The Battle of Titan

by Sudipto Majumdar

  When the human mission started working on the surface of Titan, they noticed quickly that there were too many complaints of faulty suits coming in the first few days. It was not possible to have so many faulty suits in one batch. Earth’s quality inspection was not that bad.

  An investigation into the matter revealed that all the complaints were about suit pressure falling slowly over a period of time, or the fans and heaters working overtime in their suits to maintain heat or pressure.

  A close inspection of the affected suits found that all of them had micro punctures in them, which on further investigation was found to be caused by the particular geology they were working in. The flowing methane rivers and streams were carving sharp surfaces on the rocks, which when brushed or poked into by the suit was causing minor ruptures. Nothing catastrophic, not even noticeable on casual inspection, but it was happening none the less. They were quickly running out of the hardening foam brought from earth.

  It was then that Mr. Gupta got down to the task of making a hardening foam replacement out of materials available on Titan. He mostly made use of the organics abundantly available on the surface of Titan in the form of Methane, Propane etc.

  He did use trace amount of metallic and other elements like cadmium from discarded equipment in the camp. The result was what is now known as Gupta’s foam. Initially intended as a standby replacement for the foam brought from earth, it turned out to be better than the original.

  It hardened faster than the original in the cold temperatures of Titan, yet remained softer than the rock hard property of the original foam. This helped in keeping the suit flexible, even when applied to areas of the body that needed to fold and turn.

  In fact it affected the flexibility of the suit so little, that you could apply a thin coat to the entire surface of the lower body of the suit as a preventive measure, without affecting mobility much. It was easily and cheaply made in terms of fabrication time, with easily available local materials, so you could use it as liberally as you wanted, coating your entire suit with it.

  The foam however turned invaluable in the battle on Titan. If you coated your suit reasonably thickly with the foam, it did affect your mobility slightly, but what you got in return was a blubber like layer, which could take a reasonably vicious slash from a sword or a blade without rupturing. It could not stop a direct thrust with the point of the blade from piercing the suit, but it could slow it down a lot, causing a lot less damage, and the hope of being able to repair it with application of additional foam in the area.

  The genius of the material however was in the way local materials and the local atmosphere had been used. The earth foam would harden due to the cold, a reason why these foam canisters had to be carried in insulated pouched in your suit. Gupta’s foam however would remain liquid even in the cold of Titan.

  It would harden on exposure to the specific atmospheric composition of Titan. So you could carry its spray canisters hanging on the belt of your suit, and when applied, only the surface would become hard. The inside layer would retain some of its gelatinous character. This is what helped in not impeding the flexibility of the suit, but it had an even more important function.

  When someone poked a blade and ruptured the surface of the foam, the gel would get exposed to the air of Titan and immediately start hardening, so the wound would start closing again, making it self-repairing to a certain extent. It was not invincible, but it would let the suit wearer survive minor ruptures even without having to stop to repair the rupture.

  This had been one of their biggest secrets to having survived the assault as long as they had. The foam had become their armor. It was the reason that all the people in the room had suits pockmarked with gouges and slashes, and yet were here to tell the tale.

  All this was going through the mind of Takamori, as he looked at the suffering man sitting quietly in his pain. Although he hadn’t been much of a help in the fight, he had fought. He was no coward. No he should not judge this man like a warrior, he wasn’t one. He had contributed to the battle more than could be asked of a person. Now he would have to ask him, despite his suffering, to contribute more to their survival. He asked softly. “Mr. Gupta are you in a condition to help us build a radiation shield over Sasha’s suit?”

  “Yes sir, I will able to do that.” Replied Gupta without any hesitation, although his teeth were chattering probably from pain.

  “Corpsman Riley, could you please see how you can alleviate Mr. Gupta’s pain as much as possible, without affecting his ability to think or keep awake. He need not work with his hands, so you can look at numbing his injured arm if you have to. I want you to be generally around him, and see to his well-being.” Takamori turned behind him and addressed Riley.

  “Sir. Yes sir.” Shouted Riley in a fashion that must have been drilled into him in the US Marines.

  “Mr. Gupta, while you are working on devising the radiation shield, I would like you to also think of the coolant problem mentioned by Sasha. If it needs to be manufactured here, you are the only person who would know how.” Then turning to Sasha, Takamori said.

  “Sasha before you leave, it would be good if you can give as much specification about the coolant you need to Mr. Gupta as possible. In his present condition he may have a hard time finding out the specifications otherwise. I think you should now leave to get your tasks going, we don’t have a moment to lose.

  Take anyone you need from here to help you with the batteries except the command personnel here. On second thoughts, try to take as many civilians for this task as possible. We have some military planning to do in the meanwhile, and I would like as many of us present for it as possible.”

  Sasha nodded and walked over to where Mr. Gupta was leaning against the wall, with Riley trying his best to make him comfortable. He handed over his tablet to Gupta, Sasha would not need it for inspecting and moving batteries.

  “Sir I have brought up the coolant specifications on the screen, have a look at it when you can. Do you want anything that I can get for you from the other huts? I will be going through all of them.” Sasha had meant whether he could get something to comfort him from the pain, but Gupta was straight into business.

