Shaitan Wars 2: Wrath of the Shaitans (14 page)

Daniel then started the part of the presentation which he knew would be the cause of the real fireworks within the committee – budget, budget appropriations and resource allocation. This was the area of expertise of politicians and bureaucrats. They thrived on those discussions just as military men hated them.

“I will straight away get to the brass tacks ladies and gentlemen. This coming battle cannot be won by the current technology. If you notice I did not mention anything about the number of ships or the weapons we have. Even if we get 5 times the number of ships we have currently but made with the current technology, we cannot win.” Daniel had just started his presentation, but there was pandemonium in the normally reserved committee members.

“Are you saying that USC is incapable of defending Earth?” The chair asked incredulously.

“I didn’t say that madam chair. All I said was the issue is not with the numbers but with the limitation put on our strategy and our capability to prosecute the war due to the limitations of the current technology. The biggest problem our current ships face is endurance and range. They are powered with chemical fuel and chemical rockets, which severely restricts the time they have in space and the range at which they can fight.

This means that we cannot mount a defense very far from Earth. Even then, we can never deploy all our assets for defense because there are always some ships rotating back to Earth to refuel. There is very little military tactics that can be employed when you are fighting a few million kilometers from Earth.

The worst part is that there is no buffer between the position you are fighting and the objective you are defending – Earth. Even a small glitch will enable the enemy to slip through and bombard Earth. With 8 enemy vessels approaching, there is no way even a hundred of our ships could block every possible path to approach Earth.

The only way we can ensure safety for Earth is to engage the approaching enemy fleet far out in the solar system. The enemy had presented us with an additional opportunity which we must not fail to exploit. If we do, then we do so at our own peril.

The enemy fleets are approaching Earth in two distinct groups from two directions. We have analyzed the path and we know that they intend to rendezvous at a point beyond the orbit of Pluto. Once the two halves of the fleet assemble, then by the doctrines of space warfare they become not twice but almost four times as lethal. We have our greatest probability of success if we can engage the two halves of enemy fleet individually and take them down one by one.

The Shaitans have chosen the point of rendezvous appropriately from their perspective. Our ships cannot reach that point before they do. Our current ships do not have that range, neither do they have the endurance to be able to last for that amount of time. So there is nothing we can do with our current technology to stop them.

If however we could reach that point before the Shaitans can, the laws of physics will ensure that the Shaitans can do nothing that would enable them to meet up before we engage one of the halves.

It so happens that we now have technology within our reach which will enable us to build warships that can reach the rendezvous point before the Shaitans if we act immediately. That is the reason ladies and gentlemen of the committee for this emergency session. It is to urge you to act immediately to authorize the development of the proposed new class of spaceships, which you all would have seen in the preliminary reports.” Daniel paused, more to catch a breath, but US representative took the opportunity to speak.

“Are you suggesting that we build warships to a theoretical design using a fusion reactor technology, whose first prototype has only been successfully tested just a few months ago? Do you realize that even the design for the first experimental ship to use that fusion reactor is still in its preliminary design phase? We do not even have complete data on the input output characteristics of that first prototype fusion reactor! There just has not been enough time!” The US representative said incredulously.

“I am painfully aware of those facts madam councilwoman. You have to believe me when I say that no one hates untried and untested technology more than us military personnel. It is we who have to travel in those ships and it is we who have to fight using those weapons. There is nothing more disastrous for us than an equipment which fails in a battle. That is why military tends to be conservative in its choice of technology.

If there had been any other way, a plan or a strategy that could be devised which would not involve using untried technology, we would have been the first to grab it. Unfortunately the tactical situation that is emerging leaves us with no such option. Our chances of success increase dramatically if we are able to reach the rendezvous point and confront the two halves individually. Our chances if we cannot do that are so poor, that it even with the risks involved in the use of untried technology we are better off.” Daniel concluded.

“So, can you elucidate your proposal for the benefit of the committee please admiral?” The chair asked Daniel.

“According to the scientific and engineering advice given to the USC, the ships powered by the new fusion reactors should be able to reach the rendezvous point in just over 10 months. Giving some allowance for time, it puts a hard stop for us in just over 4 years for the construction of the new ships.

Since we do not have any experience in mass production of the new fusion reactor, I have been advised that at best we can expect 4 reactors to have been made and tested by that time. This is the limiting factor as far as construction of this class of ships is concerned. I am proposing that we prepare the designs of this ship on a war footing and start construction of these four ships simultaneously.

As fusion reactors become available, we can start fitting them onto the ships. We can use the first ships that get ready for training and to develop new battle tactics to best utilize the strengths of these new class of ships. Assuming we have the 4 ships ready before the launch date, we start off in the direction of the rendezvous point. Even if there are only three ready by then, we stand a fair chance of taking on one of the halves of the fleet. It would make the task of our conventional fleet that much easier.” Daniel laid out the plan they had hatched all through yesterday and last night.

The US representative spoke up again. “Assuming we can pony up the money for the fusion reactors and all the technology that goes along with it, we still have limited ship building capacity. What according to your estimation admiral would we be sacrificing in terms of conventional ships, in order to build these four fusion powered ships?”

Daniel had the answer with him. It was etched in his mind. He and the rest of his admiralty had agonized over that figure over and over again before coming to this decision. “Since these would be a new class of ships requiring new tools, construction techniques and even development of some new technology. We expect the average construction time of these four ships to be twice that of the conventional ships. This means that we would be sacrificing 8 conventional ships for this program.”

