Retribution (Shaitan Wars)

by Sudipto Majumdar

  Index

  Welcome to my Parlor

  Kali

  Tomb Raiders

  It the Economy stupid!

  Open Sesame

  Ramses logs

  Opening up the stars

  Jehannum

  A shining beacon

  Rip Van Winkle

  The Soldier and the Pacifist

  Shock and Awe

  Blitzkrieg

  The Watering Hole

  The Devil’s workshop

  Cookie Cutter

  Raising the tether

  Beachhead

  Where are the tanks?

  Sting in the Tail

  Stranded on the other side

  First human settlers

  Homo Supremis

  The Marathon

  Stopping the unstoppable

  Dante

  Turning Tide

  Lemmings

  Eulogy

  Chapter 1

  Welcome to my Parlor

  Shackleton Base, South Pole, Moon

  26th May 2084

  Alex had expected the waiting Shaitans to go crazy. He had expected a mad charge towards the Shackleton base by the waiting enemy. Surely the enemy knew. Shackleton base had received the signals from relays about the battle between TC-2 and the puny first generation human spaceships. There was a pall of gloom at the loss of one of their own ships with their marine comrades onboard, as much as a cheer on the destruction of TC-2.

  The Shackleton crater on the South Pole did not have a direct line of sight to the battle that took place over the moon, but they had relays to send the signal. Surely the Shaitans would have been in touch with their ship as well. So they should also know by now, that they were not going home. They were stranded here forever.

  Alex had expected that the Shaitans would make one final charge of revenge, trying to wipe out as many humans as possible before they die. That hadn’t happened. It wasn’t a good sign. Alex knew from experience, that the Shaitans weren’t the surrendering type. They did not think about themselves and their fellow beings’ lives the way humans did.

  They wouldn’t be wanting to surrender and hope to have their lives spared. It wasn’t as if the Shaitans were fanatics. It was simply that such human concepts had no relevance to Shaitans. They had no concept of either mercy or surrender. They were not cruel, it was just the natural order of things to them that the victor killed the vanquished to the last being.

  Thus Alex knew that if the Shaitans were waiting despite knowing that their situation was hopeless, it meant that they had a better plan to kill humans than madly charging at them. If that thought was not bad enough, the more puzzling thing was the two circling shuttles, which had now been circling the crater for over 4 hours, slowly spiraling in towards the center.

  Cuifen came over to the spot on the trench where Alex had been standing. She snuggled up to him, and Alex looked over all round to check if anyone else was nearby. Cuifen was speaking in the proximity mode, so her voice could only be heard by Alex. “Stop being such a sissy Alex Parkinson. We are adults, heck we are now old for god’s sake, and no one is going to disapprove. Besides everybody on this rock knows about us!” She said with a giggle.

  “There is something called propriety Jojo, you are my junior officer and we are both on duty.” Alex said.

  “You of all people should know Alex that on the Moon I am directly reporting to the PLA and not to some cute Yankee General. Technically I am not even in your chain of command, and if you are worried about someone eavesdropping on us, then let me do this.” Without warning and without any visible effort, Col. Cuifen Ma pushed her toes to lift herself two feet up in this low gravity of Moon, it was no big deal, but the grace with which she did it, still drove Alex wild, as it had done on Titan so many years ago.

  Her face reached just above face level of the tall frame of Alex, and her hips were above Alex’s hips. She wrapped her legs around his waist and her hands held the back of Alex’s helmet tight, so that both their helmets were touching each other. Even with the weight of her suit, in this gravity, Cuifen felt like a ragdoll wrapped around him. He instinctively clutched her.

  Now with the helmets touching, she switched off the com, and it automatically went into induction mode, transferring their voice across the helmet directly without any radio circuit. “See… Happy?! No one can hear us now.” She giggled and said further. “It’s a shame I can’t kiss you… Muah…” Cuifen puckered her lips to give a kiss sign.

