Koban: The Mark of Koban

by Stephen W Bennett

  Calling up the same star map he had saved earlier, Mirikami again had Marlyn and Noreen confirm his work, as Jakob also observed and recorded. He wasn’t unsure of what he was doing, but none of them had significant flight time in the alien craft and by having all three participate, it reinforced their memory if things got hairy.

  They were ready. All he need do was deliver the two taps of a stylus to initiate the Jump.

  “Jakob, ship wide broadcast.”

  “Attention, we are ready to initiate our Jump to K1. Then we have three hours for fun and games, and final potty breaks.” He knew that would amuse the youngsters, coming from their serious Captain.

  “Jump in five seconds.” A short silent countdown on Jakob’s screen, and the Captain made his two taps. The outside universe went away.

  ****

  For those in charge the three hours raced by, as they prepared to send their largely untested young men and women into combat with ruthless, experienced killers. The only “tested” part of that force was the 1% of the two hundred that had seen combat against this enemy, on one short afternoon. Carson and Ethan constituted that one percent. Like the other one hundred ninety eight, they were waiting to do something they had prepared for nearly their entire lives. For them, the three hours seemed like it would never end.

  They had only one thing interesting to talk about that didn’t concern the possible fight to come. It was the exciting story circulating, concerning a new capability that contact telepathy mods conferred on recipients. It only presented when entering and leaving Tachyon Space, yet that example offered the possibility that the “contact” part of contact telepathy might not apply in special circumstances.

  Dillon was intrigued and excited as well, because he had never encountered any genetic capability that gave a biological organism the characteristics that could account for what happened.

  He told the others, “Alyson focused on an image and message that none of the others could possibly have known, and all nine of the TG1s reported it came through clearly, and definitely had Alyson’s personality signature. She in turn, was able to sort out individual images sent from each of the other nine in that ‘flash’ of connectivity. She correctly identified who sent which information, and what they sent to her.” He chuckled and amended the last remark.

  “Correction, she will not tell me what my son sent to her. She merely confirmed with him that it was an accurate transmission. The kiss delivered upon confirmation is apparently a hint that it was personal in nature.” He laughed, along with his wife and others on the Bridge.

  Mirikami fingered his lip. “All of this had to have taken place in the brief interval for the Jump Hole to form. I would have thought that would be too short a time for as much information as they evidently exchanged. This is a subject to explore when we have the luxury of time. I can’t see a practical use for the ability yet, since they can simply hold hands and do the same thing for a lot longer time.” He shrugged.

  “Although…,” he paused in thought. “Basic knowledge has a surprising way of becoming useful.” Proof again that prophetic words sometimes become a self-fulfilling prophesy.

  He swung towards his control station. “I had better make the announcement I discussed. Jakob, ship wide broadcast.”

  “Ready, Sir.”

  “All personnel, we will White Out in roughly five minutes, at about four hundred miles above K1. I will promptly start a descent, and make atmospheric entry as soon as we identify the two Dorbo clan domes. I’ll choose a tarmac with two closely paired and isolated Clanships if possible. Our portals number one and two will be rotated towards the targeted ships, and facing away from possible watchers in the dome. As soon as our ship settles on the landing jacks, Colonel Greeves and Sergeant Reynolds will open the two portals for our six in armor to exit. Good luck and good hunting.”

  At White Out, the ring of view screens around the Bridge lit up with an image of stars on one side, and a heavily forested green planet on the other. Jakob promptly advised they were three hundred eighty eight miles above the surface, and provided Mirikami a vector on a human made screen, that matched the direction the Krall computer indicated was correct for the orbit that would pass over Dorbo clan holdings. In hindsight, Mirikami wondered if he could have selected a White Out point right above the two domes geographic location on the planet.

