Marlyn looked dazed. “Wow, Tet. I didn’t think you had a ghost of a chance of making me actually want to head back to Koban so soon. That was a neat trick, you wonderful nosy butt. Thank you, I accept.”
Noreen, careful not to reveal her own relief at not getting that assignment, hugged her friend, and the others joined her in congratulations.
Thad, facing a separation from his wife for an indefinite time, tempered his disappointment with the knowledge she would be safe from the risk of traveling into Krall Space, while doing something useful, and that she really wanted to do. Mom would also be back with their other two teen agers. At least she would be safer back there, after they faced the upcoming big risk to obtain those two other ships.
The remainder of the meeting was discussing training schedules and practice exercises, logistics of what to take with them, and studies of unused systems they could use around K1, and potential Poldark landing sites.
Dillon asked if the old armor they had from Testing Days could be of use.
“They’re worthless against plasma rifles,” Reynolds told him, “or even against the slugs the Krall have in their pistols. That old armor is crap. The military haven’t used that style for two hundred years or more.”
Thad had a better reason. “It’s an ultra-light alien ceramic material, which would identify it as Krall-built, made specifically for humans on Koban. The clans would come here to find out how it got off-world.”
Reynolds was comfortable speaking out now, after Mirikami had assured him he was not going to be asked to lead any forces or made an organizer. He would only Link in as an advisor to the TGs entering the Clanships.
He offered a suggestion. “As a disguise, Krall armor would let you move across a ramp unidentified as human, but the suit’s short legs and long arms will make it hard for them to walk, let alone run and use a gun. I don’t know if the Krall ever wear armor on the surface of K1, because it’s their secure base. However, if there were watchers, or an accidental sighting of humans headed for two ships, they might never get aboard. The suits may not be necessary, but I think you should use them anyway to avoid suspicion.
“We have the six suits aboard the Krall brought along, and they, along with two dozen plasma rifles are now powered and ready for use. Three TGs could hustle over to each of the target ships and be inside within five or ten minutes. Provided they don’t fall on their faces trying to run as fast as a bow legged Krall does. A plasma rifle slung over a shoulder is normal to see. After they cross the ramp, they discard the suits behind a landing jack for freedom of movement. They can then hold the portals open for the rest of each team.”
Thad liked that idea, and made a mental note to train six of his TGs wearing Krall armor, and to practice running. Once the first three with Krall armor were inside a Clanship, two could strip off the suits and start up towards the command deck, while the other ensured the portal remained open. The remainder of the fifty TGs for each boarding party would then rapidly escort Noreen and Dillon to one ship, and Marlyn and Thad to the other. The other hundred TGs would stay in reserve on the Mark of Koban.
After only four days of practice by the TGs, all two hundred could run competently and quickly in Krall armor. It proved to be the same with the practices of a take-over of a Clanship. As soon as Thad and Reynolds had passed any one of the kids as having met their expectations for precision, knowledge, and speed on any task, every test run of each following candidate after them also passed.
Thad had observed that every test run up the internal stairwells involved a leap up to hit the ceiling at each deck, and a flip down to the floor to check for any Krall, then a leap up the stairs again if the deck was clear of targets. All of it done so silently that almost all he heard was the rustle of air. Carson had said they picked this trick up by watching recordings of the Krall raiders that captured the Flight of Fancy. It was more impressive to him here, because they were doing it in fifty percent higher gravity, and passing through fifteen more decks on their way up than the Fancy had.
Thad and Sarge played “bad guys” and pretended to take aim at the TGs on various random decks during the days of practice. The speed of the kids as they “dry fired” proved they always beat the two SG men, who were perpetually too late to swing around to cover whichever stairwell they used.
Once the TGs reported the “occupied decks” as cleared (Thad, Sarge, and sometimes others played dead), the later kids went up twice as fast, not bothering with the flip between decks. He and Reynolds accepted this as merely examples of the physical superiority the Koban mods furnished.