  “Ok. I give up, no one can win with you, but have you considered this fact Jojo? Any time now the Shaitan could attack and the Marines in the base would come running around here to find out why their CO has turned off her com, only to find us in this position?” Alex said, but couldn’t stop himself from laughing, just picturing the situation.

  “The worst they can do is gossip about their bosses. Let us live these moments Alex, cherish and remember them. Who knows they may be our last together.” Cuifen said, now clinging tightly to Alex.

  “Stop being so melodramatic Jojo, we have been through worse and the Shaitans have not been able to even scratch the two of us. Do you think a bunch of marooned and cornered Shaitan are going to give us that much trouble, especially with reinforcements from Earth due in 36 hours?” Alex sounded confident, almost overconfident.

  “Cornered tigers are the most dangerous Alex, don’t you forget that. Anyway why are we wasting time with Shaitans? Let’s talk about us.” Cuifen said and the conversation continued for a long time. They did not realize how much time, till an embarrassed and nervous Private was standing almost next to them, trying to touch them without touching them, which was obviously impossible.

  Alex and Cuifen both turned sideways to find the private looking towards his own feet, praying that somehow he could simply melt and vanish from the place and yet he had a job to do, which kept him standing there. Keeping his head low, he kept pointing at the knob on the helmet, to indicate that the com needed to be switched on.

  Col. Cuifen Ma gracefully got off Alex and without an iota of embarrassment, switched on her com and asked the private in a sweet and reassuring voice. “Sorry for the com, Private. Please let me know the message. Thanks.”

  “Sorry to disturb colonel, but command HQ has been trying to desperately get in touch with you and General Parkinson for some time, colonel. The IFF… I mean your IFF is also turned off along with your com, so we were a bit worried, we were about to fan out in a search pattern. Fortunately the General’s IFF was still operational, so I found you here…” A visibly red Chinese private said as hurriedly as possible, pleading with his eyes to be dismissed as fast as possible.

  “What! Why did I… never mind… Just patch us up with the command HQ Private… and thanks for the message. Dismissed.” Col Ma said.

  “Ah… Alex, Cuifen. It is so hard to get in touch with you two. I am sure you two have been busy working on the defenses.” Admiral Daniel Cloutier said, with a twinkle in his eye and a teasing smile. His image was being displayed on the faceplate screen of the two Marines’ helmet. Alex was thankful that his face would be visible at a distorted angle from the helmet camera. He hoped that his embarrassment was not visible through that distorted picture of him.

  “Anyway, I wanted to discuss a delicate issue with you, so let me lay out the situation for you two in a straightforward manner without beating round the bush. I am afraid you may not like the implication of what I am about to say Alex, but let me get it over with.” Daniel addressed Alex and Cuifen over the conference. “First let me tell you an interesting bit of speculation that the scientists here have come up with. I know all of us have been scratching our heads over what the hell those two Shaitan shuttles ha
ve been doing for the last so many hours.

  According to NASA, and Yusuke had himself provided input on this from Mars, there is a likelihood that the Shaitans are looking for an old base, just like the one they have located on Mars. According to them, if one needed to find a marker similar to the one at the entrance of the Mars Ka-let base, then the Shaitans would need to comb the surface at the exact height at which they are circling right now.”

  “Then we have to attack right now to stop them admiral!” Cuifen said, after the inevitable irritating delay that goes with Earth-Moon conversation.

  “Don’t you have any curiosity Cuifen? Don’t you want to have a look at an amazing 80 thousand year old alien base right here on the moon? Why not let them find it before we attack?” Daniel asked.

  “Sir, what if this is not an 80 thousand year old Ka-let base, but a more recent Shaitan munitions dump?” Cuifen challenged her superior officer.

  “You certainly have a point there colonel. However the analysts here think that is unlikely. The Shaitans would not need to search for their own ammunition dump, they would have the exact location. Even if they find whatever they are looking for and it has weapons, they will have to dig before they can go in. We just need the location, then if they try to dig, we move in and attack.” Daniel said.

