Koban: Rise of the Kobani

by Stephen W Bennett

  The Lemurs and Howlers were often arboreal, and some were nocturnal. The large yellow eyes, with black fur rings on the Prada suggested they were well adapted to low light, but this morning they were active in broad daylight. The adults visible appeared to weigh-in at between one hundred to one hundred thirty pounds. Sex was difficult to determine, with fur covering where evolution of a primate style creature might have genitalia. However, two small children were seen clinging to the backs of adult Prada that were indistinguishable from other members of the group, but which could be their mothers.

  Everyone was excited to have a chance to meet a non-hostile intelligent species. The Raspani had been a huge disappointment, when they all appeared to have regressed to an almost pre-sentient level. There were flashes of intelligence, sometimes revealed briefly by Mind Taps. However, those images seemed to be deliberately submerged, as if the poor creatures were afraid to release a mind that could think. What creature would want to face life as a thinking meat animal, facing slaughter at any time?

  There was no doubt that they would approach the tree village, but they would not do so by landing the Beagle anywhere close. It was externally a Krall clanship, after all. The plan was to land much farther away, and approach in a human made shuttle, which looked and sounded different from Krall models. They would allow the Prada to see that the occupants were not Krall. They were hoping curiosity would draw the Prada to a historic First Contact meeting. There had been no signs of the second major slave race, the Torki, and other than searching coastal areas, they didn’t know where the intelligent crabs would live.

  There was almost another week to wait before the members of the expedition would be adjusted well enough to the latest genetic modifications to use them. There were new plans to be made and possible trade goods to consider, necessary preparations before trust and language learning could commence. Mind Taps should help that to go faster.

  Kobalt and Kit were going, but would stay well clear of the Prada tree village. Bradley, Marlyn’s son, who was going along, had all of the Koban genes, which were still becoming fully active. Nevertheless, he said he could now scent a ripper from a mile away if the breeze was in his direction. They had no way of knowing what Prada noses might be capable of detecting.

  Until they had experienced the Mind Tap, the aliens couldn’t be reassured that the rippers were no threat. Even then, it might not be believed. Prada had obviously been to Koban in the past, because of the dome and wall construction, which the Krall certainly would not do. There was no way to know if any forerunners of the people on the Morning Star planet had ever worked on the domes humans now used. No signs of tree dwellings had ever been found, which made sense, because the Prada would be small easy prey for nearly any predator.

  On Koban, the Krall had probably housed their builders in the domes as they were constructed. There were faint mind images from the wild ripper prides, of unusual small upright prey that may have been Prada, from the remote times when the domes had been built. However, the memories were old and fragmented, because that was several hundred years ago, based on the scientifically measured ages of several of the domes. Only important pride memories were reinforced by frequent sharing, and this prey wasn’t in that category.

  Finally, the last of the new mods were past the stage where the recipients were physically uncomfortable, and all that was needed was practice, and Mind Taps from previous TG1s to help them along in their muscle learning. The multitude of new nanites, particularly those for the nervous system were going to shorten and improve the gene mods implementation. The newest upgraded expedition members were proof of that.

  The Beagle lifted from the Prime City tarmac, and entered Jump Hole shortly after leaving atmosphere. The White Out at the Morning Star came before some even released the breath they had held from the excitement.

  Marlyn entered atmosphere several hundred miles from the tree village, then at low altitude, to stay below the horizon, flew to within thirty miles of the forest, on the far side of the decaying dome, itself located several miles from the edge of the huge trees.

  The first task after landing was to put out an armed landing party, to check the local area and ensure there were no immediate threats. They had seen startled animal herds below them break and run as they flew low, and some apparent predatory stalkers of the herds that stayed in a pack when they ran. They were over twice the size of large wolves, and grey and brown in color.

  There were far more flying creatures here than they usually saw on Koban, at least where Prime City and Hub City were located. Most of the fliers here certainly resembled birds, or their evolutionary equivalents, as found on nearly every planet humans had found. Perhaps ten percent of them appeared to be either a flying furless animal, or a reptile, or at least they did not have a feathery appearance.

  Those worlds that had a biosphere with a dense enough atmosphere, and greater oxygen content for the higher metabolisms needed, always had some fliers that the settlers invariably called “birds.” Wolfbat colonies and their intelligent predation, at least near the human occupied domes on Koban, had greatly suppressed most bird populations. Not so here, where they appeared to be plentiful.

  The rumble of the thrusters and their heat had driven any animal with a survival instinct away from the immediate landing area. Although a number of mounded burrows were spotted in the open grassy area, which suggested animals that would fit in their six-inch diameter holes lived there, and had likely retreated down them.

  The TGs (1s and 2s, but the simpler term was easier to say), were proceeding cautiously as if they were on Koban, even though no one anticipated animals as dangerous here as at home. Because none of this world’s animals had ever seen humans, it was hoped they would be cautious, and would not automatically see people as a threat. That was seldom the case on Koban, where everything acted as if humans were a threat, because any animal their size that wasn’t eating grass or leaves was a killer of animals that did. Koban life was ultra-competitive and aggressive, when compared to animals on any of the other human worlds.

