He stood next to Lt. Schellenger’s terminal, which was a blur of menus that he could not make out. The commands his weapons officer was issuing through his brain were being reflected on the screen. He could now appreciate how fast he must be working. It still took 15 seconds for the Lieutenant to finish the programming.
“Sir, the programming’s done and ready for others to download. Shall I execute?” Lt. Schellenger asked.
“Yes do it now!” Daniel commanded in an impatient tone. Then he slammed his helmet button to connect with Admiral Kalinin. “Sir programming ready and available for the fleet, Nautilus has already executed.”
Gerald watched on his weapons officer’s terminal as the other ships downloaded and the executed the program one by one. USS Endurance was the last one to do so, after an irritatingly long delay. It would turn out to be her undoing.
Chapter 16
Making contact
Mars
September 2083
Ed went about the grim task of doing a manual head count. There was no need really. It had already been done by both his NCOs and the figure was not going to change with his count. Two of the marines had not made it. Statistically it was a not a bad loss rate for the most difficult jump made in history, but that didn’t make it any easier on Ed. He had to move on and concentrate on the job at hand.
They had chosen the landing area for two reasons. First it was a flat plateau hundreds of kilometers across, providing them with a large, flat and safe landing spot, especially coming out of such a high speed jump. Second it was the plateau that fell into the largest canyon in the solar system – Valles Marineris.
The reason they had chosen the landing area so far from the rally point was simple. If you missed the landing spot, by a few kilometers, which is very likely when you are jumping from space and halfway across the planet, you don’t want to fall into a canyon 6 Km deep in this part of the canyon.
The rally point was a few hundred meters from the edge of the canyon and almost overhead the Kormas base 5 Km below. It was a small sheltered alcove. Ed dispatched 5 two man teams along the rim of the canyons a few Km on either side to recce and obtain situational awareness about current positions of the enemy. Then he directed the combat engineer carrying the special equipment he had been lugging to start his task.
The engineer and his partner started hammering pitons to the ground and attaching thin carbon weaved ropes to them. They attached the ropes to their suit harness and then slowly stepped off the edge of cliff down towards the canyon. They did not intend to go down all the way. It would not even be possible.
They went down about 30 feet to go over some rocks jutting out. Once clear of those rocks, it was a sheer fall all the way down 5 Km to the plateau that housed the Kormas base. The engineer carrying the equipment box strapped to his chest hammered a few pitons on the rocks. Then he carefully detached the box, but left the safety lanyard of the box still attached to his chest, just in case it slipped from his hand.
He secured the box to the pitons he had hammered, and also applied fast acting glue, specially designed for Mars atmosphere. With the box secure, he released the safety lanyard and moved away from it to give the box clear line of sight below. Then he activated the switch on the box.
The box released a mini robot, which looked more like a mechanical spider. It was suspended with a fiber made out of carbon nanotube. It was so thin that it could not be seen with naked eyes unless you went very close to it. It was however dangerous to go close to it. It was so thin and yet strong, that it could tear the suit.
Carbon nanotube fibers was one of the new materials humans had learnt to manufacture in mass from the technologies stolen from the Shaitans at Titan. Prior to that, the longest carbon nanotubes humans had been able to make were just a few millimeters long. This fiber was very long, it could easily go all the way down to the Kormas base plateau, taking the weight of the robot, and even withstand the stress if the robot swayed in strong winds.
As had been imagined, when humans did not even have to capability to manufacture long fibers of the material, carbon nanotube fibers were dangerous. They had the ability to cut naked flesh, as also soft exterior of a suit. They were not however so thin and strong to go straight through the human body as imagined in fiction. It was theoretically possible for such a material to exist, but humans didn’t have the capability to make such fine threads of carbon nanotube yet.
The engineer and his partner stayed suspended, monitoring the descent of the robot on their helmet display. They were there just in case the thread go entangled in anything below. It should not happen, unless the robot started swaying wildly in the wind.
The wind was very light at this height, but given that it had to travel down 5 Km, the conditions below might be very different, especially with the tunnel effect that canyons create as you go further down the canyon. The spider itself kept its legs pointed towards the wall of the canyon and moving to be able to anchor itself to the wall, just in case it banged with the wall. The whole thing made it look eerily like a real life monster spider descending on its spinneret.
The recon teams returned before the spider had reached its destination. It reported having observed a large base and an enemy shuttle near the air strip on the plains and 6 different enemy positions circling the plateau. Two of the positions were in relatively open and flat land, guarding the sole exit road from the plateau to the plains and the airstrip below.
Two positions were right at the base of the plateau on the side that faced the opposite wall of the canyon. These two position were on rugged land, with large boulders and rocks. The last two positions were on the side opposite to the plains that went further into the canyon. These were on top of two small rock outcroppings jutting out of the canyon walls.
They were meant to prevent escape from the base if the humans tried to climb down the sheer face of the plateau from that side. It was possible that there could be one or two more enemy positions not visible to them. It was hard to give a count of the enemy in each position from this far a distance, but there must be at least a hundred in each of the positions.
