“Copy that Eagle 2. I reckon there are only 400 or less left here now. I will figure out how to hold them here while you get these bastards off our tail.” Ed replied back. He had a germ of an idea forming in his mind.
Chapter 23
Escorting the enemy
Outer Solar system
September 2083
True to his reputation, Capt. Hamid Dar was taking chances galore, but he was moving fast. The three surviving ships of the Third Fleet were at just one kilometer separation from the dead Endurance. Six shuttles from the three ships were buzzing around. Three of the shuttles were carrying with them the standard complement of Marines assigned to a Nautilus class of ships – 20.
The other three shuttles were performing a detailed survey of the external hull of Endurance. Everything was recorded for study later. This data would be invaluable to military intelligence and planners. When the first 15 minutes briefing to the Admiral was due, Capt. Dar reported that the first Marines were just entering the Endurance from the gaping holes in the Hull.
The next 15 minutes report was grim. The ship was compartmentalized by design, as are all human ships in space. All the compartments that had opened to space were charred and the crew dead. They had not died due to loss of atmosphere, since they were all wearing suits. They had been burnt along with their suits.
More than half the ship though appeared to have no damage to the hulls and the bulkheads. Even with loss of power and atmosphere, it was possible to find survivors there. These compartments were sealed and inaccessible to the rescuers. The manual override were not working since the hatches had melted and sealed at the seams due to the heat.
They had tried tapping, knocking and hammering on the bulkheads and hatches in hopes of getting some response from the other side from possible survivors. However they had not gotten any yet. It was possible that the atmosphere had escaped on the other side as well, in which case the survivors would not hear any sound. The marines were starting to cut through the hatches, but it was slow going.
“Hamid, I know saving the crew is the highest priority, but I would however like you to dispatch some marines to the missile holds. We need to know the condition of those missiles and salvage as many of them as possible. They may be critical to the survival of the rest of the fleet.” Fabi said grimly. It might sound insensitive, but an admiral had his job to do, and the first and foremost job was to win the battle, whatever the cost.
“Understood admiral. All the 60 marines cannot work on rescue at the same time anyway. There isn’t that much opening and space anyway in the destroyed sections. I will immediately dispatch the marines from Shiva for this task.” Capt. Dar replied.
“Thanks Hamid. There is more I am going to ask of you. I know you are not going to like this, but we all have our orders. Mine is to stop that Shaitan fleet at any cost. You have another half hour to cut through and rescue any survivors. We switch on our engines on the 31st minute. We will not wait a minute longer.
The next order is very painful for me to give. I hope it does not come to you having to choose, but if it came to it, then the retrieval of missiles is a higher priority than the search and rescue. I hope you understand captain.” Fabi said grimly.
There was a silent pause from Capt. Dar as he looked straight into the eyes of the admiral. He saw the pain but also the ruthless determination. This was a side of the jovial Russian he had never seen. “Yes sir, I understand what needs to be done. It will be done, and there would be no need to choose.”
Fabi had deliberately given Capt. Dar an aggressive timeline. The calculations they had done showed that they had at least a 40 minutes time window. After that time, the Third Fleet would not be able to start comfortably ahead of the Shaitan fleet as it started heading towards Earth. If the fleet was not comfortably ahead at the beginning of the long trip inwards into the solar system, it would become difficult to constrain the Shaitan fleet within a tight corridor.
Capt. Dar authorized free use of charges to blast through the bulkheads at the discretion of the marines. He also shifted priorities and ordered the marines from the Qūzhújiàn to join those from Shiva in the salvage of all surviving missiles. There was good news on the missile front. None of the missile holds, which were tucked deep in the heart of the ship had been damaged.
Salvaging them in the given time was another matter altogether. The missiles stored near the missile ejectors that exited from the undamaged portion of the hull, was simpler. The marines had to muscle those one ton missiles and push them out of the openings meant for missile ejection. In the zero G environment lifting and pushing the missiles was not hard, but turning and stopping them from moving was.
Once the missiles drifted into space, it could be given a retrieval command, and it would automatically home in on one of the three ships it had been assigned and dock with the retrieval bay. This new feature of missile retrieval came handy in salvaging the missiles fast from a dead ship. The missiles next to the ejectors that ejected from the damaged side of the hull was more of a challenge, as the opening had mangled. The marines had to blow holes liberally to be able to get those missiles out.
The best news was that anyone who was not in those compartments of the ship where the plasma had punched large holes and incinerated the insides, had survived. This meant that 61 of the 108 crew had survived. The suits had kept the survivors alive because other than the bridge, almost all other compartments had lost atmosphere. Even the bridge crew would have frozen to death if not for their suit.
The surviving crew were sure to be suffering from massive dose of radiation poisoning, and some might yet die. For the moment though they were able to move by themselves and were literally herded like cattle into the shuttles as Capt. Dar was reaching the last minute of his deadline.