However, it was when he and Sarge pretended to stage an ambush at deck twenty-eight, from behind some cargo bins, that he observed the first kid on that morning’s practice run use a flashy full twist with his flip, for no apparent reason other than to show off. Mike Calderon “killed” the two ambushers as usual, but they told him not to report the deck as “clear,” so they could ambush each of the kids the same way.
The ambushers were again “killed” by the next TG while he was in mid-full twist of his flip, because they were already standing exposed. They hid themselves again, only head and weapons exposed behind the cargo bins for the next TG, Chen Yin-Lee. He did a flip and full twist and “killed” Thad on the way to the deck and Sarge as he landed. With seeing this third full twist, there was clearly a bit of intended razzle-dazzle involved. Both men suspected the kids were cheating, and knew where the “enemy” was waiting for them. That spoiled the random nature of the training they were conducting.
“Chen, come over here please.” Thad knew his father, John Yin-Lee, a former Motorman and Drive Rat from the Fancy.
He was over in a swift two leaps. “Yes Sir?”
“No one is in trouble Chen, but having all of you know where we are waiting to ambush you is preventing us from assessing how prepared you each are for the mission, There will be real Krall trying to kill you then. Please inform whoever spread the word that after we move this time, they will be in trouble if they tell what deck we are on again.”
“Colonel, no one told me that you were on deck 28. I don’t know if anyone else was told.”
Reynolds looked at him skeptically. “How do you explain the full twist each one of you did today at this deck, if you weren’t showing off for us, before you ‘killed’ the unexpected ambushers?”
Chen looked puzzled only for an instant, and he seemed to search his memory. “Oh…, that’s because you passed Jorl Breaker with the highest score yesterday. We wanted to try to beat his score by being faster.” He smiled as if that was actually an explanation that made sense.
Reynolds remembered Jorl’s near perfect fast run yesterday. “Neither of us was on this deck, and he didn’t execute a full twist when he picked me off, how about you Colonel on your deck?”
“No full twist for me either.”
Chen nodded. “Sarge, you were on deck 18, Colonel you were on Deck 24, and you weren’t here to see his full twist as he passed deck 28. This is the only place he did one because he knew you had both been ‘cleared’ and there were no more targets. I guess he felt happy and added that move.”
“You didn’t test yesterday, how do you know where we were then, and what Jorl did?” Thad wasn’t challenging, but he wanted to understand.
“After he got the highest score, we knew his technique worked the best, so Ethan did a Tap on him, and passed his test run along to the rest of us. Even the other’s you passed yesterday got a copy. They wanted to be able to try to beat him on their own, if they get a chance to do it again.”
“So today, this time, all of you were simply copying exactly what Jorl did that passed him? You shared his mental image and thoughts of what he did, through Ethan?” Reynolds was still skeptical.
“Sure, Sarge. We also did that on the test where we needed to run in that clumsy fitting Krall armor. We copied the best run you saw from the first day. Ethan did a Tap on Yilini Jastrov, who figured out how to run just leg flexing from t
he knees down. He was fastest and most realistic looking you said, so we all matched what he did. Just like we were doing today on the stairwell run. I suppose we all thought you could tell we were mimicking. How else could we all do it exactly the same way? It seemed obvious to us.”
“I’ll be damned. I hadn’t known you could do that so precisely. So you wait until someone passes the test, or perhaps several do, then copy the best method for doing it yourself?”
“Well, until we had TG1s we couldn’t do that Sarge. The cats can’t share the same physical feel of muscle contractions and limb placements with humans. We can’t run like a ripper.”
Thad shook his head. “I think you’ve hit on a spectacular way to learn how to train quickly. But also a way to possibly be limited to the bare minimum required to pass, and everyone then copies that minimum requirement.”
“Sir, I was trying to beat Jorl’s time from yesterday. That would be an improvement wouldn’t it Colonel?”
