The Battle of Titan Page 14

  They started seeing small fuzzy pictures of the alien craft, but it could not tell if the spacecraft had been damaged or was functional. They had never expected the small massed Sentinel to break apart the massive bulk of the alien space ship.

  What they had hoped for was that the two ships travelling at such a significant speed towards each other would cause even the small mass of Sentinel to do a significant damage to the larger ship, which would disable it.

  Jason had one more source of secret information. To get information from there, he would have to feed information first. So he quickly whipped out his tablet, and wrote the synopsis of the last 6 hours in a few paragraphs. Then he made two requests. ‘Need to know current status of enemy, and need your eyes from now on.’

  Jason waited impatiently. He got his reply in about five minutes. It was as cryptic as ever. ‘Enemy wounded by alive, detailed status will follow. I understand your need for my eyes, no promises. Will do my best.’

  As Jason finished reading the message and looked up the entire hall was filled with a single collective gasp. The alien ship had lit up its thrusters again and was accelerating towards earth!

  It is generally considered that the Sentinel mission was not much of a success, although it probably helped in slowing it down. It would take a few generations of fighting the Shaitans and learning their history before the true achievements of Sentinel could be discovered and appreciated.

  The slightly glancing blow that Sentinel delivered may not have succeeded in disabling the ship, but it did cause a damage. It sheared off and destroyed the equipment that the ship used to communicate back to the Shaitan home world. From that moment on, the Shaitans were blind to whatever happened to the alien ship within the solar system.

  It was at that moment the alien scout ship had stopped performing its job for the Shaitans and effectively put an end to the scout mission. It left the Shaitans with incomplete information about us and our solar system, which made them make mistakes later. Sentinel was an unqualified success, but it would take many generations for humans to realize this.

  Chapter 13

  Thou shalt not pass

  It is said that humans all around the world are the same. If we start talking human to human, we realize how similar we are. It is artificial boundaries of politics and nation which separates and demonizes us to each other. Jason had hoped that this is not just some peacenik’s rhetoric when he had taken the leap of faith and embarked on his little conspiracy along with Oleg.

  There are many scientific disciplines in China which are highly regulated and monitored. These are usually the ones where there is a military, or industrial implication. Some like the information science disciplines are regulated and even more heavily monitored for political reasons. Space research and space industry comes under this category for all the above reasons. It is one of the most politically sensitive professions in China.

  However there are other scientific disciplines which are deemed as no threat to the People’s Republic, meaning no threat to the communist party and its hold on power. There are many such disciplines like paleontology, astronomy etc. A free exchange of ideas and free contact between Chinese scientists and foreign scientists is allowed in these areas.

  Oleg as one of the leading astrophysicists in the world, and now a Nobel Laureate was not just a frequent visitor and lecturer in China, but there were many in the Chinese astrophysics society he could count as friends. Genuine friends whom he could trust and who in turn could trust him.

  Many of them would express their dissatisfaction over many decisions and decision making processes. It is not to say that they would express traitorous opinion. Most of them were not even political and didn’t care whether China was a communist or a democratic country. What they didn’t like is the way non-qualified politicians would take decisions because something was deemed to have political implication.

  Oleg would joke that it is the same in the US of A, and that this was one problem democracy can’t cure. After a few laughs when the conversation would turn back serious, most of his Chinese colleagues would point out that it is not the same as the US. Congress may decide on the budget a certain program or an institution got, but they never decided who would be the head of department of astrophysics in a university.

  In China it would be decided in most cases on party affiliations and loyalty. You had to be outstanding to get into any leadership position in science, without party backing. That, his Chinese colleagues would lament, is why China is still lagging behind the west in fundamental science and the research that comes out of it. That is why, they would put down their heads and say, China was still considered a nation of copy cats.

  Oleg chose a few such friends in China and manufactured a trip for himself there, by sponsoring a seminar at the Shanghai University in which he was one of the speakers. He ensured that all the friends that he had chosen to try and tap in this conspiracy, were invited and he made sure to personally call and invite them.

  In the end he had recruited two willing Chinese astrophysicists who would play the same role on the Chinese side as he did on the American side. Both of them were consulting astronomers to the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) and were assigned to the Hàoqí program.

  They assured that they will speak to the chief of mission control of the Hàoqí. He was a reasonable and pragmatic man, although he cannot be expected to do anything that might harm the party’s interest. Oleg wasn’t worried too much about that. The offer was simple and as sweet to the Chinese as could be.

  Sedna – 1 and the Sentinel were ahead of the Hàoqí. As such Hàoqí could not be expected to know more than Sentinel. However if Hàoqí was to be earth’s last line of defense, then they would not like to cripple its chances due to lack of information. The only condition being that the Chinese mission controller would not know the source of information, although Oleg knew that he would soon be able to guess it.

