Wrath of the Shaitans

by Sudipto Majumdar

  Gerald had a healthy respect for process and procedures and tried to do things as far as possible by the book, though he was not a bureaucrat by any stretch of imagination. He would do whatever was needed if the situation so demanded. Hamid on the other hand was rebellious by nature and avoided processes whenever he got the chance to do so.

  Fabi smiled at the Hamid’s hasty attempt at being politically correct. Daniel’s efforts and long talks with Hamid, trying to make a disciplined military man out of him were paying efforts he guessed. Fabi however was a different kind of a leader. He never tried to tame the wild instincts of a soldier. He harnessed and channeled it instead.

  “Yes Capt. Dar, I concur with your assessment. Which is why you are the ideal person to lead the S&R efforts. You have my nod for any way you can speed up the S&R efforts, as long as a single crew member does not die or get injured.” Fabi smiled as he replied. That was the appropriate use of an inveterate risk taker in a situation that demanded risk taking. They really did not have much time if the other Shaitan fleet decided to attack.

  It also left his best strategizing captain free for planning the next phase of the battle. “Capt. Dar, please be so kind as to give me a situation report every 15 minutes and coordinate with the XO of Nautilus for anything you require from her. I am going to keep Capt. Shannon busy for some time. Capt. Shannon, if you could please come to the flag bridge. Thanks captains. That will be all and best of luck with the S&R effort. Let’s pray once again for the safety of the crew of Endurance once more.” Fabi concluded the conference.

  As Gerald entered the flag bridge, Fabi said. “I know Tom is a good friend and you are anxious to hear about him and the crew of Endurance, but the S&R is in good hands. We have work to do that cannot wait.” Fabi pointed to the screen on the wall, which displayed the position of the remaining Shaitan Fleet. Gerald nodded, which could be made out through this thin suit, unlike the thick suits.

  “It has been over five minutes that Shaitan admiral of the fleet would have seen the fate of the other half of their fleet from Beta Shaitan, they would have also noticed that we have stopped accelerating and rightly concluded that at least one of our ships is wounded. My staff has been continuously watching the Shaitan fleet since then, there has been no reaction from them so far.”

  Fabi said pointing to the two flag staff floating in the small flag bridge. The younger one was a tech-head and had his eyes shut, monitoring in his head. He would occasionally switch to his terminal to give his neural interface and that part of the brain some relief. Working the neural interface was a strain for everyone who had the implant, few could work on it for a long stretch.

  “So what is your guess admiral about their next move?” Gerald asked.

  “I would not dare venture into the head of an alien admiral, so I don’t have any guesses. There are however broadly two options that Shaitan fleet has. First is attack us and avenge the death of their comrades. Second is ignore us and try to bypass us to head off towards earth for an attack there.

  The second option is what I am guessing they were planning anyway after the two parts of the fleet met up. Now with one part gone, there is no point heading towards their rendezvous point. The Shaitan fleet can turn and head towards earth right now. I want you captain to guess which of these two would the Shaitan admiral pick?” Fabi replied Gerald’s question with a counter question.

  “We know very little about Shaitan psychology primarily from the two captured Shaitans and the study of all the battles we have had in the last few decades. The alien shrinks believe that revenge is a logic and not an emotion for the Shaitans. If I had understood correctly, the theory is that the Shaitan brains have evolved differently from ours.

  When evolutionary pressure forced us humans to become more intelligent, our brains coopted a different part of our brain, meant for some other purpose no longer useful, to develop logical thinking capability. That is why we have different centers in our brain for emotional thinking and rational thinking.

  In the Shaitans similar evolutionary pressure must have forced their brains to develop logical thinking capability. However in the Shaitan brains, the same part of the brain used for instinctive and emotional reasoning expanded and got modified to develop logical thinking capability and intelligence.

  For the Shaitans emotional and logical thinking is one and the same. Over the course of their evolution they grew less emotional as logic took over those parts of the brain. The Shaitans have not lost all their emotions, especially the very basic instinctive ones like hunger drive or reproductive urge. However they think of a concept like revenge logically.

  For them revenge would be a logical necessity in order to send a message to the enemy not to mess with them. A Shaitan admiral will be able to weigh that logical need for revenge very rationally with other objectives that he may have. A Shaitan admiral would not get blinded by rage, hatred or revenge.

  So if the alien shrinks are correct, then the Shaitan admiral right now is weighing his revenge with his primary objective, which most probably is to reach Earth unmolested and unleash the power of his fleet on Earth. If he thinks that way, then I think the alien fleet should turn any moment and head towards Earth.

  This is the best time for them to turn towards Earth. It maximizes their chance of avoiding an engagement with the Third Fleet. Our current residual momentum is taking us away from the rendezvous point. So if they turn right now towards Earth, they have the best chance of giving us the slip.” Gerald concluded his line of thinking.

  “I should consider shifting my flag from the Nautilus to another vessel. If something happened to my ship, I want you to head the rest of the fleet. That would be possible only if we are on different ships. But then again I would miss the chance of picking your brain this way. Daniel was right about you.

