“There have
been at least two more KobalThi attacks in the
asteroid belts in the past four
weeks. It’s a wonder we survived
that surprise attack yesterday,”
Captain Black said.
“We fought some
tough mothers out there,” Conrad reported.
“The Spacer Marine
Corps was never meant to handle this kind
of battle,” Black said.
“Maybe not now,
but we should have been able to handle it a
couple of weeks ago. Except
that the supplies the Union promised
us never arrived.”
“That wasn’t
your fault Lieutenant.”
“Yeah,” Conrad
said, “But that don’t make it any better, sir.
We should have had those plasma
cannons and the anti-K
ammunition a month ago and they
never arrived.”
“You still gave
them the old heave-ho.”
“Just barely,
sir. We almost lost three men when a KobalThi
ingested them. Whole APE’s
just went right down that thing’s
throat like cherries.”
“It must not
have been a pretty sight to see them go down there.
And I’d suspect it was even worse
for the people who experienced
it first hand.”
“It would have
been. But getting them out of there was even a
worse sight. My men dumped
at least fifteen rounds of Vulcan
bullets into that monster before
it finally croaked. And that was
because we didn’t have any anti-K
pulsar grenades.”
“What kind of
KobalThi structure was it, Lieutenant?”
“The kind every
Marine wishes would die and never come back.
It was some kind of superstructure.
It had three bioplasm throwing
substructures, four leg substructures,
and a mouth and stomach. It
also had a superior transganglion
running it.”
“That’s one of
the worst. It’s called a hive-planting
superstructure,” Black said.
“They send ‘em out to feed and dig
tunnels in the asteroids.
Once they get in, they reorganize
themselves into a Queen superstructure
and begin laying eggs.”
“A couple of
anti-K pulsar shells should’ve waxed her dome.”
“Maybe,” Black
said. “But it might have just made her mad.
The only thing that’s worse than
a KobalThi is a mad, rampaging
KobalThi. I’ve seen ships
torn to pieces by KobalThi gone
berserk.” That had been an
understatement. Partly it was because
Captain Black had seen ships almost
completely vaporized by
KobalThi attacks with what had
been their newest adaptation:
anti-ship bioplasm. That
had been the way Black had lost his
eyesight. KobalThi used their
anti-ship bioplasm to cut open his
ship’s hull and, in just a couple
seconds, they gained access to the
corridors of the ship. Black
led a Marine squad to kill those
attackers, but just as he thought
the KobalThi had given up, the
KobalThi released anti-ship bioplasm
right inside the corridor he
was defending. The bioplasm
had blown up with a blinding flash,
and caused so much damage to the
ship that she had to be
abandoned.
“I know where
to lay the hits on, sir,” Conrad said. “Once you
kill the transganglion, the rest
of the body has to adapt. While it’s
doing that, you pound it to pieces.”
“Did that thing
have any friends?”
“You’d have to
ask Lieutenant Radcliffe, sir. She took a
battalion through the downward
tunnel.”
“All right then,
Lieutenant Radcliffe, let’s hear your side of the
story,” Black said. Radcliffe
stepped forward, and Conrad stepped
back.
“My batallion
ran into a bunch of sub ganglionic structures.”
“How well did
you handle the Critters?”
“We pretty much
cleaned them out,” Radcliffe answered.
“There wasn’t much action after
that. We worked for about two
hours doing mop-up and making sure
all the tunnels were secured.
There was a scare about a brood
of fast-hatching eggs, but we
didn’t find any nests anywhere.”
“How was your
ammo after that battle?”
“Not very good.
We were hitting them with our Vulcan guns,
but then we ran out of ammunition,
sir. We had to switch to
T.K.’s”
“T.K.’s?” Black
asked.
“Tactical killings.
We got them to follow after a couple of our
APE’s, and then we had the rest
of the battallion sneak around to
the back and attack from behind
them.”
“What did you
do if you had no ammunition, Radcliffe?”
“I called for
a ‘mosh pit attack,’ and we thrashed and trashed
the rest of the KobalThi by stepping
on them, punching them, or
crushing them between our APE’s
parts.”
“A little on
the messy side, don’t you think?” Black asked.
“Both Conrad
and I agree it was unorthodox, but what does a
Marine do when they have no more
ammunition? If you’re
wondering sir, no I did not let
them cycle through the base airlock
before undergoing bio-decontamination,
and the standard anti-K
cycles.”
“Good work, Marines,”
Black said. “I’ll make sure the Station
Admiral gets your reports.”
The two Spacer
Marines snapped off a salute.
“Dismissed,”
Captain Black said, and the Marines left his
office. He sat back down
at his desk and played back the other
reports each Marine division had
brought in. None of them were
pretty, and soon, they would start
getting downright grisley if the
Union didn’t bring in more ammunition
for the Marines. That,
and his Marines were desperate
for repair parts for their giant
Armored Personnel Extensions.
