Triumph & Defeat (Shaitan Wars Book 4)

by Sudipto Majumdar

  “If this was the first time they were executing such an attack, then they would not just have to conceptualize such an attack, but also develop the new munition, manufacture enough of them, and then train the warriors to use it. All within a short time of thirty cycles at the most!

  “Now, we in this august council all are intricately aware of the way of our beings and the pace at which it works. I can tell you that if thrown such a challenge, the warriors working with the curious caste would have come up with such a concept of attack in a fairly short period of time. Beyond that however we all know that our beings would not have been able to adopt such a new and radical concept, however promising, in such a short period of time.

  “For such a departure of tactics from our established doctrines, we would have consulted between our various worlds. That in itself would have taken us hundreds of cycles. The Ka-Baal have no such need – perhaps having a single world has its advantages. Our curious caste and builders are competent, but I doubt they could have built and tested such munitions in such a short period. The most delay however would have been in the interminable debates we would have had trying to dissect the pros and cons of departing from our established warrior doctrines.

  “I don’t know the decision making process of the Ka-Baal, and neither does the Warmaster. However we agree that whatever that process might be, it is fast. Which makes us believe that if there is one thing that the Ka-Baal are, then they are risk takers. I could have understood if a species takes excessive risks when it has its backs to the wall. This however was an offensive attack. There was no imminent threat to the Ka-Baal. Our beings in such a situation would perhaps not have taken the risk to experiment with a new form of attack, when we had no urgency to do so.

  “That is what the Warmaster feels is the fundamental difference between them and us. It lends credence to the minority theory that the Ka-Baal are actually progressing fast in their technological curve as a species… much faster than our beings have. If you extrapolate that thought, then it would be a logical conclusion that if the Ka-Baal are given more time, then they would only get more advanced technologically. Hence the best chance of destroying them is at the earliest.” Seer Taste of Aggression finished.

  Seer Taste of Water found the line of argument logical and could not help but agree with it, but the being whom he yielded to, was not so sanguine about it. The being from the origin world asked “surely you are not suggesting Seer Taste of Aggression that the Ka-Baal have caught up with technologies developed by our beings in tens of millions of cycles, in just ten thousand cycles of our contact with them! Further you are not suggesting that it is possible that they might develop advanced technologies that our beings have not been able to develop!?”

  “I am not suggesting that this is how it is for certain, but I am suggesting this as a possibility. This is in the realm of speculation, and the warriors are not the best beings to bear on this subject. Someone like Seer Taste of Water is better suited to weigh in on this matter.” Seer Taste of Aggression replied.

  “So let me ask you seer Taste of Water. Do you think it is possible to develop technologies more advanced than what we have? We have been in this current state of technology for many millions of cycles now. If there was something more advanced possible, wouldn’t our beings have developed it by now?” The questioner insisted.

  Seer taste of water took a short period of time to consider the argument on both sides before answering. “If the question is framed as to whether it is possible to have more advanced technology than our beings possess, then the answer to that is most likely – yes. This is not just because if this question had been asked at any previous time in our own history, and someone had answered no, then they would have been proven wrong because we have clearly progressed ourselves since then.

  “The main reason I say this is because the curious caste knows of many sciences which can harness greater energies, and greater speeds. Such science has been known to our beings for hundreds of millions even billions of cycles, but we have not been able to bring them to use because of whatever our current technological limitations have been. There is however no theoretical reason why someone with a different technology cannot harvest those sciences and those energies. We ourselves have come out with technological breakthroughs during various points in our history to harness sciences that were previously known but inaccessible to us.

  “Your contention that if such technological advances were possible, then our beings would have discovered it by now presupposes that every other species would discover things at the same speed and the same order as we do. This may not be true, and is at the heart of the entire debate. One has to remember that the last great spurt in our own technology happened about seven million cycles ago, when we exterminated the Ka-let. We learnt a lot from the technologies of the Ka-let and for about half a million cycle or so, the pace of our technological innovation was very fast, building on the new things we learnt from the Ka-let before slowing down again.

  “So as you see, even our own pace of technological progress has been uneven. It jumps ahead in spurt on some event like encountering a new spawn of Ka who have different technologies for us to study and ponder over, and then it might slow down for a long period when there is no external stimulus for us to change. The Ka-Baal might be going through a similar spurt in their technological progress owing to their contact with us. Finally to prove that it is possible for the Ka-Baal to move ahead of us, I cite the one piece of technology that we know is superior to ours – their ships’ long distance capability without refueling and speed.

  “So in conclusion, if you ask me is it possible for the Ka-Baal to progress beyond our technology within a short period of time from now, I would say yes. If you ask me whether I am certain of that they will do so, I would say that I am not certain. If you ask me how likely are they to so, I will answer that I don’t have enough data about the Ka-Baal to make a reasonable estimate of the likelihood of that eventuality.” Taste of Water replied. He had been guarded in his reply, although he felt very strongly that the Ka-Baal were likely to spurt ahead of his beings if given enough time. He knew the sensibilities of the majority of the beings in this council. It was based on a misplaced sense of pride in the technological prowess of their beings, bordering on hubris. Taste of Water secretly feared that hubris might be the cause of their downfall one day.

