Ark Royal (50 page)

The thought nagged at him as he saw his target fall to the deck and lie still.  If they’d been facing humans, they would have been shouting demands for surrender in every language they thought their opponents faced.  Not that it would have been enough, for some humans; insurgents and terrorists knew what to expect if they fell into military hands.  They rarely surrendered – and, unless there were hostages or human shields, they were rarely given a chance to fight back.  But the aliens ... how could they tell them to put their hands up when they couldn’t speak to them?

We have to fix this problem
, he thought.  Another series of explosions shook the deck as the Marines blasted their way through an alien strongpoint.  It looked as though the aliens were organising their defence on the fly, which was fortunate.  Given time, they could have stalled the Marines long enough to blow the ship. 
Somehow, we have to get them to surrender
.

“I’ve found a tube, sir,” one of the Marines called.  “That’s how they’re evading us.”

“Snaky little bastards,” another Marine observed.  “
We
couldn't fit in that tube.”

“Not unless we start recruiting children,” Charles agreed, as he saw the alien tube.  It looked like a Jefferies Tube from a human starship, but it was alarmingly thin, too thin for the Marines to use even without armour.  The tubes on
Ark Royal
were wide enough for human adults to use; the alien tubes were simply too thin.  But, given their biology, it probably wouldn't be a problem for the aliens.  “Send drones up it, then seal the hatch and hope they can't break out again.”

He scowled.  It was easy enough to imagine the aliens using the tubes to sneak past human strongpoints and take them in the rear.  Hell, humans planned to do the same thing if their ships were boarded.  But these tubes couldn't be sealed so easily, nor could the aliens be flushed out.  They’d have to start cutting through the bulkheads just to get at the aliens hiding within the tubes, doing untold damage to the alien command and control system.  Normally, that wouldn't have been a problem.  But now, when they needed the alien ship largely intact ...

“Keep moving,” he ordered.  Somehow, they had to take the fight out of the aliens, but how?  “Don't give them a moment to relax.”

Charles let the NCOs lead the advance while he fell back, thinking hard.  What did they actually
know
about the aliens?  They seemed to breathe the same atmosphere as humans, but they liked it hot and moist ... indeed, when the alien captives had been shown how to alter the temperature in their cell, they’d cranked it up as far as it would go.  Could they cool down the ship, making the aliens sluggish?  But how could they do that without cracking open the hull and releasing the atmosphere?  What about gas ...?

But they had no idea what gases designed to stun or kill humans would do to the aliens.

His HUD bleeped again as the final outline of the alien ship lay in front of him.  The analysts were adding their notes to the combat datanet, pointing out how similar – in many ways – the alien ship was to human starships.  Charles dismissed their work angrily, cursing the distraction under his breath, then issued orders to his Marines.  The alien engineering compartment lay dead ahead of them.

“They’re fighting like mad bastards to hold the bridge, sir,” Captain Jackson called.  “We may need to use grenades.”

Charles winced.  A human bridge had all of its vital components armoured under the deck, allowing attackers to lay waste to the command consoles without doing any real damage.  But what if that wasn't true for the alien ship?  They could smash up the bridge, only to discover that they’d accidentally crippled the whole ship.  And yet ... the longer they waited, the greater the chance the aliens would succeed in blowing up the ship.  Right now, Charles knew that
he
would be preparing the self-destruct.  Their position was hopeless.  All that remained was to take as many of the humans with them as they could.

“Do it,” he ordered.  He hesitated, then added an additional order.  “Use gas first, see what it does.  Then use HE if there’s no other alternative.”

“Understood, sir,” Jackson said. 

Charles tore his attention back to the main engineering compartment, just as the main door crashed inward, revealing a compartment that was strikingly different from its human counterpart.  The modular design he had expected was non-existent; instead, all of the alien subsystems appeared to be linked together into a single unprotected mass.  It made no sense to him; half of the systems appeared to be exposed to any stray shot or power surge.  Or were the aliens in the middle of trying to blow up the ship when the Marines burst in?

“The gas seemed to make them convulse,” Jackson reported, as the Marines slowly advanced into the engineering compartment.  The aliens seemed to have vanished completely, abandoning the section.  “They weren't in any fit state for a fight.  We’ve taken them prisoner.”

The bridge crew
, Charles told himself.  “Keep a sharp eye on them,” he ordered, remembering how bendy and flexible alien bodies could be.  Standard zip-ties might not be enough to keep them helpless, not if they could flex their way out of the tie.  “Actually, secure them thoroughly.  We don't know how easily they can escape.”

“Yes, sir,” Jackson said.

The Marines prowled through the deserted compartment, looking for the aliens.  There was so much interference in the section that the nanoprobes, otherwise very useful at tracking alien movements, were largely useless.  Charles heard bursts of interference over the datanet, wondering absently just what the aliens used to operate their starships.  Nothing human produced such effects, of that he was sure.  Or would human fusion cores produce interference, if they were unshielded?  The prospect of fighting in a radiation-filled zone was chilling.  But the battlesuits weren't reading any dangerous radiation in the vicinity.

“It's like they abandoned the entire section,” Corporal Pollock said.

Charles rather doubted it.  There were four compartments on a human starship that had to be held at any cost; the bridge, main engineering, the armoury and life support.  Losing control of one of them could mean losing control of the ship.  The contingency plans the Marines had practiced for
Ark Royal
included stationing a whole platoon of armoured Marines in all four locations, ready to repel attack or buy time for the ship to be destroyed.  But the aliens seemed to have retreated instead ...

