The Battle of Titan

by Sudipto Majumdar

  On earth it is a well-known fact that reentry into the atmosphere is the trickiest part of any space journey. Many an accident has happened during this phase of the travel, and mission control spends huge amounts of time planning and executing reentry of a spacecraft into the atmosphere.

  The reason is that space crafts are approaching at huge speeds, which is fine in space where there is no friction from air. The moment a spacecraft hits the atmosphere, air will impact with a spacecraft like a solid brick wall at that speed.

  One needs to plan the angle at which to hit the atmosphere very carefully, depending on the speed at which the spacecraft is travelling. If the angle is too steep and the spacecraft tries to land close to vertically down, it would slam into the atmosphere too hard, not just breaking it up, but the friction will generate so much heat that it will burn it up as well.

  If the spacecraft tries to enter the atmosphere at too shallow an angle, trying to land almost horizontally, then it would simply skip off the surface of the atmosphere, just like a rock skips off water when thrown at a shallow enough angle.

  The angle between entering too steep and too shallow is just a few degrees, where the spacecraft slams the atmosphere shallow enough not generate too much impact or heat that it would not be able to bear, and yet is steep enough that it will not be skipped back into space.

  This is also the reason why we see burning meteors in the sky, and so few intact rocks that fall to the ground. Most of the meteors are too steep in angle and start burning in the atmosphere, and the ones that are too shallow skip back to space and are not seen at all. Only a few meteors chance to fall in that small angle where the friction is small enough for some of it to survive the journey to earth.

  This theory is not just true about earth, but any heavenly body that has an atmosphere. The thicker the atmosphere, the more severe the problem is, and Titan had a thicker atmosphere than earth!

  So the alien would have to work out this problem carefully, far more carefully than even on Earth. A small variation to its angle of approach, or even the angle at which the ship hit the atmosphere, would be catastrophic for it.

  While he thought through these facts, the data appeared on Kormas’s screen. It was as expected. The alien had worked out the optimum angle of entry and was approaching bang in the middle of that optimum range. That was partly the reason it was constantly adjusting its course.

  It needed to stay on a fine trajectory, not just to make a successful entry, but to able to plow through the atmospheric turbulence and still hit the human base. The alien’s task was made slightly easier by the choice of the human camp.

  It was in a caldera of a cryo-volcano about 10 Km wide. Hitting anywhere inside will bring the walls down burying the camp even if it was not destroyed outright by the kinetic energy. So the alien ship had a 10 Km wide bull’s eye to hit.

  So Kormas didn’t need to deflect the alien ship with momentum. Momentum that Charles Martell simply did not have. All that was needed was to shift its angle of approach by turning the ship slightly and somehow holding it in that angle.

  Turning something in space did not require too much thrust, power or momentum. That is the reason attitude and lateral thrusters were so puny. They are only used to turn the spacecraft in the right direction.

  Could the Charles Martell simply ram the alien ship on the sides near the rear or front and change its angle of approach. No that won’t work. Charles Martell would be dead, and the alien ship will be free to correct the minor tumble and get back to the right angle.

  What if he waited till the last moment before the alien ship hit the atmosphere to ram and put it in a tumble? Other than the difficult timing, it was risky leave it so late. It may not work if the alien ship manages to reach even the thinnest of the upper atmosphere. The other problem also remained. Charles Martell would be dead and the enemy ship could attempt course correction again.

  No he needed a solution where his ship would see through the entry, and force the alien ship to remain off angle. He laughed at himself when he thought of trying to force the alien ship to anything. He was trying to use brute force against a brute.

  But wait a minute! Thought Kormas, he did have a brute! He was now dealing with only the lateral thrusters of the alien ship, which other than being ion plasma that are over hundreds of times weaker than chemical rockets, are a tiny fraction of the power of the main thrusters. He had his main chemical rocket thrusters intact.

  The humans had already profiled all the thrusters of this alien ship on its arrival. He realized that it was just a day ago. It seemed like weeks ago to him now. He quickly compared the power of the alien lateral thrusters to his main thrusters on his terminal and it confirmed that his main thrusters were more than five times more powerful than any one lateral thruster of the alien ship.

  He was sure that the alien ship did not have enough lateral thrusters left, and definitely not five or more on any one side, that it could oppose his thruster. Now all he had to do was to figure out how to apply the thrust to keep the brute turned in the wrong direction. He looked once again at the alien ship and then all of a sudden he knew how it could be done.

  All his career he had given commands unhesitatingly knowing with certainty that he had duty on his side, and was asking his subordinates to do what was their duty. Right now he had no such certainty. Kormas was hoping that there would be no need to issue the last command of his life.

  He had stood up as much as is possible in zero gravity to give a speech to his bridge crew, but in the end he decide to show them respect, by simply handing over his tablet to his navigator Lt. Maurice Allard.

  He motioned the other three to have a look along with Maurice. Kormas just stood back in sadness and looked at them studying the tablet. So young he thought as he looked at the four. So full with possibilities.

