Wrath of the Shaitans

by Sudipto Majumdar

  “You can’t be serious sir. There must be over 250 people out there on Mars!” Gerald asked disbelievingly.

  “222 military personnel and 35 civilians, 257 to be exact Gerald and I wish I was joking. The final confirmation from Admiral Cloutier arrived a few hours ago. We will now be coordinating directly with USS Resolute. We have the lead, so we will be giving the go-ahead signal to Capt. Strong, she will wait till then. She will be fighting impossible odds. I think we will need all the sympathy ourselves, otherwise I would have given some to her. She is a ‘Boj-baba’… a tough lady. I am sure she will pull through somehow.” Fabi said with an air of resignation.

  “Sir the whole idea of fighting for humanity was not to lose our humanity. If we start behaving like the Shaitans, how are we any better than them? Sacrificing 257 humans for a tactical advantage is just not us humans.” Gerald said, still not believing the admirals could take such a heartless decision.

  “I know what you mean Gerald. Do not think less of Admiral Cloutier for this decision. He has closer friends, in that camp than any one of us. He is doing his duty and the right thing. If it had been a mere tactical advantage, then what you said would have been true, but it is more than that, at least we think it is more than that, and we cannot take even the slightest chance with the survival of humanity, even at the cost of every soul on Mars. Such is the burden of command captain, be prepared for it because one day you may have to make those decisions.” Fabi said seriously. Gerald noticed that the admiral’s English grammar had improved drastically in this closed room conversation.

  “Sir, what do mean by ‘it is more than that’?” Gerald asked, curious now.

  “What do you think those six ships heading towards us are?” Fabi asked seriously.

  “We suspect that they are some kind of specialized war ships sir.” Gerald replied.

  “We don’t suspect Gerald, we are almost certain they are war ships. When your troop carrier gets defeated first time, you don’t send weaker ships to escort your second wave of troop carriers. You send war ships to escort them.

  Only now those war ships are no longer escorting the troop carriers. One troop carrier is alone on Mars taking hostage and putting itself in danger, while the other is also alone inching slowly towards Earth. Why do you think so? Why put your troop carriers in jeopardy, when you have escorted them for a quarter light year all the way to the objective?” Fabi asked.

  “It would look like they are using the troop carriers as bait sir.” Gerald replied although he was not very certain.

  “Yes it does, doesn’t it? What does it tell you about their intent and their tactics?” Fabi asked, but Gerald gave a shrug to indicate that he didn’t care take a guess and wanted Fabi to continue.

  “It tells us that the troop carriers don’t form any critical part of their attack plan. We could have concentrated on those troop carriers at any point of time with significant force and destroyed them. The Shaitan admiral knew that, he was probably hoping or even counting on that.

  It would have lessened the pressure on his warships. The Shaitan admiral is almost desperate for his two parts of the fleet to meet up. I can understand the tactical reasoning for wanting to do so, but that does not explain the desperation to be willing to sacrifice two troop carriers containing thousands of Shaitans.

  They are planning to attack Earth, but feel no need for their troop carriers, which means that they have no intention of landing troops to attack. They are desperate to preserve their war ships, which can only bombard from orbit. So their intention is clear. Just remember the size and yield of their missiles and the size of those warships, and how many such missiles each of them must be carrying, and I am sure you get the picture.

  There is another worrying aspect about their psychology. Remember the Shaitan ship over Titan, and what it tried to do as a last desperate act? We don’t think that individual Shaitan captain was particularly suicidal or vindictive. We believe, that is the normal way the Shaitans think.

  This means that once the six warships meet up on this tangential point, turn 90° towards Earth and start their run, there will be no way to make them stop unless we are able to destroy them completely on the way. Even if a ship is damaged, it will continue its suicidal run all the way to Earth.

  The first and the Second Fleet which are positioned to defend Earth, may not be able to stop 6 fast moving Shaitan war ships, which don’t want to engage and are intent on bypassing the defending fleet. We have to stop and destroy as many of those ships while they are not pointed towards Earth as we can. If necessary, we have to die trying.” Fabi looked straight into Gerald’s eyes.

  Gerald nodded. He understood the gravity of the situation and the importance of the Third Fleet in engaging these warships far and at a tangent to Earth’s direction. The people on Mars were making their sacrifice for Earth, and the Third Fleet had to make its own. It was as simple as that. So he simply asked, “So what is the fleshing you want for your Maskirovka?”

  “OUR Maskirovka Gerald, our Maskirovka. Here is what I have in mind.” There was a wicked smile on the admiral’s face. It was only surpassed by the wickedness of his plan. The wicked smile was infectious, for as Gerald calculated the vectors and the feasibility of the timings, his face started reflecting the wicked smile.

  Chapter 13

  Nutcase

  Above Mars

  September 2083

  Major Edward ‘Nutcase’ Bassinger didn’t know who was crazier. The captain for thinking this up, or him for agreeing to do it. He had been certified a nutcase anyway by his buddies right at the boot camp. He even had it stenciled on his suit, laughably called an ‘armor’ by the USC. The captain on the other hand was not known in the navy to be particularly aggressive.

