The need to reflect back as much of the deadly laser of the Shaitans as possible, made human ships look aesthetically as dull and drab as possible. The ship was a featureless cylinder with nothing superfluous jutting out. There were no windows, or any other unnecessary structure on the surface. The only thing that was permanently embedded on the surface of the ships were sensor pods, hundreds of them in every possible position on the surface.
These were the eyes and ears of the humans cloistered inside the ship, their only connection to the external universe. Even the sensors pods had computer controlled covers, which the AWPS would cover as it rotated, just before any of the sensors came in the line of contact of a laser beam. The AWPS system had been improved over the last 40 years.
The new generation of AWPS systems weren’t simply dumb spinning systems, which simply tried to compensate the sensor inputs for the spin as the first systems were. The new generation systems were aware of exactly where the laser beams were hitting. It could anticipate where on the surface the laser beam would hit next due to the spin, and accordingly close the sensor ports that may be in danger.
The only part of the ship that was vulnerable was the engine exhaust ports, which could not be covered. Those few square meters of the surface were very hard to target however, with the enemy rarely coming in line of sight directly with the recessed ports hidden inside the ship, with just a narrow opening. It would happen only if the ship was running away from the enemy, or somehow the enemy was able to ambush from the rear.
Even then it is hard to target and keep a laser pointed at a few square meters of the surface from hundreds of kilometers, which is the typical distance at which a space battle is fought. Since the engine ports were such a critical part of the ship, just in case it got targeted, the AWPS system had sensors around the ports, and was linked to the CADBE system, which would jink and make targeting that much more difficult.
Capt. Brogan knew all this. It was not lasers he was afraid of right now. It was their own terrific speed that scared him. If the Shaitans had become aware of them and even threw a rock in their direction, they were toast. The real cause of anxiety in the entire fleet was not knowing. Not knowing whether the Shaitans were aware of them or not.
The primary requirement for this first phase of their operation was stealth. The AWPS system had thrown up a problem for them due to that requirement. It was a new demand that had been made of the AWPS system, which no previous battle had demanded of it, so the AWPS system had to be enhanced.
The AWPS system reflected 99% of the laser energy in visible light and more than 98% in the infrared and ultraviolet spectrum. That was the primary job of the AWPS. That very property however gave it a lousy stealth characteristics. It would stick out like a sore thumb by reflecting any ambient light available.
This had never been a problem in the previous battles with the Shaitans in the solar system, where there was so much light that you could not expect to remain hidden in the open irrespective of how dull the external surface was. The only way to hide in the solar system was to hide behind something.
However out here, far at the edge of the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud, one could expect to stay hidden in the open up to a very close distance because this place had so little light. The entire human planning was predicated on that fact. Things got complicated however as one approached the planet Alpha Shaitan. The planet may not be a source of light, but it was not absolutely cold.
Alpha Shaitan, like all gas giants was emanating heat, which in the electromagnetic spectrum radiated as infrared light. As they approached Alpha Shaitan, the planet glowed in the infrared, which would be absorbed by ordinary ship surfaces. The AWPS however was designed to reflect it back, almost entirely. The human ships would glow as brightly as the gas giant Alpha Shaitan and it would be a dead giveaway.
Thus the AWPS was improved by the engineer. A thin coat of carbon, just a few micrometers thick had been applied to the entire skin of the ships. The carbon surface had the property of absorbing over 99% of the infrared light thrown at it, thus making it appear black in infrared. The moment Shaitan laser beam touched the surface, the carbon would burn and expose the shiny AWPS surface. The logic was that someone would be aiming a laser beam only if the ship has been discovered, in which case stealth is moot anyway, so the shiny skin can be exposed to be able to do its job.
The Fifth Fleet had taken precaution against the Shaitans using the fleets’ own speed against them. They were going to pass Alpha Shaitan system at what was thought to be an undetectable distance given their speed. They would pass Alpha Shaitan at a distance of 6 million kilometers, while Jehannum would be about 5.5 million kilometer. The outermost moon of Alpha Shaitan would be at a distance of 4.7 million kilometers.
