Triumph & Defeat (Shaitan Wars Book 4) Page 15
“I couldn’t have said it better James. I am proud to have you two as the captains of my ships. It is an honor to serve with you two gentlemen, the finest humanity has to offer. As you said James, we will celebrate and drink on the other side, either here in this world and life, or in Valhalla in the afterlife. I don’t think there is a moment to waste. The earlier we release the MKK-1 missiles, the better is the chance we have. So let us get about doing so. Ronnie, you have the lead, since it was your idea anyway. Work with the Sacramento and get the trajectory calculations done. In the meanwhile let us get those MKK-1 missiles loaded into the ejectors. Unless any of you two have anything more to add, you are dismissed.” Elvis concluded.
“Sir…” Capt. Anniston said hesitantly. “What about the crew? I think they should be told… they need to know…”
“They don’t just need to know James, they have a right to know… and we shall tell them. I will address and explain to the crew myself personally. After all, in the final analysis it is my call to go along the course we have decided to take. So I will take the responsibility, and I will explain it to the crew. First though, we got to get those MKK-1 missiles going on their way without any more delay. Then we address the crew. Is that fine with you captains?” Elvis asked.
Both the captains nodded and then as if on cue saluted simultaneously. It is at times like these, when men take decisions that could lead to their death, that Elvis appreciated the utility of military rituals like a simple salute. It reminded all of them, that they may be mere mortals afraid of their death in normal circumstances, but they were also soldiers who in extraordinary circumstance were capable of doing extraordinary things and making the supreme sacrifice if needed. Elvis saluted back with respect.
Despite the XO of both the ships personally supervising the effort, it still took nearly half an hour to get those 5-ton MKK-1 missiles into the pneumatic launchers and released in the precise direction needed. The MKK-1 missiles had to be taken out of stowage where they had been securely strapped and muscled by the crew to the pneumatic ejectors. To help the crew carry the heavy MKK-1 missiles, the rotating hub of the ship providing artificial gravity had to be shut down with reverse thrust applied, so that they would stop rotating.
Even in the ensuing zero-G environment, it is not easy to move around a 5 ton bulky object by hand. The missile may not have weight, but it still has mass. If any of the crew member handling those missiles got trapped between it and a bulkhead, they could be crushed to death due to the momentum of the missile. The missiles had to be expertly and carefully guided into position by a trained crew in zero-G using straps and harnesses, as much as by exerting pushing force by hand.
It was just as well that it took that much time to get the missiles into their launch mechanisms, because it took about the same amount of time for Lt. Berdei working with Capt. Lowe to get the calculations right. The calculations needed to factor in a lot of contingencies about the movement of their target in the next two weeks, and it was far more complex than the initial simplistic calculation that Capt. Lowe had done. It was sent to the Sacramento, where Capt. Anniston and his weapons officer validated the calculations.
When the missiles were away, Elvis addressed the crew of both the ships and explained his decision. It was followed by the captains of each ship having a detailed session with their own crew. One couldn’t say what the crew were thinking, but on the outside they took the news fairly well. The real test of the state of mind of the crew would be during their private time, when they could contemplate alone. Most of the crew were in their late twenties or early thirties, and had their whole life ahead of them. Perhaps they would tell themselves, like Capt. Anniston that this is what they had signed up to when they joined the navy.
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“Captains, do we have the mutual observation protocol running?” Elvis asked the two captains who were virtually conferenced with him. All of them were in their respective seats with their combat suit on. They were just an hour or so from the point where they would cross Dante.
Both the captains confirmed that the mutual observation protocol had just been turned on. “Mutual Observation Protocol” was something that Elvis had thought of after they had realized that the human ships had been discovered. Both the captains as well as Elvis suspected that the Shaitans had either copied the MKK-1 sand missile or had something new developed to kill approaching high speed human ships. If they turned out to be wrong, then they would only be too happy, because they would live to tell the tale.
The problem is that if they were right, they would not live to pass on that information to the rest of the navy, who needed to know such an important piece of information. So Elvis had devised the mutual observation protocol, which was to be turned on, just as they were entering the danger zone. It required that a small fraction of the huge array of sensors and scanners at the disposal of each ship was turned towards observing the other ship in the fleet. USC Ubuntu would watch USC Sacramento and vice-versa.
This data along with the rest of the skin sensor data of the ships would be live stream broadcast back to Earth, not just on tight laser beam, which was the usual mode of communication, but also on focused microwave beam. The lateral leakage of the microwave beam would most likely be detected and intercepted by the Shaitans, but stealth was out of the window in any case. It was far more important that Earth got back as much information from the sensors in the last seconds and milliseconds if the ships were destroyed.
Hopefully Earth would be able to piece together the kind of weapon used, that killed Ubuntu and Sacramento, if it came to pass. If both the ships were destroyed, then it was likely that one would be destroyed at least a few milliseconds later than the other. The cameras and other sensors of the ship that died later, would be able to send images and sensor data that should help Earth make out the nature of the weapon. The Ubuntu had opened up its engines in the last few days to surge ahead of the Sacramento and give the two ships one light second of separation. This would mean that the Sacramento would cross the same point a few seconds after the Ubuntu, hopefully giving it enough time to observe the gory details of Ubuntu’s destruction if it were to happen, and be able to transmit as much of it as possible.
