Justin had noticed the distinct chill he felt the moment he had unstrapped and come out of his blanket. He realized that this was the immediate problem he had to solve. They had fuel, they just needed to figure out how to bypass the computer controlled circuits to turn the heaters on manually. They floated out aft to the section which housed most of the electrical controls and dived into the grim task of survival.
Chapter 26
Will we be together?
It had been over six hours since the Charles Martell was damaged by the shockwave of the alien missile blast. Capt. Kormas was amazed that they were still alive, although not for long he realized. The blast had punctured almost every external surface on the ship.
It had vented the atmosphere out of almost every section of the ship, killing the four crewmen who were not in the bridge. The only reason the bridge was not open to space, was because it was in the center of the ship, buffeted on every side by the bulk of the ship.
The five of them were trapped inside the tiny bridge. Just outside the hatch was cold and airless. None of them wore suits to be able to venture out, and they could not have opened the door anyway. It had no airlocks. Kormas had been able to survey the interiors however through CCTV. It had not been pretty.
The entire ship had turned into a mess, the moment the air started rushing out, strewing everything around. He had surveyed the shuttles hopefully. Perhaps the pilot of one of the shuttles had taken refuge and survived inside, but that hope was dashed. The Shuttle bay was open to space by design, and it had taken particularly bad damage from the shockwave.
The EMP of the blast had interfered with their electronics for a few minutes, but thankfully not fried anything. The Charles Martell had holes all over its skin and perhaps some minor structural damage too, but otherwise it was a surprisingly functional ship. They had full thruster control and most of the attitude thrusters had survived and were controllable.
The crew had struggled to bring the uncontrolled tumble of the craft under control and get the ship into a stable orbit, due to some of the non-functional attitude thrusters, but the computers had compensated and eventually managed.
The design of Charles Martell was compartmentalized like all human space ships, which enabled the life support to work on the bridge independently. That had kept them alive. Only to for them to die slowly, thought Kormas bitterly.
They had no hope for help. The Jiānjué had evaporated literally, and USS Friendship was dead in space, with probably everyone inside dead. The base at the surface no longer had a shuttle to evacuate them, and they would not last long enough for help from earth.
In reality he and the four other crew on this bridge were dead people taking the last few breaths in their tomb. He had even harbored the wild thought of flying all the way back to earth, before he had inspected the rupture in many of the liquid fuel tanks.
The only consolation that Kormas felt, was that the enemy ship was also dead. They had stopped the invasion. Although he hoped that the humans would win and survive on the surface, whatever happened out there, the aliens were not getting off Titan.
If necessary, the next human ship, which will be on its way, now that the enemy ship was dead, could bombard the hell out of the alien camp from space. Kormas was lost in his bitter and gloomy thoughts, when his communications officer shouted out.
“Sir! The alien ship has just fired a thruster!” That got Kormas and everyone else’s attention on the bridge. The officer continued. “They have not fired their main thruster, but various attitude control thrusters are firing in rapid succession. I think the ship is trying to control its tumble & spin. It is trying to stabilize its attitude, sir!”
Someone on that alien ship was still alive or some automated routine had come alive! What could Kormas do? The Charles Martell was fatally wounded. All he had were four pathetic anti-missile missiles, which may not even fire if the launch tubes are damaged, and they would not even dent the alien ship.
Heck, if he were to somehow be able to even ram the Charles Martell at full acceleration from down here climbing up to the alien ship, he may not even dent the ship. His ship probably had less than 1% of the mass of the alien ship. So he ordered to do the only thing they could do. “Keep an eye on that alien ship Lieutenant.”
Over the period of next several hours as the alien ship passed overhead the orbit of Charles Martell, they watched as the alien ship struggled with just a few of its attitude thrusters, slowly stabilizing and nullifying its tumble and spin.
The alien ship was clearly damaged heavily, and only a few of its thrusters were working, and that too not in a very efficient coordinated manner. They had watched the alien ship maneuver. What should have taken them less than 5 minutes to stabilize earlier, took them several hours.
Still it was ominous. It meant that the ship was not dead. If some of the thrusters still worked, what else was working inside that ship? Could it launch more missiles? Could it still make it all the way to Earth?
Kormas had been sending regular updates to earth, and even gotten back the acknowledgement from earth. Sometime after the alien ship had stopped tumbling and spinning, the communications officer shouted out again. “Sir we are getting radio bursts out of the alien ship. The radio signals are strong. Really strong.”
Kormas looked up in alarm. “They are talking to their alien base on the surface?” It was half question, half statement that Kormas made.
The officer replied. “That’s the strange thing sir. Both us and the alien ship are out of synchronous orbit now and are crossing each other several times a day. Right now both of us are on the other side of Titan. None of us can see the alien base right now, so the alien ship’s radio signals cannot reach the alien base right now!”
“Probably why they are sending a strong radio signal. So that it will bounce off the atmosphere and reach the alien base.” Speculated Kormas.
