make nice witnesses before that committee.”

  Maggi pulled her lip, looking at her husband with an eyebrow raised. It was obvious mimicry, so he asked, “What?”

  “If they can’t offer you up to the Krall, who else might a president with a weak backbone want to put on public display, and then handover to the Krall? Medford refused to believe we ended the Dismantler threat. Even if she did believe, handing the Krall someone might postpone the next retaliation. For the midterm elections, she will have to blame someone for three billion dead, and two Hub worlds lost.”

  He knew where she was leading. “You’ve got better political instincts than I do. She can’t give them the heads of the Krall actually responsible, and she needs to keep the loyalty of her military.

  “We need to get our isolated Kobani liaisons away from the PU’s grasp. We’re her scapegoats. Why don’t you link and call them all home. Tell them they can use any Jump transportation they can steal. Most of the Comtaps are in patrol boats, so all they have to do is drop off the pilot someplace and fly home, or perhaps go to Poldark. Nabarone will take them in if they want to get back into the fight after dull patrol duty.”

  “Right. I’ll start with Carol, since she’s in the lion’s den and better watched.”

  “Fine. I want to confer with Noreen, Thad, Dillon, and our other captains, to decide what we might do next to keep the Krall off balance. Staying as part of the rescue effort here and at Meadow leaves us subject to confrontation with the navy, when they show up with orders from the Commander in Chief. I don't think Bledso, or the navy units want to tangle with us, not only as an ally that fought alongside them, but they know what we did in head-to-head fights against an enemy they can’t match. I sure don't want a fight with friends.”

  ****

  The first returning clanships to Telda Ka were from the first hub world attacked. Telour was eager to hear and see the initial results, and spoke to them even before they landed. He knew his plan would not immediately produce the destruction he expected, but that would be the inevitable result once the destruction of the huge planet was accomplished.

  The sub leader excitedly reported seeing the huge gas giant starting to expand, and then the Maldo clan sub leader said something odd that caught Telour’s attention, “We were dangerously close to the exploding world, so I directed the other two clanships to Jump farther away with me to observe.”

  “There were only three of you? Why were you so close to the exploding world? Did three of you abandon the death ship to watch from closer?” That string of questions grew increasingly threatening in tone.

  The sub leader rushed through his synopsis. “My Tor, this was after the death ship had Jumped, which freed us from protecting it, as you instructed. However, we received sensor scans that originated from another clanship that was very close to the targeted gas giant. We had over an hour to search for them after detecting the scans, and we discovered six clanships close together. They were surely human controlled ships, which must have known we were in the outer system from our reentry gamma rays. We stayed to protect the death ship until it departed. That was only moments before the enemy would have received the reflections of where we were, with the death ship. Only then did we Jump to attack the enemy, and we destroyed one of them in exchange for the Tanga commanded clanship. They fled from us, and all five enemy clanships Jumped. After that, we watched the giant world break apart, but moved away for a wider view.”

  Telour listened, and accepted the explanation, but when he heard how the enemy had found the death ship, his planning error was revealed. The humans could seek the death ship’s location based on where the protectors did their White Outs. He hadn’t known the Olt’kitapi ship produced no gamma rays before it arrived at Telda Ka, and had not revised his instructions after he’d already briefed the sixteen preselected escort clanship pilots, chosen several days before the death ship had quietly appeared without gamma rays. He hoped the humans at each location were not as well prepared as these had been.

  The recordings he saw of the small to immense core fragments was fascinating to him, for the terror they would produce as some of them loomed in the sky above the inhabited wor
lds. He realized even the small pieces he was seeing from so far away must be a hundred time the size of the migration ship that destroyed the Joint Council dome. They were massive lumps of iron compared to the ice his K’Tal told him had filled that human made asteroid, which was intended to kill him. These asteroids would not explode in atmosphere, they would bury deep into the crust as they vaporized, and ejected and spread fiery molten death around the planet, impact after impact over thousands of years.

