Game Reserve: Earth (Shaitan Wars Book 5), Page 23

  With almost all the energy of the blast contained by the external hatch of the airlock, the raging plasma had nowhere else to go but through the flimsy internal hatch of the airlock. The internal hatch vaporized instantaneously. The raging plasma shockwave reached the massive internal compartment wall within milliseconds, vaporizing anything that came in its path. The shockwave was stopped squarely by the compartment wall and bounced back towards the tapering walls of the end section of demon ship.

  The shockwave bounced off the massive walls of the demon ship a few times ringing the entire ship like a bell. It also ensured that any structure larger than a few meters inside this section of the demon ship was smashed to smithereens. The ensuing plasma fire raged on inside for many minutes, turning everything it touched into molten slag. Not too many things caught fire though. It was a testament to the fireproof materials used by the demons.

  The inner surface of the massive hull of the ship in comparison was relatively unscathed. Only the top few inches of the surface turned glowing hot, liquefied momentarily and deformed slightly before cooling down quickly enough in the cold of space to solidify again. If the blast had happened on the outer skin of the hull, one would have had a tough time differentiating it from the already rough external surface. It barely made a difference to the inner skin of the hull for that matter, the texture of which was also rough, though not as much as the outer skin of the hull. It made a major difference at one place, as PFC Johnson had anticipated. The door of the airlock, which had been machined to facilitate a smooth sliding mechanism, melted on the surface and distorted, jamming and fusing the door permanently into place.

  –XXX–

  The Master of the Watch stood in her designated station, her mind momentarily having gone blank. What in the name of the mighty Bothol had just happened? Something very grave had happened within the Ravenous, of that she was sure. The extent and gravity of the situation started dawning upon her when her sister Bodar operators in the command center instinctively started making a loud braying sound, which their species usually did in times of distress and anger. It was a muted version of the banshee scream that the Bodars could make as a war signal, which so terrified the humans.

  Damage report was streaming into the cognitive part of her brain, but her mind was jumping onto the larger implications. The Ravenous was grievously wounded. A third of the mighty hunting shell was totally destroyed from the inside, without the humans even having to make a crack into its shell! The humans didn’t even have the capability to scratch the mighty shell of the Ravenous, let alone crack it; but they didn’t have to – she let them in!

  She was getting increasingly convinced that the assessment of her sisters was right. Perhaps she really was incompetent. Her self-confidence plummeting by the moment, she really looked forward to the Lord of Hunt returning from the surface to take over command of Ravenous. This situation required the competent leadership of someone like the Lord. What was taking the Lord so much time to return?! The attack had been detected almost a whole rotation of the planet ago, and had been intimated immediately. The Lord should have returned by now.

  The Master of the Watch decided that she would play it as safe as possible from this point onwards to prevent screwing up the situation any more than she had already managed thus far. She knew she would be in for massive reprimand and punishment for her incompetence. She just didn’t want to make her personal situation any worse. There would be no further expedition outside to hunt the human boarders. That stupid adventure is what had brought the Ravenous to this situation. There was no way the humans could have gained entry into the Ravenous by themselves. If she hadn’t opened the airlock for the frivolous pleasure of a hunt, this disaster wouldn’t have happened. She wouldn’t make that mistake again. Come what may, she was not opening the airlocks of the Ravenous again. The Bodars already out on the outer surface of the shell would either must kill all the humans there, or die trying. They will not be able to reenter with even a single human still alive.

  When the Lord of the Hunt arrives with her party from the surface, the approaching shuttles would have to scan the entire surface of the Ravenous, ensure that any surviving humans on the outer surface are blown up, before she opens the hangar bays for even the Lord of the Hunt. Whatever delay and inconvenience it may cause to the Lord, was justified given the grave danger if even a single stray human managed to get past the outer hatch.

