Koban: The Mark of Koban (62 page)

That bit of enterprising equipment recovery, of advanced
Krall suit technology, was Reynolds undoing. He received scant radio warning
from his commander when eight single ships dropped out of orbit overhead,
apparently headed for his small group. Reynolds immediately ordered the trucks
to split up, each driver to seek cover. The move saved his two men, because all
eight single ships came after his own halftrack. He drove into a woods but his
suit visor played the relayed radar tracks for him, showing them all boring in
on only him. A couple of missiles were closing with his wildly zig zaging
halftrack, and his last thought, right before he lost his left arm and
consciousness, was; “W
hat the hell did
I
do to piss all
eight
of them off?”

When he awoke, a short time after his halftrack became a
do-it-yourself rebuild kit, two warriors were examining the strange Krall suit
he’d taken, and the corpse inside. One of the Krall had pulled Reynolds out of
his own armor, before the suit’s nanites had fully closed off all of the
bleeders on the end of his stump. Fortunately, not before the suit had loaded
him with painkillers and a stimulant. With his back against a tree, he tore off
the ragged uniform sleeve that dangled below the left stump and used the fabric
to cinch off the remaining light bleeding, using his teeth and right hand.

Both Krall were perfectly aware of Reynolds’ movements, but
only one turned fully towards him, and surprised him by speaking passable
Standard. Typical warriors had little knowledge of human language. This Krall’s
helmet was off and he saw a bit of the blue uniform, telling him that this was
a translator, and probably his interrogator.

Oh goody
, he guessed there would be no delay getting
to the Krall “fun” stuff. He was wrong.

“How did you know this was the Gatlek? Of what use is his
body to humans?”

“What is a Gatlek?” he asked, the drugs giving him false
energy and bravado.

“This was the leader of our invasion force on Poldark. You
killed him in one of your devious human traps, and then took his body with you.
Why?”

“I needed a snack, and didn’t have a can opener.”

“I did not think humans ate their enemies. Is your human
army low on supplies of food? This information about a weakness would be of
interest to the new Gatlek, when one is assigned.”

 Reynolds laughed. “You eat
us
when out of food on a
raid. Why shouldn’t we return the courtesy?”

“We don’t like the awful taste of human meat, and eat you
only if we must. How do we taste to you?”

Huh!
Reynolds thought. T
he prospect isn’t
shocking, he’s only curious.

“I’ve not had a chance to try. You caught me before I could
start a fire.”

“It is not surprising a human is reluctant to eat raw meat,
you are weak. However, we can discuss your eating habits later, if you have a
later.” That didn’t sound promising.

“I am Tupord, a translator of Dorbo clan. My two hands of
single ships came down from an orbiting Clanship to help recover the Gatlek. We
think your ambush was to capture him, but he died fighting you. We followed his
transmitter signal, which he left active.”

Shit! I led them right to me with that damned suit!

“The Gatlek’s assistant has ordered me to take you to her in
our command bunker. She is in charge until a replacement invasion leader
arrives. However, because you targeted the previous invasion leader, and then
tried to escape with his dead body, I recommended that your interrogation wait
for the new higher status leader to arrive. Your information could be valuable,
and might be lost if that clumsy aid, Toltak, questions you. She is of Tanga
clan, the same clan as the Gatlek you killed. Their clan has not been efficient
in conducting this invasion. I do not think Tanga clan will remain in control.”

“Well, I sure hate to hear that eight million of our dead
and taking twenty percent of the planet in a year is slow progress for you nice
people.”

Tupord glared at him. “I speak your language, but your
beliefs do not match the words you used. You do not think the Krall are nice,
and you want our progress to be slow, so you do not care if the war is
inefficient for us.”

“You caught me again.”

This time the Krall looked at him oddly. “You didn’t escape
us, unless you were a prisoner before.”

Reynolds shook his head at his wasted efforts at humor. “No,
this is the first and last time.”