“Ok. Gentlemen. I can see that the countdown has started. Good luck to all of us. I will see you both on the other side.” Elvis concluded and the captains acknowledged. Each of the three men retreated into their own private thoughts as the countdown proceeded towards zero. When the countdown reached zero, they all felt a sharp tug as the emergency acceleration went into full thrust pinning them down into their seats at almost 2 G acceleration. The gloves were off, and the humans had made their first move in what would later be known as the first battle of Beta Shaitan.
USC Ubuntu made a 90⁰ turn in the north-east direction of the plane of their approach at about one o’clock heading, while the Sacramento made a 90⁰ turn in the south-east direction of the plane of their approach at about five o’clock heading. The emergency acceleration that had been started about an hour before they were to cross Dante was not enough for them to evade the two Shaitan warships waiting in their line of approach further behind. The humans fully expected to see those two Shaitan warships to light up their own emergency acceleration to keep pace with the human ships, and they were not disappointed. A few minutes later they got the confirmation that those two ships waiting on their path had also opened up their emergency thruster and split up. One following the Ubuntu while other going in the direction of the Sacramento.
Opening up their emergency acceleration just an hour before crossing Dante meant that the two human ships would not travel far enough to be close to any of the eight Shaitan warships encircling the plane of their approach. Hence the two human ships should not be in any realistic danger from those eight Shaitan warships.
What the opening of their emergency acceleration an hour before the crossing did, was to force any mines or missiles lying dark on their original path to show themselves,
by being forced to open up their thruster to keep pace with the changed direction of the human ships. The Shaitans had had eighteen days of forewarning and knew the exact point at which the human ships would cross Dante. While nothing had been observed on their path or anywhere near, the human ships had done the observation from very far away. It was not inconceivable that the Shaitans could have slipped in a few mines or missiles during those eighteen days, unobserved. The mines or missile could have come to the point of crossing on low thrust similar to the way humans were slipping in the MKK-1 missiles, and the humans may not have been able to detect them.
“Got ya!” Exclaimed Capt. Lowe as he saw the thruster signature of four missiles. Two headed in the direction of the Ubuntu and two towards the Sacramento. The Shaitans had somehow managed to creep up these missiles on the path of the human ships, probably the same way that the humans had crept up the MKK-1 missiles which were at that moment still creeping laterally towards the eight Shaitan warships encircling the approach plane of the humans.
“Sir, the thruster signature of those four missiles is exactly the same as that of their 400-megaton nukes that the Shaitans usually use, but the acceleration of those missiles is less than half of the nuclear missiles that we have observed till now.” Capt. Anniston said a few moments later into the three way conference inside their helmet that included Elvis and Capt. Lowe. “These are definitely not their usual nuclear missiles. Since the missiles are accelerating at less than half the rate for the same thrust, so these missiles must be more than double the mass.”
“I am willing to bet that that those missiles are not carrying a bigger nuke but are filled with small fragments or sand particles like our MKK-1 missiles. Just as our MKK-1 missiles need to be bulkier than our nukes to be reasonably effective because their killing capacity is related to the mass they can disburse rather than the energy they can release, so must be the case with these Shaitan missiles.” Capt. Lowe added.
“I agree with your theory Ronnie. There is a high probability that these are frag missiles of some sort. Look at the brighter side though. They put only four missiles in our path. Putting missiles, which are relatively disposable is the cheapest and risk free way of trying to kill our ships, since you don’t need to put any of your ships in danger. Yet all that the Warmaster sent were four missiles. What does it say? It is probably all that he could muster. Which means that he doesn’t have too many of these missiles with him. These missiles probably do not form part of Shaitan standard military doctrine, and may have been manufactured recently after seeing their effectiveness in a high speed battle. The Shaitans would have just a few of them stocked on their ships for the contingency of ever getting into a high speed battle situation. I think the Shaitans figured that their warships are not going to be in a high speed battle very often, and perhaps stocked only a few of these bulky missiles on their ships.
“If I am right, then the good news is that we are likely to encounter far fewer of these missiles from those two Shaitan warships waiting on our path. The bad news is that like everything else about Shaitan weaponry, these sand or frag missiles are going to be monstrous in size, which will spread out over a far larger volume of space than our MKK-1 missiles. From the acceleration figure that James just gave us, if I do a mental calculation, then those missiles weigh between 60 to 70 tons. If this missile has been built on the same platform as the Shaitan nuclear missiles, then after subtracting the weight of the engine and the fuel, it would still leave a mass of fifty tons or more of sand. Compare this with just over four tons of sand in our 5-ton MKK-1 missiles.
“I know that the sand would spread in 3 dimensional space, so having twenty to twenty five times the mass gives these Shaitan missiles only about thrice the effective spread area compared to our missiles, but we can’t let these missiles come anywhere near our ships, captains. We cannot let ourselves die before we kill those two Shaitan warships waiting up ahead on our path. There is no point launching our anti-missiles, they do not have a hope in hell of killing those missiles at this speed. Let us proceed to plan B straightaway.” Elvis ordered them to switch to plan B, which they had hatched and refined in the last two weeks.
