Ark Royal

Chapter Thirty

Charles suppressed the urge to whoop and cry hurrah as the shuttles plunged through the planetary atmosphere, lurching from side to side as if they expected the alien ground-based defences — if there were any defences — to open fire at any moment. This was what he'd signed up for, a daring combat drop right into the heart of enemy territory. Maybe the enemy weren't as heavily armed as he assumed they would be, when the human military actually hit an alien colony world, but it was still a combat drop. Drills just weren't the same.

“Ten seconds,” he called, as the shuttle lurched violently. There was no incoming fire, thankfully, but he was sure it was just a matter of time until they hit a heavily-defended world. By then, the lessons from a reasonably placid combat drop would have to be learned and learned well. “Five seconds…”

He was first out of the shuttle, as it should be. The magnetic field tossed him through the hatch and sent him plunging down towards the world below. Beside him, combat drones came online, spoofing enemy sensors and giving them a multitude of targets to engage… if they’d had anything to use to engage the onrushing humans. Behind him, the remainder of the Marines streamed out of the shuttle. He spared a moment of sympathy for the damn reporter — no matter how hard he’d worked over the last few days, he was utterly unprepared for a combat drop — then turned his mind back to the landing. Below, the alien camp was rapidly coming into view.

The chute popped bare seconds before he would have hit the ground, yanking him to a slow fall that allowed him to land reasonably gently. It disintegrated a second later as Charles moved forward, weapons and sensors searching for targets. The combat datanet came online as the other Marines landed, most of them fanning out in a wide circle around the alien camp. A smaller group would take care of the alien buildings to the south, dealing with any defences as rapidly and brutally as necessary, but taking aliens alive if possible. Charles knew better than to think that taking prisoners would be easy, yet he knew the human race needed to learn to understand its foe.

Pushing the thought aside, he led the way towards the alien camp. The wall surrounding it was solid metal; despite seeing it from orbit, he’d expected to discover that it was actually a fence when they hit the ground. It seemed excessive, somehow. The alien guards swung around, then opened fire, confirming Charles’s suspicion that the aliens had managed to construct plasma weapons that could be comfortably carried by a single soldier. Each of them, he recognised unwillingly, was capable of burning through a Marine-issue battlesuit…

“Return fire,” he ordered. Shots rang out as the Marines engaged their targets. He saw an alien head disintegrate as an armour-piercing bullet, intended to punch through armour comparable to the armour the Marines themselves wore, slammed through its target and went onwards. “Take them all out.”

Two Marines fell, alerts popping up in his HUD, as they rushed the camp, but the aliens suffered worse. Despite not being taken by surprise, they had had no time to prepare proper defences before the Marines came down and surrounded them. Charles couldn't help wondering if the aliens had seriously believed the human forces would never reach the camp or if the soldiers guarded it had been rated as expendable. But the aliens still fought, no matter how helpless their position, and died in place. Charles found himself caught between a kind of reluctant admiration and a cold, dispassionate disdain. The aliens could have withdrawn from the camp before the Marines landed and saved their lives.

The camp’s gateway was another piece of solid metal. Charles muttered orders and the demolition team went to work, blowing the gateway right off its hinges. Inside, he saw a handful of metal buildings — they looked to have been designed by humans, rather than aliens — and a number of human prisoners, staring at the Marines as if they were creatures from another world. All of them were naked, even the women and children. It made sense, he knew; it was hard for a naked human to conceal a weapon. Hell, the aliens weren't likely to be interested in human bodies…

…But it still didn't make it any easier to bear.

“Most of them are clearly Mexican,” Yang muttered. “But some of the others are not so recognisable.”

He was right, Charles realised. Who would have thought that the reporter had actually come in useful? Pushing the thought aside, he activated his suit’s speakers. It struck him, a moment later, that they might not actually speak English, before dismissing the thought as absurd. English was a common second language in space, as well as the official language for all deep space activities. Most of the POWs would definitely speak English.

“Attention,” he said. The POWs still looked listless, despite the appearance of salvation. It bothered him more than he cared to admit. “We’re the Royal Marines, from Earth. We’re here to take you off this mudball, assuming you want to go.”

The shuttles flew lower, then dropped down towards the cleared LZ. For once, the POWs showed some reaction — absolute terror. Charles blinked in surprise, wondering if they would have to knock the POWs out just to get them onto the shuttles, then relaxed as the shuttles touched down. As soon as the roar of their engines faded away, the POWs relaxed and stopped panicking.

“Women and children first,” Charles ordered. Thankfully, the POWs didn't seem inclined to argue. “Get into the shuttles and strap yourselves down. Hurry!”

