Koban: The Mark of Koban (49 page)

The planners had buried the AI computer deep below
the base of the western rock face, and it could operate the cannons
independently if a human decision maker was not available. The team named the computer
Norb, and he was in a constant Link with the four batteries, and usually with
all four team members.

Norb had the current visual tracking feed for
the incoming Clanships, sending it to monitors in each control room. The lack
of stealth wasn’t a surprise, because after previous small raids the Krall had
stopped bothering with stealth mode when no targeting systems ever tracked
them.

Aside from Fjord not having the tax money to
build such a defense, they had proven largely ineffective for repelling the
Krall on other worlds. Here, with the enemy uncloaked, they could visually
follow them. It hadn’t mattered to the previous suicide berserkers if humans were
expecting them. Apparently, the various Clanships that delivered them had
reported the unopposed airspace penetrations and departures. Now, perhaps that overconfidence
would work to the benefit of the militia, which had never needed to face so
many Krall before today.

Henrik could see the monitors, but didn’t have
the benefit of the tracking histories. “Norb, where are the four Clanships
headed?”

“Sir, three Clanships are currently releasing
single ships over four other cities, but it appears that the fourth ship is
inbound for New Oslo. It has not released any single ships as it passed near
other cities, traveling from the night side. This appears to match patterns on other
worlds of a five hundred twelve warrior landing attack, when a Clanship passes viable
targets and drops no single ships.”

 These type of murderous landing raids typically
lasted three days, or perhaps less if the number of warriors killed reached thirty
to forty percent sooner than that. These more destructive attacks had completely
bypassed Fjord. Until today, that is.

Every city located in a relatively narrow
fiord, such as where the first settlers built New Oslo, and nearly all of the
other larger cities on Fjord, had recently cleared buildings and other property
to build those distinctive and inviting landing pads. They placed the pads so
they were the most practical place to land a spacecraft amid the surrounding
and densely built up cityscapes. Every large city had four plasma cannon
emplacements in the rock walls covering the landing pads. Apparently, New Oslo
had just “won” the lottery.

Henrik linked to the team via their suit coms
and the AI. “Ladies and Gentle Men, we have an inbound Clanship, and it isn’t
dropping single ships. We have seven minutes before we get five-hundred twelve visitors,
and we
want
it landing on the pad.” He flipped a switch and new sirens
sounded a mile away, around the pad. This ensured that anyone that had not yet
evacuated that area did so more quickly. It was now ground zero.

After five minutes, the team members were all
at their posts, Jarl Boldsen having driven his delivery truck recklessly to get
home. Alf was the only militia member present at gun 1, due to his wife being too
pregnant to fit into her armor. Henrik silenced the sirens near the pad. There should
not be anyone within a mile of it by now. He activated another control console,
which lit up similar consoles in the other three control rooms. Any Battery could
operate any of the circuits those special defense consoles controlled.

Still Linked to all of the team, Henrik said,
“Nord, range and synchronize all batteries.”

“Yes Sir.”

They could hear and feel the sound of the
heavy duty mounts rotating, and the massive three-foot thick shield doors
opening just wide enough to pass the dual plasma beams. Heavy mirrored panels
also slid out of protective “cleaning” slots, prepared to deflect laser fire as
long as possible. Clanships had four heavy-duty lasers, eight lighter lasers,
and four potent plasma cannons, providing three hundred sixty degree and
overhead defensive or offensive fire for the ship.

“Team, arm the manual overrides.” One person
at each Battery went to a set of large joysticks with triggers, and activated several
video monitors that showed recticles on screen for the aiming point of their
cannon.  This targeting was via three small video cameras located along the
rock face, well away from probable enemy fire.

These modifications came at the request of the
militia. They wanted direct human control of the weapons if Nord was unable to remote
Link to the guns, and/or he lost the incoming hard control lines, or the AI was
somehow disabled. The manufacturer’s tech reps insisted that the automated
control systems were foolproof and redundant enough. However, the technical
experts lived on safe Hub worlds, and
their
asses were not on the line.

Direct human operation provided yet another
redundant set of controls that were fully contained within the armored
compartment. A useless feature or not, it made those that staffed the batteries
feel more secure.

The Clanship finally appeared on local video
cameras and not just on computer projection feeds of the track over the planet
towards New Oslo. The ship rapidly slowed and hovered over the water in the
inlet, obviously examining the options for landing. Even with flea market
awnings and small stands on the perimeter of the pad, and a roadway roundabout
of a small fountain in the center, the Krall ship’s radar would see that the
area had ample flat surface for several starships.

Several of the smaller ship lasers lanced out
to torch a sizable section of awnings and temporary stands of merchandise. When
off-planet shipments of fish, crabs, and other sea products took place, owners
of these family owned stands could fold them up and remove them with a couple
of hours’ notice. The Krall used a faster more efficient solution.

The ship drifted rapidly over the freshly
scorched area, and as it settled, the thrusters blew ashes clear of the scorch
streaks left on the tarmac surface, and blew down the remaining unburned
awnings. It settled close to the center of what was effectively a bull’s eye
for the four plasma batteries. They made minor shifts in aiming points.

Almost the instant the landing jacks touched,
the thrusters cut off and the ship quickly lowered another five feet on the
shock absorbers. Simultaneous with the settling, four hatches slammed upwards
into their hull recesses, and the first armored warriors leaped out onto the
hot tarmac. They were firing their plasma rifles towards building windows, and anything
they though looked inviting.

