Koban 5: A Federation Forged in Fire by Stephen W. Bennett

Author:Stephen W. Bennett [Bennett, Stephen W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Goodreads: 26013874
Publisher: Stephen W Bennett
Published: 2015-07-29T17:00:00+00:00

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Nawella was willing to defer to Rithal as the eldest. She was a Prada claiming to be older than Nawella by ten to a hundred orbits, as measured by the three star systems where Rithal had lived, when she ran underground factories for a Krall clan. Conversion to a single fixed length of time was no longer possible for the Prada, due to the differing star systems the elders often occupied throughout long lives, and moves which had been dictated by the Krall’s needs.

Although, humans had found that the habitability zones of many suitable stars provided a crude time measure by the orbits of living planets. The length of an orbit of most habitable planets ranged from under two years at hotter starts with a zone farther out, down to barely six months at cool red dwarfs with close-in living planets. A larger count of orbits offered a rough measure of greater Prada age.

Nawella wanted to hear the opinion of Rithal, so she posed her comment and question. “The star is red enough and this world has huge tall trees. Could they be the Temple trees of our legends?”

Rithal moved her head from side to side in indecision. “The majority of stars are redder than at Haven, which is too hot and white for proper living. These trees are also taller than the trees your villages call Temple trees on Haven. That extra height could be due to the lighter gravity here. They do match our oldest stories, but many low gravity worlds have tall trees. We need more evidence this was our home world than the trees and star color. All of our former colony worlds were in the Krall navigation systems, and were mixed with other low gravity worlds of every species the Krall met. Many of our own colonies had tall trees because we liked them, and they lived a long time.

Rithal came as close to criticism of the Krall that Nawella had heard from her. “The Krall had the technical ability, provided by the Olt’kitapi, to make notes about planets, but they never differentiated in their navigation systems which worlds belonged to which animal species of their enemies. Although, using their mental battlefield maps, they always knew which planets had a current enemy living on them. After a conquest, all they cared to retain was which clans kept some worlds for nesting, or for weapons manufacture. This world was not retained for such use.”

Nawella darted her head forward. “The human, named Mirikami, whom you met when you arrived on Haven, thinks the Krall normally killed all inhabitants of a species home world, or removed them if they were allowed to live. From Mind Taps of Krall leaders, he says they did that for all three races they kept alive, to leave them feeling isolated and helpless. The first orbital survey here shows that this world, which is near the center point of the worlds we think were our colonies, had no clan domes ever built here, but our colonies did have them.

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