Koban (87 page)

It wasn’t until the beast had whirled back to stand over Nan’s
body that Mirikami realized she was still alive. Her unbroken left arm pushed up
into a frizz of fur around the cat’s neck. It was in the seconds while the cat stared
down at her that he had pleaded by Link for someone to start shooting at the beast.
Before he could even finish his plea, the animal shook its big head and opened its
jaws wide to plunge its fangs into his friend, killing her.

It was only after Nan’s death, and the ripper’s skyward roar
while standing over her body that the two Stewards reached the doors and started
firing. Then the other six rippers arrived.

In less than fifteen seconds, they had killed more victims, but
they suddenly quit their attacks. In an astonishing series of moves, with an ineffective
stream of bullets passing over them, the rippers each grabbed a body by the head
and swiftly dragged it to lie next to a second body. Then jaws wide agape, they
were able to fit most of a head into each side of their large wide jaws.

Easily straddling two victims each, they ran into shadow from
the floodlights. The infrared image showed that all seven predators were dragging
two kills apiece, but at a much slower pace than they had arrived.

“Sir, there are four more ripper signatures leaving the woods,
moving south at over forty miles per hour.”

A glance at the screen proved these were in a bigger hurry.

Mirikami had had enough of being a spectator. He used a
general Link. “Get an empty truck to the Flight of Fancy cargo ramp now. I’m going
to go help those people at the Nebula. Volunteers are welcome. Mirikami Out.”

He had headed for the lift as he spoke, and when the waiting
lift’s door opened, Noreen and Maggi were right with him.

“Whoa there ladies. I meant people already down there and armed.
I need you up here to tell me what you see on the screens.”

Noreen tapped Maggi on her shoulder. “You’re it! You stay, because
I’m Goddamned well going! Nan was my best friend.”

Maggi looked up at her sympathetically, but found the courage
to speak the truth. “Yes my dear young friend, but she is gone now and I am deeply
sorry. But you can’t recover her body and you know what to do up here.”

Softening her initial angry retort Noreen replied, “I know that
Maggi, but I can help lift a wounded body into a truck and I don’t think you can.
You have good eyes and intelligence, and Jake to connect you to anyone. I have to
go.” She stepped in to the elevator next to Mirikami.

Nodding her head in understanding of Noreen’s deep-seated need
to do something physical to help, Maggi smiled and stepped back as the door closed.

Using the override code, the elevator mimicked a Krall dome elevator
plunge to the lowest deck. When it arrived there were over twenty heavily armed
passengers and crewmates waiting, and several trucks were pulling up to the base
of the ramp.

Momentarily flustered, Mirikami said, “Darn it, I need to limit
my broadcasts. I don’t need this many people, but three trucks might be needed to
move the injured into the dome fast enough. How many of you are under forty
years old?”

He grinned when only seven hands went up. “Youth wins again.
You seven had better have strong backs for lifting. Get in the trucks; carry armor
piercing or explosive rounds. Swap clips if you need to do so, and let’s go.”

He walked down the ramp with Noreen, the “youth group” in trail,
all of them sliding in new clips. He and Noreen sat together in one cab, and the
rest sat in cabs or the back of the three trucks. They accelerated to the maximum
speed of the well-used trucks, about seventy miles per hour, and barreled around
the northeast side of the dome.

It only took moments to spot the Pink Nebula’s lights on the
north side, and he was surprised to see two other trucks from the north entrance
pulling out as well, with several people riding in the back of each.

“Link to Maggi…Where are they Tiger Lady?”

“The two groups met up in the marsh, smart ass,” she answered
back in pretend aggravation. “Want to guess what they did next?”

“Show me the Tiger Lilly side for once,” He sassed her back “Tell
me without busting my balls.”

When she laughed, he knew the news wasn’t bad. “They all turned
back north. Our friend and I don’t see any sign of more rippers anywhere, but of
course we all missed seeing the first one,” she reminded him.

