Koban: The Mark of Koban (69 page)

Holding his weapon ready, he aimed
it inside as he exposed only his right eye to a potential shooter. A foot
kicked out from the other side, knocking the gun flying across the corridor,
and a tall well-built man stepped around the edge. He swung a wide hard punch with
his right hand that went over Mirikami’s head, partly because Mirikami was
still in a crouch, and partly because he was a short man anyway.

The unshaven man wore ill-fitting tight
clothing, and the lower left sleeve flapped as if empty. He was well over a
head taller than Mirikami, but his wild punch and awkward stance as he over
balanced instantly told the smaller man something. Rather than draw his other
pistol, Mirikami grabbed the man’s right forearm as it passed over, and pulled
it around with clone mod strength, and twenty years of 1.52 gravity
conditioning, and stepped into the man’s stomach with his left shoulder,
straightened from his crouch, and tossed the man easily over his body, never
letting go of his right arm.

The big man thumped heavily to the
metal deck, knocking the wind out of his lungs, as Mirikami stepped closer and
placed a foot on the right side of his neck,  twisted and pulled up on his
right arm, and bent his hand and wrist painfully down in a locking grip. He
glanced into the room, and saw at least a dozen people, men and women, all
terrified, and looking as if they’d like to dig under the metal floor and hide.

He turned his attention back to the
man he had down, as he heard him gasp to regain the wind he’d lost. The man was
trying to pivot his body around to ease the twisting that was close to
dislocating his shoulder, or breaking his wrist. From the shape of the left
sleeve, he only had a stump of a bicep for a left arm.

Mirikami warned him this time. “I
don’t want to hurt you, but if you don’t stop struggling and tell me who you
are and what you are doing on a Krall Clanship, you will be spending some time
in a medlab, healing.”

With only one eye able to peer
around the foot pressing into his neck, shoving his face into the deck, he said
in a strained voice, “Sergeant Garland Reynolds, we all are Krall prisoners.”

Not easing his grip in the least,
Mirikami continued his questions. “Where are your captors, how many are there?”

“After we landed on this world, the
leader told us they were going hunting, leaving us locked inside. We heard distant
clanging from below after the ship landed and then silence. I think all six
warriors were going out to shoot something they call a rhino. Or an animal’s
name that sounded something like that. I wasn’t sure we’d even landed at first.
They cranked up the damn gravity two sleep cycles ago, and it never let up. Where
the hell are we that the gravity needed to stay so frigging high after we
landed?”

“I think they wanted to go rhinolo
hunting. It was something they used to do when they lived here. The gravity
stayed high because that’s its normal value. It’s one point five two times
Earth standard. You said Sergeant, which I assume is a military rank and not
your first name?”

“Yes, I was captured by the Krall
invasion forces on Poldark. I’m a Sergeant in the third division, second
battalion, in a ‘bait’ unit.”

The mention of Poldark explained
why the accent was familiar. Mirikami could ask about his oddly named military unit
later. “Poldark? Have you ever heard of a man named Mavray Doushan, from about
twenty five years ago?”

“Sure. When the Krall raids first
started, they played some recording by a guy that was supposed to be a captured
diplomat of ours.”

“How about a Colonel Thaddeus
Greeves, from Poldark?”

“Yea, but not in that recording. He
led a security detail for our Ambassador to Bollovstic, on the same lost ship
with this Doushan person. Doushan was a Deputy Ambassador or something, nobody
very high ranking. They’re all presumed dead since the Krall ain’t noted for
their kindness. I went through my guerrilla training in a camp named after
Greeves. Otherwise I never heard of him.”

Mirikami released his hold and
stepped away from the man, keeping an eye on the other people in the room, whom
he now counted as sixteen in number.

“If Colonel Greeves were alive,
could he vouch for you?”

“He ain’t, and he couldn’t. I
wasn’t in the military until a year before the real invasion started. When it
was clear Bollovstic was going to fall, and Poldark was getting larger raids, I
joined up. That was two and a half years ago, Hub time. I figured we were next
on the Krall’s list, and I was right.”