A team of Marines swept the camp as the naked women and children made their way towards the shuttles. The medic — the closest thing they had to a war crimes assessor — reported that the camp’s water contained a combination of various drugs. One of them would make the POWs listless and biddable, another heightened their fears while dampening their other emotions. At least that explained why the POWs had been able to endure their nakedness, the medic concluded, but he had no idea what the long-term effects of such treatment would be.

“The drug has some similarities to a number of penal drugs,” he said. “They may well have taken them from our supplies, perhaps from New Russia.”

Charles shuddered. Before discovering a suitable world for housing dangerous criminals and lacking the political backing to execute them, the human race had experimented with various forms of drugs to control their behaviour. Some of them permanently dampened sexual ardour, others encouraged compliance and obedience. But none of the drugs had been completely effective, he recalled, or they turned out to have thoroughly unpleasant side effects. He found it hard to care about murderers or child molesters who’d been forced to take the drugs, but it was alarmingly easy to imagine them being used for less savoury purposes.

He turned to watch as the remaining women were shoed into the shuttle by the Marines, then looked back at the medic. “Can they be purged of the drugs?”

“I imagine they’re in for a rough few weeks,” he said, shortly. “Like all such drugs, they can be quite addictive if taken regularly. But after that they should be fine.”

Charles had his doubts. Back during his first year of training, there had been a young recruit who had been a drug addict before trying to join the military. Somehow, he’d stayed clean long enough for routine drug screening to miss him, but eventually his body’s demands for the drug had become overpowering. He'd fallen off the wagon and he'd fallen off hard.

“Make sure the doctors on the carrier know the situation,” he ordered. “And you can detach yourself to assist them if necessary.”

He strode through the rest of the camp, examining it quickly. It was actually nicer than some of the camps he’d seen on Earth, complete with hot and cold running water, surprisingly comfortable beds and regular food. A quick check revealed that the aliens were feeding their captives proper meals, rather than nutrient mush or something edible, but tasteless. Charles couldn't help frowning as he walked back out of the building, wondering at their odd behaviour. One moment they attacked mercilessly, the next they treated their captives with a curious mixture of kindness and ruthlessness.

The remaining POWs started to panic again as the shuttles took off, clawing for the sky. Some of the Marines attempted to calm them, but it was impossible until the shuttles had vanished into the wild blue yonder. Charles looked at the panic in their eyes and found himself wondering, despite the medic’s words, if they would ever be normal again. The drugs had clearly influenced their behaviour… and not for the better.

His radio buzzed. “Sir,” one of the Marines said, “I think you should take a look at this.”

Charles located the Marine on the datanet, then walked back to one of the buildings in the centre of the camp. Corporal Glen was standing by a hatch, pointing to it with an armoured hand. Charles followed the pointing hand and frowned as he saw English letters written on the metal. Robert A. Heinlein. For a moment, he puzzled over it before recalling one of the endless briefings he’d had to attend before boarding Ark Royal. The Heinlein had been a colony ship, owned by a consortium of settlers who wanted to leave the rest of the human race far behind… and they’d done it too. They’d left human space before Vera Cruz had been settled and had never been seen again, until now.

“Interesting,” he said. Had the settlers gone far enough to encounter the aliens? Had that been First Contact, not the attack on Vera Cruz? Had the settlers somehow provoked the war? “Take all the recordings you can for the analysts.”

He stepped backwards, staring at the buildings. Now he knew about the Heinlein, it was clear that the POW barracks were little more than prefabricated human buildings from a previous era. The aliens, for whatever reason, had given humans human buildings. It was yet another oddity for the social scientists to puzzle over, he decided, making a mental note to see to it that some of the more reliable researchers received a full report. Some of the civilian ones made mistakes, misreading situations… and then refused to confess to their errors. And some of those errors had cost lives.

His radio buzzed, again. “Sir, we captured a handful of aliens,” Captain Jackson reported. “I think you’re going to want to see this.”

“Understood,” Charles said. He couldn't help a flicker of excitement. “I’m on my way.”

James watched in horror as the first POWs stumbled out of the shuttles and onto the deck. They were naked — drawing the attention of most of the shuttlebay crewmen, he noticed — but they walked like zombies, rather than human beings. Even the children, young girls and boys, stumbled about as though they needed to be prodded in the right direction to keep them moving. The reporters, who had hoped to make history by conducting the first set of interviews with alien POWs, stared in horror.

He'd been worried that the POWs might pose a threat to the carrier. As XO, it was his job to worry about such possibilities. But right now, looking at their blank faces, he knew that they posed no threat. The real problem was keeping them alive long enough to get to a proper medical facility. Ark Royal’s sickbay was huge — frigates and other smaller ships were meant to ship their casualties to the carrier — but it wasn't large enough to handle three hundred former POWs.

“Get them sedated,” the doctor ordered, briskly.

