The biggest problem the Shaitan warships faced was that not all the missiles released by the Avenger, and especially those by the Kali had turned on their rockets yet. They didn’t need to. Some of the missiles were almost on collision course with the Shaitan fleet. They would turn on their thrusters only at the last moment. While the Avenger and Kali were big enough to be tracked by Shaitan radar at this distance, the missiles weren’t. So the antimissiles did not have a target on all the missiles of the Avenger and Kali yet.
The furthest of the Avenger’s missiles had to burn their thrusters for almost 5 minutes to reach their target, but some of Kali’s missiles turned on their thrusters barely 20 seconds before the projected impact, around the same time that the radars were able to detect an un-ignited missile. For these few missiles, the Shaitans had no defense at all.
The Kali got a momentary scare as some enterprising Shaitan captain took advantage of the proximity of Kali and tried to use some of the antimissiles as a Kinetic Kill weapon on Kali. It would have worked too, if any of those antimissiles had managed to collide with Kali. At 1% the speed of light, the Kali was traveling fast enough to have broken up into a million pieces.
Fortunately the odds were long on an antimissile actually being able to hit the Kali, the closest one came was about 800 meters. If it had been one of the monster nukes of the Shaitans it would have vaporized Kali, but the antimissile passed harmlessly.
In the post-analysis of the battle, it would be found that out of the 400 ‘special’ nukes that the Redeemer and Genghis Khan released, only 6 managed to get past the Shaitan point defense system. These 6 missiles however had to gone slightly off course from their target due to their maneuvers to avoid the point defense system. As a result, only one of the missiles was able to get back on course.
Even this single nuclear missile could not have caused too much of damage to the tough hide of a Shaitan warship, since it detonated 600 to 800 meters from the target. The uncertainty in distance was due to the fact that the missile had sent the data at its very last dying moment before detonation, and at the speed of 1% of light, measurement of distance in micro-seconds is a bit inaccurate.
If it had been a Shaitan 400 MT nuke on the relatively thin hide of a human ship, it would have caused a complete destruction and vaporization of the ship. Unfortunately it was a 10 MT human nuke of a relatively thick hide of a Shaitan warship. There would have been damage, but it would be relatively minor and repairable on the go. The ship would not suffer any major degradation in capability, unless the missile had been super lucky and chanced to damage something critical, which was unlikely. Shaitan ships were super robust.
Thus the missile attack of the Redeemer and Genghis Khan did not cause any noteworthy damage to the Shaitan fleet. It had not been expected either. The missile attack of the Avenger and Kali was a different story altogether. More specifically, it were the missiles of Kali that did almost all the damage.
When the missiles of Kali started lighting up almost at the last moment, it would have been apparent to the Shaitans that they would not be able to stop all of incoming missiles. There just wasn’t enough time to intercept them. It was at that moment, the Shaitans displayed their heartless but perfectly logical and militarily sound defense doctrine.
The Shaitans had displayed the same defensive tactic once before, when they had been ambushed by the First Fleet of Admiral Francis Montero near the asteroid belt during the last invasion of the Shaitans. In that battle, only two Shaitan warships had been targeted, and it had appeared that one of them had been saving the other, even at the peril of its own destruction. In this battle, the real algorithm of the heartless but effective Shaitan point defense doctrine as revealed.
The four human ships had targeted only four of the eight Shaitan warships in the fleet with their combined 800 missiles. That was 200 missiles per Shaitan warship targeted. Due to the high speed of approach of the missiles, a lot of them were expected to miss the target. In addition there would be 8 Shaitan warships’ point defense working in tandem, which despite their own difficulties in intercepting the fast moving missiles would be far more effective than in any previous engagement with the Shaitans.
The objective of this opening attack maneuver was not to try and attempt to destroy the entire Shaitan fleet at one go. That would have been too ambitious and probably resulted in achieving nothing. Instead the objective was to deal a body blow to the Shaitan fleet by destroying a few of their ships and reducing their effective strength, without putting the human ships in too much danger.
The humans had already destroyed the ship building capabilities and the space elevators of the Shaitans, so any warship of the Shaitan that they managed to destroy would probably be irreplaceable for many years, likely for a decade. With this objective in mind, Tango-1 through Tango-4 were the only ships that had been targeted. Each of those Shaitan warships receiving the attention of 200 missiles each.
The high speed approach of the missiles meant that no missile could change its target, if its originally assigned target had already been destroyed by another missile. This meant that it was better to have an overkill in terms of number of missiles and ensure that all the ships targeted were destroyed, rather than waste this tremendous opportunity to inflict damage on the enemy fleet without putting the human fleet in danger.
In the end, 200 missiles per Shaitan warship targeted did not turn out to be an overkill. In fact, it would probably have yielded better results if only 3 ships had been targeted instead of 4. The effect of 8 Shaitan warships’ point defense working in tandem had been underestimated, and the brutal defense algorithm had not been accounted for.