  Applying thrust aggressively, Mirikami moved the Mark sharply into a lowering orbit, just as Sarge advised him Krall pilots usually flew. Mirikami’s sensor screen in the center of the console reported a number of pink icons for objects in polar orbits, occupying slightly higher orbits than they currently flew. Five were on this side of the planet and three icons, compared to their own centrally located icon, were quite large. More than likely, those were the orbital defense platforms Reynolds told him were here.

  Two small deep red icons could be the Eight Balls the Navy had encountered. The Krall used colors to help identify the mass of objects, and the deep red suggested very dense massive bodies, like those condensed matter balls. Following the suggested computer vector, flying by the seat of his pants like a Krall pilot would, they crossed the night terminator. Mirikami was worried they had miscalculated and had arrived when Dorbo domes were in darkness.

  “Jakob, how far before we will see the Dorbo domes? Have there been any broadcasts that seem directed our way, asking about us?” It was poor practice to ask running questions of an AI, but Mirikami was anxious.

  Left on speaker for all to hear, Jakob was reassuring. “The Dorbo domes will be in early morning light when we approach them, on the other side of the planet. There are numerous transmissions in high Krall. However, none was beamed specifically towards us so I have not attempted to translate those. They are not encrypted. I have detected many omnidirectional signals, which do not appear to have conversations that apply to us. Per your instructions, I have no signals to report that seem intended for our reception. I will report immediately if I detect any.”

  Noreen nodded her satisfaction. “If they haven’t switched to encrypted transmissions, then they don’t see any security risks nearby.”

  Marlyn had been watching for Clanship activity. “I have seen three departures since we arrived, all climbing straight away from K1, no arcing to enter orbit. I have an apparent inbound just appearing around the limb of the planet ahead of us, apparently going towards the southern hemisphere. We, of course, will be landing on the northern half, at middle latitude.”

  Mirikami was satisfied for now. This operation had proceeded as they expected so far, based on information from their captives. He’d want to thank them personally when he returned, if they haven’t finally willed their own death before then.

  Keeping thrust on and wasting fuel to hold their lower orbit, like a Krall pilot would do, the dayside was fast approaching. Checking the display controlled by Jakob, Mirikami soon eased the main thrust and applied some reverse, starting down as the target indicator on the curve of planet suggested the domes would be in view shortly. They gradually entered the upper atmosphere fringes, nose first, the alien hull easily able to accept the heat and abuse. Finally, at Jakob’s direction, Mirikami rotated the ship tail forward and applied much higher thrust. This was more manual flying than the Captain had done in most of his transport career, and certainly more than he’d done in twenty years. It felt exhilarating!

  Noreen had located the two Dorbo clan domes, and was using her view controls to zoom the visual feed of one dome to her main screen, the other dome onto the adjacent screen. She asked Marlyn to help, because the moving Mark of Koban required constant adjustments. They really missed having an AI handle these matters. Each dome had at least two hundred ships parked around them. Finding Clanships to target was no problem, getting two that were relatively isolated might be.

  Mirikami finally was shown a dome with a tarmac where some ships were parked in an asymmetrical pattern, with a section where it appeared ten or fifteen Clanships ships had either recently launched,
or space was reserved for new arrivals. He chose that site for their landing. He had the speed of reentry down to five or six times the speed of sound, and pivoted the oval craft into a nose forward line parallel to the surface, at seventy thousand feet and slowing. It was like flying a giant powered acorn, no aerodynamics, simply raw power.

  Letting atmospheric drag slow them, Mirikami gradually lost altitude, and conducted the approach much as he’d watched Clanships do on Koban, years before. He reached a point several miles over the dome, went nose up, checked the screen of the tarmac below, and saw three Clanships isolated from their neighbors, close to where the edge of the ramp gave way vegetation. He could set down well away from the dome without crowding other ships, and they would have to select which two of the three Clanships they would board and capture.

  “Jakob, repeat this image on the bottom deck’s screen for Thad, and then Link me to him and Sarge.” He continued without waiting.

