Triumph & Defeat (Shaitan Wars Book 4)

by Sudipto Majumdar

  World #11 however, was very far off. The news of the catastrophe had already taken over 150 cycles to reach World #2. By this time the news would have reached many of the other worlds of their beings, but not all of them. If the Grand council had to wait for the inputs from all the other worlds, it would take hundreds of cycles more. The very nature and urgency of the decision being asked could not wait that long, when everyone knew that whatever decision the Grand Council took would only reach World #11 after over 150 cycles as it is.

  Thus the seers of World #2 and the origin world had decided to hold this session without the inputs from any other world. The Warriors on the Grand Council were not happy about the way the situation had developed though. They knew that the best beings to take decisions about the way to conduct the war, would be the commanders at the frontlines, who understood the situation best. No one could argue with the logic of that thought, but this was a special situation.

  The ‘Great coalition force’ that had been assembled for this all-out assault on the Ka-Baal, had been contributed by all the worlds of their beings. That is why it had taken so long to assemble, while the Ka-Baal had ravaged one of their worlds and conquered it, while the fleet was being assembled. The fleet of the ‘Great coalition force’ had a single Warmaster, as it has to be in any war. However the Warmaster could only operate within the parameters he had been given by the Grand Council.

  If the situation changed drastically in an unforeseen manner, as it clearly had in this case, then the Warmaster had to refer back to the warrior seers of the Grand Council to either change the rules of engagement or re-validate the original mission and parameters. That kind of change in mission objectives could not be done by World #11 alone, since almost all of the fleet consisted of vessels from other worlds. To be able to change the objectives required the moral and political authority of the Grand Council itself.

  The Warmaster had made his recommendation for sure, but it was for the Grand council to agree and give him permission to go about in the way he wants. That was the agenda of this emergency session of the Grand Council – to deliberate the report of the Warmaster of the ‘Great coalition force’ and to direct him accordingly, including but not limited to granting him permission for his chosen course of action.

  The news of the impossible attack on the fleet of the ‘Great coalition force’ was spreading through the worlds of their beings at the speed of light, and it left each of the worlds in a state of shock and disbelief in its wake. Seer Taste of Water was no warrior, but even he understood the basics of void warfare enough to understand that such an attack on a fleet should have been impossible. He corrected himself. It was not impossible, for the Ka-Baal had executed the attack and fairly successfully at that.

  Even though the Ka-Baal had not managed to deal a crippling blow to the fleet, they had managed to stop the fleet on its tracks on World #11. Otherwise the fleet would have proceeded out of World #11 by now on its way to assault the home world of the Ka-Baal. To that extent the attack of the Ka-Baal had been successful. It had definitely given the Ka-Baal more time at the least, and reduced the fleet of the ‘Great coalition’ by a small amount. Most importantly it had struck doubt and uncertainty in the hearts of their beings’ strategy. It had thrown all the meticulously laid out plan of an all-out assault into disarray.

  Taste of Water was a being of the curious caste. While his specialty was research into history, public policy and his beings’ public psychology and sociology, he understood enough science as a member of the curious caste to realize that what the Ka-Baal had achieved by striking the fleet would have been technologically impossible for his beings. That thought caused an involuntary shudder across his body because of what it implied – the Ka-Baal were technologically more advanced than their beings; and to think that when the same Ka-Baal had been discovered over ten thousand cycles ago, they were thought to be extremely primitive! How did their beings get their assessment of the enemy so wrong?! There had been many theories purported by the seers to explain why the Ka-Baal technological capabilities had been so badly underestimated. Most of the theories surrounded the premise that somehow the Ka-Baal had been deliberately deceiving their beings.

  There was a small but growing minority of seers who were coming round to the view that there had been no grand plan of deception by the Ka-Baal at all. The Ka-Baal had actually progressed technologically at an unimaginable pace in the last 10 thousand cycles since their discovery! However implausible that might sound to their beings. The logical mistake that their beings had made, was in comparing their own rate of progress to that of the Ka-Baal, somehow being misled by their own sense of superiority that the Ka-Baal could not progress any faster. There was no scientific reason stopping the Ka-Baal from progressing faster.

  The big question that the doubters posed to this ‘quick learning’ theory about the Ka-Baal was thus – if the Ka-Baal were capable of progressing so fast, then why didn’t they progress earlier? After all the Ka-Baal must have been in existence for at least hundreds of millions of cycles that it takes any species to evolve. The only logical answer to that question as far as Taste of Water was concerned was this – the Ka-Baal were somehow learning from us!

  However that theory couldn’t explain how the Ka-Baal had marched ahead of our beings in this technological race?! Unless… the Ka-Baal have unseen allies. It has been speculated that the Ka-let could have helped them, but the Ka-let were dead a long time ago. Even if some Ka-let had survived, wouldn’t they have given all their technology at one go. There were so many questions and the entire issue was so confounding.

  However… one thing was clear. For only the second time in the history of their beings, they were confronted with an enemy that was more technologically advanced than them. The first time had been the Ka, and that encounter had not been a happy one in the racial memory of their beings. The very thought of encountering another species more advanced brought involuntary shivers to the body of seer Taste of Water.