  As expected many in the council vehemently opposed the conclusions of Taste of Water. The majority view in the council was that there was no realistic danger of the Ka-Baal moving ahead of their beings technologically, even if such a thing was possible in the first place. Hence the council concluded that there was no imperative to throw everything at the Ka-Baal at that very moment or risk losing the war. Thus there was no point risking attacks on their worlds by keeping the defense on those worlds thin.

  So the council chose the third option of defensive aggression. They were fairly confident that a fleet of 80 war vessels should be able to defeat and destroy the Ka-Baal home world. If by some miracle, the Ka-Baal managed to thwart and survive that attack, then surely they would be weakened enough not to be able to recover quickly. A larger fleet could be assembled in a few thousand cycles in such a case, which would finish off the task this fleet of 80 started.

  It would be universally accepted by most historians later, that this was the single biggest strategic mistake made during the Shaitan wars. The 80 ship Shaitan fleet arrived five years later than they could have, if they had proceeded immediately from Beta Shaitan because they waited for ships to be repaired as per the option 3 plan. All military historians agree that if 109 ships has appeared 5 years earlier than they actually did, as per option 1, then the USC had no hope in hell of defending Earth. The lesser number of Shaitan warships and extra 5 years, which meant more time for Earth to produce their own warships, made all the difference in the outcome.

  Chapter XXX

  Fool me twice…

  Near Beta Shaitan System


  2124

  Commodore Dewei Xhao Ling was in a particularly good mood at that point in time. Known as Elvis to his non-Chinese friends, he was known to be a bright military man, albeit a bit cocky in his younger days. Like many Chinese teenagers, admiral Dewei had taken up an English name as a teenager. The name he chose reflected a lot about his personality. No one in his peer group had heard of an old obscure performer, but Dewei was a devotee of an obscure form of 20th century music called rock-and-roll and in particular one of the most famous performers of that era.

  The sunshine outlook of Elvis and his military aptitude made him a natural leader, which had helped him progress fairly fast up the hierarchy in USC. In his early forties he had just become a rear admiral with a command over two Avenger class ships on one of the most fun missions a navy lifer like him could have. He was going to hunt Shaitan warships and devastate a Shaitan stronghold. The best part was that the poor bastards would not even know what hit them!

  The tactics of the bombing run planned for this mission was well proven, originally pioneered two decades ago by the first assault on Alpha Shaitan which devastated the space infrastructure of that Shaitan colony with very little risk taken, and no damage suffered by the navy. A variation of the same tactic had been executed recently by the navy on the Hadean fleet as they were approaching Beta Shaitan with a moderate level of success, again with almost zero risk taken by the attacking ships. Elvis was in a good mood, looking forward to kicking the ass of the Shaitans once again and having a ringside view of the devastation his ships would cause.

  The design of this class of ships was such that Elvis had to cross the main bridge of the ship to reach his flag bridge. The flag bridge being on one extreme side of the main bridge, still had a small amount of gravity, but the main bridge being at the dead center of the rotating ship had no gravity. Thus Elvis had to float his way through the main bridge every day to reach his flag bridge. As a matter of good leadership and to maintain morale on board, he made it a point to speak personally to a few of the bridge crew every day.

  He had to remember that they were on an 8 year mission. Even with 6 years of hibernation, the crew would still be on duty for over 2 years. It was a long a harsh routine for even the most seasoned navy crew. It helped if the senior most officer spent some time and asked on the crew occasionally. After his usual morning chat with Capt. Lowe, he zeroed in on the communications officer, who was the chess champion of the ship. Chess was by far the most popular game played onboard ships in USC. Elvis discussed some moves with the officer, nodded to the nearby crew and then went on towards the hatch of his flag bridge.

  Elvis settled into the webbings of his suspended seat and looked around the tiny flag bridge. There was arrangement and consoles for two more people, who consisted his flag staff. Other than personal items and memorabilia stuck to the bulkhead, the room was starkly empty. There was nothing kept floating around, as is the regulation in any zero-G environment. As he stared at his console, he wondered why he bothered coming to the flag bridge to perform his job. There was not a single thing that he could do here that he could not do from his room or the officer’s mess. In fact he could give most of the commands inside his head sitting in the loo, if he so wished!

  The reason he came here to the flag bridge everyday was to be seen, and see his fellow crew members. However much the human technology may progress, the social animal called human being, needed to physically commune with fellow human beings. They needed to see each other daily, not on a screen but with their Mark 1 eyeballs. They needed to touch each other, shake hands and possibly even smell each other. That was the purpose of his office space, as perhaps was the case with most human office space in the age of remote connectivity.

  Elvis sighed and got himself out of his philosophical mode and started reviewing the daily reports filed by the captain and various sections of the ship. There was almost never anything out of the ordinary reported. He could have easily skipped a week of daily reports and yet not miss anything. Elvis, however, made sure that as a disciplined military man, he followed routine. Other than dereliction of duty, skipping reports would mean that he would have nothing else to do the entire day.

