Shaitan Wars 2: Wrath of the Shaitans (38 page)

The best news was that anyone who was not in those compartments of the ship where the plasma had punched large holes and incinerated the insides, had survived. This meant that 61 of the 108 crew had survived. The suits had kept the survivors alive because other than the bridge, almost all other compartments had lost atmosphere. Even the bridge crew would have frozen to death if not for their suit.

The surviving crew were sure to be suffering from massive dose of radiation poisoning, and some might yet die. For the moment though they were able to move by themselves and were literally herded like cattle into the shuttles as Capt. Dar was reaching the last minute of his deadline.

In the end, it took 4 minutes more than the deadline given to him by the admiral to get all the 61 survivors out. The search was slow because the suit radio of the survivors was fried by radiation. It was prescient on part of the suit designers to make sure that the suit life support system had analog electrical backup. It was designed as a failsafe against suit computer failure or software glitch, but it worked for EMP damage as well.

When the three remaining ships of the Third Fleet got underway, the 110 nukes and 161 antimissiles of USS Endurance was divided perfectly evenly between the three ships, because that was done by the computer. The survivors just scrambled to whichever shuttle they could, they were not so evenly divided. It didn’t matter in the least. The Nautilus class vessels had space for over 200.

The reaction from the Shaitan fleet was immediate. It must have been programmed, for biological beings couldn’t have reacted so fast. The moment the light of the Third Fleet’s engines reached the Shaitan fleet, it started turning at a 90° angle to its line of approach, faced sunwards towards the inner solar system and heading straight in.

Both the fleets still had a residual momentum tangential to the direction of the sun. To nullify this momentum, the ships’ thrust vector was tilted slightly in the direction opposite to the momentum. Thus both the ships were racing towards Earth in a slight arc, noticeable only to computers.

The Third Fleet had two advantages in this race towards the Earth. It had accelerated 30 minutes towards the sun before the first fight with the Beta Shaitan fleet, then accelerated hard sunwards using chemical rockets in order to escape Shaitan missiles, and finally been travelling on that momentum for almost an hour during the S&R operation. So it was already ahead of the Shaitan Fleet.

The second advantage was that the Nautilus class ships had a slightly higher acceleration compared to the Shaitan warships. It was very minor and as such gave no advantage to humans in a battle. In the long race towards the sun, it however ensured that the Shaitan fleet will never be able to catch up with the Third Fleet. The Third Fleet on the other hand could adjust its acceleration to achieve whatever separation it needed from the Shaitan fleet.

Getting into position for the flying formation planned however was tricky. That is why Fabi had been in such a hurry despite the fact that the Third Fleet was ahead of their enemy. The Third Fleet was not exactly in the path of the Shaitan fleet. The Third Fleet was over a million kilometers off that straight line between the Shaitan fleet and Earth, and the residual momentum of the Third Fleet was taking it further away.

The Third Fleet had to ensure that it not just got ahead of the Shaitan fleet, but also closed that million kilometer gap. And it needed to be done keeping enough distance that the Shaitan missiles would not be able to catch up with them. The Third Fleet was barely being able to maintain the envelope that was considered safe distance from Shaitan missiles.

After a few days, the Third Fleet was able to use its slightly faster acceleration to get comfortably ahead, and slowly started inching towards the direct path of the Shaitan fleet. The third fleet settled at a distance of about 100 thousand kilometers ahead of the Shaitan fleet.

Gerald had added a nice twist to the triangular formation literally. The three ships went into an equilateral triangle formation with a 10 thousand kilometer separation between each ship, centered on the path of the Shaitan fleet. Then the three ships started a slight corkscrew twist around the axis of the path of the Shaitan vessel.

In effect the Shaitan path was enclosed by the three ships in a helical path each that made an enclosed tube. There would be no direction out of that enclosed tube, which the human ships wouldn’t have crossed. Thus it will be equally risky to break out of that tube around the Shaitan path in any direction.