  Taste of Water shook himself into attention as he realized that everyone had signed into the Grand Council session. The beings of World #2 had traveled to the hall physically, while the beings of the origin world were logged in virtually. He immediately started the proceedings of the session without any preamble. There were no need for preamble in the council meetings of his beings. All had been sent the docket and the agenda, and it would be dereliction of duty not to have studied it in detail before attending this session.

  Taste of Water passed control to the eldest Warrior seer in the Grand Council, seer Taste of Aggression. Taste of Aggression began immediately. “The Warmaster of our Grand Coalition fleet, seer Taste of Resolve has sent a report about the surprise and hitherto considered impossible attack on his fleet. I am sure you all have gone through the details of the attack, so I shall not dwell on it. What we are here to discuss is the future course of action for the fleet. Depending on what we decide here today, we would either have to send modified orders to the Warmaster, or order him to continue on his original mission.

  “As you are all aware, Warmaster Taste of Resolve himself has sent a set of recommendations. He is the being on the frontline and as a warrior myself, I would instinctively trust the instincts of another warrior who is actually on the frontlines. While we may debate the merits and demerits of all options, I would strongly urge this council to give extra weight to the recommendations of the warrior on the ground. No one can know the situation better that the Warmaster.

  “Before I enumerate the losses to the fleet and its current operational status, I would like to inform this council that the Warrior sub-committee tasked to analyze the situation has come up with two conclusions, both of which have ominous portends. First is the fact that we believe that World #11 is compromised in some way by a Ka-Baal spy system.

  “We have come to the same view as the Warmaster, that the attack on the fleet was planned a long time ago by the Ka-Baal. From the incredible speed and direction of approach, we can sa
fely eliminate the scenario that the two war vessels of the Ka-Baal may have originally targeted World #11, and only in the last minute changed their target to attack the fleet. The incredible speed at which the two Ka-Baal war vessels were approaching, they couldn’t have changed their direction from World #11 to our approaching fleet at the last moment.

  “This means that the two war vessels had always intended to intercept our fleet exactly at the spot at which they were intercepted. This further implies that the Ka-Baal were not just aware of the approaching fleet, but had been aware of it for at least a few hundred cycles if not more. There are only two ways for the Ka-Baal to be aware of the approaching fleet. Either the Ka-Baal have a spy vessel hidden somewhere near World #11, or one of our beings gave the information to the Ka-Baal.

  “I know that most of us would consider both these options unlikely, if not impossible. However the Ka-Baal have done a lot of things that were once considered unlikely. We know that the Ka-Baal can steal some part of our minds and souls using administered drugs, as they had done on World #12. Thus it is not inconceivable for them to turn one of our beings to give the information. However we warriors consider it unlikely that the Ka-Baal had access to any of our beings who was privy to fleet movement information.

  “Thus the most likely scenario is that the Ka-Baal have slipped in a spy vessel somewhere close to World #11 which would have observed the deceleration burn of our fleet and hence known its exact position. One way the Ka-Baal could have slipped in a spy void vessel into the system stealthily without us being able to detect, is to not start the engines for a slowdown at all. We know that the Ka-Baal have used this tactics before for high speed attacks similar to our Ka-Ma-Khya, but we are not aware of such tactics being used by them to spy on us.

  “If the Ka-Baal are using this method to spy on our worlds, then it is an ominous development as far as we are concerned. We have to worry not just about World #11, but also about our other worlds. One has to wonder what other worlds of ours has been compromised and is being currently spied upon by the Ka-Baal. We cannot consider any of our fleet movement to be secret. The Warrior sub-committee recommends that henceforth we make our war plans with the assumption that none of our fleet movements even deep within our own systems are secret. It may save our fleet from being taken by surprise in the future.

  “The sub-committee further recommends something that needs to be debated in this council because it goes against the general philosophy of our beings. We have always considered it foolish and dangerous to spray light and radio signals randomly across the void, and for good reasons. The universe out there is filled with dangerous elements of Ka, who are out to devour and destroy us.

  “We had been puzzled when the Ka-Baal had put up such a system of strong focused laser light being sprayed randomly across the void. We had wondered why the Ka-Baal would do such a foolish thing, until we realized how useful it was in detecting dark objects rushing in towards their system. We are fairly certain that the Ka-Baal use this system to detect our Ka-ma-khya attacks, which then they foiled using their ingenious defense system, for which we haven’t yet found a counterfoil. That is primarily the reason we have not tried another Ka-ma-khya attack on them again.

  “What our curious caste have also figured out is that such a system of randomly spraying focused light is also very useful in ferreting out any hidden spy vessel that may be lurking in the darkness in a system. Such a system of spraying light is fairly simple to construct. The Warrior sub-committee proposes that our beings build such a system in all our worlds till we are fighting this war with the Ka-Baal. This is the only effective foil against the high speed attacks that these spawns of Ka have mastered, as well as any spy vessel that may have slipped into our systems.”

