The Battle of Titan

by Sudipto Majumdar

  The alien base would have definitely told them about the skirmish that has happened outside their base. The ships may be in radio silence, but we are listening to all the human ground communications. I just heard Capt. Parkinson’s report to the base. We have killed close to 200 Shaitans while suffering three deaths and some lesser casualties.

  While I commend the prowess of the human soldiers, what would it look like to the aliens right now? It probably looks like a massacre to them. They would have reported from their perspective that armed humans attacked their camp and slaughtered 200 of their people. There are two take outs for me from this fact.

  First is that the alien captain has most probably already made up his mind on our intent, and would look to attack and destroy our ships at the first available opportunity. We should not bother trying to show any gesture of reconciliation, if it puts any of our ships or our base in even the slightest danger, because nothing will come out of it.

  Second take out is that the aliens are probably not totally Kamikaze in their attitude. I have been following the battle below closely, and the aliens do look to have a higher tolerance for their own casualties, but they do retreat and try to protect what they consider precious to them. Right now the base is precious to them. The captain of the alien ship will want to protect the base.

  I think the only reason that the alien captain has not opened up his weapons on us is because we are directly overhead his base and potentially threatening it. He is trying to figure out how to make his base safe before proceeding to attack us. This is the only tactical advantage we hold right now, other than probably a better maneuverability. The alien captain holds all the other aces. So I suggest that we use this advantage to the hilt.”

  Captain Shou Faan was nodding vigorously indicating that he was in complete agreement with Daniel’s reasoning, while Kormas was looking circumspect. He asked, “So what do you propose captain?”

  Daniel took a deep breath before speaking. He knew that Faan and he were completely on the same wavelength. He was not sure about Kormas, but they would need his acceptance on the strategy as well.

  “Well, there is one more small advantage we have over the alien ship. We are three and hence can be at three places at once, while he can be in only one. Our original plan calls for all of us trying to gain height to come up to the same level as the alien ship, or even go higher to gain an advantage.

  This is still sound strategy from a ship to ship battle standpoint, and we should do that. However if all three of us did that, it may allow the alien ship to slip past us and go over its own base effectively trading places with us. This would mean that it would be able to block our attack on the alien camp and yet be able to fire at us.

  Agreed, that we would then be in a better position holding the high ground compared to the alien ship, but this may be a price the alien captain is willing to pay, for the ability to protect his camp. If he has figured out where the human camp lies, which is possible since he is in touch with his own camp, then it puts us in a worse position as now he can also threaten our human camp.

  Given the obvious fact, that the alien ship is far stronger than all of our ships combined, the alien ship might have rightly calculated that it would be able to fight and destroy our ships even from lower orbit, with us holding the advantage.

  So it makes no sense to give up our current position, which may be the only thing keeping us alive right now. All three of us cannot be sitting here forever either, waiting to see who blinks first. So I am proposing that two of us proceed with our original plan, while one stays back at this exact position.

  I further think that it should be Charles Martell which should be staying back here. It will be least in danger at this position, unless the enemy ship decides to forfeit its own camp.” Daniel finished laying out his battle plan.

  Kormas was upset at the implication that Charles Martell would want to shirk from combat and stay protected. “The Charles Martell would not waver from doing its duty! Its crew would not hesitate to fight with honor.”

  Both the other captains had their hands up in a conciliatory gesture. As captains themselves, they understood Kormas’s outburst. There is no greater insult to a captain, or any soldier for that matter, than what Kormas thought Daniel implied. As soldiers and captains of their own ships, they understood that. But that was not what Daniel had meant.

  It was Capt. Faan who spoke up quickly. “No one has the slightest doubt on your honor or the bravery of Charles Martell, captain. That is not what Capt. Cloutier meant. The Charles Martell is the largest ship we have, which can accommodate and carry back every human on Titan if something were to happen to our ships.

  That is the reason it is the most important ship for the survival of the people on the surface. It is also the least armored and has the lowest inventory of weapons. This makes its survivability in a battle, lower than the other two ships.”

  Very well and diplomatically put Capt. Faan, thought Daniel. He needed to learn a few things on subtlety from the Chinese captain. Daniel would have blurted out something like ‘Charles Martell would suck in battle’ further angering Kormas.

  Capt. Faan continued. “Given the different characteristics of each of our vessels, with our own strengths and weaknesses, it makes logical sense to use each of our strengths at the most optimal place to achieve maximum results. Don’t you agree Capt. Kormas?”

  Daniel could see that Capt. Faan was a master of such arguments. A lifetime of having to handle communist party political bosses would have given him quite some skills to handle such arguments. He had effectively cornered Kormas into a logical cul-de-sac from where he could not come out disagreeing, without sounding unsound on military logic.

  “Yes I do understand Capt. Faan. I am sorry for the misunderstanding about Capt. Cloutier’s statement.” Kormas raised his hands in reconciliation.