  Kobalt and Kit were in heaven, with the glorious new scents and colors to stimulate their senses. They had been strictly warned not to eat any animals here until the science teams had cleared them for toxins. That didn’t prevent them from stalking prey for fun, to “taste” their terror when caught, via frilling, before releasing them. They vanished into the scrub to do just that.

  If this system ran true to dual habitable planets found in multiple other systems, there should not be a serious problem. When one planet had a preponderance of safe edible plants and animals for humans, the companion planet did as well. Planetologists found that it was apparently a function of the original solar disk’s chemical and elemental makeup when the neighboring planets formed. The eventual emerging life on each followed similar evolutionary paths. If one world’s sugars, proteins, enzymes and such, were bad for Earth life, then both worlds were bad. The same held for a pair of worlds when one was suitable for Earth life. Koban was extraordinarily good for humans nutritionally, so this world was likely to be safe as well. Not universally, of course.

  The Death Lime thorns were one of many plant products that were deadly on Koban, yet its fruit was completely safe. Many things were expected to be safe for consumption here, but obviously not all. The massive job of testing and cataloging an entire world of new plants and animals would start today.

  ****

  Rushing through underbrush, Kobalt delighted in how light he felt as he smashed through or leaped over bushes of odd colors, startling birds and small animals that had been frozen and in hiding, as he and Kit thudded their reckless way past them. They were not hunting now, but gathering the multitude of new scents that intrigued them, and relishing the colors that were different from home.

  The hunts in the place their human pride named Jura was exciting, and dangerous, even for them, with the giant predators with the huge jaws. However, the smells there were still in the family of scents they w
ere used to, it was just another part of home. This was completely different smelling, and mysterious. The animal and bird smells were obviously different from the equally strange smelling plant life, but they had no mental images from generations of pride experience to draw from, to know what they were sensing here. It was exciting to bound, as if they were nearly able to fly, leaping at one point completely over a low tree that was higher than the electric fence around the home den of their pride.

  Kobalt stopped suddenly as he noticed Kit had reversed, and she was sniffing at something on the ground. Even before reaching her, he knew she had found the droppings of some larger animal. There were many prints in the soil between tufts of the weirdly colored grass. Something had nibbled at the tops of the tallest stems, where seed clusters grew on those that had been bypassed. The prints looked like a sort of hoof made them, and the depth showed they were large, although obviously smaller than a rhinolo by far.

  Their scent was different from grass eaters at home, but there was a sort of musty similarity, and the partly digested grasses and leaves in the scat seemed fresh, proving they had passed this way this morning. Like Kit, who had raised her head to look around, he pressed the tip of his sensitive nose on one of the rounded droppings, and felt it was still warm. They were very close to the slow moving herd, since this was probably less than a half hour old.

  Marlyn, as pride leader today, had told them not to eat anything, but they could bring something back for the human pride friends to study. If it was safe food, they could eat it after that. Eager for the hunt, he frilled his sister, and they shared strategies for pouncing on a careless trailing herd member of whatever sort of prey this was.

  Kit imaged him that they were able to leap farther here and cover ground faster. Instead of the normal stalk to grow close, to sneak past them a bit to set up an ambush, she pictured them both chasing some vaguely antelope-like prey from behind, using raw speed and power to isolate one and catch it, keeping the terrified animal alive long enough for them both to “taste” its new flavor of fear. A quick merciful kill would go to the one that brought it down, so there was a competition to the chase to come. Kobalt thought of the tree he had just cleared in his long leap. He expected to win.

  There was never a thought of killing two of the prey. Ripper morality held even in this special case on a new world. No kills for the pleasure of the act, even then only if the meat provided was necessary. There was uncertainty here if even the meat of the one kill would be consumable. It created an uncomfortable mental gray area.

  Kit’s proposal of a headlong chase from the herd’s rear was quickly agreed to by Kobalt, but he wasn’t paying attention to her body positioning as they frilled. Exactly like their human siblings, she “cheated” her bigger brother by placing herself in the direction they would have to run. Then she suddenly placed both of her big front paws on her brother’s right shoulder and pushed hard, knocking him over by the unexpected action, while she used the shove to gain momentum to start her run, to gain at least a six body length advantage. She had extended her claws just enough to prick her brother’s shoulder, simply to show him who was still boss. She was perfectly aware from her mom and Aunt Noreen’s memories, that she was the older of the two twins by five or ten seconds. That gave her seniority in the pride over him. She kept reminding her physically larger brother of that at every opportunity.

  With a roar of indignation, Kobalt was after her in two seconds, her tail deliberately twitching impudently fifty feet ahead of him. She had extended her rear claws, which unless she was turning or twisting to follow prey were not required for grip, and they tore tufts of turf up to fly back in her brother’s face. She had to grant that Kobalt had the edge on endurance and power, but speed and agility was her edge, and she was planning to hold her lead all the way to the take down.