Ed realized that his platoon, now down to 28 in number, plus him making 29 was heavily outnumbered. Even with the backup waiting far behind for the go ahead signal, it would be a hopeless ratio. They did not even know how may were there in that large Shaitan camp on the plains. Making contact with the base was no longer just important, it was make or break. He needed the support of troops in the base if he had to have any hope.
They were on EM silence right now. The only way to communicate was through induction jacking, touching helmets or the old fashioned hand signals. Induction jacking was a new capability built into the marine’s suit. Unlike the last encounter with the Shaitans, when there was just one suit which everyone wore. Humans had prepared a lot more for planetary battles this time.
There were special suits made for the military. Not just that, the Navy had its own suit designed for their needs whereas the USC-GCF had multiple suit designs adapted for different roles. The induction jacking was one of the features built for combat situations when the marines had to keep EM silence.
The capillaries woven into the fabric of the suit, which carried fluid for heating the suit had thin copper wires spin around them. These copper wires acted as micro induction coils, that could transmit a microampere of current across a centimeter of separation. It was enough to transmit signals between suits if they touched each other. To speak or exchange data with a comrade, all the marine had to do was touch him.
Ed got touched by the engineer who said. “The spider has landed on the Kormas base sir. The spider anchored the line in 20 different places on the wall with glue on its way down, so the line should be secure from snagging or snapping accidentally. The spider still has play of over 5 km of fiber, so it should be able to move around freely. Moving around structures might take time though, as the spider will have to back up and wind back its fiber before proceeding to the next destina
tion.”
“Understood Mike, and good job. Now let’s try to make contact. You drive, just give me a view. You are the best driver in the platoon anyway.” Ed said.
Mike kept his grip on Ed’s arm and shared the spider’s feed with Ed. Like everyone in this platoon, Mike was a tech-head. He did not need his hands to drive the spider. The spider roamed around the habitat modules and huts spaced around the plateau. It didn’t have to enter the modules to see if anyone was home.
The spider scampered up the wall next to the door to the data interface outlet and with the security override authorization the marines possessed, query the habitat computer. It knew within seconds that all the habitat modules were empty. This was expected. The spider was next driven towards the ‘Glass Worm’ embedded in the wall of the canyon, and the entrance to the tunnels.
While approaching the blast door, they picked out two USC-GCF marines standing on lookout on either sides of the blast door. They were from Gurkha unit. It was not clear whether they were from the British or the Indian Gurkha unit. As if the common name was not confusing enough, they even had the same insignia of two crossed Kukri.
The Gurkha originated from a fierce tribe of warriors in the Himalayas in North India and Nepal. The British were so impressed with these warriors during their 150 odd years of imperial rule of India, that when they left they offered the Gurkha Regiments under the British Army to transfer en masse along with their families to UK. The regiments have lived up to their fierce reputation and to this day are considered an elite fighting unit within the British army. Needless to say the Indian Army also had elite Gurkha units, who had the same insignia.
As they spider approached the Gurkha marines, they kept their guns trained at the spider, although from their facial expressions that could be made out now, they seemed happy. One of the Gurkha marines knelt down and touched his gloves to the top of the spider and said. “Identification please.”
Ed activated his digital ID and opened up a voice channel. “Major Edward Bassinger, Third division, Third Company. The cavalry is here gentlemen.”
The Gurkha marine waited for a second for his suit computer to authenticate the digital Id before he spoke. “Lance Naik Giri at your service sir. You are most welcome sir. You do not know how much relief and joy it gives my heart to hear your voice sir, although I did not know the USC-GCF had a mounted cavalry unit.”
Ed rolled his eyes, this was definitely the Indian Gurkha unit. Ed had to recollect hard the rank hierarchy of the Indian Army to figure out that a Lance Naik is the equivalent of the US Army Private First Class. The USC-GCF seriously needed to get their own uniform rank system. Carrying over ranks from the native countries’ armed forces was seriously confusing even for a seasoned veteran like him.
The Gurkha marine directed the spider to the blast door’s data interface and Ed was able to make contact with the control center inside. Leanna was on the line in a matter of seconds, probably because the Gurkha marines at the door would have warned about the approaching spider.
“Major Bassinger, welcome to Mars. I am afraid our hospitality is lacking a tad bit due to circumstances, but I promise to make it up to you once we have kicked the asses of the Shaitans.” Leanna started relief clearly audible in her voice. Ed could see her face, and she looked haggard with dark circles under her eyes. Right now she looked far from the immaculately dresses colonel. Ed had met her a few times and most in the marines were awed by her reputation as the hero of the battle of Stirling Bridge.
“Thanks colonel, I will hold you to that promise once we have won the battle.” It was good to display some bravado thought Ed when facing such impossible odds. “We are currently right on top of you, as it must be displaying on your tac-sit map. We should have two shuttles that should be waiting with a platoon each waiting behind.
The reentry and the landing would have been extremely rough and we are on EM silence, so we don’t know if they made it. I am praying that they did, but we lost two on our jump, and the shuttles had to brake far more violently to stay behind.” Ed paused on the thought of his two dead marines and the possibility of two whole platoon of marines perishing on entry into the atmosphere.