The mists grew heavier as they advanced, making it harder and harder to see.  Charles sensed the tension among his Marines, understanding and cursing it at the same time.  What they couldn't see
could
hurt them – and the tension would make them fire off a shot at nothing, sooner or later.  And then he saw very definite movement, something twitching ...

“Keep back,” he ordered.  Something was barely visible in the gloom.  “Sergeant ...”

The Sergeant advanced forward, weapon at the ready.  Charles silently cursed the rules that forced him to stay back, then almost jumped as the Sergeant swore out loud.  “Sir,” he said, “they’re dying.”

Charles threw caution to the winds and ran forward.  There was a heap of alien bodies, twitching unpleasantly, lying at the far end of the compartment.  Several of them were already dead – even when sleeping, according to the doctors, they moved constantly – and others were definitely dying.  Their skins, normally bright vivid colours, were shading down towards the murky grey he remembered from the first body.  But what did it mean?

“They thought they were going to be captured,” the Sergeant speculated.  “Instead, they chose to die”

Charles nodded, then listened as reports started to come in from the rest of the ship.  Some aliens had been captured, but others had killed themselves, either through poison or simply shooting themselves in the head.  Were they that fearful, Charles asked himself, of being taken prisoner?  For all he knew, the aliens had a long tradition of murdering prisoners ... although the treatment of their human captives seemed to suggest otherwise.  But they’d also drugged the humans mercilessly ...

He shook his head.  That too was something that might be answered when human analysts went prowling through the alien ship, trying to recover computer files.  There was a great deal of information in any standard teaching program on humanity, from biology to psychology.  The aliens had probably cracked the systems they’d taken from Vera Cruz by now, if they hadn't recovered any from the
Heinlein
.  But then, the aliens wouldn't really have had to work hard.  Civilian teaching machines weren't designed to make it
hard
to learn.

“We need to find a way of talking to them,” he said, as the prisoners were hauled back towards where the shuttles were docked.  It would take some ingenuity to link up the shuttle’s airlock to the alien ship, but they didn't have any spacesuits suitable for the alien captives.  “Some way to tell them that they won't be killed on sight.”

He fought down the urge to rub his forehead.  There was no way to touch his skin through the suit.  “And contact
Ark Royal
,” he added.  “Tell them ... tell them that the ship is ours.”

And hope that the engineering crew can make use of it
, he added, silently. 
Because alien reinforcements are already on their way
.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

It had taken a considerable amount of polite arguing before Ted had been able to convince Commander Fitzwilliam that he should be allowed to board the alien craft.  Captains were not supposed to risk themselves, Fitzwilliam had pointed out, reminding Ted that most television or datanet programs were grossly unrealistic.  Ted had countered by reminding his XO that the alien ship had been rendered safe and he was damned if he wasn't going to take a look at it, just once.  He certainly had never expected to be able to visit an alien ship before the war started – or even after it, for that matter.

Oddly, the alien craft was slightly disappointing.  Once he’d come to terms with the moist atmosphere – the doctors insisted on everyone using breathmasks until they were sure there was nothing harmful in the alien atmosphere – he’d realised that there wasn't anything too different from human technology at all.  Part of his mind realised that wasn't actually a bad thing – something based on completely different principles would require
years
to unravel, if it could be unravelled at all – but he couldn't help feeling as if some of the wonder of the universe had faded away.

He couldn't help envying the aliens for the sheer amount of
joy
they'd worked into their creation.  Human starships were boxy, built more for utility than elegance; the only truly elegant human ships were the handful of luxury liners that plied the tramlines between Earth and the various wonders of the human sphere. 
They’d
been  built by shipping corporations willing to expend the money to design ships that
looked
spectacular, despite the inefficiencies.  The aliens, it seemed, cared less for cost and more for elegance.

Or maybe there’s something in them that wants to beautify their ships
, he thought.  There were human movements that wanted to produce ships identical to science-fantasy ships from the previous two centuries.  Most of
them
were utterly unworkable, at least as military starships, but civilian models could work if someone put up the cash. 
Wouldn’t we, if we could get it to work
?

“We’ve moved the prisoners to
Ark Royal
,” Major Parnell said, when Ted finally reached the alien engineering compartment.  “None of them talked to us, so we put them in with the others, in hopes they would speak.”

Ted nodded.  The more samples of alien words they recorded, the quicker it would be to decipher the alien tongue.  “And the self-destruct?”

“We accidentally disabled it, according to the engineers,” Parnell admitted.  “We got lucky, sir.”

“I know,” Ted said.  He looked over at Anderson, who seemed to have merged a chunk of human technology into an alien control system.  “What can you tell me?”

“Good news and bad,” Anderson grunted.  The engineer pulled himself away from the merged system with obvious reluctance.  “I think I've figured out how they extend the range of their FTL drive; they actually create a stream of gravity pulses that boost the potential tramline into reality long enough for them to use it.  It's actually much more flexible than we realised, sir.  We may discover that there are more than two tramlines in this system.”

Ted blinked in surprise.  “How do you figure that?”

He held up a hand.  “Spare me the technobabble,” he said, quickly.  “Just plain English, please.”

“There's a difference between potential tramlines and real ones,” Anderson said.  “Our assumption was that it was impossible to actually do more than ride the tramlines we knew to be real.  But this left us with the mystery of why some tramlines exist and others do not – or at least
seem
not to exist.  It’s possible that space is threaded with potential tramlines the aliens might be able to activate at will.”

“I see,” Ted said.  There were five known tramlines leading from the Sol System to various destinations, nine counting the projected
alien
tramlines.  But what if there were more?  The aliens might be able to leapfrog across far more of humanity’s territory than the Admiralty had realised.  “Can we duplicate the system?”