Koban 5: A Federation Forged in Fire Read Free

your signal.”
    “Jakob has the helm. It will be any…, second.” The last word, still received instantaneously via Comtap, was uttered a second slower because Mirikami was suddenly forty-one light minutes farther away, and a jagged and heavily shadowed moonscape suddenly filled half of his view screens.
    “Damn. That seemed closer than it actually was.” He said, checking his instruments. “Came out a half mile above a crater rim. I’m moving down to a quarter mile before I send you your coordinates. Any sign that I was noticed?”
    “Tet, I won’t see a reaction for forty one minutes.”
    “Oh crap! We can talk instantly but not see instantly. I’ll know before you will, but I can’t go peek around the edge right now. Doesn’t matter. If we’re seen, we charge in anyway. Here’s the coordinates Jakob just fed to my Comtap’s database. Come on…, down.” The last word came a second delayed, because the Avenger instantly appeared a thousand feet away from the Mark as he spoke. It loomed large in a side view screen.
    “Hi!” she said brightly. Certain the skip in his words indicated surprise again.
    “How did you enter the coordinates so fast?” After his warning to the other captains, he expected there to be at least a ten second delay as she entered and rechecked the numbers, to be sure she had them right.
    “Why would I do that? I have Karl for dumb drudgework. He’s linked to us.”
    “Right. You don’t mind hurting Karl’s feelings with that remark?” He asked jokingly.
    Karl, in the link, answered the question for himself, as if it were serious. “My model AI series does not display anything but simulated feelings, Sir. An emotional simulation was not triggered by such an obviously true statement.”
    “Then you’re an insensitive clod.”
    “I’m hurt by that allegation, Sir.” Karl replied blandly, to prove it could pretend emotions.
    “That you’re insensitive, or a clod?” he asked.
    “Clod, Sir. I actually am insensitive, as I thought I explained. Having said that, I am not a lump of dirt or clay.”
    “Then you are an insensitive lump of electronics.”
    “Yes Sir. Thank you for accurate clarification.”
    Back to business he said, “Jakob, you equally insensitive lump of electronics. Can you link through my Comtap and deliver the proper coordinates to the other hundred fifteen captains, after I tell them it’s safe to jump here?”
    “Yes Sir.”
    Mentally selecting the group link to the full complement of Comtaps, Olts and mind enhancers, he alerted everyone. “The Mark and Avenger are safely behind Cheetah, and we have about another forty minutes of complete gamma ray shadow time from the two outlying observers. The AI will transmit individual coordinates to each ship captain for your Jump to join us, and for matching the moon’s orbital velocity. Double-check the numbers before you Jump. Here are the up to the second accurate numbers. Jakob, send them.”
    The response wasn’t instant as it had been for Noreen and the Avenger, but from the first to the last arrival, it was barely fifteen seconds. There was a storm of gamma rays from that tight cluster of White Outs.
    Mirikami was thinking it was fortunate the Olt’kitapi had considered gamma radiation when they designed clanship hulls and stealth coatings. Any living thing unshielded would have been fatally irradiated. The dead moon below voiced no complaint.
    He gave the word, "Deploy the small ships." The assault of K1 was under way.
    Like deadly pollen from killer flowers, the spores shot out of launch bays located around the perimeters of the Kobani ships. They spread in all directions, staying low to the surface and its radar clutter, ready to sling shot around the circumference of the eight hundred mile wide moon towards K1.
    The four-ships had four times the internal volume of a single ship, but because humans, even in armor, were much smaller than four Krall, they typically could hold six people. Today they