The Battle of Titan

by Sudipto Majumdar

  With the news that the alien ship has been confirmed as destroyed, the vigil of these three back up ships is at an end. However you have to remember that these vessels have been in space for about the same time as us.

  Other than the fatigue of the crew, the ships have depleted their fuel and also need maintenance. They are hence in no position to head towards Titan to effect a rescue.” Everyone in the leadership team was fairly senior and could be considered mature enough, yet there was a collective groan and a pall of gloom fell in the room at those words.

  Takamori realized why and quickly hastened to add. “Fortunately three more ship have been built and commissioned during these months, which are right now in orbit around the earth, and their crew on standby on earth.

  They were meant to be the third line of defense for earth. The crew would be mobilizing and some are boarding shuttles as we speak to embark on a rescue mission. They should be launching out of earth orbit in a matter of a few days.” That brought smiles all around the room and some cheers and hurrahs as well.

  Takamori desperately waved his hand for them to quieten down, for he had more to say. He was not finished. Not by a long shot. “The rescue mission however is waiting for some additional information from us before they can launch.” That brought some of the groans back again.

  Jorge asked, “What additional information are they looking for?”

  “Well… let’s say both scientific as well as military. I will come to that shortly, after I have put our present situation into context.” Takamori replied cagily. That filled everybody in the room except Alex and Cheng with apprehension.

  Takamori continued. “Unfortunately for us earth and Saturn are in opposite sides of the sun right now so that increases the distance for the rescuers. Approximately 2 AU, since the radius of earth’s orbit around the sun is 1 AU. Since the rescuers are using the same model of ship as ours, they can carry the same amount of fuel as us.

  So they will have to coast to Saturn unpowered for longer than us. This means that their travel time will be a bit more than ours. I can only get the exact travel time from mission control on the day the rescue ships departs, since it is changing day by day due to the motion of earth and Saturn. The current ballpark estimate is over 11 months, probably just short of a year.” That brought more groans from across the room.

  Takamori started waving his hand again trying to quieten the room and continue speaking. “That is exactly why we need to help them launch as fast as possible. Mission control expects to launch within 48 to 72 hours after us providing the aforementioned specific information. They have in fact given us a list of questions to answer.

  They will use this information to crystalize their mission parameters and ensure proper equipment and personnel are present. So it is important that we get to this task as soon as possible. However there is another task we need to take care even before we start that one.”

  “What can be more urgent than to get our rescue started?” This time it was Violet who was puzzled.

  Takamori looked at her grimly and replied. “Our immediate survival, and by that I mean the next 24-48 hours. It also means starting tasks that we may need for our medium and long term survival. There is no point of earth coming to our rescue only to find us all dead is there?”

  It was Gupta’s turn to raise an objection. “But we have all equipment and life support functioning optimally as far as I know, and I check them every hour. We have adequate stock of food and water for the short term, and perhaps even for the medium term, although I am not sure about the 1 year time frame. So what is the danger to our short term survival?”

  Takamori sighed and looked at Alex and Cheng, urging one of them to take over. Alex took up the job and said. “If only the rest of the universe was as peace loving as you Mr. Gupta, we would not have anything to worry about. Unfortunately the Shaitans have some different ideas. It is not equipment or supplies we are worried about Mr. Gupta, but the limbs and claws of the alien enemy.

  Let me tell you how it looks to the Shaitans in their camp right now. I don’t even have to be an alien shrink like Dr. Sterner to get into their head. Fighting an enemy automatically makes one an expert on some of their thinking.” Alex came more to the center of the room to better address everyone.

  “Right now we have an unknown number of aliens in their camp. We think that they returned back to their camp, because we have not seen any explosion or other catastrophic damage to their habitat from the last report of Charles Martell, on its last flyby over the camp.

  We have compared the last thermal scans that were automatically being sent by Charles Martell with our original thermal scans on arrival of the alien camp. It has stabilized to its original profile after being disrupted for a day. We know from Major Cheng what damage he and his team had caused to the habitat. Their habitat was only partly damaged. It was not a death blow. It may not even have been a crippling damage.

  These aliens have seen the destruction of their ship. They are quarter of a light year away from home, with no way to get back. The news of their ship’s destruction itself will take over three months to reach their home world. They can expect a rescue at the earliest after 20 years, if the rescue comes at all.

  If you think we are in a bad situation, think of how bad their situation must be. The Shaitans’ situation is so desperate that I almost feel sorry for them. That is what makes them even more dangerous now.” Alex paused.

  Mischa’s professional interest was piqued. She asked. “Why do you say that Alex? Wouldn’t it force them to look for alternative ways of survival, chief amongst them being able to come to a peaceful solution with us humans, so that we do not attack them and let them live here?”

  Alex smiled at her and replied. “Thought like a typical human, and might I dare say a slightly pacifist one at that. I don’t blame you, most humans would think that way, even belligerent ones. Self-preservation forces a lot of humans to sue for peace, at least seriously consider it as an option.

