Dreadnaught

After Vente left, Geary ordered the fleet’s support systems to provide him with more frequent and detailed updates on Invincible’s status. Give me a reason to relieve this man of command. Anything that I can justify. And let’s hope it happens soon.

THE medical representatives were looking around the fleet conference room with ill-concealed curiosity. Attendance at the conferences had been increasingly restricted in recent decades, as the conferences degenerated into freewheeling political contests to decide fleet commanders and vote on courses of action. By the time Geary was awakened from survival sleep, it was rare for anyone but the commanding officers of the fleet’s ships to attend such meetings. But Geary had imposed much more discipline, and the conferences no longer featured the same fireworks, which probably explained the disappointment the doctors were showing.

The surgeon who had been in charge of the alien autopsy was giving a presentation, accompanied by virtual images that would have been stomach-turning for nonphysicians even if the images hadn’t been three-dimensional and as real-looking as if actual body parts were floating over the conference table. “We can’t be certain why this specimen survived as well as it did, but an analysis run using injury re-creation software rates as a high probability that the individual represented here was not physically aboard the freighter when it was destroyed. A reanalysis of records from the last moments of the freighter’s existence identified a stealthy object being ejected from the freighter several seconds before it exploded.”

“An escape pod?” Duellos asked in surprise.

“Very likely. The distance and the structure of the pod itself would have shielded the occupant a bit.” The surgeon indicated various organs. “Enough of the neck survived to identify a dual breathing system. We believe this skin flap would close, diverting breathing intake from this multichambered lung to these organs. They were very delicate, and not much has survived, but we think it likely that they worked the same way gills do.”

“Amphibious in every sense of the word!” Dr. Setin exclaimed, pleased that his experts had called that one.

“Most likely,” the surgeon responded. “There’s not enough left of the eyes to be certain what wavelengths they were optimized for. It may have had six appendages, though how many of those are arms and how many legs is impossible to say from the state of this sample. We can identify the probable functions of most of the organs we found, but there’s not much of those. It’s clearly a carbon-based life-form, similar to our own basic makeup, and oxygen-breathing. The brain was very badly damaged. We can approximate the size, but identifying functional areas will be extremely difficult. One thing that does seem apparent is that the brain lacks bilateral symmetry. In more primitive alien life-forms that we’ve seen on human-colonized worlds, this translates into a lack of right- or left-handedness.”

“Can you tell what it eats?” someone asked.

“No. The digestive system is completely gone except for a few scraps. It could be a carnivore, a vegetarian, or an omnivore.”

“Did enough of the fingers remain to see if it had fingernails or claws?” Dr. Shwartz asked.

“One of the fingers was intact enough to see a hard structure on the end, sort of like a conical fingernail covering the tip.”

“That could be used to kill prey, or to dig up vegetables,” Shwartz commented.

Commander Lomand, Titan’s commanding officer, had been listening intently and gestured for attention. “Sir, you spoke of gills. You’re certain that this creature had water-breathing capability?”

The surgeon nodded. “Yes.”

“We’ve seen some of where they live,” Dr. Setin interjected. “Towns and cities that straddle the coastline rather than sitting on one side or the other. Water is an amazing substance, you know. Incredibly useful. Oxygen is a powerful source of fuel, so there’s no surprise in seeing another highly evolved species using it. And carbon is immensely flexible. They’re all tailor-made for supporting complex life. Most of the advanced life-forms we’ve found are carbon-based and oxygen-breathing.”

Commander Lomand’s fingers had been tapping out some rapid calculations, and he gave a cry of satisfaction. “I’ve run some initial calculations, Admiral, and checked them with some engineers on Titan who have some ship design expertise. We’ve observed the ability of the alien warships to accelerate and maneuver faster than our own ships can. If the alien warships are filled with water, instead of atmosphere, it would cushion the crew against the forces of acceleration, adding considerably to the effectiveness of inertial dampers.”

“Enough to explain the ability to maneuver that we’ve seen?” Commander Neeson demanded.