It was natural for the USC to want to know what was happening in Beta Shaitan. There was no intention of planning an attack campaign on Beta Shaitan. That would have been an unwise overstretch of the limited resources of USC. The USC was already managing two fronts. It was building up defense capability of the solar system at a frenetic pace, and it was prosecuting the Alpha Shaitan campaign, which was turning out to be a lot costlier and time consuming that anyone had ever anticipated.
However from a military standpoint, it was always prudent to know what all your enemy positions are up to. That need became even more urgent after the two KK ships launched from Alpha Shaitan were successfully intercepted. If Alpha Shaitan system with a smaller economy, had the capability to launch two KK ships, then Beta Shaitan which now the humans knew was a far older colony with a bigger economy, would certainly have the capability to launch a lot more.
Now with the humans slowly gaining an upper hand in the Alpha Shaitan campaign, it is entirely likely that the Shaitans in Beta Shaitan system might launch a counter-attack on Earth, if not for revenge, then simply to relieve some pressure from Alpha Shaitan. That is what allied human colonies would have done. Humans needed to know if and when Beta Shaitan planned an attack, and how big it would be.
Admiral Gerald Shannon was starting to appreciate the words of his predecessor. The chair of the chief was a crown of thorns. He envied his friend Admiral Hamid Dar, who was at this moment on his way back home after successfully completing the naval part of the campaign of Alpha Shaitan. Hamid had led the life of a warrior in the last decade, while he had been mired in the machinations of budgets and politics that goes on behind the scenes of any armed forces.
Hamid had grown as a fighting Admiral, while he had become the chief, but all he had done was administration, budgets and politics. How Gerald wished now that he had signed on to the Alpha Shaitan campaign. That was the past now, Gerald ensured every day that he did his part of the job to the best of his abilities, so that the brave men and women of USC and the Marines fighting in a far off world got everything that they possibly could.
If Admiral Dar had done a commendable job by winning the naval part of the campaign with the loss of just one ship – the Genghis Khan, then Gerald had done a remarkable job at his end too. He had overseen and ensured production facilities increased their capacities and delivered on time. He had coaxed, inveigled, begged and threatened various politicians of the world at various times to ensure that USC had the budget it needed.
Despite his dislike for that kind of work, he knew that he was getting good at it. War was won as much by marshalling resources, as by the bravery of soldiers. Gerald knew that the work he was doing was important as fighting on the front. Today however was one of those days when he wished he was on the front matching wits with a Shaitan captain of a warship, rather than the battle he was fighting with his own kind in the meeting room.
It was the usual problem he had to fight civilians over – money. Gerald had run through an exhaustive presentation of the merits of developing a specialized unmanned long distance spy probe, which was capable of entering a system by stealth, and then operating for years inside the system, providing real time intelligence about the happenings inside that system.
‘Real time’ was a relative word in the vastness of space. The spy probe’s signals would probably take many months or years to reach Earth, depending on the distance it had travelled. Physics unfortunately put that speed limit on the universe, and ‘Real time’ was limited by the speed of light, so that was the best any species in the universe could do.
The proposed spy probe would be quite sophisticated and well endowed. It could stay far away from the planets on surveillance and be able to launch mini probes the size of small rocks closer to the planet to avoid detection. It would even be able to send mini probes into the atmosphere, which could land on the surface to gather detailed intelligence.
Gerald had pressed the urgency of the matter in the light of the two KK ships that had been sent to hit the Earth. There was no knowing what the Shaitans on the other side i.e. Beta Shaitan were planning. The last time they attacked the solar system, Beta Shaitan had been an equal participant. They had been suspiciously quiet even after the humans had attacked Alpha Shaitan. Surely something must be cooking in Beta Shaitan, and it couldn’t be good news for humanity.
The problem was that there was a lot that was already being funded by the Earth’s economy. The major ship construction yards on the Moon, and revamping of the Earth orbital construction facilities. Huge R&D money going into development of alternative launch techniques from Earth like the space guns.
Then there was the expansion of the Mars base for USC along with starting the construction of a space elevator on Mars. It would be the third space elevator of humanity, after the two that had been set up on the Moon. This elevator would be a lot more challenging that then ones on the Moon, since Mars had twice the gravity of the Moon.
All the above were in addition to the tremendous amount of money going into various warship construction for the USC both for defense of Earth, as well as for the ongoing campaign of Alpha Shaitan, which was draining the collective exchequer of the Earth at an alarming rate. All this was putting a strain on Earth’s economy, even though spinoff technological benefits of space development in civilian areas was softening the blow, with USC being allocated most of the patent incomes from those inventions.
On the other end of the balance, the threat perception in the minds of the public at large had started diminishing again. USC as usual had become a victim of its own success. The great kinetic Holocaust was a few decades into history, and public memory about the atrocity had started dimming. The two KK ships aimed at Earth had been successfully stopped by the USC Lighthouse project, which had made the public complacent that they were now safe from such disasters.