That distance was thought far enough while travelling at 4.8% speed of light to be undetectable by passive scanners. The humans had not detected any active scanners like their own ‘Lighthouse’ near Alpha Shaitan. Even if the Shaitans detected them, the distance was thought to be too far for the enemy to send anything their way, which could reach the Fifth Fleet before it passed by, given the speed at which the Fifth Fleet was travelling.
Yet the distance was close enough for the Fifth Fleet to survey, monitor and if necessary give updated commands to their crowbars, which were slowly drifting away from them. That was the human calculation. However calculations could always be mistaken.
The crowbars had been fired just over a month ago. A crowbar was the generic nickname the navy crew used for any kinetic kill weapon. This included both the rail gun mounted inside the spine of the ship as well as the guided kinetic missiles that were drifting towards Jehannum and the fourth moon of Alpha Shaitan AS-d right now. There were 768 of the kinetic missiles, and there were two types of crowbars in the mix – the ‘Hammers’ and the ‘Nest Busters’.
The official name for the smaller missile was GK grade 1, but the crew lovingly called it ‘Thor’s Hammer’ or simply the ‘Hammer’. GK stood for ‘Guided Kinetics’ and grade 1 denoted the fact that it was the smallest of the guided kinetic missiles. The entire missile without propellant weighed just 8 Kg, and with 6 Kg of solid fuel propellant weighed just 14 Kg. The missile had no payload, the entire weight was that of the casing, a small rocket that generated a miniscule thrust more reminiscent of a fire cracker, and some onboard electronics, sensors and communication circuitry.
But for the electronics, the missile was only slightly more sophisticated than a rocket firecracker used by civilians. As a result it was a dirt cheap ammunition by military standards. It would have been even cheaper, had it not been for the odd shape in which it was built, which required the rockets to be designed uniquely for the missile.
Unlike the usual imagery of a missile or a rocket, GK-1 was almost disc shaped. The Hammer was meant to be used in space or airless environment against a space target or a target on the surface of a moon. At the current speed that the Hammers had inherited on being released by the Fifth Fleet of 4.8% of light, and with an expected impact weight of 10 Kg, the Hammers were an overkill for the targets they were intended.
Each 10 Kg Hammer would hit its target with over 400 terajoules of energy, which is over 6 times the yield of the first human atomic bombs. Their targets were Shaitan made objects like construction yards, space stations etc., something which hardly required that kind of power. However that was the minimum power that could be unleased at this great speed.
That great speed had a downside when targeting things like a space station. If you have thin cylindrical and aerodynamic shaped missile hitting a space station at such a great speed, it would simply go through the station, punching a hole but not causing too much destruction.
Thus the Hammers were disk shaped thin objects. Once deployed, they thinned and spread out further to make a disk with an area of about 15 square meters. When it hit a space station or a similar object, it was able to transfer most of the momentum on to the structure causing its complete destruction.
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br /> The ‘Nest Busters’, as the name suggested were designed to destroy the nests of the Shaitans on Jehannum and on the moon AS-d. These bigger brothers of the Hammer were designated GK-3 and weighed 100 Kg without fuel. These were designed to cut through atmosphere, so they were streamlined thin cylinders that really looked closer to a ‘crowbar’.
The thin Nest Busters were designed to penetrate hundreds of meters into the surface of Jehannum before they came to a stop. At that point the whole energy of the momentum of the missile would get converted into heat equivalent to half a megaton TNT thermonuclear bomb. An explosion inside an enclosed space is 10 to a hundred times more effective than on the surface. It is enough to wipe out the largest of Shaitan nests.
The planning for this strike had happened using data from the LTKS probe. The space installations and the installations on the surface of Jehannum and AS-d as had been identified by the fleeting glance of that probe, had been used for identifying targets. This targeting information was being updated as the Avenger added to that information.
