Ark Royal

Chapter Eleven

The remains of the alien craft were almost invisible in the darkness of interplanetary space.

“I'm not picking up very much, beyond chunks of molten metal,” Corporal Henderson reported. “I don’t think we’re going to find anything we can reverse-engineer.”

“At least not immediately,” Charles said. The Royal Marines had a multitude of roles when they weren't actually serving as ground or space troopers. One of them was conducting the preliminary post-battle search for intelligence. Marines, in theory, were trained to recognise danger, something that couldn't always be said of civilian researchers. “The ship was smashed to rubble.”

He shrugged. There were no shortage of stories where a piece of alien technology was captured the first day, reverse-engineered the second and then used to produce a vastly-improved human version the third. It had never struck him as particularly realistic. He knew it could take months to reverse-engineer something produced by the Russians or Chinese — and they were human. How long might it take to deduce the operating principles of a piece of completely alien technology?

Maybe not that long, he told himself. Their technology can't be that different from ours. The laws of science will work the same for them, won’t they?

He glanced down at the scanner as the tiny shuttle nosed its way through the debris cloud. Automated systems were already picking up samples of alien metal, although the first sweeps suggested that alien hullmetal wasn't anything uncommon. The researchers might speculate endlessly on new elements or previously undiscovered composites, but that was rather less than likely. Or so Charles assumed. If they started believing that there was something about alien technology that would be forever beyond humanity’s reach, they would always accept their own inferiority.

There was a ping from the console. “Picking up traces of biological matter,” Henderson said. “Sir?”

“Get it swept up by the drones,” Charles ordered, forcing down the surge of excitement he felt. Despite himself, he desperately wanted to know what the aliens looked like — and what they called themselves. Humanity had no name for them. But while he had seen bodies survive seemingly devastating explosions, he didn't want to raise false hopes. They might have found nothing more than blood and ashes. “Then send them into quarantine.”

“Yes, sir,” Henderson said. He looked up, suddenly. “Will they catch colds and die?”

Charles shrugged. The human race had discovered thirty Earth-like worlds — and seventy worlds that could be terraformed, although it was such a colossal investment that few were prepared to make the effort — but none of them had possessed a viral life form that was actually dangerous to humanity. As far as anyone knew, Earth was the only world that had produced an intelligent race… well, as far as anyone had known. Unless the aliens were actually humans from a prehistoric space-based civilisation — and that seemed absurd — it was clear that there was more than one world that had given birth to an intelligent race.

“I doubt it,” he said, finally. “Chances are that their biology will be so different from ours that our diseases will do little to them — and vice versa.”

Unless someone deliberately engineers a killing disease, he thought, grimly. The Royal Marines had been involved in the suppression of genetically-engineered diseases — there had been several attempts to commit genocide using tailored viruses — and, despite all the international treaties, the world had come alarmingly close to disaster more than once. Maybe we will take the gloves off when the aliens push us to the wall.

He looked down at Henderson, realising — not for the first time — just how young the Corporal actually was. Charles had fifteen years in the Royal Marines, Henderson was barely out of training. He’d never seen any real action, not down on the ground. And Royal Marines rarely won plaudits for serving on starships that went into combat. They were tasked to serve as groundpounders or space troopers, not starship officers.

The console pinged again. “Got something else, sir,” Henderson said. “This one’s a bit bigger.”

Charles nodded. “Send the drones after it,” he ordered. “Then run the live feed through the screens here.”

He looked over at the console as the drones closed in on their target, reporting a steady increase in the density of biological material as they made their way through space. Slowly, something humanoid came into view, illuminated by the lights mounted on the drones. It was damaged, perhaps badly, but it was definitely far from human. Charles felt a chill running down his spine as he gazed into the face of an alien.

There had been no shortage of speculation, he knew, about what the aliens might actually be like. The general assumption had been that the aliens were too alien to realise that war was unnecessary; after all, everyone in academia knew that cooperation was the way forward, not wasteful war. Charles had read speculation that ranged from giant spiders, complete with insect mentalities, to robots that had killed their creators and gone on a rampage across the universe, but the academics had been wrong. The proof was drifting right in front of him.

The alien was humanoid, as far as he could tell, although it — he, perhaps — had clearly lost a leg. His skin was thick and leathery, almost like a humanoid elephant; his eyes were dark and shadowy. There were no clothes, although with skin like that, he realised, the alien wouldn't really need protection from the elements. The remainder of the alien body was damaged, broken and bleeding in a dozen places. It was very clearly dead.

Charles swallowed, then spoke. “Contact the ship,” he ordered. “We’ve found a body.”

He watched as the drones pulled back, waiting for the EVA specialists to arrive. The body would be bagged up, then transported back to the carrier and placed on ice. No one would be allowed to see it, let alone touch it, until they’d taken it safely back to Earth, where it would be examined in a sealed facility. He was fairly sure that alien bugs wouldn't be lethal to humanity, but there was no point in taking chances. Besides, everyone and his aunt would want to see the body.

