The first thing that surprised the admiral was the lighting in the passage. The heretic Shaitan collaborators on Alpha Shaitan had informed that Shaitan ships had no lights inside their ships, and had no provision for lighting either. It made sense for a species that was essentially blind. He had stepped into the ship expecting to enter a dark passageway. He had pre-emptively switched on his infrared vision on the visor. Instead he was greeted with a blinding light shone directly at his face. Adm. Seth cringed instinctively and gave a quick mental command to his suit to darken the visor.
He heard Sandy giggle over the radio as she said. “It’s OK admiral. You will get used to the lights in a minute. The True Believers were trying to be extra hospitable towards us and providing us with lights. Having no experience with internal lighting and never having experienced sight, they really don’t know how bright lights need to be for us to see, or how we use light. I am guessing they decided to be safe and put as bright a light as they could rig up, that too pointed directly at the hatch, blinding anyone who would enter.” Sandy said with a chuckle.
Once the admiral’s eyes had adjusted, he stepped further into the ship. The ship seemed to have the same three dimensional labyrinthine design that the humans had come to expect from Shaitan ships. Unlike human ships where the passageways were laid out in flat two dimensional layout, with the third dimension being used to lay out distinct higher or lower levels accessible by stairs, slide poles or elevators in the case of the massive Hercules class ships; Shaitan ships did not have distinct levels. The passageways sloped up and down and curved into a complex and continuous tunnel like system, more akin to passageways inside an anthill.
The other major difference in the internal layout philosophy between a human ship and a Shaitan ship was that despite being massive eternally, the Shaitan ships had very little open space internally. The whole Shaitan ship was filled with narrow passageways and niches, very similar to the kind of habitat that the Shaitans evolved and lived in, just like the humans had created their internal layouts to resemble the two dimensional world that humans normally lived in.
The other major difference that Adm. Seth noticed was about gravity. One of the first things that humans had done, as soon as their space technology had evolved and matured enough, was to put artificial centrifugal gravity on their ships. Some psychologists and social scientists rated artificial gravity as the single-most important factor which made long voyages bearable for humans; although the main reason artificial gravity was important was for health reasons. More than a few months’ of exposure to zero-G causes muscle atrophy and weakening of bones. A few years of continuous exposure to zero-G would leave a human brittle and flailing weak, unable to even walk, let alone do combat.
Shaitans apparently didn’t suffer from any such malady on continuous exposure to zero-G. They didn’t have bones in any case, so there was nothing to turn brittle. In the 3D environment that the Shaitans lived, zero-G was natural to them, since they didn’t care about up and down too much.
So Adm. Seth alongside Sandy, floated towards the passageway that was marked on his visor display. The negotiated protocol required that the Shaitan let the humans broadcast freely from inside the ships, and the display was showing that this condition was being honored by the Shaitans. The admiral decided to check anyway to be double sure. “Lt. Wu, do you copy?” he asked.
“Loud and clear sir.” The shuttle pilot replied.
“That’s great. Thanks lieutenant. I just wanted to ensure that our signals are being broadcast properly.” Adm. Seth thanked the pilot.
“The Shaitans are not just letting your signals pass through sir, they are amplifying it. I have had to turn down the gain on my receivers to protect them from frying due to over load!” Lt. Wu replied in an amused tone.
“Thanks lieutenant. That is a good sign. Looks like our hosts are being extra hospitable. Hope things stay this way.” Adm. Seth replied.
Admiral Seth had thought about this moment for years, ever since he embarked on this mission. In the end when the moment came, it couldn’t have been more anti-climactic. As they reached the end of the passage, where it forked into multiple passes in multiple directions, a smaller sized type-A Shaitan emerged out of one of the passageways and floated in front of them. The four humans used the side walls of the passage to come to a halt, facing the lone Shaitan barely two meters ahead.
