Koban: Rise of the Kobani Read Online Free PDF Page A

past disturbances of the atmosphere to the missiles, and they would aim for where he was expected to be next.
    He remained on the tachyon powered reactionless space drive, despite the drain on additional energy available for plasma cannons, and the less precise maneuvering possible at lower speeds. The plasma cannons would have to make do with fusion power alone, because evasion held higher priority than beam power right now. The humans had recently introduced missiles that had a means to follow behind a clanship that was using thruster power, seeming to operate like a Krall on a scent trail. Staying on the space drive in atmosphere countered that innovation. At least until time to actually land, when only normal thrusters provided the fine control needed.
    He dove into the storm clouds on a path away from the missiles and the mountains, and then, inside that turbulent concealment, sharply reversed course. The jolt of uncompensated inertia, from the sudden reverse acceleration, was a severe strain on his ability to hold onto his stabilization post by his control console. If the other warriors aboard, unaware of what direction he would turn next, were unprepared, slamming into a bulkhead could disable them, or even cause death if unable to flip to land feet first. Any lack of readiness on their part was of no concern to him, acting as pilot. As mission commander, Hortak had two flight qualified K’Tals with him, but their expertise was more with the new equipment than with pilot skills, and he had spent years as a K’Tal pilot, before advancing to sub leader. He trusted his own piloting ability more than theirs.
    Racing through the storm, he checked his sensors for the missile tracks, and was satisfied that they had so far stayed outside the weather front, still on a vector towards where his last track suggested he was headed. He switched sensor mode to seek his other clanship, and found it hundreds of miles away, also using the two thousand mile line of weather as cover, but moving away from his own goal of the mountain range.
    If the other ship continued in that direction, they might have to land and use ground transport to join up with him in the mountains. That would waste days in starting their training. The K’Tal pilot of that other ship might find herself performing some unpleasant maintenance duties, normally reserved for the Prada slaves.
    That last thought immediately forced him to rethink his punishment detail for Gordok, the K’Tal flying the other clanship. She was carrying the Prada, and if he wanted them to arrive alive, she had to avoid the type of hard acceleration Hortak had just applied to his own ship.
    He would simply have to shuttle his warriors over to his operations area two hands at a time, or request some ground transports from local Krall clans. Using a clanship for such transport duty was too wasteful of their value, when subjected to human missiles or artillery if they flew atmospheric operations.  Hortak’s immediate ground transportation problem was that it was all on his ship, and he only had two small shuttles to move his 2048 warriors and 512 Prada on the second clanship. He only had 128 warriors and K’Tal on his own ship, due to the space required for the heavy weapons, construction equipment and bunker building materials.
    Hortak wanted to look at what else was ahead of him, and before switching off the sensor mode he used to find his partner clanship, he surprisingly detected a second clanship, moving very slowly through storm clouds, closer to the mountains. The missiles fired at his ship had completely passed the other ship by, without any sign of detection. Changing sensor mode, he saw that the clutch of six missiles, rather than pursue his distant companion ship deeper into Krall held territory, had been fed the new turbulence traces of his last maneuver, and were turning to chase him. Two hunter-seekers had already entered the line of the weather front, and were no doubt