Capt. Lai had cursed himself because he had forgotten to slip on his combat suit. He went back inside and hastily slipped on his suit. Steadied himself to go through the routine of checking his suit and then ran towards the bridge. As he navigated the short corridor, the artificial gravity started turning off as per condition 1 procedure, and he cursed once more as he had to clumsily float the rest of the way.
Capt. Lai didn’t have to shout for status from his bridge crew, as he had seen in so many of the old movies. The status was constantly streaming into his head as the condition 1 alarm rang. He knew exactly why the XO had sounded the alert. Still hundreds of thousands of years of evolution meant that humans needed to talk to each other, however much information was fed directly to their heads.
“Analysis XO?” Capt. Lai asked.
“Sir it is Tango-6. We are almost certain of that fact from its engine signature. We now know why it didn’t need to fire up its engines earlier, so we now know why we didn’t detect it earlier… it wasn’t waiting in ambush at all sir. This is a far more elaborate plan. This is a high speed ambush!
Chasing that bogey, we were expected to be roughly at a certain place at a certain time. Tango-6 timed itself to be at the same place at the same time, swooping in at a high speed, running dark. That way we get almost no warning before Tango-6 is almost upon us. Its missiles would also be dark, coasting along with it, lighting up at the very last moments to target us precisely.
At least that was the plan. We threw them off with our arced path, not so much by the deviation from the expected route. At the high speed it is travelling, it can cross that additional distance in no time. We threw them off with the slower than expected timing due to the arced path.” Lt. Imogen Baker replied.
Capt. Lai mentally both, thanked and cursed his friend Capt. Brogan for being right yet again. Then he ensured that the suit’s conversation was in private mode before he said. “Excellent analysis lieutenant, but a bit of an overreaction to the situation. How long do you think we have before Tango-6 can realistically attack us?”
“Between 64 to 66 hours according to the latest estimate sir.” Lt. Baker replied.
“Would you want the crew to remain in condition 1 alert, and in their suits all of that time lieutenant?” Capt. Lai asked with a small smile.
“No sir. Sorry… I guess I did overreact on seeing Tango-6. I will lower the alert to condition 2 immediately.” The XO replied, suitably chastised.
“Don’t sweat about it Imogen. You are doing far better than I ever did as an XO. You are methodical and diligent, and will make a good captain one day. And yes… please lower the alert. I would prefer to think about our upcoming battle, free from this clumsy suit.” Capt. Lai smiled and patted Lt. Baker on her shoulders.
Capt. Lai was on his own as far as formulating a battle tactic was concerned. He was a few light hours away from the rest of the fleet. There was no way to hold a consultation with the Admiral of Capt. Brogan. They would send their inputs, but that was all he could expect. Capt. Lai got around to fixing his priorities first.
Whatever be the outcome of the coming battle, he had to ensure that the bogey that the Genghis Khan had been chasing for the last 3 months got destroyed. If the Genghis Khan failed to destroy the bogey, it would cause unimaginable death and destruction on Earth. “Never again!” Capt. Lai silently said to himself. He of all the people could never let such a thing happen again. No more children would be orphans of another holocaust under his watch.
Capt. Lai took the computer’s 3D trajectory projection inside his head to understand the designs of the enemy in detail. From the direction of the engine burn and its current trajectory, the computer could easily figure out its previous trajectory when it was rushing in cold at high speed. Tango-6 had built up speed for nearly 7 months. It had taken advantage of a unique situation to hide its engine burn.
The Shaitan fleet had approached in a straight line from Alpha Shaitan to the ‘Watering Hole’ comet. After the battle, Tango-6 continued on the same straight line trajectory more or less, despite the emergency acceleration to change direction by the Shaitan fleet during the last moments. Tango-6 continued on that path without decelerating.
One couldn’t say whether Tango-6 didn’t slow down immediately because it was incapable of slowing due to the single hit it had received, or by design. The result in any case was that it travelled a far enough distance such that it could accelerate back straight towards the Watering Hole in the same straight line with Alpha Shaitan. As a result Tango-6 would remain hidden behind the Watering Hole as viewed from Alpha Shaitan.
