by Chris Hechtl
He'd toyed with the idea of asking her out, but it would be too weird. Besides, her father was the Admiral Lewis. He could make or break a certain ensign's career, especially if he made goo-goo eyes at his one and only darling daughter … or accidentally broke her heart. No, it was better to play it safe.
“You got more glorious paper shuffling coming tomorrow?” Renee asked as she checked in with him. She leaned against his office door jam, the picture of a uniformed woman at ease and being naughty. If Chief Rose had been there and caught her, she would have gotten demerits even if she was no longer one of his middies she knew.
The thought made her smile internally.
“You know it. The navy lives on that … stuff. That and coffee,” Roger replied with a shake of his head.
“I know. Dad says the same thing,” Renee replied with a grimace. “Lunch tomorrow? I heard about this Bistro place. If you can swing an extra half hour before and after, I think we can get there. If, that is, the place isn't swamped by other people interested in trying it,” she grumbled.
“Sure,” Roger replied with a nod. “Did you get that write-up on Allegiance's commissioning ceremony finished yet?” he asked innocently.
Her eyes went humorously wide and then she took off like a jet.
He chuckled and shook his head as he returned to his own inbox. “Apparently, not,” he murmured to himself.
(@)()(@)
The launch and commissioning of the newest member of the fleet, the latest and currently best version of a Republic class cruiser turned into the usual media affair. Allegiance was the second cruiser to be built, she used the same Republic class frame and most of the systems, but many were far more efficient. Admiral Lewis knew that as the navy evolved so would its ships if they were to survive. But he also knew he was going to need to recall Republic and older classes of ships to be refitted up to the same standards … if they weren't lost in the furnace of combat that was.
He shook himself ever so slightly to get over the maudlin but realistic thought. The big shindig was being telecast on the media, which meant he had to be there in his dress uniform. He was starting to hate the thing.
Wendy and Yorrick Lagroose, Doctor Irons, most of the ship designers, and others were in attendance at the commissioning ceremony. President Camp had sent his regards in a recorded message.
(@)()(@)
Wendy Lagroose scowled at her brother and the woman on his arm. She'd had her people research Padme Scolnik. The little hussy had certainly latched onto her brother despite everything she'd tried to do to pry them apart. She sniffed in disdain at the other woman. She might be smiling radiantly at her brother, but she wasn't fooled. She knew she was only interested in Yorrick for his money and power. What he saw in her … she was barely passing as pretty, she didn't know. Nor did she care.
She smiled briefly to the paid escort on her arm as she toyed with her champagne glass and then decided to make the rounds once more. Events like the commissioning ceremony were a good place to pick up on early gossip and make contacts for new contracts for the company.
Chapter 4
Doctor Seanex Irons strolled through the corridors of Mars University as he considered the past, present and future. In some ways, the current situation was great; it was sparking all sorts of investment in research.
Of course, it was narrowly defined on what they could use in the war effort, but that was fine. He knew from his own study of history that it would spark all sorts of cross pollination and innovation later on.
It almost hadn't come about at all. Sure, they'd had been trying to build the navy and improving it, but it had been a half-hearted effort in his eyes, even when the colony ship Speedwell had come in to confirm Magellan's story.
The Sol invasion had ended all debate. It had panicked quite a few people, turning sinners into faithful believers in the military overnight he thought cynically. The chest beating and hand wringing by those who thought it was all a misunderstanding were largely ignored. Feelings in the public were too primal, the threat to their home, the threat of extinction.
The Taurens had destroyed some small space habitats, space stations, and shipping in a small part of the outer edge of the solar system. They had launched rocks at the planets and orbital habitats. Many of those rocks had been intercepted by the ships and tugs or diverted, but a few had gotten through.
One was just one too damn many in anyone's book, Seanex Irons thought darkly.
He nodded to a couple people in passing. One was a Neochimp doctor; he wasn't quite certain if it was Doctor Kravix in engineering or Doctor Schmell in the computer department. The other person had been a holographic avatar he did recognize, Vulcan. The A.I. had established a clone of itself in one of Patronis Concepts computer networks in order to discuss things with the scientists leading the effort to understand the alien technology.
A.I. had participated in the battle of Sol. He knew that, and it was slowly sinking in to the collective consciousnesses of his fellow organics that the A.I. were also citizens interested in their own survival. In fact, the A.I. were still working on infiltrating the alien databases and computer networks; those that had survived at any rate.
By working together and comparing notes and building a shared database, the A.I. had managed to penetrate the alien's computer network during the last few minutes of the battle of Sol. They had all of the recorded radio and data transmissions between ships to help them decipher the alien machine language and organic language.
It was a pity that the A.I. had not been on hand to do real-time processing. If they had the battle might have gone differently.
One of the first things the A.I. had reported was they, the enemy, had a primitive mindset when it came to electronic security. The biggest hurdle had been figuring out their language. It had taken hours of trial and error work to break some of their language.
They were still puzzling over the computers that had been salvaged from some of the wreckage. One of the first things they had done was to get into the enemy's navigational and chemical database. An index of files was created. A database search had turned up files that the aliens had created to try to understand Terrans.