“We weren’t looking that hard in daylight, and didn’t have infrared
activated until it was already dark. It may have been waiting there for the right
opportunity.”

The rest of the rescue trip was spent loading nine injured, some
severe, and one woman was dead where she had fallen from the escalator, over the
side halfway up somehow. There were injuries from those knocked down by rippers
in passing, but they had clearly not killed people when to do so would have been
easy.

One man with broken ribs said something odd as Mirikami helped
place him in the back of a truck, “It came right at me with its fangs exposed and
I was sure it was going to tear my head off. However, it knocked me aside. It was
so close that the hair around its neck brushed across my face as it passed.

“For that one instant I knew why it had passed me by for the
woman behind me. It was because I looked it right in the eyes and accepted that
I was going to die. It had decided that the screaming woman would taste better.
But it wasn’t exactly taste like flavor, but more how her fear of him would give
him more pleasure.”

“Him?” asked Mirikami. “Why do you think it was a male?”

“I don’t know how I know, now that you ask. It was in my thoughts
as a male. Funny, it also knew when it touched me that I was a male.”

After returning to the dome, Mirikami briefly met with the Captains
of the seven landed ships, and the still shaken First Officer of the Pink Nebula.
He told them offloading of passengers and cargo would resume only after daylight,
provided the Krall allowed them the respite.

The eight big ships needed the smaller ships to ferry their people
down, and that had yet to be approved by the Krall. Two potential ferry ships were
too low on fuel for more than one more round trip, but the landed cargo ship had
fuel that wouldn’t be used. There was a small fuel tanker on one of the cargo ships
in orbit.  That could shift the available fuel around once the ship was down.

Just before midnight, Mirikami left the Great Hall for bed. The
new captives could be briefed on their new lives by other Kobani. He made an effort
to think of everyone as Kobani now, including his own crewmates and former passengers.
However, he knew he would always have a tighter bond with “his” crew than anyone
else.

****

After a half night of rest, the people transfer resumed at dawn,
and they started moving cargo containers out onto the tarmac. For a change, the
long-time captives did much of the work, being better adapted to the gravity. They
also were eager to find out what luxuries or necessities might be in each big container.
However, before opening they were being stored on the tarmac, placed close to the
dome.

At midmorning they had finished the passenger unloading, and
no more ships had been sent down. Mirikami’s transmissions to talk to Parkoda, Telour,
or any Krall with authority went unanswered.

The work shifted to unloading the cargo ship, and the supplies
on the passenger ships. The haulers from the Flight of fancy rolled up the Pink
Nebula’s cargo ramp, and started pulling out the cargo that had blocked access to
its two similar haulers. Once they were free, the Nebula’s drivers took over the
job of moving their cargo items into the north garage doors.

The Marimba Destiny had only one hauler, but it was a large heavy-duty
version, and could move heavy cargo containers by itself after the portable crane
set them on the tarmac.

Some of the early goods found when a few containers were opened
were nonperishable canned foods. Hardly gourmet fare, but highly welcome as relief
from the years of frozen military rations. There were also sizable rolls of colorful
Smart Fabric that had been shipped to Thor for some unknown use. They could become
impenetrable body suits with a bit more fashion flair.

Just after lunch there were two memorial services held, one after
the other. The first one was held in and just outside the cargo hold of the Flight
of Fancy. The ship’s complement was nearly all present, passengers and crew remembering
Nan Willfem, and noting that her final sacrifice came trying to protect strangers
setting foot for the first time on this dangerous world. Mirikami, Noreen, and the
Chief all spoke a few words. There wasn’t much time to spend in remembrance.

The second service was less well attended because most of the
Pink Nebula’s passengers had not had the opportunity to meet their Captain. Most
didn’t even know the other passengers, on a run that was a routine passenger hop
between several colonies. They had only been in transit for four days when they
did a White Out at a colony world they were passing near enough to make a brief
port of call. In a typical pattern, sixteen single ships quickly disabled the Trap
fields. Then in a break of pattern, the small ships shot off the emitter antennas,
and a Clanship pulled near and they were suddenly swallowed into a Jump Hole for
two weeks.