  “About that sir… with all due respect, how do you propose a few hundred of us attack and stop two thousand Shaitans from doing whatever it is that they are planning to do?” Alex asked.

  “You have fought and won with worse odds against the Shaitans, Alex. I am sure you have a plan. However I am hoping it would not come to that. If the Shaitans make any hostile move, try to stall them as long as possible. We have reinforcements planned, but it will take 36 hours to reach you, give or take a few hours. But you already know the ETA of the Marines, I called for something else…” Daniel said hesitatingly, as if reluctant to say the next few sentences.

  Then Daniel seemed to have found a way to say what he wanted to say and continued. “Did you two wonder why we are cramming 15 Companies, i.e. 1500 Marines in three ships and sending them over in such an emergency maneuver?” Daniel asked.

  “We did discuss that fact Admiral. My guess is that for once the Navy is genuinely concerned about us Marines and is giving all they have got for our wellbeing.” Cuifen said with a slight smile and an equally slight sarcasm. For any other junior officer speaking to the Admiral that way would have been grounds for disciplinary action, but these three were part of the survivors of the Titan campaign, who had bonded for several years together. The Titan gang shared a special relationship.

  “I wish that was so Cuifen. I genuinely wish that was the case…” Daniel paused. “Unfortunately it isn’t. The reason we are sending over so many Marines is because we don’t intend to bomb those Shaitans from above. We want you to fight them hand to hand and take as many of them as possible captive along with their equipment, especially one of those two shuttles.” Daniel finished and waited for the outburst which he expected from Alex. Daniel was not disappointed.

  “But sir, I am sure you realize how many entirely avoidable casualties the Marines would take if we tried to do that! And after all that bloodletting there is very little chance of actually achieving what you want us to do. We would most probably still end up killing all of them, since the Shaitans don’t exactly surrender. That is if they don’t end up killing all of us Marines first!” Alex was visibly upset now.

  “I know what you mean old friend, and I don’t disagree with you at all. I know this logic is not going to make you feel happy at all, but let me say it. Those Shaitans are from Beta Shaitan, a world we know even less than what we know about Alpha Shaitan. Those Shaitans are carrying critical information about Beta Shaitan in their heads, or wherever they stuff their brains in that body of theirs.

  We haven’t been able to get hold of an intact Shaitan shuttle till date. Those shuttles and its equipment represent technologies that are more important to the long term survival of humanity than…” Daniel stopped in mid-sentence, realizing what he was about to say. He didn’t want to offend the emotions of his Marine friends more that he already had.

  “Might as well go ahead and say it sir. The Marines are expendable…” Alex said bitterly, but almost immediately regretted saying that. He didn’t regret it because Daniel was his commanding officer, but because he understood his friend’s pain and dilemma in having to put the Marines in this position. Daniel had never made any distinction between the lives of a Navy or Marines personnel. To him they were both USC, and Alex knew that.

  Alex realized that he had been unfair to his friend. Nobody must be agonizing over his decision as much as Daniel himself, and yet he was doing his job as an Admiral. It was Daniel’s job to steal any advantage possible for the survival of the human species. The USC was under his command for that express purpose. Alex understood the admiral’s logic.

  “I am sorry I said that sir, I understand the logic of the situation. You are only doing your duty. Let me then do my duty, and try to prevent as many casualties as I can sir. If there is nothing more, then I would like to get on with it, sir.” Alex replied.

  “No General, that is all. Good luck to both of you my old friends, I hope to see both of you in a few days back here in HQ.” Daniel replied a bit sadly and cut off the link.

  There was silence between the two senior Marines and lovers standing on the stark surface of the Moon, as each considered what the following few days might bring. The easy confidence about the upcoming battle was gone, and the two soldiers had to contemplate the loss of Marine lives on a large scale, including their own. After a few minutes Alex looked up and asked Cuifen. “The detailed survey of the lava tubes has long been completed, I am assuming?”

