Shaitan Wars 2: Wrath of the Shaitans (27 page)

There wasn’t much hope of reusing the nukes they had released because they will impact at almost the same time, but extra missile killers could be left over, as they would approach the Shaitan missiles in a sequence one after the other.

Space battles are like most battles. There is a long preparation time, and then when the actual battle begins, it gets over very quickly. Space battles however carry this to the extreme. It was hard to believe that the battle had begun less than a minute ago. Like most battles, this battles outcome was going to hinge on decisions and planning done long before the battle.

Gerald was glued to his terminal, but a part of his mind noted that he had not issued a single verbal command. Not even a command on his terminal. Every response his ship and the others in the fleet had taken were automated and programmed. Space battles were too fast for humans to react or calculate in their heads, but it were humans who had programmed the rules to every contingency. The programs were acting on behalf of the humans.

Now however there was something happening that had not been programmed as part of any contingency. The first wave of human missile killers had reached the Shaitan missiles and simply disappeared!

“Talk to me people, what just happened?!” Gerald shouted to no one in particular.

“Sir all 12 of our missile killers disappearing at the same time can only mean that they were hit simultaneously somehow…” the weapons officer shouted from his terminal without looking up “… wait a minute. What the hell?! Sir… on screen. Their missiles launched missiles! See that faint drive signature? That is a missile getting launched from those massive monster Shaitan missiles that they launch. It must have killed our missile killers sir!”

This is where human decision making comes in and Gerald knew what needed to be done. He looked towards the flag bridge and punched his terminal. “Sir you saw what happened, the missiles have some kind of antimissile capability, we need to overwhelm those missiles now!”

“Agreed” replied Fabi “You program the sequence at your discretion, I will instruct the fleet to download your sequence. You have to lead captain, but do it in less than 30 seconds, we don’t have more time. Fabi out.”

It was at times like this that Gerald realized the value of being a tech-head. He could not input the parameters in 30 seconds. So he shouted out at his weapons officer, who was a tech-head. He no longer was opposed to the USC policy of preferring tech-heads on the bridge. He was a convert now.

“Lt. Schellenger, reprogram the killers to attack 5 at a time, and upload it to the fleet. NOW!” Gerald shouted out. Five at a time was an arbitrary figure, he did not know if it was too much or too little. It was the first figure that came to Gerald’s mind and he went with it.

Lt. Schellenger’s hands stayed on the terminal, but his eyelashes went into hyperactive flutter. It was frustrating for Gerald because he knew that his weapons officer was the best person to do the job anyway and being a tech-head he could do it as fast as possible, yet he could not see anything he was doing or any progress.

In his anxiety, he unfastened himself from his harness and approached the Lieutenant. It was clumsy to walk on the bridge right now. The AWPS was spinning and imparted some gravity to the ship, which was not even. The center of the bridge was at the absolute center and got no centrifugal gravity, but the place where Gerald’s station was had about a tenth of a gravity. To complicate the matter, their acceleration was imparting gravity in another direction of half G, making the floor of the bridge tilt awkwardly.

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 destination.”

“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.”