  They would give broad mission updates without revealing any state secrets to the Chinese, and pass on any lessons learnt. The Chinese mission controller was not expected to give any information back, but if he had anything that might help the missions of Sedna – 1 or Sentinel it would be more than welcome.

  What they hoped for once the trust was built and the Chinese mission controller was convinced that he was not being fed false information, would be some basic level of cooperation if this came to a fight.

  Over a period of few weeks, the Chinese mission controller had been roped into the scheme although he was skeptical. He didn’t have anything to lose, but still warned the astronomers that he would go to the authorities at the first smell of anything being fishy. The biggest problem had been setting up a secure line without raising suspicion.

  They had taken the help of the famous young intern with NASA, and the co-discoverer of the alien craft. Ramesh Srinivasan had used the help of his hacker friends in China to set up a secure line, which would look like illegal porn messages going back and forth.

  Over a period of time, the Chinese mission controller had come to trust the information provided as it turned out to be true. The various technical details given had helped him fine tune his own mission a lot. He no longer doubted the sincerity of these lot of people. He had provided some information in return, but nothing that would not be made public anyway.

  Now his co-conspirator on the other side was asking for information which was privileged in a certain way. He had never been convinced why it should be a secret. Every human had a stake in this game, and they were all fighting for the same side. He was however a disciplined party soldier, and while he may question decisions in private, he would never do so in public. He definitely would not think of disobeying orders.

  Now this person on the other side was asking for help, when he really needs it. He no longer has eyes in the battle, and the Chinese were the only ones who had it. This mystery friend, he could guess who it was, had provided him with the best pictures which were not yet availabl
e to Hàoqí. He owed this man a debt, which he would try his best to repay.

  He decide to confide in his childhood friend and local party boss. They had both been pragmatic and not dogmatic followers of the party from the start. As expected he understood the logic and decided to help his friends, but not without higher authorization. It slowly went up the chain of command via the CNSA administrator to appropriate level of government, where such calls could be taken.

  It took about a week for the message to get through, but when the mission controller got the reply, he was surprised. It has to be done officially! The Chinese government will claim that they are sharing data unilaterally with everyone for the benefit of humanity and for all the people of the world to fight together in the spirit of brotherhood. No mention ever can be made of the unofficial sharing of data by NASA.

  Cynical as it was, the mission controller would take what he can get. This was actually better than what he had hoped for. So a week after promising to his mystery friend that he will try his best, he was talking to him on the screen officially, and the Hàoqí’s data was streaming into Houston, just as Sedna – 1 had.

  Though the two men could never publicly acknowledge what they had done for each other, their eyes acknowledged it, and Jason knew he had made a friend on the other side for life. He rebuked himself, and noted that he had to stop thinking of the Chinese as the other side.

  Talking to the American controllers helped the Chinese a lot in setting up standard procedures for the mission. Hàoqí mission was helped most by the programming done on Sentinel to run the battle on its own during the spectator time. The Hàoqí mission had made some rudimentary programs to this effect, but the American programs, along with their actual experience in the battle helped a lot in refining the Hàoqí program.

  They exchanged so many ideas and updated the program so many times, that the last batch of uploads to the programs were finished barely an hour before spectator time. Jason watched the Hàoqí feed with trepidation. This was human’s last chance to stop them away from earth.

  If this failed, there is nothing stopping them from coming to earth. Sure they would be able to launch nuclear missiles from earth as well as some from orbit, but there would be nothing stopping them from launching missiles at earth either. It could be genocide on a biblical scale.

  The front telescope of Hàoqí was similar in capability to Sentinel. Jason could see the alien ship at a resolution of a few tens of pixels wide. Somewhere between 30 and 40 pixels. It was like seeing a small computer icon blown up on the screen. What was definitely better in this picture was the contrast.

  The alien ship had entered further into the solar system, so the reflected light from the sun was brighter. Each pixel on the picture conveyed more information. He couldn’t be sure, but it looked like one of the sides of the ship was no longer symmetrical to the other side. In all previous pictures, all the sides of the ship when seen from the front had seemed symmetrical.

  The only side view of the ship was for the few minutes when the ship had desperately tried to use its main thruster by turning at right angle, just before Sentinel rammed into it. Those pictures, rather those few pixels must be the most analyzed pixels in human history.

  When Sentinel rammed the alien ship, the alien ship was not facing towards it. As a result Sentinel hit the alien ship on what humans would consider the port side of the alien ship. The alien ship had not turned 90° but more like 30°.

  What was at that time considered a desperate move by the alien ship was, after a few days of after action analysis, now considered a very clever ploy on the part of the captain of the alien ship. By turning at that angle, it made sure that the Sentinel could not ram the alien ship head on.

  When Sentinel finally collided with the alien craft, a large part of the momentum of Sentinel was deflected, as Sentinel slid off the angled alien craft, thus minimizing the damage as much as possible. The aliens were not dumb. They must be masters of tactical space warfare. They are sure to have much more experience than humans.