  “Thad, that group of three ships in the center of the screen is the most isolated I could find. I’ll set down near them and you chose the two you want. We already have the plasma chambers hot, the ceramic tubes are preheated, and the heavy lasers are ready. I do not want to have to use them, but we will be ready to blast the third Clanship, the one you bypass, if we see any hostile activity there.”

  “OK Tet. I’ve already made a choice. I see the left ship has a portal already open for us, so the middle ship and the left one are ours, the right one is yours to cover. Line up our portals and let’s set down.”

  As the Mark settled quickly on its thunderous column of fire, Mirikami rotated the two exit portals to face the targeted ships. He let his ship continue to settle swiftly, as he’d practiced, using the seat of his pants flying and not concerned with paying passenger’s comfort anymore. Nevertheless, the landing wasn’t as hard as he expected when the landing jacks took the weight and he cut power.

  Of course! This was only .84 g’s, not the 1.52 g’s he’d used in practice. Knowing something intellectually didn’t prepare you physically. He suddenly realized he felt lighter than he had in twenty years. The internal artificial gravity had automatically reduced inside, as the craft landed. The deceleration had concealed that fact until engine cutoff.

  He watched the external camera image from the lowest deck. Both portals were open, and six suited figures leaped lightly from the sally ports and started towards the closer two ships. To Mirikami’s eyes, the gaits looked like the smooth gliding Krall run he knew, and they were moving only moderately fast, to avoid looking like raiders. They had three quarters of a mile of tarmac to cross, and that would take three to four minutes.

  Mirikami could have landed closer without appearing to crowd, because there were many closer packed Clanships on the tarmac. However, if he was forced to blast the third ship, and it exploded, Mirikami didn’t want to risk damage to this ship, which was their only certain means of escape if things went wrong.

  “Noreen, Marlyn, good luck, and grab that elevator. We don’t want the assault teams waiting for you.” Both waved excitedly as they started down. They were checking their pistols and spare clips, hoping they wouldn’t need them.

  Mirikami set three outside views for close ups of all three nearby Clanships, not that he could see into the command decks through their opaque stealth hull crystals. He had just finished that when Chief Haveram joined him, and the two Drive Rats, Macy Gundarfem and John Yin-Lee.

  They would help keep an eye on the three nearby ships, and a watch towards the dome and ships in that direction. Jakob also had external cameras they had added for his use. The cameras and mounts reduced the Mark’s stealth capability slightly, because of their small radar reflection cross sections. However, before making the Poldark Jump they’d be removed. A close eye was kept on the closed protective shields over the heavy laser ports of the other ships. If they suddenly opened, they’d know they had been identified as “unfriendly.”

  Ethan was the TG1 with the suited team headed for the Clanship with the open portal. He and Jorl Breaker would be making the rush up to the command deck, and Fundar Gotling would guard the open portal, holding it available for the rush of the remainder of the boarders.

  The second team had Alyson as their TG1, Yilini Jastrov would rush to the top with her, and Richard Yang would hold the bottom deck and portal. So far, the raid was literally a run in the park, or perhaps a fast waddle was a better description. Even in the Krall suits, every step seemed so springy on this near-half Koban gravity.

  As Ethan and his team mates approached the Clanship, they started speeding up and bounding higher, and when still twenty feet from the open portal, the lip fifteen feet above the ramp, they all three jumped, heavy suits, plasma rifles and all, right into the hold. The three were hitting their suit releases on the way up, and had an arm free of the armor to hold the heavy plasma rifles like large pistols. The suits were too clumsy to fight in, and the disguise was no longer required. They stepped out of the suits, lowering them to the deck as silently as they could, and left them lying on the floor.

  Ethan and Jorl swept rifles around the area in opposite arcs, looking for targets, and circled the central thruster shaft. Fundar was covering the tops of the eight stairways to catch any warrior that stuck a head over the edge to check on any noise below.

