Koban: The Mark of Koban (41 page)

“Calculated, coordinated, and executing a
fleet shift Mam.”

That is why we let AI’s do that for us,
she reflected.

Mauss felt the familiar rapid twist of the
Invincible rotating, and a harder push than before as the whole fleet
duplicated the movement. She felt severe vertigo for a moment, but motion
sickness was once again held at bay by the shots. If this action kept up for
very long, she’d have to have the med teams administer a second dose.

“Josie, Fleet Link.” Without waiting, she
started talking.

“Attention, this is Admiral Mauss. The Krall
are using the Eight Balls as heavy rams to hit our ships. They have boosted
speeds to eight or nine hundred miles per second. They are using short Jumps to
loop back and make repeated high velocity passes through our formations. I am
moving the fleet farther from our present position to try to avoid them. Their
high speeds and extreme density make them lethal and nearly indestructible, but
they have sacrificed quick turn mobility.

“I’ll try to get us some maneuver room and more
time here at K1. We will resume attacks on surface targets and try to draw
Clanships close enough to us that our combined fire will cause them losses. I
see that Gauntlet has recovered Mace’s escape pods and those from DS-42 as
well. Our new course will take us close to her, so Gauntlet can rejoin quickly.
Watch for nearby White Outs of inbound Eight Balls, and of suicide Clanships.
Allow the AI’s full rapid fire control, since humans are too slow to react. I’m
also releasing friendly fire restrictions on the AI’s. We are far more likely
to have ships killed by the Krall than by our own fire. The next faster course
shifts will not wait for our missiles to clear the formation. They will simply
have to adjust to miss us. Waiting on the course changes leaves our tracks
predictable for too long. Mauss out.”

While she was speaking, two White Outs
produced Eight Balls that passed through the volume the fleet had just vacated.
They might not have a way to stop that blunt force weapon, but they could bob,
weave, and duck the punches. Josie was moving the fleet towards K1’s southern
hemisphere, and fresh ground targets. They had, per her weapons display, almost
two thousand remaining medium to small missiles aboard the larger ships, and
she preferred not carrying any bullets home this time.

****

Kanpardi calmly faced the enraged clan leaders
of the joint council, meeting in the damaged council dome, the smell of smoke
heavy in the air. He reminded them. “You were forewarned, by me, of the risk
you chose to take. I suspect that some of your clan sub leaders, those that advised
you to remove your clan’s ships from orbit, have now helped you move along the
Great Path. Dying at the hands of our persistent new enemy would be the most
efficient manner. The purge of weak and unprepared warriors proceeds swiftly
today.”

Hardrol was particularly angry, because the
defense platforms destroyed happened to be orbiting over lands Tanga clan
controlled when the attack started. The heavy human missiles that made it past
the wrecked platforms had stuck Tanga domes hardest, wiping out a major nursery
of eggs from their most recent warrior couplings. Those future cubs would have
been the results of breeding Tanga’s highest status novices from months of raids.
They were to have been their first fruit of the new war. They would have to
start over.

 Tanga Clanships had also suffered heavier losses
than other clans did, simply because they had to rise in atmosphere while facing
an onslaught of missiles. The missiles appeared to use clever computer programs
that located and destroyed stealthed Clanships by air disturbances, before they
reached vacuum. That success was partly because Clanship pilots and commanders
had grown too confident of their invisibility.

Hardrol wanted to shift the blame. “The Graka
ships abandoned their guardianship of the platforms too quickly, permitting
their premature destruction. That loss exposed my clan to a heavier attack.”
Hardrol suspected Kanpardi had ordered that quick withdrawal as payback for his
attempt to kill or replace him as Gatrol, at a previous council meeting.

Kanpardi was prepared. “I warned all of you that
a single Clanship could not fully protect a platform, and had Graka followed
Tanga clan’s example, there would have been no protection for them at all,
clearly proving that you bear responsibility for your own losses Hardrol. The
hammer balls required pilots, and only Graka Clanships were in orbit and able
to provide them before human ships might have reached them, forcing us to fight
just to control our own weapon.

“As I also predicted, the human ships arrived
without a useful advance warning. Had my clan not sacrificed to protect us all,
the damage would be greater. It is Graka clan’s pilots flying the hammer balls,
and have tasted enemy blood. What to your pilots do Hardrol?”

Jastek, of clan Mordo, wasn’t interested in more
of the perpetual bickering and infighting of old and powerful Tanga and Graka
clans. “This attack will delay the start of larger and longer raids on human
worlds. Fighting in space is not as efficient at producing stronger faster
warriors. There are few opportunities to face our enemy physically that way.
Your previous advice to limit the effects of another human raid on this base
was valid. I am ready to listen more closely to your new proposals.

“We must convince humans that to be a worthy
enemy they should meet us in combat on the surface of their worlds, not in the space
above ours. How can you teach them this lesson Gatrol, to make them learn it
and remember? Will you bring an Olt’kitapi ship here?”

“No,” he answered swiftly.  “We have safer options
before we take the step of activating the ancient Olt’kitapi craft. Just one of
those ships vaporized our old home world. We have fewer of the
soft Krall
to operate them than in the past.” His distaste at describing those members of
their race was palpable to all.

 “If the need arises for the powerful old
ships, increased breeding of those reluctant operators would be required, to
give us hostages that matter to them. They
must
be controlled, to
prevent their turning the ships against us, or from escaping.”

Hardrol made a grunt of derision.  “As Krall
they should do whatever our race requires of them.”