“It doesn't look friendly,” Henderson commented. The normally bouncy young man — there were a handful of sharp remarks about the need for discipline in his file — sounded subdued, almost terrified. “Do you think they’re all helplessly evil?”

Charles looked down at the screen. The alien did look unfriendly, he had to admit; his jaws were filled with sharp teeth, set in a permanent grimace. But that meant nothing, he knew; the alien might easily be smiling instead, or merely screaming in agony as his body froze to death. Besides, he’d seen plenty of humans who had looked dangerous — or merely unpleasant — only to discover that looks could be deceiving.

“I think you shouldn’t judge someone by their looks,” he said, dryly. “Unless they’re pointing a gun at you, of course.”

He wondered, briefly, what the various human-alien friendship protest groups would make of it. There had been no shortage of idiots willing to believe that the human race had started the war, perhaps by settling a world the aliens had already claimed… although, if that was the case, why hadn't they made contact rather than simply opened fire? Somehow, he doubted the human race would have been stubborn if the aliens explained that they’d gotten to Vera Cruz first. And, even if they had removed the humans by force, why carry on to attack New Russia? And then start an advance on Earth?

There was no way to know. Human morality might mean nothing to the aliens — and there were dozens of human groups with their own versions of morality. Maybe the aliens thought that exterminating every other form of life was a holy duty or maybe they considered themselves the masters of the universe, with everyone else battered into slavery. Charles could imagine a dozen motives for the attack that were heartless and cruel, but not unprecedented. Hell, maybe there was an alien emperor who wanted to start a war in the hopes it would distract attention from problems at home.

He watched, grimly, as the alien was bagged up, then returned his attention to sweeping through the remainder of the debris field. Any hopes he might have had for recovering alien technology seemed as unlikely as ever; the largest chunk of debris they found was nothing more than a piece of alien hull. Several of the other searchers picked up alien bodies, including one that seemed almost completely intact. They were bagged up and returned to the carrier too.

The intercom buzzed. “Return to the Old Lady,” the XO ordered, flatly. “We’re going back to Earth.”

“I had a preliminary look at the pieces of debris,” Anderson reported, “but most of them are too badly battered to be understandable.”

Ted nodded, sharing a long look with his XO. He hadn't really expected any ground-shaking discoveries, apart from the alien bodies, but it was still disappointing. It would have been nice to recover an alien plasma weapon intact so it could be reverse-engineered…

He shook his head, dismissing the thought. “What can you tell us about the alien ships?”

“Their hulls are actually stronger than one of our modern carriers, but weaker than Ark Royal’s armour,” Anderson said. “There's nothing particularly… alien about the composite they use, it’s merely something that might prove more resistant to plasma blasts. I think we can place it into production ourselves in short order, although it would still take months — more likely years — before we could sheath all of the modern carriers in alien-derived armour.”

“They might want to start building new carriers from scratch,” Fitzwilliam observed. “And battleships too.”

Ted nodded. Mass drivers had been the most effective weapon humanity had found, so far, and he could see the value in producing hundreds of mass driver-armed starships. If Ark Royal’s limited system had been able to wreck havoc, an entire fleet of such starships would be unstoppable. Hell, they could just start by rigging mass drivers onto the hulls of escort ships, then produce a more formal design later.

“It takes upwards of a year to produce a modern carrier — longer, of course, to produce something like the Old Lady,” Anderson reminded him, stroking the desk absently with one hand. “New carriers will be required, eventually, but it will be quicker to modify the ones we have.”

“The Admiralty can decide that,” Ted said. He keyed a switch, accessing a secure data store and displaying the images of the alien bodies. “The face of the enemy, gentlemen.”

He smiled at their reactions to the alien face. In proper lighting, he couldn't help thinking of a amphibious creature. The alien might be equally at home in and out of the water, he decided; their leathery skin and the absence of any protective garment suggested that they were actually tougher than humans. It seemed odd to consider a starship crew that were completely naked — even if they had no nudity taboo, surely they would need protection against accidents — but maybe it worked for them. There was nothing that suggested the alien’s sex, at least as far as he could tell.

“Ugly bastards,” Farley said, finally. “And tough too.”

“Very tough,” Doctor Jeanette Hastings agreed. She leaned forward. “As per regulations, I transferred the bodies into storage tubes rather than attempting to study them myself. However, I can tell you, just from a visual inspection, that the aliens are definitely tough — and probably faster than they look. Judging from the shape of their eyes, they’re used to a darker environment than humanity; they’re probably far more capable of seeing in the dark without technological aid.”

Fitzwilliam smiled. “What gender are they?”