  “There is Sasha but instead of wasting your time, could you please assign someone else. I will rattle off a lot of things in a list, some may be available throughout the camp, while others may be missing in the chaos of the battle. When I know what all is available, I can then start planning to build with what I have.”

  Sasha nodded, he needed to assign a technical guy to Gupta, someone who would understand all the things he needs and would have an idea where they were stored, not a muscle. He found the young technician he was looking for and signaled her to come towards them.

  Next he selected four of the fittest civilians he could find and ushered them to come along with him outside. While they were cycling out of the airlock one by one, Takamori turned back to the people in the room and addressed them.

  “Gentlemen and Ladies, while we work towards our immediate survival, we are not safe yet. We have beaten back this attack, but we have not defeated them. We will now need to respond to ensure our survival. What we are here to decide now is what should be our strategy to survive? Do we stand and defend against the next attack, do we counter attack? Do we run, do we hide? First, Capt. Parkinson could you please lay out our current situation?” Takamori yielded to floor to Alex.

  “I come to the ground situation, and first to our state of readiness for battle, or rather the lack of it. Out of the 122 humans who were present at the beginning of the battle, only 19 remain alive.” Everybody knew the numbers, but it did not stop a pall of gloom setting down in the room. “8 of them are civilians and the remaining 11 are military.”

  “Out of the 11 military, 9 are effective, one partially effective…” looking at Leanna “and one combat ineffective.”

  “I can fight sir.” Alex was interrupted by a young marine lying face down in a corner with his back covered w
ith bandages, and the black of frostbite showing at the edges. He was quickly shushed by corpsman Riley kneeling next to him.

  Alex continued, ignoring the soldier. “Out of the 8 civilians, 5 are combat effective, but given the work Mr. Kaminski is doing, I will count him out, which is a pity because he is no less than a marine. Coming from a marine, that is saying a lot. That leaves us with 4 combat effective civilians, getting us to a grand total of 14 combat worthy fighters.

  I have inspected the state of our battlements. 90% of our battlements are completely shattered rendering them useless as defensive positions. With only 14 combat effectives, we do not even have enough people to defend the new pass, let alone defend against incursions from any other direction.

  The state of the camp is so fragile right now, that even 5 of those Shaitan warriors can wreck it completely in a matter of minutes, with those powerful limbs of theirs. All in all, we cannot defend this base against a force even a hundredth the size of the original one.

  The last part of the assessment, is the state of the enemy and its intentions. As far as we could tell not a single enemy warrior including any leader they may have, had retreated or fled the battle. They fought to the last man, or the last Shaitan in this case.” Alex said with a smile.

  “If we were to analyze them in human warrior terms, we would hold them in high regards and respect the credence of their warriors. We might even compare this to the Bushido code of the Samurai.” Alex said looking at Takamori, who nodded in silent admiration.

  “However it may be a fallacy to analyze them in human terms. Drs. Sterner and Manning will have something to add after me, about what they make out of it. From a strict military point of view we may have won this battle by killing all of the invasion force, but we have been reduced to about 15% of our original defensive strength. We don’t know how many are left in the alien base, but even if they have a small portion of their original strength left, they have already won the war, unless we change the rules of the game.

  As far as their intentions go, other than the fact that they want to wipe us out, we have no idea of their next move. We no longer have an eye in the sky in terms of our ships monitoring them, nor do we have the spy cam access planted near their base. That ladies and gentlemen is the long and short of it. Now Dr. Manning, if you would please put forward your views.” Alex concluded inviting Dr. Violet Manning to speak.

  Even in her current disheveled state, Violet Manning was a stunner. Her natural blonde hair that was just short of shoulder length was still shiny after being so long inside the helmet. Her large blue eyes, with luscious lashes were the dream of any movie star. Perfect oval face with lips and nose just the right size and thickness, made her such an embodiment of the classic Caucasian beauty, almost to the extent of being a caricature.

  Contrary to what others might imagine, she had suffered all her life because of her looks, at least in her own estimation. It had never been easy to make others take her science or even herself seriously, when all they could look at was her face. It was not just men who made assumptions from her looks, women were probably worse.

  She would tell her mother that her mind felt trapped in her body. One would think that her love life would be easy, not really. The type of men she was really interested in would not approach her, considering her unattainable, and nobody likes a rejection, while she had to constantly fend off attention from what she considered the creepy crawlies of the world.

  All this had made her aloof to the world, as she tried to find solace in her work in microbiology and her specialization of cellular mechanisms and genetic profiles of extremophiles. Extremophiles are creatures on earth who can live in conditions which are extremely hostile to normal living beings.

  They live and thrive in boiling water, or acids that would melt flesh. Some stay in places with no oxygen or sunlight, while others are at such pressure that it would crush the toughest steel. She was one of the best in her field and she spent all the time in her work, all the time staying aloof, earning her the nickname “Ice bitch” from her colleagues.