  Keep your thinking cap on captain, you would make a good admiral one day. You arrived at the same conclusion as I did by gut feeling. You however rationalized it with logic that even I had not thought of. It strengthens our guess and gives our plans more resolve and confidence. Well done captain.” Fabi spoke in a voice full of admiration.

  Gerald was a bit embarrassed with the gushing praise he had received from the admiral. He was thankful that he was wearing his suit, so his flushed cheeks would not show. He simply said. “Thank you admiral.”

  “So now that we think we know what the alien admiral would do, why do you think he has not done it yet captain?” Fabi asked, clearly enjoying querying Gerald.

  “The obvious reason would be that it has just been a few minutes and the Shaitan admiral may still be debating the decision. However from whatever little we know of the Shaitan psychology, they do not debate and mull over decisions as slowly as humans. As intelligent beings adept at warfare, they would have war gamed all scenarios including loss of the Beta Shaitan fleet, and they would have drawn up a contingency plan in advance. So he is not being indecisive.

  In any case there is no tearing hurry to take the decision. The Shaitan fleet still has momentum taking it towards the rendezvous point, which it will have to lose at some point if it is to reach Earth. Whether they do the deceleration on that vector now or turn and lose it over the course towards Earth would not make much difference to their travel time or speed.

  I suspect however that the Shaitan admiral is playing a little Maskirovka of his own. He knows that we have at least one ship in trouble and have stopped our engines to assist that ship. We always have the option of abandoning our dying comrades in their dying ship and head towards the Shaitan fleet.

  We humans obviously wouldn’t do that for tactical advantage, but the Shaitans don’t know that. The Shaitans would do it, so they think so would we. To keep our engines turned off and busy rescuing our comrades, the Shaitan admiral is giving the impression that he is following his old plan.

  He has to lose the momentum by decelerating anyway, so he loses nothing. The Shaitan admiral however keeps us in a false sense of security. We think we have
time to rescue our comrades, and do not rush towards him, thus giving him precious acceleration time to gain an advantage over us.” Gerald finished his discourse.

  “Yes I agree captain, though I must admit you have what they say… a way with words. You can put things in clear perspective. Remind me to take you along with me to Admiralty briefings, you could save me a lot of heartburns by explaining things on my behalf clearly.” Fabi smiled and continued. “So what should we do now captain? We cannot abandon our comrades as you rightly put it, but we cannot let them gain an advantage either.”

  “Sir the obvious thing to do would be to leave one ship here for S&R and proceed with two ships to confront the Shaitan fleet. I don’t think that would be a good idea though. Each ship now has just over half the missiles left, and with only two ships, we will not have enough missiles to throw at them and hope for some to get through.

  Our missiles barely got through in the encounter with the Beta Shaitan fleet, and we had four instead of two ships throwing missiles at that point. Not to mention that the Shaitans were caught off guard with that little Maskirovka of ours. We are not going to surprise them the next time, at least not with the same trick. Frankly sir, I have no good suggestions. I am not that big a tactical genius as you think I am sir.” Gerald said sheepishly.

  “On the contrary captain, you are a good military strategist because you know when you don’t know better. That makes you seek other’s opinion, and someone else would have a good idea. That is the sign of a good leader captain, one who knows his limitations and uses his comrade’s advice to complement those limitations.

  No one is expected to know everything. The trouble starts when a person thinks he knows everything and does not consult others. Then he ends up making half assed decisions on his own. You have scope of improvement as a tactician though.” Fabi said in good humor. Then he continued.

  “You were on the right track, but you stopped short. You were thinking in limited terms about our assets. It is true we have only the Third Fleet here beyond the orbit of Pluto. We however have more assets in the solar system. The first and the Second Fleet. You know why they are positioned so close to Earth?” Fabi asked a rhetorical question, Gerald knew the answer and nodded.

  Fabi answered his rhetorical question anyway. “The first and the Second Fleet are made out of our old generation ships, which do not have fusion reactors and run on chemical rockets. They have limited range in battle and limited time in space. They have to continually return back to Earth orbit to refuel.

  If the first and the Second Fleet came out further to meet with this Shaitan fleet, then all the Shaitan fleet would have to do is to change their line of approach towards Earth. The Shaitan fleet is under no fuel limitation, but the first and the Second Fleet are. The Shaitan fleet could take them on a merry chase till the first and the Second Fleet are out of fuel.

  Then the Shaitan fleet would have a clear run towards Earth. That is why the Second Fleet is holding position at the Earth orbit, and the First Fleet is at a point slightly further away. They will not come out and face the incoming Shaitan fleet and imperil their fuel. They will wait till the Shaitan fleet reaches close to Earth before engaging.

  This is dangerous. There is no guarantee that one ship will not slip through the defenses and reach Earth to bombard from space. But we have no other option because of the technology of those ships. The Second Fleet is probably stuck at Earth orbit due to the other troop carrier slowly moving towards Earth at a very slow speed. It will have to be confronted, and Earth requires a last line of defense anyway.

  The First Fleet however can move ahead and confront the incoming Shaitan fleet, if only it could be ensured that the Shaitans approached on a predictable path. That would reduce the danger to earth considerably and let the navy fight much more aggressively. How can we force the Shaitans to follow such a predictable path?” Fabi asked Gerald, testing him.

