Vanguard (Ark Royal Book 7) (32 page)

Time to gamble
, she thought.

“Raise the Boatswain,” she ordered.  “Tell him I want every shuttle in space, probing through the wreckage.  Draw pilots from other departments, if necessary.  They have thirty minutes to sift through the debris and find something - anything - that might be useful.  All standard precautions when dealing with xenomaterial are to be observed.”

“Aye, Captain,” Parkinson said.

Susan settled back into her command chair, feeling relief mixed with fear.  The aliens
had
been caught by surprise - their answering fire had been almost pathetically ineffectual - but there was no way to know what their superiors had been planning.  Even if they hadn't
intended
to bait a trap, they certainly had an opportunity to do it now.  They’d notice they were missing four ships sooner or later, wouldn't they?

Particularly if they expect the crews to report in every hour
, she thought.  FTL communications messed up
all
of her calculations.  The light-speed bubble surrounding every event in space, showing how quickly word spread from one side of a star system to the other, was now meaningless. 
They’ll know the ships ran into trouble when they don’t reply
.

“The shuttles are being launched now,” Parkinson reported.  “The Boatswain has taken overall command.”

“The Main Shuttlebay is being prepped to Code Blue standards,” Mason added.  “Major Andres has taken command.”

“Good,” Susan said.  She didn't know Andres as well as she’d like, but he was reassuringly competent.  If there was any biohazard from the alien wreckage, he wouldn't allow it to threaten the rest of the ship.  “Evacuate the surrounding compartments, just in case.”

Mason gave her an odd look - she had no difficulty in reading his feelings - but did as he was told.  Susan was quietly grateful.  Perhaps she was being paranoid, yet she would have preferred to take excessive precautions than accidentally bring a genuine biological threat onto her ship.  Or, for that matter, something that wasn't identified as explosive until it was far too late.

And if we do find a piece of alien technology
, she reminded herself,
we might not even understand it for years
.

***

“You remember how to fly this thing?”

“Yes, sir,” George said, as she buckled herself into the pilot seat.  The shuttle was already powering up, ready to leap out of the hatch and into space.  “I haven’t forgotten anything.”

The Boatswain nodded curtly - she’d really taken too long to get her spacesuit on - then turned to his display and hunted for prospective targets within the debris field.  George took the helm, powered the shuttle out into the darkness and steered towards the remains of the alien ships.  Great chunks of debris, many larger than the shuttle itself, were drifting through space, rapidly fanning out in all directions.  She slowed the shuttle as they approached, turning on the lights so they could see the alien debris more clearly.  Much of it looked identical to human debris, right down to the scorch marks.

“One of the shuttles has already picked up a piece of armour plating,” the Boatswain said, as she eyed a chunk of debris.  “See if you can spot anything more interesting.”

“Aye, sir,” George said.  She would have liked to speak with the Boatswain about other matters - Fraser, Nathan’s death - but she knew it would have to wait.  “I’ll take us further into the debris field now.”

She shivered as she nosed the shuttle forward, then cursed as
something
hit the hull hard enough to send shockwaves through the entire craft.  The remains of the alien ship were slowly breaking up, spinning out in all directions.  She had no idea if it was caused by a collapsing gravity field or something else, but it posed a serious hazard.  Standard procedure, from what little she recalled, was to disassemble the debris field carefully - or, if there was no reason to keep it intact, just have it swept up by a mobile recycler.  But there was no time to do the former and only the aliens would be interested in doing the latter ...

“There,” the Boatswain said.  He jabbed a finger into the semi-darkness.  “Hold still while I take a look at that.”

“Aye, sir,” George said.

She gritted her teeth as another piece of debris banged into the hull and watched as the Boatswain peered at
something
.  It looked rather like a piece of charred meat to her, but the Boatswain seemed
very
interested.  And then it occurred to her that the piece of meat was actually a roasted alien and she had to swallow hard to keep from throwing up.  She’d had to explore dead hulks as part of her training, yet this was different.  This was
real
.

