Wrath of the Shaitans

by Sudipto Majumdar

  Why anyone would want to live permanently on Mars was another issue altogether. There was nothing of tremendous economic value to commerce yet. The only people interested in the place right now were the scientists and the military. The military would definitely appreciate a permanent base on Mars surface, which would then enable a permanent space navy base in Mars orbit.

  That brought Daniel to the other friend of his from Titan. Col. Leanna McGraw was not just a fellow soldier with whom he had fought for his life side by side against heavy odds and won. She was also the love and wife in all but name of another of his best friends from Titan and under his immediate command Lt. General Alex Parkinson.

  Why they had never married was known only to the two of them, but everyone including the military considered them a couple. They were invited as spouse for all social and military events. They had two lovely daughters. It was the break in her career on account of the two children, which was the reason the Leanna was just a Colonel today. She was otherwise not just a brilliant officer, but the best low and zero gravity combat trainer possibly in the entire world.

  With her children now reasonably grown up, Leanna had taken up the task of setting up a permanent combat training center on Mars for the United Space Command (USC). She had done so on the personal request of Daniel himself.

  The politics of the USC treaty and the subsequent ratification of the USC act by the US and most other governments of the world was such that Mars was the closest place to Earth where USC could have a base under its own command. Daniel would have ideally liked the first USC training center to be on the Moon.

  The Moon was however off limits to USC from a command and control point of view. All facilities on moon were owned by individual governments of individual nations. Thus Yusuke’s project had dovetailed nicely with Daniel’s plan for a training base under direct USC command. He had sent two of his closest friends to oversee the project. He might have also sent them to their death.

  Daniel wondered if the message the USC was arm twisted into sending to the Shaitans by the Greens and other sundry peaceniks of the world had anything to do with the Shaitans laying a siege on Mars and holding hostages. It was possible. After all the message they had sent implicitly suggested that Mars was very important to the Humans.

  ‘We greet and welcome your beings to our system. We are peace loving beings and want to co-exist with your beings as peaceful and harmonious neighbors. You are welcome to take any world in the system you choose except for the 3rd and 4th planet of the star, and the moon of the 3rd planet. All other planets are yours. If you agree on those terms of co-existence, please respond to our message.’

  That was the message that had been drafted by the UN Security council after a lot of backroom negotiations and despite the opposition of the USC. It suggested that Mars was as important as Earth to the humans, but Mars was not protected at all! If Daniel could find one of those peace loving weasels in front of him right now, he would have broken his nose. They may have sentenced his marines and friends to their death. If humanity were to ever lose this war, Daniel was sure it would be because of such weasels.

  Daniel had to leave his personal feelings aside and make a professional decision. The sad part was that when he made that decision from a purely military strategy point of view, he got only one answer. Abandon Mars. He knew that was what he would end up doing, but it didn’t feel good at all.

  He wanted to talk to someone, not so much for advice for he had more or less decided what needs to be done. He wanted to calm his soul. It was not a priest or a friend he wanted to talk to. He wanted to talk to another military man, someone who would understand his burden of command, and yet be wise enough to soothe his soul. He turned to the person everyone who had been on the Titan campaign turned to for advice.

  General Hideo Takamori had recently moved out of the USC organization back to the cadre of his home country military services. His promotion had meant that he had become too senior to be heading the small and fledgling force of the USC Ground Combat Forces (USC-GCF), or as was popularly known around the world as the Space Marines.

  Takamori had handed over command to his deputy and close friend Lt. Gen. Alex Parkinson. The USC-GCF was technically under the command of the USC admiralty and hence under the command of Daniel. The space marines however operated fairly independently.

  The Space Marines were deployed under orders from the admiralty, and on a spaceship were under the command of the captain and hence the Space Navy. However when on the ground, they operated fairly independently under their own command structure. The fact that humans had carried their maritime nomenclature to space inevitably meant that USC was called the Space Navy in popular parlance.

  Daniel checked the time in Tokyo and realized that it was near about 8 Pm. He expected Takamori to be at home, most probably sitting at his favorite spot in his garden behind his home. Daniel was surprised to see Takamori answer his call from his office.

  “Evening General, I would have expected you to be at home at this hour. Hope I am not disturbing you at this hour.” Daniel opened up, sounding a bit sad and tired.

  “Good evening Daniel, from the way you sound, I think you want to talk to your friend Hideo rather than the General. What’s eating you up my friend? Oh and I am in office because it is not just USC that is mobilizing my friend. The entire earth is being mobilized. You know the contingency plans as well as I do. We are preparing for the worst as planned.” Takamori replied softly but his voice sounded tired too.

  “You are perceptive as usual. I just needed to talk to someone, and yours was the top name on the list. You are aware of the Mars situation Hideo…” Daniel left the sentence hanging. Takamori nodded, he was aware of the general situation. He realized the decision that must be tearing Daniel apart.