  However let me ask you a question. We know that the alien ship was crippled and from our analysis till now, we think they probably struggled for many hours to get some of their systems back online on the ship. Even after the repairs we now know the ship couldn’t have gone anywhere except crash itself into Titan. It was mortally wounded and could not support its base on the surface either. Most probably the captain of the alien ship knew that his ship was dying.

  The alien captain would surely know that even if he was able to kill every human in this base and on Titan, more humans could and would come here in a matter of months. And when they come here, those humans would be more not less likely to bombard their alien camp to hell because of the actions of the alien captain in attacking this camp. Yet he chose to try to destroy our camp instead of suing for peace. Why do you think he did that?” It was a rhetorical question Alex really did not expect an answer.

  “Our initial military thinking was also in human terms. More in terms of military sense of duty and honor. We initially thought that the alien captain’s kamikaze attack on our base was out of his sense of duty, as a last dying act of giving his camp the best chance of survival by destroying the humans on this moon.

  Then we asked the same question I asked you. When seen in that light, we realized that either the alien captain did not care what happened to his surface base and was acting out of pure hatred and vengeance.

  Or this race of aliens is hardwired to fight to the death, giving no thought to their own casualty and don’t think like the humans, who are very sensitive to even a small number of casualties and start looking for peaceful solution when faced with a large loss of human lives. From what we have seen fighting the aliens outside their base, we lean towards the second option.” Alex stopped to let Mischa respond.

  Mischa nodded in agreement. “I can see no flaw in your argument and you are probably right about the second option. Congratulations, you have just now been certified as a bona fide Shaitan expert, and thanks for now
giving me job insecurity.” She smiled and gave a look of mock annoyance.

  Alex gave a bow to Mischa and then continued. “So we have a camp full of pissed and desperate aliens, hardwired to kill enemies no matter what it costs them. This is a set of aliens who have just seen a slaughter of their fellow beings outside their camp, had their ship destroyed with no hope of getting home, and can only look forwards to dying slowly and bitterly in this frozen moon. They have the camp of their enemy relatively close by, where lives the very people responsible for the slaughter.

  They have one option of cowering in their own camp and hope every day that the humans would not return to kill some more of them, and even if the humans in the camp didn’t come, hopefully some human ship doesn’t come and blow them up to hell.

  Then they have the second option of coming to their enemy’s camp and try to kill the humans and extract vengeance. And if not that, then go out in a blaze of glory like their alien captain. Which option do you think they will choose?”

  Alex had paused more to catch his breath, so he continued. “I don’t think one needs to be an alien expert like me”, he looked at Mischa and gave a gesture of mock pride and a wink before continuing, “to know the answer to that one.

  So ladies and gentleman, we have to be ready for an attack on this camp at any time including right now. You would have noticed that eight of marines were missing from the memorial service, although they were listening by radio. It was not out of disrespect.

  As of last 6 hours, this camp is on condition 2 alert 24x7 till we are either rescued or all the aliens in that camp have been killed. Those eight marines were on perimeter watch as there will be from now on at all times. I think all civilians here remember their training, to know what the requirements from you in a condition 2 alert are.

  If not, please refresh yourself, or ask one of your military colleagues to run you through the list, because we may be in this condition for a long time. Immediately after this meeting is over, I would want all the civilian leader present out here, to ensure every civilian under their chain of command is fully aware and compliant on the condition 2 alert requirements.

  As of now the civilians would not be required to contribute towards perimeter duty. We have enough military personnel for that job, although as part of condition 2 requirement, you would need to be prepared for a fight in 2 minutes. This does not mean the civilians don’t have a task to do. In fact civilians have a critical task to perform for our survival and Major Cheng will fill you on that one.” With that Alex ceded to Major Cheng as they had discussed.

  “Thank you Captain.” Cheng started. “Our major problem with defense, and for that matter offense is ammunitions. That however is only part of the problem. The other major problem is the weapon itself.

  From our experience with the recent battle, we have calculated that it takes between 40 to 50 bullets from the guns carried by us to drop a Shaitan, more accurately make them combat ineffective. They still do not drop but thrash around on their limbs for some time before dying.

  That makes our guns, which were designed to kill humans, very ineffective tools to kill Shaitans. In any case we have only about a 1000 rounds left amongst all of us pooled together in the base. That is good enough to kill only 20 of the aliens assuming no bullet is wasted in battle, which will never be the case.

  The machine gun mounted on the shuttle was very effective in killing the aliens. Only one or two of the bullets were needed depending on the whether the alien was the smaller type – A variety or the larger type – B variety. Unfortunately the gun is in the wrecked shuttle some 30 Km away.

  We will see if we can make an effort to salvage it. According to the rescued gunner, there may be as many as a 1000 rounds left on the shuttle. That will definitely make the rescue worthwhile.” Major Cheng paused for everyone to appreciate how under armed the humans were.