“Move them to another room first,” James ordered, silently grateful for the over-engineering Ark Royal’s designers had indulged in. There was plenty of space for the POWs, once they were away from the shuttlebay. “The shuttles have to go out again.”

His communicator bleeped. “You’ll need to secure the brig,” the Captain ordered. “They caught some aliens.”

James nodded, grimly. Aliens… aliens might well pose a real threat.

He turned and directed the reporters to help the doctor and her staff urge the POWs out of the shuttlebay and into their new quarters. For once, they didn't argue.

The alien buildings were right next to the shore, Marcus saw, as he followed Major Parnell towards the odd-looking buildings. Human prefabricated structures were ugly blocks — designed that way to encourage the inhabitants to work towards building something more aesthetic for themselves — but there was something oddly attractive about the alien buildings. They glimmered an eerie green and gold, shimmering faintly in the sunlight. But it was the aliens themselves who really caught his attention.

He'd seen images of the bodies that had been recovered from the wreckage Ark Royal had left in her wake, but this was different. Up close, the aliens were a shimmering multitude of colours, some bright green, others orange or even yellow. Compared to them, the difference between white and black humans — or even his father’s brown and his mother’s yellow — looked imperceptible. He felt a chill running down his spine as he saw one of the aliens staring at him, his — or her — black orbs meeting his and refusing to look away. It was impossible to escape the feeling that he had been weighed in the balance and found wanting.

Somehow, he managed to pull his gaze away from the alien eyes and inspect the rest of their bodies. There was something oddly snake-like about their bodies, ululating slightly as if they couldn't stay completely still, despite the weapons pointed at them. They wore no clothes, as far as he could tell; their skins seemed faintly watery, as if they were used to swimming through the sea. Perhaps they were, he guessed, as he saw one of the aliens turn to look at the shore. Chances were they could swim far better than the Marines, no matter how intensely the Marines had trained.

“One of the shuttles has been diverted,” a Marine called. “They’ll take the aliens up into space.”

“Good,” Parnell said. He switched his suit’s speakers on, then addressed the aliens. “Can you understand me?”

The aliens seemed to flinch backwards, but said nothing. It was impossible to tell if they were playing dumb or if they genuinely didn't understand. Their bodies were still quivering faintly; fear, Marcus wondered, or was he trying to interpret their actions in light of human body language? There was no way to understand the meaning of their motions.

“Maybe the POWs know how to speak to them,” he said, out loud.

“I doubt it,” Parnell replied. “The aliens would be fools to let the POWs learn their language.”

Markus smiled. “I had a friend who had no gift for languages at all, but married a Malay girl,” he said. “He insisted she talked to him in English. Maybe the aliens think the same way.”

He felt his smile widen as the shuttle swept down from high overhead, eventually coming to rest on the sandy beach. Despite over three hundred years of effort, the human race had yet to develop a viable AI… and without one, automated language translators were fundamentally unreliable. And that was when human languages were taken into account. Who knew just how complex an alien language would be? And the POWs would have ample motives to learn how to speak to their captors. How else could they tell the aliens they were in pain?

But if they had been drugged, he asked himself silently, how would they know they were in pain?

The aliens started to produce hissing noises as soon as the Marines started to prod them towards the shuttle. Markus wondered if they were trying to talk to their captors, but no matter how hard he listened he couldn't make out any understandable words. He quickly checked to make sure that it was all being recorded — later, perhaps, he could get a translation — and then followed the protesting aliens as they marched towards the shuttle. One of them broke free and ran, with a curious waddling motion, towards the water. A Marine shouted after him, then shot the alien in the leg. The alien toppled over and lay still.

Markus swallowed hard as the alien was recovered by two Marines, then carried bodily into the shuttle. The remaining aliens didn't show any further reluctance to move; they inched into the shuttle, then sat on the deck. Markus watched the Marines secure them as best as they could, then sit back and wait for liftoff. Moments later, the shuttle shuddered and lurched into the air.

He heard one of the aliens let out a keening sound and winced, feeling an odd twinge of sympathy. The aliens had been living with the POWs, performing odd experiments on the POWs… and yet he couldn't help feeling a little sorry for the nine aliens. They were going to be delivered to a secure facility in the Sol System… or, perhaps, wind up killed by their own people if the aliens caught up with Ark Royal. It was easy to believe that they would never see their home again.

“He ran towards the water,” Parnell mused. “There could be an entire alien settlement under the waves.”

Markus stared at him. The orbital sensors hadn't detected any settlements… but they hadn't looked under the water. How could they?

“You think they stay in the water?”

“They’re certainly built for it,” Parnell said. “They remind me of that character from the TV show… the guy who was a merman or something. But thousands of them could be under the waves, hiding from us.”

Markus shuddered. He hoped the Marine was wrong.