APE’s took a lot of maintainance
even if they did kick butt when
it came to getting rid of KobalThi,
and no self-respecting Marine division
ever returned to base
without at least some damage or
wear and tear on their APE’s.
KobalThi just didn’t have any respect
for the machinery that was
used to exterminate them.
Captain Black
sighed in resignation at the fact that he would
probably spend the next hour talking
to the Station Boss, and that,
compared with fighting KobalThi,
was an even more grisley
thought. He poured himself
yet another mug of coffee and set to
work filing yet another complaint
about the lack of crucial repairs
and supplies his Marine squads
demanded.
“Captain Black’s
Marines were wiped out yesterday,” a news
reporter announced, “When KobalThi
attacked their asteroid base
and tore through the APE storage
areas. Captain Black reports
that his Spacer Marine division
will not be able to ward off
another attack until he gets a
shipment of new APE mechanized
armor units.”
Admiral T’san
watched the report go on and on and on. It was
not a pretty sight. She may
have switched the holographic viewer
off, but that news had already
sunk in, and there would be no
getting it out of her mind until
something was done about it.
“There have been
reports that Union ships are being held up on
their way into NeoTerra by space
pirates. Can you affirm that
report, Admiral Pon?”
“No. As
of yet, I am not at a liberty to explain the--” Pon
paused, as if searching for a word
to explain what he meant to say,
“--difficulties the Union is trying
to overcome in order to bring in
ammunition and cargo to NeoTerra.”
“Is it possible
that the KobalThi are eliminating the shipments?”
“It may be possible,
but as the rumor said before, the space
pirates could be contributing to
the disappearances of ships in that
sector.”
“In the early
stages of the First Intragalactic Conflict, most ships
were given orders to take different
routes to reach NeoTerra.
Could a change in the normal shipping
or travel routes help to
alleviate this problem?”
“I am not sure,
Mister Brokal,” Pon answered the reporter, “It
may have worked for the Terran
Alliance four hundred years ago,
but you’re asking for a massive
number of ships to switch to
different routes. Most of
the main routes have been cleared and
charted. Sending ships into
uncharted or uncleared space could be
a hazard, especially when the ships
come into hyperglide. Some of
the Union’s larger ships wouldn’t
be able to navigate an asteroid
field if it dropped out into realspace
in such a region. And the
smaller ships might not have enough
shielding to deflect a
collision with an asteroid if they
entered realspace in an asteroid
field.”
“Admiral, there
have been rumors of a new form of space travel
surfacing in parts of the Union.
Are you certain of this form of
propulsion, and if you are, is
it being implemented in the Union?”
“As of yet, only
the most basic of information is available
concerning this new mode of propulsion.
I would like to say that
we have it ready now, but we do
not. However, we know a few
things about this new power source.
First, and by far the most
important news is that the KobalThi
structures the Union have
encountered do not have any way
to achieve what we are building.
We are certain of a set of variables
which govern acceleration with
the new engine prototypes, and
we are certain that there has to be a
way to attach these engines to
the hulls of ships, but we are very
aware of several severe drawbacks.”
“What might those
drawbacks be,” Brokal asked.
“Well, the first
one is that none of the prototype hulls withstood
initial testing. However,
engineers working at the K.O.R.O.N.I.S.
Shipworks have determined a way
to work around that flaw. But
this brings in new drawbacks.
First of all, the Union needs as
much barite neutronium as we can
get. It takes a lot of neutronium
to reinforce the hull of the ship
‘K’ shipworks is building. As far
as we know, there is no way around
this drawback. The second
drawback is that the new propulsion
engines need as much space
as possible to work their so-called
‘magic.’ We’re trying our best
to design a frame that can support
these engines while keeping
them away from the ship.”
“Are there any
other drawbacks?”
“Yes. There
are, Mister Brokal,” Pon said matter-of-factly.
“What would those
be?”
“We need a hell
of a lot more help from the outlying regions of
the Union to build this ship.
Owlasi ships have investigated the
Galactic East, where KobalThi have
made the most nests. We
have found something unsettling
about each and every nest. This
is that the nests are moving.
Each year, they relocate their
asteroids to a new area of space,
maybe half a light year away from
something. We know this because
the Owlasi have been tracking
KobalThi for the past five years.
We also know that there is a
something that the KobalThi are
fleeing from.”
“Admiral Pon,
what could be the thing that is driving the
KobalThi into the Union?”
“We call it the
Belts. There is a massive energy phenomenon
heading due Galactic West toward
the Union. We have four
months until the Belts cut off
the easternmost sectors from us. As
far as we know, only ansibles work
there, and our hyperdriven test
probes have reported that resistance
to hyperfields jumps
asymptotically in the Belts.
This means that hyperdrives will not
work in the Belts unless a ship
is heavily reinforced. ‘K’
shipworks needs as much neutronium
as it can get to do the job.
And Terra does not have anywhere
near enough.”
“So, because
the KobalThi are running from the Belts, they are
coming into contact with us in
the Union?”