The Shaitan point defense system, working as a single entity, simply allocated priorities to the four ships targeted. From the post-battle analysis, it appeared that Tango-4 had been given the highest priority, followed by Tango-1, followed by Tango-3, and Tango-2 had the lowest priority. Whether the priority assigned was random, or based on some social or military consideration would only be known after the end of the Shaitan wars, when humans would be able to study the Shaitan culture and war doctrines in detail.
Any missile aimed at Tango-4 was targeted on first priority by all the 8 ships, including Tango-2, which might do so even at the cost of ignoring a missile heading towards itself. This meant that despite the optimization efforts of the Shaitan point defense computer, sometimes antimissiles were wasted when the first one destroyed an incoming missile, and the follow up antimissile had nothing to destroy.
Despite this seemingly inefficiency, the Shaitan defense philosophy was obvious – ensure that some of the warships escaped unscathed, ready to fight, rather than trying to save all of the ships equally and in the process risking losing all of them or having most of them damaged badly.
It made perfect sense militarily, especially in the middle of a battle. A damaged ship sometimes becomes a liability. However it was an algorithm no human military could have ever accepted. While human socio-cultural organization would become one of the major factors in contributing to the domination of humans in this part of the galaxy, this as one of those rare weaknesses of the way human society bonded that hampered human fighting capability.
Tango-2 and Tango-3 were completely destroyed. Tango-2 in fact was vaporized, since almost no attempt was made to stop missiles targeted at it. In the order of priority, Tango-3 did receive some point defense, but it was woefully inadequate. Tango-3 broke up into hundreds if not thousands of pieces. Tango-1 received to two fairly large hits, and a minor one. At the speed at which the human fleet crossed the Shaitan fleet, it was impossible to be sure, but most likely there were two gaping holes in Tango-1.
Tango-1 was most likely crippled but not dead. That may not be good enough from human point of view. The Shaitans were in their home system, and the next round of battle that the human fleet would be able conduct with the Shaitans would be over a year later. Although the Shaitan ship building capabilities may have been destroyed, it was more t
han likely that the Shaitans would be able to repair Tango-1 in one year’s time.
As an endorsement to the Shaitan defensive algorithm, however heartless it might appear, Tango-4 was untouched. In effect the Shaitans had been able to save two of the four ships, which they would have lost if they had used their point defense system like the humans do.
Admiral Dar sat back in his chair in the Flag bridge, wondering what he could have done better, what mistakes had he made? The operation had not been a failure. They had managed to destroy two of the Shaitan warships without putting themselves in any danger, except for the minor scare that Kali faced, surely that had to count for something.
Hamid could not however get over the feeling that he had somehow not used the opportunity to its maximum potential. The humans would not get a similar opportunity again in this battle. Could he have insisted and gotten more of the ‘special’ missiles? That would surely have helped in killing more ships. The Hamid reminded himself that these 800 ‘special’ missiles had cost over two billion dollars. There was a limit to USC budgets, and those limits had been busted badly even to procure these 800.
Then Hamid wondered if he could have used some of his regular missiles for this maneuver. He quickly remembered the mathematical simulation of the performance of the regular missiles in this situation. It was as good as throwing those missile down the drain. They could not have helped.
In hindsight Hamid realized that they should have targeted only 3 Shaitan warships instead of 4. It was very likely that all 3 would have been destroyed. Unfortunately, one is always wiser in hindsight. At the time of the planning targeting just 4 ships with 200 missiles each looked like an overkill. He sighed and gave up. In a year’s time the two fleets meet again for round 2, the humans will be facing 6 Shaitan warships instead of 8. For that he had to be thankful.
Chapter 14
The Watering Hole
C/2088 S12, Near Alpha Shaitan System
October 2107
Despite the Avenger and Kali running dangerously low on fuel, they did not unfurl their Harvester to suck out hydrogen molecules from space for a long time after crossing the Shaitan fleet, although they were depleting their fuel by burning their 8 ion plasma engines at full thrust to slow down and come to a halt from their speed of 1% of light.
The gossamer thin Harvester was extremely vulnerable to laser, which would burn through the Harveter in no time at all. Only when the human ships had put a distance of 3 light hours between themselves and the Shaitan fleet, did they dare unfurl the harvester. At that distance, even a Shaitan laser lost enough coherence not be a pinpoint of light. The laser light beam spread over large enough area to turn weak and lose its lethality.
The Redeemer and Genghis Khan had separated from each other by a few hundred thousand kilometers during their split at the beginning of the battle. Now they slowly converged back on their way to the other end of the Alpha Shaitan system, as they started the long process of slowing down using their main ion plasma engines.
The captains of the ships speculated how the Shaitans would interpret the sudden loss of the human ships’ ion plasma drive signature, upon the unfurling of the harvester. Would they assume that the human ships have turned off the engines to avoid tracking? Or would they correctly figure out that humans have cloaked their drive signature. In either case, the Shaitans should have lost track of the human ships.
It took the human ships almost four months to come to a complete halt, by which time the ships had travelled 15 light hours on either side of the Alpha Shaitan system. The ships kept their engines burning to take them back towards the Alpha Shaitan system. This time however their thrusters were pointed slightly away from the exact location of the Alpha Shaitan gas giant.
