Koban: The Mark of Koban

by Stephen W Bennett

  Nord had activated the guns as soon as the enemy moved closer, but in a bit of design shortsightedness, the traverse of the machine guns, with the too-narrow firing slits, couldn’t fire directly on the warriors, who kept their distance. Only ricochets could reach them and the partly flattened slugs did not have penetrating power. Damaged KK chips, from the ricochets, also frequently failed to trigger the shell’s small explosive charge.

  Repeated, and superbly accurate plasma rifle fire at the gun slits eventually silenced the weapons, permitting them another shift up the corridor towards gun 4. Now they took careful aim at the ceiling plasma guns, knocking those out easily before passing under them, with no risk at all. They advanced to just short of the first set of spray ports of the napalm and thermite, and took out the next set of grenade launchers. It was a crisp, methodical dismantling of the outer defenses of the battery.

  Henrik and Agneta had lain on their backs on the second floor balconies, watching camera images on their visors, and directly seeing bolts slam into the ceiling lights and guns there. The “equalizers” were being destroyed, one by one. Jarl and Elin said they were watching the same thing happen on their side, only they had lost sight of two of the warriors.

  Elin made an optimistic comment. “I don’t see how they can disable the thermite sprayer holes with plasma rifle fire. They still can’t just sit on the floor and gradually burn through the doors covered in a sheet of fire.”

  Henrik had already thought of a solution he would use, but Jarl beat him to the punch. “Why sit in the flames when you can get behind them?”

  “Exactly,” Henrik agreed. “They can kick in a corridor door and walk down the inside hall, kick in a door of a small business that faces the battery door across the Slidewalks, and you can take your shots from those doorway in safety. If they do that, we can start the fires to hold them at bay a little longer, and block their aim, but that blaze will go out in minutes.”

  “But then we can’t even ambush them from behind, on the balconies. They’ll be below our feet, and inside. Damn! Their knowledge of the thermite trap is working against us.”

  “Start them now!” It was Agneta. “It won’t help us, but if the fire has burned out before they get there, perhaps they’ll stay in the corridor.”

  Even as Jarl was agreeing with the idea, Henrik told Nord to activate the thermite outside both battery doors. They forgot that the destroyed overhead plasma guns were the intended ignition source. The gooey substance sprayed out over the floor and lower granite walls, and puddled or stuck there.

  Thinking fast, Henrik detached a phosphorous grenade from his suit waist. Told Jarl to do the same, but not to throw it yet. The sprayers were still working. “Nord, swivel the grenade launchers and 50 Cal’s as a noise distraction. Jarl, toss when you hear the sound. They may not see where they came from.”

  As soon as his external mike picked up the grinding of the damaged weapons, he tossed his grenade to the far wall. When it burst, the flames spread…, well, like wild fire. Jarl also reported ignition on his side of the valley.

  Despite nine inches of granite wall, and self-contained breathing and cooling of their armor, it grew warm and smoky on those balconies. Except for isolated spots, all of the hot thermite fueled fires burned themselves out in less than four minutes. The four of them had switched to infrared in the obscuring smoke, but did not expose their heads above the balcony rails, aware that the Krall also had IR vision. Nord was able to confirm that the warriors had stayed in the corridors on both sides, backing away from the flames. The Krall on Henrik’s side backed up the most, probably because of the holes in their suits, and fond memories of the last time they watched this cozy blaze from the inside the flames.

  Jarl reported that the single warrior casualty on his side could move, but apparently wasn’t able to see. He didn’t back up until he felt the heat. It was apparent that even squad mates didn’t do much to look out for their disabled comrades, if comrade was a term that applied between them.

  For Krall warriors, the return up the corridors to the gun doors was cautious. However, caution for them meant a trot versus a run. Humans would have scouted more, and would have perhaps crawled back into a former killing zone, like these were designed to be.

  “Agneta, when they set up to burn the door they’ll have their backs to us. Use tight focus beams, a quick few shots, then into the apartment and up the steps to level three.”

  My love, just remember which of us scored highest on accuracy and maximum fire rate in training.”

  “Yea, yea, yea. I heard that all summer. These dummies will shoot back, and I love you. Be careful and be fast.”

  “I love you too. Two are sitting in front of the door, two standing over them; the other two are sideways, watching down the corridors. Who do you think we take first?”

  “The lookouts. Head shoots on the sides of their faceplates. If we make quick kills, the others may not notice before we get a second shot.

  “Eric, Greta, the instant we start shooting, fire the gun when I say so. We can keep the other four looking at the door.” There had been a few booming shots heard before, and the Krall always paused to look at the door for an instant.

  “I’ll do it,” answered Greta, obviously still on the gun herself.

  They heard Jarl make a similar arrangement with Alf to fire as a distraction. He said the warriors had started the burn over there.

  The warriors below and between Henrik and Agneta had started as well. “OK, Greta, fire!”

  Henrik and Agneta had risen quietly and swiftly in their powered armor as the signal was given. They took quick aims on the targets they had previously seen on their visors. Two pulses lanced out and hit both warriors on the sides of their faceplates, the weakest area of the helmets. The loud boom of the plasma cannon sounded through the walls, not interrupting the four beams pulsing at the door crack.