“As far as we
have seen, that is precisely correct,” Pon
answered. Admiral T’san watched
as the holographic display
changed to show a simulation of
the Belts, driving the KobalThi
straight into the Union.
“What will happen
when the KobalThi get to the Union itself?”
the reporter asked.
“When they reach
the populated worlds, they will set up nests
there and begin to feed--on whatever
comes their way. We have
always been able to drive them
back, but eventually, if they do not
want to enter the Belts, they will
become desperate, and they will
attack us mercilessly until the
Spacer Marine forces and the
military are blown away.”
“Is your new
ship a solution to this dilemma?”
“She just might
be,” a hint of hope entered Pon’s voice, “We
know that neutronium is tough enough
to withstand heavy stresses
and prevent damage to a ship.
In fact, neutronium hull plates can
be set to resonate at a variety
of frequencies, producing an
interference pattern in a ship’s
shields. This pattern happens to be
able to absorb bioplasmic assaults.
If ships can be fitted with just
a few plates--and we know that
they do not need more than five
plates, each about one square meter
in area--they can produce what
‘K’ shipworks calls the ‘interferometric’
effect. Not only that, but
the interferometric effect can
block the intense radiation that
comes from the Belts and phase
band it so it can be put to work
inside the ship.”
“Just a few minutes
earlier,” Brokal said, “You said that the
Union needed a hell of a lot more
help from its outlying regions.
Could you please explain what form
of help is most needed?”
“Mainly,” Pon
said, “We need the Union itself to stay together.
I believe we can survive through
the thick of this problem, and that
we can still have a single Union
by the time the KobalThi and the
Belts have arrived. But that
means that each and every planet has
to carry its share of the burden.”
“However, the
beginning of my report was concerning the lack
of supplies reaching NeoTerrans
to help them stop the KobalThi.
Would that not mean that Terra
is not carrying her fair share of
work?”
“Not at all.
We have gotten many rumors that those ships are
gone. But convoys have been
sent for the past six months, Mister
Brokal. And more are leaving
Terra every day. There can be no
mistake about this: the Terrans
are producing the required amount
of anti-K ammunition for the NeoTerrans,
but there must be a
bottleneck between the two planets.”
T’san shut off
the holographic viewer. A bottleneck indeed, she
thought. Ha. That wasn’t
even the half of it. She proceded to the
Bridge of her starship just in
time to see the next convoy of
supplies from Terra come into view.
“Lock onto their
hyperdrives, Mister Ciran,” Admiral T’san
ordered.
“We have a target
lock. Shall I fire?” A wolflike grin appeared
on Ciran’s face.
“That won’t be
necessary,” T’san said, “Instead, send them a
message that we can handle their
cargo for them.”
“They aren’t
answering,” Ciran said.
“Fire the decoy
charges.”
“Launching decoy
‘bioplasm’ charges,” Ciran said.
A ‘bottleneck’
indeed, T’san thought again as fifteen Union
ships dropped out of hyperspace
to avoid what they thought had
been a KobalThi attack. They
dropped into realspace right inside
what turned out to be a well placed
tight ring of space pirate ships,
guns already loaded and pointed
right at them. Not one of the
fifteen ships had taken the time
to arm their shields. KobalThi or
Belts didn’t matter. The
only thing that mattered to T’san was the
hefty profit the cargo would turn
when sold on the Union’s black
market.
“Admiral Pon,”
another Admiral said, “The convoy is under
attack.”
“Is it Admiral
T’san’s pirates again?”
“Yes, it is.
You know what we agreed on when T’san first
began to pillage those supplies.”
“I know precisely
what we agreed on. We agreed to push the
launch date forward as far as possible.
Start looking for alternate
sources of neutronium for KB’s
hull and make sure Engineer
Keller doesn’t hear anything about
NeoTerra’s rebellion against
the Union. We need him as
much as we need the rest of
K.O.R.O.N.I.S., and without him,
I’m afraid that we would be
placing KB in a position where
she could be destroyed.”
“I understand
that you are not about to let that happen.
However, Pon,” the other Admiral
said, “Have you looked into the
loyalty of the NeoTerrans assigned
to the crew of KB?”
“They all checked
out. I made sure that there were no disloyal
officers aboard that ship.
She may be covered with neutronium on
the outside, but KB is just as
susceptible to sabotage from the
inside as any other ship is.
And with both the KobalThi and the
Belts breathing down our necks,
that’s a risk I know to avoid at all
cost.”
“Good.
I will see to it that you get whatever you need to bring
the launch to an earlier date.
KB will be ready to stamp out
T’san’s little band of ‘merry men’
before she makes herself into
any more of a threat.”
The other Admiral
signed off of the ansible channel, and Pon
shut down his terminal. Then
he sat down and prepared the
messages he would have to send
to the new Captain, Edlyn Astrid,
telling her that the ship was to
be launched two months earlier than
planned. He was hoping that
both ship and crew would be
spaceworthy before NeoTerra made
its secession official. |