Earth Liberation
Audiobook · Earth Liberation: The Novel (Part I)
Chapter 7
Walvis Ridge, South Atlantic
November 14, 2078
A series of 80-MV impulses ran across the nerve fibre extracted from the newly captured squid and percolated the contact of a machine interface. The Cerametallic claw of the alien mechanoid moved convulsively, making a clatter on the lab bench.
Doctor Gerhard Hoffmann tapped his tablet with a bored expression. A tick mark appeared in the next cell of a table. Nothing new. No progress since yesterday. The software of the mechanoid he was manipulating remained unsearchable.
Hoffmann put away the tablet, mopped the sweat from his forehead and wiped his glasses clean. It was hot and stuffy in the laboratory, as usual. It was a section of a gigantic submarine, the “Atlantis” that belonged to the United States Fleet. It lay deep under water and in connection with other submarines, formed the secret underwater base of the Resistance Army.
Hoffmann didn’t know how many people lived on the base. But it was obviously more than the staff size of the crew, because it was very tight. Before the invasion, when Gerhard worked as an expert-investigator of biomachinery interface in Trinidad Kinematics Inc., he was rather a well-fed person. Since then he'd lost about 20 kilos; and yet, he could barely squeeze between the lab bench and the shelve stands. And the shelves were bending under the strain of holding pieces of alien machines and wet specimens.
It was time to take a break. Hoffmann took off his dirty lab coat and left the laboratory, wearing shorts and a T-shirt.
Consumed with ideas about his work, seeing and hearing nothing, he reached the canteen. With his brain on autopilot, he stood in line to get his dinner - the usual: seaweed salad and a brick of pressed krill - and he headed to a free table.
"Hoffmann!" A call brought him back to reality. From the corner table Noriko Kawaguti from the genetics lab was smiling and waving."Come here!
Hoffmann sat beside her with pleasure. He liked Noriko. But he could never figure out whether she was flirting with him or not. The uncertainty irritated him. To overcome awkwardness, Gerhard began to talk about work:
"Today you seem joyful, doctor Kawaguti. Have you discovered anything interesting?"
"That’s it! You’ve noticed it!" Noriko put a piece of krill into her mouth. "No, we haven’t found anything extraordinary, just finished a considerable stage of work. We've examined the DNA of all types of reptilians. Now we know exactly that genetically they are earthians."
"It was clear from the very beginning. Morphology, cytology..."
Kawaguti smiled ironically. "But you know what we think about morphology. By the way, here’s a new fact: They all belong to the same species. The biped, the four-footed, the winged. They are close to birds and crocodiles. I mean they are archosaurs or their near relatives".
"You mean that they are not diplodocuses, not tyrannosaurs and so on?"
"Dr. Hoffmann! Do you really take all those conventional names so seriously? Of course not. We can't even say whether they're dinosaurs or crocodiles. Their nucleated DNA looks like it's been modified - it looks like they intentionally created different breeds of their species. We can’t make any conclusions. Only mitochondrial DNA are preserved in their initial state, and they are actually of archosaurs...Doesn’t it sound impressive?"
"Useless for my work".
Noriko knitted her thin brows. "Judging by your mood, you're not making any exciting discoveries yourself".
"No, no exciting discoveries, Kawaguti". Hoffmann rearranged his glasses. "The militaries deliver corpses of foot soldiers only. Their brain is tiny, and the central nervous system is undeveloped. They are obviously operated from outside. That’s why it’s impossible to explore the software of their neuro interface. We don’t have all details of the puzzle".
"I see. You need the corpse of an officer".
"An officer is an impossible dream. They don’t get out of the pyramids, and the pyramids are invulnerable to us. A more realistic request is a soldier, alive. It’s a chance to get down to the system of operation…"
"Or to intercept it?"
"At least to break it".
Kawaguti put away the empty plate and blotted her lips on a tissue. "Good luck then! By the way, did you get the invitation to the presentation?"
"It's probably gone straight to the spam folder. What kind of presentation?"
" Roslyakov and Chakraborti's group. I think they're found a way to charge our machines with these blue boxes."