Adm. Seth’s headset beeped and the display showed an incoming message being transmitted by the Shaitan in front of them. He was using the transmission protocol that had been negotiated and the translation program had no problems in translating the message, which was converted into sound and played into his earpiece. It said – “Welcome human Warmaster! I have been waiting for you all my life!”
Chapter XXX
The Holy Lands
Approaching Shaitan Core Worlds
2141
“I know your beings have no concept of a greeting, but our beings do. So greetings to you Warmaster. Hope your awakening from hibernation stasis has been trouble-free, and you are fully recuperated.” Sandy said holding her collar near her mouth. Holding the collar near her mouth was an unconscious and totally unnecessary action. The collar mike that was integrated with the fabric lining of her uniform was sensitive enough to pick her voice perfectly, without her having to hold it near her mouth. The voice ran through the computer, was interpreted and translated in Shaitan concepts and symbols and transferred into an interface with the Shaitan computers installed, which in turn converted into tastes that Shaitans would sample and understand the conversation.
Despite both humans and Shaitans using Q-computers, which were incredibly fast, the translations took about a second. The time taken was not because of the Q-computing speed limitation. Quantum computing was instantaneous for all intents and purposes. The time taken was mostly due to interfacing two alien forms of computer, which negotiated computer protocol and gated content into chunks.
“Greetings Seer Defender of Beings. I am aware of your beings’ practice of starting a conversation with greetings and ending it with a wish for good fortune. I am fully functional now. There are no aftereffects of hibernation stasis remaining in my body now. My apprentice gave me a full report before you arrived Seer Defender of Beings. It has been 478 cycles since we left our World #6, and exactly 221 cycles since we started decelerating. So logically we should be very close to our objective.
“As a warrior I understand you need for secrecy till now; in not letting us know our destination. By the same logic, you should no longer have any need for secrecy. Whichever world of our beings that you are closing upon, already knows you are arriving and would have a fairly accurate estimate of your time and position of arrival. So even if we were to somehow betray you and try and forewarn our beings, it would be of no use now. In any case we have no transmission equipment in our control, for us to transmit out of you migration vessel in which we are travelling, but as a warrior I do appreciate your beings’ attitude towards abundant caution. If gives me greater confidence in your beings’ capability to successfully prosecute the war.
“So, to come back to my original point. Since there is no more any need for secrecy, we would like to know our destination. It will help us plan better for any action that we may have to take.” The Warmaster asked Sandra. Although the computer had translated it as a request from the Warmaster, sandy knew that the Warmaster had neither made a request, nor a demand. He had simply stated a logical fact and expected a logical answer. This is how one Shaitan would have requested information from another Shaitan irrespective of the status of either Shaitan, and the Warmaster would have input the tastes in his tasting station exactly in the same way. It was the quirk of human languages, and especially English, which translated it into a request.
Sandy had initially been a bit irritated by the name that the Shaitans had given her. It was only after talking to some of the linguists and computer geeks onboard, had she realized that the name given to her had not bee
n by the Shaitans, but by the computers interfacing between the two species. More specifically, this is how the translation algorithm worked between the language concepts of the two species.
When a word or concept, that had no straight equivalence in the language of the other species was encountered, the two computer systems of the two species entered into a negotiation algorithm. Each would go one layer below to the root of the meaning of the word or concept and compare if equivalent concepts existed. If it did, that is how the information would be exchanged. If no equivalence was found, then each computer would go one level lower and try again, till the two computer systems reached to very basic concepts. Somewhere along this path, the two languages were sure to find equivalence.
Obviously Sandra did not have an equivalent in the Shaitan language, so the human computer forwarded Alexandra to the Shaitan computer, which is the name from which Sandra originates. Obviously the Shaitan computer couldn’t find an equivalence to Alexandra, so the human computer went one layer below to the meaning of Alexandra – “defender of men”. The Shaitan computer promptly translated it to “Defender of beings”, which was the appropriate translation for a genderless species. The “Seer” honorific was added by the Shaitan computer to roughly translate Sandra’s status and function in human society with the equivalent Shaitan hierarchy. So Commander Sandra Montgomery became Seer Defender of Beings to the Shaitans.
