Capt. Barr gave a shrug and said “C’est la vie.” Then he changed topic and asked Lt. Latif. “How does our little ghost progress XO?”
“So far so good captain. Its trajectory is as planned, decelerating silently and as far as we can tell, has not been detected yet. I don’t think that this system has a Lighthouse type detection system that the Shaitans have been copying from us and putting up in their systems. We have not felt the shine of any laser on us till now, as we should have detected by now if they had a lighthouse. Either the Shaitans are supremely confident that we would not be able to, or bother to come this far off to this isolated Shaitan world, or they are stretched enough not to be able to put up such detection systems in all their worlds. In any case there is a good chance that our little ghost will remain undetected for a very long time.” Lt. Latif replied.
“It is more likely the former. From what I know about their military doctrine, Shaitans don’t like to spray electromagnetic waves across space wantonly like us humans. That is one policy of the Shaitans I actually think is far more prudent than us humans. We don’t know what monsters lie out there in that dark space beyond, that we might one day wake up. The Shaitans would have figured that this World #6 is too obscure and out of the way a place for us to come directly. It is not even a very rich world from a resources point of view. So they would have refrained from putting up a lighthouse here. I don’t think that a lighthouse is so expensive, that the Shaitans on this world couldn’t afford it. In any case that is good news.” Capt. Barr replied.
“Just ensure that the latest tactical situation sent by the ghost has been updated to all the fleet captains and the admiral, Lt. Xhonsa. Since we have the operational control of the ghost, I don’t want the other captains complaining in the flag meeting about to take place.” Capt. Barr asked the tactical officer on the bridge. Then he started moving towards the flag bridge, but turned towards Sandy and said. “Sandy, your presence has also been requested by the admiral. Shall we?”
Capt. Barr and Sandy entered the flag bridge to find the admiral animatedly arguing something with his staff. “Ah… here comes the expert. Sandra we sorely need your expertise on this.” Admiral Rogen Seth was the only person in the fleet who called her Sandra. He also had an avuncular protective instinct towards her, ensuring that she got no mistreatment from the career military personnel of the fleet, who perhaps resented a civilian being parachuted into the rank of a USC-GCF captain. It was Adm. Seth who had convinced Sandy to come on this long campaign leaving her life and her work behind. He felt personally responsible for her.
“There on the screen you can see we have plotted the approach of our fleet… and here… “Adm. Seth put his finger on a point on the screen. “… here is the approaching Heretic Shaitan ship. If you notice, our rate of approach has been accelerating steadily and although I know this is what we negotiated with those Heretics, but I just can’t figure it out from the military standpoint, because it just doesn’t make sense. Prudence dictates that as we approach closer, we should be closing in more cautiously. Not the other way round!”
Sandy winced at the repeated use of the word heretic by the admiral. “Sir, I would request you to get out of the habit of calling them heretics. We don’t want a diplomatic incident with the human Warmaster – that is you, insulting the eldest seer of the True Believer religion. That is who is on that Shaitan ship you have put your finger on. You will be greeting the equivalent of their pope and president rolled into one in a few days’ time.”
The admiral raised his hands in submission, and Sandy convinced that she had gotten her message across, continued to answer the admiral’s question. “I know sir that it doesn’t make prudent sense, but that is where we humans are mistaken. The True Believers on World #6 did not choose this approach routine as a form of prudence. I personally believe that they trust us humans more than they trust the Shaitans on other worlds, who are non-believers as far as they are concerned. You have to understand that this meeting has deep religious and historical significance for the people of World #6. They are in a way re-enacting their initiation ritual in a symbolic way with this approach. That religious initiation is initially slow to weed out spies and Shaitans loyal to the old religion. Once they are fairly certain that about the initiate, the ritual speeds up and ends fairly fast. That is what is happening here as well.”
“Ah… that explains the illogical approach. It is a good thing too. I am tired of playing footsie. Let us make first contact with this Shaitan pope of yours quickly and see what he has to say.” Adm. Seth replied smiling to Sandy and turned to his staff. “Are we ready? Good, let’s start”
The flag bridge light dimmed and three cones of light bathed the admiral, Sandy and Capt. Barr. In front of them appeared the disembodied bust projection of six humans floating in the air. The holographic projection conferencing system was not a new human technology, having been around for a few decades. The military was conservative in its adoption of such technology though. So these new ships were the first ones to be equipped with the system. It made holding a conference with a large number of dispersed people very intuitive.
“Well gentlemen, … and ladies” Adm. Seth added hastily, noticing that there were two women in the conference. “The moment is almost upon us. I know that all of you would have been thinking about this moment all throughout the long journey here. Lord knows that I have been thinking about it so much, that I think I dreamt about it even in my hibernation sleep, despite what the doctors might say about our inability to dream in hibernation.” The light hearted opening brought some smiles around the room, which helped break some of the tension that was building up as the moment of contact was approaching.
“This is going to be our last flag meeting before we make contact and I would like to go over the military situation one last time here today. If any of you officers have even a remote apprehension of the plan, now would be time to air it. With that preamble, I would request Capt. Barr who is running the ghost to give us an overall run up of the tactical situation on this system.” The admiral turned towards Capt. Barr.