When the A.I. had realized what they had, they'd cloned the translation database and compared the alien's captured star charts with their own. Building the comparison database and then using it as a template to decipher other databases had made the process easier.
But, it had told them things they hadn't known. Things that some hadn't wanted to know, like the invasion of Janus and the capture of the Santa Maria.
He did his best to put the thought of the fate of all of those helpless civilians aside for the moment. Dwelling on it wouldn't help him do his job he knew. He shook his head and entered his office, stiff arming his way past the door and past the secretary. He smiled to her but continued on to his inner sanctum.
As one of the head engineers at Mars University, he was responsible for the analysis of all engineering of the alien ships. But he'd kept tabs on the other fields as well to make sure they didn't miss something someone else found and had discarded since it wasn't related to their field or interest.
They had taken apart the enemy derelict ships and even the few surviving bodies, in some cases down to the molecular level. Somewhere along the way, the name Taurens had come up and had stuck.
The A.I. involved had used the derelict blueprints to fill in the blanks on each of the ship classes. They were still refining a virtual model of each of the ship classes he knew. He turned to see each of the models slowly spinning on pedestals on a view screen. An estimate of how far they had come and how far they had to go was under each. The warships had the least amount of internal blueprints since they had been blown apart.
But, there were some things they were willing to extend from the other ships to the warships. Things that were puzzling everyone.
For instance, their models had shown that the Tauren ships had high ceilings for their rooms, most of which were
domes and big arched corridors. The ceilings are painted blue like a sky, the deck a green. Walls had sometimes been painted as pastures on the hab decks. They were still wondering if it was psychological, to keep the crew happy or if the crew had done it out of boredom from a long time in space.
The heavy signs of wear had been expected; the ships had traveled over fifteen thousand light years after all. But some of the wear and tear had been questionable, like the ships had been in space without making port for lengthy periods of time. Then there was the radioactive isotope and other tests run on everything. They had confirmed that the ships had been in space for centuries.
“Doc, you've got company coming,” Connie warned him just as his door opened and Doctor Kravix and Vulcan entered. Vulcan's holographic avatar nodded to the human as he stood behind his desk. Vulcan had special permission to access the video and audio systems in his office, so he took them over within a millisecond of his entry into the room.
“How can I help you, gentlemen?” Seanex asked.
“We're discussing the alien ships,” Doctor Kravix said as he turned to see Doctor Niemen enter as well.
“I've got a TA minding my class,” she said softly. Seanex nodded. Sophia had just gotten her doctorate in computer sciences and had taken over some of the workload from her mentor Doctor Hillman.
“So?” Seanex asked. “I take it this is another skull session?” he asked, with a small smile. “Should I warn Connie and order pizza?”
“I'm working on the pizza now,” Connie said through the open door. The professors looked to the door, snorted, and then Sophia used her toe to push it shut.
“The problem with the big ships and large open spaces is gravity, power, and structural issues, also maintenance and speed,” Doctor Kravix said, bringing up a well-worn argument again.
“Okay, run them down again,” Seanex said, sitting in his chair. He knew the Neochimp was like a dog with a bone; he wouldn't give it up until he'd thoroughly torn it apart.
“We've found that the ships have plenty of armor, and they've figured out sloping armor and composites. Their domes and arches mean they can tuck piping and cables in recesses outside the arch so there isn't as much wasted space as you'd think. But it does make for a maintenance headache. We did find areas where they can gain access to critical functions,” Doctor Kravix said.
“Arches and domes are extremely strong structures, Doctor,” Vulcan reminded him.
“I know. But why them? It doesn't make sense.”
“They are aliens, Doctor,” Vulcan reminded him.
“It seems like they'd have trouble in small spaces,” Sophia said slowly. She was still getting into venturing an opinion. Doctor Kravix's attitude tended to overwhelm some. He could come off as a bully, pushing an idea and making others back down. Seanex knew it wasn't intentional; he knew Geo wanted his opponents to back their own ideas. But it didn't come off that way he knew.
“Which the scientific jury is debating. I think there is an element of claustrophobia, but without survivors to examine, we can only speculate,” Vulcan replied.
Geo nodded. “Understood.” It wasn't their field anyway.
“Moving on,” Seanex said. The last thing any of them wanted to do was to get drawn into a chest-beating tiff over a minor point, not when they had a ticking clock and a lot of material to cover. “Essentially their ships are turtles. I wonder if that is an extension of what they look like? Another psych question,” he said, making a note to pass it on to others looking into that.
“Do we even have a name for them?” Geo demanded. “I don't like slapping our own name on them. Taurens,” he said with a sniff. “What does their own name translate into our language sound like?” He turned to the A.I.
“I think some people were shooting for turtles. You don't want to know what the Marines call them,” Vulcan replied with an artificial sniff. Taurens has latched on with the public.”
“Knowing how coarse the marines are, I don't want to know,” Seanex singsonged, making the others in the room crack brief smiles.
