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.