Sandra had by now gotten used to the name, and quite liked it. It gave a regal bearing to her name. Sandra was no longer amazed by the logical reasoning, through which the Shaitans had come to a fairly accurate conclusion about the status of their journey, or the reasoning as to why it was no longer necessary to keep the destination a secret. She had interacted enough with the Shaitans to internalize them as highly intelligent species who had been roaming in space when there were dinosaurs roaming the Earth and the ancestors of human beings were small rodent like creatures hiding in burrows.
What amazed Sandra was the complete lack of anger or hurt in the fact that the humans did not trust the heretic Shaitans, despite the fact that they had hitched their fortunes with the humans against their own species. There was not an iota of irritation that despite agreeing to be stuffed inside human transport ships like cattle, cut off from everything, the humans had not told the Shaitans where they were going. Sandra realized that the Shaitans were stuffed worse than cattle inside the three Hercules class transport ships. Almost any Earth mammal, including cattle would have died if they had been packed so densely for five years. It was cramped even by Shaitan standards, who were used to living in cramped conditions if needed, densely packed one upon another.
Instead the Warmaster had understood the logic for secrecy, and using the same logic come to the calm conclusion that secrecy was no longer needed. If there was something that the humans could learn from the Shaitans, it was to handle such situations with the aplomb that a Shaitan does. She was glad that she could oblige the Warmaster’s justified request.
“Your reasoning is logical and you are right there is no more a reason for secrecy. It is for that reason that our Warmaster would like to speak to you and let you know our destination and target personally. Human protocol requires that our Warmaster honors another Warmaster by personally conveying such information. In addition, our Warmaster wants to have initial consultations with you about our battle plans. He is on his way to meet you along with the Master of this void vessel, and the senior most of our surface warriors.” Sandra replied. Just as she finished, her peripheral vision caught the admiral hobbling in awkwardly in the low gravity of this area of the ship. Two men followed the admiral.
“Greetings to you Warmaster. Hope you are recovering well from your hibernation. Unfortunately I cannot say the same about my recovery. I still have muscle aches in places, where I never knew muscles existed! You have met my flag captain Leo before, and this is Gen. Shaun Lund. He is the ranking officer of USC-GCF on this expedition and the commander of the Marines, who would be fighting alongside your warriors on the surface.” Adm. Seth said in greetings to the Shaitan Warmaster.
Although the Shaitan Warmaster had learnt minor human niceties like replying to a greeting with a greeting, but beyond that the Shaitans did not have any concept of small talk. So he straight away made the demand to know their destination. Actually, the way the Warmaster framed the question, it was obvious that he had his own suspicion as to where they were heading, but wanted a confirmation. The Warmaster said. “I need to know if we will be doing battle in the high gravity of World #11. It is an extremely taxing world for our beings, who have evolved in a world with far lower gravity. It is takes a toll on the warriors to be conducting a surface war in such high gravity, and I need to put my warriors through a high gravity regimen to prepare them. Otherwise they would not last long against our beings on World #11, who would be well acclimatized to the high gravity of their native world.”
Adm. Seth was puzzled for a moment at the mention of World #11, which the humans called Beta Shaitan. He gave a blank look at the Warmaster for a few moments before putting things together. Despite his own instructions to keep a serious demeanor while dealing with the Shaitans, Adm. Seth could not help himself. He burst out laughing. “You thought we were going to Beta Shaitan?!” He asked in between his laughter. “Why Warmaster, you couldn’t be further from the truth. Almost two light years further from where you think you are to be more precise.”
The Warmaster had seen humans laughing and his computer had classified it as a superfluous mannerism of the human species, which was perhaps a holdover from some evolutionary quirk of the species. The recommended response of the computer was to ignore it and wait till the subject human calmed down and was ready to converse again. The condition did not last more than a few moments according to the Warmaster’s computer. So he waited and once the admiral had calmed down, the admiral answered the question.