“I thought that initially sir, but while I called it a radio signal, it is really in the microwave range. It won’t bounce off the atmosphere, it will go straight through. In any case bouncing signals from space will only bounce them back into space, not further into the atmosphere. This signal has no hope of reaching the alien base. I have a theory though.” Replied the officer.
“Yes…” Kormas urged him to continue.
“Microwave signals are can be directed in a particular direction reasonably well. They are not as good as visible light though, and do suffer from leakage. What if we are detecting the leakage? What if the signal is far stronger aimed at a different direction?” The officer left the question hanging.
“So you are speculating that they are sending report back home. That is possible. It would only have been possible after they stopped their spin and tumble, which they have. But why have we not detected them using microwave before? Unless this is their first report.” Countered Kormas.
“No sir, I am not implying this is their first report. Dr. Sterner and Dr. Srinivasan have already proved 20 years ago that they use laser to keep in touch with their home planet, so we would not have detected their previous reports, but right now a lot of their ship is damaged. It is possible that their laser transmitter is not working, so they are using a backup microwave transmitter that is still working.” The officer speculated.
“So someone or some program is alive on the ship and we think that the alien ship is sending a report home. So be it. The home world would have known about the death of the ship in any case, when it stopped reporting. It will now have additional information about human weapons capabilities. There is nothing much we can do about it.”
Kormas sighed and attempted to sink back into his seat, which was not easy in zero gravity. “Keep me informed if the status changes. There is not much we can do right now.”
After about 10 minutes, Kormas was informed that the microwave burst from the alien ship had ceased. He was just about to settle back when there was one more shout from the officer. “They have fired up their thrusters once again sir!
”
Kormas was puzzled. “The main thrusters?” he asked.
“No sir, lateral thrusters sir, it seems like some complex stuff it is trying, I cannot figure out.” The officer replied.
Kormas wondered aloud. “That doesn’t make any sense. They have already stabilized themselves, why would they want to fire up their lateral thrusters and get into a tumble all over again? Unless…” Kormas thought in horror. It couldn’t be true. He was just being extremely paranoid he thought.
There however didn’t seem any other explanation. The main thruster of the alien ship seemed dead. It had already stabilized itself and further firing the lateral and attitude thrusters would only leave the alien ship worse off, unless it was using those lateral thrusters to do the work of the main thruster.
But the lateral thrusters were so weak. They couldn’t replace the main thrusters. The alien ship would not even be able to leave the orbit of Titan in a reasonable time frame with those lateral thrusters. The fight with gravity is too much for those puny lateral thrusters.
Unless… the alien captain is not planning to fight gravity. The alien captain might be using the lateral thrusters to assist gravity, just give the ship gentle nudge, to take it out of orbit and let it fall into Titan. That was eminently possible, and could be done fairly fast even with just the lateral thrusters.
But why would the alien captain want to commit suicide? Is it in the nature of these beings that when faced with certain slow death, they prefer to go out quickly and in a blaze of glory? It is possible, he himself had given more than a casual thought to that end for himself and Charles Martell in the last few hours.
It is also likely that the alien captain is under orders to not let the humans get hold of his ship under any condition. If it came to that, the alien captain might have standing orders to destroy his own ship, in order not to be taken captive and spill out secrets of the aliens.
It may also be to prevent humans from getting hold of the alien technology. Humans could certainly benefit from studying this alien ship. It is far more advanced than the first alien ship, and it is not flying away out of the solar system. It would stay in the orbit of Titan for a long time.
So that is what the alien captain must be doing he decided. As a fighting captain himself, he now looked at the alien captain with admiration and honor. He could sympathize with the tough decision the alien captain had to take, not so much in killing himself but also his crew along with it.
Kormas decided that he would honor the valor of his enemy by watching them perform the last maneuvers himself. He asked his officer to stream the visuals as well as the schematics to his terminal.
He watched the alien perform its clumsy maneuvers, with inconveniently placed thrusters for a long time, as its orbit started decaying. Initially slowly, but it was gathering speed. He watched for a long time while his thoughts kept wandering between various events in his life.
From his childhood and his grandfather’s orchards, to his first wife and their first date at the age of 15, to his beautiful daughter. His first commission. His mind kept wandering, occasionally coming back to the present and the terrible dilemma they were in. Do they die a slow and painful death? Or do they choose the same path as the enemy captain?
As he was watching he was growing more disturbed. It took him some time to realize that he was not being disturbed by his wandering thoughts, but by something else. He just couldn’t put a finger on it. He realized that he was getting disturbed because of what he was watching.
No he was not getting disturbed by watching the alien ship die. At one level he could admire and respect the alien captain and its crew, but he was glad to see them die. It was the picture itself. Something was not adding up.
It was something deep down as a seasoned spaceman now, which was telling him that there was something wrong with the picture he was seeing. Yet he could see nothing wrong when he focused on the picture.