That was the reason that Tango-6 could accelerate for 7 months without being observed behind the Watering hole. At a certain pre-calculated moment, the bogey was given the signal, and it started its mad dash towards Earth to lure the human fleet into open space. If the Genghis Khan had followed a straight line course at maximum acceleration, then Tango-6 would have intercepted the path of Genghis Khan, just as Genghis Khan was about to intercept the bogey.
Tango-6 intended to do to the human fleet what the Avenger and Kali had done to the Shaitan fleet. Use the bogey as bait, just as the Redeemer and Genghis Khan had been used as bait. Since Tango-6 was coming in at almost 90° to the path of Genghis Khan, from Tango-6’s perspective Genghis Khan was almost stationary, just like the Shaitan fleet had been.
Tango-6 had planned on coming in cold and silent and surprise the human fleet exactly the way the humans had done at the opening round of the battle and destroyed two Shaitan warships without ever putting any of their ships in serious danger. Humans may have learnt technology from the Shaitans, but the Shaitans in turn were learning deviousness and deceptive war tactics from the humans.
The Shaitan plan would have worked, but for the humans, who did not exactly take the bait wholeheartedly. First they did not send their entire fleet, so at best Tango-6 could destroy just one ship. More importantly, the Genghis Khan had not followed the straight route, thus putting paid to all the precise calculation of the Shaitans. That didn’t mean that the Genghis Khan was not in danger. It was in grave danger, especially since the Genghis Khan was constrained to try its best to destroy the bogey while also fighting Tango-6.
Tango-6 perhaps had counted on not having to use its weaker ion plasma engines at all, and do any last minute course correction with its emergency thrusters. That would have allowed Tango-6 to remain hidden till almost the last moment. Unfortunately the arced path of the Genghis Khan had forced Tango-6 to open up its ion plasma thrusters almost 65 hours before interception, since the emergency thrusters of a Shaitan warship would not last as long as was needed to do that course correction.
Even with its ion plasma thrusters running for 65 hours, Tango-6 would still need its full emergency thruster rocket fuel to be able to intercept Genghis Khan. The emergency thrusters would be opened up in the last few hours to adjust course, depending on how the Genghis Khan responded after detecting Tango-6.
The tube based launching system of the Shaitan warships was not as suited for this kind of stealth attack compared to the pneumatic ejectors of the human ships. Pneumatic ejectors were able to silently launch as many missiles as required, which would silently coast along with the ship, and come to life at the last moment to hit their targets giving almost no warning or time to stop them.
Tube ejection depended on the motive power of the missile itself to eject it out of the ship, which meant that the rocket exhaust of the missile would be visible to the enemy as the missile got launched. That was one of the many reasons why humans had abandoned tube based launch systems after the first generation of human space warships.
Still with 16 tube launchers and a fast rate of fire, the Shaitan warship could pump out a large volume of missiles in a very short time in the case of a sneak attack. With the stealth element gone from the attack of Tango-6 however, it was free to pump out a lot more missiles in advance and overwhelm the point defense of the Genghis Khan. In some ways, exposing the a
mbush had made things more dangerous for Genghis Khan.
“Lt. Da’ Silva,” Capt. Lai turned to his weapons officer, “to the ready room. You too XO.” Capt. Lai rose and turned towards the captain’s ready room, next to the bridge. Once inside he removed his suit, and invited the others to do the same. Once everyone was seated, the captain continued. “Here is what I have in mind. I want your comments lieutenants… First order of business is to destroy that bogey at any cost. Even if it put the Genghis Khan in more danger.”
“With due respect sir, I think that position is unwarranted. This is not the only chance to destroy the bogey. Even if we don’t make it out of this battle, the Avenger and Redeemer have ample time to chase the bogey down and kill it. Putting the Genghis Khan is any danger to kill the bogey in my mind is not required, sir.” Lt. Da’ Silva said.