“But son, it might not be the best possible technique. Faster is only one facet of what we need to do. Doing it the best way is also important. Don’t misunderstand me. You kids hit on a great idea. However, your implementation needs improving. It won’t take much tweaking to do that.
“Jakob, Link me to Ethan.”
After explaining what he’d just learned, he complemented his son for the idea, but described the problem he saw in its implementation.
“Son, everyone is using Jorl’s passing run as their benchmark today, but he was one out of thirty we tested, and we only passed four of you the first day. Today everyone is doing the run exactly as Jorl did, and would all have passed based on that.
“Except Jorl was only the best one out of thirty of you yesterday. I want the benchmark to be the best one out of two hundred tested. Simply wait to share the Mind Taps until we have a chance to see what everyone did, and then combine the best segments of different stages of the operation. One of you will have had the fastest way to run in a Krall suit, another the best way to open the portal to gain access, a third how to move up deck by deck, and another a better method of scanning for and taking out any Krall that might be waiting.
“Just good enough isn’t acceptable for us. Let everyone do it on their own, and then all of you, and Sarge and I, can discuss the pros and cons of the better performances, and then select and share the Mind Taps of those pieces. You TG1’s can send that data to us slower old foggy SG’s, so we have a feel for what you can do. In any case, congratulations. That was an amazing way to speed up our training, and get the best out of everyone.”
Before the week had ended, the training was complete. They were three weeks ahead of schedule. Thad and Sarge were convinced they had two teams of inexperienced kids that knew exactly how to simultaneously, and rapidly, take over two enemy ships. The ten TG1’s passed the detailed knowledge of how to conduct the raid by Mind Tap, in only a couple of hours, to the other hundred kids, who had not even participated in that training.
With the K1 training completed before he expected, Mirikami quickly made a series of test Jumps from Koban to the edge of the local Oort cloud and back. After several tries, he had narrowed his return arrival point down to three hundred thirty miles above Koban. The new elevator system was hurriedly completed and equipment and supplies were loaded. They were ready to Jump back into Human Space.
****
Mirikami was with the Inner Circle, standing in the open bay of the Flight of Fancy’s hold, looking out over friends and neighbors, and anxious but proud parents of the two hundred TG’s that were going on the mission. He had parked the Mark of Koban close to the Fancy, and the kids making the trip were walking around on the tarmac, greeting friends and family.
It was an emotional parting, and not all of it positive. There were hundreds of Hub City residents in Prime City today, and perhaps a quarter of those were asking for a return to Human Space. When told that the first landing would be a raid on a Krall base, the former colony world of Greater West Africa, with a plan to overrun and steal two more Krall Clanships, most sensible people backed away from the request. A few that were most adamant, and disliked Koban and the “criminals that ran things,” still wanted those “criminals” to do them the favor of taking them to Poldark.
They persisted even after Sergeant Reynolds told them the bad news. That the Mark of Koban would be landing behind the enemy front, on a continent where the Krall had invaded in force. Furthermore, Poldark planetary defenses would be actively trying to destroy the Mark as soon as it entered the atmosphere, and would assume it must a routine Krall craft with supplies and warriors.
“Land at Belgrade, the capitol. Simply radio ahead,” shouted one Lady, who rallied a few other voices in support.
Mirikami answered her. “An entire planet’s population is under attack, supplied by ships exactly like this one. One of them tries to land near the seat of government in Belgrade, and you think a radio call will convince them to hold back their missiles, lasers, and plasma beams, while they wait to see if a possible human collaborator is telling the truth?” He shook his head no.
“By landing in Krall occupied territory, we expect to encounter no human ground opposition, fewer human anti-ship weapons on our approach, and the Krall will only see some random clan’s ship arriving, which isn’t even a conceivable threat to them.
