The Battle of Titan

by Sudipto Majumdar

  Major Cheng could represent all by himself and take all the decisions, and the rest of the team would follow. They did not feel the need to have any specialist scientists in the team. This mission to them was not about research, it was all about military response.

  They did have technical specialist in all fields conceivable, but they were all soldiers first. In a way he was glad about the composition of the Chinese team. If this thing went south, they would want to have as many professional soldiers as they could get on their side.

  As the Chinese entered, Marie la Fontaine the attention hog that she was, immediately rose to greet them in the most pompous diplomatic way as possible, showering praise at the virtues and the antiquity of the Chinese culture.

  Alex’s eyes met with Leanna’s and she rolled her eyes indicating ‘here we go again’. He smiled back at her. He really liked this woman. May be when they are back he would find some excuse to visit UK and some more excuse to meet her.

  Marie opened up the meeting hogging the conversation as usual. There were many things on the agenda. First being how and when to approach the alien camp. Second was contingency planning if the aliens approached them first, and the third was, who all would go in the first delegation to the alien camp.

  There were many approaches debated and discussed, but they all fell into two broad categories stemming from the two broad points of view this group had, which actually reflected the two opposing views that humanity had about the aliens.

  Leading the pacifist camp vocally was Marie la Fontaine. She really didn’t have any vocal supporter in her team. Takamori and Gupta were silent for most parts, Leanna was non-committal either way and Violet to Alex’s surprise was a mild belligerent.

  Marie did find some support from Mischa, though her husband Jorge was non-committal. Both Alex and Yusuke liked to call themselves in the prudent camp, which was usually interpreted as being mildly belligerent.

  In the US team it was Dr. Ramesh Srinivasan who surprised him. He was one of the strongest belligerent he had ever seen. It shouldn’t have surprised him. It is said that it was Ramesh who had named the aliens Shaitan, which in Hindi is the equivalent of Satan.

  It was clear which camp the Chinese belonged to. They were squarely in the belligerent camp, though even they could not match the ardor and zeal of Ramesh. Overall the belligerents had a slight advantage, though Marie la Fontaine tried to make it up with her oratory and political wiles.

  There one thing that all agreed upon. The First contact team should be made of as small a number of people as possible to ensure that it was least threatening. Since there could not be a single witness to the first human contact with aliens, the number of people in the delegation had to be two.

  This would also give a better perspective to the human team, to respond in real time. If one didn’t understand a particular gesture of the aliens, then the other might. They would in any case be broadcasting their helmet camera view along with audio, back to a larger waiting delegation, which would proceed if all went well with the first contact.

  The mission planners had given them a detailed protocol to follow once they were face to face with aliens. It had been designed by the best brains on earth. It consisted of a panel, which the First Contact team would carry.

  It had visual mathematical symbols and images of things the aliens are likely to understand, like stars, planets and comets. The panel showed the images in not just visible light but also emitted it in infrared and ultraviolet, just in case the aliens’ vision was slightly shifted in spectrum from ours.

  Nearly a hundred years of research had gone into it, but it was as speculative now as it had been a hundred years ago. No one had any idea how well it would work. They would also carry equipment to transmit very soft sounds, so as to not appear threatening along with very low power radio output.

  In the unlikely event that the aliens cannot see, at least in the visible spectrum, it would have to use another sense to communicate, which had to be either audio or radio frequency. So the same mathematical concepts were also encoded in audio and analog radio signals. Biology as humans knew worked in analog, not digital.

  They had left out the other senses of smell, touch and taste. While it was possible that the aliens could communicate some amount of information via smell, it was unlikely to be their primary sense.

  It is just not possible to pack dense and complex information in an unreliable medium like smell. That is the current thinking amongst humans. Taste and touch cannot be used at a distance and hence cannot be a medium of transmitting complex information either.

  It was decided that a team of 10 humans would wait about 20 kilometers away from the base, while two humans approached the base and display the First Contact images to the aliens when they were encountered.

  Since they would be in constant radio contact, they can decide the next steps on the fly depending on how things went. There was some debate as to what vehicle the human’s should use to approach. There were merits and demerits to approaching by both shuttle as well as a snowmobile.

  A shuttle would get there quickly and could also get you out quickly if things went south, but it is more likely to appear threatening. A snowmobile has just the reverse problem. It might appear less threatening, but if things went bad, the getaway would be slow and difficult or impossible.

  In the end, they reached a compromise. They would approach by shuttle low and slow and drop off the two humans at a distance of about two kilometers. It was the closest they could approach and still have a reasonable chance to react against a human anti-aircraft missile.

  The humans would walk beyond that point, waiting every few hundred meters or so to get noticed until they reached the camp. If no one shows up even then, they will circle the camp and look for an entrance but not enter.

  They will stand in front of the entrance for another half an hour before turning back to figure out at leisure, what to do next. If the aliens surprised them and approached right now, they would still follow the two person rule.

