Koban 4: Shattered Worlds Read Free Page B

when each set of raiders race out from behind the moon on each side, as the clanship about to go behind the planet’s curve loses coverage of us. The other clanship will not be able to see this moon for nearly thirty more minutes. Closer down by the planet you will have a longer shadow time because of the planet’s horizon. Get there fast, then use your drives to slow down to enter atmosphere without blazing a visible entry trail. Stay on the course and schedule that the AIs have fed your computers, and you will be in the mountains well before the next clan ship comes over your horizon. Its radar will be looking out away from the planet anyway, but to be safe I want all hundred and thirty-six ships down in the passes of the mountains, downrange of the dome at least two hundred miles from it before then. You will have a total of forty minutes to do that.
    “Launch as soon as I sign off. That will allow you time to reach the edge of the moon, and then wait for the AIs signal to head inward at max acceleration. Back off when the computer tells you to, and slow down to make your entry. If the Krall on the surface go to an active scan on you before you reach atmosphere, come back here fast and we’ll try some place else. Good luck and be safe. Renaldo out.”
    This was rehashing what had been discussed and practiced back in the Koban system. Not this exact scenario of course, since it couldn’t be predicted. The type of atmospheric entry and subsequent low altitude infiltration to the target had been rehearsed multiple times. Each Krall planet would be different, but they had discovered that none of the Krall worlds was heavily populated, not even when compared to human Rim worlds and New Colonies.
    This world probably held a population of perhaps three or four million warriors, in roughly a hundred or so domes, all belonging to a single medium sized clan, the Sudok, who completely controlled two entire planets, and had a presence on a few others, such as K1. This was their base world, where most of their population lived, trained, and bred, when not actually engaged in war. Even so, there were only a little over a hundred domes on the entire planet, and for a cooler planet like this one, they clustered closer to the warmer equatorial regions to house their nursery nests and hatchling regions. It wasn’t difficult to find an atmospheric entry route in the northern regions that avoided habitat domes. The domes in cooler areas were mainly low population outposts where factories had been established, preferentially built close to the raw materials and resources needed, without consideration for what climate the Prada might prefer.
    On their screens, Noreen and Alyson saw the swarm of craft from the Avenger racing silently away. There wasn’t even a back reaction as there was when they launched missiles. The reactionless Normal Space drives were quiet and powerful, and left the Avenger without even a vibration. From the screens, they could see sixty-three of the four-ships and the four shuttles, all moving towards the lone four-ship already on watch at the limb of the moon. There were an equal number of assault ships leaving the Slasher. However, Noreen and Alyson didn’t watch any of those ships launch. Their eyes were locked on one shuttle in particular, as a husband and son, and husband to be, eagerly raced toward danger.
    The AIs on the two “mother ships” continued to monitor the passive data fed to them from the two observational four-ships. Allowing another minute to avoid any possible radar detection, when the clanship passed behind the curve of the northern pole of the planet, the two small armadas were released to accelerate towards the planet’s northern hemisphere.
    The Normal Space drive of both classes of craft could reach greater than two hundred forty g’s real space acceleration. Internal compensation of the inertial forces left the occupants stressed, but nowhere close to the blackout level of a TG2. Most