When the USC admiral saw two hundred and twenty four Shaitan missiles heading towards the human fleet, he knew that the Shaitan Warmaster had the same idea as him. He was holding nothing back, because he had emptied and thrown his entire arsenal at the human fleet. Despite the fact that Shaitan nukes detonated on being stopped by antimissiles, effectively clearing other antimissiles in the vicinity, and thus clearing the way for the next Shaitan nuke to progress a bit closer to their target, the amount of missiles wasn’t unmanageable.
Having two parts of the fleet approach from two different directions posed a problem and a decision point for the Warmaster. A nuke launched at one part of the fleet approaching from one direction could target only the ships in that direction. If the Warmaster was to be an optimist and think of a scenario where all the human warships approaching from one direction were to be destroyed, then any missile still left that had been launched in that direction would go waste, not being able to target any of the surviving ships approaching from the other direction. So the Warmaster had to make a decision on how many missiles to launch at each part of the split human fleet.
The easiest course of action would have been to split the missiles equally. This was the best case scenario that the humans were hoping for. It would give the human ships the highest probability of surviving. The Warmaster wasn’t stupid. He also knew this fact. However the specter of wasted missiles after having destroyed all ships in one direction kept him from skewing the balance too far in either direction. In the end he went in for a compromise, and sent two third of the missiles in one direction and one third in the other.
It was the second mistake that the Warmaster made in the battle by playing safe. He wouldn’t live to figure it out, but later analysis would prove that if the Warmaster had sent all the missiles in one direction, the Shaitan fleet could have done a lot more damage to the human fleet than they ended up doing. The part of the human fleet that had received only one third of the Shaitan missiles, were easily able to ward off the attack. The point defense of seven battle cruisers were easily able to counter seventy five Shaitan nukes heading towards them in a roughly straight line. This part of the fleet suffered no casualties.
The other part of the human fleet had a much tougher time. Hundred and forty nine monster Shaitan missiles were a bit too much for the point defense system of seven battle cruisers. The Shaitan nukes kept getting progressively closer, till it reached the first ship at the absolute forefront. Once that ship was destroyed, the point defense system of the entire unit got weaker, as there were now only six ships’ point defense system in play, which allowed the subsequent Shaitan missiles to approach the next ship in line much more rapidly. The second ship in the line was also destroyed. The only reason that the third ship in the line escaped alive was because by then the Shaitan missiles had run out. If the Shaitan missiles hadn’t run out, the subsequent ships in the line would have been rapidly destroyed, because the point defense system would have rapidly degraded. If the Warmaster had sent all his missiles in one direction, then he was almost certain to have destroyed all of the seven human ships in that line. Even at the risk of wasting a few missiles, it would have been a far better outcome from the point of view of the Warmaster than what he finally got – two of the human battle cruisers killed.
The outcome that the admiral got wasn’t exactly what he had hoped for either, but it was close. There were three hundred and forty missiles targeting each of the Shaitan warships on an average. In a seven Shaitan warship formation, that was supposed to be good enough to destroy all of the ships. The human missiles were far more numerous, although they didn’t clear the way upon dying as the Shaitan missiles did. It taxed the point defense system of the Shaitan more, and the human missiles hadn’t been that tightly constrained to travel in a narrow corridor as the Shaitan missiles had been. That helped many of the human missiles to evade the point defense system. The outcome that the admiral got was the complete destruction of five of the warships, and one ship that was definitely wounded. There was one ship that had emerged unscathed, but it was no threat any longer. It had no missiles left in its arsenal.
As the twelve surviving USC battle cruisers emerged from the encounter, they got very little time to mourn the dead or rejoice their victory. They still had unfinished business. The remaining twelve ships immediately started maneuvers to bring their relative speed to each other to zero, so that they could once again join as single fleet. The two parts of the fleet had crossed each other and were increasing their distance after the battle, when they had briefly converged. Once that order of business had been achieved, then the human fleet turned their attention towards the two Shaitan war vessels that were rushing in from their patrol on the edges of the system.