Kanpardi snorted and lifted his muzzle in dark
humor. “They are
exactly
what the Olt’kitapi made them, what would have
been made of us all under their plans for our race. The soft ones are useful,
if only as a reminder of what we escaped. However, they are also the only Krall
that the ships will allow to control them. If a true warrior could make the
ships work for us, to obey us, we would not need the soft ones.

“For now, we have not fully used all of our weapons
we have brought, nor have we attacked the human ships strongly. I waited to
order a strong attack until we saw their response to the little eaters and the
hammer balls. They now know how to kill eaters from the side or behind, and
their defense for the hammers is to move away before they return each time. I
will now put warriors in the single ships with the eaters on the nose, to directly
control them, and I will slow the hammers so they can turn to strike human
ships more easily.”

Jastek had a concern. “If you slow the
hammers, the humans may learn their weakness. The disguised portal on the rear is
a soft spot. A lucky heavy beam hit could burn through and kill the operator, and
we lose that weapon. Hammers are difficult for the Torki slaves to make for us,
and it takes very long. If the balls fly even faster than now, the human
computers will not find the soft spots with only a short time for plasma
bursts. The operators should just change the White Out points more often so they
can follow the human fleet. Enough passes through their formation will kill
even their biggest ships.”

“No challenge is intended Jastek, although I
think you may not know the histories of how to use the old
Botolian hammer
weapons. They are very hard to damage, but if they fly much faster and strike a
great mass, like the large human ships here, their binding energy can be broken
and they will explode. A single human ship is not worth the cost of a hammer.”

Kapdol, the speaker for the Dolbrin minor clan asked, “What
is your plan, Gatrol? What do you want us to do?”

“We now must inflict enough damage on the human fleet to
make them flee. They will return to their base, or some point of safety for
repairs. All of their ships arrived here from one place, different than they arrived
on the last raid, when they came from many locations. We know this because they
all arrived with the same closely spaced advance waves, which gave us no time
to prepare. They will probably all leave together, or perhaps stagger the
departures, with the most massive class of ships leaving last, as they did
before.  However, all ships make waves in Tachyon Space coming and going, and
one large ship, or many smaller ships together will make large waves. We must
unleash our warriors.”

****

Mauss flinched as another destroyer, at the top
edge of the formation, vanished in a ball of blazing gas as an Eight Ball
slammed into its stern at just below eight hundred miles per second. It wasn’t
entirely a lucky hit, even though the fleet had just made another large
relocation move. With practice, the Krall pilots of the balls were making
better guesses of where to make their White Out on the return Jump. If they had
human computers or AI’s to use they would be able to make more passes through
the center of the formation, sometimes striking the capitol ships. Invincible
had had a narrow escape; an Eight Ball flashed by her within a half mile as
they ineffectively fired on it for all of the half second it was in range.

She had ordered a salvo of five hundred ten
missiles before the last fleet shift. Perhaps one in five survived the barrage
of defensive fire from the intervening Clanships. They had sent most of the
missiles at ground targets in the southern hemisphere.  However, two Clanships
flashed into incandesce as they passed through the swarm of hundreds. One explosion
appeared to have been the result of a chance concentration of “friendly fire”
from nearby Clanships.

It was curious that the Krall had not coordinated
a full on attack yet, instead sending four to eight ships in grazing firing
runs, rather like Indians attacking a circle of wagons in the old archived
pre-space westerns. There was damage on both sides, and a trade of one destroyer
and a heavy cruiser for four Clanships wasn’t so severe a loss that Mauss was
ready to leave. The screening destroyers had suffered the most damage, followed
by the heavy cruisers, the next closest to the formation’s edge.

They had been here almost two hours, a far
better showing than the previous fiasco. Josie Linked in to deliver Mauss an
update on enemy disposition.

“Mam, a transmission from the planet appears
to have triggered a change in Clanship movements. We don’t know what was said,
but the milling around appears to be organizing. The shield doors on the surviving
ten orbital platforms have opened again. Our recon drones on the planet’s far
side already report launches of black hole generators from those platforms.
There are also single ships launching from Clanships, the first ones we have
seen today, except for the computer piloted black hole missiles. It appears
they are preparing for a large assault.”

“That it does. Fleet Link, please.”

“Ready, Mam.”

“Attention, the Krall appear to be getting
ready for a massed attack. Black Hole generators have already left platforms on
the other side of K1, and the shield doors are open on those we can see on this
side. There are single ships launching and Clanships are organizing into a
loose formation. My status board shows all fleet elements are reporting a Trap
holding onto Jump energy for a quick withdrawal. Confirm that information, and
be prepared if I issue the order to Jump to Rhama. We have given more damage
than we have received, particularly when we count ground targets. I want to
retain that advantage. Retarget all remaining missiles for Clanships, and for
side shots at the black hole missiles. We are shifting to place more distance
between us and the massing Clanships, and to duck the next pass of Eight Balls.
Admiral Mauss out.”

Something else seemed off kilter. Mauss thought
for a moment before it came to her. It wasn’t something she saw, it was
something that wasn’t happening. “Josie, when was the last Eight Ball White
Out?”

The sixteen balls had been making repeated
loops, shifting their reentry points to try to guess where the human fleet
would be. One would pop out every two or three minutes, most of them close to where
the fleet would have been before a random course change. The ball pilots were
heading away when they Jumped, and had to select some place behind them as a
micro Jump destination for the next return pass.

“Mam, that pattern appears to have changed.
Based on previous repetition there should have been four or five White Outs
since the one that destroyed DS-12. There have been none at all, not even any
that missed us completely.”

“Alert the combat centers of this. The enemy
may be holding them back for a mass set of Clanship micro jumps into our
formation. Shift fleet course now.”