Chapter 24

Shell Shocked

Mars

September 2083

The first round of mortars had shocked and surprised the Shaitans laying siege. They probably did not have a concept of artillery in battle, or didn’t appreciate its effectiveness. The Shaitans had been expecting missiles as the opening salvo from the humans and had fortified themselves accordingly. They had ensured that there was no direct line of sight exposure for snipers or missiles to hit directly.

They had hooked up their radar with all the siege sites to provide detection and early warning against smart missiles that could come in a curved trajectory. They had even hooked up their big guns to the radar to be able to shoot down such missiles. When the first mortar attack came, it registered on the radar a minor blips of metal being hurled, which did not trigger any automated alarm or response.

The first sign they got about the attack, which was also the last thing some Shaitans saw, was when a large explosion took place in the middle of their position seemingly out of thin air. A few Shaitans were killed and minor damage done to equipment, was hardly a crippling blow to them. However they were thrown into confusion and chaos.

The Shaitans however were not dumb. The elder warriors would soon figure out what these new type of weapons were and would even start appreciating the devastating effectiveness of these simple weapons. Till the time they figured out what just hit them though, they responded instinctively and automatically. A barrage of missiles was sent towards the Kormas base, which destroyed most of the structures partially or wholly.

The situation was being monitored from inside, the humans inside the base knew exactly how the Shaitans were responding, thanks to the extensive wiring and spy cams placed all across the vicinity of the base. The Shaitans had not moved from their siege positions, but they had ceased launching missiles after the initial barrage. They were probably confused and waiting to see the next move by the humans.

The Shaitans were spotted launching multiple drones, which made eminent sense. They would now watch the plateau of the base like a hawk. Till now marines could walk around freely on the plateau, but now anyone moving out into the open on the plateau would probably face a missile or if the drone had a gun, then they might be shot at.

The ‘Glass Worm’ was the external feature of an extensive tunnel network. Over the eons, the external walls of the worm had worn out in many places exposing holes in the wall of the worm. One of those large holes was the entrance used by the humans and protected by a blast door. There were however a number of smaller holes in the walls, and one of those was used by the marines to snipe at the drones.

The engineering compulsions of keeping a drone light weight was such that even Shaitans could not make their drones sniper bullet proof. The drone eventually went down after a few hits. With the Shaitans blind once more to the happenings on the plateau, the infantry risked going out once again and lobbed one more round of 10 mortars each at the 6 siege positions.

The objective was to harass the Shaitans to send out their soldiers from their fortified siege positions. The ploy succeeded after the second round of mortars. The Shaitans exited their positions from the rear in an attempt to stay clear of the line of sight from the Kormas base. They were surprised when they came under sniper fire from the rear as well.

It was the marines of the first and second platoon, who had been dropped behind the enemy lines and had spread out behind each of the siege positions waiting for exactly this event. Any Shaitan killed was welcome, but the sniper’s objective was to disrupt the emerging Shaitan line and slow them down, so that all of them do not charge at the Kormas base at one time.

The snipers were positioned on a ridge line separated from Shaitan siege position by a chasm and a ravine. It would be hard for the Shaitans approach the snipers. Even if they somehow managed to do that, the snipers would have ample warning to retreat and get extracted by the shuttle. There was no point in 50 marines trying to go toe to toe with 1500 siege laying Shaitans.

The Shaitan started firing missiles towards the plateau at random intervals, trying to deny the infantrymen the opportunity to emerge and lob mortars by making it very risky. The infantry however took the risks from time to time. There was no way that a missile could cover the entire plateau, so even if a missile hit while an infantryman was out for the 30 odd seconds that it took to lob 10 mortars, he would have to be unlucky to get hit by a missile at the spot where he was.

The infantrymen also used two of the holes in the wall from where one could lob mortars at two of the siege positions. Leanna reckoned that the Shaitans had to run out of missiles sooner or later. The Shaitans had transported shuttle loads of weapons down to Mars, but the weapons were not inexhaustible.