“And you think that as a prudent course of action, which minimizes the risk to Earth?” The US representative was needling and baiting Daniel. Daniel was aware of that. He had been warned by everyone to beware of this particular member of the committee.

“Yes madam, I do.” Daniel replied pokerfaced, refusing to get drawn into her bait.

The committee questions veered into the usual bickering about budget, and who pays for what and in what payment schedules. Most of them were not directed towards Daniel, although he was asked various questions on priorities.

After the session was over, Ramesh came up to Daniel and informed that the political winds indicated that his proposal would be passed. Ramesh assured that the Human alliance would ensure that US puts its weight behind it, despite the problematic representative from the US. The Chinese, Russians and Indians were supportive, although the Europeans were noncommittal. But there was enough support that should carry the proposal through.

Daniel went back to his hotel room wondering whether he had played the cards of the biggest gamble of his life right.

Chapter 9

Change of plan

Kuiper Belt, on the way to the Solar system

December 2082

Warmaster Taste of Belligerence was shocked. The spawns of Ka were communicating in the holy language of their beings! It should not be possible! In the history of their beings, they have fought spawns of Ka before. As a seer and a warrior, it was required for the Warmaster to study the previous encounters of their beings with earlier spawns of Ka.

As preparation for this campaign, the Warmaster had studied those encounters further in as much detail as possible. He would have known if ever a spawn of Ka had been able to speak the holy language. It was thought impossible because the holy language was ordained such. It was adapted for the mental capabilities of their beings. It should be far too complex for the spawns to even have a conception of such a language, let alone the ability to understand and speak it.

Yet that is what was happening right now. It was a general consensus amongst his beings that these spawns of Ka were different. Not the most powerful his beings had faced, but different in many ways from the others. In fact these spawns were almost as weak as the first spawns of Ka their beings had faced and exterminated, and those spawns had been laughably primitive.

Yet these spawns of Ka had not just stopped but destroyed a fully armed migration vessel. That is what made these spawns different. It was thought that Ka had designed these spawns with special attention to deception. Ka intends to fight this battle with the element of surprise.

Let us see who surprises whom this time. They may have defeated a migration ship, but let them see the wrath of war vessels of his beings. The council of seers in their briefings had specifically warned him against underestimating the capabilities of these spawns of Ka. It is thought that underestimation was a major cause of the defeat for Warmaster Scent of Carnage in the previous campaign.

Warmaster Belligerence had already got a taste of that underestimation, and his campaign had not even begun! If these spawns were capable of the amazing mental feat of understanding the holy language, what else were they capable of?! He needed to reevaluate his plans in light of this new capability of the enemy. He needed the counsel of the curious caste seer who had come with them for this campaign.

Seer Taste of Mystery was one of eldest in the curious caste not yet a member of the council. He was a student of the wisest of them all, seer Taste of Harmony. The Warmaster wished that he had the counsel of seer Harmony himself. This was such a profound discovery that he would have been the best of their beings to interpret the significance. Seer Mystery was very good too, and he was the one available to him for counsel.

Seer Mystery was at his tasting station in his assigned niche. The Warmaster could easily have made contact with him from his own station, but this was a subject where he needed to taste his physical slime. This discussion was too important for the impersonal taste signals coming from a tasting station.

The Warmaster went over to Mystery, touched him and started sending electrochemical signals through the skin without any preamble, as is the way of their beings. The Warmaster could sense that Mystery was simultaneously tasting the signals sent by the spawns of Ka over and over again. Those signals as well as Mystery’s initial prognosis were coming over the electrochemical signals from the slime of Mystery.

What the two seers were having, could loosely be called as communicating with each other. Human language does not have an exact term for this form of communication. It was more like the two had created a connection between their brains through the electrochemical signals they were exchanging with their skin slime. The connection was not as fast or rich as synaptic neurons that interconnect the parts of the brain, but is was fast. It was much faster than the neural interfaces developed by humans, which had recently started being adopted by a few.

Their brains had not merged into a single entity because the connection was narrow and each side could choose the signals they wanted to send. Each brain still functioned autonomously. However once they decided to share a train of thought or a concept, the neurochemical signal were transmitted unaltered through the skin slime for the other brain to interpret it in raw format.

This was possible because the skin slime was secreted by a specialized part of the brain responsible for this function. Thus the slime was made out of brain material having the same neurochemical properties as the brain. One of the signs that a being is being claimed by entropy and ready to be sent to the liquefaction chambers, is when the skin slime of the being starts drying up. I means that the brain is no longer functioning properly. Mystery had seen the seer Taste of Light, his mentor Harmony’s mentor go through the process and having to be sent to the liquefaction chamber.

When the slime functions however, it is the most amazing form of communication between two intelligent living beings. It is so rich that comparing it to human conversation is like comparing human conversation to a dog’s barks. It is like being in the head of the other person and understanding what the other person is thinking along with all the context within which the person is thinking.

Thus what transpired between the Warmaster and seer Taste of Mystery could hardly be called conversation, but in gist the conversation went along the following lines.

“You have tasted the signals sent by the spawns of Ka seer Mystery. I have come for counsel. I would like to know your thoughts on what it signifies, and how that may affect our battle plans.”

“I share you shock, surprise and utter disbelief Warmaster. I am not going to dwell on the fact that it should not be possible, because it has already happened. I will start with mode of transmission and the structure of the language used, and make some speculations on the psychological profile of the enemy. I will then analyze the message itself and give you my thinking on their intentions.