  Capt. Faan wanted seal the deal quickly. He liked Daniel’s plan. “So it is settled then. USS Friendship and Jiānjué will proceed as planned in…” he looked at the edge of his console where the countdown timer was placed, “about 15 minutes, while Charles Martell holds fort here.

  One more thing on the agenda was, that I think we all agree that there is no point any more in holding radio silence between ourselves. We might need the radio to keep in touch, as we get out of line of sight of each other during our changed orbit. We could even send information back to the base by using an omnidirectional broadcast.”

  The other two captains nodded in agreement, and Capt. Faan concluded. “Then best of luck to all of us Gentlemen, and as Capt. Cloutier would have said, I will see you on the other side.” He finished with a wink indicating he knew some of the slangs of the American military.

  The alien ship was high above them, and hence not in synchronous orbit, which is what the human ships were in. So the alien ship would have to circle Titan, and hence would get hidden behind it at some point of time. This is what the human ships were waiting for, assuming the alien ship did not attack immediately, which it didn’t.

  As the countdown clock hit zero, the programmed maneuvers of both USS Friendship and Jiānjué started with both main thrusters firing, and the attitude thruster correcting the minor imbalances to keep the attitude of the craft in the desired orientation.

  The job of the attitude thrusters was infinitely complicated by the spin of the ships. No human could have hoped to get the timing right, even if they could have calculated it in their head in the first place, which they couldn’t. It was a job for precision computers, and computers only.

  They had less than forty minutes before the alien ship emerged from the other side and figured out what the human ships were up to, but it would be enough to place them in the orbit they wanted to be. The chemical rockets of humans and the low mass of Titan was a benefit for a change.

  They had war gamed the various scenarios. Assuming the alien captain is also up to some trick, he could use the time where he is also hidden to either lower or further increa
se his orbit. Alternatively the alien captain could do nothing, and emerge from the other side at the same height.

  Daniel didn’t want both Jiānjué and Friendship on the same side of the alien craft. That would blunt their tactical advantage. Let the aliens have to track the two ships from two different directions and if it came to that, then let them have to protect from missiles coming from two different directions. At the same time he did not want to leave Charles Martell completely on its own.

  So Friendship climbed to the last known height of the alien ship, while Jiānjué settled in an orbit slightly lower, which they had calculated would be the orbit that the alien’s slower ion thrusters could go down to, if the alien captain so choses.

  If the alien ship actually did that then Jiānjué would be in the same orbit and slightly ahead of the alien craft, and also in a reasonable position to support Charles Martell, while Friendship will be in a superior attack position above. If the alien did nothing, then Friendship will be in the alien’s orbit and ahead, while Jiānjué will be below and both of them will be in a position to support Charles Martell.

  If the alien chose to raise its orbit further in the hiding, then both the human ships will be still below and able to support Charles Martell. In all three cases, they would have nullified to a large extent the advantage of height that the alien ship had, while still keeping a threatening stance over the alien camp and also being able to mutually support each other.

  When the alien ship emerged from the other side of Titan, it became clear that the alien captain had also had the same idea as the humans, of changing orbit in hiding. He had lowered his orbit, so that he was now following the Jiānjué while Friendship was positioned above the alien ship.

  Since Friendship was at a higher orbit and hence moving slower, it was slowly drifting towards the alien ship, and would reach on top of it in less than half an hour. The Jiānjué was maintaining its distance from the alien ship, being at the same orbit and hence same velocity.

  The attack came about 10 minutes after the alien ship had emerged from the side of Titan, and the attack was on the Jiānjué. Unlike on earth, where a laser bumps into particles floating in the air, which light up the path of the laser, there is no air or particles floating in space. So a laser beam is invisible, until it hits its target.

  Daniel was staring at his terminal on the bridge when he got a start as Justin shouted. “Jiānjué has gone into a tumble! I can hear shouts from their bridge!” His voice was in panic. It was his first time in battle. Heck it was Daniels first time in battle. Come to think of it, this was humanity’s first space battle! “I think they are under attack, but I can’t figure out how. No missiles were tracked to put Jiānjué into a tumble.”

  Before Daniel could say anything, the answer was provided by the voice of Capt. Faan over the public channel. “All ships be advised enemy using focused laser beam in the high UV range. Fortunately our reflective shields are the most efficient in that range.

  Unfortunately the power output of the enemy laser is slightly over the worst case scenario of the shield designers, approaching the nightmare case scenario. Spinning faster would not help, we tried. The entire ring around which the heat is spread, still gets too hot and starts to melt.

  The only desperate solution we found was to start to tumble ourselves. That seems to have solved the problem for now, but it has further reduced out scanning and sensing capabilities, as also our missile launch capabilities.”

  Daniel shouted out to his crew. “You heard the man, calculate a tumble routine in advance and Lt. Marcello, I want a hawk’s eye on the skin temperature.” He got a quick “Aye sir” from both Lt. Dubois and Lt. Marcello.

  He silently thanked the geeks who had thought of the AWPS. It had been a joke in the military circles, defending against the mythical laser weapons. Some had likened it to carrying a raincoat to the desert.