In the end, it took 4 minutes more than the deadline given to him by the admiral to get all the 61 survivors out. The search was slow because the suit radio of the survivors was fried by radiation. It was prescient on part of the suit designers to make sure that the suit life support system had analog electrical backup. It was designed as a failsafe against suit computer failure or software glitch, but it worked for EMP damage as well.
When the three remaining ships of the Third Fleet got underway, the 110 nukes and 161 antimissiles of USS Endurance was divided perfectly evenly between the three ships, because that was done by the computer. The survivors just scrambled to whichever shuttle they could, they were not so evenly divided. It didn’t matter in the least. The Nautilus class vessels had space for over 200.
The reaction from the Shaitan fleet was immediate. It must have been programmed, for biological beings couldn’t have reacted so fast. The moment the light of the Third Fleet’s engines reached the Shaitan fleet, it started turning at a 90° angle to its line of approach, faced sunwards towards the inner solar system and heading straight in.
Both the fleets still had a residual momentum tangential to the direction of the sun. To nullify this momentum, the ships’ thrust vector was tilted slightly in the direction opposite to the momentum. Thus both the ships were racing towards Earth in a slight arc, noticeable only to computers.
The Third Fleet had two advantages in this race towards the Earth. It had accelerated 30 minutes towards the sun before the first fight with the Beta Shaitan fleet, then accelerated hard sunwards using chemical rockets in order to escape Shaitan missiles, and finally been travelling on that momentum for almost an hour during the S&R operation. So it was already ahead of the Shaitan Fleet.
The second advantage was that the Nautilus class ships had a slightly higher acceleration compared to the Shaitan warships. It was very minor and as such gave no advantage to humans in a battle. In the long race towards the sun, it however ensured that the Shaitan fleet will never be able to catch up with the Third Fleet. The Third Fleet on the other hand could adjust its acceleration to achieve whatever separation it needed from the Shaitan fleet.
Getting into position for the flying fo
rmation planned however was tricky. That is why Fabi had been in such a hurry despite the fact that the Third Fleet was ahead of their enemy. The Third Fleet was not exactly in the path of the Shaitan fleet. The Third Fleet was over a million kilometers off that straight line between the Shaitan fleet and Earth, and the residual momentum of the Third Fleet was taking it further away.
The Third Fleet had to ensure that it not just got ahead of the Shaitan fleet, but also closed that million kilometer gap. And it needed to be done keeping enough distance that the Shaitan missiles would not be able to catch up with them. The Third Fleet was barely being able to maintain the envelope that was considered safe distance from Shaitan missiles.
After a few days, the Third Fleet was able to use its slightly faster acceleration to get comfortably ahead, and slowly started inching towards the direct path of the Shaitan fleet. The third fleet settled at a distance of about 100 thousand kilometers ahead of the Shaitan fleet.
Gerald had added a nice twist to the triangular formation literally. The three ships went into an equilateral triangle formation with a 10 thousand kilometer separation between each ship, centered on the path of the Shaitan fleet. Then the three ships started a slight corkscrew twist around the axis of the path of the Shaitan vessel.
In effect the Shaitan path was enclosed by the three ships in a helical path each that made an enclosed tube. There would be no direction out of that enclosed tube, which the human ships wouldn’t have crossed. Thus it will be equally risky to break out of that tube around the Shaitan path in any direction.
Chapter 24
Shell Shocked
Mars
September 2083
The first round of mortars had shocked and surprised the Shaitans laying siege. They probably did not have a concept of artillery in battle, or didn’t appreciate its effectiveness. The Shaitans had been expecting missiles as the opening salvo from the humans and had fortified themselves accordingly. They had ensured that there was no direct line of sight exposure for snipers or missiles to hit directly.
They had hooked up their radar with all the siege sites to provide detection and early warning against smart missiles that could come in a curved trajectory. They had even hooked up their big guns to the radar to be able to shoot down such missiles. When the first mortar attack came, it registered on the radar a minor blips of metal being hurled, which did not trigger any automated alarm or response.
The first sign they got about the attack, which was also the last thing some Shaitans saw, was when a large explosion took place in the middle of their position seemingly out of thin air. A few Shaitans were killed and minor damage done to equipment, was hardly a crippling blow to them. However they were thrown into confusion and chaos.
The Shaitans however were not dumb. The elder warriors would soon figure out what these new type of weapons were and would even start appreciating the devastating effectiveness of these simple weapons. Till the time they figured out what just hit them though, they responded instinctively and automatically. A barrage of missiles was sent towards the Kormas base, which destroyed most of the structures partially or wholly.
The situation was being monitored from inside, the humans inside the base knew exactly how the Shaitans were responding, thanks to the extensive wiring and spy cams placed all across the vicinity of the base. The Shaitans had not moved from their siege positions, but they had ceased launching missiles after the initial barrage. They were probably confused and waiting to see the next move by the humans.
The Shaitans were spotted launching multiple drones, which made eminent sense. They would now watch the plateau of the base like a hawk. Till now marines could walk around freely on the plateau, but now anyone moving out into the open on the plateau would probably face a missile or if the drone had a gun, then they might be shot at.
