Koban: The Mark of Koban (89 page)

He watched the external camera image from the lowest deck. Both
portals were open, and six suited figures leaped lightly from the sally ports
and started towards the closer two ships. To Mirikami’s eyes, the gaits looked
like the smooth gliding Krall run he knew, and they were moving only moderately
fast, to avoid
looking
like raiders. They had three quarters of a mile
of tarmac to cross, and that would take three to four minutes.

Mirikami could have landed closer without appearing to
crowd, because there were many closer packed Clanships on the tarmac. However,
if he was forced to blast the third ship, and it exploded, Mirikami didn’t want
to risk damage to this ship, which was their only certain means of escape if
things went wrong.

“Noreen, Marlyn, good luck, and grab that elevator. We don’t
want the assault teams waiting for you.” Both waved excitedly as they started
down. They were checking their pistols and spare clips, hoping they wouldn’t
need them.

Mirikami set three outside views for close ups of all three
nearby Clanships, not that he could see into the command decks through their
opaque stealth hull crystals. He had just finished that when Chief Haveram joined
him, and the two Drive Rats, Macy Gundarfem and John Yin-Lee.

They would help keep an eye on the three nearby ships, and a
watch towards the dome and ships in that direction. Jakob also had external
cameras they had added for his use. The cameras and mounts reduced the Mark’s
stealth capability slightly, because of their small radar reflection cross
sections. However, before making the Poldark Jump they’d be removed. A close
eye was kept on the closed protective shields over the heavy laser ports of the
other ships. If they suddenly opened, they’d know they had been identified as
“unfriendly.”

Ethan was the TG1 with the suited team headed for the
Clanship with the open portal. He and Jorl Breaker would be making the rush up
to the command deck, and Fundar Gotling would guard the open portal, holding it
available for the rush of the remainder of the boarders.

The second team had Alyson as their TG1, Yilini Jastrov
would rush to the top with her, and Richard Yang would hold the bottom deck and
portal. So far, the raid was literally a run in the park, or perhaps a fast
waddle was a better description. Even in the Krall suits, every step seemed so
springy on this near-half Koban gravity.

As Ethan and his team mates approached the Clanship, they
started speeding up and bounding higher, and when still twenty feet from the
open portal, the lip fifteen feet above the ramp, they all three jumped, heavy
suits, plasma rifles and all, right into the hold. The three were hitting their
suit releases on the way up, and had an arm free of the armor to hold the heavy
plasma rifles like large pistols. The suits were too clumsy to fight in, and
the disguise was no longer required. They stepped out of the suits, lowering
them to the deck as silently as they could, and left them lying on the floor.

Ethan and Jorl swept rifles around the area in opposite
arcs, looking for targets, and circled the central thruster shaft. Fundar was
covering the tops of the eight stairways to catch any warrior that stuck a head
over the edge to check on any noise below.

They all three moved around to the side of the portal
opening, to avoid a human form being seen from outside, and placed their Krall
armor there. Slinging the rifles over their shoulders, Jorl and Ethan drew less
wieldy pistols, and moved to opposite sides of the bay to start up  stairwells
together. Fundar checked outside, waved in a signal to the Mark, and commenced
a search of the storage lockers as his other two partners leaped to the next
deck.

The locker check was for items the boarding party might find
useful if they met resistance. The Krall prisoners had provided images of rocket
launchers, small air defense missiles, plasma rifles and power packs, pistols
and ammunition, laser pistols, additional suits, explosives, shaped charges for
breeching doors, and more that might be found. There was no standard list of
what the Krall carried on Clanships, since individual warriors picked up what
they wanted to take on raids, and might leave behind later if not used.

The second boarding team had to get a portal open to gain
access, so they needed to briefly step out of sight behind landing jacks on
each side of the portal, and strip off their clumsy armor before the hatch was raised.
That required only seconds, and the three slung their plasma rifles, and easily
jumped the fifteen feet. Alyson was by the left keypad, Yilini and Rich to the
right of the portal. She pressed the open keys and the portal rushed up with a
slight rumbling sound into its overhead pocket.