  His pleasure was self-enhanced when he multiplied the mental image by four, with the last being of Earth, as he envisioned its human clan leaders feeing in helpless terror, forced to leave their ridiculously high population behind them, to die for their mistakes.

  To a better-informed cosmic observer, the Tor Gatrol was in for a partial letdown.

  When the escort clanships from Bootstrap and Pittsburg II failed to return, the one system he would surely destroy within a hand of days, Meadow, seemed no more a victory than the canceled New Glasgow invasion was a victory, simply because the human navy was driven away.

  After all the hype Telour had offered and the anticipation he generated, a single world destroyed was a feat that merely matched that of previous War Leaders. It would feel anticlimactic if the promised goal of four human worlds killed wasn’t reached.

  In another week, the final four protector clanships sent to Earth returned, with a mixed report. They had made passes through the other three systems on their return. Earth and Pittsburg II were untouched, but Bootstrap would eventually fall to the spreading debris. But it would not be as soon as had been expected.

  Telour was quick to take credit for the second system faced with annihilation, despite the fact that his concept of delayed destruction appeared to have given the human’s considerable time to evacuate a great many people from Bootstrap. The death ship’s role in diverting the first dangerous fragments wasn’t in evidence by then, so it seemed a case of random luck helping to save more of the human population.

  In a contradiction, Telour blamed a faster than expected destruction at the first system, for killing people there too soon, and thus ending the death ship’s journey before it reached the final two stars. That didn’t explain what might have happened to the eight missing clanships at the second and third stars, but the Tor blamed that on their failure to avoid or fight off human ships sent to investigate their White Outs, after they waited in one place too long. Only the pilots knew that not moving from those coordinates had been Telour’s orders, and those that returned didn’t care to contradict a vindictive Tor Gatrol.

  Putting the best light on the serious damage he had done to humanity, Telour remained confident. “The human clans will talk for days, argue for days, and for days will worry about what I might do next if they fail to do as I ordered. When the large debris finally strikes those two worlds, I will have killed three times more humans than have died in the war since I led the first attack on Gribble’s Nook.” He frequently reminded his subordinates that he had officially started the war.

  “The Earth clan leader’s emissary will tell us where to find the humans that took our own clanships to attack our worlds, the same humans who helped their weak navy attack Telda Ka. They are the ones that have taken Torki and Prada slaves, and have made them create their new armor, and made them expand the stealth of our stolen ships.”

  He said this as if their slaves would never aid the enemy unless forced. Not too far from accurate with the Prada initially, who were now firmly on the side of humanity.

  “This work must have been done on a planet somewhere in Human Space, and when I learn where it is, I will destroy all life there.

  It was always what Telour said or Telour would do, and he was still delaying the formation of a new Joint Council. He’d noticed that Kanpardi had deferred often to what others wanted to do, as evidenced by his accepting restrictions from the Joint Council that he knew was inefficient for prosecution of the war. Such as their allowing construction of clanships to remain low after significant losses, and then a small group of humans made an increase impossible at the Graka clan shipyards, right after Telour made a visit there to increase production. That loss of production had damaged his status.

  Telour knew better than the clan leaders and the council. The recent setbacks were not the fault of his planning; a small effective band of new human fighters had caused his problems. With the compliance he could force from Earth’s clan leaders, he would stop their future spread, just as the Krall ended their undesired bloodlines. Advancing on the Great Path meant knocking those that slowed progress from that path.

  He had another plan. “These more effective fighters are few in number, and I will not allow them to breed more warriors like them.”

  ****

  “It’s a boy!” Carson came out of the delivery room with the happy news. Aldry and Rafe, part of the delivery room team, had known the gender in advance of course, because they had monitored the pregnancy of a True Third Generation child carefully. However, Alyson and Carson had requested the gender be withheld from them and from others, to maintain the suspense and anticipation of friends and family.

  Alyson’s Hub City parents were here in Prime City, belatedly accepting their daughter’s Kobani gene transformation, and knowing their first grandchild would be a TTG, they wanted to be in the child’s life. They themselves had received the original clone mods, of curse, or else they could never have had Alyson here on Koban. Carson hugged them, and sent them in first, to see their daughter and first grandchild.