Except for the crew and those that lost someone, few of the Nebula’s
passengers wanted any part of the Koban heat or the need for heavily armed guards
all around.

In the science lab, just after the memorial, Maggi and Aldry
held a briefing on what the pros and cons were of the modifications Mirikami and
Dillon had received. Five people were invited, Thad, Deanna, and the other three
volunteers that had joined Mirikami and Dillon at ridge on their Testing Day. Having
seen the results first hand, all five wanted to undergo the initial set of gene
modifications.

Combat immunity or not, there were other challenges to face if
they were going to live out their life on Koban. They wanted to start right away,
but the press of all the landings pushed that back a few days.

In the early afternoon Mirikami was in the Great Hall, describing
Krall combat testing to avid yet horrified and repulsed listeners among the new
arrivals. He explained what his ship had manufactured to give them some surprises
the Krall warriors had not expected. It was surprising to find that most of them
had not even seen one of their captors. Very few of the ships had been boarded before
finding themselves in orbit here. Then the local Krall complement had pulled out
before they landed.

Many were clearly skeptical of the claims of how dominating the
aliens were physically, when compared to humans. This was despite the exasperated
insistence of those with direct firsthand experience telling them it was true. Aliens
were too alien to accept sight unseen. They also didn’t want to receive any tattoo
from these purported aliens, even when told of the protection it offered them if
confronted by one of these merciless killers. The old timers knew that would change
soon after they saw their new keepers.

To aid in convincing them, Mirikami had a holo projector set
up, and using Jake’s fiber optic lines showed them scenes the AI had recorded of
Krall action when first boarding the Flight of Fancy. They saw bloody dead bodies
strewn in the two corridors, but didn’t really see the Krall through the smoke.
Then they watched their arrival on the Bridge, the ceiling flips, the rapid pistol
draws and a close up of a face with red-pitted eyes in the black orbs.

A kernel of belief had been planted, and the depth of their predicament
was starting to sink into their minds. The Captain played a video of the violent
warrior exercises they had conducted in the hold area while in transit to Koban.
Explaining that the image was not speeded up, that the Krall really moved that fast
and were that strong. The warriors were essentially “playing at war,” and the ship’s
gravity had been set at the same level as they presently felt.

It was during the discussion afterwards that Jake Linked to Mirikami.
“Sir, a shuttle is approaching from the south east.”

He held up his hands, tapping a dummy earpiece to conceal the
use of their transducers, which he still kept concealed. “I have just learned that
a Krall shuttle has been sighted. Probably coming from the direction of their main
compound, and evidently coming to Koban Prime. If you want to see them with your
own eyes, you can do so in relative safely through the windows on the second level
overlooking my ship, where they normally land. If they come inside, they will certainly
pass through this Hall, so get out of their way and
do not look them in the eye.
”
He emphasized.

“Otherwise there may be another memorial service this evening,”
he gazed around the room.

“I can’t and won’t order you not to follow me to meet them. But
I don’t recommend that
any
of you new arrivals go outside as I try to meet
with whoever is coming here.”

He pointed at his tattoo, “Remember, you have not accepted the
terms of Ra Ka Endo, when these tattoos are applied. You literally risk death for
simply staring at one of them, even with a tattoo. I won’t do it and I have been
granted immunity from combat testing by helping to kill three of them. However,
that fact will not save me from a challenge of honor. I would
not
survive
a personal challenge by any of them.

“I know you have all heard the recording made by the now dead
Doushan Mavray, either on your ship or earlier today in a replay. Remember his advice
and warnings, and believe what he told you. It is all true.” He waved to them as
he stepped down from a table and headed for the east entrance.

Mirikami waited under the garage overhang as the shuttle landed.
As prearranged, he had Jake Link him to the other five Koban Committee members,
so they would hear what was going on while they watched from the second level of
the dome. He walked into the afternoon sunlight as the side hatch lifted.