The two naked Krall, involved in mock combat exercises,
paused to glance towards the unexpected distraction. So did the six observers
from their octet. Two members of the octet were wearing weapons harnesses,
standing on different stairwells, several steps high for better viewing. The
TGs saw that both carried two standard pistols each, and the others were not
armed. A fraction of second passed for the warriors to register that it was not
other Krall interrupting their practice. It was far too long a lapse.

Alyson had drawn her right pistol and fired, blowing the
head off the gray clad octet leader on the left side stairs when she put a
round between his eyes. He was in her designated cover area. Rich had matched
her blur of movement with his left hand, putting a slug through the left eye of
the black clad warrior on the right side stairs, his own designated cover area.
Yilini killed the closest observer, who was starting to turn, shooting him
through his left ear. Three down in a half-second and the remaining five warriors
were unarmed.

Fair fight be damned, Alyson fired on the next closest unarmed
observer on her side, as the female warrior crouched to spring. The Krall
managed to pull her head aside enough as Alyson fired, taking only a grazing
wound to her skull. It didn’t even flinch as it leaped low at her prey, using its
clawed toes for grip. Alyson stepped towards the oncoming warrior, and leaped lightly
yet high enough so that when the Krall passed below her, it was out of contact
with the floor with no way to alter its trajectory. The warrior could only
twist cat-like, to rotate its torso to try to rake its opponent with talons as
it passed below. Alyson drew her legs up, mere inches above the highest the
futile claw swipe could reach, and fired two rounds into the warrior, one in
each eye socket, in rapid succession as it glared its hate filled red eyes at
her. Alyson dropped easily to the deck as the corpse slid to the edge of the
sally port and banged into the hatch frame.

Yilini killed one of the exercising combatants as it snarled
in rage, and tried to protect its head with raised massive arms as it rushed
him. He calmly fired a bullet through the fleshy muscle of a protective lower
forearm, deliberately missing the arm bone, certain an armor-piercing round
would tear through undeflected, to enter the open jaws of the screaming Krall.
To be positive it was disabled, despite the suddenly cut off scream of rage, he
also took out both kneecaps. The body fell, muzzle first into the deck, its
shattered teeth scattering.

Rich had a less impressive kill when he shot a warrior in
the head.  That Krall had no chance at all, because he was being used ruthlessly
as a living shield. The other practice combatant held his teammate’s body aloft
as a bullet catcher, in order to rush Rich. Six down.

Alyson shouted. “I want at least one alive to Mind Tap.” She
was doing Yilini’s job now, covering the top of the stairwells for more Krall
as he went chasing after the eighth warrior, who had ducked around the central
thruster column.

“Fine, I’ll keep this brave one alive,” Rich answered,
holstering his weapon, not killing the rushing warrior holding his dearly
departed brethren.

“Yil, you got the last one?” Alyson asked.

“Working on it. Ducked around the column in your direction.”

Yilini was pursuing the eighth warrior as it moved quickly
behind the central column. He knew that there could be weapons belts hung
there, so he was alert when a long arm snaked around the side with a pistol
aimed right at him. It was much like shooting a stationary target in a practice
range. He fired at the pistol itself as he threw himself to the right, to get a
better angle on his opponent. The dive and roll was a good idea, because his slug’s
impact helped fire a round as it severed a thick finger. The Krall’s bullet
passed through where he would have been if he’d continued straight ahead.

The Krall behind the column, using his uninjured hand, threw
a two-foot double-edged heavy knife back handed, as Yilini was rolling to the
side for a better shot. Yil saw the wrist flip, and was measuring the rate of
turns as the blade came spinning his way. He had a bright idea.

The Krall, his only pistol now a wreck, had thrown his best-balanced
knife at the rolling target he glimpsed briefly, before pulling his head back
from the line of fire. These fighters were impossibly fast and accurate for
humans, but they smelled and looked like that prey animal. He threw at where he
knew the human would be as he came up to fire again. The smacking sound and
painful scream told him he’d take one of them with him, even if he died today.
He lunged around the column with a slightly smaller blade, ready to gut his
wounded opponent if it was not already dead.

