Koban: The Mark of Koban (40 page)

Scientists had not learned how to generate
this inversion trick yet, or to block its application. However, the standard solution
was to cycle your Traps off and back on, and quickly trap another of the
plentiful and energetic T-squared tachyons in the higher level Tachyon Space.
It was a fast process, but fast is relative. Fifteen to thirty seconds when you
only have ten or fifteen seconds to live is too slow. Captain Dawkins had her still
intact primary Trap already charged with Jump energy. She chose to save the
ship and ordered the AI to Jump.

The last moment decision would have worked if
the smaller ship’s computer had not altered the focal point of the Jump Hole
generator mounted on its bow. Instead of a two hundred foot diameter horizon at
a half mile, it extended the focus to form a four-foot diameter black hole at twenty-five
miles, and the closing velocity brought the little killer just close enough to Mace
to start tearing at the aft end of the battleship. The mini black hole
swallowed another field projector on the big ship, killing the primary Trap,
along with devouring part of the hull and penetrating aft compartments.
Crewmembers spilled into vacuum, but reached the small event horizon sooner
than they could die of sudden decompression.

The infalling material had some angular
momentum, so naturally formed an accretion disk in a tiny fraction of a second,
tearing matter apart down to individual atoms and ultimately, stripped even
those to fundamental particles. Some of that shredded material came from people
that were still living seconds earlier. Fortunately, the deaths were mercifully
quick.

The ravening four-foot wide little monstrosity
was insatiable. Even with the attractive gravitational force dropping with the
square of the distance, one sixteenth as strong at four feet as it was a foot
from the singularity hidden within the event horizon, the overall force of attraction
was huge near the bizarre object. As the generator’s focus shifted, the black
hole moved with the relative movement of the missile and the battleship, it
very quickly ate its way completely through Mace, tearing apart two of the four
giant main thruster engines, spilling their volatile reaction mass. That
triggered a massive chemical explosion of the self-oxidizing fuel from the
small but intensely hot plasma jets from the sputtering accretion disk.

The missile itself finally passed behind the
Mace, the small black hole now projected far from its victim. The onboard
computer adjusted the focal point back to just a half-mile ahead, and the two
hundred foot diameter event horizon again protecting it from the front. It
turned towards the dreadnought Indomitable.

Gauntlet was no longer directly behind the
missile, and its combined plasma and lasers ended that particular reign of
terror with another flash of a vaporizing hull, and the collapse and gamma ray
evaporation of the small event horizon. Captain Caruthers of Gauntlet,
reporting numerous escape pods leaving Mace requested permission to recover
survivors before rejoining the fleet for the next course shift.

Mauss granted that act of mercy, and told
Caruthers she could also try to recover the survivors of DS-42, now nearly a
thousand miles from the fleet formation, but under no current threat.

Ships firing from the side had destroyed a
number of other black hole generating missiles launched from the nearest
orbital platforms. So long as you didn’t stay directly in front of them, you
could counter them with conventional firepower.

Mauss noted that radar reported more of the
same type missiles coming towards the fleet from the more distant orbital
platforms. Those platforms were in orbits too remote to offer significant
plasma beam threats. This was because the charged particles in the plasma,
initially focused into a tight tube, gradually dispersed with distance as the
same-charge particles repelled each other. After a couple of thousand miles, even
a powerful beam was a reduced risk for any ship but the lightly armored
destroyers.

Repeated missile salvos had knocked down at
least another two hundred Clanships in atmosphere, but now there were over a
thousand in vacuum, some of them stealthed, with more coming. They were spreading
out to come after the fleet in the typical Krall warrior mode. Every Clanship
commander was out to make a personal kill. There appeared to be relatively
little coordination between them, although there was encrypted conversation between
some of them. Except for small clusters of ships, apparently working with their
own clans, there were no large group attacks taking shape.

Mauss was willing to trade blows with them for
a time, since thus far operation New Lance had hit K1 much harder than the Krall
had hit the fleet in return. However, she didn’t intend to let hundreds of Clanships
get into her formation for suicide micro Jumps. The fleet made another course
change, and promptly launched another lighter salvo from their most heavy ships,
the destroyers and heavy cruisers having used all of their smaller stores of missiles.

They shifted course again as soon as that missile
flight cleared the edge of the globe. The prompt shift was fortunate, because
several Clanships suddenly did White Outs very close to where Invincible and
two battleships would have been. It appeared that kamikaze short jumps were
starting. The Invincible and Indomitable promptly fired on two of the closer
Clanships, the AI’s coordinating heaviest fire on one target nearly midway
between them. It fought back furiously, scouring their armor with its more
powerful plasma beams, but it didn’t last long, receiving four times the
firepower it could muster itself. The fleet’s new reactive armor overlays not
only protected the capitol ships from Worm missiles, it countered the Krall
heavier plasma beams better. The trapped Clanship launched a clutch of eight
Worms at Invincible, just before its hull armor ruptured near the bow, probably
killing the pilot and commander instantly.

Captain Codry now focused Invincible’s fire on
the Worms, while Indomitable finished off the Clanship. The other two Clanships
were taking damage, but bore in together on the closest battleship to them, the
Archer. Two battlecruisers joined Archer in pouring in fire on the two Krall
ships.

The Clanships twisted and shifted course and
speed, and maintained a stream of fire on Archer, ignoring the two battlecruisers.
One of the Clanships received damage to its Trap field projectors and lost
tachyon power for normal Space drive, falling behind with reduced acceleration
when it had to rely on thruster power alone. It only had full use of lasers, since
it apparently lost plasma cannon power. As it continued slower towards Archer, it
focused on the bow in an obvious effort to disable the Bridge.