“Well officers, you all have the same report and analysis as I have, so I will just spell out the highlights. The ghost, which is one of the first reconnaissance drone to be equipped with a reactionless drive is functioning fine. We are fairly confident that it has not been detected. It has already passed World #6, having gone past the closest approach point to the planet. It is still slowing down and within a few months will come to a complete halt. After that it will slowly creep back towards the planet. Since there is no emission from the reactionless engines, and we have not detected any light house in this system, we don’t expect the ghost to be found easily. So it should be a reliable source of information for us for a long time to come.
You have all seen the reports and the analysis from the ghost. This system is completely thinned out in terms of defense. Like all other worlds of the Shaitans, World #6 had also contributed everything it had towards the Hadean fleet. It had been left with just one warship and two migration ships to defend the planet. In the interim period, the Shaitans on World #6 have built four more warships from their two orbital construction yards. Thus there are five warships and two migration ships protecting the planet. As per the communication of the Shaitans on this world, they have kept all those ships in non-polar orbit around their home planet.
The ghost’s fly past was deliberately designed to go below the south pole of the planet, so as to be able to see all the ships at the same time. The ghost has confirmed the tally of the five warships and two migration ships orbiting World #6. In addition, the ghost observed that the two orbital construction yards were in the process of building two more warships, as the Shaitans had mentioned. So all in all, everything seems overboard till this point. I would like to emphasize that this does not mean that everything is overboard. For example, there is no way for us to know if there are more warships hidden and lurking in the dark somewhere in the distance.
&n
bsp; What we can be fairly certain of though, is that there is no other Shaitan warships within four AU of our rendezvous point with the approaching Shaitan emissary ship. This we have verified by using our ships’ main lasers weapon in a lighthouse configuration, which is a new feature on these ships. Since the rendezvous point itself is over two AU from the World #6, there is little danger that the warships orbiting the planet would be able to ambush us without us having ample advance warning. Hence, from whatever we can make out till now, the rendezvous point itself is safe. The only possible danger that I can see, can come from the emissary Shaitan ship itself.
Although the emissary ship is small in comparison to the other Shaitan ships, but it is still large enough to carry weapons, including the monster missiles of the Shaitans. The only threat possibility our analysts could conceive, is if that emissary ship is on some kind of suicide mission, especially if it has some kind of superweapon onboard which we have not seen before. As you are aware, we have designed our contact protocol accordingly to minimize the effects of that possibility.
The Shaitan emissary ship is to stop at a designated point, and our fleet would come to a halt half an hour later, holding position at a distance of nearly a hundred thousand kilometers. That is a quarter of the distance from Earth to the Moon. We expect to be fairly safe from any missiles launched at that distance, or from any massive suicide blast of the Shaitan emissary ship.
According to the protocol, the Shaitan emissary ship is not to make any move to contact us. A specially designed diplomatic shuttle is to leave from here on board USC Hercules. It would consist of the first contact team made up of personnel from Capt. Montgomery’s corps along with a few regular USC-GCF marines. The only variable in protocol is the decision as to whether the Admiral should be onboard the diplomatic shuttle as well.” Capt. Barr finished his briefing.
“It is not a variable captain, the Shaitans expect the seer in the emissary ship to be met by me – the human Warmaster, as per the negotiated protocol, although I am aware that our orders give us leeway to make the call whether to send the admiral of the fleet in that first shuttle depending on the operational threat assessment. I am aware of the danger of going in there in a small shuttle, what I want to understand from you Sandy, is the downside of me not being on that diplomatic shuttle. How would the Shaitans react?” The admiral asked Sandy to give her assessment as one of the top most experts on Shaitan society, rituals and psychology.
“Well, it depends on their intent admiral!” Sandy replied with a smile. “If they intend to assassinate you, then I guess they would be disappointed if you were not on that first shuttle. Although, if their intentions are deceit then being on the second or third shuttle would not help us much either. The Shaitans are as intelligent as us in such aspects. I am sure that they would first verify that you are on board the shuttle by probably meeting you, before they blow the shuttle or do anything similarly suicidal, because I am sure they would know that attacking you or any other human would be tantamount to suicide for them.
On the other hand if their intentions are exactly as stated and they genuinely want to make the first diplomatic contact between our two species, then my guess would be that if they don’t find you in the first shuttle as per the negotiated protocol, then their reaction would be similar to ours – doubt and suspicion about our intentions, confusion, and probably a feeling of insult and hurt. Although I cannot be certain about that last part. I am not sure that the Shaitans have an equivalent of on the concept of insult in their society.” Sandy made her best guess. Hypothesizing the feelings of an alien was an inexact science, even for an expert like Sandy.
“Hmmm… so what you are saying is that my not being there might create a diplomatic incident, and may blow a great opportunity. I got that, but the follow-up question to you then Sandy is this – I understand how a human enemy might be tempted to eliminate the opposing force’s admiral in the hopes of demoralizing the fleet. How do the Shaitans think in this matter? Will they also be tempted to do the same?” The admiral asked Sandy.