Those two Shaitan war vessels were less than a day from World #4, which was where they were heading, not towards the human fleet. It was obvious that those two war vessels were trying to do maximum damage to the space infrastructure around World #4 before the human fleet could engage them. The battle in space had been lost as far as the Shaitans were concerned. Those two Shaitan war vessels couldn’t expect to live very long if they went toe to toe with the human fleet, so they decided to even the odds a bit in orbit for the rest of the Shaitans on the surface. They would destroy all the space based infrastructure, especially the space elevator before the human fleet could engage them.
Despite the superior acceleration of the USC battle cruisers, the human fleet wasn’t able to beat the two Shaitan war vessels to World #4. The human fleet had a lot of residual momentum in the wrong direction. The fleet had to fight that momentum, almost reverse its course and then build up speed to head towards World #4. The Shaitan war vessels launched a single missile without any ado immediately on reaching the vicinity of World #4. A four hundred megaton nuke is an overkill to bring down a precariously balanced and stationary space elevator, fighting the relatively high gravity of World #4. A conventional high yield missile would probably have done the job just as well. Perhaps the Shaitan war vessel didn’t have anything smaller, or perhaps they didn’t want to take a chance.
It didn’t matter, for the biggest marvel of engineering on World #4, and the pinnacle of achievement of Shaitan civilization came crashing down to the surface of world #4. This world, stay without a space elevator for more than a century because of events that were to shortly unfold. For the moment though, the Shaitan war vessels had achieved their immediate objective of denying the humans an easy and cheap access to World #4. It would complicate and slow down the occupation, as well as the ultimate conquest of the world.
After the destruction of the space elevator, the two Shaitan war vessels simply waited for the human fleet to arrive. Initially the humans thought that the two Shaitan war vessels were either indulging in bravado, or in blind rage to take on a fleet of twelve human battle cruisers. Then they realized the missile math, which the Shaitan masters of the war vessels knew just as well as the humans. The human fleet had a grand total of hundred and twenty missiles between all of them put together. While those two Shaitan war vessels, had their entire arsenal of hundred and twenty eight missiles each intact. Between the two war vessels, they had two hundred and fifty five missiles with them, having used just one to bring down the space elevator. In fact just those two war vessels could throw more missiles at the human fleet than the seven war vessels of the remnants of the splinter fleet had thrown at them in the just concluded encounter. That was nothing to be scoffed at.
Even with just two Shaitan war vessels in the formation, hundred and twenty missiles, that is sixty missiles targeted on each of the war vessels may not be enough to ensure their destruction. Humans needed another trick to ensure that these absolutely last missiles that they possessed counted for something. What the battle cruisers still had in plenty were antimissiles. The tactic of sending antimissiles along with actual nuclear missiles to confuse and tax the Shaitan point defense system had been pioneered in the first invasion of the Solar system. It had w
orked well the first time, but since then the Shaitans had adapted their point defense algorithms, to differentiate between human nukes and human antimissiles. The Shaitan point defense system no longer got fooled so easily.
The antimissiles though are not completely useless. The algorithms make a determination of which ones are real nukes and which ones are just antimissiles with milliseconds worth of radar and light spectrum data, if the density of the missiles was thick, then the computers had to make that determination with microseconds’ worth of data. Sometimes even those algorithms make mistakes and targeted the wrong type of missile. The antimissiles are especially effective in keeping the point defense busy at short range, where the time to determine the right kind of missile gets shorter. The admiral was aiming for just ten to fifteen percent degradation of the two Shaitan war vessels’ point defense system. That would be enough to ensure that both the Shaitan war vessels were destroyed.
When the human fleet reached World #4, each of the battle cruisers released a hundred antimissiles along with their ten remaining nuclear missiles. Thus one thousand two hundred dummy missiles were mixed with the hundred and twenty nukes to try and tax the point defense system in order to ensure that some of the nukes were able to get through. It worked, but not before the USC fleet paid with it with more blood. Both the Shaitan war vessels were comprehensively destroyed, but the two hundred and fifty five missiles targeted at the human fleet took down two of the battle cruisers as well. This was a low speed encounter, and single file formation wasn’t going to help. This encounter was a conventional missile slugfest, and there were always casualties in such slugfests.