The ships were pointed towards a point slightly north of the plane of orbit of the gas giant and to its side. This seemingly arbitrary and random point was neither random, nor arbitrary. This was the location of the furthest comet discovered by humans. It had been a chance discovery of the LTKS probe as it headed towards the Alpha Shaitan system, sweeping its telescopes in all directions.
At that point it had been an interesting scientific discoveries. Although astronomers had theorized that comets should be plentiful in the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud, till very recently humans did not have the capability to reach those places and could only observe comets that came to them near the sun and hence near Earth.
During its trip towards Alpha Shaitan, the LTKS probe had observed and documented many comets and other rocky bodies, validating the theories of the astronomers. The furthest such body to be documented by the LTKS before it made its dramatic impact on the face of Jehannum, was a typical comet that the scientists named C/2088 S12. It was at a distance of 20 AU from the Alpha Shaitan gas giant and slightly high on the north of the solar plane. The crew of the human ships called the comet by a different name. A name that would be picked up by the media and stick to the comet forever – the ‘Watering Hole’.
The Watering Hole was ideal for the purpose of the combat mission planners’ purpose. The comet was largely made of ice, with a rocky core. That single comet was a repository of trillions of tons of water. Being relatively close to the Alpha Shaitan system, the comet’s position was equidistant from the two pairs of human ships on opposite sides of Alpha Shaitan system. Thus it was an ideal location as a meeting point for the two pairs of ships.
The most important fact was that according to the known best acceleration speed of the Shaitan warships, a Shaitan fleet starting from Alpha Shaitan would not be able to reach that point before the human ships, assuming that human ships were detected the moment they started decelerating.
Admiral Hamid Dar knew that there were risks in making such assumptions and calculations. The Shaitans themselves had made such a calculation in their last invasion of the solar system. They had calculated a point of rendezvous with the fleet from Beta Shaitan making similar assumptions about the capabilities of human ships.
Hamid himself had been part of the Third Fleet that bust those assumptions and beat the Shaitans to the rendezvous point. It would be a bitter irony if Hamid now led his fleet in a situation where his position gets reversed, and the Shaitans manage to somehow surprise the humans and beat them to the rendezvous point. He had alternative contingency plans for such an eventuality, but none of those plans were pretty.
The two pair of human ships accelerated towards their rendezvous point for about two months from opposite ends of the Alpha Shaitan system reaching just under half a percent of the speed of light. Then they turned around and started decelerating. It would take an equal amount of time for them to come to a stop and to their destination – the Watering Hole.
The deceleration phase was the dangerous time. It was during this phase that the ion plasma thrusters of all the four human ships would be turned towards the watering hole, not camouflaged by the harvester, and clearly visible. At this distance the Watering Hole and Alpha Shaitan were almost in the same direction, so the engine signature of all the four human ships should be clearly visible from Alpha Shaitan.
There was a thriving betting circle in each of the ships, as is normal on any military vessel. The biggest bets were being made on the question – would the Shaitans rush towards the Watering hole in an effort to cut off the human fleet from joining together, very similar to the action that the Third Fleet had taken on the Shaitan fleet? Or would they play safe and wait near their own system to defend it?
The Shaitans answered that question almost 10 days after the human ships had started decelerating. Six Shaitan warship signatures were detected heading towards the Watering Hole. Capt. Brogan and Admiral Dar were puzzled and debated the issue for hours in the Flag Bridge. The two had become close over the years of working together and would spend hours sipping coffee and talking.
If the Shaitans wanted to cut off the two pairs of human ships from meeting each other, why did they wait for 10 days before making the move? Shaitans weren’t known for i
ndecision, hesitation or spending time in debates. The rate of acceleration of the Shaitan fleet clearly indicated that they had no hope of cutting off the human fleet and preventing the two pairs from meeting up first. Surely the Shaitans were aware of their own rate of acceleration, so why were they rushing towards the Watering Hole?
While the two speculated a lot of reason, it would be a few years before they got their answers. It would be only after the humans started winning the siege of Jehannum, and were close to the nest-of-nests would a data repository captured, that the Shaitans had failed to erase reveal the truth. The Shaitan Warmaster made the decision to wait for the badly damaged Tango-1 to get ready.
The badly damaged Tango-1 had been going through intense emergency repairs for the last 6 months. The pace of repairs had been hampered by the bombed out infrastructure. The Warmaster had been promised that Tango-1 would be ready in less than 3 cycles, and he decided to wait for it before proceeding. As history would bear witness, this decision would prove to be fatal.
The Shaitan fleet had the chance of catching the human fleet just as they arrived at the Watering Hole, even if they could not have cut them off. If the Shaitan fleet had pushed their ships to dangerous limits, they might even have had the outside chance of just about cutting the two parts of the human fleet before they could meet.
The answer to the question as to why the Shaitan Warmaster decided to still head towards the Watering Hole, despite the fact that when he started off, he had no chance of cutting off the two pairs of humans ships from meeting up was simple. He had correctly guessed why the human ships were heading for the Watering Hole – water. What he got wrong was the reason why human ships needed water.
Retribution (Shaitan Wars) Page 21