  She had surprised him with this plan. Woman maybe, but she had some balls, Ed had to hand that to her. This would turn out to be the most spectacular and daring space marine jump in history if they managed to reach the surface alive. Else it would turn out to be the biggest single operational disaster in the short history of space marines, and he would be a footnote in that story.

  Come to think of it, this would be the most spectacular jump in human history, period. That was not even half of what they were attempting. If they managed to pull off even one of the objectives of their mission, then it would turn out to be the most spectacular hostage rescue operation in history.

  Who else had jumped off a ship, not in orbit but racing towards Mars at breakneck speed, slammed into the atmosphere to become a meteor, then coasted on wings half way across the planet to rescue hostages from alien hostage takers? His buddies would no longer call him a ‘Nutcase’ after this mission – they will change his name to ‘Raving Lunatic’.

  He watched as one of the crew started foaming over his faceplate. He felt strangely claustrophobic. He knew it was all in his mind. He was no more enclosed now with his faceplate foamed over than he was in the suit to begin with. He quickly instructed his faceplate display to switch over to the helmet camera.

  It felt comforting for his brain to see the external picture on the insides of the faceplate, giving an illusion that the faceplate was open. The picture on the faceplate was high resolution and good, and gave his brain some comfort, even though the pictures were not good enough to deceive his eyes into thinking it was the real view.

  Human brain is a complex thing. He had been given a lot of dope about it, when he got his implant, but he was continuously amazed by the quirks of his own brain. Even though his suit was completely encased in foam right now, all he had to do was close his eyes and command his suit to give him the schematics, and he would be able to get a wireframe image of the shuttle bay in every possible electromagnetic spectrum, directly fed into his brain.

  Admitted it was not as rich as a visual image, human implants were still very nascent technology. We do not even understand how the brain interprets a visual image properly to feed a full visual image to the brain directly. However as a soldier and a mari
ne he could appreciate the depth and the breadth of range in which he could scan and directly feed the images to his brain. From microwaves to infrared to visible light to UV light, all could come directly from his suit to his brain. He could even emit ultrasound like a bat and an image of the surroundings would be fed into his brain from that.

  Yet he needed the illusion of a visual image on his faceplate to keep him from feeling claustrophobic. He was glad that he could control the suit directly with his thoughts through the neural interface, for he could barely move his arms now as the foam slowly hardened. They had to remain still and let it harden completely, lest a hole opened up in the joints due to the movement. That would be a painful way to die on your way down, burning up in the atmosphere of Mars.

  He now knew why his company had been chosen by the captain for this mission, probably recommended by the Admiral himself. His company was only one of the two in USC-GCF that had a full platoon of tech-heads. This jump could be only done by tech-heads.

  He also realized why the admiral had passed on the request from the captain Strong, for him to personally head this company on this mission, instead of a marine of the rank of a Captain. They needed a nutcase to attempt a job like this, and he was THE nutcase of the space marines. The captain and the admiral may have anticipated such a crazy mission all along.

  “This is your captain. I wish you luck marines. We are on schedule and the countdown will begin shortly. I have no doubt that you will complete your mission commendably once you reach the surface. That is what marines do best. We need you to reach the surface safely for that. Be diligent on your jump procedures and you will be fine. I wish you good luck once more gentlemen, Semper Fi. Captain out.” Trisha completed the customary captain’s address before a mission, and now it was all up to the marines.

  Ed heard a loud ding inside his suit, indicating that the countdown had begun. He looked at the HUD and the countdown had started from T minus 5 minutes. He could have easily taken the countdown inside his head through his neural interface, but feeding the information directly to the brain tired him out fast, so he used it only when it was needed. Whatever could be done visually, or through his ears, he preferred to do them the old fashioned way.

  It was the same with all the tech-heads he had talked to. Human senses have evolved over millions of years to live in harmony with the brain. They know how to talk to each other nicely. The senses provide information in a format that the brain does not find too taxing to interpret. It provides information at such a rate as to not overload the brain.

  The neural interface on the other hand is a foreign invasion into the brain. We don’t understand the human brain much, we barely understand the workings and the interconnections of the different parts of the brain. Our understanding of the signal format of the senses to the brain is crude at best, and we definitely don’t understand much of the language in which the senses send signals to the brain.

  Yet we have made invasive surgery into the human body, hijacked the neural pathways to the senses and tried to use a crude signal system to mimic the signals sent to and from the brain. No wonder the brain gets tired on the use of such a crude system.

  Yet Ed put that crude system to use right now. He closed his eyes to take a 360° scan of the hangar bay. The 360° scan was the trickiest and the most tiring system to use for the brain. It did not just require practice to use, but you always required a few seconds of recovery time before your brain got back to normal mode. Human brain was not wired to process information this way.

  The trick was to slowly rotate your concentration on the 3D wireframe drawn in your brain, so that you watched the center section of that image and trained you brain to ignore the rest of the image as peripheral vision. It gave the illusion that you are slowly rotating within a 3D sphere with tunnel vision. That prevented you from getting too disoriented.