  The Master of the Watch also canceled the launch of the two Predator attack pods that were ready to launch and hunt down the attacking human ships that had whizzed past the Ravenous. The Predator pods could have quickly caught up with the human ships and made short work of them in a matter of moments. However, the Master of the Watch didn’t want to risk opening the pod bays, however slim the chance of someone entering through them might have been.

  The human ships weren’t an immediate danger to the Ravenous in any case. Let the human ships turn around and return. The Ravenous was still perfectly capable of defending itself and dispatching such puny attack to oblivion. By the time the human ships returned, the Lord of the Hunt would be back in command and she wouldn’t have to bear the burden of command. For the moment she would simply play safe and clam up. What the Master of the Watch didn’t realize was that the decision to play safe would be another addition to the string of bad decisions she had taken over the course of the day.

  –XXX–

  “Regroup and attack Bogey-19.” Chichi broadcast in his local proximity, while trying to steer himself back towards the demon ship from the trajectory he had been flung by his last skirmish with Bogey-3. The tactical program of the battle suit of the Marines had networked and assigned unique ids to each of the demon exiting from the ship. The computers had counted a total of twenty-three demons exiting the ship, while the best guess was that seven had perished in the nuclear blast along with many Marines. This wasn’t the time to count one’s own losses, this was the time to fight. So Chichi commanded his HUD to magnify his target and enhance the image using infrared.

  The timing of the attack had been calculated such that it would start just as the orbiting demon ship entered the night time shadow of the Earth. Attacking in the dark was probably only a psychological advantage in the minds of the Marine. It was likely that for advanced aliens like the demons, it made no difference given the kind of sophisticated scanners and sensors they were likely to have. It however made a big difference to the Marines.

  The suits of the Marines wouldn’t have to fend off the harsh direct rays of the sun that spiked one side of the suit to a few hundred degrees, while the shaded side of the suit remained at a hundred degrees below zero. In the shade of the Earth, the suit wouldn’t have to work overtime to equalize the temperature. More importantly, there was no sudden danger of turning towards the direct glare of the sun and temporarily blinding oneself, even though the suit was smart enough to cut off most of the glare automatically.

  The only bummer fighting in the shade of the Earth was that the Marines were fighting in pitch darkness, getting most of their information from sensors and scanners. In a close up fight like the one the Marines were currently involved, nothing beats visual information. The only light that the Marines could see were the ones they had brought with themselves in the form of the suit lights, and the feeble ‘Earth-light’ that emanated from the night side of the Earth.

  Infrared was the best way to locate suits, both human and demon, against the cold backdrop of the exterior hull of the demon ship or floating in space. Laws of physics dictated that there would be no perfect insulator, so the heat from inside a spacesuit radiated out in the form of infrared. It was easy to distinguish between human suits and the demons. The human suits glowed redder compared to the demons. Either the demon suits maintained a lower internal temperature, or the demons had better insulating material. It could be both.

  Chichi had been tracking the infrared heat signature of the demon tagged as ‘Bogey-3’ by the computer. Four Marines including hi
mself had tackled this particular demon, and the demon had successfully fought them all off for a long time! He had known going into battle that the demons were physically strong, but it was another thing to experience it. This was going to be one bitch of a fight. Chichi sucked in a deep breath and dived into it!

  –XXX–

  “Radiation levels are down to limits that are safe for us inside the suit. The atmosphere has bled off completely from inside, so there is no danger of super-hot plasma either. The internal surface temperature has cooled down to almost ambient temperature. The spiders and the floating drones have not identified any potential hostiles inside; at least none that has survived and is ambulatory. All in all, it seems safe for an expeditionary force to ingress into the ship, sir. They may have to watch out for floating debris though. A lot of small objects floating around inside, and some of them are likely to be sharp and dangerous, Major.” Desmond acknowledged the report he heard from his recon specialist. The insides of the ship had cooled down quickly, thanks to the frigid temperature of space.

