The Battle of Titan

by Sudipto Majumdar

  “Seer Taste of Harmony, you have been summoned to this council for the purpose of updating you on the decisions of this council regarding the Kalshuk project.” Began an elder seer without any preamble, since there were no greeting within their beings. This seer was acting as the conveyor of the will of the council for this session Harmony realized, so this was a formal briefing.

  “I would first like to introduce you to Warmaster Scent of Carnage, next you. He has been designated as the Warmaster of migration vessel 12-09, to be shortly commissioned as you are aware.

  The Kalshuk project has now been designated as a warrior initiative. It is no longer a simple migration project, but has now been designated as a war, followed by a migration. Consequently the project will now be commanded directly by the warriors. Seer Taste of Triumph will be the executive warrior commanding the overall project, and be the representative official of the council on the project.

  While you remain the overseer of the nest-for-Kalshuk and all the curious and builder castes that go with it, the Warmaster Scent of Carnage is to take charge of the warriors and the mission of the migration vessel 12-09. The mission for the migration vessel has been broadly set, and the Warmaster has been briefed in detail prior to your arrival.

  You two will be working very closely from here onwards, so it would do well for both of you to know the tastes and scents of each other well. While I am sure you will take time to study the details of 12-09’s mission later, let me communicate on behalf of this council, some of the salient aspects of the mission.”

  “The council unanimously accepts the inference that Kalshuk system has the presence of Ka as foretold by the Ancients and that it is infested with the spawns of Ka on the largest gas giant and the 5th planet of the system. As is the duty of our beings, we will face this new challenge of Ka and exterminate the infestation of the spawns of Ka from the Kalshuk system.

  Unfortunately our scout vessel was destroyed before a complete information about the strength and weakness of the enemy could be gathered. Thanks to the brilliant efforts of seer Taste of Triumph, we have enough information to believe that a single migration ship should be a sufficient force to complete the task of extermination.

  It is a risk sending a single migration ship, but the only other option would be to wait for many thousands of cycles while the two orbiting building stations make more migration ships.

  The council deems that we cannot risk waiting so long, since the signals originally detected by you seer Taste of Harmony, seem to indicate that the enemy is communicating with others, possibly for co-ordination of an attack on the home world. The enemy is proven to be void capable, and there is no logical reason to think that they are incapable of attacking us. Sticking to the credo of our beings, we will need to go out at the earliest and eliminate this new threat from Ka.

  The secondary mission of 12-09 would be to scout for and establish a habitat for migration, if such a suitable world is found. It is highly likely that such a world would be found because the spawns of Ka are living in a world out there.

  In the unlikely event of not finding a suitable world, 12-09 would refuel at the gas giant and return back home world. Thus the launch of more migration vessels towards Kalshuk system will be contingent to the word that comes back from 12-09 on the suitability of the habitat world.”

  With that thesis, the seer indicated that the briefing was over unless there were any questions from Harmony. Harmony had a million questions, but none he would ask in the middle of the council chamber. Harmony indicated he had none and the briefing was over.

  Chapter 16

  Prometheus

  2038 - 2039

  When the Shaitan ship had been killed, it was pointing nominally at the position where Jupiter was at that time. It had not finished its complete deceleration into the solar system, and had surprisingly started accelerating in the last few months. As a result it still had substantial momentum remaining, which would take it flying past the sun.

  The sun’s gravity would attract the alien ship towards it, but it would not be enough to pull it in. The alien ship would actually cross earth’s orbit and at its closest approach to the sun, be somewhere between the orbit of Venus and Mercury before whizzing past the sun, crossing earth’s orbit again and the onwards to the other side of the solar system on its eternal journey into the void.

  This entire journey out of the solar system of the dead alien ship would take a few years as it drifted out on its residual momentum. There were plenty of opportunities when the alien ship would be fairly close to earth on both its approach and departure from the orbit of earth around the sun on both the sides.

  The dead ship still had plenty of secrets to give up, not least of which was the fantastic material that made up the hull of the ship. Human science and engineering could learn a lot from the wreckage of the ship.

  The imperative to do so was not just idle curiosity or corporate profits reaped out of new material and technologies. There was something higher at stake – human survival. Most humans believed that the aliens would return. It was just a matter of time. The first ship was only a scout. The next one would come prepared for war.

  Humans had to use the time they had to prepare to defend themselves with better space ships and weapons. One of the fastest ways to do that would be to learn the advanced alien’s technologies and copy them.

  So just a few days after the alien ship had been killed, the congress authorized and funded the Alien Artefact Retrieval Project or AARP. It is customary in DC to give everything an acronym. In the popular media, it was called the Tomb Raider project.

  Since the time window was short before the dead ship left the most convenient position to approach it, Congress did not take the time to debate and specify detailed objectives. The broad objective was specified as ‘Learning as much scientific and technical data as possible by approaching the derelict alien ship, and retrieving as many pieces of the ship and material housed in the ship and returning them back to earth as possible.’