Archer simply responded by rotating the ship,
to dissipate the incoming heat over more of its hull armor. The AI had no
difficulty coordinating the return fire from plasma ports and laser pods, as
they would bear on the two Clanships.

It appeared that the lead Clanship might be
intending to ram, and Archer and one of the battlecruisers concentrated all of
their fire on that target. That was enough firepower to terminate the status
seeking of that particular Krall commander, when his vessel became a bright
spreading ball of gas. The third slower Clanship soon followed it into a lovely
blossom of death.

The fleet promptly shifted direction, and soon
two more Clanships did White Outs inside the formation at its new edge. They
emerged relatively close together, and combined to launch sixteen Worms at two
destroyers and a heavy cruiser that the destroyers were helping screen. The
Krall focused laser and plasma fire on the two destroyers, which found
themselves hard pressed to fend off six Worms each. The four Worms tracking for
the heavy cruiser briefly kept it busy with point defense. Two Worms reached
one destroyer, and one survived to reach the other. The heavy cruiser killed
its four easily.

The Clanships made small Jumps away from the
human ships, as if to watch the destruction of the destroyers. If so, they must
have been disappointed. The reactive armor and decoy magnetic bottles kept the
Worms from penetrating and breaching the real, and shielded fusion bottles.

Mauss noted that only one of the last missile salvos
managed to kill a Clanship, the other several hundred being blasted before they
reached the mass of now nearly two thousand swirling ships. They were staying directly
between the fleet and the planet, apparently protecting the surface because of
the damage earlier missiles had inflicted.

She was wondering why the Krall Clanships were
behaving more standoffish than on the previous raid here, when suddenly a
battlecruiser on the side of the formation farthest from K1 exploded, destroyed
in an intense blue-white fireball. There were no escape pods from its complete
destruction.  A few seconds after that blast there was another explosion of a
destroyer on the opposite side of the formation, it was a smaller intense
blue-white flash. No escape pods.

Mauss checked her threat displays again, since
she had seen nothing coming at them.
What the hell where they using?

J
osie Linked in,
and provided Mauss with the explanation.

“Mam, two Eight Balls made White Outs near our
formation, one struck and shattered a battlecruiser, the other shattered a
destroyer, then each Eight Ball performed another Jump as soon after they passed
out of our formation. The impacts with battlecruiser Rambler and DS-22 apparently
did not damage the balls seriously, because both were able to perform a Jump.”

“Eight Balls did that with actual
collisions
and survived?” Despite her best intentions she had lost track of the dense
objects, assuming the fleet’s AI’s and weapons officers would advise her if
they were moving on the fleet. “Why weren’t we warned of their approach to the
fleet when they moved?”

“Mam, all of the Eight Balls we could see on
this side of K1 were monitored, and observed to follow headings directly away
from the fleet’s position. Then each one entered a Jump Hole, still
accelerating away. The consensus of the AI’s, and also of the officers in our combat
centers were that they were fleeing the battle to avoid destruction, or capture.”

“Where did these two come from then? Radar
didn’t see them coming?”

“Mam, one performed a White Out less than eighty
three miles from the edge of the formation, the other just over one hundred and
twenty two miles. Both were traveling at nearly nine hundred miles per second.
There was too little time for an aural warning. They reached the fleet
formation in roughly a tenth of a second. Each completed a pass through our
forty mile diameter globe in approximately four hundredths of a second.”

“Was that too fast to fire on them?” She
demanded, more than asked.

“No Mam. All AI’s detected the gamma rays, and
nineteen ships were in a position to direct plasma and laser fire towards them,
before they closed the distance. That massed fire had no effect. Shooting halted
as they penetrated the globe’s formation due to concern over friendly fire
situations. I have just shifted the fleet early, to try to counter possible targeting
by other Eight Balls and Clanships.”

“How did the balls get up to those speeds and
turn back on us so…” Josie interrupted Mauss’ question. “White Out.”

Mauss expected destruction of another ship,
but there was no sign of an explosion on her monitors. Before she could ask
what happened, Josie apologized.

“I’m sorry I spoke over you Mam, I assumed you
wished to be warned of the last Eight Ball’s passage.”

“Yes, I did. What happened? I didn’t see it on
my screen.”

“It shifted course a small amount, but did not
have time to intersect with any fleet elements. The velocity was less this time,
at seven hundred ninety four miles per second. It came from a different
direction, nearly at right angles to the other two. I have made an analysis of
the three paths followed, and note that all three courses correspond exactly with
the departure paths of three of the Eight Balls that we assumed were fleeing the
fight.”

“OK, so how does that relate to these three
coming at us from the opposite sides, at blazing speeds?”

“Mam, I believe the balls continued to
accelerate with their Normal Space drives at the same rate we observed after
they Jumped the first time, on a course directly away from us. They must have
made an exit somewhere nearby and continued to build velocity in Normal Space.
Then they did another Jump, calculated to emerge on the opposite of the fleet
on the same course, making a pass through our formation. When they return to
Normal Space they retain that high velocity, just as our fleet retained its
velocity to match K1’s motion before we Jumped here.”

Mauss understood the simplicity of the new
attack. “Then they are simply acting as high velocity ultra-dense battering
rams, using some degree of steering to try to hit us as they pass through our
formation. There are thirteen more of them coming, and these three will be
back. Josie, calculate the possible return paths for the other balls and try to
move the fleet out of their paths, immediate action! Oh…, and avoid the pack of
Clanships if possible, and see if that move will help us recover the Gauntlet. She
is out there alone right now.”

She had given the AI multiple complex
conditionals, and was wondering if the AI could juggle all of those variables
fast enough. That thought was interrupted before it completed.