“Well, Sergeant Reynolds, I hope
you didn’t name that camp the ‘Greeves Memorial Camp’ because Thad isn’t dead.
He’s outside this Clanship, and may be fighting the Krall right now. You said
there were six, are you sure that was all of them?”

“That’s all that Toltak, the leader
I mentioned, said were going hunting. I’ve only seen three of them personally,
since they don’t socialize with us much. The pilot and one warrior are all that
ever came in here besides that sweet bitch, lady Toltak.” Mirikami smiled at
the man’s irreverent manner and sarcasm.

“Do you know the layout of this
ship? I’m looking for the Jump Drive to disable it, so they can’t get out of
this system.”

“I’m ‘fraid not. There ain’t no
guided tours on this luxury trip. They just shoved our butts up the stairs and
left us locked in here for four days. By the way,” he was sitting up now,
looking up at the door key pad above his head, “how’d you unlock the door?
We’ve never managed to crack their damn code on Poldark, even when we have a
spy bot watch them press the keys. We assume they have an embedded device, like
our ear transducers, that’s needed to activate the doors or most of their
equipment. Only we ain’t never found anything on or in any of their corpses
that would open a door or work their equipment for us.”

Mirikami gave him a wide berth as
he stepped closer to the key pad. He was growing more confident that Reynolds
was indeed a prisoner, but wasn’t taking chances. Reaching up, he pressed the
two top left buttons, and the door swiftly slid closed. He pressed them again,
and it opened. He looked at Reynolds and shrugged. “Try it yourself. Perhaps it’s
only locked from the inside.”

Reynolds got up stiffly, his breath
recovered, no apparent rancor over Mirikami slamming him to the floor. That and
his only good arm painfully twisted. He pressed the same two buttons, and the
door remained stubbornly open. Mirikami waved him away, then closed and
reopened the door. Reynolds tried again with the same lack of success.

“I don’t know why it won’t work for
you Sergeant, but I have a dilemma now. I want to be sure this Clanship never
Jumps out of this system. I don’t want to leave you people locked up, yet many thousands
of lives depend on my preventing this ship from reporting our existence on this
world to Krall leadership.”

“Ah. The trust issue.” Reynolds
said, nodding. “There have been human collaborators and informants for the
Krall before, trying to curry favor and earn survival. You just now found us
alive and healthy on a Clanship. I understand, and I also know that no
assurance from any of us will serve to convince you of our loyalty to humanity
this minute.”

“You do see my problem.”

“I also see your solution. Lock us
up again. Stop the Krall from getting away. If you succeed, we might survive.
If not, they are eventually definitely going to kill us all anyway, when my
bullshit story that kept me alive is proven false.”

“Can you tell me the story fast?”

“Not all of it, but here goes.
While my unit played bait to ambush a small tank force of Dragons, I sorta
accidentally killed their dumbass invasion leader and stole his armored suit
for the electronics I saw on it, with his body still inside. After my capture, with
his body in my personnel carrier, I knew I faced painful and ultimately fatal
interrogation. I convinced them that humans had discovered a chemical that can
force a Krall to fall asleep, just as humans do, and then get them to talk in
their sleep and reveal secrets. That was why I told them I tried to kidnap
their leader. It was total crap of course, since I had no idea who he was ‘till
they told me.

“I offered some trumped up goofy explanation
about this secret drug, and even faked sleep talking for them myself. They kept
me alive unharmed for testing, and the information I promised them on the fake
drug. I lied too damned good, and they were taking me to a world where they
have other alien experts to study the biology of human sleep, and find a way to
block my imaginary drug. Then they captured these sixteen poor bastards as part
of the phony study I tricked them into conducting on me. I had no idea they
would do that.”

The young people in the room had a
dawning look of outrage at Reynolds overheard story. It was a ludicrous tale that
only a devious and desperate human mind might concoct. It was something that
the Krall might fear was possible, knowing nothing about why humans and other low
animals needed to sleep.