  While the objectives sounded simple enough, it was actually a complex project. Humans had never done such a mission. Humans had sent off probes far away, never to return. Humans had gone to moon and back, but they had people on board in those cases. The best humans had done was collect samples of floating gas or dust in space by making probes fly through them and returning a few grams of those dust.

  This mission was an order of magnitude more difficult. First chase down a body flying past sun at a fairly fast clip. Then tear up some of the hard external hull and collect debris from inside the ship. Load all of that material weighing kilograms or even tens of kilograms back on a waiting space craft, fly it back to earth safely and then somehow make the re-entry into the earth atmosphere without the collected material being damaged.

  This was really a job for a manned mission, but at the time of the first alien incursion into the solar system, humans had not yet gotten serious about manned space exploration. It was done more for prestige than for economy or any practical scientific value.

  The US had only just returned to the moon after 60 years, and the astronauts had stayed for just a few days like the last time they were there. The Chinese had sent their first manned missions to moon to boost their prestige. There was no experience or the rocket power to send humans further than moon yet. So this had to be done by probes and robots.

  The mission planners of the Tomb Raider project realized immediately they needed to inspect their salvage site to make a decent salvage strategy. Since they had limited machine/robot haulage capacity in the spacecraft that would be sent to intercept the dead and drifting Shaitan ship, they would need to know exactly what kind of machines they might need to drill, break, shear or explode a chunk of the material out of the alien ship.

  Would they need to drill and hence a drilling machine? Should they carry explosives? Could they saw off some of the material? What kind of destruction had been caused inside the alien ship? Could they enter the ship? Was
there anything at all inside worthwhile to enter and salvage? There were millions of question to which the planners did not have answers.

  So they decided on a three pronged strategy based on the resources they had in the pipeline and the ship building capacity available, given the extremely short window available to them. After the Sentinel had been completed, NASA had immediately started building a second probe, which was almost the same specification as Sentinel.

  This was started as a measure of backup to Sentinel, in case Sentinel faced problems in its mission to reach the alien ship, or if they needed another craft in case of emergency to meet the ship much closer to earth. This backup ship was 90% complete lacking just some minor hardware and all the planned weapons.

  The weapons were no longer needed and the activity at the IIS, recently re-christened the New Horizons orbital construction facility was put on hyper active mode to complete the remaining work on the hardware. The engineers were given 15 days to complete all the work.

  The same amount of time was given on ground to the mission planners and mission control to work out an optimal trajectory of the new ship, now named “The Surveyor”. Detailed mission parameters on arrival near the dead alien ship, could always be updated and uploaded later into Surveyor, but all the launch parameters and software needed to be complete in 15 days’ time.

  New Horizons ship yard, had capacity to build two probes of the size of Sentinel and Surveyor side by side. It wasn’t as if more space wasn’t available around New Horizons for more crafts to dock. There was plenty of that. The ship yard could only support so many personnel and supply shuttles from earth continuously docking to bring in material.

  ESA was not currently using the ship yard to build anything, which left the other slot free. NASA started immediately building another space craft on the same design and platform of Sentinel. This was the biggest platform of space ship that NASA had at that moment, and they didn’t have the time to change any design parameters.

  A new design would not just require re-testing, but also making new tools and machines to create a new model of ship. The difference this new ship will have in construction, was that its interior had not been planned at all. It was currently hollow in design. The space craft was being built as if it was a cargo vessel.

  The recovery tools and robots that would be needed to be carried in this space craft were left un-constructed for the moment, as NASA rushed in engineers on New Horizons to construct the rest of the ship.

  Surveyor bust its deadline and launched 20 days. The alien ship was much closer to earth orbit now, having crossed the orbit of Uranus on its way in towards the sun. Since Earth was not in the line of approach of the dead alien ship, Surveyor would approach the ship at an angle.

  Surveyor would meet up with the alien ship just as it had crossed the orbit of Jupiter. The Surveyor would accelerate some of the distance, then switch off its engines and coast to conserve fuel, which might be important on this trip.

  As the Surveyor approached the alien ship at an angle, it would then decelerate and fly in a curved arc to meet up and match speed with the alien ship travelling almost in the opposite direction. It should still have about 15% of its fuel left in reserves for maneuvering around the ship with its lateral thrusters, which this mission would require Surveyor to do a lot. Lateral thrusters consume very little fuel, so it was considered more than enough reserves.

  NASA would have wanted Surveyor to reach the dead alien ship much earlier thus giving them more time to figure out the tools and robots that would be needed by the salvage/scavenging operation, but with the current fuel carrying capacity of Surveyor, this was the best they could do.

  When the Surveyor finally caught up with the alien ship, it barely gave NASA a few months to figure out what equipment they would need for the actual salvage mission. Surveyor carried a few test explosives which were sent adrift next to the tear in the hull of the alien ship and exploded to get a sense of the strength, flexibility, hardness etc. of the hull material.