  Seer Taste of Aggression had not finished his deposition. Taste of Water was however flooded with so many requests for interjection that he decided to break etiquette and interrupt Taste of Aggression. There was no direct word or symbol in their beings’ vocabulary for apology – no direct equivalent of a word like ‘sorry’, but the taste of Water’s skin slime conveyed to seer Taste of Aggression the profound embarrassment he felt at interrupting him.

  “I am afraid seer Taste of Aggression, there are too many requests for interjections and questions queued up. It might be best if you paused your deposition and answered some of the questions in the interest of harmony within the council. In the interest of brevity, I will recognize only a few of the requests for questions because I have a feeling most of them are going to be of similar nature.” With that Water yielded the floor to an elder from the origin world.

  After the customary delay of a few seconds inherent in the communication with the origin world, the indignant words of the elder seer from the origin world came through loud and clear. “Are you questioning the wisdom and the dogma of the ancients who laid down the rule of not spraying radio signals randomly, seer Aggression? Are you questioning the value of lying low in this dangerous universe and how it has stood us in good stead in our survival?”

  “I am questioning none of our established principles seer.” Aggression replied. “I fully agree with the value of not transmitting unnecessarily into the void, and how it has kept us out of trouble for billions of cycles. The operative word here is ‘unnecessary’. If we the Warriors had felt it was unnecessary, we would have been the last ones to make such a proposal. Our reasoning is very simple.

  “The benefit of being able to mitigate the Ka-Baal’s high speed attack threats and discovering their spy probes far outweigh the extremely small risk that our signals may be intercepted by an advanced spawn of Ka somewhere else, and thus draw their attention towards us. We propose these mechanisms spraying lasers into the void only till such time as we have eliminated the threat of the Ka-Baal.

  “In the estimation of the Warriors, we would require few tens of thousands of cycles at the most to eliminate the threat of the Ka-Baal. We are basically looking at one lifetime of our beings, maximum two before we would be able to overcome them. Given the millions of lifetimes in the billions of cycles that span our history, that is a mere blip. The probability of attracting unwanted attention is very small during this small period by breaking radio silence discipline.

  “The harm that would be caused during that period of time by the high speed attacks of the Ka-Baal is however certain and not a matter of probability. The spy drone vessels that would help kill our void vessels is also a certainty. All these can be prevented to a large extent by adopting these laser devices. That is the view of the Warriors. However we would leave the final decision to the wisdom of this august council.” Seer Taste of Aggression replied.

  Taste of Water had not been sitting idle. He had collated all other interjecting questions and had come to the view that all of them were of the same nature as the first one, so he disallowed any further questions. Instead he spoke to yield the floor back to seer Taste of Aggression. “You may continue seer with your deposition. You had mentioned that the Warrior sub-committee had come to two conclusions, the first of which you have elaborated. What is the second conclusion of the sub-committee?”

  Seer Taste of Aggression continued. “The second conclusion that the sub-committee has come to, concerns the mastery of speed of the Ka-Baal void vessels. The attack on our fleet was conducted by two Ka-Baal war vessels that were travelling at over seven times the speed that the fastest of our war vessels can. What our curious caste can’t figure out is that how the Ka-Baal are able to achieve that kind of speed, when they seem to be using the same type of engine technology as our war vessels and hence should be limited by the same fuel restrictions as our vessels.

  “The curious caste has made multiple speculations but unfortunately have no conclusive answers on this issue. Needless to say that this is one major technological and military advantage that the Ka-Baal have over our beings. The warrior sub-committee has no special recommendation, but has urged this council to keep this fact in mind when coming to any decisio
n. While the acceleration of their war vessels is similar to us, but given enough time their war vessels can reach speeds vastly superior to our war vessels. Hence their war vessels do not hold a tactical speed advantage in a standup battle but their fleet is far more mobile in strategic placement and quick deployment of fleet over a widespread theater.”

  “Now I come to the assessment of the ambush of our fleet.” Aggression signaled his tasting station to broadcast a memo to all the participants. “I have sent the detailed technical memo to you all on your tasting station, so I will just summarize the salient points… The Ka-Baal attacked our fleet with munitions very different to those they have used previously on the war vessels of our beings on World #12. These are extremely efficient kinetic kill devices that can be guided and targeted and are specifically designed to take down a war vessel at high speed.

  “Our fleet almost did not detect the attack till vessels in the fleet started disintegrating. As the Warmaster describes, it felt as if the ships had spontaneously exploded suddenly. There were just two Ka-Baal vessels that had ravaged the fleet and caused so much destruction… just two! It just brings to focus what a force multiplier an ambush attack can be. The enemy vessels seemed to be of the same configuration that we have seen on World #12.

  “The enemy vessels had already moved way past our fleet by the time our scanners detected them given the great speed they were traveling at. There was no possibility of giving those two enemy ships a chase let alone any hope of catching them, since their speed was over seven times the maximum speed our war vessels can have. Our fleet had almost exhausted their fuel in any case, since they were about to reach their destination.