  The last point in the agenda was the one that created the bitterest debate. Marie la Fontaine was pulling rank and even claiming that she represented the largest number of humans, her own constituency to have the best claim to be the person leading the two person delegation.

  It was obvious to everyone else in the room why she was a politician. Very few people would so shamelessly and so obviously make an attempt to get glory with an eye on history, when everyone in the room knew she was probably one of the least qualified persons in the room to be in the mission to Titan let alone in the First contact delegation.

  The military persons in the room were of the view that one of the people out of the two should be a military personnel, and the other person also needs to be very fit person. The logic being that a trained soldier would be able to spot signs of trouble or ambush a lot earlier, and if that happened, they will have to run back to their shuttle, over a kilometer in ice with environmental suit.

  Even in low gravity, a small difference in speed may mean all the difference between life and death. No one could argue with that logic. Marie however insisted that the other person has to be her. While she was not unfit, she wasn’t the fittest of them by any stretch of imagination.

  She started threatening obstruction by calling mission control and asking for their opinion. She even hinted at stopping co-operation with the other teams, which appalled everyone including the other ESA-ISRO team members. She was behaving like a child who had brought the only bat to the game, and was threatening to take away his bat home if he was not allowed to bat first.

  In the end all the others decided to behave like adults and let her go despite their deep skepticism that they were not sending the best person for the job. After some more deliberation it was decided that Major Cheng should be the other person to go along.

  Major Cheng thanked everyone for giving the Chinese the honor, to which Major Takamori replied slowly turning his gaze from Cheng to a cold hard sta
re towards Marie la Fontaine. “Major, please understand that the decision has nothing to do with you being Chinese.

  This is not about any national or personal glory or ambitions. You are the best man for the job. One of the most experienced and yet one of the fittest warriors. Out here we are representing humanity and working towards the common goal of survival as humans. We are all one human team here not Chinese, Japanese, Americans or even French.”

  He let the words hang out there. He knew that he had burnt bridges out here today, but this was one bridge he no longer cared to cross. No one missed the not so hidden jibe, and la Fontaine was raining fire from her eyes towards Takamori, but he didn’t care any longer.

  It was decided that they would start the First contact operations immediately. They had already been on the surface for a few days, and they didn’t want the aliens to get edgy wondering what the humans were up to.

  They would take the Chinese shuttle, which while being the smallest was the best armored. It was the only one that was on the surface right now any way, having brought in the last of the supplies from Jiānjué recently.

  It had the added bonus of a turret mounted machine gun. They just hoped it would not be needed. No other nation had thought it necessary to have a gun mounted on a landing shuttle. Just went to show how different Chinese space philosophy and space doctrine was.

  Twelve people in the shuttle would be a squeeze, it was designed to carry a maximum of ten, but it was not a long journey. All the people in this room except Mr. Gupta would be in the shuttle, which will be piloted by the Chinese pilot of the shuttle.

  Eight of them would be dropped off about 20 Km from the camp, where they will wait and monitor the helmet feed from Major Cheng and la Fontaine. Lt. Ma and the pilot will remain in the shuttle after dropping off, and then they will proceed as planned.

  In the end it took over two hours to get all things ready and programmed, suited up and aboard the shuttle. The journey itself was short to the drop off point of the eight and even shorter to the drop off point of the First Contact team.

  Major Cheng noted the distance they started from at just over two Km on his HUD. He kept the distance display prominent on his HUD. He checked with the shuttle as well as with the eight waiting some distance away, that all were getting his feed and that of la Fontaine.

  The feeds were also being relayed via the shuttle to the base, and from there to all the ships above on synchronous orbit. Marie needless to say had not followed any communications check protocol, although Cheng was sure it would have been part of her intensive training program.

  He could hear her shallow and fast breathing as if she was hyperventilating. She was really not suited for this job, yet she wanted to hog the glory. Politicians are all the same Cheng thought, no matter what country or whether it was democracy or communism.

  They stopped every 250 meters and waited 10 minutes before proceeding further as pre-decided. When they had reached the half kilometer point from the alien base, and were at one of their stops, Cheng started getting the feeling that something was amiss, without being able to put his finger on it.

  He addressed Takamori although everyone could hear him. “Major Takamori, I would value your inputs at this point. You can see almost all I can, do you see anything out of place? I am getting that soldier’s sixth sense tingle right now.”

  Before Takamori could answer, la Fontaine almost screamed somewhat hysterically. “Nothing is out of the place. They will come out to greet us in a moment. There is no need to play soldier here. We are not here to fight. It was a bad idea to get a soldier here. It was a bad idea to get soldiers to Titan, I was always against it!”

  Despite his rage building up inside, Cheng managed to keep his voice under control. “Madam, just calm down, we are just talking and being cautious. No one is talking about starting a war here.” He gave some time to himself to calm down and hearing no more outburst from la Fontaine, he continued. “As I was saying Major, I would like your inputs here.”

