Our computer team conti:^^ &#FFffF[transit error]blems bringing the main computer on line, and are starting to wonder if they should. If the incident was indeed caused in some way by the AI "Durandal" as we surmise, bringing the Marathon's computer net back online may be dangerous.

The Biology team has completed its study of the anatomy of the alien life forms. It is included in this document.

[begin document 7227683]

No living specimens of the alien life forms have been found, but our team is still hopefull one will be located. By the appearence of the massive amounts of dead bodies strewn throughout the ship, and the severity of the dismemberment of most of the specimens, we can conclude that the team that dispatched of the alien invasion must have been the size of a small army. Under close inspection of the bodies we have discerned the effects of 6 different types of projectiles, and two that we havent seen, we must conclude that these where of alien make. We consulted the weapons/tactical group and they have given us a list of wea�J.®U .D$Ob K¿[transit error]ed in the battle. They are: The MA-75 Assult Rifle, .44 magnum Mega class, Either Zuess or Mercury class Fusion Pistol, TOZT Napalm Unit, And even the SPNKR-17 SSM launcher. These troops where very well armed. We also saw many aliens that had apparently been beaten to death.

We found the specimen in the figures to the left dried onto a wall not far from our docking point, and seeing as how it is in fairly good shape, we made it our main test case.

The creatures internal and external structure are very hard to discern. It has, like the others, suffered major structural failure. We have found .44 magnum bullets imbedded in the thicker parts of its 'armor', and pistol fire is certainly not enough to cause damage this severe. We have found no residual effects of explosive projectiles on the corpse, or on the surrounding area. The only cause we can find for dismemberment this severe would be that the creature's internal structure was under great pressure, thus a rupture of the outer exoskeleton would produce an effect similar to what we see in figure one.

In figure two we have hilited the remaining portions of what appears to be some kind of armor. It is tightly integraHs„ S° ‹sP ¹oƒ[transit error]eatures own exoskeleton, and made of a material similar to it, also. We cannot tell if it is a natural part of the alien anatomy, but if it is not, it is biologically engineered to integrate with the creatures normal physiology.

Figure three hilites the few residual scraps of the creatures outer shell. We believed at first that it acted as a hardening exoskeleton, but now we know that it is actually a thick, tough, leathery substance, which is filled with capillaries. These may have been filled with a fluid or gas to make the 'skin' rigid enough to hold in the creatures inner tissues, which as we mentioned before, where probably under pressure.

Hilited in figure four is the remnant of the creatures only internal 'organ'. Its purpose is unknown, but it is filled with air sacs, which would lead us to believe it is some sort of lung. The problem with that hypothesis being, that it is not attatched to anything on either end, and the creature doesn't seem to have any orifices from which it would inhale any kinds of gasses. It may be that its purpose is to shrink or expand according to the pressure of the atmosphere it is in. This would help keep the creatures shell from rupturing at a range of different atmospheres.

The final image, figure five hilites the yellow gel-like fluid which fills the creature. It is compri¯¿äó !K¿T ¯³°G[transit error]lymer that is unlike any in our database. There is a large amount of it, so we thought it may be something like blood, but the creature has no heart, or other sort of pumping organ, and no vessels that would carry the fluid. None of us have any hypothesis on what its purpose may be. [end BIO report]

We obviously have alot of work left to do here in order to figure out what caused this catastrophy, and what events transpired. It is unfortunate that the message sent by the shipboard AI "Durandal" was so severely scrambled, otherwise this expedition would be unneccisary. I will have another report for you on 10.19.