This piqued Hoffman's interest. "It seems to be close to my subject of interest. Where and when?"
"At five p.m. in the chief cabin on deck 2A. It’s far from my own subject of study, but I’ll
come. See you this evening!" Kawaguti smiled sweetly and left.
Hoffmann followed her with his eyes, looking over his spectacles. Why is Noriko going to come, if it's got nothing to do with her subject of study? And why did she make such a point of telling him she'd come - is it an attempt at closeness? If so, why doesn't she just tell him she wants to date him? He's open to that. They're grown-ups and times are tough...
The phone rang. General Furnier, the scientific assistant of Mauritz was calling. What has happened? "Hoffmann speaking!"
"An officer-reptiloid has been killed," Furnier said without preamble. The body is non-transportable. Set out immediately with all your equipment. The commandant of the Atlantis has been briefed on the situation. You'll be provided with transport. You got it?"
"Hooah, General," Hoffmann licked his lips. Has his dream come true?
"Be ready in 15 minutes," and Furnier hung up.
A half hour later, an underwater sailplane, spotlighting, set off from the Atlantis's lock. Hoffmann was sitting near the captain, examining the photos of reptiloid on his tablet and planning the autopsy. To examine the interconnections of biological and mechanical organs of the aliens he had to become an autopsist - the first one in the world for reptiloids. Perhaps, nobody was better prepared for the upcoming work than he was...Hoffman forgot about the presentation and his date with Noriko. The autopsy was much more important. How could our soldiers destroy the officer? Maybe we really have a chance.
They arrived at their destination late at night. The sailplane broke surface on some underground base. Two officers met Hoffmann - a colonel with Resistance Army chevron and a captain in an old uniform of Afro-Asian Community. It looked like inland separated troops of the earthians hadn’t still united in a unique structure, but Hoffmann didn’t care.
"Where is the pangolin?" he asked without greeting.
"In the refrigerator," the colonel replied.
"Will I have an assistant?"
"Yes, this is our doctor, captain Jamal. Work fast, we don’t have time - the body is decaying even in the cold". The colonel snapped a salute and moved away.
Hoffmann and the doctor quickly walked through the halls and passages of the underground base. It was a mess; fragments of alien equipment were lying everywhere, cut from biological material. It looked cursed, smelt even worse, but Gerhard was accustomed to such things. Yet he came to a dead stop in front of one item. It seemed to be a common manlike mechanoid, an exoskeleton for a foot soldier. But the model was completely unknown to Hoffmann; even its connections and driving ropes were unfamiliar.
"What’s that?" He pointed to the mechanoid’s chest plastron. "Is it an alien article?"
"Yes, we captured it empty".
"But why do the reptiloids need this mechanoid for the human body?".
Jamal remained silent. Hoffmann moved on.
When they reached the doors of the refrigerating chamber, Jamal took two overalls from the hanger and gave Hoffmann one of them.
"We are going to dissect the body right there," he explained. "In warm conditions, it decays at enormous speed".
"Why? Have you found out?"
"I’ve taken bacterial samples. He’s got greedy fauna inside. I suppose that it’s artificial - something like a system of self-destruction."
"Let’s hurry up then".
Having put on the overalls, they entered the refrigerating chamber. The piles of foodstuffs had been moved aside to make space for the alien. His body was enormous, considerably larger than those of the foot soldiers - about seven meters long from his nose to his tip of the tail. And he wasn’t armour-plated at all. His lumbar spine was smashed by a shot from a machine gun; cables and fragments of spinal bones were sticking out. Metal and ceramic implants were showing through here and there from the grey scale. The alien reeked and in parts, its body had begun to bloat. Hoffmann put on a mask, but the glass fogged up with his sweat almost immediately. He removed it. He couldn't wait for the temperature to level off. He switched on the surgical laser and made the first incision.
A blue liquid filament with a strange sour-fresh smell dashed into his face. Hoffmann hardly had time to close his eyes tight.
"Damn!" he muttered." Jamal, wipe my face". And he carefully extended the incision.