“I’m taking this in,” the Boatswain said.  He took control of the shuttle’s manipulators and went to work.  “You are familiar with the Code Blue protocols, aren't you?”

“Everything from an uncontacted alien race is to be kept in strict isolation,” George recited, from memory.  “Once sealed up, the outsides of the boxes are to be bathed in radiation to make sure that any potentially-hostile germs are destroyed.  Crewmen are to wear suits at all times when handling alien materials; any who have any kind of contact are to be held in isolation too.”

“Correct,” the Boatswain said.  He finished using the manipulators to box up the alien remains, then locked them to the hull.  “We haven’t had any direct contact, but they may insist on us remaining in isolation for a while anyway.”

It was hard to keep her expression blank, but George managed it somehow.  She understood the need to take precautions to ensure there was no biological hazard, yet the Code Blue protocols were uncomfortably paranoid.  She’d spent two days in an isolation chamber in the academy and it had been horrendous, even though she’d
known
there was no real danger.  It wasn't something she wanted to do again.

The Boatswain gave her a sharp look - as if he knew precisely what was going through her mind - and then turned his head back to the scanner.  “There’re a few other pieces of debris that have been marked down for collection,” he said.  “We’ll see how many of them we can snatch up before we have to return to the ship.”

“Aye, sir,” George said.

She glanced at the live feed from
Vanguard
as she took the shuttle towards the next piece of interesting debris.  There was nothing moving within the remainder of the system - at least, nothing that
Vanguard
could detect.  And yet, she couldn't help feeling dreadfully exposed - and alone.  If the aliens reappeared, she’d have to throw caution to the winds and fly straight back to the battleship ...”

“Ah,” the Boatswain said, as they approached the next piece of debris.  “This may be something
very
interesting.”

Chapter Thirty-One

Susan had taken the opportunity to review the Code Blue procedures during the long trek through unexplored space, but she was still taken by surprise by the level of precautions Doctor Abramson - one of the xenospecialists from Tadpole Prime - had insisted on building into the shuttlebay.  The shuttles themselves had been largely removed, allowing the researchers to vent the atmosphere in an emergency, while the hatches had been sealed, ensuring that an explosion would not do significant damage to the ship.  If there was any threat, she thought, it would be contained.

And besides
, the darker part of her mind noted,
if anyone wants to try to steal an alien relic, they'd find it a great deal harder
.

She glanced at Prince Henry as Doctor Abramson emerged from the airlock, looking dishevelled.  The suit he’d worn to examine the alien relics had been bathed with radiation before he’d been allowed to undress, then he’d been checked thoroughly for any
hints
that something had managed to get through the suit and into his bloodstream.  There had been no hint that any Tadpole - or Vesy - disease could make the jump into human bodies, or vice versa, but no one dared risk a
War Of The Worlds
scenario.

“Captain,” Abramson said.  “Mr. Ambassador.”

“I don’t have long, Doctor,” Susan said. 
Vanguard
had slipped away from the remains of the alien ships, but there was no way to know when their reinforcements would arrive.  “What can you tell me about our new enemies?”

“Something rather unusual,” Abramson said, as he led the way into a small briefing compartment.  Susan watched, impatiently, as he obtained a cup of coffee from the drinks machine, then sat down heavily at the table.  “Something I really wasn’t expecting to see.”

“Time
is
pressing, Doctor,” Prince Henry said.  “There isn't
time
for a long examination.”

“We’re not facing one alien race,” Abramson said, bluntly.  “We’re facing
two
.”

Susan stared at him.  “Are you sure?”

“Yes, Captain,” Abramson said.  “The shuttle crews recovered thirty-seven chunks of biological matter - dead bodies - from the remains of the alien ship.  Twenty-one chunks belong to members of one race, the remainder belong to another.  There's no hint that they originated on the same world.  I think we’re looking at an alliance.”