“Not required! Do you have any idea what that thing can do to Earth?! Of course you don’t! You should be thankful that you didn’t have to see the ravages of the holocaust first hand lieutenant. Never again! That is the oath we humans took. That is the oath you took soldier when you joined USC! You swore to sacrifice your life to protect Earth!” Capt. Lai had turned red and was shouting at his weapons officer.
“Sir! I must protest that insinuation! I am no coward! I am only doing my duty in letting my captain know that this is not the best option!” Lt. Da’ Silva was visibly upset. If he had been back in Rio, he would have broken the nose of the man who insinuated him as a coward.
“Lt. Da’ Silva. Would you please give me a moment with the captain alone please?” Lt. Baker intervened to lower the temperature.
“Only with the captain’s permission ma’am.” Lt. Da’ Silva said stiffly with a stubborn look, gazing straight at the bulkhead. Avoiding eye contact with both his superior officers.
Imogen gave a pleading look towards the captain. Capt. Lai had cooled down slightly, so he said in a softer tone. “You have my permission lieutenant. Please wait outside for a moment.”
The moment Lt. Da’ Silva was gone, Imogen turned towards the captain and said. “Sir. I needed to tell this to you privately. I think you are letting your personal emotions weigh in on command decisions… You may be absolutely right about whatever your priorities are, but I think it warrants hearing your weapons officer’s views. If I am not mistaken you had yourself said that Lt. Da’ Silva was one of the most gifted tacticians in the navy… I mean if you don’t like his arguments, you could politely dismiss them, but there is nothing worse than telling a Latin guy that he is chicken. Trust me sir, I dated one for a long time.”
Despite his previous demeanor, Capt. Lai couldn’t help but break into a laugh. “You have your talents Imogen, I must give that much to you. I am really lucky to have you as my XO. Please don’t mind by sexist remark… but it takes a woman to tell two testosterone laced men, how stupidly they are behaving. You are right of course. Please call in the lieutenant, we need to hear our weapons officer’s views.”
When Lt. Da’ Silva reentered the Ready room, Capt. Lai said. “Lt. Da’ Silva. I think I was too quick to judgment, and made an unfair characterization. I apologize for that. However my argument still stands. So I would like to hear from you, why you think my priorities are lopsided.”
Lt. Da’ Silva was flush red with embarrassment at the captain apologizing to him. He evaded his superior officer’s eyes while replying to him. “No apologies needed captain. I understand your feelings sir. You are right, I cannot truly understand the scale of the horror like you do. My argument was simply this. If this was the only chance of stopping that bogey, then I would be in complete agreement with you.
The Genghis Khan and its crew is a fair price to pay if that was the only thing that could stop the bogey, but that is not the case in my opinion. With your permission, can I show something on the screen sir, it is easier for me to explain that way than simply dumping it for you to download in your head?” Lt. Da’ Silva asked. Capt. Lai nodded, and the weapons officer dumped his data to the screen.
It was a schematic diagram with the positions of the Genghis Khan, the bogey and Tango-6. “If we were to launch our missiles right now, they would not be able to reach the bogey. They can at their maximum range reach till this point…” Lt. Da’ Silva highlighted a point that was well short of the bogey. “The earliest we can launch our missiles successfully is when the separation between us and the bogey, is this much…” The diagram changed with the Genghis Khan and the bogey a bit closer.
“In theory our missiles have a slightly higher range, but I have taken into consideration unexpected situations like the missiles falling slightly short due to fuel calibration errors, or the bogey demonstrating a slight increase in its thrust in its attempt at evasion. Our records show that this class of Shaitan ships don’t have emergency acceleration, so it should not be able to suddenly accelerate out of trouble, but it might be able to squeeze out a little more from its engines in an emergency.” Lt. Da’ Silva looked at the two, and they nodded, indicating that they were following him so far.
“Ok… So we were supposed to reach this separation in about 26 hours, with our current rate of acceleration. We could however reach that separation in 3 hours 40 minutes if we used our emergency acceleration. I know that will exhaust a fair part of our water reserves, but in this high speed skirmish, I don’t think we need a full tank of water for emergency thrust.
