To Hell and Back (Hellworlder pirates)

Ch 55 Lockheed

Lockheed

Alwen watched the screen as the DNA sequencer analyzed the latest sample she and Bachir had fed it. Ever since the battle on the capital they had spent a majority of their time dissecting and analyzing the Aunviry tissue they had recovered. And the more time they spent picking apart their monstrous flesh the more Alwen and Bachir began to realize that they had struck gold. The Aunviry flesh contained many miracles that would change the course of medicine forever, regrowing severed limbs, extending life by hundreds of years, and much more. After three months of work they were only now starting to realize that they had only pierced the tip of the iceberg.

Today however was a little different, today Captain Astarte had come to see the fruits of their labors. It had taken Bachir months the retune the DNA sequencer to read Aunviry DNA and today was the day they analyzed their first sample.

Astarte tapped her foot impatiently as she watched the screen slowly crawl through a loading bar, she only stopped when the sequencer had finished its job. "What's it say?" the Captain asked as soon as the machine had finished its job.

Bachir grumbled "I don't know, I'll need more than a few seconds to read the results."

"I thought the machine would do that?" she asked testily.

"No, the machine was only taking the raw goop of alien DNA and rendering it into something I could read, now be silent girl so I can do my job" he growled as he stooped over the computer.

Astarte began to tap her foot rapidly once more as she glared at Bachir's back, and from Alwen's angle she could see the gruff doctor's eye twitch in frustration and held back her chuckle.

"How long is this going to take?" Astarte asked after a minute of silence.

"As long as it needs to" Bachir grumbled. "I'm reading the raw data of an alien race whose DNA is as complex as a humans, its going to be a long time before I find anything noteworthy."

"Well what can you tell me right now?"

"I can tell you to be quiet and let me work." He snapped.

While they were bickering Alwen began to notice something "Doctor, I'm not seeing any inactive genes. And moreover there doesn't seem to be any indication of genetic editing"

Bachir turned and looked to where Alwen was pointing "Yes, that...that's incredible." He muttered.

"What does it mean?" Astarte asked.

"One of two things. Either, the Aunviry spawned from the primordial soup fully formed, skipping past the evolutionary tract from a single celled organism to what they are now. Or, someone built them from scratch, built them protein by protein, molecule by molecule. Both of which seems equally unlikely"

"What do you mean, we already have access to gene editing and genetic therapy, how is that any different?"

"Captain, that's like comparing the heat of a campfire to the complexities of a fusion reactor. The methods and technology available to us currently couldn't hope to achieve even a fraction of what we're seeing right now. We can edit genes, replace one line of code with another, but doing this would require us to invent a whole new programming language." Bachir said in amazement.

Astarte's face went grim "So either the Aunviry were miraculously born completely formed, or an incredibly advanced civilization took the time and effort to create them from scratch. I don't like what that entails. Have we figured out why incendiaries had been so effective? The more I thought about it, the less sense it made. Aunviry skin is notoriously resistant to directed energy weapons, so why would propellant and fire work as well as it did?"