The Shaitans were not buying the invitation of humans to storm the Kormas base from sloping road that led up to the plateau from the plains below. They were not fools. They suspected that the road would be booby trapped. Even if it wasn’t, just a few defenders from the top could very easily defend the road. The Shaitans instead spread out trying to avoid the mortars which were targeted at their siege positions.

Leanna didn’t mind the current exchange of fire. Mortars were one thing the Kormas base had in plenty. This base had received a dedicated infantry training shipment just before the siege, they could keep up the mortars all day if required.

They may not be killing Shaitans, but they must be surely destroying whatever equipment was there in the siege positions. The Shaitans would be denied their heavy fixed weapons and soon their missiles. The missiles were being launched from the siege positions. Either the missiles would get exhausted, or they would get hit. Leanna didn’t care. She had all day.

It seems someone in the Shaitan chain of command realized the same fact, for after half an hour of exchange of mortar and missiles, the spy cams started showing the Shaitans moving with a new purpose. This was it. The Shaitans had finally decided to bite the bullet and storm the base. They wanted to do the storming of the base before they ran out of missiles.

With missiles they could still suppress the defense and force them to take cover. This would help the attackers. Once the missiles were gone, even this advantage would be gone for them. The marine snipers behind the Shaitan lines were no longer effective in slowing down the Shaitan. The Shaitans simply ignored them and took whatever losses the snipers could mete out to them. All the Shaitans rushed maniacally towards the winding road that led to the top of the plateau.

The Shaitans had been right in being wary of booby traps. Leanna had had a good teacher. She had learnt from the master of defense and her mentor Gen. Takamori. Leanna did not lack explosives like in Titan. She had laid out enough of them along the route. The advancing horde were being blasted and slaughtered as they climbed up the slope, but it was not stopping them completely.

The marines would have to go out and defend. Otherwise they would be overwhelmed soon. To make matters worse, the Shaitan missiles were now directly targeting the blast door. It was designed to open even if it was damaged and bent, but even good engineering had its limits. If the doors mangled badly then they might not open at all. The marines had to get out before the doors jammed, but opening the door would mean that the next missile would land inside the tunnels killing whoever was trying to get out. The marines were trapped unless they wanted to take suicidal risks.

Leanna decided there was no point holding back and trying to protect her surveillance assets any longer. She switched on the transmitter attached to the spy cam nearest to the position of the first and the second platoon. If she could transmit from a short enough distance, then she might be able to overcome the jamming and get through.

“Col. McGraw to First and Second Platoon. Do you copy?” Leanna tried several times before she got a response, but it was from the shuttle which had a much more powerful receiver and transmitter than in the suits. “Eagle 1 to the colonel. Eagle 1 copies but it is unlikely the marines can hear you colonel. We just happened to be passing close by to the transmitter.”

“Eagle 1, we need to silence the missiles desperately. The missiles are coming from siege positions two, three and five. First and Second platoon can forget about harassment. It is not working anyway. We need an assault on those three siege positions to silence the missiles. Would you be kind enough to pass the word to them Eagle 1.” Leanna said.

“Eagle 1 copies. Eagle 1 can do better than just pass the word sir. Eagle 1 will take the marines to the position, since I doubt the marines can jump a hundred meter wide ravine, even in this gravity. We will also bring our gun into play.”

“Thanks Eagle 1, be careful. Their radar may be down, but the missiles can still hurt you if they can see you visually or in IR.” Leanna warned.

“Will do sir. I have been cursing this storm all day, let me take advantage of it for a change. The enemy had no hope in hell of tracking us visually in this dust storm, and even our hot exhaust would not be visible in IR beyond a few hundred meters. Eagle 1 out and on its way.” Eagle 1 signed off.

It was not as easy as it sounded. Eagle 1 took nearly 5 minutes flying over the positions of the scattered marines to let them know their new orders. It took the marines another 10 minutes to assemble and be picked up turn by turn and flown to the other side of the ravine. The marines divided themselves into three groups to assault the three siege positions.