Some of the space targets had moved, while new space targets had appeared. Most of the surface targets were expected to remain static, but the LTKS had only seen one face of the moons, and it was more than likely that the same face would not be presented as the Avenger approached. The LTKS data had only been used as a guide to assess the number and nature of targets on the surface. It gave an idea of how many and what nature of targets on the surface needed to be hit.
The actual surface targets were being assigned by the Avenger as it approached at a tremendous speed towards the Alpha Shaitan system. The targets would have to be identified till the very last moment, as the two moons were spinning all the time and would present a slightly rotated face to the KK weapons, from what was visible at that moment.
While the GK-3 were called ‘nest busters’, in reality there was no guarantee that they would harm a nest or even reach one. From Shaitan records and interrogation, humans knew that the Shaitan nests were buried deep within Jehannum. Depending on rocks and soil, the GK-3 KK weapons could bury themselves a few hundred meters at best. If the Shaitan nests were further below, they may escape unharmed.
What was certain was that all surface installations identified would be completely obliterated. A large part of these surface installations had to be for the support of space ventures and scanning space. To that extent, the GK-3s would fulfill their objective of crippling the Shaitan space capability, and their capability to look out into space.
The last 5 minutes before impact were incredibly hectic for Capt. Brogan as he had to monitor the target assignment being done by the weapons officers, and at the same time ensure that the rest of the crew were monitoring their individual tasks, and not gaping at the wonderful view of the Alpha Shaitan system. Capt. Brogan no longer had the time to be scared about what would happen if a rock was thrown at them.
It was a pity that the Avenger was travelling at such a fast clip. Capt. Brogan and his crew barely had enough time to watch the most amazing view that humans had set their eyes on up to that point. A large gas giant in the coldness of space, glowing in the infrared with its 16 moons giving off their own IR signatures. Some of the moons like Jehannum and AS-d were actually warmer on the surface than their parent gas giant, and hence giving off brighter, albeit smaller IR signatures.
The telescopes focusing on Jehannum and AS-d kept zooming out to keep the size of the two moons constant as the Avenger rushed into the Alpha Shaitan system at almost a twentieth the speed of light. The lack of change in size of the two moons belied the tremendous speed at which the Avenger was rushing in. The only change in the picture of the two moons was that the images kept getting higher in definition as the ships kept approaching the system. It almost felt as if they were watching a century old movie with its ancient internet system, slowly downloading a pixelated image, which kept getting sharper in definition as more of it was downloaded.
When the crowbars actually hit their target, the Avenger had no way to see it directly, for it was already past the moons itself, since it was travelling at the same speed as the crowbars. The Avenger would instead have to rely on the two probes trailing it by 15 light seconds which had been released a long time ago expressly for this purpose. The two probes had been ejected using the pneumatic ejectors, and had by now separated from the Avenger over a period of time without having to burn any rockets and give themselves away.
The two probes would pass the moons about 5 minutes after the Avenger, and during that time would record and transmit over a tight laser beam whatever it observed. It was frustrating for Capt. Brogan to have to wait even for those 15 seconds to see the results of something he had dreamt and fantasized for nearly a decade.
At least he was thankful that nothing had been thrown at the Avenger, which meant in all probability they had not been detected or detected too late. The Shaitans were unlikely to be able to hit them anymore. At least not till they return back to the system a few years later.
Capt. Brogan kept himself occupied while waiting to ensure that the crew were scanning the other side of Jehannum and AS-d and transmitting the same to Kali, trailing behind the Avenger. He did not envy the position of Kali. In some ways, Avenger had it easy compared to Kali. In many ways, Avenger had come out of the blue and hit the Shaitans without warning, but that won’t be the case for Kali.
The Shaitans would use whatever scanning and sensing capability they had left to look for any follow on attack. Being intelligent creatures, they might even guess the timing of the next attack – around the time when the other face of the moon was turned towards the direction of Earth. Kali had taken steps to mitigate this fact.