  After about a minute he heard Maurice argue something with the weapons officer. In their passion over the topic, they had subconsciously reverted to their native French, and Kormas could not understand what they were arguing about.

  Then the weapons officer nodded in understanding and the argument was over. All four of them looked up, and Maurice explained. “We were arguing over the vector angle, and I convinced them that it is possible within a high level of tolerance.”

  Kormas could not stop a tear from appearing in his eyes. So young, and so full of possibilities. Yet they discuss technical feasibility, in the face of riding to their own deaths. So young and yet so brave… so full of honor.

  Maurice needed to take his own attention away from those eyes of his captain, which were glistening with sadness and yet were so determined and purposeful. So he indulged in some gallows humor. “Oh well that solves one problem for me. I don’t need to figure out where to take a dump in the bridge, so that it would not stink.” The rest of the crew laughed, but not Kormas.

  The alien captain had concentrated on accuracy not speed for his approach into Titan. He didn’t need more speed for his purpose. The alien craft would hit the ground releasing energy equivalent to many megatons of TNT even at the current speed. Enough to flatten anything in the confined space of the caldera of the human base. It however needed the accuracy to ensure it was on target, else everything would go to waste.

  This was fortunate for the Charles Martell. The alien ship was still far away from atmosphere of Titan and the human ship had ample time and no constraint on its fuel any longer. There would be no return journey.

  Charles Martell engaged its thrusters at full burn on a calculated trajectory, which would intercept the alien ship well before it reached the atmosphere of Titan. There was not much the alien ship could do to evade Charles Martell if it wanted to stay on course towards the human camp. Not with only lateral thrusters functioning. It did not even try.

  Amazingly the AWPS on Charles Martell was still functioning, and they spun up their ship as a precaution against the death ray laser, just in case it was still functioning. If the missile bays were still f
unctioning, then they were doomed anyway.

  They didn’t think the missiles were functioning, otherwise they would have been dead a long time ago. In the end, their fear of the death ray laser also turned unfounded. They stopped spinning because of what they needed to do for their next maneuver.

  The Jiānjué had opened up the bow portion of the huge ship almost completely, although there were dangerous looking jagged edges sticking all around the edges. If the alien ship had to make an aerodynamic entry, it had to go with its still intact rear portion facing ahead.

  That way it would enter the atmosphere facing its stern. It would still face huge turbulence inside the atmosphere due to the two huge holes on its sides caused by USS Friendship, but they were manageable. That meant that there was an open gaping hole to the rear of the alien ship, which was the position Charles Martell was targeting.

  The diameter of the ship was so huge, that the Charles Martell could slowly approach the opened up hole in a docking maneuver, and easily get inside it with tens of meters of space on every side. The alien ship had to hold its course as it had no option, and that steadiness on part of the alien ship ensured that they were able to get inside the ship without crashing into anything.

  Once they were a few meters inside the ship, things got a bit tricky. The alien ship’s diameter was so huge, that the entire length of Charles Martell could have fitted inside if it chose to turn inside the alien ship and position itself along the diameter.

  However the alien ship was not hollow. In fact the crew of Charles Martell were counting on it. There were various destroyed structures and broken struts sticking out of the inner hull looking jagged and dangerous.

  The aim of the Charles Martell was to get itself snagged on those part destroyed structures at an angle to the direction of the alien ship. It slowly turned sideways, trying to fit along the diameter, and the crew could hear metal crunching on the skin of Charles Martell as various part destroyed structures and struts inside the alien ship started bumping into it.

  The Charles Martell kept turning slowly, until the turn came to a crunching halt after it had plowed through enough destroyed structures. They seem to have gotten embedded loosely at almost 45° angle to the direction of the alien ship, and the thrusters at the rear of Charles Martell were still jutting out of the alien ship.

  The crew opened up the main thrusters at the rear of Charles Martel slowly. They let the thrust build up and crunch the human ship a bit further into the destroyed structures inside the alien ship, until it was firmly embedded inside.

  Some of the struts had impaled the eternal hull of Charles Martell, of that Kormas was sure. All the much better he thought, it will give stability to the attachment, as long as they did not breach all the way into the center and the bridge. It would not have made much difference to the outcome even then, because they were almost on full thrusters now. The die was cast.

  It took a few minutes for the change in direction of the alien ship to get noticeable. The Charles Martell by positioning itself at almost a 45° angle was using half of its thrust to turn the alien ship, while the other half was imparting further velocity to the alien ship.

  The lateral thrusters of the alien ship were trying valiantly to compensate for it, but it was obvious that they had no hope in hell of being able to do that. Maurice had done a quick calculation and announced that the alien craft would hit the atmosphere at around 70° angle, which would be almost as catastrophic to it as hitting head on at 90° angles so as to make no difference. The time to impact was approximately 30 minutes.

  The crew had already sent their last official report back to earth as well as informing the surface about their plans. They had also sent personal data packets back to earth saying their goodbyes to their loved ones back home. There had been a few tears.