Prince Henry frowned.  “What do they look like?”

“I don’t know,” Abramson said.  “We have some of our computer systems trying to extrapolate what we pulled from the bodies to build a picture of their physical appearance, but so far we don’t have a clear idea of what either race looks like.  The extrapolation may tell us or it may be completely wrong.  As for how they met, how they ended up working together ... I don’t know.”

He took a long sip of his coffee.  “I can tell you they’re both oxygen-breathers and probably have very similar life support requirements,” he added.  “They’d need to be quite alike in some ways, just so they could serve together.  Unless, of course, one race was the master and kept the other in uncomfortable positions, purely because it could.”

Susan nodded.  The Vesy weren't
that
different from humans, but they’d find human starships incredibly uncomfortable.  And having the Tadpoles on human ships would be incredibly difficult.  The two races they were facing now had to be practically cousins, even if they had evolved on different planets ...

She looked up.  “Are you sure they’re actually two separate races?”

“Yes,” Abramson said, flatly.  He sounded too tired to be annoyed.  “The differences between human sub-races are largely nominal.  Skin colour, for example, is a very minor difference; there's no reason why two people of different sub-races cannot breed.  Even the differences between male and female are tiny.  Growing an opposite-sex clone of yourself isn't impossible, merely illegal.”

“Yes,” Susan said, dryly.  If two human sub-races had been unable to breed,
she
wouldn't have existed.  “But these are two different races?”

“Yes,” Abramson said.  “They have nothing in common, as far as I can tell; they didn't even originate on the same planet.  I believe one of them is definitely humanoid - there’re hints of a torso and legs in the pieces we recovered - but I don’t know for sure.”

“Two separate races,” Prince Henry mused.  “I wonder how they met.”

Susan snorted.  If the aliens were so virulently xenophobic that they attacked strangers on sight, and it
was
one possible explanation for the battle, why would they make friends with another alien race?  Unless they thought that humans were repulsively ugly ... but they wouldn't even have
seen
humans until after the first contact protocols had been completed, allowing both sides to build up a shared language.  Hadn’t there been a story where the aliens had started a war because humans looked like monsters to them?  She made a mental note to look it up later, then pushed it aside.

“I’ll take your word for it,” she said, addressing Abramson.  “What else can you tell me from the wreckage?”

“Their starship armour is actually a generation behind ours,” Abramson said.  “The chunks we examined were a step ahead of the solid-state armour that shielded
Ark Royal
, but several steps behind
Vanguard’s
armour.  However, there are some odd pieces of circuitry running through the hull that have no purpose, as far as we can tell.  I’ve got a team of experts working on it, but given the damage the ship took in the fighting ...”

“It may have been wrecked beyond recognition,” Susan said.  At least they had
one
advantage.  The aliens would have problems armouring their ships to match
Vanguard
until they duplicated her armour.  But they had plenty of wreckage to play with from the remains of the first battle.  “Did you discover any computer cores?”

“No, Captain,” Abramson said.  “There were pieces of dust within the debris field that
might
have been computer cores, but they were completely beyond salvaging.  Even if we had plenty of time, I doubt we could have recovered anything useful.  We also didn't manage to locate any books, datapads or anything else that might have helped unlock some of the mysteries.”

“So we know very little,” Susan mused.

“We know there are actually two races, not one,” Prince Henry said.  “That’s something we might be able to use, later.  Driving a wedge into an enemy coalition is a respected diplomatic tactic.”

“They were working together, sharing the same starships,” Susan pointed out.  “We don’t share our starships with the Americans, let alone the Tadpoles.  And we’d have no difficulty hosting Americans on our ships.”

Prince Henry shrugged.  “One final question,” he said, addressing Abramson.  “Is there a biohazard?”

“Everything I’ve seen, so far, suggests that there is not,” Abramson said, stiffly.  “However, I would be unwilling to relax the Code Blue protocols until we have completed the final set of tests.  The corpses took a pounding from the destruction of the enemy starship and were frozen when the atmosphere failed.  It would be better to wait.”