  Elvis refrained from using his neural interface and went through the reports the old fashioned way – swiping through the screens and giving commands through voice. The reports said the same thing that they had said yesterday. The target acquisition programs gave the current location of various targets along with probability of identification. Some of the targets were well catalogued and known, thanks to the spy drone in the system. Others were being classified and targets reassigned, as the probability of identification increased with each passing day getting them closer to Beta Shaitan. The munitions were scheduled to be released in two weeks’ time, so there still was enough time to identify targets.

  The munitions that would be released consisted mostly of the tiny 10 Kg GK-1 ‘Hammers’. This mission was primarily about destroying the space infrastructure of Beta Shaitan and the parked Shaitan warships. The GK-1s were almost the same design that had been used on the first ever human attack on a Shaitan system, when Alpha Shaitan had been raided by the Avenger and Kali. Minor improvements had been made in the intervening decades but the guided kinetic kill device that was now travelling at well over 6% of the speed of light was so effective to begin with, that not too many improvement were needed.

  A small percentage of the KK munitions were the larger GK-3 ‘Nest Busters’. No one was under any illusion that it would cause any significant degradation of Beta Shaitan surface infrastructure. The surface bombardments were simply part of the ‘Shock and Awe’ psychological operations of the USC. Most Xeno-psychologists at USC didn’t think that Shaitan psychology worked the same way as humans, and didn’t believe that it would have much effect on Shaitan morale, but the USC brass wanted to press any advantage they could get, especially if it came risk free. The Shaitans did commit mass suicide on Alpha Shaitan, although for very different reasons, so the thought process was that there is no harm in trying to intimidate and cow down the Shaitans on Beta Shaitan.

  Each of the two ships of the fleet – USC Ubuntu and USC Sacramento also carried ten 5-ton MKK-1 missiles each as well. The MKK-1 had been used to good effect previously by Operation First Strike to inflict serious damage on the Hadean fleet. The twenty MKK-1 missiles of this fleet were to be held in reserve to be used against any target of opportunity that may present itself at the time of the fleet crossing Dante. The MKK-1 missiles were effective at high speed against moving ships, which could not be targeted well at that speed by any conventional missiles or nukes. The drawback those MKK-1 missiles had were that their bulk limited their acceleration, top speed and their effective range. So they had to be released fairly close to their target compared to other missiles, which limited the amount of ships in Beta Shaitan system that could be targeted with MKK-1 missiles. In any case, destroying Shaitan warships was not the primary objective of this mission.

  One big advantage this bombing run on Beta Shaitan had over the original raid carried out over Alpha Shaitan, was targeting intelligence. The Alpha Shaitan raid had been carried out with no eyes in the neighborhood, and only a fleeting glance of the system as provided by the LTKS probe before it crashed into the surface. As a result the timing of the raid had been random and till a few hours before the actual raid, there had been no visibility of the space based assets that were being targeted. The Avenger and Kali had to eyeball the targets as they approached Alpha Shaitan at 4.6% of light, and set the specific targets of the GK-1s at the last minute.

  Humans had a stealth probe hidden in the Beta Shaitan system – the Beagle. Although the Beagle itself had crossed over and traveled past Beta Shaitan and was fairly far off from the planet, it had released a host of ‘spy rocks’ which were closer to the system. The small ‘rock’ probes provided all the targeting information that Elvis’s fleet needed. The fleet knew the orbital period and location at any point of time of al
l the permanent space installations orbiting all the moons of Beta Shaitan including those orbiting over Dante which was the main colony of the Shaitans.

  Thus the human fleet could time their attack such that the least amount of those permanent installations would be hidden behind the body of the moons they were orbiting. Kinetic attacks are impossible on installations hidden behind the orbital body. Their timing would enable them to target over 70% of all the permanent space installations in Beta Shaitan, which should deal them a crippling blow. Beta Shaitan as a Launchpad to attack Earth would become ineffective.

  In addition a large number of stationary warships were also being targeted, although targeting warships with this kind of a kinetic attack is tricky, as the attack on the Hadean fleet had proven. Still, whatever ships they could take down would be an added bonus. Even one Shaitan warship taken down by this bombing run, would be one less warship the USC would have to fight in space.

  There was a lot of hope pinned to the effectiveness of the GK-3 nest busters as well. Dante had far more internal heat compared to Jehannum. As a result the crust of the moon Dante had a steep heat gradient compared to Jehannum. The temperature within less than a fifty meters got comfortable enough for both humans and Shaitans and the temperature according to scientists would get scalding beyond 100 meters of depth. Thus most of the nests on Dante were expected to be in the depth range of 50 to 100 meters which was far easier to reach and destroy by kinetic devices compared to Jehannum where the depth range was between 300 to 1500 meters.

  The Beagle had carefully monitored surface activity in terms of EM emissions and rocket launches, and built up a careful map of the probable Shaitan nest areas depending on the intensity of their activities. Yes, the Shaitans used conventional rockets on Dante! The surface gravity on Dante was 2.1 times that of Earth, and it was gratifying to know that the Shaitans were not technologically that far ahead of humans, to be able to construct a space elevator on Dante.