Koban: The Mark of Koban (79 page)

“I’ll think
about that for a while.” She hooked an arm through the elbows of her husband
and Tet, and steered them towards their prize.

As a large
group of people fell in behind them, she saw a new face on a tall man standing
under the ship (she decided not to think of it as a Clanship anymore). “Tet,
that’s obviously one of the captives I heard you found aboard. Who is he?”

“That
gentleman is Sergeant Garland Reynolds, he’ll tell you to call him Gar or Sarge
when you’re introduced. I expect his strange tale will be entertaining us
tonight at dinner. I hope you found room for a med lab cabinet. He had his left
arm blown off when captured by the Krall, on Poldark. I told him we have the equipment
and technical knowledge, and some doctors here at Hub City that can start the
regrowth. But, a spare med lab was needed, because he’ll have to spend some
uncomfortable nights sleeping in it, and I don’t want the people here to do
without prompt access to the only one they have.” The bulk of the available med
labs had been converted for gene mod use, and Hub City always complained about
their single device.

Dillon
wondered about the regrowth capability. “No one has had a limb regrown on
Koban. Until now, accidents or animal attacks killed the people that lost arms
or legs. I know we had a couple of kidney transplants from donors, but that
doesn’t take so long and isn’t as complex. We don’t have the nanites that
repair the initial damage for the regrowth. How are our doctors here going to
get around that problem?”

Aldry was
a step behind, and listening. “Doctor Walden checked out all of the captives
after they reached the dome, and in his examination he questioned Reynolds
about who treated him after he lost the arm.
Nobody
, he said. Reynolds
was wearing a new type of armor, developed for the war, and it comes preloaded
with nanites and injectors for injuries. The suit’s AI selects the type of
nanite to inject for the type of injury. He lost a limb, so it gave him the
nanites he needed to stop bleeding, and to start the preparation for regrowth.
They are still in his system. We hope to harvest some of them for culturing
more. We fix Reynolds, and get twenty years of nanite development at the same
time. With the right nutrients and the nanites, Hub doctors can regrow an identical
arm in three months he says.”

“That’s a very
fair trade for the use of a med lab,” Dillon decided.

Thad had
an even more encouraging description of Reynolds value. “I spoke with him about
the war, and how Poldark is coping. His information on how we might get back
into Human Space, and onto Poldark in secret is intelligence that we
desperately need. From Poldark we can travel to any of the other worlds. He
doesn’t know about our gene mods and I didn’t offer explain how out TGs did
what they did yet. He wasn’t able to see or hear what happened to the six
Krall, he only knows we killed four and captured two, but how we did that won’t
stay secret here very long.

“He told
me captive warriors always die, apparently by will power, if aware they are
captives and can’t escape. That’s why we have both of them numbed with the
Death Lime drug.

“The two Krall
are continuously aware, but have no physiological control of their bodies to
force their hearts or other organs to stop. After Ethan and Kit shared their
experience of frilling the leader, I learned through them that frilling a Krall
is thrilling and sickening as well.

“Their
tough façade crumbles when you learn that there are things they fear, that even
terrify them. A ripper’s power and speed are only one of thing they fear.
Believe it or not, Ethan and Carson frighten them even more, once they saw
their abilities in action. Actually, our TG’s in general terrify them. They
realized how outmatched they are, and their glorious twenty five thousand year
Great Path is jeopardized. Make no mistake, if their leaders learn of what we
have done and where we are, virtually the entire Krall race will converge on
Koban and no trickery will save us.”

Mirikami
shifted attention away from that possibility, as they neared Reynolds, who was
standing by an extended ramp from the captured ship. “We had better get busy
bringing the Krall’s empire down as quickly as possible. I know you have been
speculating on my ability to open doors on their ships, and I can activate
their plasma rifles. I think I can probably operate any equipment that a Krall
can.” He paused to introduce the sergeant to everyone, without offering all of the
new names that he’d forget right now anyway.

“Sarge
here informed me that a dead Krall’s corpse can be used to permit a human to
operate their equipment, for about thirty minutes or so, if the body is kept in
close proximity to the equipment. The human scientists and military Intel have
not figured out how this works. They assume it is a device, but have never
found one or discovered how it works if it exists. I’m sure I know why they
didn’t find it or detect it in use. Today I told Carson how to get into the
closed shuttle by using the warrior they had captured outside. I had Carson use
Sarge’s procedure, only with a live Krall. It worked perfectly, as I was
certain it would.”

Maggi
sighed. “Tet, will we
ever
cure you of this dropping one shoe at a time
habit?”

“Maggi,
this is how I figured it out, by picking up the clues one shoe at a time, so to
speak.”

“Fine,
shoeless and clueless folks everywhere want to know, damn it.”

He nodded.
“The Intel people and the scientists were looking for a device, and either
didn’t have the idea or capability to check for a weird quantum effect. What
does every Krall wear, and only we early captives on Koban have?”

Maggi and
Dillon’s eyes both widened with understanding. “I’ll be damned Maggi said.”

Mirikami
grinned. “If the shoe or clue fits, wear it.” He said.

Dillon
marched up the ramp to the closed portal and was about to press a key pad when
he turned to ask a question. “Hey, which of these two pads is for the ramp and
which is the for the portal?”

Maggi
muttered sotto voice, which all could hear, “Please, please, make him use the
ramp key pad. I’d love another good laugh.”

Mirikami
chuckled, and told him, “The portal is the top key pad.”