  They all three moved around to the side of the portal opening, to avoid a human form being seen from outside, and placed their Krall armor there. Slinging the rifles over their shoulders, Jorl and Ethan drew less wieldy pistols, and moved to opposite sides of the bay to start up stairwells together. Fundar checked outside, waved in a signal to the Mark, and commenced a search of the storage lockers as his other two partners leaped to the next deck.

  The locker check was for items the boarding party might find useful if they met resistance. The Krall prisoners had provided images of rocket launchers, small air defense missiles, plasma rifles and power packs, pistols and ammunition, laser pistols, additional suits, explosives, shaped charges for breeching doors, and more that might be found. There was no standard list of what the Krall carried on Clanships, since individual warriors picked up what they wanted to take on raids, and might leave behind later if not used.

  The second boarding team had to get a portal open to gain access, so they needed to briefly step out of sight behind landing jacks on each side of the portal, and strip off their clumsy armor before the hatch was raised. That required only seconds, and the three slung their plasma rifles, and easily jumped the fifteen feet. Alyson was by the left keypad, Yilini and Rich to the right of the portal. She pressed the open keys and the portal rushed up with a slight rumbling sound into its overhead pocket.

  The two naked Krall, involved in mock combat exercises, paused to glance towards the unexpected distraction. So did the six observers from their octet. Two members of the octet were wearing weapons harnesses, standing on different stairwells, several steps high for better viewing. The TGs saw that both carried two standard pistols each, and the others were not armed. A fraction of second passed for the warriors to register that it was not other Krall interrupting their practice. It was far too long a lapse.

  Alyson had drawn her right pistol and fired, blowing the head off the gray clad octet leader on the left side stairs when she put a round between his eyes. He was in her designated cover area. Rich had matched her blur of movement with his left hand, putting a slug through the left eye of the black clad warrior on the right side stairs, his own designated cover area. Yilini killed the closest observer, who was starting to turn, shooting him through his left ear. Three down in a half-second and the remaining five warriors were unarmed.

  Fair fight be damned, Alyson fired on the next closest unarmed observer on her side, as the female warrior crouched to spring. The Krall managed to pull her head aside enough as Alyson fired, taking only a grazing wound to her skull. It didn’t even flinch as it leaped low at her prey, using its clawed toes for grip. Alyson stepped towards the oncoming warrior, and leap
ed lightly yet high enough so that when the Krall passed below her, it was out of contact with the floor with no way to alter its trajectory. The warrior could only twist cat-like, to rotate its torso to try to rake its opponent with talons as it passed below. Alyson drew her legs up, mere inches above the highest the futile claw swipe could reach, and fired two rounds into the warrior, one in each eye socket, in rapid succession as it glared its hate filled red eyes at her. Alyson dropped easily to the deck as the corpse slid to the edge of the sally port and banged into the hatch frame.

  Yilini killed one of the exercising combatants as it snarled in rage, and tried to protect its head with raised massive arms as it rushed him. He calmly fired a bullet through the fleshy muscle of a protective lower forearm, deliberately missing the arm bone, certain an armor-piercing round would tear through undeflected, to enter the open jaws of the screaming Krall. To be positive it was disabled, despite the suddenly cut off scream of rage, he also took out both kneecaps. The body fell, muzzle first into the deck, its shattered teeth scattering.

  Rich had a less impressive kill when he shot a warrior in the head. That Krall had no chance at all, because he was being used ruthlessly as a living shield. The other practice combatant held his teammate’s body aloft as a bullet catcher, in order to rush Rich. Six down.

  Alyson shouted. “I want at least one alive to Mind Tap.” She was doing Yilini’s job now, covering the top of the stairwells for more Krall as he went chasing after the eighth warrior, who had ducked around the central thruster column.

  “Fine, I’ll keep this brave one alive,” Rich answered, holstering his weapon, not killing the rushing warrior holding his dearly departed brethren.

  “Yil, you got the last one?” Alyson asked.

  “Working on it. Ducked around the column in your direction.”