The ‘Glass Worm’ was the external feature of an extensive tunnel network. Over the eons, the external walls of the worm had worn out in many places exposing holes in the wall of the worm. One of those large holes was the entrance used by the humans and protected by a blast door. There were however a number of smaller holes in the walls, and one of those was used by the marines to snipe at the drones.
The engineering compulsions of keeping a drone light weight was such that even Shaitans could not make their drones sniper bullet proof. The drone eventually went down after a few hits. With the Shaitans blind once more to the happenings on the plateau, the infantry risked going out once again and lobbed one more round of 10 mortars each at the 6 siege positions.
The objective was to harass the Shaitans to send out their soldiers from their fortified siege positions. The ploy succeeded after the second round of mortars. The Shaitans exited their positions from the rear in an attempt to stay clear of the line of sight from the Kormas base. They were surprised when they came under sniper fire from the rear as well.
It was the marines of the first and second platoon, who had been dropped behind the enemy lines and had spread out behind each of the siege positions waiting for exactly this event. Any Shaitan killed was welcome, but the sniper’s objective was to disrupt the emerging Shaitan line and slow them down, so that all of them do not charge at the Kormas base at one time.
The snipers were positioned on a ridge line separated from Shaitan siege position by a chasm and a ravine. It would be hard for the Shaitans approach the snipers. Even if they somehow managed to do that, the snipers would have ample warning to retreat and get extracted by the shuttle. There was no point in 50 marines trying to go toe to toe with 1500 siege laying Shaitans.
The Shaitan started firing missiles towards the plateau at random intervals, trying to deny the infantrymen the opportunity to emerge and lob mortars by making it very risky. The infantry however took the risks from time to time. There was no way that a missile could cover the entire plateau, so even if a missile hit while an infantryman was out for the 30 odd seconds that it took to lob 10 mortars, he would have to be unlucky to get hit by a missile at the spot where he was.
The infantrymen also used two of the holes in the wall from where one could lob mortars at two of the siege positions. Leanna reckoned that the Shaitans had to run out of missiles sooner or later. The Shaitans had transported shuttle loads of weapons down to Mars, but the weapons were not inexhaustible.
The Shaitans were not buying the invitation of humans to storm the Kormas base from sloping road that led up to the plateau from the plains below. They were not fools. They suspected that the road would be booby trapped. Even if it wasn’t, just a few defenders from the top could very easily defend the road. The Shaitans instead spread out trying to avoid the mortars which were targeted at their siege positions.
Leanna didn’t mind the current exchange of fire. Mortars were one thing the Kormas base had in plenty. This base had received a dedicated infantry training shipment just before the siege, they could keep up the mortars all day if required.
They may not be killing Shaitans, but they must be surely destroying whatever equipment was there in the siege positions. The Shaitans would be denied their heavy fixed weapons and soon their missiles. The missiles were being launched from the siege positions. Either the missiles would get exhausted, or they would get hit. Leanna didn’t care. She had all day.
It seems someone in the Shaitan chain of command realized the same fact, for after half an hour of exchange of mortar and missiles, the spy cams started showing the Shaitans moving with a new purpose. This was it. The Shaitans had finally decided to bite the bullet and storm the base. They wanted to do the storming of the base before they ran out of missiles.
With missiles they could still suppress the defense and force them to take cover. This would help the attackers. Once the missiles were gone, even this advantage would be gone for them. The marine snipers behind the Shaitan lines were no longer effective in slowing down the Shaitan. The Shaitans simply ignored them and took whatever losses the snipers could mete out to them. All the Shaitans rushed maniacally towards th
e winding road that led to the top of the plateau.
The Shaitans had been right in being wary of booby traps. Leanna had had a good teacher. She had learnt from the master of defense and her mentor Gen. Takamori. Leanna did not lack explosives like in Titan. She had laid out enough of them along the route. The advancing horde were being blasted and slaughtered as they climbed up the slope, but it was not stopping them completely.
The marines would have to go out and defend. Otherwise they would be overwhelmed soon. To make matters worse, the Shaitan missiles were now directly targeting the blast door. It was designed to open even if it was damaged and bent, but even good engineering had its limits. If the doors mangled badly then they might not open at all. The marines had to get out before the doors jammed, but opening the door would mean that the next missile would land inside the tunnels killing whoever was trying to get out. The marines were trapped unless they wanted to take suicidal risks.
Leanna decided there was no point holding back and trying to protect her surveillance assets any longer. She switched on the transmitter attached to the spy cam nearest to the position of the first and the second platoon. If she could transmit from a short enough distance, then she might be able to overcome the jamming and get through.
“Col. McGraw to First and Second Platoon. Do you copy?” Leanna tried several times before she got a response, but it was from the shuttle which had a much more powerful receiver and transmitter than in the suits. “Eagle 1 to the colonel. Eagle 1 copies but it is unlikely the marines can hear you colonel. We just happened to be passing close by to the transmitter.”
Wrath of the Shaitans Page 29