Mirikami laughed, noting the angry
looks of his fellow captives. “Sergeant, I’m convinced. Not about the
ridiculous sleep drug, but about why all of you are here. That is far too wild
a story to fool anyone but the Krall, who despise us for sleeping and are so
proud that they don’t suffer from that so-called weakness.

“Besides, I think leaving you
locked in with these angry youngsters could be hazardous to yours or their
health. However, I don’t have a way to get any of you safely off this ship yet,
but the portals at the bottom are a possible way out if I open one for you when
I’m done. I haven’t a clue why none of you can activate the doors, unless they
inserted a device on you that blocks the key pads.” Something about that notion
tugged at the back of his mind, but it slipped away.

“Well, I do appreciate being let
out. I might tag along to help you break something if you are OK with that. By
the way you have my name, what’s yours?”

“Tetsuo Mirikami, former Captain of
the Flight of Fancy, captured by the Krall over twenty years ago, and brought
here as a captive, along with my passengers and crew.”

Now Reynolds looked suspicious. “They
never found time to kill you in twenty years?”

“They tried once and failed,
shortly before abandoning this planet for their own reasons, until today that
is. I’m in good company, with thousands of other former captives and their
children. However, that too is a long story and I don’t have time to tell it
now. Suffice to say, they thought this dangerous heavy gravity world would kill
all of us after they stranded us here. We obviously survived.”

As Mirikami talked, he walked over
to retrieve his second pistol, noting a hopeful look on the Sergeant’s face. He
believed the man’s story, but didn’t know him, so he holstered the weapon. “I
don’t want to be caught without all my weapons before I disable this ship. When
we make a break for it, and possibly have to face the six Krall, I’ll let you
have a pistol. I assume you can shoot.”

“You assume right, although a plasma
rifle is my preference against any Krall, armored or not. I sample fired their guns
like those that we took off their dead. Ultra-light weight, but you have to be
lucky to get through any part of the armor, except for the face plate, or a leg
or arm.”

“I’ve never seen a plasma rifle.”
Mirikami admitted. “The Planetary Union hadn’t allowed their manufacture after
the Collapse, at least up until my ship was captured. These Krall were not
wearing armor when they got into the shuttle, so these guns will work fine on
them if you hit them enough times, or put one though an eye, mouth, or nostril
slit. We also have some heavier rifles with the people outside.”

“It takes a lot to bring them down,
I know from hard experience. Don’t count on that lucky eye or nose slit shot.
They won’t hold still for you to do that, and they’ll put a slug through both
your eyes if you try to hold steady aim that long.”

“We have some youngsters here that
can do just that in a snap shot. If six is all they brought, then they are only
a risk if they get inside this ship and leave. We will not allow that, and will
destroy the ship if it looks like they might get away. I’d recommend you lead
these people down, and hide somewhere below. Get out if you get the chance, but
I’m going up. Good luck Sergeant.”

He had just started up the stairs
again when Dillon Linked, despite Mirikami’s decision to avoid any such
communication, in case the Krall detected the signal. Previously, the Krall
that were combat testing them here had not cared about short-range suit
communications, and allowed them routinely between the prisoners. This time
they didn’t want the Krall to know
anyone
was here at all, at least
before they had a chance to ambush them.

“Commander, they know we’re here.
How are you doing, we see Alyson by the hatch but not you. Are you inside?”

Mirikami triple tapped his
transducer to activate the transmit feature. “If they detected your signal they
know for sure we’re here now. How do you know they know we’re here? And yes,
I’m inside, searching for the Jump Drive. There may only be six of them. What
are they doing?”

“Well, they have stayed hidden behind
their shuttle for much longer than I’d ever expect Krall to wait to attack us. They
are calling to the dome by radio. Thad and I had no idea what they were doing.
I snuck over to the dome and called Jake from inside by a hard wire com set.
Good old Jake chimed right in with an answer, not volunteering over the Link naturally,
because he was maintaining radio silence until we called him. The damn Krall
have been calling us on one of their standard frequencies almost since the
shuttle landed. Because they spoke in high Krall, we couldn’t hear the sound of
their voices outside. Jake says they want to negotiate a truce, and want to
speak to the ranking clan leader here.”