“Definitely not,” Sophia murmured.
“Someone called them Bowsers, whatever that is. But the head doesn't jive with that image I saw them put up in the media,” Geo grumbled.
“Bowser?” Seanex asked.
“A video game character. Ancient. I'm surprised people still play the games,” Sophia said before Vulcan could interpret the historical reference for them.
“Agreed,” Vulcan replied, projecting an image of a Tauren next to an image of the video game character.
Each of the scientists studied the images as the holograms spun slowly in space.
“Let's not get bogged down. Bowser fits the shell but not the head and limbs. The head is like a bull but with two sets of horns: one forward facing, one rear facing. The mouth has a mix of teeth, not just grinding and grazing teeth, but an omnivore's mix.”
“Okay … weird,” Geo said, shaking his head.
“Not as weird as you'd think to be honest. Plenty of people have speculated over the centuries that an omnivore has the highest likelihood of evolving to sentience. They are the most adaptable, and the consumption of meat means they get more energy in a meal than in eating raw plants,” Vulcan replied.
“Let's not draw broad conclusions from just two species, shall we?” Seanex said dryly.
“Two?”
“Humans and these … aliens,” Seanex shrugged.
“Minotaurs are running high on the name list. Taurens are another as I said. By the way, their own species name in their language translates into the people,” Vulcan replied.
“Not very helpful,” Geo grumbled.
“No. A second translation came up with the people of the hoof or the herd,” the A.I. pointed out.
“Both do not sing to me,” Geo said.
“Okay, a matter for another time. Let's not get bogged down as I said,” Seanex interjected. “The working name is Tauren; for the moment, we'll stick to it and let the xenologists figure out a permanent name later. You've seen the autopsy? Is there anything we need to know that we missed?”
There had been a few full frozen bodies found in the wreckage for a proper autopsy. Mangled bits had been passed over to small independent labs to verify the findings of the main labs.
What they had found was intriguing. The rear shell was attached to a spine. The armor was flexible, made out of some sort of carotene substance much like human fingernails and hair.
The front armor was more like plates of calluses on major muscle groups, protecting the vital organs.
Someone had found grooming tools and the scientists had been intrigued to realize that the Taurens ground down their spikes and horns. Debate raged as to why. Some of the bodies had used what looked like a hot knife or disbudding iron to stop the horn and spike growth all together. Two of the bodies had used bindings to fashion horns and spikes into shapes like ram horns or out like longhorn.
And every single body found so far had been male—a fully-functional male.
“Not much has changed. No females have been found. The debate as to why still rages on,” Vulcan reported.
Seanex studied the image. As his eyes roved lower, he shook his head. “They let it all hang out there, not even a loincloth,” he said wryly. Sophia looked down to the hologram's nether regions and then turned away with a blush.
“The interesting thing is they have textiles but not much use for it. We've found their suits are primitive in the extreme. They are hard suits, bulky, restrictive,” Vulcan reported.
“But it works for them. Obviously, they are used to handle restrictive movements given they have the shell,” Geo argued.
“True, so it isn't too far of a reach for them. I think it slows down their movements and fine motor control is hit or miss at best,” Vulcan replied.
“Which is leading us to where exactly?” Seanex asked before they could get into the debate too deeply. He'd already heard that the aliens used base eight math, most
likely because they had eight digits on their hands most scientists reasoned.
“We're wondering about their components. Obviously, the basic small components are built in an atmosphere. What we're leading up to is questions on how they build their ships and platforms. If we can get an idea on that then we can get a basic estimate on how long it takes to build a ship. Which might tell us how many they have or how fast they can respond to losses,” Geo said.
“Ah. Carry on then,” Seanex said with a nod.
“Sounds a bit like wild-ass guesses I admit. But we're asking the questions so we can put people on finding the answers. And to get people to think of other questions we should be asking,” Geo admitted.
Seanex nodded. “Understood.”
“My thinking is that they build components—that is blocks in a dome in space or on the surface of a planet or moon, then move them to orbit. Obviously, they can't be too big or you'd have problems getting it out of the gravity well,” Geo mused.
“Or they could ship up components and assemble them in orbit,” Vulcan suggested.
“Exactly.”
“Well, to fuel that speculation … we found a bit of odd things on the hull,” Geo reported. “I saw the latest update. It seems the Taurens … stupid name,” he groused. Seanex made a hand motion for him to move on. He grimaced but did so. “It seems the aliens prefer telepresence arms over suits it seems.”
“I noted that myself. They have primitive tethered robots too. According to the autopsy, they have no cybernetics or neural feeds. There are no signs of implant tech at all.”
“Interesting,” Sophia murmured, making a note.
“Speaking as an A.I., I'd say that their software is very inefficient,” the A.I. said. “Wouldn't you agree, Doctor?” he asked, turning to Sophia. She nodded.
“Let's focus on hardware for today,” Seanex said. “They do like to stylize their hardware, and they definitely harden everything. Some of the engravings are exquisite; some are practical with directions. Some we're still deciphering. A few are … crude. We're assuming graffiti.”