Both the human ships stopped their emergency acceleration almost immediately. The four Shaitan missiles tracking the two human ships were forced to stop thrusting as well. Otherwise the missiles would have overshot the position where the human ships would cross the plane. The human ships then released one MKK-1 missile each, shot out of the pneumatic ejector at the maximum velocity directly ahead towards the Shaitan missiles. Next the human ships turned their nose back towards Earth and opened up their emergency thrusters as well as their regular ion plasma engines at full throttle, applying maximum braking deceleration possible for an Avenger class ship.
The two MKK-1 missiles released, in the meanwhile had opened up their thrusters at full throttle accelerating further towards the Shaitan missiles. The gap between the MKK-1 missile and its releasing ship started increasing at a fast clip. The human ships by not moving laterally prevented the Shaitan missiles from bringing their powerful thrusters into play, while the MKK-1 missiles which were moving head on could use up all of its fuel thrusting at maximum to reach the Shaitan missiles faster.
The two human ships had separated laterally, after having accelerated in two different directions at a 90⁰ angle for some time. One set of two Shaitan missiles had follows one human ship, while another set of two Shaitan missiles had followed the other. The two Shaitan missiles of each set were forced to bunch up together since they were targeting the same object in space. That was the reason why a single MKK-1 missile had been released by each ship to target the bunched up set of two Shaitan missiles together.
By the time the MKK-1 missiles reached the Shaitan missile sets, a fair amount of distance had been put between them and the human ships which had been accelerating in the opposite direction. The human ships had stopped their deceleration just before the MKK-1 missiles were about to reach the Shaitan missiles and had turned 90⁰ again. The moment the MKK-1 missiles detonated, the human ships opened up their acceleration again at full throttle.
The targeting Q-computer of the MKK-1 missiles had no problem in detonating literally in front of the Shaitan missiles because the Shaitan missiles had been forced to remain almost stationary waiting for the human ships to cross. All that the Q-computer had to do was to time the detonation a few milliseconds before the MKK-1 missiles reached the position of the Shaitan missiles to give enough time for the sand to spread a wide enough distance to ensure that the cloud of sand definitely engulfed the missiles. The sand cloud found its mark on both sets of missiles.
There was no spectacular death for the missiles like it had been for the Shaitan warships of the Hadean fleet. But the worst fear of the admiral and the captains came through, when they saw the small flash of a conventional detonation on each of the Shaitan missiles. These were sand missiles after all! That wasn’t even the worst news. Just like the Shaitan nukes, these missiles also had a dead-man’s-switch. So the moment the missiles got killed, they auto-detonated spreading their sand across a large volume of space that the human ships would have to cross in just a few more seconds.
The emergency acceleration at 90⁰ had been started by the human ships, to move away from the center of the sand cloud that their own MKK-1 missiles had created in order to kill the Shaitan missiles. Now, however there was a much larger sand cloud three times in radius due to the detonation of the Shaitan missiles, which needed to be evaded: and there wasn’t enough time!
In the meanwhile the eight MKK-1 missiles, one each targeted at the eight Shaitan warships encircling the plane were playing out their own high speed drama. Since the eight Shaitan warships were approaching from random directions at random speeds to keep up the deception all this while, they were not in exactly a circular formation. Some of the ships were closer to the path of the human ships while others were a bit further. Six MKK-1 missiles had managed to reach their respective
target ships comfortably. Some MKK-1s even had to switch of their minute 1% thrust to avoid overshooting.
The seventh MKK-1 missile had opened up its thruster full throttle in the last few minutes expending the last gasp of its fuel in order to try and reach its target. Stealth and deception was no longer an option for this set of MKK-1 missiles. It had caught that particular Shaitan ship by surprise, who suddenly detected a missile signature heading in their direction at high speed. That particular ship, after wasting precious minutes in confusion had finally started an evasion maneuver, but the MKK-1 had a fair chance of being able to reach its target.
The last MKK-1 missile had also opened up its thrusters in the last few minutes in a desperate bid to reach its target, but this particular Shaitan warship had fortuitously fallen behind the other ships in forming the circle, and hence was a fair distance away from where it was expected to be. The MKK-1 missile targeting this ship had almost no chance of reaching its target before the momentum of the MKK-1 missiles carried it past the plane of crossing.
The six well targeted Shaitan ships had no chance at all. Compared to targeting of the Hadean fleet, targeting these ships was a lot easier. The velocity of these ships compared to that of the Hadean fleet was so slow, that it could be considered that these six ships were almost stationary. In addition none of these ships had any clue that missiles were hurtling towards them at high velocity. They made no evasion maneuvers. Each of the Shaitan warships got those MKK-1 sand missile blown up on their face. First the hull and then the interior of the ships heated up to tens of thousands of degrees and turned into molten slag. Some of that slag evaporated, while the rest solidified back in the cold of space into a lump of metal and carbon.