However it is a bad idea for another reason, which will make the work of Tango-6 easier, and leave it with more maneuvering room when we actually meet up for battle.” Lt. Da’ Silva paused as he saw puzzlement in the faces of his superior officers.
“How so lieutenant?” asked the captain.
Lt. Da’ Silva turned to the screen once again and changed the diagram subtly. Now there were red arrows attached to each of the three bodies in the diagram, in addition to the dotted arrows indicating their direction of movement. “The red arrow indicates the direction in which the ships are currently thrusting. Tango-6 is moving at great speed in this direction towards us, but notice the direction in which it thrusting.
It is thrusting at right angle from its own direction of motion, away from the direction of motion of the bogey. Tango-6 has been forced to make that course change because of our arced trajectory. Tango-6 had already built up its speed and was coasting at a constant speed, running dark to avoid detection. So it could not alter its speed to slow down. It was destined to meet the bogey, exactly at the pre-calculated point.
According to the initial calculations of the Shaitans, this would also have been the point at which they would have met up with us. With our arced trajectory, we were slower to reach the party… I mean to approach that point. So when Tango-6 crosses the path of the bogey, we would be way behind where we were supposed to be. There were two options available to Tango-6.
First it could open up its engines and slow down to intercept us at the original point they had planned. Second they could thrust at right angle to their direction of motion. That way Tango-6 does not have to slow down, it simply moves in our direction along the line of our own motion, compensating for the distance we have not travelled ourselves, as they had originally expected.
Right now Tango-6 is straining its main engines, as it will later strain its emergency thrusters to reach us before their great speed takes them past our line of motion. They are obviously straining because they left it to the last possible moment to open up their engines to give us the least amount of warning time.
However if we were to now suddenly start accelerating towards the bogey with our emergency thrusters, it would be like gifting Tango-6 that much additional distance that they would not have to cover. It would make the task of Tango-6 that much easier.
If at all we want to make it difficult for Tango-6, then we should immediately be turning around and decelerating with our emergency thrusters. We might even be able to slow down so much that they may never be able to catch up even with the most desperate thrust.
Once Tang
o-6 is past us, they will take many months simply to come to a halt and then an equal amount of time to return anywhere near Alpha Shaitan. In the meanwhile we could resume our chase of the bogey, the moment Tango-6 has been evaded, and we would have just lost a few days of chase time before we catch up with the bogey once again.” Lt. Da’ Silva looked at his captain and XO expectantly to hear what they thought of his idea.
Capt. Lai stood there suitably chastised. He should listen to his team better he realized. He could not find any flaw with his weapons officer’s reasoning except for one. “Well thought out lieutenant. I must say that it is a better plan than what I had thought, except for one fact that I cannot reconcile… If we can think of such an easy way to avoid the ambush, I find it hard to believe that the Shaitans have not thought about it as well. What gives?”
“I think the Shaitans have thought about it sir, which is why they have been forced to open up their ion plasma engines 65 hours before interception. Even if we were to start hard deceleration right now, Tango-6 may have calculated that their emergency thrusters would be able to outlast ours. We know for sure that we don’t have enough water to last us 65 hours of emergency thrust. My point sir, is that this is still the best option to try and outmaneuver Tango-6.” Lt. Da’ Silva said.
“Agreed lieutenant. And thank you for bringing the plan to my notice. As usual you have done a brilliant job. I guess we have no time to lose, do we? Let us get to the bridge, and please send your computations to navigation. I will give the necessary orders.” Capt. Lai said to a beaming Lt. Da’ Silva. Then he turned to Lt. Baker and said. “XO, please send a complete report of our plans to the Admiral. Thanks.” With that all three of them rushed out to the bridge.
A certain amount of oxygen and hydrogen was always kept in the tanks for emergency acceleration. However a majority of the emergency thrust was stored as water, for safety reason, as well as volume constraints of the tanks. The same amount of Hydrogen and oxygen, when combined as water takes far less space than individual hydrogen and oxygen gas, unless kept under dangerously high pressure.
Retribution (Shaitan Wars) Page 35