  What Desmond wanted was proper damage assessment. How badly was the demon ship damaged? The fact that the Marines had been able to inflict a certain amount of damage to the ship was obvious from the pictures sent back by the spy bots. What was not obvious was how much that damage had affected the functioning of the demon ship. Was it still battle-worthy? Were there any survivors inside? Could the ship still propel and steer itself? Could it still fire at approaching human ships? Would it be still be able to bombard Earth surface if it so wanted? These were question to which he needed urgent answers. Whatever assessment he conveyed to USC Kigali would determine the next course of action in the human battle plan both in space and on Earth’s surface.

  If it had been any other ship but this Goliath of a ship, Desmond would have been far more confident of the destruction wrought inside. With this ship however, Desmond had had a glimpse of the thickness of its outer hull. It was unimaginable by human standards. He couldn’t take the amount of damage caused to this ship for granted. This Goliath ship had displayed no obvious signs of life on the exterior when they had first landed on its skin. No lights, no vibration or hum – nothing to indicate that the ship was operating under its own power. So, there was no obvious way to tell from the outside if the ship was still alive or dead. For that the Marines would have to go inside!

  “Lieutenant Sharma, you are cleared to move in. The bots are already building a detailed topographical, but I want threat assessment from a human being before I give the orders for us to move in. Give me the big picture – is this ship dead or are there things still alive in there.” Desmond gave the orders to Lieutenant Rohit Sharma. The lieutenant acknowledged and ordered his platoon to move in.

  The spy bots were slowly building up the picture inside the dark and devastated chamber of the Goliath ship. It was a chamber and not the entire ship. That much was becoming clear by the minute as the bots lit the dark chamber with focused laser beams and mapped the devastated topography of the inside of the ship. How the rest of the Goliath ship had fared was unclear. The laser beams could not penetrate beyond a certain point, which presumably was a wall. The estimation of the mapping program put the size of the chamber a just under a third of the estimated volume of the ship. That still left more than two third of the Goliath ship’s status unexplained.

  Given the fact that the ship was the size of a small asteroid, and that it could house a fair sized human city within it in three dimensions, if the other two third of the ship was untouched, then it still left a lot of it intact. Even more frustratingly, it told Desmond nothing about the remaining capability of the ship. What demon machinery and instruments were housed in this part of their ship? What capabilities of the ship have they been able to degrade? Do the demons have backup of those systems on the other part of the ship? Has the ships’ propulsion system been affected in any way? Were the engines housed in this section? Desmond had none of those answers, although he was certain that if the rest of the demon ship hadn’t been affected, then the ship still retained the bulk of its weapons. It would be logical to spread the weapons all around the ship.

  The data feeds of all the Marines were being fed automatically to the Kigali, so Desmond didn’t have to report any of it. He, however was getting worried about the impending arrival of the demon shuttles from the surface. With the Marines exposed on the outer hull of the Goliath ship, any demon shuttle hovering over them could pick off the Marines one by one with relative ease. He needed to check with the Kigali if there was any further word on the demon Shuttles that the Resistance had reported taking off from the surface. Before he could open a channel to make the call though, an incoming channel from the Kigali opened. The data started streaming, and the voice of the dispatcher called out.

  “Beta Brigade, be advised. The first group of surface shuttles is inbound and has been spotted by the Resistance observation network from the surface in Tasmania. The estimated ETA according to them is between nine and thirteen minutes. You have one minute less than that estimated time, given the radio signal delay of having traveled to us and then back again to you. Be advised that Tasmania’s best estimate is that there are at the least six but probably no more than ten shuttles in this first group. They have also spotted a second group of shuttles heading up from the surface, but don’t have too much detail on the second group, since it was spotted just over the horizon, still climbing out of the gravity well. This will be the only dispatch you will get out of Tasmania, there will be no further status update on the situation. Their passive monitoring station may have stayed hidden till now, but now that they have broadcast their warning to us, they would most likely be bombed out of existence in the next few minutes. Make the best use of their sacrifice, gentlemen. Dispatch out.”

