Koban 4: Shattered Worlds by Stephen W. Bennett

Author:Stephen W. Bennett
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Stephen W Bennett
Published: 2014-11-22T17:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12: Consolidation and Revelation

Telour snorted in amusement. “I would like to watch the look of fear spread between the mass of humans, when our ships descend like flies on their Hub world.”

Speaking only to his staff, he felt it necessary to put a positive spin on the day, after being selected as the new Tor Gatrol, and then promptly handed a setback. Something needed to be said to counter the disappointment he and his Graka clan mates felt at the postponement of the plan he’d proposed. It was that idea which had actually clinched his promotion. The delay of initiating that plan felt too much like a defeat for the ambitious and aggressive new war leader.

Earlier that day, standing alone on the central platform of the great dome, he’d been surrounded by the full combined Joint Council. The leaders of the Great and Major clans stood close to hear his words, but his strong voice reached even the many Minor clan leaders in the highest, most remote tiers of the large chamber, who had just arrived for the vote.

He’d announced what was afterwards described as a clever plan even by the opposing Tanga clan (Telour had naturally thought it was brilliant). He proposed a method that he promised would lead to the destruction of multiple human worlds, teaching them finally to do as the Krall commanded. The brilliance was that it would entail the use of but a single Olt’kitapi living ship, selected from the remaining four that would still respond to soft Krall instructions.

He described to that assembly how his plan would inflict a huge number of punitive human deaths; yet the deaths would occur days to weeks after the triggering event. That was a delay long enough for additional solar system destructions to be initiated by use of only one of the fast traveling ancient Olt’kitapi ships. As in the past, the AI mind that controlled the ship would surely somehow learn that its actions had eventually resulted in massive deaths on inhabited worlds. However, the Krall goal of forcing their worthy enemy into proper submission would be achieved, well before the AI went catatonic, vanished into Tachyon Space, or quit responding and returned to its base.

Telour’s rebuff came when the Joint Council had decided that by establishing the third invasion force first, they could release most of the clanships for support duties after the initial delivery of the new force from Telda Ka was completed. This had been the original plan of Tor Gatrol Kanpardi, before his death, and respect for his planning still exerted considerable influence. Telour was being haunted by the decisions made by the superior he’d arranged to be killed.

The council thinking on this subject was that the same clanships from the invasions would be used for supporting forces already on Poldark and New Dublin, as well as those on the next target, the older Hub world colony that humans called New Glasgow. They would be quickly available for repelling attacks if humans tried a desperate response after the destruction of the selected worlds.

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