“A new Gatlek will be here in perhaps eight days or less. My
clan commander believes sub-leaders from the victory on Bollovstic are near
this world, and one of those leaders will have the required status. You have
time to think of what you will tell him, human.”

Reynolds had indeed been thinking, for the last week. They had
kept him in bleak conditions but fed him well enough, which had countered the
blood loss, and provided the reduced number of nanites a chance to do their
repair work. The former aid to the dead Gatlek clearly wanted to extract what
he “knew” about human plans for the supposed plan to capture the former leader,
and she was brutal at times. Obviously, however, there was restraint on her
part because he lived through the week with all his pieces.

Furnishing what she wanted from him was going to be hard to
provide, since the dead Gatlek was merely the meat contents of the suit of
armor he had decided to take. He needed a better explanation if he wanted to
extend his life in a relatively pain free condition. His alternative plan had
been to insult her, to provoke her into killing him mercifully, in a quick
Krall fit of temper. Sometimes you just don’t have any luck at all. She caused
him pain but let him live.

Pendor returned his attention to the now seated human. “I
have questioned many of you on Bollovstic. Those captives had little knowledge
of us. You have shown you know our titles of rank, speak some of our language,
understand a little of how we behave. With me, you recognized my display of
amusement, and with Toltak, you used insults that could earn you a quicker
death from an undisciplined warrior. Your ambush intended to draw a more
powerful force after you, led by the highest rank Krall on Poldark. Both Toltak
and the Dorbo translator believe you knew he was in the lead tank and you
intended to capture Gatlek Gentda in that trap. You removed his body when you
fled. How did you know he was in that tank force, and what use was his dead
body to your leaders?”

Reynolds was surprised that the Krall had done so much of
the work for him. He thought he’d have to bluff his way through more of his
bullshit story. They assumed the humans had set the ambush specifically for
capturing their leader, and his own chance decision to salvage the technology
on his armor seemed to offer proof. He’d just learned the name of the dead
Gatlek, so now was a good time to take advantage of a fresh detail.

“We were told that Gentda was less efficient as a leader
than other high ranking Krall, and he didn’t even know we had mechanical spies
watching him. We decided he was a weaker leader than other high rank Krall, and
we wanted him alive, to learn more of your plans for the war.” Tupord, the
Dorbo translator, had told him the former Gatlek wasn’t highly respected, and
rival clans considered him inefficient. That blended with his concocted story,
but still wasn’t an easy sell.

Pendor snorted. “The most inefficient novice will not
cooperate with an enemy. We will die to avoid capture, and if wounded and taken
alive, you cannot force us speak to you, and we can make ourselves die. Gentda
was not the most efficient leader, but he was an experienced warrior, and would
never give you information before he made both his hearts stop.”

Not knowing if Pendor knew the gesture, Reynolds nodded. “If
he was aware he was a prisoner, he would never help us, but our newest drug has
worked on some captured Krall that displayed slight weaknesses. I rushed to Gentda’s
damaged Dragon to inject the drug to shut down his mind, while he was too
stunned to fight. Then I took him with me. He was not dead then, because your
race is very hard to kill. It may be that the missiles that destroyed my
halftrack and took my arm actually killed him. His suit was more damaged after
that attack than when I removed him from his tank, still alive.”

“It is not possible to do what you say. A Krall’s mind never
shuts down. We do not experience the small death humans call sleep. That is why
we can fight at any time, and are always alert.”

Well, that confirmed what Reynolds had often heard about the
Krall.  It was the right time to use that information in his evolving
fabrication. “But humans know what causes our own minds to shut down, and our
bodies make a chemical that does this, to make us sleep once a day. We learned
how to concentrate that chemical into a stronger drug, which can even shut down
a powerful Krall mind. Your bodies do not make this chemical, so you never
needed a way to deactivate the drug, as our bodies do each morning after we
sleep.” A tiny trace of truth can be stretched a long ways.

The Krall leader took far longer to respond than was
customary for a race noted for snap decisions. He was obviously thinking about
what he’d just heard. Reynolds hurried to build something from the precarious
pile of twigs his fabrication had assembled.

