The First Space Lord nodded to the Intelligence Corps officer. “Commander Steenblik?”
Steenblik nodded, then tapped a switch, activating the holographic processor. Ted studied him with some interest. Like most Intelligence Corps officers, there was a blandness about him that would have left him almost unnoticed, at least when compared to line officers. And yet he knew better than to underestimate the sandy-haired young man. The Intelligence Corps recruited only the smartest of officers, men and women willing to work behind the scenes to ensure that the Royal Navy got the intelligence it needed, when it needed it. They’d failed to predict the arrival of the aliens, admittedly, but no one else had done any better.
Unless the conspiracy theories are actually true, Ted thought, as he looked up at the display. If someone did know, that might explain our military build-up…
“The face of the enemy,” Commander Steenblik said, as an alien face appeared in front of them. “This is the most intact body we have, although it is quite badly damaged in several places. By comparing this body with the others, we have been able to put together a comprehensive picture of what the aliens actually look like. However, we still have plenty of unanswered questions about their biology, let alone their society.”
He smiled, rather humourlessly. “Despite being humanoid, they are completely unrelated to humanity,” he continued. “Although we believe that they and we can share the same worlds, the food we found in their stomachs — they have two separate stomachs — would be poisonous to us. We don’t think they can eat our foodstuffs. Their diseases will probably not affect us and vice-versa.”
“So no hope of any human-alien hybrids to end the war,” Fitzwilliam said, dryly. He nodded towards the holographic alien. “What sex is it?”
“Male, we think,” Steenblik said. “We’ve identified organs that seem to serve the role of testes, but the penis seems to be completely retractable… in truth, it will be several months before we can say anything with confidence. All the remaining bodies seem to share the same sexual characteristics, so we are assuming that they’re all male. However, I must caution you that we could be completely wrong. We have very little experience with alien biology.”
“Assuming you're right,” Ted said, “what does this say about them?”
“Nothing for certain,” Steenblik warned. “They may be as sexually restrictive as some of our darker societies or we may simply have failed to recover any female bodies. Statistically, two-thirds of the Royal Navy is composed of men, while certain units are male-only — the Marines, for example. We simply don't know enough to be able to say anything about their society from what little we pulled from the bodies.
“One thing we are fairly sure about is that they need water more than we do,” he continued, rotating the image so they could see the leathery skin. “This might explain the high concentration of water droplets in the wreckage; the aliens need a moist atmosphere to survive. Their eyesight may be better than ours, their bodies slightly weaker… although, again, we have no way to be sure. The alien bodies we recovered may well be atypical.”
Ted nodded, studying the alien. It was ugly as sin, he decided, although the aliens probably felt the same way about humanity. Was that the cause of the war? Had the aliens looked at humanity and decided that they were too ugly to live? Or maybe just that humans were inherently inferior and needed to be knocked down and out before they posed a threat to the alien civilisation?
Or maybe they’re just nasty bastards, he thought. But there was no way to know.
Fitzwilliam coughed. “Can they speak to us?”
“I think they would have real problems speaking English understandably, given the shape of their mouths,” Steenblik admitted. “But they would probably have no difficulty constructing a voder that would allow them to speak to us. We’re currently working on producing something similar, although — as we have no samples of the alien language — it’s all mainly guesswork.”
“There was an attempt to use the First Contact package at New Russia,” the First Space Lord said. “The aliens didn't respond.”
Ted frowned. The First Contact package had been dreamed up in the days when humanity expected to discover a new intelligent race at every new star. It was, in theory, simple to understand, at least for a race that understood enough scientific laws to make it into space. By law, every starship carried a copy, just in case they encountered an alien starship, but it had never really been tested. No one knew just how well it would work when aliens were encountered for the first time.
Not well, he decided. For all he knew, the aliens had interpreted the package as a challenge to do battle. Or maybe they just couldn't understand what they were hearing.
“We have also learned a great deal about alien technology from the battle,” Steenblik said, tapping a switch. The image of the alien vanished. “Their stealth systems, as we believed, are incredibly power-intensive, to the point that the aliens seem unable to use them and fire at the same time. They may also be unable to switch them on and off at will, which is fortunate. If they could, we would be in real trouble.”
Ted snorted. “You mean we’re not now?”
“Worse trouble, then,” Steenblik amended. “It’s possible — although we don’t know for sure — that their stealth systems actually impede their sensors and drives. We’ve been looking closely at the records of the battle and it’s clear that the aliens were slightly out of place when they dropped their stealth and attacked. They may well be unable to see where they’re going while under stealth. We also picked up faint hints that their drives are detectable at very close range; we’re currently programming drones to provide targeting, allowing the alien fighters to be wiped out before they can drop their stealth systems and attack.”
“That would be useful,” Ted agreed. He leaned forward. “Is there anything unusual about the alien hulls?”
“Their composites are not much different from our own,” Steenblik admitted. “There are some unusual points — the aliens seem to have turned their outer hulls into giant superconductors — but that would be well within our capabilities, if we had the need to duplicate it. We’re not sure why…”
“I bet I know,” Fitzwilliam said. “It’s part of their point defence system.”
Ted grimaced, remembering watching as his starfighters were blown out of space, their missiles picked off before they could reach their targets. Casualties had been high, even though the human starfighter pilots had been ready for the aliens this time. The only consolation was that there was no shortage of replacements. Ark Royal had moved from a dumping ground to a prime opportunity for glory and promotion. Assuming, of course, that the newcomers survived the war.
“That’s one theory,” Steenblik agreed. “However, we don't know for sure. Another possibility is that it’s related to their FTL drive; so far, we don’t even have a theory for how they’re able to use tramlines we cannot even begin to access.”
He shrugged. “A full report has been uploaded to the secure datanet…”
“And shared with our allies,” the First Space Lord said. “It was decided at the very highest levels” — he nodded towards a picture of the Prime Minister — “that our intelligence was best shared with the remainder of humanity.”
Ted lifted his eyebrows, surprised. He didn't disagree with the logic — like it or not, the whole human race had to remain united — but he was impressed that the decision had been taken so quickly. But then, there wasn't anything in their findings that would allow the Americans or the Chinese to reverse-engineer any alien tech ahead of Britain. The hell of it was that the human race needed someone to do just that.