“Sir, I don’t think that the Shaitans have an equivalent concept of demoralized fleet or demoralized soldier. In all the Shaitan literature and conversations I have had with them, I have never come across the concept of a demoralized Shaitan. I don’t think their brain works that way. Having said that, I would like to point out that the Shaitans give a very high premium to the strategic and tactical thinking capability of a good Warmaster in battle. Their military doctrine asks for the seers to choose a very capable and inventive Warmaster in order to prevail in a battle.
So, to answer your question, the Shaitans probably won’t be tempted to assassinate you in order to demoralize our fleet. The might though, be tempted to assassinate you in order to rob our fleet of a capable Warmaster which they might believe will give them an edge in any future battle.” Sandy said with a worried look on her face. She realized that the admiral would be in real danger on that initial shuttle mission.
“That is very comforting to know Sandy, that the Shaitans may not want to kill me to demoralize you all, but may just want to kill be for my military acumen. Very flattering to know that they are scared of my brains.” The admiral said light heartedly and everyone around the conference had a nervous laugh.
The captains and admirals continued the conference for some more time, discussing tactics and going over every contingency plan, including the new chain of command if the worst came to pass and the Admiral was actually attacked. Once all that needed to be discussed had been discussed, the meeting broke up and everyone aboard the ships of the fleet went about making the final preparations for what could turn out to be a historical encounter, but could equally turn out to be a disastrous one.
---XXX---
“Lieutenants, just remember. There is no point trying to act as my bodyguard, although I know that is your brief. We are going into an alien ship, and if they intend to kill us, then there are a million ways they would be able to do so, despite the fact that I know you two are the best. Instead, I want you two to concentrate on trying to transmit as much information back to the shuttle as possible, if things go south or you sense any danger or anything out of the ordinary. That is the best service all three of us can do in such a case – send back as much information about what happens as possible. That will help the fleet make an informed decision about what to do next. Not knowing what happened inside, would ensure that the fleet attacks the emissary ships and World #6, which would definitely blow the best chance we humans have of reconciliation with the Shaitans.” Adm. Seth said to the two Marines floating on either side of him.
The three men were floating tether less in their suit, in the space between the two ships. The emissary ship carrying the eldest seer of the Shaitan World #6 was moderately large for its purpose, as most space ships of the Shaitans tend to be. It was the size of the human corvette ships, fully capable of journey within the system, but probably not equipped for an inter-system travel to another Shaitan world. Adm. Seth realized that only a few generations ago, humans would have been intimidated by the size of the emissary ship. It was a testament to how fast humans had progressed, that the emissary ship looked only of a moderate size. Now the new Hercules class human ships were far larger than the largest observed Shaitan migration ships.
The human diplomatic shuttle was floating a few hundred meters behind him, having made the journey from USC Hercules to the stationary Shaitan emissary ship in just over eight hours, at the relatively crawling speed that the shuttle was capable of. The Hercules was a hundred thousand kilometers away. It could not come to their aid if anything went wrong. The crew of the diplomatic shuttle were on their own.
Adm. Seth renewed his focus ahead and at the floating figure of the lone human about a hundred meters ahead, floating right next to the Shaitan emissary ship. Sandy was surprisingly dexterous with her space suit navigation for a civilian. She had taken her crash course in space survival seriously before getting on this mission, and it
showed. No clumsy moves on her part, as she expertly came to a halt next to the Shaitan ship. She had transmitted the approach protocol codes, and all she could do now was to hope and pray that the external hatch of the Shaitan ship would open.
Adm. Seth had never imagined himself to ever be playing the part of a peace diplomat, performing initial negotiations with an alien species on behalf of humans. If he had, he would have imagined the setting to be far more regal than this; like they show in those holo-vids – human ambassadors being welcomed in a royal alien palace on a stunning alien world. Instead here he was floating in the middle of space in a clumsy space suit, waiting for a service hatch of a ship to open.
And open it did. The hatch of the ship opened inwards and as arranged, tethers floated out of the hatch to help the humans pull themselves into Shaitan emissary ship. The Shaitans used the same mechanism themselves and consequently the tethers were thick, designed for easy grip by suited tentacles rather than by gloved human hands. Sandy managed to clamber into the ship using both hands to grip the tethers. The admiral and the two marines waited anxiously, as Sandy disappeared into the belly of the Shaitan ship.
Minutes passed and the anxiety and tension kept growing among the three men floating in space. Everything they saw was being recorded and transmitted back to their own shuttle and from there on to the fleet. If anything untoward were to happen, the fleet would know about it, at the speed of light. It was over ten agonizing minutes before they got the prearranged signal from Sandy. Adm. Seth gave huge sigh of relief and signaled his Marines escorts to proceed along with him.
Once the admiral was inside the Shaitan emissary ship, he realized that this was the first time humans were entering a functional Shaitan space ship after almost 90 years of being aware of each other! There were so many human speculation on how it would feel being onboard an operational Shaitan ship. Adm. Seth himself had frequently wondered on this. Now he knew.
Triumph & Defeat (Shaitan Wars Book 4) Page 21