“Sorry for that, Warmaster. I couldn’t help it.” Adm. Seth apologized and said. “We have travelled roughly the same distance from your World #6 to that of World #11, which we call Beta Shaitan. But we have travelled in a completely different direction. Warmaster we are in your original home system. The system where your species was born and where you evolved. But we are not going to your origin world. We are going to the neighboring moon. We are going to World #2!”
It was the turn of the human computer to classify the involuntary twitching of the limbs and the body of the Warmaster as a superfluous mannerism of the Shaitan species, that the Shaitans displayed due to old age or when they were stressed. The Warmaster was not that old. The humans waited a few moments to let the Warmaster regain his composure, after which the Warmaster asked. “You are going to the Holy lands?! You are going to directly attack the center of our beings?! Ka-Baal Warmaster. I am not sure if I should pity you or respect you, for as a strategy it could be the stupidest or the most brilliant warrior plan your beings have ever hatched!”
---XXX---
“What the hell is the B squadron doing? They are still not in place!” Adm. Wickremshinghe exclaimed over the link, still in his pajamas sitting on his bed. He had just woken up, and the first thing he had done was check on the fleet positions. Upset with what he saw, he had connected with his staff on the flag bridge.
“Sir, USC Goliath has developed a problem with one more of its engines, and has had to shut it down. It is now down to six engines. It is understandably limping with its massive load. It has not been able to make the position due to this. The rest of the B squadron has had to slow down to keep formation, sir.” Ensign Ricks, who was on shift roster on the flag bridge replied.
“Damn! Thanks ensign, I will be on the bridge shortly.” The Admiral signed off, grumbling to himself as he reached for the tiny shower stall. These new Ka-Let design fusion engines may be very powerful, but they were far less reliable than the Shaitan design. To be fair to the Ka-Let design, the engines on the B squadron of the fleet were not really ‘new’ in their condition. They h
ad been running continuously for just over a decade. That is a lot of wear and tear by any standard.
To compound their problems, the engines of the B Squadron were the very first production engines made with the Ka-Let technology. The A squadron by contrast was launched five years later, and by then the engines had been modified slightly by the engineers to improve on the reliability from operational running experience, gained to a large measure at the expense of the B Squadron.
Now Adm. Wickremshinghe had a problem in his hands. The B Squadron had five limping ships in its fleet. USC Hercules, USC Colossus, USC Bheem all had one of their eight reactors down, and now the fourth carrier USC Goliath had two of its eight reactors down. That in itself would not have been a great source of worry for the admiral, but for the fact that USC San Diego, one of the battle cruisers and escorts of the carriers in the B Squadron also had one of its eight engines out of commission.
The carriers would anyway be held back, but the San Diego was very much expected to take part in the oncoming battle. The bigger cause of concern for the admiral, was the state of the rest of the engines of the B Squadron. It would be a disaster if one of the battle cruisers were to have an engine failure in the middle of the battle. The humans were almost two light years away from home, and backup. The furthest human beings had ever fought from their home. No one was going to come to their aid if anything went wrong here. He had to plan for the contingency of engine failure for the upcoming battle.
The shower stall didn’t have any com equipment installed, so he reached out to get the com that he always had in his uniform pocket, since the uniform was hanging just outside the stall. The admiral bumped his funny bone in the cramped shower stall, winced and cursed as a career soldier would. Damn! Couldn’t they make the stall just a wee bit larger?! He smiled just as soon as he had that thought. Human expectations keep growing however far they reach! Just about 70 years ago, the first human soldiers were flying in tiny tin cans with not even a proper bunk, let alone anything else, and here he was in his own private room, reasonably spacious with all amenities including a shower stall, cursing because the stall was not bigger!
Triumph & Defeat (Shaitan Wars Book 4) Page 22