sky looks like somewhere else. I can’t see any
similarities to the one above us. No moon featured, either.’
‘OK, people,’ said the captain. ‘Minds
on the job. Is this lot still a threat? Answer: no. Does their remaining tech
still pose a threat? That’s what we need to start finding out.’
Over the next twenty-four hours
they searched everything they could for recognisable weapons, ramping up their
bioware so they did not get overly fatigued. The captain kept seconding Marlins
as couriers to send large amounts of tech and equipment to the surface. The
little subs would take items as directed, grasp them in their deployable waldo
arms and mechanical hands and then pass the items up to the waiting lifters
orbiting above them.
‘Chalk one up to the species
killers. Every one of the octopoids is dead,’ said Harry, shaking his head.
The size of the alien city
steadily grew as they mapped the whole area and, looking at what had been left
behind, the crew estimated that the attacking force would have had some
thirty-two hundred individual soldier types. They found references to them in a
nursery with what looked like heroic soldier images on the walls, arguing among
themselves if this was a classic intelligent colony mapped on a type of marine
termite. They kept looking for the class structure and it eluded them. There
seemed to be different types, but how they bred was a mystery, as all the
samples they took from the bodies seemed to be the same.
‘So how come the different types,
if their DNA was the same?’ said Marko.
‘Oh shit!’ Fritz exclaimed.
‘What’s up, Fritz?’ said Harry.
‘It’s armour.’
‘What?’
‘The soldier types have a
different type of body covering. Look around. They have different garments but
not what we would see as normal clothing. Could it denote their class or
position? Look at the nurseries. The adult ones have the same style of outer
covering. Look at what we presumed to be the administration types. Different
again. The ones that we saw in what is the hospital — three different types.
And they’re all dead anyway. No obvious aural capability or speech organs. They
communicate through light. Think about the surface troops as they were
fighting. The skin colours were changing, which begs the question of how would
a language evolve.’
‘Focus, Fritz.’
‘Yeah, sorry, boss. We have been
sampling the bodies all through the eyes, right? Immediate point of entry for a
sampler. They are all the same. We need to find a retirement home to compare
the residents with the little ones in the nursery. That’s the real shape of
them.’
The captain jumped as if he had
been hit.
‘Bloody hell! In that case the
soldiers are carrying a lot of tech that is thought to be flesh? Oh crap!’ He
opened up the comms link and hailed the Gamma Orbital. ‘Gamma AI.
Code 9, code 9! The prisoner aliens you have — they have roughly twice their
body mass in tech. Isolate them immediately!’
‘This is Gamma. I’ll patch
you directly to the MP frigate.’
~ * ~
Four
‘MP Command, what’s the status of your prisoners? We believe they are
carrying large amounts of tech. Isolate them immediately!’
‘They’re in isolation here on the
MP frigate. They are currently being examined, captain. I believe that they are
mindless soldiers. They have shown no attempt to communicate with us. Apart
from a series of colour displays from their bodies I do not believe them to be
a threat. Please carry on with your excellent work investigating, captain. I’ll
continue containing these creatures. My compliments to your crew, and the
Marlin pilots, on a brave series of encounters with these vermin. MP Command out.’
‘Get that fool person back,
Fritz!’
‘No go, boss. No answer. We’re
out of the loop.’
‘What the fuck?! How the hell can
we be out of the loop? Marlin Alpha, have
similarities to the one above us. No moon featured, either.’
‘OK, people,’ said the captain. ‘Minds
on the job. Is this lot still a threat? Answer: no. Does their remaining tech
still pose a threat? That’s what we need to start finding out.’
Over the next twenty-four hours
they searched everything they could for recognisable weapons, ramping up their
bioware so they did not get overly fatigued. The captain kept seconding Marlins
as couriers to send large amounts of tech and equipment to the surface. The
little subs would take items as directed, grasp them in their deployable waldo
arms and mechanical hands and then pass the items up to the waiting lifters
orbiting above them.
‘Chalk one up to the species
killers. Every one of the octopoids is dead,’ said Harry, shaking his head.
The size of the alien city
steadily grew as they mapped the whole area and, looking at what had been left
behind, the crew estimated that the attacking force would have had some
thirty-two hundred individual soldier types. They found references to them in a
nursery with what looked like heroic soldier images on the walls, arguing among
themselves if this was a classic intelligent colony mapped on a type of marine
termite. They kept looking for the class structure and it eluded them. There
seemed to be different types, but how they bred was a mystery, as all the
samples they took from the bodies seemed to be the same.
‘So how come the different types,
if their DNA was the same?’ said Marko.
‘Oh shit!’ Fritz exclaimed.
‘What’s up, Fritz?’ said Harry.
‘It’s armour.’
‘What?’
‘The soldier types have a
different type of body covering. Look around. They have different garments but
not what we would see as normal clothing. Could it denote their class or
position? Look at the nurseries. The adult ones have the same style of outer
covering. Look at what we presumed to be the administration types. Different
again. The ones that we saw in what is the hospital — three different types.
And they’re all dead anyway. No obvious aural capability or speech organs. They
communicate through light. Think about the surface troops as they were
fighting. The skin colours were changing, which begs the question of how would
a language evolve.’
‘Focus, Fritz.’
‘Yeah, sorry, boss. We have been
sampling the bodies all through the eyes, right? Immediate point of entry for a
sampler. They are all the same. We need to find a retirement home to compare
the residents with the little ones in the nursery. That’s the real shape of
them.’
The captain jumped as if he had
been hit.
‘Bloody hell! In that case the
soldiers are carrying a lot of tech that is thought to be flesh? Oh crap!’ He
opened up the comms link and hailed the Gamma Orbital. ‘Gamma AI.
Code 9, code 9! The prisoner aliens you have — they have roughly twice their
body mass in tech. Isolate them immediately!’
‘This is Gamma. I’ll patch
you directly to the MP frigate.’
~ * ~
Four
‘MP Command, what’s the status of your prisoners? We believe they are
carrying large amounts of tech. Isolate them immediately!’
‘They’re in isolation here on the
MP frigate. They are currently being examined, captain. I believe that they are
mindless soldiers. They have shown no attempt to communicate with us. Apart
from a series of colour displays from their bodies I do not believe them to be
a threat. Please carry on with your excellent work investigating, captain. I’ll
continue containing these creatures. My compliments to your crew, and the
Marlin pilots, on a brave series of encounters with these vermin. MP Command out.’
‘Get that fool person back,
Fritz!’
‘No go, boss. No answer. We’re
out of the loop.’
‘What the fuck?! How the hell can
we be out of the loop? Marlin Alpha, have
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