It had modified its engine burn many months ago, such that it had fallen behind Avenger. Around the time when the Avenger had released its crowbars, the Kali had done the same. While the Avenger had folded up its harvester and coasted towards Alpha Shaitan, Kali had done something different.
After ensuring that all the crowbars were safely out of the way, as to cause no harm to its delicate Harvester, the Kali had unfurled its harvester again. The Harvester had not been unfurled to collect more fuel per se, but to mask the next thing it did. It opened up its engines once again to start accelerating. With luck, anyone watching from Alpha Shaitan would not be able to see the ion plasma exhaust of Kali, as they got occluded by the Harvester.
Soon Kali was travelling at a slightly higher speed than Avenger and slowly catching up with it. Once Kali had reached the required speed, it folded back its Harvester and started coasting just like the Avenger. The Kali had almost fully caught up with the Avenger. It was just 30 light seconds behind, and would pass the Alpha Shaitans system 10 minutes after the Avenger. It was hoped that the Shaitans would not be able to scan all directions actively, so quickly after being struck and would miss Kali as well.
Unfortunately for Kali, this trick presented a logistical problem with their targeting. Kali had released extra probes along with their crowbars to transmit the picture of Jehannum and AS-d, as the crowbars reached the moons nearly 30 hours later, when the other face of Jehannum, and nearly the opposite face of AS-d was presented to the crowbars. However Kali itself would be many light hours away by that time, so any change in targeting would not reach the crowbars in time.
So the real time targeting of Kali would not be as accurate as that of Avenger. It should not make much of a difference for the fixed targets on the surface, but the space targets orbiting the moons might present a problem if they move. The crowbars themselves should not be detectable being so small and travelling so fast, but unscheduled movement to confuse any further KK attack was possible by the Shaitans. The inaccuracy of targeting was a fair tradeoff for ensuring safety of Kali.
When the images from the observation probe started arriving, it was a bit of a letdown for Capt. Brogan. The impacts looked like pinpricks of light from the faraway probe, nowhere as dramatic as the image of the LTKS ramming into Jehannum. As the observatio
n probe neared Jehannum, the surface strikes could be viewed in greater detail, while the space strikes were no longer visible.
Whatever had been hit in space had disintegrated after the initial flash of energy, while the strikes on the surface glowed hot, sustained by the availability of oxygen in the atmosphere, which oxidized the rocks and other surface material with the heat generated. The atmosphere of Jehannum had no cloud to speak of, since there wasn’t enough heat on the surface to evaporate water. So the devastation on the surface could be watched in uninterrupted glory.
It looked as if the dark face of Jehannum had spouted hundreds of volcanoes. While a cheer went around the crew, Capt. Brogan forced his attention on to the targeting computer display to look at the efficacy of the targeting. Only after he had seen the final figure did he let out a smile. Things were going according to plan so far. The targeting computer displayed a figure of 98%.
There was an unforeseen added bonus to the harvester technology for the military. The biggest issue for an offensive force is the lack of stealth or surprise. One needs to burn the deceleration thrust to slow down into the system being attacked. This gives ample warning to the defending forces, whose system is being attacked.
In fact this is exactly the kind of warning that saved humanity three times that the Shaitans made incursions into the heart of the solar system. The amount of warning time that the defending forces get is a function of how fast the attacking fleet is travelling and what its deceleration capabilities are. The faster the fleet is travelling or the lower the deceleration capability, the longer the warning time received by the defending forces.
This very fact gave the humans ample warning and preparation time on each occasion the Shaitans attacked, enabling them to somehow prepare a defense and thwart each of the invasions. Now the shoe was on the other foot. It was the humans that were doing the attacking into a Shaitan home system. It was now the turn of the Shaitans to receive ample warning.
Retribution (Shaitan Wars) Page 18