  All that had been done before the Charles Martell impacted the alien ship, since they were unlikely to have communications afterwards. There was nothing more to do for the crew of Charles Martell for the next thirty minutes, but remember moments of their lives, some happy ones, some sad. Think of all the regrets, and all the things they would never do now.

  Kormas spent his time strapped to his harness looking forward, his mind far away on earth remembering the sun soaked days of his childhood playing and running around in his grandfather’s orchards. Maurice was looking down, similarly lost in his own recollections of perhaps the best moments of his own life.

  Another of the crew was holding on to a handhold, with both his hands trying to stop is body from visibly shaking as he fought his fear, and his urge to throw up. The fourth had his head bend down covered by his hands, sobbing slowly.

  It was however the fifth person and the communications officer, whom Kormas noticed right now. She was simply standing looking dazed with fear, yet too proud as a soldier to admit it to herself. She needed someone to talk to right now, a friend or a priest perhaps, but the Captain of the ship would have to do right now.

  He met her eyes with his own and indicated her to come near and sit next to him. They sat for a few minutes in silence before she said. “You know sir, in Hindu religion hell is not a fiery place. It is a normal place with forests, rivers, hills, plains and meadows, very much like earth. It is not a bad place to live if you don’t minds the demons living out there.” She smiled to herself, almost talking to herself. “I guess being naughty and being sent to hell is not that much of a disincentive.” This time both of them shared a smile.

  After some more silence, she said. “You know captain what I am wondering right now?” she gave a sad pause to her own rhetorical question. “I am wondering, that if we are all good and end up in heaven, will I end up with all of you? My ship, my crew, my family? Or will I end up in a different heaven alone simply because I pray to a different god.”

  A tearful captain, held this young communications officer’s hand and started to say something. He never got a chance, and her question remained unanswered.

  The fury of the impact, as the alien ship slammed into the atmosphere of Titan, was indescribable. The Charles Martell was slammed further inside the alien ship, getting crushed to a fifth of its original length within factions of a second. The crew felt no pain. They were crushed and dead before the signals of pain could travel through their nervous system to reach their brains.

  It was a testament to the engineering and strength of the alien ship, that despite such a violent entry into the Titan’s atmosphere, it did not break up completely or burn up completely. Many large fragments of the alien ship landed on the surface of Titan, some fairly intact over an area of nearly 100 square Kilometers.

  It would become a treasure trove for a generation for military, scientists and other alien researchers, as they dug out fragments for clues about Shaitan technology. A few generations later, when Titan became easily accessible to civilians, it would become a favorite hunting ground for treasure hunters looking for alien artefacts.

  The ultimate holy grail for these treasure hunters was to find a piece of the Charles Martell. Many claims were made to this effect over generations, but all turned out to be fakes. No piece of the legendary Charles Martell was ever found in human history.

  Chapter 27

  The calm before the storm

  There was a shocked and dazed look in the faces of the people sitting in the room. A few people were talking to the persons next to them in low hushed tones, but no one had spoken out loud to address the room even after many minutes of having gathered together to decide the next course of action.

  They were all coming indoors after having spent over an hour having a memorial service for the crews of the Jiānjué, Charles Martell and USS Friendship. There was no single habitat room, where all the humans could get together, so it was decided to have the memorial service in the open.

  So all the humans had put on their suits and gathered outside. It was the least they could do to honor the brave crews. It was befitting that the three metal plaques with metal printed names of all th
e crews, rest here in Titan for all eternity.

  Alex, Cheng and Takamori had decided that the humans did not have time to mourn any further, and need to decide the next course of action immediately. All the three soldiers had a gut feeling that they did not have much time before they saw some response from the alien camp, once the alien ship had been destroyed.

  So this meeting of the leadership team had been called immediately after the service. It has been six hours since the dramatic and heroic action taken by the Charles Martell. Everyone was still numb from the shock of the events in space. The major implication of the events in space were only now sinking in… they were now stranded on Titan!

  It was left to the stoic Takamori to open up the meeting by loudly clearing his throat to get everyone’s attention. “We have said words to honor our brave comrades and their sacrifice. Now we need to honor them further by going about the business of living, and making sure that their sacrifice was not in vain. And if god is willing, then we may even be able to avenge them to a small measure.”

  Takamori looked around the room. Everyone was looking at him. No one else felt like speaking right now and were content letting him speak, so he continued. “Now I have heard some talk about our chances of survival here, and I am sure it is on everybody’s mind here and around the camp.

  Let me try to address this first. I would like inputs from all of you, but especially from Mr. Gupta on this subject as I proceed. Please feel free to add anything to my prognosis.” Takamori looked around the room let everybody know that this was an open and freeform discussion, and then continued.

  “We have received word from the earth control of all the three missions in the last few hours. They have been consulting amongst themselves, and this is what the latest situation is. Up until a day ago, the three back up ships had been holding optimum positions in space to be able to intercept the alien ship, in case it got past us.