  Her ears picked up the sounds of hooves starting to pound up ahead, where the outraged roar of her brother had apparently alerted the herd animals that something unpleasant was tearing through bushy grassland towards them. She knew Kobalt had endurance, so if his roar made the chase last longer, she might have outwitted herself as he gradually overtook her lead. He would naturally try to put a shoulder into her as he passed, to knock her off stride. It’s exactly what she intended to try to do to him if he passed her close enough to gloat.

  She picked up a new scent that seemed to come in from her left, and now surrounded her as she ran through the strong body odors from multiple animals. If her brother were not so close on her rear, she would slow to check this out, but winning was more important to her. It now had an odd sharp scent added to it, which she thought might be from the breath of the creatures, rather than the general body odor all animals had. That meant they were close for that scent not to have spread thinner in the air. The sharp smell suddenly matched a memory she had of hunting on Jura, when she sniffed the fetid breath of a pack of small raptors, the smell of their carnivore’s breath.

  Suddenly, from both sides, there were multiple loud growls and savage sounding snarls, noisily pushing through the bushes on either side, moving parallel to her but still unseen. There was a powerful howl, and she could hear them turn towards her. A growl from Kobalt proved he was aware of the ambush as well. Something gray and hairy leaped at her from the left.

  ****

  The self-erecting tents were activated, just as soon as a tough plastic barrier was placed below them as protection against whatever dug the burrows. The science teams moved into them as soon as they snapped to rigidity, to set up the automated test labs for samples already being collected. The Koban born TGs all thought the “strange” green plants and grasses were most likely to be dangerous or allergenic. The colors were relatively rare on Koban, and sometimes marked plants that were unhealthy for grazing animals there to eat.

  A five hundred-foot radius sensor perimeter was set up, which would detect incoming animals from rat-sized and up, out to an additional two hundred feet, and provide a warning of size, direction, and speed for the TGs that were on watch. The first few nights would be spent in the ship, until the local area was deemed safe enough for overnight camping. The TGs chaffed at this restriction, and believed it should only apply to the SGs with them (such as the captain), who did not have the speed and strength to fend off a possible animal attack. Nevertheless, the captain had her way.

  That caution proved justified when Kobalt and Kit returned, only forty-five minutes after they ran off for adventure. Kobalt was carrying a large but dead wolf analogue in his massive jaws. Prompt frilling revealed that a pack of twelve of the two hundred fifty pound, thickly furred animals had attacked the rippers from both sides. The cats were racing along, after the tail end of a herd of several hundred long legged, five-foot high, brown and white spotted antelope-like animals, having long white horns. The wolf pack animals were apparently also stalking the same herd, and the rippers speed had put them in their midst before the unknown scent became meaningful to them.

  Frill contacts showed that both cats were deeply embarrassed by their mistake in ignoring the new scent. It was just another new one among hundreds, all from unknown animals to them. The pack animals, although individually much smaller than either cat, outnumbered and out massed them collectively, and hadn’t hesitated to go after the unknown new competition.

  This particular pack would do more than hesitate the next time they saw or smelled a ripper. Five of the members were bloodied and injured before breaking and running, without ever laying a fang or claw on either cat, despite the surprise rush from two sides. Big dogs against bigger and extremely fast and strong heavy gravity cats? It was “put their tails between their legs and run for their lives” time. The cats could have killed half of them had they chosen to be so wasteful.

  The largest one, the alpha male, refused to yield or back down, and tried to leap on Kit’s back as she mauled one of its pack mates. Kobalt leaped twenty feet to intercept him in midair, his jaws closing on the throat, crushing the windpipe and puncturin
g an artery. The leader was fatally injured, and it screamed a terrified death cry. The remainder of the pack turned and fled.

  Mindful of the warning not to eat any prey from here, Kobalt could taste its blood in his jaws. A ripper social injunction against wasting a kill also came into play. He had dropped the dying pack leader and spat as much blood out as he could. Next, he and Kit frilled the animal as it expired, “tasting” only that which they had been permitted to have. They had expected to bring one of the dead herd animals back for testing, and possible consumption, but instead they had the wolf. They had never even seen what they chased, but the dying wolf had images of what they had missed. They would know them the next time.

  While the lab techs took samples of blood and tissue, the humans looked over the big animal, noting its long legs, suited for running down prey over long distances. It had an elongated mouth full of teeth, the viciously long top and bottom front fangs interlocking.

  Its eyes were closed, but pulling an eyelid back, a large amber eye with black pupil was revealed. The ears were wide at the base, as well as long and pointed at the tips, rather like giant wolfbat ears. It didn’t look like anything you ever wanted to meet in the dark, particularly a dozen of them in a cooperative pack.

  When the TGs frilled with the cats farther, they learned that this particular wolf-like predator seemed smarter than a wolfbat, and very cunning. In the grass and scrub brush territory around here, there were smaller fleet creatures that moved similar to a cat, hunting alone or in pairs, and the pack had taken some of them down before. The two larger examples today simply meant more meat to the leader when he howled to signal the pack to turn and attack the interlopers. Some mistakes you just didn’t get over.