Within minutes of the destruction of the two Shaitan war vessels, the human fleet’s attention was diverted back towards the area where the fleet had fought the seven remnants of the fleet a day before. There they noticed a Shaitan war vessels lighting up its thrusters. It was the only war vessel which had managed to survive from the splinter fleet. The war vessel headed out towards the dark emptiness of space, in a direction with no particular significance, presumably never to be heard about again. The presumption was wrong. This particular war vessel would resurface again in human history a few centuries later at an interesting and difficult time. That one ship, spent of all its weapons, would cause more trouble to humanity than the entire splinter fleet had caused in World #4.
For the moment though, the navy and its brave crew had saved the day. The humans had also seen off the last remaining pocket of resistance in space from the Shaitans. The invasion of World #4 would continue for many more decades, before the last of the Shaitans were killed on the planet. No Shaitan ever surrendered.
Chapter XXX
Ghost Planet
Planet Ka-Let, Proxima Centauri System
2189
“Alpha party, the Sacrifice copies you. You are advised to proceed to the LZ as planned, the shuttle is on its way. All the best Alpha party, give us a shout if you find anything noteworthy. Sacrifice out.” USC Sacrifice replied to Lt. Jenkins.
Lt. Hector Jenkins chose to use his Mark 1 eyeballs to scan his platoon instead of using all the high tech circuitry stuffed into his helmet and his skull. There was something satisfying in being able to see things as nature intended with one’s own eyes, which no amount of human gadgetry could satisfy. He knew he was being able to check just the very basic information about just a few of the Marines visible in his line of sight, but being able to view that with his own eyes in this strange but beautiful light filled him with comfort.
The planet PC-d or as popularly known as Planet Ka-Let had been a pleasant surprise to Hector. After all the stories of dim, dark worlds he had grown up reading through the Shaitan wars from childhood, his expectations about PC-d had been very low. Even as he was jumping into the planet, his expectations had been somewhat similar to his heroes like the then Lt. Sarah Brogan who had been one of the first humans to have jumped into a Shaitan world and conquer it.
Intellectually he knew that he was jumping into a well-lit planet, lit by a Star. Even though he could see the surface clearly in the visible spectrum through his eyes, the stories about the dark hellish worlds of Lt. Brogan kept coming back to his mind. He had read too many stories about human space conquest as a child and a teenager to put them out of his mind.
Lt. Jenkins had to constantly remind himself that in a way he was a pioneer too. He was one of the first humans to jump into a very different kind of a planet. PC-d or planet Ka-Let was the first extra-solar planet that humans were setting their foot on to. In many ways he was creating history himself. That momentous occasion and the beautiful sight of the planet bathed in a reddish tinged light of Proxima Centauri would have been worth savoring, but for the fact that Lt. Jenkins was jumping into hostile enemy territory. He had been too busy monitoring his data feeds for signs of danger to enjoy the beauty of the planet.
Humans had finally reached the other end of the Shaitan Empire, and the last planet that the hostile non-believer Shaitans hold. Every other world of the Shaitans had been taken over by the humans and the friendly heretic Shaitans. Oh… and by the way, humans had finally reached another star! It was amazing that the fact that humans had reached another star wasn’t creating as much buzz in the fleet as the fact that the humans had reached the last Shaitan world. Then again, in a perverse way, humans had to thank the Shaitans for spurring them to travel so far in space.
According to the heretics as well as from the Shaitan records seized, PC-d was the richest single world that the Shaitans had in their entire empire. The abundant energy of a star enabled a very productive and resourceful planet, which none of the other dark worlds of the Shaitans could match. It was similar to the comparison between the relatively high productivity of Earth compared to any of the Shaitan worlds. Although PC-d was not as fecund as Earth, but the species which had inhabited this planet, the Ka-Let were an older civilization compared to humans, who had built up the infrastructure of the planet to a greater degree, which had enabled the Shaitans to inherit a very productive planet.
