Koban 6: Conflict and Empire by Stephen W. Bennett Read Free Book Online

acceptance of change, as was a common attitude of most successful, slow evolving space going species. Their trunks were about to be tweaked, yet again, by upstart humans.
    The Thandol knew the Federation possessed those former Krall clanships now, but until the fight at Zanzibar 2, no member of the Empire had any way of knowing the Federation had improved their stealth systems. It was a hard sale, by the Ragnar to the skeptical Thandol, that the same clanships operated by humans, seemed to be invisible in the electromagnetic spectrum. It was dismissed as an excuse for their weak showing.
    The Emperor’s cousin was sent along on that attack as an observer, but he had zero military background, with his sole claim to that position being that he was a supportive noble of Emperor Farlol the 84th’s family. He’d naturally not noticed anything unusual, including the fact that his ship, a Smasher, had been disabled in the fight and he’d been deceptively moved to another Smasher without him even noticing. Not even the Ragnar had yet discovered the limited visibility of the Kobani ships at long wave radio frequencies.
    Today, the Sneaky Bastard’s raid could further complicate the Ragnar’s claim that they needed better detection systems, and better stealth of their own against human ships, because the eleven drones didn't have advanced stealth or gamma ray suppression. None of the pieces of Kobani ships destroyed at Zanzibar had been recovered by the Ragnar, which could have provided samples of the new stealth hull coating.
    Sarge’s ship was the only one of the flotilla today that would arrive without a White Out burst of gamma rays, so the Ragnar claim of Federation technological improvements easily could again be discounted by the conservative Thandol. They didn’t want to provide new technology to their secondary security forces, particularly of systems that Thandol ships didn’t already possess. Military technology updates moved at a glacial pace in the vast Empire, where innovations were suppressed and controlled by the dominant species.
    Thad linked for a final alert. “Not that any of you need this reminder, but White Out is in thirty seconds. Let’s hit them hard.”
    The exit points of all twelve ships were in an arc around a quarter of Meglor’s equator, at roughly five hundred fifty miles. This was calculated to place them less than twenty miles below two of the largest, of eight huge repair docks, and close to two of the smaller docks. It was possible that these weren’t the most desirable docks to attack first, but the flotilla’s arrival timing was calculated to place the largest docks directly between them and the massive Crusher orbiting above them at a thousand miles. The interfering mass of the docks and tethered ships should delay that giant ship’s acquisition of their mass centers, necessary for it to launch its Decoherence bombs accurately at the internal voids within the clanships.
    The two Ragnar prisoners captured at Zanzibar told them that the damaged ships of their former fleet, including the Thandol built Smashers they used, would be relegated to lesser docks, in an orbit nearly half way around the planet from the largest two Thandol used docks.
    Eleven bursts of gamma rays sprayed in all directions, accompanied in seconds by the first salvo of missiles, fired in the general direction of the four docks, with the intent of providing them guidance as soon as active sensor scans provided specifics within another few seconds.
    Carson let out a loud cowboy whoop on the Bridge. “Yee Haw! Ethan, look what we have on our dock. Stranglers being stored or still under construction.”
    Their two drone clanships were right below a ten-mile long dock, which had several dozen Strangler class ships attached on the planetary side of the dock, all of them double docked in what appeared to be storage positions, with construction under way on ten Smasher class ships they could see, being modified to become