“I’m not planning to relax any precautions,” Susan said.  “Is there
any
kind of threat?”

“As far as we can tell, the wreckage is inert,” Abramson said.  “What little pieces of trinkets we picked up are charred and broken.  But we won’t take risks.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Prince Henry said.  “You can go take a well-deserved nap.”

Susan nodded and waited until Abramson was out of the hatch before looking at Prince Henry.  “What do you make of it?”

“Two races,” Prince Henry mused.  “Two races, working together.  Two races that decided to attack two more, without provocation.”

“Assuming they
knew
they were attacking two races,” Susan pointed out.  “They didn't open visual communications with either of us.”

“Tadpole starships are different from ours,” Prince Henry said.  “An American starship could pass for a British starship, particularly if the person who saw the ships was unfamiliar with either fleet, but a Tadpole starship would be unmistakeably inhuman.”

“Human designers have been producing all kinds of starship designs,” Susan said.  “All those plans to build a working
Starship Enterprise
.”

Prince Henry shrugged.  “There are limits to what you can actually build, outside the movies,” he said.  “And many of those fancy designs are unworkable.”

Susan frowned.  “Did the Tadpoles provoke them in some way?”

“I wouldn't have thought so,” Prince Henry said, after a moment.  “They’re a careful race, particularly after the war.  I don’t think they would have lied to us if there had been an ...
incident
during an earlier first contact.  Unless a rogue Tadpole faction made contact ...”

He shook his head.  “If that was the case,” he added, “surely the aliens would have attacked the Tadpoles long before the survey ships reached their star system?”

“Perhaps,” Susan said.  “But they might have overlooked the first intrusion.  Or warned the Tadpoles that
further
intrusions would not be tolerated.”

“They would have told us,” Prince Henry said.  “They are not a secretive race.”

Susan looked at him.  “How would you know?”

Prince Henry’s voice hardened.  “I have lived on Tadpole Prime for the last decade,” he said, sharply.  “In that time, I have worked with the Tadpoles to smooth out diplomatic incidents that could have easily turned into diplomatic ruptures.  I have spoken to triads from many different factions, ranging from ones that respect us to ones that either want to remain isolated or resume the war.  And it is my considered judgement, as Earth’s ambassador, that they may think differently from us, but they are not inclined to be secretive or treacherous.  In many ways, they have upheld the treaty we signed better than ourselves.”

Susan met his gaze evenly.  “In what way?”

“We delayed telling them about the Vesy,” Prince Henry said.  “How easy would it have been for them to delay telling us about our new friends?”

“It was
our
survey ships that found them,” Susan snapped.

“Our survey ships, which reported in to a Tadpole base,” Prince Henry said.  “They could have delayed matters indefinitely, perhaps even arranged for the ships to suffer an accident, one that would keep them from returning home. And yet, instead, they invited us to join the contact mission.  I do not believe that the Tadpoles had any prior knowledge of the new aliens before our ships found them.

“And it was a handful of
Tadpole
ships that covered our retreat!”

Susan put firm controls on her temper.  She was tired and stressed, but she couldn't afford to lose control.  “Very well,” she said.  “I will take your word for it.”

“Thank you,” Prince Henry said, mollified.

“I’m sure Captain Harper will want a conference call after we link up with the remainder of the fleet,” Susan added.  “Will you be attending?”

“I think I should,” Prince Henry said.  “How many others have their doubts about the Tadpoles?”

Susan frowned.  It was human nature to search for a scapegoat when things went wrong, even though she knew from bitter experience - and case studies - that things often went wrong through no fault of anyone.  The fleet had taken a beating, twenty thousand men and women were dead and they were still deep in enemy territory.  It wouldn't be
hard
for the humans to start turning on their alien allies ...

Or vice versa
, she thought. 
Do the Tadpoles blame us for the failure
?