“I learned some of the Krall language from wounded warriors
we kept asleep.” Actually, there was a course taught to troops on low Krall,
conducted by AI’s that knew a considerable amount of the language. Encrypted
transmissions made it of little use to the average soldier.

“We discovered that the warriors often considered the
questions asked of their sleeping minds as ridiculous. They would snort in
their sleep.” He mimicked the sound and head toss Pendor had made.

This particular Krall had admitted questioning other humans,
so perhaps a few more partial-truths would reinforce his story. “Humans
sometimes speak in their sleep, saying random things, and will even speak about
suggested subjects, proposed to them while asleep.

“Krall, under the influence of our drug, do the same.
However, the few low rank warriors we have captured alive didn’t know of your
larger plans. One warrior told us in his sleep that a Gatlek, named Gentda,
directed the invasion on Poldark. That’s how we found his bunker and we sent
our tiny spy robots to enter. They told us when the Gatlek came out, so we
could set up an ambush. How else would we have known when to draw him into a
trap, and be ready to capture him?”
This is pure bullshit!
He thought.
I
hope it works.

“My only mistake was that I didn’t think to turn off his
radio when I had him. Our soldiers will have to try again, with another Krall
leader.” The inference was obvious. Any Gatlek would do.

Pendor demonstrated he had drawn the same conclusion. “I
will not be so foolish as to personally lead an attack on a small decoy force.
I will order a sweep of my bunker for more of your spy devices. My sub-leaders will
be ordered to search for these devices, and to always suspect human deceptions
when you retreat or show us an easy target.”

Reynolds felt his first trace of hope. At least Pendor was
buying into part of the story, since the spy gadgets and ambushes were common
parts of the human war effort. He’d have to offer to make himself useful, in
some continuing capacity that would keep him alive and whole.

“I don’t want to die cut in pieces from interrogation, so I
will help you learn more about our sleep drug, and the antidote that reverses
its effect. If you let me stay alive and healthy, I may be able to guide in
ways that will protect your unconscious warriors from talking to our
scientists.” Even acting as a
phony
traitor left him with a bad taste in
his mouth.

“You can make these drugs for us to test?”

“Sir, I am a soldier, not a scientist, or what you would
call a K’Tal. I had more of the sleep drug with my armor, but the warriors that
captured me removed my suit and left it behind in the woods. My people will
have recovered it by now, since it is a secret project.” Teams routinely
recovered armor from battlefield casualties for parts, and obtained a download
of the solid-state memory log of the suit’s AI. It would be long gone after a
week.

“Then of what value are you to me now?”

Oh, Oh. Give him a use!
His mind raced.

“I can show your K’Tal’s some of the stimulants that we use
to inhibit sleep, and test them for you. Some of the weaker ones are in common
human drinks and in some of our foods. We use them to keep us awake longer, and
to help make us alert faster in the mornings. We use drinks called coffee, tea,
and other energy drinks that have this chemical, and eat a food we call
chocolate. The simplest chemical is
caffeine, and we sometimes
carry it with us in pill form.
The drug we must use to reverse sleep in
a Krall is much more powerful, because your minds are so much stronger when our
sleep drug puts you to sleep. Nevertheless, the drug to wake your warriors
works something like caffeine. Ask other humans about Coffee, and what it does
for us.”

“Human prisoners have used coffee before, and have asked for
it to drink. We did not know that was to block your need to sleep the small
death. Why do you not use it all the time in battle?”

“Caffeine will only work for a few hours before our brains
feel the need to sleep anyway. If we stay awake too long, we lose our ability
to think properly. We discovered how to make the Krall sleep when we studied
how to make humans stay awake the way you do. We can’t make our brains as
strong as yours, but we can put your brains asleep if we act fast when you are
injured in battle.”

“Are there other ways to deliver this sleep chemical to our
warriors? Besides introducing it into their bodies directly, as you did to
Gentda.”