  “Daniel I realize your dilemma. I am sure you are going to do the right thing for humanity, and yet your personal feelings are tearing you apart. I would not wish to be in your position right now. The cream of USC-GCF is out there. I know many of them, and Leanna is special to me. I look at her as my third daughter. Yusuke and so many of our friends…” Takamori left his sentence hanging.

  Daniel nodded absently, and there were a few moments of silence between the two men as their thoughts went back to their many friends and colleagues whom Daniel may have to condemn to death. The Takamori started again, this time slowly and deliberately.

  “You know Daniel… would you indulge this old Asian friend of yours with some of our famous mysticism?” Both the men smiled and Takamori continued.

  “The man I see in front of me knows right from wrong. He can be trusted to take the right decision every time in service of humanity, whatever the personal cost. So there is nothing to be said on that front. The man I see in front of me is also a human, who has turned to his friend for solace.

  So let me, his friend say this, that there is no better solace in war than to use the enemy’s own sword to stab his heart. There is no better gratification for a soldier than to trap the enemy in his own ditch, and there is no better way for a General to avenge his soldiers than to lead the enemy army through the same rocky pass that they used to slaughter.

  If you are looking for redemption my friend, then you have to start thinking on those lines. The enemy has given you a terrible choice, and you may end up paying a terrible price for it. If you want solace though, then make sure that the enemy pays a terrible price for making you choose as well.” Takamori had a hard look on his face now.

  “I understand and agree with your sentiment Takamori san, but what could I realistically do that I am not doing already?” Daniel sounded a bit impatient and frustrated. Despite the indulgence asked by Takamori, he was a bit irritated with this Asian mysticism.

  Takamori smiled at the expected reaction. “You remember the battle at the Devil’s Chasm in the mountains on Titan?” Daniel nodded. He was not present at that time, but had heard the stories when he reached the surface. Takamori continued.

/>   “The enemy gave us a choice then and we behaved in a manner they expected. Six brave Chinese soldiers had to pay with their lives to rectify that mistake. The enemy had given us a choice again, and we could take either of those choices. In either case however, we would behave as they expect. In either choice we would end up making sacrifices and gain no solace of retribution as a warrior.

  The way towards solace would be to take neither of the choices, and yet make it appear to the enemy that we have taken one of the choices offered by them. Deception can be a great ally or a terrible foe of a warrior. Just remember that it is not just the enemy that can play the game of deception.”

  Daniel started to open his mouth to protest against any further gobble-de-gook of mysticism, but Takamori raised his hand to indicate that he had more to say. “I will tell you an old fable which may point you in the right direction. It is a tale brought to our lands by the Buddhists from India in fables called the Jataka tales.

  A pack of dogs go to hunt a buffalo for meal. Individual dogs are no match for the mighty buffalo, but the dogs have strength in their pack. They work as a team to add to their strength and bring down a prey many times their size. The buffalo is not stupid either. It always moves around with its mate gaining strength in numbers.

  The pack of dogs is not able to target any one of the two buffaloes as the other keeps rushing in to help the one targeted. Then the clever dogs devise a strategy. One of the dogs start barking and threatening to bite one of the buffaloes. A single dog is no match for an individual buffalo. That dog however has no intention of attacking the buffalo he is barking at.

  All that the dog is doing, is to keep irritating and getting the attention of the buffalo while the rest of the pack quietly targets its mate. The strength of the pack has hardly been reduced by the removal of one dog from the pack. The strength of the buffaloes has however been cut to half, thus enabling them to bring down the prey. Thus a single dog is able to punch way above its weight by simply keeping the buffalo occupied and unable to help his mate.”

  Takamori finished with a sage like smile. The smile was also on the face of Daniel. His day and his countenance had suddenly brightened. He now knew what to do. He said with a devilish grin on his face “Thank you Takamori san, for your counsel and your wisdom.”

  Chapter 11

  The Resolute

  Approaching Mars

  September 2083

  Capt. Trisha Strong decided the course of action she would take. She had been weighing her options for more than a day now, but it was time to take a decision, and she had come to one. She called her XO over the com and asked him to meet her in the ready room.

  It was a joke to call this a ‘ready room’ Trisha thought. It was more appropriate to call it the captain’s ‘broom closet’. It had various things required by a captain attached to the various bulkheads. It had no furniture. Come to think of it the entire ship had no furniture. Even the seats were just harnesses hanging from bulkheads.

  There was just enough room for three people to float and have conversation comfortably. Even a fourth person would make the room feel cramped. Still, she had to be thankful that she had this room. It was the only private place on the ships other than the loos. The earlier Friendship class of ships did not even have this broom closet for the captain.

  Lt. Hugo Choi opened the door without touching it. He was at one end of the spectrum as far as tech-heads go. He used his neural interface for anything that it could be used for, including simple acts like opening the door. There were tech-heads on the other end of the spectrum as well, like her commander of the Marines on USS Resolute, who avoided using the neural interface as much as possible.

  She realized that there were a wide variety of personalities within humanity who were adopting what many were calling the next step in human evolution – The artificially enhanced human. Some like the Marine commander were adopting it because their job required it, many new systems were so complex or required quick understanding of complex situations, that only a person with a neural interface could do it.