  Col. Cuifen Ma nodded, not in a mood to speak. Then she realized that her nod may not be noticeable due to her suit, so she softly answered. “Yes. The task was completed last year.”

  Four and a half billion years ago, a large planet the size of Mars had nearly killed Earth and all the potential life it would harbor, even before Earth started its wonderful journey. There were at least 20, and possibly as many as 40 planets orbiting the Sun in those days along with billions if not trillions of rocks and asteroids in chaotic and ever colliding orbits.

  The solar system as we know it today was still in the process of formation, being born in a frenzy of enormous collisions of unimaginable violence. Theia, a Mars sized planet collided with Earth and nearly cracked Earth open. The Earth was saved by the fortuitous glancing angle at which Theia collided. It sheared off a large part of the Earth’s crust and mantle, and the energy of the impact melted most of Earth’s crust, covering the entire surface of our planet in a giant ocean of lava.

  Theia itself was absorbed by Earth, adding to its iron core, while some of the lighter crust and mantle was thrown off into space in a huge splash. Over a few thousand years the ejected material from Earth coalesced and formed our Moon. It was however a very different Moon that the one we know today. The impact of the coalescing rocks meant that the entire Moon was molten including the surface.

  Over a period of a few thousand years, the surface skin of the Moon cooled and became a smooth spherical body, while the residual heat underneath the surface kept boiling over for millions of years. The Moon being a much smaller body, lost its heat a lot faster than Earth. Earth has at its core a huge reservoir of radioactive material, the decay of which constantly renews the heat lost. The Moon however was made primarily from the same material as the crust and mantle of Earth, which has almost no radioactive material.

  So the Moon started the process of cooling and solidifying below the surface, while the surface started getting pockmarked with every asteroid and rock hit that it suffered. Those surface wounds persist till this day, since Moon has no geological or atmospheric activity to change its surface.

  During the initial million years or so as the Moon was cooling down, the surface may have solidified, but just below it
lava boiled over and built pressure trying to escape to the surface, just like it does today on Earth. Just like on Earth, the lava found weak spots on the hardened surface, where it could bore lava tubes to escape to the surface. Once the Moon had cooled down sufficiently though, the lava subsided leaving a large network of lava tubes crisscrossing the surface.

  Almost all of these lava tubes were plugged with solidified lava, and hence not visible on the surface of the Moon. However in certain places, where the surface of the moon had been violently excavated by asteroid impacts, the lava tubes got exposed, like in the Shackleton crater. Other than the reservoir of water, the Shackleton crater was an ideal place for humans to build their habitat because of the extensive network of lava tubes, which provided a readymade shelter for humans to construct their base.

  The Shackleton base was constructed on the mouth of two such lava tubes, but the humans had hardly utilized even 1% of the extensive lava tube network for their habitat. It had taken the residents of the Shackleton base years to explore and catalog the lava tube network of the Shackleton crater. This was the survey Alex was referring to.

  “Let’s go back to the base. I want to have a look at those tunnel networks in detail.” Alex said as he started off towards the lava tube opening that housed the command center. “I am hoping to get ideas. Actually I am hoping to get an inspiration, or perhaps a miracle. I have no frigging idea how we can capture a bunch of Kamikaze Shaitans alive, or take one of those shuttles intact.”

  The command center had the state of the art hologram display units. This was the best equipment to view a 3 dimensional underground tunnel structure, unless you were a tech-head. The tech-heads could take the entire 3D structure inside their head and could almost float through it if they wanted. Most Marines on the base however were not tech-heads, it was still a rarity amongst Marines and scientists. Navy had a greater number of tech-heads, although they were a small minority even in the Navy.

  Alex, Cuifen and the chief geologist of the base Dr. Basheer stared at the tunnel network for a long time. Dr. Basheer, a Vienna native with a thick Bavarian accent had overseen a large part of the survey of the tunnel networks and explained the finer points about the map to the two Marine commanders. To Alex it seemed strange to hear an Arab looking man speak in a German accent. He was from a time when national identities were a lot more distinct than it is today.