The first targets of the four plasma cannons were
the main thrusters, to prevent a possible liftoff and aerial attack of the
city. They lanced out with ravening blue-white energy, visible in twin nine-inch
atmosphere ripping beams of charged particles of nearly star core heat, moving
for all practical purposes at the speed of light. They needed only a few
seconds to rupture the sides of the main thruster tubes, but that was ample
time for the Clanship’s pilot, and its raid commander to respond with their own
high-powered lasers. They needed only to follow the clearly visible plasma
beams to their origins on the rock faces.

The heavy high temperature polished mirrors of
the passive Battery defenses now reflected much of the incoming laser energy.
Nord automatically retargeted two of the batteries on the Krall laser ports,
and the other two on the yet unfired plasma cannon ports on the Clanship.
Previous raids on other worlds had revealed that the Krall generally landed
with their plasma cannon chambers warm, but not ready for instant firing if
there had been no orbiting human warships to offer threats or any other
defenses. Fjord deliberately maintained that defenseless image, just for a day like
today. Previous Krall patterns determined the sequence of which targets to hit
on the Clanship first.

The militia batteries disabled the Clanship’s
four plasma tubes before they could be fired, and then combined to kill the
four heavy duty lasers before they did more than crack a couple of mirrors, and
melted some of the surrounding ancient volcanic rock. The militia’s cannon
tubes were made of ceramic with bell mouthed ends, which could withstand the
heat of the heavy laser beams. If they were pre-warmed, then heated by their
own plasma fire, they were immune to the laser heat. The wide ceramic bell ends
shielded the magnetic coils wrapped along the length of the tubes behind them.
The coils confined and accelerated the charged particles in tightly focused cylindrical
tubes.

The batteries had rendered the Clanship stationary,
and now they had pulled its largest fangs. However, this progress came at a
price. Warriors had continued to avalanche from the four large hatches at the
base of the ship in that crucial ten to twelve seconds. It was time to try to cork
that flow. The batteries now depressed lower to fire on the open hatches, and simultaneously
switched to the second reservoir of preheated plasma, refilling and heating the
first.

As the next round of targeting commenced, Nord
offered a bland warning for the Battery teams. “Battery number three is unable
to depress low enough to fire on the hatch that it is responsible for covering.
Melt rock has apparently flowed…”

Henrik cut him off and made the human decision
he was there to provide. “Target the warriors that have already left the ship
and are spreading away from the landing area, target buildings they enter, try
not to let any move towards the docks.”

As Nord followed that instruction, Henrik
started speaking to the militia command center, knowing the suit’s AI would
automatically patch him through. “Commander Hendricksen, some of the warriors
will make it away from the ship because Battery three isn’t able to depress to cover
one of the hatches.”

Even as he spoke, armored Krall were dropping as
they tried to exit the grounded ship at three of the hatches, and the plasma
beams were gradually burning through the thicker hull armor. The warriors
swiftly shifted to making their exit at the one hatch not covered by sun hot
beams. The minutes of life expectancy of the Clanship were draining away, just
as the warriors drained away from it like its lifeblood.

Even after the batteries destroyed this ship, another
Clanship would come to retrieve these warriors, after they had rampaged through
the city on a killing spree for days. They had to force the warriors to request
an earlier pickup, if they could.

Hendricksen was pragmatic. “Henrik, try to keep
them away from the docks. We have thousands of people still moving along the
slidewalks and in sidewall corridors. Obviously, they have to break into the
open to get to the docks and boats. We have the streets to the docks covered
now, but if very many of them get away from the ship, they’ll discover where
they went and turn in force to attack the docks. Do what you can son.” He
signed off.

Henrik had kept the link to the team open so
they knew what to do. The batteries that could target Krall in the streets made
them smoking vapors. Incidentally, this caused considerable collateral damage
to structures and property. In public discussions, the citizens decided lives
ranked higher than property.

It became apparent that perhaps three hundred
warriors had made it away from the ship. This was already at the forty percent casualty
mark for this particular ship, but with so few humans killed, it was highly
unlikely the Krall would call for withdrawal this soon.

New Oslo was the largest city, so one thousand
members of the militia were located here. With four other cities under attack,
they were not going to get much in the way of help from the other four thousand
spread out troops. Experience had demonstrated that three to one odds against a
single Krall wasn’t favorable for the militia in general. With one thousand
against three hundred Krall, they needed to improve the odds. It was time for
the next set of works-just-one-time traps.

“Team, we have perhaps three hundred Krall
that are about to discover the population left their workplaces, and most people
have reached or are headed for the sea. When they turn and start for the docks,
we need to try to force as many as we can to use ‘Dropsy’ and ‘Flopsy’ Avenues.
Alf, take manual control of your Battery when the Krall figures out the
population all went that way. From your side you can fire on those that try to use
other streets, but limit hits on Avenue D to encourage them to travel down
‘Dropsy.’ Eric or Greta, you do the same for Avenue F.”

Eric pointed out a problem. “Henrik, your gun
3 has a better angle to push them to F than we do.”

“Not with melted rock limiting how low our gun
can depress. It can’t do what we need. Agneta and I will let Nord continue to take
long potshots to the far side, which number three can still reach. We’re going
to come down to cover your door Eric. It isn’t as if the Krall can’t figure where
our platforms are located, and they
will
be coming for us. We’ve always
known they would do that. However, Agneta and I can cover your tunnel and hold
them off longer.”

Jarl had a suggestion. “Alf is alone in number
one. He has no one to fight off any attempt to burn through the doors. I can go
out to cover his back.”

“And leave Elin alone?”

Elin had an answer. “Nord can work our Battery
too, and I’ll go with Jarl to protect Alf’s door. This way we keep two
batteries in play for longer. After we herd the Krall down Dropsy and Flopsy,
we might get them to pull out by tonight.”