  Agneta’s target toppled forward, Henrik’s victim staggered sideways, and tried to turn towards where the shot originated. Instead of a second shot at another Krall, Henrik put his second shot through the center of the faceplate. As that warrior started to fall backwards, Agneta’s second shot hit another warrior’s plasma rifle power pack, which exploded. That didn’t injure the warrior, but his plasma weapon was now useless.

  As coordinated, both of them ducked down and spun into the apartments through the sliding doors they’d left open. Nevertheless, plasma bolts came up in reply to hit the ceilings of the balconies, and some shots hit apartments on either side. Apparently the Krall didn’t know how many shooters there were, just how high, and about where.

  ****

  Jarl and Elin, also intending to coordinate their ambush with a pulse of cannon fire, were ready to stand up and take their shots. As the thrum of the plasma cannon sounded, there was a crash behind them. A warrior, having seen where the fire starting phosphor grenade originated, had kicked open the apartment door. They were far too slow to turn and fire, with Elin the first to die as her faceplate exploded. Jarl had only a bare instant to realize his wife was gone, when he joined her. They had never uttered a sound. The Krall stood over them and added another pulse to each shattered faceplate for good measure.

  ****

  Henrik and Agneta raced up the narrow stairs, a tight fit in their armor, but took a second to close the stairway doors behind them. No need to let the warriors that might come up here to find their exit point too quickly. The stair doors looked just like other doors on closets and bathrooms, which they had shut earlier. The heavier front doors were wide open, to suggest they had gone out that way.

  “Hey babe, he called to his wife.” Breathing hard from fear and excitement rather than exertion in the powered suit. “Good first shot, what happened on the second?” His jibe was obvious, after she had reminded him of her range scores being better.

  “We don’t want them burning through the door do we? Now that one will have to sit and watch. Your second shot simply finished off the first target.”
She was also breathing fast, but it sounded like she was gloating at his need to hit the same warrior twice.

  As they both reached the top of the stairs, he pointed out a tiny fallacy in her thinking. “We just left him two spare rifles to pick up from the dead Krall. You should have made another kill shot.”

  “Well, I had no faceplate shot from the back side, but I should have put one through its arm or leg armor.” It was a concession to mistaken tactics, not her marksmanship.

  As planned, they crawled onto the third level balconies. They knew this time at least one or more of the warriors was covering those openings now, confirmed by the camera image on their visors. Even if they got off a quick shot, doing it simultaneously, one of them wasn’t likely to avoid a kill shot while exposed for that second.

  They each stripped off a full belt of five grenades, similar to the ones the launchers had fired, and flipped off the safeties of all, then in rapid succession, pressed the activation studs, timers already preset for seven seconds. Henrik started counting aloud on the Link when he activated his first one. They both tossed the belts over the edge at the count of four, with three seconds remaining. The suit visors showed them camera images of where the Krall were located.

  Three warriors were occupied with burning through the center of the gun door, and one was covering their backs. His cover fire came quickly at the two balconies, where he’d seen the two belts of unknown objects fly out towards the center of the wide corridor. The novice then wisely dove to the floor in self-preservation, but the three Krall burning their way through the door reacted too late, not seeing what their guardian had seen, and had delayed in telling them.

  At his last second radioed warning, the other three spun around to also fire on the balconies, just as the belts struck the floor. The first explosion on each belt spread the other grenades around. Each one exploded in rapid succession, ten individual bundles of quarter inch depleted uranium pellets filled the air. They were coated with a hardened metal shell, designed to hold the pellet’s shape when it hit tough armor. With less flattening and impact absorption, there was a better chance for penetration.

  In that second or two, none of the three warriors had a chance in the lighter Fjord gravity to drop all the way to the floor, where fewer of the pellets might have found them. That was because some of the deadly little balls would hit the floor, only to rise again to strike a higher target, and others went directly and randomly, to find what obstacles they might encounter.

  The three Krall were the nearby higher obstacles for the balls to encounter. Two of them would not live to see their next birthday, if egg-hatching anniversaries were a Krall tradition. Probably not.

  A grenade was knocked spinning across the floor a half second before it exploded, with two very aware Krall looking straight down at it between them, from less than two feet away, with their finely tuned senses, keen vision, and their (almost) instant reactions useless while suspended in air, falling. Their two faceplates looked more like food strainers when they hit the floor. The ichor that strained through didn’t look very edible.

  The third warrior, Gondat, was shielded from that nearest blast, by the inadvertent selfless shielding provided by his now deceased clan mates. Not that he escaped entirely without injury, with multiple new limb penetrations to match those it had earned at the last door. The heavier torso armor deflected or shed the pellet strikes again. Nevertheless, he wasn’t going to be running after their attackers, not with a shattered knee on the right side, and a half torn open ankle joint on the left foot. The blood would stop quickly, of course, and he would ignore the pain.