  Her work was however the closest discipline in human sciences capable of studying alien biology, when they had no alien samples to study. That is why she was on this mission. Now she had become the first human biologist to have studied alien DNA, cells and morphology. She was now earth’s leading expert on Shaitan biology.

  “Let me start by first mentioning that whenever I am referring to Shaitan DNA, it is not exactly DNA as we know it on earth. To be more specific, the molecule is not Di-Oxy Ribonucleic Acid or DNA. However it seem to do the same function in Shaitans as DNA does in the living beings on Earth, so I will refer to it as DNA for everyone’s benefit.

  The first sample I studied was brought some time back by Major Takamori.” She paused and looked at the Takamori, who nodded back in acknowledgement.

  “This was a sample of what we now term as Type – A Shaitan. Morphologically…” Violet paused realizing that everyone here was a non-biologist, “that is in their body structure, they are similar to the new type of Shaitans we have seen in this battle, whom we now refer to as Type – B Shaitans.

  The only difference between them seem to be in their size. The type B Shaitans seem to be a little more than twice the size of type – A. I heard some of the soldiers referring to the type B Shaitans as warrior Shaitans. I think this is an accurate description, as you will soon see why I think so.

  While I had the time and functioning equipment to do a detailed analysis of the cell structure of the type – A Shaitan, the biology lab habitat has been thrashed, and it has just been a few hours since the last fight, so I have not done such a detailed analysis of the type – B, which is ironic because there are hundreds of them lying strewn across the camp for me to sample, while I had just one hacked limb of the type – A as a sample.

  The fact that I was able to do any analysis on the type – B, was because I realized that I had a portable cell analyzer tucked in my suit pouch! I wonder who else goes into battle with a cell analyzer tucked in her pocket.” Violet paused with an embarrassed smile.

  “I will repeat some of my original findings to give context to the new findings. First, Shaitans have DNA or at least an equivalent. Second they have cells, just like we have in our body, although the cell structure is nothing like what we have. I don’t even understand the function of most of the structures.

  What it does strongly indicate is that life evolved in their home world independently of ours. The cells and the DNA are made of very similar carbon based molecules, especially amino acid base pairs to indicate that at least in one other place life has taken hold using the same basic components, but taken a slightly different structure. The way the cells are organized suggests that evolution occurred there using the same principles of Darwinian natural selection and ‘Survival of the fittest’ as on earth. So Darwin stands vindicated.

  Now I come to the differences between the type – A and type – B Shaitans. When you look at their DNA, there is a very minute difference. To give you an earth analog, the difference between the DNA is less than what you would find between a Caucasian and a Chinese human. The difference between the type A and type B Shaitans is more akin to the difference between two breeds of dogs, say a Chihuahua and a Blood hound.

  Now it surprises many laymen that two humans who are physically not that distinct can have more genetic difference than two breed of dogs who look drastically different in appearance and size. The fundamental difference between the two comparisons is that the human genetic difference has happened naturally over a large period of time due to geographic separation, where each genetic pool drifted from the other slightly.

  There was no conscious choice to breed a certain difference between the Caucasians and the Chinese. Whatever physical difference we see between the two is accidental and only a small part of the difference. The vast majority of the differences are inside, like one would be more lactose tolerant than the other, or who would have a larger propens
ity for heart disease than the other.

  This is not the case with the breeds of dogs. They were selectively bred for a single trait in each case until each one started looking so different from the other that they became distinct breeds. There was not enough time for the two breeds to have drifted genetically from each other, just one physical characteristic that was selectively bred. In a way the dog breeders were ancient genetic engineer.

  This seems to be the case out here. I have a strong suspicion that both of the types are the same species but different breeds. If they reproduce sexually, then they would be able to interbreed. I think one or both of the types have been either bred for a certain function or genetically engineered.

  I have sampled multiple type B and their genetic structure is remarkably similar to each other, which makes me believe that type B is definitely bred, or more likely genetically engineered. Unfortunately I have only one sample of type A, so I cannot conclusively say anything about them.

  Now I come to the question of why the name warrior Shaitan is appropriate for type B. While it is obvious from their greater size and hence greater strength that they would be better suited for fighting, the question to ask would be why didn’t nature make all of them type B?

  Since nature follows the Darwinian tenet of ‘Survival of the fittest’, and at least in terms of physical struggle type B are the fittest, why didn’t the type B sometime in the Shaitan’s evolutionary history overcome type A, and become the sole survivor?

  You can find the answer to this in earth’s evolutionary history, where it is proved again and again that bigger is not always better. A bigger animal needs more food, so in times of famine likely to die faster. A bigger body makes functioning of the body more complex and hence much more susceptible to disease and malfunction.

  For every ecological niche there is an optimum body size, which balances the advantages and disadvantages of the body size. For example when elephants move to an island, where food is limited, they shrink in size appropriately, but not too small that they can be eaten by predators, who themselves are small on the island. The pigmy elephants of Java and Sumatra islands are an example of this. When they go to the open grasslands of Africa, where grass is plentiful, they can afford to grow big, and need to grow big to protect themselves against the larger lions there.