Kormas stopped looking at the picture and concentrated entirely on the schematics. It had a wireframe diagram of the alien ship and there would be red, yellow, blue or any shade in between flaring up on the sides of this wireframe depending on which thruster fired and by how much.
A deep blue would indicate that the thruster was firing at full rated capacity of the thruster as noted by them, and it would keep going towards the red as the amount of thrust as seen by the light it emitted reduced. The thrusters were firing intermittently and most of the time it was in the red.
He realized what was wrong with this picture. If the alien captain intended to quickly end his misery, it would have initially given a very light thrust to turn the ship at an angle to make the lateral thrusters face opposite and away from Titan.
Then he would have given a full thrust to those lateral thruster firing continuously to take him down to Titan as fast as possible. Kormas should be seeing continuous blue! Instead he was seeing intermittent firing and reds which indicated delicate thrusts for continuous adjustments.
Why would the alien ship need to make continuous adjustments? It was not as if it could miss Titan! The only reason it would make continuous adjustments, would be if it was aiming for something. Not Titan, but something much smaller.
For a fleeting moment he panicked that the alien ship was aiming to ram the Charles Martell. He could dispel the notion immediately, since the plot of both the ships were being continuously updated by the computer. They were not even close to intersection at any time.
Then it hit him like a ton of bricks. Of course the alien ship is aiming for Titan, but not the whole of Titan but something on the surface of Titan. Something relatively small to need the ship to continuously adjust its course, but big enough for the huge ship to be able to target and hit. The human base on the surface of Titan.
“I want the plot of the alien ship extending all the way to the surface of Titan on screen NOW.” He shouted out in a half panicked voice. “… and I want the location of Sotra Facula mapped on the surface along with it.”
Everyone picked up the implication of what Kormas was saying and their eyes enlarged in horror. They forgot their own doom for the moment and bent into their terminals to get what their captain had asked. It took them less than a minute to extend the graphic and the calculations all the way to the surface and put the co-ordinates of the human base as a red dot on the wireframe of Titan.
The trajectory went over the human base, but the projected crash site was over a hundred Kilometers further out.
“Has this graphic taken into account atmospheric resistance? I see no bend in the trajectory at all.” Kormas asked in irritation.
“No sir! Sorry sir, my mistake.” The officer said with a sheepish look of embarrassment. “It will take some time though sir. We do not have accurate atmospheric modelling of Titan, nor any weather mapping.”
“Time we may not have if we are to do something about this. Just do a quick and dirty job. You know the average density of Titan’s atmosphere, just use that. I want to know if it would land anywhere near.” Kormas shouted in impatience. He should be going easier on these young people he realized. It was hard to work at top efficiency when you know you are doomed to die a slow death in the next few hours or days.
The modified graphics took five minutes to appear, but it left no doubts at all as to where the alien ship was heading. It showed the crash site at about one kilometer from Sotra Facula, which was within the margin of error of calculation. It was too much of a co-incidence that the alien ship was crashing there.
The alien captain would not just go down in a blaze of glory and carry out his orders. He would also take his enemies along with it. At an intellectual level he could not begrudge the alien captain for that. He however had to do something about it. Not for duty, but for honor.
It was easier said than done. What the hell could he do about it? It was too simplistic to think that he could ram Charles Martell into the alien ship and somehow deflect it off course. His mental calculation told him that his puny s
hip would not be able to generate enough momentum to make much difference, which could not be corrected by alien ship simply by tilting a bit in atmosphere to generate a bit more or less drag.
He ran the calculation on his terminal anyway to rule it out for certain. He was not going to ask his navigator to do this calculation. This would be too much for the young people around him to think about. He did not doubt their bravery, their sense of duty or honor. However, they were still very young people with their whole lives in front of them. Their mental anguish would be unbearable.
His terminal quickly ruled out the ramming option for him. He did not know whether he was relieved or disappointed. It meant that he would still live to die a slow bitter death, but it meant that all the humans below would also die. No he should be disappointed not relieved.
He could save the lives of the humans temporarily by asking them to evacuate, but it was only delaying the inevitable. With their camps destroyed, they will just die a slow and painful death like him and his crew here. The merciful thing would be to let them die quickly, but he was duty-bound to warn them. “Inform the camp of what is approaching overhead and advise them to evacuate.” Kormas said in a defeated tone.
There has got to be a way to do something. Somehow deflect the alien ship. He had been a good student of physics in school. He knew the laws of motion and momentum were against him. It seemed like Sir Isaac Newton himself was conspiring against him.
So if he could not use his momentum. What else could he use? Kormas may have been a scientific man, but he was also a religious man. He believed that god chose that very moment to speak through the voice of his navigator to give him the idea and show him the path.
“May the gods strike that cursed alien ship with lightening and meteors, and burn it to hell.” The navigator shouted in an emotional outburst, as they were all watching the communication officer convey the news to the doomed people below.
Meteors! My god, how did I miss that?! He quickly shouted back to the navigator. “Give me the disposition and the angle of entry of the alien ship. On my screen please.”
The Battle of Titan Page 41