USC had successfully prosecuted the Alpha Shaitan campaign, although the ground war on Jehannum was still ongoing, and the outcome was far from certain. What was certain was that irrespective of the outcome of that ground war, Alpha Shaitan was not going to be a significant threat to Earth for at least many decades if not a century.
Gerald was bitterly contemplating these facts standing next to the coffee dispenser. The meeting had taken a break from the marathon session of the afternoon, and Gerald was enjoying the much needed coffee break, when he heard someone behind him say. “Maybe you are approaching the whole issue from the wrong end Admiral.”
Gerald turned around and saw a trio standing behind him. Thankfully they were scientific advisors, and not politicians. Gerald had no wish to speak to a politician right now. The person who had spoken was a portly French gentleman in his sixties. Gerald had known him for a few years, since he was a senior scientific advisor to EU and a regular at most consultations and briefings.
“And which end would be the right end to approach from Monsieur Poulin?” Gerald asked in an exasperated tone.
“The scientific end, Admiral… the scientific end.” Monsieur Poulin said with a twinkle in his eye. He came closer to Gerald and said in a conspiratorial tone. “We three have been discussing this… this ‘problem’ of yours about the budget.” He indicated towards his companions, whom Gerald knew. One was a much respected US physicist and a presidential scientific advisor, and the other performed the same function for the Japanese Prime Minister.
“You see you are looking at the problem from the military angles, which is fine, for as a military man that is what you are expected to do. However what you are asking for is also an infinitely exciting scientific question. Trust me, after the close inspection of the Alpha Shaitan system, we scientist have thrown away all the models of our own solar system, and the galaxy in general. We have discarded most of the theories about star and planetary system formation.
We are literally starting from scratch. We realized that a lot of what we thought we knew was wrong, and a lot we now know cannot be explained with our current theories. The bigges
t and most exciting question in astronomy today and also the subject of wildest speculation is this – how would the Beta Shaitan system look? We know it is out there. We know we have the technology to find out, and yet we scientist wring our hands in frustration that no serious effort is being made to study Beta Shaitan.
You see it has been a long time since we scientists of the western nations did a grand scientific project to advance the cause of human knowledge. Lately all discoveries have been coming from Shaitan or Ka-let technologies. The science community has built up enough budgets and political IOUs around the western nations to take up a grand scientific project to enhance human knowledge like the ITER project had done to make a fusion reactor, or the Large Hadron Collider project had done a century ago.
It just happens that if the scientist would be sending the first probe to an area which would be potentially hostile viz. Beta Shaitan! Naturally we would need expert consultation on all matters Shaitan and how to safeguard our costly equipment from these aliens. This is where we scientists would need to ‘invite’ the experts in this matter as consultants, which is the USC.” Monsieur Poulin finished with a conspiratorial wink.
Gerald extended his hand and took that of Monsieur Poulin. “We the USC would be happy to be your humble ‘consultants’ Monsieur.” Gerald said with a wide grin. Thus began an unlikely conspiracy, which would result in the first long range reconnaissance mission into the Beta Shaitan system, and the development of a class of ships that would be known as ‘Remote System Observer’.
There was almost no new technology that needed to be developed for the first ship. What was needed was a lot of thoughtful engineering, because this ship was expected to last on its own in deep, cold and dark space for decades. Almost every system and subsystem of the ship had multiple redundancies. Any single failure of a system could be allowed to hamper the functioning of the ship and its mission.
The only exception to the redundancy rule was the fusion reactor and the Harvester of the ship. Both of these were too expensive put an extra unit. The manufacturing capability of the fusion reactors had increased drastically in the last few years, but the demand far outstripped the supply. Even a tenfold increase in manufacturing capacity would not satisfy the demand. Almost all the fusion reactors were still cornered by the government, primarily the USC. Private sector rarely got hold of a fusion reactor for love or money.
The Harvester was in demand only with the USC, but they were slow and difficult to manufacture. The Harvesters were extremely delicate and required precision manufacturing. They were manufactured exclusively in the zero-G environment of space. It was a lot easier and faster to manufacture nano-grown things in space, and the consumption of Harvester was only for space ships anyway.
Lately the newer Nautilus class ships were also being equipped with a smaller and hence cheaper variant of the Harvester. This enabled the Nautilus class ships to have a much smaller fuel tank, and the extra mass allowance due to this was used for carrying additional arms and supplies. It also gave the Nautilus class ships added range both in term of distance as well as time between refueling.
It was one of this smaller Harvesters and a single fusion reactor of a nautilus class ship that were installed on the spy probe. Yet this spy probe would go a lot faster than a Nautilus class ship. It would reach speeds comparable to an Avenger class ship. This was because the spy probe by the standards of a space ship was extremely light.
The probe had no armor, its only defense was stealth. The only original research done for the project had been to develop a better coat of rubberized black skin for the probe, which would help the probe disappear in the dark background of deep space. The heaviest item on the ship was the fusion reactor, followed by the Harvester. Everything else on the probe were scanners and sensor and computers. The two expendable things on the probe were the small tank of reserve fuel, and an inventory of nearly a five hundred ‘space rocks’.