Leanna responded. “I am sorry about the two marines Ed. We will go and get them once this is over.” Leanna truly felt every USC-GCF soldier was her marine. She had personally trained the first few batches, and over the years as she became in-charge of training and personnel, she was like the mother hen, and all of USF-GCF were her chicks. “So where is the expected waiting position of the shuttles?”
Ed replied. “Their orders were to land and wait beyond the horizon to avoid detection. Originally that would have meant on the other side of Mars, since the Shaitan troop carrier was positioned overhead. However Capt. Strong has been successful in luring the Shaitan ship out of synchronous orbit. We detected that as we were coming down.
I don’t know the current position of the Shaitan ship. The shuttles will keep coming closer if they can avoid being seen by the ship. They will probably stop somewhere around the 50 to 70 Km mark over the horizon to escape detection from ground based radar. They are listening on radio frequency. Whenever we break EM silence, we can ask them to move in.”
“Understood major, we don’t have radio tracking with this bloody EM jamming of the Shaitans, but we have visual tracking. The Shaitans are hard on the heels of the human ship. Since you mentioned Trisha, I am assuming it is the Resolute. It may be hard if not impossible to send a radio signal to the waiting shuttles though with the EM jamming.” Leanna said.
“Yes sir, it is the USS Resolute that the Shaitans are chasing. And we have a backup to the radio signal at least for the next 6 odd hours, sir. We have released a satellite at a distance, which a Shaitan missile is heading towards. It will reach in 6 hours, till then we can bounce laser signals off it. I just sent you the satellite coordinates in the briefing package.” Ed replied.
Damn there goes again thought Leanna. Will someone please teach the US Marines not to call a Lady ‘sir’? This is carrying gender neutrality to ridiculous limits. Women are equal but different. There is nothing wrong in call a lady ‘ma’am’. She let it go for the moment, there were more serious issues to tackle.
“Well we better ensure then that we wrap this up before 6 hours don’t we? I have just uploaded a detailed tac-sit to you. Takes some time to study it, I want your opinion.” Leanna said.
Ed took about 15 minutes to study the Shaitan deployment as shown from various cameras deployed all along the canyon and the plains. Ed was impressed by the meticulous preparation done by Leanna, although he should have expected as much from the colonel.
There were 6 Shaitan positions as his own recon team had reported. They had not missed any, but what had not been apparent had been the size of the positions. There were over 200 Shaitans in each position. Most probably exactly 256. That was a round number to them, two to the power eight. Exactly 2048 Shaitans had landed for this siege, so that left 512 of them in their base camp on the plains as reinforcement.
There were 176 marines and 46 civilians on Kormas base. That is about 220 odd human combatants if everyone fought, which Ed knew they would have to. Add to that 90 odd marines assuming the shuttles had made it down, still made a grand total of 310 human defenders against over two thousand Shaitans.
Ed reminded himself that humans had fought worse odds at Titan, and two of those humans were down there below. The colonel and the chief administrator of this facility and NASA’s head of planetary research, Dr. Yusuke Matsumoto. If they could do it, so could he and the US marines. He caught himself from thinking narrowly. They were the marines of the world, not just the US.
The difference was that the Shaitans had been poorly armed in the previous encounter, but so had the humans. In this case both sides are well armed, so there is no huge advantage on that front, unless the Shaitan weapons turns out to be hugely superior. The battle of Titan had not been won with superior arms, but with ingenuity. Ed reali
zed he had to win this battle similarly.
“Bassinger to colonel.” Ed opened up.
“Go for it Major, what do you think?” replied Leanna immediately, she must have been waiting for him.
“Sir as I see it, your topographical position is both an advantage and a weakness. You have the high ground if you wanted to get into a shootout, but you cannot move around in that small plateau. Worse if they decided to bomb, then there is nowhere you can run except the tunnels, which may or may not protect you depending on whether they use nukes and if so how big. It will definitely bury you in either case.
However the advantage we have, is that the Shaitans are most probably not aware of the 30 of us here on top. We could use the element of surprise. I have studied the guerilla tactics used by Lt. Gen. Parkinson’s on Titan outside the Shaitan base. It had confused and befuddled them for some time, before they caught on to it.
It seems they are normally not used to such means of warfare, or have not faced it often enough for it to be something that they suspect instantly. Since all the Shaitans who faced Lt. Gen. Parkinson’s tactics are dead, the Shaitans may not be any wiser even now. So that is an advantage we could use.” Ed finished his line of thought.
“I like your train of thought and agree with it in principle, but how do you propose to bring that into practice? Also to what end do we use your harassment tactic? The thirty of you would be able to do no more than harass them. At some point we inside the base and the marines on those shuttles will have to get into the game.” Leanna asked.
Ed took a few moment to compose his reply as well as iron out a few kinks to the plan that was forming in his mind. “Well sir, the first thing that struck me was the question – why did the Shaitans not occupy the high ground, just above your base here, where we marines are standing. From whatever we know about the Shaitans, they are not that poor in tactical thinking.
Wrath of the Shaitans Page 21