  He was then smothered by his own mother, as Noreen hugged him too tightly and too long, her face wet with tears of joy. Then his proud father, starting with a handshake and shoulder clap that pulled him into another bear hug.

  Maggi offered a more tender hug and a cheek kiss, and Tet was a two handed handshake, with more words of congratulations, which Carson was too elated to listen to or comprehend. He was a father and he had a son!

  He rushed over to his best friend Ethan, who was standing and waiting for him by his Dad, Uncle Thad. He knew they were happy for him, but the absence of Aunt Marlyn made this celebration a reminder that Ethan’s first child, whenever it came, wouldn’t have his mother’s hugs and tears of joy.

  Ethan embraced him. “Car, I’m so happy for you man. Alyson and the baby are both fine I assume?”

  “Aldry and Rafe say they’re both perfect. I agree.”

  Thad shared a handshake and placed an arm around his shoulder. “He’s going to change and improve your life, just as you, Ethan, and each of your brothers and sisters changed your parent’s lives. If he tries some of the stunts you and Ethan pulled, your Dad and I will laugh our asses off when you try to crack down on him. We have some tales to hold over both your heads when that happens.”

  “Right.” He glanced at Ethan. “Mind Tap came in our late teens. You don’t know the best and first tales, and we’re not talking.” He laughed.

  Thad winked, “Like at age six, the fire in hydroponics, when you focused the extra sunlight to grow a coco tree faster? Nearly wiping out the first year’s chocolate production?”

  Carson and Ethan’s eyes both widened slightly. “Jake,” they both said simultaneously. Accusing the Flight of Fancy’s AI.

  “Yes Sirs?” was the reply over speaker in the infirmary, since both young men had exclaimed his name aloud.

  Carson was mildly indignant. “You didn’t see us do that.”

  “True Sir, because two days earlier Ethan used a ladder to place some sort of shield that blocked my view of half the hydroponics section. However, I was never asked by any adult about the fire, which I only reported when I saw the smoke and activated the sprinkler system.”

  Ethan looked at his Dad, questioning eyebrow raised, not admitting anything even though the statute of limitations for childhood misbehavior had long expired.

  “You two magnifying glass geniuses could have wiped out the grove of coco trees. However, Jake had nothing but circumstantial evidence. Aga
inst only you, my ladder using son, and that was days earlier. It apparently took you time to make convex lens out of the spare armored dome glass you found, and to build a strong enough mount. Anyway, it wasn’t Jake who reported you, since he didn’t see you do anything. Although, Commander Mirikami as he was then titled, suspected who may have done the deed.”

  Carson said, “I’d think any of the kids anticipating this marvel you adults kept describing as chocolate, might have wanted it produced sooner. Not just Ethan and me. It could have been any of them.”

  Thad looked at them both. “How many kids had rippers as pets that followed them around, watching over them as their mothers had ordered?”

  Ethan was indignant. Looking around for Kobalt or Kit, who had already been allowed to enter the nursery, and couldn’t be directly condemned for a failure of young trusts.

  “Relax. They blocked their thoughts, and all we had was spotty holes in each of your activities for the three days before the fire. They don’t lie, you know, not even for you two, but they kept the secret of your activities in hydroponics. Besides, you were both in school when the fire broke out, and we could tell that nobody was playing firebug, or trying to start a fire. You didn’t think the cats would understand what that stand was for, which you made to hold the lens, so they weren’t asked to block that image.”

  Ethan asked, “If you had this circumstantial evidence, why didn’t we hear about it and get the usual punishment? I’m sure the animal corral always had crap that needed shoveling. We became crap specialist at an early age.”

  “We didn’t want to burn our informants, to make you even more circumspect around the rippers. Their being unable to remember images of your activities was always a clue you two were up to something. This wasn’t a malicious prank, and you rarely pulled those anyway. Except, now that you mention your crap shoveling expertise, there were some unfortunate poop related incidents where pockets of parkas at school occasionally contained turds.”