The heavy thud as his own knife buried itself up to the hilt
in his chest startled him. He paused in surprise, looking down. That rare look,
unusual on those rigid reptilian features, froze there for eternity. The brain
that might have ordered the expression to change spattered on the side of the
column. He didn’t even hear the last of the rapid three shots that finished the
knife’s job.

“Got him, Alyson.” Yilini called out.

“Took you long enough Yil,” was her wisecrack answer.

“I had to learn how to catch a knife and throw it back
first. Never tried that before.”

“A bit of overkill then. I heard three shots. Did you hang
him too?”

“Smart ass. What’s Rich doing with the one we’re saving?”

“Dancing.”

As Yilini came back around the column it did rather look
like Rich was dancing with not one, but two Krall. The Krall without a uniform
was obviously one of the two that had been involved in mock combat when the hatch
opened. He was holding up a black uniformed dead warrior as a shield. Since
Rich had holstered his weapon and wasn’t trying to shoot him, and Alyson was
aiming at the top of the stairs, the Krall probably assumed only the one human
was matched with him for this fight, but it had a gun and he didn’t.

Kolak had seen how deadly accurate shots these humans were,
and so fast that even he saw their hands blur when they drew their pistols. When
the third human came closer and didn’t shoot him outright, he assumed it was
definitely a fight between himself and the opponent he faced. They were fast,
but not massive. He knew he out massed them all, and the smallest one of the
three was the one he faced. He was heavier by at least a factor of three, and
humans could be broken or pulled apart easily. He’d done just that multiple
times.

Alyson went to the portal and signaled to the rest of the
assault team to start across. She needed Rich to shit or get off the pot and take
this Krall down. They had to know what lay above them if there was an octet down
here. They might need to employ an eight-way ascent rather than the two-way
they usually practiced, and would have to wait for help.

“Rich, the full team’s on the way. Do it, damn it.”

Truth be known, Rich knew he was faster, and a better shot
than a Krall, but he had seldom beat the other TGs in hand to hand combat or
wrestling. He practiced the moves and was fast, but his smaller size worked
against him with the other TGs, and he lost more often than not to the bigger boys,
even some girls. This huge Krall made him nervous, and he couldn’t simply shoot
it dead because Alyson needed to read its mind. For some reason he didn’t consider
blowing off the elbows and kneecaps of an unarmed Krall. That was barbaric,
foreign to his parent’s way of thinking and to the sense of fairness they’d
taught him. He’d not yet personally seen what this alien enemy did to humans
when it had them captive.

His friends were watching and he wanted their respect. He
decided to provoke the Krall. “Drop the dead guy you coward, and fight me. A single
human terrifies you?”

Kolak had never had a human challenge him, they had screamed
for him, begged him, cried hysterically, a few even had hurled insults before
they died badly. None had ever challenged him to fight. His time as an
interrogator had shown him many sides to the humans he killed. This one’s
behavior was new.

He tossed the corpse of Rontor aside. “I will break you, and
tear pieces off and shove them into your openings. I’ll cut you to pieces with
my talons and eat the parts as you watch.” He extended his recently sharpened
talons to maximum. He mimicked the lip movement humans called a smile, aware
that the revelation of his jagged dagger teeth usually terrified them.

Rich was into his bravado mode now. “Well, we have a walking,
talking, cowardly lizard that says things he can’t make happen. I have some
sharp claws too, and I plan to trim your nails.” He pulled one of his matching
double-edged knives from a right calf sheath, in a fast and smooth crouching
move, rising to stand straight, his weight balanced on the balls of his
separated feet. He wasn’t a good wrestler, but he was good with knives, since
hand speed there was useful.

With no more preliminaries, the Krall lunged at him, using a
common Krall fighting tactic. He shoved his left hand forward, talons out,
intending to swing the right hand around to cut his opponent open, because the
human would be forced to use both hands to try to defend against the thrust of
the left.