Koban: The Mark of Koban (20 page)

“The surviving fifteen ships of the Nook raid rejoined the
Oort cloud fleet, we know
precisely
when each of the fifteen Jumped from
Gribbles’ Nook, in somewhat staggered departures, and several days later we
received the identical gamma ray staggering of their White Outs as they
returned
to the Oort cloud fleet.” Now he had the payoff.

“Those ships could
not
have outraced light speed by as
much as they did in Tachyon Space. They traveled at least five times as fast as
our quickest couriers travel, and exceeded our theoretical velocity for ships
of that mass range in Tachyon Space. Just as this little craft” he patted the
hull again, “can accelerate, and gravity compensate in Normal Space beyond our
theoretical limits. We believe it’s the same technical mechanism to accomplish
both!
”
He ended on a triumphant note.

“Doctor, I applaud your people’s deductions, and I’m certain
that
you
think you just explained something of value to me and the
President. Let me assure you that you
did not!
However, you certainly
will
.”
Her tone killed the grin on the man’s face, as he rushed to explain what all
this meant.

“Admiral, we have built a working model of a Trap field
system that obviously employs a scientific leap in the use of Tachyon Space. We
have already used it to catch extremely high-energy tachyons several hundred
times. From orbit of course,” he added hastily, “in a cruiser’s hanger bay,
then dumped them. The Krall Traps work at least a hundred times as fast as the
cruiser’s own Trap field at catching the rare high-energy level tachyons.

“Several of our mathematicians have studied the data, and
spoken with the experimentalists. They see evidence for an unsuspected second
level to Tachyon Space, which might fit with higher dimensional math with no known
physical counterpart in the real world. It suggests a higher space where we can
catch tachyons faster.  Perhaps form a Jump Hole that may let us travel faster
in that higher space. In any case, we can master this technology.”

He ended that with a rush, as he watched the Admiral’s face
steadily darken as he spoke. Then as if he’d thrown a switch, the flood light
beam of her smile brightened instantly.

“Doctor, I was on the verge of teaching you what my British
Navy forbearers called keel hauling. I’m sure it’s more serious when conducted
in space.

“Good work. Keep me apprised of your progress, and I can
guarantee that you will have the resources necessary to study, build, and test
whatever ideas you have.”

****

“This is not a Drill!”

That follow up announcement blared out of the barracks
speakers following the
First Sergeant’s initial call of “company,
mount up, full load!” The local time now being early “dark thirty” for this
small detachment, the last words removed the sense of routine for previous
early morning test alerts.

A mount up order had issued from the speakers
a couple of times a week for the last two months, sometimes for a single underperforming
one of the four platoons, sometimes for the entire company. Sometimes it was a
“no load” timing exercise, to see how fast they could assemble in front of the
barracks in their armor. This was only the fourth “full load” order, and they’d
never heard that final announcement. This was the real thing. They would
finally face off against the Krall.

Every soldier wore penetration resistant Smart
Fabric utility uniforms, so they were always ready to step into their powered
armor with little notice. Each trooper’s suit hung by their bunk, helmet
attached. They backed in, using handholds to support themselves as they stepped
headfirst up into the removable helmet, pre-attached to the suit’s shoulders
for speed, the torso section already opened wide. A hanging suit was normally stored
closed, but a “mount up” call triggered them to flare open for quick entry.
They looked rather like a human shaped dark gray lobster shells, split wide open.

The suit’s limbs were also splayed, and slipping
one’s feet into the open boot tops and hands into the gauntlets triggered the
suit to curve snuggly around arms and legs, as the torso clam shelled closed
and sealed.

There was a ten second diagnostic for suit
integrity and electronics, and for the mechanical carbon fiber “muscles,” built
into the armor to activate. Simultaneously, closure activated the Mobility
computer, which synchronized itself to the wearer’s muscles, to mimic and
amplify human muscle movement in the armor’s carbon fiber muscle equivalents. A
preprogrammed user profile bypassed the additional ten seconds of
synchronization. Therefore, after a suit completed closing and it detached from
the support and storage rack, a trooper was ready to move out in just ten
seconds. That was optimally, of course, which was what the drills were trying
to achieve.

The armor only had a few built-in weapons,
such as wrist mounted clip-on four-inch pistol barrels with a feed of six
forty-five caliber bullets along the forearm, with five spare ammo tubes
attached around the upper arms. Such pistols could clip to either wrist or one
on each, as the trooper preferred. There were two small short-range missile
launchers built into the left and right oversized shoulder pads, with three
reloads for each. Four grenades were attached at the waist on each side.

The main armament was what the soldier
carried. The standard weapon was a forty-five caliber short barrel submachine
gun, with an under barrel grenade launcher, attached and hanging from the right
side suit chest plate, on a retractable and detachable lanyard. One person of
each squad carried a .50 caliber semiautomatic long barrel rifle, which was
effective as a sniper weapon.

There were standard and explosive rounds
available for each weapon. The explosive smart rounds were equipped with the
Braxton chip, a tiny bit of tough electronics that triggered the round’s
explosive charge on command, or on contact with the target. The chip could be
set to detonate a round at a specified measured distance down range, as it was fired,
so that even if the laser ranged slug missed, the round detonated before
completely passing the intended target.

The troops preferred to call the Braxton smart
rounds “KK’s,” for Krall Killers. Until it was field-tested, the name was
optimistic. However, in testing, nearly every shot fired at your
laser-identified target either struck directly, or exploded in fragments next
to the target, producing some level of damage. This proximity detonation worked
even on a fully concealed enemy behind a barricade, if you fired over them or
to the side.