“Impossible to tell without an autopsy,” Jeanette said. “I was unable to locate anything resembling either a penis or a vagina through visual inspection. They look humanoid, but they don't have to breed like humans. They could lay eggs, for example, or they might have a biological caste system and the bodies we’ve recovered belong to a caste that doesn't breed.”

She shrugged. “I did take a look at some of the recovered blood,” she added. “They’re biologically incompatible with us, so any dreams of cross-racial hybrids will remain just that — dreams.”

Ted rolled his eyes. If there was one great disadvantage to the planetary datanet that linked Earth together, it was that it allowed hundreds of kooks to feel that they were not alone. One pressure group, in particular, believed that the aliens wanted to mate with human women to produce pointy-eared hybrids. The fact that this was biologically impossible — humans couldn't produce offspring with their closest relatives in the animal kingdom, let alone creatures from a completely different biological system — never seemed to have crossed their minds.

“Glad to hear it,” he said, dryly. He looked around the table. “We will proceed back to Earth within the hour, bearing the recovered bodies with us. Should we consider leaving teams behind to continue the search?”

“We’ve inspected most of the debris,” Anderson said. “I don’t feel that there will be any important discoveries made from the remainder, sir. Most of it is just pieces of alien hull; anything that might be useful has been firmly melted down into scrap metal. I suspect that Earth will dispatch a post-battle assessment team to check out the remainder anyway.”

“They probably will,” Ted agreed. He suspected that the other interstellar powers would send their own teams. Britain gaining access to alien bodies — and technology — might upset the balance of power. Or it would have, if anything they found wasn't shared. With a powerful alien race breathing down their necks, it was unlikely that the Admiralty would see fit to classify the recovered bodies and data. “Overall… do we have any better idea of where to look for the alien homeworld?”

Anderson and Jeanette exchanged glances, then Anderson shook his head. “I doubt it,” he said. “It's possible that something might turn up, once the post-battle teams arrive in the system, but it's unlikely.”

Ted had his doubts. The security officers had gone through Ark Royal and discovered an alarming amount of data — unsecured data — that could point the aliens towards Earth. He knew the computer cores were designed to wipe themselves, then melt down into puddles of molten liquid, but books and diaries were far less secure. But how many of them would be comprehensible to the aliens?

He stood. “Inform your departmental heads that they have all performed brilliantly,” he ordered, as they rose to their feet. “We have good reason to be proud of what we have done today. Dismissed.”

Fitzwilliam waited for the room to clear, then walked over to stand beside his commander. “I have a report on repairs,” he said, quietly. “We can fix up the damage within a day or two, even without outside help.”

“I know,” Ted said. Ark Royal had been designed for long-duration cruises, after all. “But we do have to return to Earth.”

He wondered, briefly, what the Admiralty would make of the victory. On one hand, it was a stunning reversal of fortunes; on the other, it implied that there was only one starship capable of standing up to the aliens. But then… there was no reason why mass drivers and other weapons couldn’t be deployed to defend Earth very quickly. Hell, after the first reports of the battle had made it back to humanity’s homeworld, preparations had probably already started.

“Understood, sir,” Fitzwilliam said.

“Go to the bridge, then lay in a course,” Ted ordered. “I’ll join you before we leave the system.”

He closed his eyes as soon as the XO left, leaving him alone. The victory hadn't come cheaply, he knew, even though the aliens had suffered worse by an order of magnitude. Thirty-two starfighter pilots dead, ninety-two officers and men on the destroyed frigate… that weapon was going to be a major problem. It was quite possible that a close-range duel with one of the alien craft would be impossible.

And they'd all died under his command.

Angrily, he pushed the guilt aside and opened his eyes. A naval career, even one spent on an isolated asteroid mining station, always carried the risk of a violent death. No one joined the navy believing it to be safe. Hell, space was never safe. The civilian death rate was actually higher than the navy’s, although civilian starships tended to operate far closer to the margins than naval starships. He knew that to be true. But somehow it didn't make his task any easier.

Gritting his teeth, he strode out of the Briefing Room and marched towards the bridge, almost tripping over several boxes of spare parts someone had stowed in the passageway. He made a mental note to discuss it with his XO. As important as it was to cram the ship to the gunwales with spare parts, it was equally important not to impede the crew from rushing to battle stations when the alarm sounded.

“Captain,” Fitzwilliam said, when he stepped through the airlock. “Our course is laid in, ready to go.”

Ted took his command chair and nodded. “Take us home,” he ordered. It felt good to say it, even though part of him worried over the reaction from the Admiralty. Would they have expected him to destroy the entire alien force? “Best possible speed.”

He smiled to himself, wanly. A week ago, crewmen assigned to Ark Royal had been mocked by their fellows. The Old Lady was ancient, a relic of a bygone era… there had been several fights, which had been broken up by the local police. But who, he asked himself, would be laughing now? The Old Lady had more than proved herself in combat.

Good, he thought, patting his command chair. Now we just have to win the war.