  Takamori replied “Major I cannot see anything in my feed that I find remarkable at the moment, but you are the person on the ground. If your instincts are telling you something, do not ignore it. Instinct is not something that is transmitted over the feed. You will know best. Just trust your instincts. It has always stood me in good stead.”

  As they started from their half kilometer mark towards their quarter km mark, the feeling inside Cheng only got stronger, but he could not find anything amiss. He quickly realized what was amiss. It was not what he was seeing, but what he was not seeing. Sentries, guard posts, patrols. There were none of it!

  The camp was built from a military stand point, in a very poorly defensible spot. It was in an open plateau accessible easily from all directions. It was sunk in the ground with only a very mildly curving dome jutting out of the surface about 4 meters high.

  He could see the half of the dome visible from his direction of approach, he used his binoculars in all frequencies form IR through visible to UV and as far as he could see from this distance, there was not even a ditch to prevent someone from walking straight to the habitat walls.

  There was always the possibility that these aliens were so peace loving creatures that they had no concept of warfare, security and defense. Another possibility would be that they don’t see the human’s as a threat at all, and hence have not bothered with any security measures.

  Why would they not consider the human’s as threat? They don’t even know us to make a judgment on our intentions (despite what UFO nuts on earth believe that they have been visiting earth for long). Are the Shaitans very trusting in nature?

  Or are they so advanced that we couldn’t possibly pose any threat to them at all? How could they have made the judgment that we cannot pose a threat at all? A small tactical nuke could erase this camp off the map, surely the advanced aliens would know that. No… it cannot be that they won’t be aware of the threat we can pose.

  It is either they are peace loving and trusting beings or… ambush! This setup was screaming of ambush, but he couldn’t see single piece of concrete evidence of it yet. Cheng couldn’t just abort human’s first contact with aliens on a hunch of ambush, especially with la Fontaine besides him. She would go ballistic.

  He checked the distance on his HUD display. They were approaching the 400 meter mark, so they had advanced about a hundred meters, but had a long way to go before their next stop, but his instincts was telling him to stop here and assess the situation again.

  He needed an excuse to stop here without making la Fontaine suspicious. The problem was that everybody was listening in on their conversations. He couldn’t make up any harebrained excuse. Someone else might express surprise, which will give him away.

  He couldn’t pretend to check his suit for malfunction either, la Fontaine can query his suit as would be the process for checking your partner’s suit. He decided to use the excuse people like la Fontaine understood the best, politics. He just hoped that the captain of Jiānjué understood his ploy and played along.

  “Excuse me ma’am for a moment. I have some urgent text only messages coming via the Jiānjué from my government pertaining to this first contact mission, which I need to review immediately. Let us stop for a few minutes while I read it.” Cheng said to la Fontaine.

  He could not see her reaction through the helmet, but she did say with an impatient tone. “Sure Major, just make it quick.”

  Cheng stepped a few steps away, a purely instinctive reaction. La Fontaine would not be able to hear him if he changed channels even if he was standing right next to her. He put the conference mode of his com gear on hold and hit the Jiānjué on his speed dial.

  Within two seconds the icon turned green indicating that he was connected. He did not wait for greetings or pleasantry, but just blurted “Captain just bear with me and play along with me on this game for now. I will fill you in later.”

  With that he disconnected but did not switch back to the conference mode imm
ediately. He wanted la Fontaine to think that he was reading and speaking to his ship. He now concentrated fully at the vista around him. He had already scanned to the point of visually boring holes in the direction of the alien camp and found nothing but the camp itself. What could he have missed?

  If someone was planning an ambush, they would not hide in the line of vision of the enemy, where they would be seen. So it would not be a good idea to lie in wait near the camp itself, which would be in the line of vision of the approaching enemy.

  They would hide behind the enemy to ambush, and yet not be seen to be waiting in ambush. Now what is that place most likely to be? The camp was out in the middle of an open plateau so the enemy could approach from any side.

  There was no obvious place which was guaranteed to be behind an approaching enemy, since you didn’t know the line of approach of the enemy. Or did they know the line of approach?

  Of course they did. The aliens would have surely monitored the landing. They would have even send some reconnaissance drones. Humans would have. So they should know the exact location and hence the line of approach from the human camp to the alien camp.

  Humans could always come around from another direction to surprise them, but you always defend the obvious line of attack first before you shore up other possible angles. That is not only military sense, but is common sense.

  So they could have dug themselves in some distance from their own camp waiting for humans to approach and then spring a surprise from behind. If they dug such ditches to hide, they would have had to do it in the last 3 days since the arrival of the humans, because before that they wouldn’t have known where we would land.

  So whatever structure they would have made could not be an elaborate habitable or even heated structure. They just didn’t have the time and moreover the heat from a powered structure would show up in IR in this cold ice. So it has to be a ditch in the ground, which probably can be quickly covered.