  Some systems could only be controlled competently by a human with neural interfaces or situations like space suits controls are ideally controlled by the human thinking about it, rather than trying to fumble with some touch interface.

  On the other extreme of the spectrum were people like her XO Lt. Choi. They embraced the technology wholeheartedly and unapologetically. They were thrilled when they could do the small things in life simply by thinking about it, and used it as much as possible. They didn’t seem to suffer from any fatigue from its use like most tech-heads complain about.

  They nodded their acknowledgement to each other as Choi entered and shut the door behind him, without touching it. Trisha got onto the business at hand straightaway. “XO, I have come to decision on our approach strategy. It is going to be controversial to say the least, so I want to sound it out with you first. I want you to critique and play devil’s advocate and refine it. I don’t want to simply issue the orders to you Hugo, I want you on board with this strategy 100%. I say this because we will be putting ourselves in extreme danger, there will be no room for doubts within my crew later, least of all with my XO.”

  “I understand captain, and I appreciate your confidence and respect of my opinion. You can rest assured, that whatever we decide in here, after I leave this room, there will not be a single moment of hesitation on my part or that of any crew.” Choi replied in a genuine tone of appreciation. He was new to the ship. He had taken over as the XO barely four months ago.

  War is the time of fastest promotions for any military organization. It is no different for USC. With so many new ships being commissioned, especially the newer Nautilus class ships, which require twice the size of crew compared to the Resolute class, many officers have been moved to other ships. That opened up the slot of XO for the young Lt. Choi, barely 30 years old.

  He had not been particularly enthusiastic about serving under a captain with reputation of being extremely conservative in the navy. He had however learnt to appreciate the captain’s style of operations and particularly her ability to listen and take advice from her subordinates. Despite his earlier apprehensions, he had started enjoying working under the captain.

  Trisha gave a smile and a nod, and then said. “Alright then lieutenant, you don’t you do your tech-head stuff that you enjoy so much and bring up the schematics up on the screen for us primitives, who cannot see stuff directly in the head? I want you to bring up the wide area tactical position around Mars.”

  Within less than two seconds the schematic map was on the wall. “Zoom out a bit, about 1 light minute centered on Mars.” Trisha asked.

  There is no ‘about’ with tech-heads. They give direct numerical commands to the computer from their brains, so the map zoomed out to cover exactly 1 light minute radius. The map had the view of a particular face of Mars. On the surface there were two spots, one blue the other yellow overlapping each other.

  The blue spot was the location of USC-GCF training base. The yellow was the assumed position of the Shaitan landing party. The landing party was actually thought to be surrounding the base, and at this scale of the map they appeared overlapped each other.

  Hanging above those two spots in a synchronous orbit was another spot marked in red. This was the Shaitan ship. Humans thought this class of vessel was a Shaitan troop carrier. It was the same class of ship that had orbited Titan two decades ago in the previous attack.

  Also in synchronous orbit on either sides of Mars were two magenta dots. These were two satellites that had been launched by the Shaitans. Between the ship and the two satellites, they formed a perfect equilateral triangle. This gave the Shaitans a complete view of the entire surface of Mars, even the side opposite to the ship’s current position.

  Last was a green spot far away from Mars, which was USS Resolute. Its approach vector was a dotted line that indicated where it would make orbit with Mars. There was a faint circle drawn centered
on the Shaitan ship. This was the area that was considered a danger zone based on the monster missiles that this class of Ship had displayed in their previous encounter.

  The current vector of USS Resolute intersected this danger circle around the Shaitan ship. Trisha spoke up. “As you can see XO we cannot maintain the current vector. We have known this for a few days, and I have considered many approaches based on our two objectives. Let me spell out those objectives to ensure we are on the same page.” Trisha looked at her XO and he nodded.

  “First and foremost is primary objective. We are not to let the enemy ship leave Mars at any cost.” Trisha said with an emphasis.

  “There is little danger of that captain, they are holding our camp hostage and they have to hold position over it to do so.” Choi said in a tone that indicated that it was a foregone conclusion.

  “They may not bother to hold hostage or position after Third Fleet begins their attack.” Said Trisha.

  “But… but… the warning message said…” Choi was now puzzled and sounded confused.

  “I know exactly what the warning message said Hugo.” Trisha said softly and a bit sadly, using his first name to indicate this was less official and a more personal conversation between a Captain and her XO. “I have read it over and over again hoping to glean out something more than what it meant on the surface. It is not even a long message for one to read between the lines, I remember it by heart.” Then Trisha recited the Shaitan warning message from memory.

  ‘If your fleet approaching our fleet attacks, then we destroy the nests of both the old and new spawns of Ka on the 4th planet’.

  “That is the translation our computers made. We really don’t know the language of the Shaitans well. It is possible that the computer made grammatical or syntactic misinterpretation and some subtlety of the message or tone has been lost in translation. The basic message however is loud and clear.