  One geek had simply answered that it would be better to look foolish and be laughed at, than be dead. Daniel was not laughing any longer. If he made it back to earth, he would give the geek a big sloppy kiss, even if the geek wore a thick moustache.

  The attack on Jiānjué stopped after a few minutes, by which time the crew of Jiānjué had figured out that they didn’t need to tumble very fast at all to spread the heat around. They had settled down on a very low rate of tumble, easing the load on the computers compensating for the outside sensors.

  This meant that their sensing and scanning capability was not degraded too much, but timing the release of missile would be an issue. If you faced the wrong way in a tumble, you would have to wait till you reached the general direction of your destination in the tumble, before you could release your missile.

  The laser attack on the Charles Martell started almost immediately after it stopped on the Jiānjué. This time the humans were prepared and the slow tumble started immediately, thus rendering the beam useless, albeit degrading the launch capability a bit.

  Hopefully the enemy would not know that human ships had fixed direction missile launch capability. It is possible to have launch tubes which point independent of the direction of the ship, but they are complex to build and maintain, and hence not generally used.

  Charles Martell was attacked for exactly the same amount of time before it ceased and immediately the same routine was applied to USS Friendship. One thing was becoming clear. The enemy ship either had only one of this death ray laser, or it could only attack with in one direction at a time.

  That meant that at any one time, only one ship had to tumble. A clever enemy captain could always alternate between all the three ships in a quick rotation, to force all of them to tumble, but Daniel was hoping the enemy was not that clever, or they had limitations on quickly targeting moving ships.

  Daniel opened up a private channel to Capt. Faan. “The enemy is not playing around and has shown its intent to kill. I will be in an optimum position to fire in a few minutes as I come overhead of the enemy. You are in a static situation vis-à-vis the enemy anyway, so timing is not an issue for the Jiānjué. I propose that we fire together and test the enemy’s defensive capabilities… and let’s keep the Charles Martell out of this for the moment if possible.”

  “I agree captain, let your weapons officer synchronize the first missile launch with mine, since timing is an issue for the Friendship. Let me handle Kormas on this one though.” Capt. Faan said with a smile which Daniel acknowledged with a nod.

  Capt. Faan opened the line to Kormas and told him that they were going to test the enemy missile defense with dual launch from a higher and even position. There is no point in Charles Martell joining in on this attack since its missiles would have to fight gravity, and this was only a test. If the enemy was capable of shooting down the Friendship and Jiānjué missiles, then it would definitely shoot down the slower missiles from Charles Martell. It was best for the Charles Martell to conserve its limited amount of missiles.

  It was Jiānjué who fired first. Jiānjué was at the same orbit but much further from the alien ship, while USS Friendship was higher but approaching very close to the alien ship over it. They had timed the launch such that it would arrive at their destination together within a second. Even if the alien ship changed its course, the missile from Friendship, which had to travel less and hence had more fuel, would use its onboard computer to analyze and adjust its acceleration such that they would still arrive together.

  These were the first missiles humans had made specifically for use in space. These were not the special focused nukes. The warheads were the same as those used on earth based missiles. It was the engine, propellant, casing and even the skin of the missile which were purpose designed and built to be launched from a space craft, and for the purpose of killing another space craft.

  The first thing any missile designer would notice is that these missiles had lateral thrusters and attitude thrusters. On earth you could use the air to turn around using fins, something you can’t do in space, hence the requirement. These
missiles could move laterally and change directions much faster and at far higher speeds, than those missiles that were fired at the first alien ship.

  If someone were to open up the electronics, they would notice that the onboard computer is far more sophisticated and powerful, reaching the levels of sophistication of an unmanned probe’s computer, sent for exploration to space. It could do complex celestial navigation on its own.

  Another thing a designer would notice would be the sensors, rather the amount and sophistication of it. All self-guiding missiles need sensors, this one just beat others in the range, power and sophistication. It even had active scanners to shine laser, radar and other EM spectrum on its targets to better track it.

  The feature however that Daniel was most thankful about on the missile was the built in AWPS. That was one of the reasons why the missiles needed lateral thrusters to spin and a more powerful computer to still be able to use the sensor properly.

  He and his military colleagues, including the Chinese ones had doubled over and laughed when the geeks had told them that the missiles would come with the same basic form of AWPS, although not with the same heat bearing capability due to its smaller size. This was not just like taking a raincoat to the desert, but also taking waterproof gun covers along.

  The geeks had paid no heed to the laughs that had been directed at them, and programmed the lateral thrusters of the missile to fire randomly in various directions while always coming back to its original course on the average, so as to thwart both light speed weapon as well as kinetic kill weapons sent out to kill the missiles.

  The Chinese missiles used the same 2.1 megaton yield design that they had used earlier, while the US missile had a slightly lower 1.8 megaton yield. It wasn’t as if humans could not build bigger bombs. They could build something 50 to hundred times the yield of these bombs.