That was the reason why despite its remoteness from Earth, and the costs involved in such a campaign, the USC had sent a twenty ship fleet to this world, expecting stiff resistance from a relatively wealthy Shaitan world.
The fleet had been baffled when they didn’t meet any resistance as they entered the system. Even more baffling was the fact that the fleet couldn’t detect any activity in space. Not a single ship, satellite or even a radio signal leakage. It was very hard to ambush in open space, but the fleet had proceeded extremely cautiously, expecting ambush at every stage. The fleet had literally crawled into the orbit of PC-d, expecting massive barrage of missile fire from the surface.
Nothing of that sorts had happened. It was as if no one was home, or no one cared that a massive invasion fleet was hovering over their planet. Surface scans had shown that there was thriving native flora and/or fauna that covered the surface of the planet. Yet there didn’t seem to be a single sign of intelligent life on the planet except massively big cities and signs of huge structures and construction all over the planet. Everything seemed normal on the planet except there were no Shaitans on the planet. It was as if all the Shaitans had packed up their bags and simply left the planet!
Lt. Jenkins had spent hours staring at the planet from above. It was a beautiful planet. Very different from Earth, but beautiful nonetheless. In many ways it reminded Lt. Jenkins of Mars. Someone had told him that this is how Mars must have looked four billion years ago, when it still had heat at its core, and liquid water on its surface. There was liquid water on PC-d as well, but nothing on the scale of Earth. Only a fifth of the surface was covered in water, and those seas and lakes were shallow compared to those on Earth. The deepest sea was about half a kilometer deep, but most were just a few hundred meters at their deepest.
Surface tomography had revealed that there was much more ground water, soaked up below the surface, so water was unlikely to be a problem on this planet. Beyond all e
xpectations, the planet had a magnetic field and shielding against harmful solar winds. The magnetic field was nowhere as strong as Earth, but then the solar radiation and the solar winds from the red dwarf Proxima Centauri was not as strong as the Sun either. So in balance, the surface was fairly safe for organic creatures, and the magnetic field prevented the thin atmosphere from ionizing away, as had happened to Mars once it lost its magnetic field.
The atmosphere was extremely thin, just over 40% of Earth’s atmosphere. Humans were advised to wear face masks at all times, not just due to the thin atmosphere but also due to the high content of carbon di-oxide and carbon mono oxide in the atmosphere. The former was poisonous in high concentration to humans while the later was poisonous even in low concentration. The atmosphere had a fair amount of oxygen, but due to the thinness of the atmosphere and presence of carbon mono oxide couldn’t be breathed directly. A facemask scrubbed the poisonous gasses and concentrated the oxygen.
After nearly three weeks in orbit around PC-d trying to figure out what happened on the planet below, they had no more answers than on the first day. There was some signs of bombardment and destruction on a few installations and buildings, but it was minimal. Nothing that would make a planet rumored to be populated by hundreds of millions of Shaitans disappear overnight.
There was only one way to find answers – got to the surface. That is what the USC-GCF, aka the Marines specialized in. Sgt. Jenkins’ platoon had been sent first as an expeditionary force to scope out a particular sector that had been identified as the designated landing zone. This area was relatively less built up, and thus less amenable to setting up an ambush. Yet the sector was adjacent to a heavily built up zone, which could be investigated for clues.
As usual the first Marines to open up a beachhead on any planet had to jump. Individual Marines with a small profile and very little metal were the hardest to hit from the surface. Lt. Jenkins was not the first Marine lieutenant, nor would he be the last to think bitterly, that in a faraway campaign like this one, the life of a few Marine probably counted less than a shuttle. Despite that thought, Lt. Jenkins was glad that he was jumping on to the surface of this beautiful well lit planet.
Triumph & Defeat (Shaitan Wars Book 4) Page 48