leaders. “This
new prey has no ground forces to oppose us yet, and they have no way of
preventing our warriors and Clanships from landing when and where we want. We
must be patient, and maintain small but steady pressure on different worlds,
until they build the armies we now know they once possessed. Then we can expand
our attacks and allow every clan, large and small, their full share of the
Great Path.”
He was Graka clan’s supreme commander for this series of
initial strikes into Human Space. The title of Gatrol was equivalent to General
in the human language they called Standard, although he also commanded his own clan’s
fleet.
The other clans wanted to begin invasions of many human
worlds now, and as Gatrol of the Krall, not just of Graka clan, Kanpardi had to
convince them to postpone that action. He had the difficult task of explaining
why this would not be the most efficient use of the resources that this slow-to-react
species represented.
He was convinced that humans would be a worthy enemy, given
time and proper “motivation.” The Krall selective breeding program for walking
along the Great Path required that they force humans to organize to fight as
they once had done. When human opposition reached a certain level, where their
ground forces could reduce invading Krall raiders by ten or even fifteen percent,
the Krall could increase pressure. Initially more raids on selected planets,
then invading certain outer worlds, would push the humans into expanding their
forces on each planet.
The difficult part for Kanpardi was to get the joint clan
leaders to themselves organize, to decide which clans would attack the selected
human worlds, and in what order. He hated interclan politics. A simple weapon
and an enemy before him was all he really desired, but he had an obligation to
his race first, his clan second, and himself last, in achieving the racial
goals.
The Krall knew they were destined to conquer and rule
the Milky Way galaxy. However, the Great Path to achieve this had encountered a
pothole, if it deserved an analogy. To conquer every race they might meet, the
Krall believed they needed to be physically superior to them all. They had thought
they were close to that goal. Until the Dorbo clan stumbled onto a wild lush
planet that they named Koban, before even exploring the world.
It was located inside a volume of space once colonized by the
Malverans. That race had been a useless reptilian species, and the Dorbo clan
had easily exterminated them on their own. However, Koban proved to be a
destiny changer when a Krall settlement was attempted.
There was no intelligent technological species on Koban, but
the heavy gravity planet, with a much higher than average percentage of heavy
elements had, in its primordial era, produced organic superconducting neural
networks in the most primitive of life forms.
Evolution had passed this trait along to subsequent higher
forms of life for billions of years. The native animals now on Koban were not
only strong, something the Krall had also achieved and could increase, but had
superconducting nerves that made the Koban animals too fast for the Krall to
match. Animals destroyed their first settlements and warriors in short order,
unless protected by walls, weapons, and electric fences.
If they were to be sure of defeating every opponent
in the galaxy, the Krall decided to direct their breeding to incorporate
organic superconducting nerves. Fortunately, they believed they could do this
within as little as fifty generations. After twenty five thousand years, they surely
had the racial patience to wait. That long history won the day for Kanpardi’s
argument.
He reminded them of how long they had worked to reach their
goal. They had left Koban in isolation, to preserve it in its pristine form for
their eventual return, to make it their home world. He overlooked that it was pristine
except for the humans left behind, for Koban to erase for them, a forgone
result
new prey has no ground forces to oppose us yet, and they have no way of
preventing our warriors and Clanships from landing when and where we want. We
must be patient, and maintain small but steady pressure on different worlds,
until they build the armies we now know they once possessed. Then we can expand
our attacks and allow every clan, large and small, their full share of the
Great Path.”
He was Graka clan’s supreme commander for this series of
initial strikes into Human Space. The title of Gatrol was equivalent to General
in the human language they called Standard, although he also commanded his own clan’s
fleet.
The other clans wanted to begin invasions of many human
worlds now, and as Gatrol of the Krall, not just of Graka clan, Kanpardi had to
convince them to postpone that action. He had the difficult task of explaining
why this would not be the most efficient use of the resources that this slow-to-react
species represented.
He was convinced that humans would be a worthy enemy, given
time and proper “motivation.” The Krall selective breeding program for walking
along the Great Path required that they force humans to organize to fight as
they once had done. When human opposition reached a certain level, where their
ground forces could reduce invading Krall raiders by ten or even fifteen percent,
the Krall could increase pressure. Initially more raids on selected planets,
then invading certain outer worlds, would push the humans into expanding their
forces on each planet.
The difficult part for Kanpardi was to get the joint clan
leaders to themselves organize, to decide which clans would attack the selected
human worlds, and in what order. He hated interclan politics. A simple weapon
and an enemy before him was all he really desired, but he had an obligation to
his race first, his clan second, and himself last, in achieving the racial
goals.
The Krall knew they were destined to conquer and rule
the Milky Way galaxy. However, the Great Path to achieve this had encountered a
pothole, if it deserved an analogy. To conquer every race they might meet, the
Krall believed they needed to be physically superior to them all. They had thought
they were close to that goal. Until the Dorbo clan stumbled onto a wild lush
planet that they named Koban, before even exploring the world.
It was located inside a volume of space once colonized by the
Malverans. That race had been a useless reptilian species, and the Dorbo clan
had easily exterminated them on their own. However, Koban proved to be a
destiny changer when a Krall settlement was attempted.
There was no intelligent technological species on Koban, but
the heavy gravity planet, with a much higher than average percentage of heavy
elements had, in its primordial era, produced organic superconducting neural
networks in the most primitive of life forms.
Evolution had passed this trait along to subsequent higher
forms of life for billions of years. The native animals now on Koban were not
only strong, something the Krall had also achieved and could increase, but had
superconducting nerves that made the Koban animals too fast for the Krall to
match. Animals destroyed their first settlements and warriors in short order,
unless protected by walls, weapons, and electric fences.
If they were to be sure of defeating every opponent
in the galaxy, the Krall decided to direct their breeding to incorporate
organic superconducting nerves. Fortunately, they believed they could do this
within as little as fifty generations. After twenty five thousand years, they surely
had the racial patience to wait. That long history won the day for Kanpardi’s
argument.
He reminded them of how long they had worked to reach their
goal. They had left Koban in isolation, to preserve it in its pristine form for
their eventual return, to make it their home world. He overlooked that it was pristine
except for the humans left behind, for Koban to erase for them, a forgone
result
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