  Jason was sure that he was seeing the signs of damage on that pixelated image. But it had not been enough to stop the alien craft. The small Sentinel had very little hope when ramming it head on. With a sideways glance, the damage had not been enough.

  The humans had learnt from that last encounter. They would not repeat the same mistakes again. The angle of attack had been discussed extensively with the Chinese and the software modified accordingly.

  Jason wondered what new trick would the alien craft conjure up this time? It had already used up its protective shield, unless it carried more than one. The answer came just about half an hour after they went into spectator time. This time the opening gambit of the alien space craft came in terms of four micro explosions from the sides of the alien craft.

  Jason noted with satisfaction that they were all from the starboard side of the craft, none from the port side. Small as it may be, Sentinel had made its contribution. He also noted with amusement as the Chinese designated the small bodies detaching from the alien craft as Z3 through Z6. Boris’s zombie moniker had stuck even with the Chinese.

  Within seconds of releasing the four bodies (it was hard to think of them as missiles), the alien craft stopped its main ion thrusters and started turning. It would most probably start decelerating to put some distance between itself and what it anticipated was the coming collision of Hàoqí with the zombies.

  It looked like it was repeating the same trick again. It would wait to see if Hàoqí is destroyed. If not, then most probably it will turn at an angle again to deflect and minimize the blow. Why change what worked before? Fair enough Jason thought, but this time the humans were not going to play by the same rules.

  Hàoqí did not carry any conventional missiles. Its mission parameters called for the option to deploy mild force or extreme force. The mild force option called for crippling the enemy without completely destroying the enemy ship, while the extreme force option called for total destruction of the ship.

  Like all engineers working on human space crafts, the Chinese weapon designers had to contend with extremely limited allowances given to them for the weight of the weapon. So the Chinese weapon designers came out with a novel concept of a weapon in space for their mild force option.

  One of the options to cripple or disable a ship without destroying it outright, is to punch small holes into it with the hope that it would go and strike some important piece of equipment and damage it, causing the ship to stop functioning in some way.

  This has the danger of both venting the atmosphere out and killing the aliens inside, as well as causing some catastrophic explosion. It was thought that such advanced aliens should have compartmentalized ship design, which should save most of the aliens.

  In the same vein, it was thought that the aliens would not put something in their ship that would explode on impact like chemical bombs. The aliens with their technology should have eliminated the use of such items long ago and substituted it with something far safer.

  In any case this was the best solution human technology offered in the time they had been given. So the Chinese created the weapon which they called the ‘Huátáng qiāng’ or simply the ‘Shotgun’ in English. It was an appropriate name. It looked like a missile, and did have solid fuel rocket propulsion.

  It however did not have a very sophisticated targeting system. It would be able to point at its target coming at high speed only to an accuracy of about 100 meters. It would for example have little hope of hitting Z2 the protective shielding about 40 -50 meters wide unleashed on Sentinel.

  It however did not need to be very accurate, and hence was not designed to be very accurate. What was unique about the shotgun was its ammunition. It had about ten thousand ball bearing sized pellets made of depleted uranium stuffed inside its warhead, to be released fractions of a second before actual impact.

  The timing of the release could be configured to cover a larger area to accommodate for larger speed of t
ravel of the missile. If you wanted a larger area of coverage, or if the shotgun was travelling at a higher speed, then you released earlier to allow the pellets the time to spread out before hitting the target.

  The possibility of the alien ship throwing multiple kinetic kill devices or Zombies as it was now being popularly called, was considered and discussed. Hàoqí mission control had come up with a solution to counter this. It was a high risk strategy, but thought to be the best option by the Chinese. Essentially Hàoqí was going to play a game of chicken with the aliens.

  All human ships had approached the alien ship with their main thrusters turned off. Human ships just couldn’t carry so much liquid fuel to keep running all through the journey. They had exhausted most of their fuel by the time they had reached the alien ship, keeping only a very small amount as reserve for emergency maneuvers.

  It was hoped that the unfamiliar geometry of human ships and not having seen the Hàoqí fire its thruster at close range would mean that the alien ship would not know which end of the ship was the front and which was the rear. As a result it would not be able to distinguish which end the ship’s thrusters are pointed towards until Hàoqí actually fired up its thrusters.

  To confuse the aliens further, the Hàoqí had entered spectator time with a slight spin and a tumble, so the alien would not even be alerted if the Hàoqí changed its orientation. It was a pain maintaining the focus of the cameras and sensors on the alien craft, but since it was a controlled tumble with the rate known, automated algorithms on board had no difficulty keeping the cameras and sensors pointed at the alien ship all the time.

  The aliens would however be alerted when Hàoqí stops spinning and tumbling. They would know that the Hàoqí had pointed itself at a certain direction. They just would not know what direction it was!