  Desmond would have spared a moment to honor those brave souls in Tasmania, who most likely sacrificed their lives to send the warning to them, if he had a moment. He didn’t have a moment to lose. The best way to honor the sacrifice would be to make use of it. He needed to get every surviving Marine inside before the shuttles arrived. He no longer had the luxury of giving more time to Lt. Rohit Sharma to sound the all clear. He and his platoon would have to take chances.

  “Lt. Sharma, the timetable has moved up, you have one minute to scout the place before we start coming in. Abandon SOP and spread your Marines around to cover as much ground as you can in this minute. Desmond out.” Desmond barked his order, instructing his lieutenant to abandon the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) of Marines to reconnaissance in groups to avoid being ambushed. The SOP may be safer, but it takes more time.

  Desmond needed to get Chichi and his boys and girls inside ASAP. He needed to instruct them to make a fighting retreat towards the partially open airlock, now permanently frozen into place by the nuke. In all the drama of the nuclear blast and the aftermath, he had forgotten that a lot of demons had exited the ship and that they were in full scale combat with the Marines. Chichi was taking care of that part of the battle, and Desmond decided to check in with him to let him know the situation. As Desmond thought clicked the combat situational awareness display to the fore, he gave out a gasp. Chichi and his men were fighting for their lives!

  –XXX–

  Chichi had heard the dispatch as well. He hadn’t heard Desmond’s instructions to Lt. Rohit Sharma, but in the back of his mind he knew that the Marines, the ones who survived the struggle any way, would have to duck inside the ship for cover very soon. His immediate concern though was to survive the next moment. He already had a puncture at a soft spot in his suit where his hip segment overlapped with breastplate segment of his armor. The puncture had been temporarily blocked by his own blood and the automatically administered sealants of his armor. Although the suits’ medical program informed him that no critical organ had been injured, but there was a massive cut in one of the ligaments. Even a slight twist of the body hurt like hell.

  If that had been the only injury, Chichi wouldn’t have
worried much. Enhanced Marines are expected to carry on fighting with that kind of battle injuries almost at normal capacity. Most muscles and ligaments are reinforced with polymer nanoscale structures grown alongside the natural tissues. They can quickly reconfigure and take up the load of severed ligaments, although it still hurts like mad. What worried Chichi was his other injury.

  The hard section of his breastplate armor. had cracked along with two ribs. Those armored breastplates can almost take the weight of a tank, and his reinforced bones including his ribs were no pushover either. Enhanced Marines’ blood stream supplements that were regularly injected, deposited titanium polycarbonate that attached to the calcium deposits of the bones. Over time these turned into a cladding of hard titanium over the bones of an e-Marine, which provided incredible structural strength.

  Both the armor and his reinforced ribs had cracked under the death grip of the last demon they had managed to kill. Chichi was lucky to be alive. Had the demon taken ten more seconds to die, it would have taken Chichi along with him. The demon had had Chichi pinned nicely and crushing his armor. when someone managed to lop off the soft neck of the demon armor. It was the only weak point that the Marines had found in the demons’ defenses. The demon still held on to Chichi, crushing him even after death, but the Marines had been able to free the Major from the death grip. Unfortunately, three other Marines hadn’t been as lucky as Chichi. They had been crushed and skewered by the demon before it died.

  The crack in the armor was leaking, and it was not as easy to seal off automatically. Chichi needed to take out a utility spray from his pouch and ask someone to take a look at his armor and apply it. The suit had already administered a massive dose of adrenalin and pain killer to Chichi. The pain and the drugs made him slightly delirious and light headed. Somehow through the foggy haze in his brain, Chichi had managed to anchor himself using his magnetic boots back on the surface of the ship, he had taken out his spray and was about to ask a nearby Marine to help him out when he got rammed by the tumble of a demon and multiple Marines latched on to it. Despite being anchored with magnetic boots, Chichi was flung off the surface.