Dillon
nevertheless stepped onto the narrow ledge above the ramp’s slot before he
pressed the two keys.  The portal rushed up, instead of the ramp retracting.
Had the ramp activated with him on it, he would have dropped embarrassingly to
the tarmac. He stuck his tongue out at Maggi.

She
repeated an oft-used mantra as she shook her head in faux disbelief. “I
mentored him, and this is all the respect I earn.”

Reynolds
looked at the open portal in disgust. All of you can open the damn doors, and I
stayed locked inside rooms secured by the exact same frigging key pads. Why?”

Mirikami
explained. “Because you don’t have a Krall tattoo.”

“Excuse
me? Neither do you. You people ain’t Krall.”

Mirikami,
Dillon, Maggi, Thad, Noreen, and several others unbuttoned the tops of their
shirts or blouses to reveal the oval marks.

Reynolds
was shocked to say the least. “Why do you wear those? And why do you hide
them?” He was suddenly suspicious, as if he he’d found himself in a coven of
witches.

Mirikami
explained. “The Krall gave us these when we were captured and brought here, to
mark us as equivalent to their novices, to permit safe treatment of us. At
least until they put guns in our hands, eight to sixteen of us at a time,
forced us out into a large outdoor compound where they came hunting for us, to
kill us. They tested us on Koban, to see if they could consider humanity worthy
of fighting, or if humans simply needed to be immediately wiped out of
existence.”

He
shrugged. “I can’t speak for everyone, but I covered my tattoo because it was
forced on me, like a cattle branding. Even though the Krall wear them by
choice, we did not. I never expected to discover it had a practical use.”

Reynolds
accepted why they had and hid enemy tattoos, but it didn’t answer the bigger question. 
“What is this quantum mumbo jumbo crap you mentioned? I have a tattoo in a
private place, and it doesn’t do magic. Except for a few Poldark Ladies.” He
winked.

Maggi was
amused by his irascible character. “The Krall apply the markings with a device
they call a Katusha, which was created by a highly advanced technological
culture, called the Olt’kitapi, about twenty to twenty five thousand years ago.
That race gave the Krall a chance to rise out of savagery, and they were the
first race that paid the price of associating with the Krall. Per the stories
Krall translators passed to us, they destroyed the Olt’kitapi, virtually ate
them, and took their technology.”

Mirikami
resumed his explanation. “We knew that there was a quantum aspect to the tattoos.
The tool that applies them can be used to locate anyone that has a tattoo,
detecting them through walls, rocks, fusion bottles or solid steel, so long as they
are within about a hundred twenty feet of the Katusha.

“Previously
unknown to us, the tattoo apparently confers the ‘right’ to use or control
other technology that the Olt’kitapi created, via some sort of quantum link
over a short scale range.  I think unwittingly, or more probably dismissive of
our potential, the Krall marked us early captives for cultural reasons, so that
their novices would accept that we had enough status to warrant waiting to hunt
us until told they could do so. Accordingly, there are several thousand of us
with such marks. Another twenty thousand or so captives arrived just at the
time the Krall decided they didn’t need to test us anymore, so they were never
marked. None of the children born to us have tattoos, of course.”

“That
explains why that super strong young Lady, Alyson, couldn’t open the doors
either, unless you were with her.” He looked at some of the people near him
that had opened their necklines. “I’ve seen those simple empty ovals on what
had to be new novices, and those with a few colored dots, all the way up to
some with a whole lot of dots. Like that Krall invasion leader I killed, which
had almost two thirds of the oval filled. However, you have the only solid
black one I’ve ever seen Tet. What’s that mean?”

Dillon
spoke for their humble leader, when he was slow to reply. “The Krall leader in
charge of us captives gave him that, on the last day they were on Koban. Our AI,
Jake, overheard him tell the warriors with him, in high Krall, that Tet was a
worthy
enemy and was being marked as such
. He is the only one of us with a tattoo like that.”

“You do
seem to leave a lasting impression on the Krall.” Reynolds said.

“I don’t
do the actual work you know. Today, Carson, Ethan, and our cats did that.”

“Yeaa…,
your cats. I have tried staying out of sight when they show up. Holy shit, how
did you ever train them to do what you want? They are some big fast mother’s,
and smart as hell.” There were some sympathetic laughs over his fear of Kit and
Kobalt.

“Gar, they
are far smarter than you can imagine. Once we were considered as their prey. I
promise, after you let any of us introduce you, you are going to be a fan of
them for life. We have several dozen rippers living with families, and they are
not
pets, they think of themselves as part of that family. A few are
still cubs, which you will love.”

“If you
want ‘em to get my love, perhaps you oughta try calling ‘em ‘kitties’ instead
of rippers. You know what I mean?”

 Mirikami
only grinned in reply. “There are also flying wolfbats, another former enemy of
humans. They don’t live with us as the cats do, but you will have to try to bond
with one and get it to know you. Many of us have. They aren’t as bright as the
cats, but are smarter than a dog.”

“I’ll have
to get used to this place and the fierce but ‘friendly’ critters from hell. Now
you have two captive Krall. Are you able to tame them too?”

“No, and
we would be content to kill them if we didn’t want information from them.”

“Not a
chance. Our Intel folks have never gotten anything out of one of them, and they
die in less than a day most of the time. You seem to have discovered a
paralyzing agent to keep ‘em alive, but then they can’t talk. Our people would
love to have that drug. You know a lot of stuff they would love to know. I need
to help you get that knowledge to them.”

“We want
them to have it as well. As a first step, I want to take you with us on a tour
of the ship, if you aren’t too proud to have some kid carry you up the steps. I
will certainly ask for that help for myself when I get tired, until we put in
some elevators.”