  He noted that the crew who had had helped them prepare had withdrawn to the airlock. The airlock must be cycling now. The hangar bay closed to space. This was a new design feature compared to the previous generation ships, which were open to space. The closed hangar feature was also used in the latest generation Nautilus.

  The name ‘hangar bay’ was a misnomer. I was not really an enclosed space where a shuttle could enter. Human space ships were not that big. In theory the new Nautilus class ship was big enough for a shuttle to enter, but it would be too tight and dangerous entry, especially in a fast turnaround operation. No human ship, even the larger Nautilus could spare that kind of space anyway. They needed every cubic meter available for living space and storage.

  The ‘hangar bay’ was simply a compartment where Ed’s platoon of thirty could barely stand cheek by jowl in their suits. There were airlocks on both the sides, for access to the rest of the ship. There was also one airlock on the nominal overhead of compartment, and another on the nominal floor. ‘Nominal’ because there is no true top or bottom in this gravity less environment.

  The shuttles docked outside on the external hull of the ship. This made the docking easier, safer and faster. The shuttle pilots had autopilots, as well as elaborate navigational aids to bring it close to the docking point. Once the docking point sensed the shuttle was close, it would activate its powerful magnets, hydraulically dampened to catch and grip the shuttle.

  The magnets were smart. Even if the shuttle was facing the wrong way or at an angle, it would reverse its polarity to turn the shuttle appropriately before gripping it. This made docking relatively easy and fast affair. Pilots were required to even practice manual docking at high speed approach with their shuttle computers turned off. The docking points would position the shuttle so that the floor airlock of the shuttle would dock with one of the two airlocks on the overboard or the floor of the hangar bay.

  The same hydraulically dampened magnets would work in reverse to safely push the shuttle a safe distance away from the ship to enable it to launch safely. The two shuttles of USS Resolute had been launched this way some time back, carrying one platoon each, struggling right now on an even more perilous journey, never attempted by a shuttle before.

  They had to brake harder, expend their limited fuel to an almost perilous extent, and then slam into the atmosphere of Mars with an insane level of violence. They would be testing the truth to the rumor that all engineers lower the rated breaking point of equipment from the actual breaking point, in order to keep the Neanderthal jarheads from breaking their equipment.

  Thus the docking points were not blocked by shuttles, and presently the overhead and the floor airlock opened up. Ed spoke up on his command channel to his platoon.

  “The marines are in business now people. Today we kick some Shaitan ass. I want the jump done by the book. Concentration is the key marines, you lose concentration from your displays you die in your jump, as simple as that. Watch those displays like a hawk.

  You have all done this on Earth, trust me it is easier on Mars with its thinner atmosphere. I and your LTs have done this before here on Mars. The only thing we have to watch out for is the speed, no one has done it at this speed before. You don’t need to worry, I have done the calculations and it is well within the safety margin.” Ed lied, it was barely within the doable margin, let alone the safety margin.

  He continued anyway. “We are on radio silence the moment we leave the hangar bay, both before and after the re-entry radio blackout.” He was referring to the time when you are burning on entry into the atmosphere, when no radio transmission can be made or received, and hence is called reentry radio blackout. “Remember you turn on the radio, and you put a death sentence on your comrades. If we decide to break radio silence, you will hear from me or your LTs. All the best marines Oorah!”

  There was immediate cry of “Oorah” from thirty brave but slightly apprehensive marines. Ed could not fault his men for that. Given what they were attempting, one would have to be crazy not to be worried.

  As the countdown clock reached zero, another countdown clock started immediately. Thi
s one had started counting down from 33 seconds. It was the window the marines had to exit the ship. Outside this window of time, the marines would be in danger of missing their reentry angle and either enter too steep and be in the danger of burning up, or too shallow and be skipped off into space to be lost forever.

  The airlocks were wide enough for two armor suited marines to exit together. They had 33 seconds to exit from two airlocks. It was not as easy as it sounds. They were coated in thick foam and could barely move their arms, and they could only move by use of the handrails along the bulkhead. They made it barely in time.

  The moment Ed floated out of the ship, he commanded his suit to start the flight routine. Experientially, he could not make out that he was now out of the ship free floating at high speed on a course that would miss Mars and take him on a never ending journey into space. The only reason he knew all that was because he had his display on which gave him a wireframe schematics.

  His display was telling him that his suit boosters were functioning properly and slowing him down on a decaying orbit towards Mars. However the acceleration of the boosters was so minute that he could not feel it. It felt as if he was free floating in space. He tried not looking at the velocity indicator. He didn’t want to be reminded of the frightening speed they were hurtling in space, with nothing but their suits on.

  The countdown clock was now showing 11 minutes and a few seconds. This was the time to their expected contact with Mars’ atmosphere. It was not a precise count. It could happen many seconds before or after the estimated count. Ed hoped that the marines remembered that fact and braced themselves accordingly.

  Not being ready for the first shock of reentry can be fatal. If your body is not supple and flexible at that point of initial shock, and you are unlucky to be in an awkward position or angle, then your body or neck can snap and break into two. He had seen comrades die that way.