  This would help the salvage mission break or tear off pieces for sampling. The explosions were analyzed in minute detail to glean as much information about the metal as possible, to be able to easily break off a part of it.

  The salvage ship was named “Prometheus” after the mythical Greek demi-god, who stole fire from the gods. The hastily constructed Prometheus and it’s even more has hastily constructed equipment was launched from earth around the time the dead alien ship and Surveyor were somewhere between the orbit of Mars around the solar system and the asteroid belt.

  The Surveyor had released multiple mini robot probes inside both the holes in the dead ship. They had revealed what was left of the inside structure of the ship. Most of the structures and equipment on the stern side of the ship had molten into slag and blown off. Obviously this must be the hole through which the Chinese craft would have entered and exploded.

  All that was left on this side of the ship were the remnants of the support trusses jutting out from all across the interior of the hull. The bow part of the ship had a few structures and equipment which had not molten into slag. However they were still molten, mangled and damaged to such an extent, that it was impossible to guess what their functions might be. The best preserved pieces were surveyed, cataloged and identified for salvage.

  While Surveyor was cataloging the dead alien ship, the world was surprised although they shouldn’t have been, by the Chinese launching a ship of its own. The official communique said that the mission was to ‘study’ the alien derelict. No one had any idea whether they planned to collect samples as well.

  The aptly named ‘Zhànlìpǐn’, which meant ‘spoils of war’ in mandarin suggested that they did intend to collect things from the derelict. The timing of the launch was such that it would meet up the derelict somewhere after it had crossed Mar’s orbit around the sun. It had to travel more than Prometheus which was launched later.

  Prometheus however had the advantage of Surveyor, already having done all the survey. Surveyor had not just identified all the tasks to be performed by Prometheus, it had helped select the best tools to be sent along with Prometheus, which should make its work easier and faster.

  Zhànlìpǐn on the other hand did not have this advantage. NASA had not shared any information with CNSA, just as CNSA was unlikely to ever do so with NASA. Zhànlìpǐn will first have to survey. The Chinese mission control will then have to decide the tasks it could perform with the tools it had taken along with it. Hence Zhànlìpǐn needed the extra time.

  Thus Zhànlìpǐn which had similar fuel capacity as Prometheus will have to burn more fuel to reach the derelict earlier. It would be left with far less fuel for its return journey, which will mean that it will have to return much later than Prometheus.

  Prometheus had been given as much time as possible for construction and mission preparation. However the time was required more for tool selection and customization for the salvage job, they had started receiving information only after Surveyor had reached the derelict.

  Prometheus would meet up with the derelict shortly before it was to cross earth’s orbit around the sun. It didn’t mean that Prometheus didn’t have to travel a fair distance. Earth was not exactly at that point in its orbit around the sun where the derelict would cross the orbit. In fact it was very far away from that point, but gravitationally Prometheus was following a more efficient path since it did not have to fight the gravity of the sun much, and also had the least distance to cover.

  The best part was that Prometheus would be meeting the derelict at almost a 90° angle, so it did not have to accelerate towards the derelict, decelerate and then reverse direction like the other human ships meeting the derelict had had to do. It simply had to accelerate to match speed with alien craft. This left it with ample reserve fuel for the return journey, enabling it to return to earth fairly quickly.

  There had been some tense apprehension initially whether the American and the Chinese salvage efforts will get i
n each other’s way and cause conflict. However the derelict was big enough not to cause any problems. Given their cooperation in the last encounter with the aliens, there were channels open now in form of people like Jason, which ensured that there was reasonable coordination between CNSA and NASA, with each aware of the others location of operation to ensure they did not get in each other’s way.

  Prometheus’s salvage operations went reasonably smoothly. There were some tense moments when the drill robot was having a hard time getting through the tough hull to break off pieces, but it eventually managed to do it, along with collecting a few pieces of hull lying broken inside the derelict.

  The Zhànlìpǐn had to leave far earlier than Prometheus given its precarious fuel situation. The derelict was crossing over to the other side of the earth orbit, and the Zhànlìpǐn had to exit much earlier than the crossing, since it would decelerate much slower and needed earth’s gravity to catch it and use earth’s upper atmosphere to help burn off the extra speed. Prometheus had no such need to use aero-braking and continued longer and collected much more than Zhànlìpǐn.

  When Prometheus’s cargo capsule parachuted and splashed down on the pacific, it had returned 267 Kg of alien artefacts including over 45 Kg of hull material. It was estimated that currently by weight it was the most precious 267 Kg that humans possessed, outstripping the value per Kg of gold by a factor of 100 or 1000.

  Part 2

  Chapter 17

  An early winter

  Fall of 2055

  Summer had wound down, and autumn was well and truly here, as Jorge noticed by the amount of leaves blowing passed his outstretched legs, as he sat relaxed on the park bench next to Mischa. It was unusually chilly for this time of the year, and indicated an early winter this year. He sat next to Mischa looking as beautiful now, as she did on the day he first told her that he loved her.