  The low status novice warrior had let his surviving octet members down, both with his failure to stop the attack, and then not to warn the others of the impending grenade assault. He had received not a scratch. The higher status wounded warrior promptly assessed their situation, and ordered the novice after the humans, before they could again delay his burning through the door.

  Even in armor, a human could not hold out very long after he burned through, and hot charged plasma would play havoc with the electrical systems of the gun controls. All Gondat needed was a little more time. His new raid leader, Trudok, said that these guns were preventing the remaining mass of warriors from quickly swarming the trapped humans. They had discovered where most of them had apparently retreated. They were trapped on the docks, with no retreat possible. He would earn his higher status by completing this task, and silencing the cannon.

  He wasn’t so sure about the remaining novice’s ability, but if he could chase the humans guarding this door away, the warriors at the previous gun would be finished shortly, and one of them was mobile enough to limp here. They reported there was a second door visible through the first hole, but simply holding a rifle to the hole continued the burn into the second door. Measured by the time to get through the outer door, the next one should be penetrated at any minute.

  He resumed his impatient burn on the outer door, confident the small hole would be through soon despite the slower progress with a single rifle. He tried holding a second rifle in the other hand, but a fragment had entered and broken it at the original trap, and even ignoring the pain, it refused to close tight enough for steady aim.

  He heard repeated booms from this big human gun, and from the more distant gun down the corridor. He was looking forward to the satisfaction of the silence following their destruction. Then he suddenly received part of what he wanted. The other octet leader reported they had penetrated the second door, and were firing one of the two remaining plasma rifles with a partly charged power pack into the inner chamber. The relentless heat buildup and conductive plasma would end the talk of that gun soon. The octet leader could not walk, but a warrior, using two charged plasma rifles for assistance in walking was limping his way to this other door.

  For Gondat this was the third battle with humans, and the fiercest by far he had experienced. However, the humans had again used remotely controlled weapons to spring a trap. It was cowardly! Why wouldn’t they die properly, at the hands of a superior foe?

  He would be content when his small clan joined a full-scale attack on some world, where small traps that worked on the scale of an octet would be of no use on a larger army. The humans had been punished for delaying the Gatrol’s next phase of larger, longer attacks. After the near destruction of an important human world for their attacks from space, they changed their strategy, arming more warriors of their worlds to fight on the surface, as the Krall would have forced them to do anyway. Dorbo was a small clan, and this raid was a test of their readiness to fight a protracted battle. It wasn’t proceeding well so far, but if they exterminated the humans of this city despite high loses, they would earn enough status to be included.

  When the blowback of plasma suddenly ceased, he knew he had breached the outer door. He continued to fire, as the power pack ran down. He only had two more partly charged rifles, and he might need a third one to finish. The reinforcement from the other door would bring a good rifle, or he could always recall the novice, whose name he had not learned. It would be a good day.

  ****

  To Henrik, it wasn’t looking like a very good day. The lone Krall warrior had leaped up to a second floor balcony, and then another jump reached the third level, between himself and Agneta. They were separated now. The Krall could be suckered sometimes, and whittled down with preplanned ambushes, but their toughness made it hard for even two humans to win against one in a straight up combat situation, not without one or both dying in the process.

  They were out of grenades, and on his visor, he saw the image of one Krall burning the door to reach his friends. Nord had said the warriors at gun 3 had breached both doors, and one of them was on the way here. Waiting wasn’t going to improve the odds. Nord couldn’t find a camera image of the pursuing Krall, because it had not entered the outer corridor, and wasn’t visible on the balcony it had entered.

  “Agneta, I’m taking a shot at that Krall below before the
other one finds us.”

  “Henrik shoot at his rifle. He only has one spare left, and it may not be enough.”

  “Won’t help. A warrior is coming up the corridor with two more. He’s using them as crutches, but I’ll bet they still work. I’ll try a head shot.”

  “Won’t penetrate from the back of the helmet fast enough. He or the other one will get off a return shot.”

  “Then wish me luck, love. Here I go.”

  He confirmed the position by camera, stepped to the balcony, aimed down and fired. The pulse had just left the rifle when his left elbow was blasted by a bolt from two apartments away.

  He nearly dropped his rifle before he could step back out of sight. His elbow was burning, and the suit’s emergency cooling was routing liquid nitrogen to the joint, which had fused and would not straighten. He screamed from the pain, and the suit injected him with a fast acting analgesic.

  “Henrik, my God, are you OK?” Agneta was in a panic.

  Through gritted teeth, he managed to get out, “Elbow hit… by the one after us… I don’t know if I hit the target.”

  “No. He’s still burning.”

  Crap! He’d exposed himself for no gain.

  Nord calmly told him, “The warrior that shot you fired from a balcony three apartments to your left and he has now entered the outer corridor, and is approaching your position.”

  Suddenly he heard a sound in the corridor, and a crash of a door being smashed. He brought his rifle up right-handed, assuming the Krall would be crashing through from the other room. Instead Nord started to speak, but instantly was overridden by Agneta.

  “I hit him in the back of the knee and he smashed through an apartment door across the hall, one door short of you to take cover. Get back down the stairs, quick.”