The powered armor permitted every trooper to carry
a significant number of reload clips on attachment points around the suit, and
to sling ammo pouches over each shoulder to hang at hip height, or to slip
around to the backside as a fanny pouch. A fully loaded trooper looked
cumbersome, but in reality, the suit could carry considerably more mass if it
wasn’t so bulky.

In autopsies of the Krall killed on the Nook,
their enemy’s organ redundancy and rapid control of bleeding, along with their
physical size, strength, and tissue toughness, suggested that you needed many hits
to kill a Krall. Therefore, running low on ammo and “fixing bayonets” wasn’t an
option. That didn’t keep the Army from issuing some nasty looking eighteen-inch
double-edged combat knives, serrated on one side. Many troopers carried one
strapped to the side of each calf.

Because maintaining a high rate of heavy
firepower was essential, spare ammo and weapons for the highly mobile force
needed to go with each of the company’s four platoons. A squat robot, wheeled,
and with extendable six jointed legs, filled that role. It could follow the
platoon over nearly any terrain, carrying additional weapons, and ammunition.
The on-board AI was normally in contact with and responded to the platoon leader,
but squad leader sergeants or corporals could also call for the ‘bot.

The official Army designation was the MOD-5,
for the fifth version of a past war’s Mobile Ordinance Delivery system. This
was the first one ever equipped with artificial intelligence, a radio, and a
voice. No self-respecting unit would stick with any stale, impersonal Army
designation for such a vital piece of equipment. Each one gained its own name.

First platoon was the first of the four
platoons to complete assembly in the quadrangle in front of their barracks,
three squads of eight soldiers each, lined up in two rows behind Lieutenant
Margold, the Platoon Leader.

Margold’s AI, his platoon sergeant “surrogate,”
had identified and timed all twenty-one of his trooper’s response, and that of their
squad leader
sergeants. They had beaten the fastest of the other three platoons
by eleven seconds in assembling. Except,
where the hell was Waldo
? It wasn’t
parked behind second squad, where it should be.

Margold was about to query his AI, when his helmet’s corner display
showed an image of the heavy squatty robot darting down the barracks ramp, and
it joined the platoon. First platoon’s MOD-5, “weapons and loads delivery
orderly,” designated Waldo by vote, reported that it had just acquired the
Army’s newest issue of .50 caliber KK smart rounds, thus explaining its delayed
arrival. The previous issue of 50KK’s had sometimes detonated early, before
reaching the target’s tagged distance if they sensed a miss too early. This was
worth the wait, and first platoon was still first to assemble anyway, because
the other MOD-5’s were also late arriving at their respective platoons.

Captain
Krysinski
was in armor, of
course, standing in front of the assembled troops, his First Sergeant a step in
front and to the side.

First Sergeant Nobutu didn’t take roll call because there
wasn’t need actually. Her AI told her everyone was present and accounted for, the
suits reporting that to her. The rumble of four shuttle engines powering up at
the airfield nearby was apparent. Calling soldiers to attention standing in
armor was pointless, since you couldn’t really tell if they complied, but some
traditions demanded their respect.

“Atten-hut! All troops assembled Sir.” She announced,
without turning or saluting the company commander. That was a tradition that
was
waning, after introduction of armor and AIs. In addition, if this briefing delay
in loading the “quick response” shuttlecraft caused civilian lives, Captain Krysinski
decided he’d eliminate the assemblies. Briefings on the move were just as
practical.

“Thank you, First Sergeant. People, an unknown number of
Krall single ships are landing or have landed on Poldark in the last fifteen
minutes. Traffic control radars detected a single White Out with the
characteristics of a standard sized large Krall ship twenty minutes ago. It was
in stealth mode so radar didn’t see where it went after that. We believe that
they normally can carry thirty-two single ships, which are also radar
stealthed. It is launching them as we speak.

“However, all of our largest cities now have entertainment style
laser array systems installed as impromptu detectors. I’ve just been told there
were a number of beam deflections detected from unseen airborne objects over
Belgrade. This is when visible green lasers beams suddenly take a right angle
turn after striking a reflector, leaving a hole in the green light in the sky.
That happened at two locations in the last ten minutes over the city. One was
to the northeast of Belgrade, another south. Considering the Krall typically
land at the outskirts and kill their way into the suburbs, we are deploying to
the outskirts of the city in those two locations, two platoons in each area to
intercept. If we guessed wrong, we’ll move again.

“Platoons one and two take the northeast, three and four the
south. I’ll stay airborne to observe and coordinate. Platoon leaders, move your
people out and let’s kill some Krall.”

****

Two single ships of the thirty-two released chose the same
large city to attack, although they each found concealment for their craft in
different quadrants of the target.

Borkdol set her ship down in what appeared to be a deserted
mining area or stone quarry, a short distance south of the nearest apparent
human nesting area. There were dozens of small structures along a roadway that
ran past her place of concealment. She would hunt through those nests first, killing
the humans she found. Then she would make her way into a more congested nesting
area, deeper into the nest grouping her raid leader said the humans called a
“city” in their language. It was larger and more dispersed than the domed compounds
the Krall preferred. The individual nests were for related human clan mates,
but they were not usually clan related to the neighboring nests. She decided
that in the absence of clan affiliations that like the Krall, the humans would
offer little assistance to neighboring nests.

Perkta chose to land on nearly the opposite side of the huge
human nesting area from his clan mate. He had previously participated in a raid
on a neighboring human planet, but didn’t remember what the name of the mostly
agricultural world was.

His primary recollection of that raid concerned the two
warriors that lost their single ships and the different consequences for each.
The angry raid leader had shot the warrior that lost his ship intact,
apparently buried under a small mountain. The warrior that had his ship
explode, tampered with by a human, had only lost eight points worth of his over
two hundred fifty six kills. The death of the tampering human actually offset that
penalty by one.