“We are on a mission to obtain help fighting the Krall inside their own territory. We are few in number, not even sure of our reception by the Poldark military or the government. There is no doubt of a hostile reception if the Krall know we are on this ship, and you think we have time and people to babysit civilians in a combat zone?” He raised a hand as the Lady was about to argue some more.
“Don’t waste your breath. The answer is no! I don’t think we can count on your willingness to die under torture before you tell a Krall captor of all the people living here, on a planet the Krall consider their sacred future home. Take up your debate with your neighbors; they don’t appear ready to risk their lives, children, and home for your personal motives.” He felt less charitable today than he had in past such confrontations. He knew some of the kids he was taking with him were going to die on behalf of these ingrates, who despised them for existing.
Mirikami went down the ramp to mingle with friends and the families of the two hundred TGs he was taking with him. He joined Noreen and Dillon, involved in a discussion with their two envious younger children.
“Mom, a lot of the TGs going are exactly the same age as me.” Katelyn was badgering again to get to go on the mission.
Noreen had heard the claim years before, in different circumstances, but had the answer memorized. “You turn eighteen in a few weeks, and Lawrence and Ellen will be nineteen a week or so after your birthday. Two is not ‘a lot of TGs,’ and eight or nine days overlap of the same age year does not make you exactly the same age. You graduated a couple of months ago, and told me last summer you would simply die if your father and I didn’t let you go to the University at Hub City. The semester starts in three weeks, and we signed you up for the courses you picked out three months ago. I pulled strings to get you in this year. The only thing that changed was the Clanship arrival. And you are not going on this first mission.”
“But I’ll be all alone here. Except for Cory, that annoying itchy little scab on a moosetodon’s rump.” With her parents and Carson away on the mission, only her younger brother, by two and a half years, would be staying behind on Koban.
“Katelyn, you told us going to school in Hub City would be the chance for you to get away, to be on your own as an adult. We arranged for that chance to come true, and Cory won’t be over there to be that itchy scab.”
“Hey!” Cory complained. “I am standing right here, you know. The itchy little scab?”
Noreen laughed and hugged her youngest. “Sorry baby. Mom gets carried away when your sister starts these arguments that wander all over the savanna.”
“I’m not your baby anymore, but I’ll
miss you guys. Certainly not prissy catty Kate here. Besides, I have to stay with Aunt Maggi at night, and I’ll be catching all of Dad’s whacks on the head when I annoy her.”
His father’s sage advice was, “Don’t annoy her son.”
“It’s fun. I can’t help it.”
Noreen shook her head at the father-like-son attitude. “Then take your lumps like a man. You’ll find Aunt Maggi is very smart, and knows a ton of interesting things. You may even enjoy the old movies.” Cory groaned.
Mirikami said his hellos and goodbye’s to Cory and Katelyn, then to Bradley and Danner, the younger kids of Thad and Marlyn. He learned the latter kids would be jointly looked after by Aldry and Mel Rigson, his former Steward turned teacher. Aldry and Mel had surprisingly (to Mirikami anyway), recently entered into a two year marriage contract.
He conferred with Aldry and Rafe, and agreed with them that any TGs that wanted the Contact Telepathy genes should have them, and probably all of them would. They would all likely become manmade TG1’s, rather than waiting for their children to be born with those genes. The only genes they now expected to wait for the actual births of third generation children would be the ultrasonic wolfbat hearing and ripper night vision and scent ability.
Slightly behind schedule, they wrapped up the sometimes-tearful goodbyes, and Mirikami and Chief Haveram walked up the ramp into the Mark of Koban together, the last to board.
There were quite a few young people standing on the lower deck, looking out of the sally ports and waving. Mirikami nodded to the Chief, and they activated the ramp first, then final waves and lowered the portal door, as the crown outside retreated to the dome.
“OK people, get to your launch stations, we’ll lift in fifteen minutes.” For the SG’s that meant acceleration couches, for TGs, they had simple sleeping pallets to use.
Koban: The Mark of Koban Page 62