  “We somehow herd them in a path towards Earth, although I don’t have any ideas on how to do that.” Gerald replied.

  “I am taking a leaf out of your book captain and getting into the head of the Shaitan admiral. You would say that the Shaitans are intelligent and logical won’t you?” Fabi asked and Gerald nodded. “They must have observed our little trick, our Maskirovka here that defeated the Beta Shaitan fleet, and learnt lessons from it? As you put it yourself, they are not going to fall for the same trick once again. How do you say this in English… once bitten, twice shy?” Fabi asked again and Gerald nodded again.

  “So it stands to reason that they will avoid the general corridor in which the ships of the Third Fleet move, just in case we mine the route with our missiles. Now suppose the Third Fleet could get ahead of Shaitan fleet on the way to Earth, and the three ships of the Third Fleet moved in a triangular pattern. The three ships will be far enough from each other so that the triangle is very large, giving enough space for the Shaitan fleet to go through the middle of the triangle safely without any danger of encountering our mines.

  Unless the Shaitan fleet sees the First Fleet approach head on towards them from Earth, they should have no reason to change their course. Changing their course will be risky for the Shaitan fleet as they will have to cross the corridor of our flight path, and possibly encounter the possibility of our mines. They will take that risk only if they see the First Fleet approaching them head on.” Fabi explained his thinking.

  “But sir, the whole idea of herding them was to make them encounter the First Fleet head on. If the First Fleet approaches the Shaitan fleet, then surely they would be detected. If on the other hand the First Fleet does not approach the Shaitan fleet, then what is the point in herding them?” Gerald protested.

  Admiral Fabi Kalinin gave a huge smile visible clearly even through the faceplate of his suit. “I wish I could lay claim on this plan, it is the tactical brilliance of Admiral Cloutier. I did contribute refining it though. We will have to adapt the plan a bit, with one less ship but that was also part of the contingency planning.

  Our position is less than ideal compared to what the plan calls for, but we will improvise. The biggest risk is the delay caused by the S&R operation on Endurance. That is the reason I assigned Capt. Dar for that task, he will take risks, cut corners but will get it done as fast as possible. Right now that risk is worth it.”

  “Sir I don’t get it. What plan are we talking about?” Gerald asked the Admiral puzzled. So the Admiral told him.

  Chapter 18

  Clipping the enemy’s wings

  Mars

  September 2083

  Mars’ atmosphere is very thin, just 1% of the Earth’s atmosphere. That is the reason parachutes are not enough to slow down a human enough to land safely. The parachutes were used by the Marines to slow themselves down from the crazy speed at which they had descended from space, but the thin atmosphere does not create enough drag to slow them down enough.

  That is the reason that the Marines had to use a small directed rocket jet attached to the outer layer of their suit to slow down in the last few seconds before they crashed onto the surface. The rocket’s nozzle ran down from the backpack to the boots of the marines, so that they could direct it downward without inadvertently pointing it towards any part of their own body.

  It burnt for just over 40 seconds and slowed down the descending marine from a dangerous 150 Km per hour to about 30 Km per hour, a speed that the Marine could survive on impact. It made the Marines look like an old comic book character from the last century – the Iron Man. It also made the marines extremely vulnerable to detection by the enemy.

  The rocket flare stood out on IR scan of an enemy as far as they could see. That is the reason that the marines had to land at a far enough distance. They would have preferred to land a lot closer to the objective, but they would have been easy targets to pick off in the air, especially with automated perimeter guns that the enemy was expected to have.

  Now they will have to climb down a six kilometer high plateau down to t
he plains and hike another 22 Km. to their descent point. Kormas base had sent them the detailed layout of the entire area. It had been surveyed meter my meter by automated drone spiders as preparation for the siege. The 3D terrain map displayed on Ed’s faceplate was as detailed as possible. The colonel had been nothing if not thorough in her preparation.

  The automated routing program displayed a host of possible routes for the marines to take, and Ed chose one that not just seemed the safest, but also took them on the detour that he wanted to take. There was a germ of an idea forming in his mind, and he needed the detour. He was aware that the marines were going to grumble amongst themselves about the extra 10 Km detour, and hiking with the extra baggage, but they would thank him in the end.

  As they reached their descent point, the Martian night set in. Due to the extremely thin atmosphere, the onset of the night was fairly abrupt. He would have loved to halt and camp, but their suit had limited battery time. His marines may be tired after a crazy jump from space and all the hike lugging extra baggage, but they would have to rest later. Right now they would make the treacherous descent in the night.

  The extensive 3D maps with infrared overlay on their faceplate ensured that they would have fairly decent visibility during their dangerous journey down, but there were parts of the trail that were still very dangerous. In a few places the marines did slip and fall. The only thing that saved them was the one third gravity of Mars and their suit, which despite the marines’ jokes was armored to some extent.

  Ed however could not think of stopping. He had to schedule the first part of the operation, just at daybreak. It made almost no difference to the Shaitans whether it was night or day, light was not a primary part of their senses. It however made a lot of difference to humans. During night humans were at a disadvantage, during the day they were on equal footing.