  “So if I understand correctly, the guns we have are not very effective at killing Shaitans and we are mostly out of its bullets anyway, rendering them useless. The only gun effective enough is lying in a wreck 30 Km away and may or may not be salvageable.

  Although this gun is not too heavy to be carried in Titan’s gravity, it probably cannot be simply held and fired due to the recoil, so it would need to be bolted to something before it can be fired?” Summarized Leanna with an air of hopelessness.

  “You have captured the situation succinctly Lieutenant.” Replied Cheng. “However there are some small bright spots in this otherwise gloomy situation. First we are fairly certain that during our battle outside their camp, the Shaitans fighting had run out of bullets themselves.

  Now this does not mean that they have no more bullets available within their camp, but it is a possibility. We have to remember that the aliens were not expecting us on the surface. Our ships had come in cold and silent. So it is possible that they did not bring much weapons down from their ship. Our defense planning will however assume that they may have more ammo. If it turns out otherwise then we have a bonus.

  The second positive thing is that the Shaitans are just as vulnerable as us with sharp close ranged weapons like swords and bayonets. The good thing about such weapons is that you never run out of ammo.

  The bad thing is that you need to get close and put yourself in equal amount of danger with their knife like metallic claws, attached to the ends of their suits on their limbs. Unfortunately we do not have too many of these sharp weapons either.

  We just had two ceremonial swords in the camp, and mine shattered once I came out of the alien camp into the cold, and tried to use it. Major Takamori enlightened me that in this cold you need special steel containing no carbon steel to make the swords, else it becomes brittle and can shatter. He had gotten his sword specially commissioned for such purpose. I hadn’t.

  We have spoken to Mr. Gupta about how we can bolster our weapons situation, and I would like him to let us know what all we can do.” Cheng yielded the floor to Gupta, who was clearly uncomfortable to address a gathering like this. He started tentatively.

  “Ok. Let me first explain what fabrication capability we have with us here in the camp. We have a micro-smelter running on plentiful electricity form the nuclear power plant. It can melt, extract and reform almost anything, but in very small batches.

  We have the toolkit to fabricate a fairly wide range of material, although intermediate chemicals may be a challenge and may require some amount of creativity from our side. We even have a small universal die incorporated with our metal printer, which can fabricate single piece metal equipment, although the larger the piece of metal is, the more of a challenge it becomes and the slower the fabrication is. For example making an arrow head is fairly fast and simple, while making a long sword, which has to be a single piece of metal takes some time.

  We do not have fabrication capability to make complex machines, or items with chemical ingredients. So we cannot manufacture guns or bullets.” Gupta paused to check the reaction of everyone. Alex, Takamori and Cheng were already aware of the facts, having spoken on this topic with Gupta earlier, other weren’t.

  “So are we expected to fight with swords and shields?!” Cuifen blurted out incredulously despite her military discipline.

  “With swords, spears and possibly even bows and arrows Lt. Ma.” Cheng said with a smile indicating that he did not mind his subordinate’s outburst. “We are humans and we adapt to survive. We work with the tools we have Lieutenant, and at this moment, these are the only tools we have.

  Fortunately most armed forces have not completely done away with training in our ancient implements of war. I know that the PLA has extensive regimen in hand to hand combat, though not specifically with swords and spears, but close enough for us to adapt. I have been assured by Capt. Parkinson, that the marines follow a similar tradition.”

  Mr. Gupta was timidly raising his hand, that he had not finished speaking and had more to add. Takamori noticed him. He really had taken a liking for this soft spoken gentleman, who ma
y be the key to their survival in the next few days and weeks. Takamori helped Mr. Gupta by speaking out. “I think Mr. Gupta has more to add, and it would serve us well to listen to what he has to say.” With that he waved his hand with a flourish indicating Mr. Gupta to speak.

  “As I was saying… we have some fabrication capability, but that does not mean we can fabricate them. The biggest problem is raw materials, specifically certain metals. As you know, there is almost no metal on the surface of Titan, so we will have to scavenge metal from our own equipment.

  We might even need to melt a few of our guns. They are useless in any case, but I could use the metal it is made of. We will use things like our packing crates. Unfortunately most of them are made out of aluminum, which can be used as an ingredient but not the primary metal. So my request from all of you would be to identify and collects as much stuff made out of metals and composites that is not important to our survival.

  I will be working with Major Takamori, and some of the engineers to design metal weapons as best and as deadly as possible with whatever raw materials we will get. It will be slow going and our fabrication units would need to work continuously, so I would request help from the science contingent to lend us a hand in manning some of the production shift.” Gupta stopped but his face showed that he had something more to say but was hesitating. Takamori gave a gentled nod to nudge him to continue.

  “There is one last item, it is not really necessary may not even be important, but I just have a hunch so if some of the military personnel felt it was worthwhile, we could do it…” Gupta was hesitating again.

  “Mr. Gupta, everything you say is important to us more than you would know. Please state your idea without hesitation, we really would like to know.” Takamori tried to assure the timid man. Gupta took encouragement from Takamori’s words and continued.