The reserve fuel would be used initially to start off the probe, and then the Harvester would fill it up by the end of the journey. That fuel could be used in theory to keep the probe warm and running for centuries, although no one expected the probe to last that long.
The ‘space rocks’ were mini probes weighing close to 20 Kg on an average depending on the configuration. Most of them were meant for space surveillance, while some were configured for atmospheric entry. The ones configured for atmospheric entry were heavier, since they had heat resistant tiles on them, as well as a mini parachute to slow them down further. The sensors inside were also ruggedized to survive a crash impact onto the surface of a planet.
The space rocks were loaded on a system similar to the pneumatic ejector system used to launch missiles from ships, but much smaller in size. The space rocks would be aimed and launched by the pneumatic system. This would save fuel for the mini probes, which would not have to use fuel to accelerate. It could then use the fuel to slow down and maneuver itself into the desired position.
More importantly, it made the rocks stealthier, minimizing the rocket emission from it, even though the emission was extremely tiny. The total weight of the probe was just 800 tons or just 8% of a nautilus class ship. No wonder it was so fast even though it used the same engines.
It was the prerogative of the science community to name the ship, and they chose to name it Beagle in honor of another ship from another time which had gone on its own voyage of discovery of new species and life forms, that led to one of the greatest intellectual achievements of mankind – the theory of evolution.
The Beagle was constructed in mere 18 months, but it had taken nearly 3 years since Gerald had shook hands in the little conspiracy to get the ship built. A lot of time had been wasted getting the scientific budgets approved through the labyrinths of bureaucracy. Finally the Beagle set towards Beta Shaitan.
It would take just about 5 years for Beagle to make its first pass into the Beta Shaitan system, because it was not attempting to stop at all before it reached the system. In a repeat of the maneuver pioneered by the Avenger and Kali, the Beagle would accelerate to its max speed and then coast past Beta Shaitan. The Beagle would run completely silent and cold as it passed Beta Shaitan, operating only its passive sensors.
Only when the Beagle had passed the Beta Shaitan system, would it unfurl its Harvester again and fire up its engines facing away from the Beta Shaitan system, and its engine emissions shielded by the Harvester. The Beagle would come to a complete halt some light days away from Beta Shaitan on the other side. The Beagle would continue firing its engines until it generated enough velocity to start slowly drifting towards Beta Shaitan.
At that point the Beagle would shut down its engines, fold up its Harvester to reduce its profile and begin its slow drift towards Beta Shaitan. At the speed at which it would drift, it would take the Beagle over many years to reach Beta Shaitan. The Beagle need not reach Beta Shaitan in a hurry, for it was already where it needed to be. Far enough to avoid detection, and yet close enough to observe. If required it could always send a ‘space rock’ probe to spy up close.
The feed out of the Beagle was being projected at the operations headquarters of USC. It was still too far for anything other than the large gas giant to be observed on the infrared view. However with the Beagle travelling at 5% the speed of light, Gerald had been told that they would have less than an hour of decent observation of the system. The next time the Beagle would be able to get this good a view of the system would be a few years later, when it had crept back close enough to the system again.
Everything was being recorded, and Gerald could always have seen the recordings at leisure, with annotations and a decent executive summary. He couldn’t wait that long however. He was dying to get that first look on an alien home world. Somehow momentous events had a penchant for happening in the middle of the night, so here he was at 3AM EST at the Bronx headquarter of USC, soaking in the expectant atmosphere with a few hundred scientists, military men, and even a few government officials
.
Staring at the large screen was becoming boring. The picture didn’t seem to change, although Gerald knew that was an illusion. The picture was closing in on the system at 5% the speed of light, which was a mind boggling speed of 15 thousand kilometers a second! It was a testament to how far the beagle had travelled in those 5 years. Gerald also had to disabuse himself of the notion that these pictures were ‘live’.
Beta Shaitan was 0.306 light years away from Earth, which is almost a third of a light year. That meant that these pictures were almost 4 months old. It had simply taken the tight beam laser that long to reach the dedicated receiving satellite that was orbiting behind Earth, orbiting the sun. To keep constant tight beam communication with the Beagle, the USC had to add a dedicated laser collection satellite pointed towards Beta Shaitan, very similar to the ones they had pointing towards Alpha Shaitan that supported all communications with the forward bases in Alpha Shaitan.
Humans had learnt a lot from the Shaitans about laser engineering, especially long distance tight beam laser communications. When the Humans had first encountered the Shaitans seven decades ago, human laser beams could not communicate beyond the solar system. Human laser could not keep laser light coherent in a tight beam at distances beyond the solar system. Powerful laser equipment weighed in tens of tons and guzzled more electricity than a decent sized building.
Now the humans had replicated the Shaitan lasers, which were coherent enough even at distances of a third of a light year, and were small enough to be put in a ship the size of the Beagle. The signals did lose some of its coherence, and hence its signal strength. Hence the large collection satellite. The satellite was essentially a very large array of CCD cameras not very different from the standard digital cameras, that collected the photons from the laser beam, that had spread out from its tight narrow beam due to the distance it had travelled.
Retribution (Shaitan Wars) Page 49
