Free Koban: Rise of the Kobani by Stephen W. Bennett

interest from Conrad at the valley entrance?”
    The reply was comfortingly prompt, and sounded strong, even underground. There was probably a Link repeater built into the base, since the PU Army also used transducers. “Conrad has seen no Krall activity,” the chief told him. “Ethan has checked in as they topped each ridge. Those boys are fast . Up one side and down the other in five minutes. If the cliffs are like these around us, they must have goat genes in them as well. They saw nothing in the first three valleys, but could hear sounds of machinery rolling on gravel from beyond the next ridge they had to climb.”
    Mirikami thought for a moment, mentally counting the number of ridges between them and the Krall clanship, which he recalled from the aerial images recorded as they landed. “Chief, that would be two valleys closer to us than where the clanship landed. They may be threading their way through the valleys to reach us, using some sort of transports they carried with them. I want to hear what Ethan reports as soon as he can see what’s happening.”
    “Will do Sir. Shouldn’t be more than another fifteen minutes.”
    When Mirikami was obviously finished listening to his Link, Thad asked what he’d heard. “Ethan and Richard find some activity?”
    “They heard some sounds from a valley located well before they reached the Krall ship. It was described as mechanical, like rolling trucks on gravel or rocks. We might have company coming, with transports or Dragons. Let’s see the tunnel ahead, and then head back. We were not setting off towards Novi Sad right now anyway.”
    Reynolds said, “If they have Dragons, Tet, your TGs can’t pop them open, or even get close. We might have to abandon the Mark and get everyone down here.”
    “If they are bent on attacking us, I’d agree, but I don’t see why they would have a plan to do that if they believe us only to be from a different clan. We’ll head back as soon as we see the tunnel.”
    “We’re almost there. There’s another underground parking area on this side of the base. We passed under the back wall of the box canyon, and on the other side of these doors ahead is another larger garage. The bigger vehicle supply tunnels run from there. Why don’t we see if you can open the door this time?”
    Mirikami thumbed the pad, while peering into the retinal scanner. It took slightly longer than the process had for Reynolds earlier, but the door slid open, and the same style pale white light panels activated. On the other side was a parking area, four times the size of the first one, with seven tunnels leading out along three walls.
    Reynolds described the ones they were interested in using. “The three tunnels on the opposite wall all go towards Novi Sad. I can’t say which is best for our purposes, because I don’t know the Krall dispositions at the ends of any of them. The right side tunnel goes a mile or two closer to the river, where there used to be warehouses of supplies to route to the troops fighting in the mountains.”
    “Thanks, I can’t say yet which one will be best for us. We’ll see what images we had from orbit, before we made our penetration this morning. I want to head back to the Mark now.” He turned to go back through the opened door when one of the TGs shouted.
    “There’s an insect running across the ceiling, Sir.”
    They all looked where he was pointing. It had been invisible until the ceiling panel lights came on and it moved.
    It looked more like a small lizard than an insect to Mirikami, when he sighted it, just before it pulled itself up through a hole at the corners of four light panels.
    “Sarge, could that have been an actual live critter?” he asked the native-born Poldarkian.
    “I’ve seen live geckos of similar size and color, which have sticky foot pads to walk on walls and ceilings. They were apparently stowaways on some shipments from Earth, since no one admitted to violating the importation of animal