There was a pause. Someone laughed. Someone else cursed. “Teddy bears?” Commander Neeson finally demanded.
“Teddy bear-cows,” Desjani corrected.
Dr. Nasr frowned. “That’s not medically accurate. Their DNA is unrelated to bears or cows. However, from the pieces we found and the use of them to reconstruct one of the creatures, we are certain that they are herbivores, they are intelligent, and their hands are suited to fine motor manipulation.”
“Wait,” Badaya said. “Herbivores? We were attacked by . . .” He looked at Desjani. “Cows?”
“Maybe they’re slaves of some kind of predator that sent them on that suicide attack,” a cruiser commander suggested.
Lieutenant Iger shook his head. “We’ve finally cracked the video system they use. So far we’ve seen a lot of images of these creatures but nothing that even hints at anything that dominates them or is an equal. Our observation of the primary inhabited planet also shows nothing consistent with the existence of a ruling predator class. Everything is uniform. Every building. Every square meter of land. There’s no real variation in anything. A predator ruling class would have open areas around special structures.”
Duellos frowned at Iger. “No variation? A monolithic culture?”
“That’s what it looks like, sir.”
“What’s your estimate of the planetary population given what we’ve learned about these creatures?” Geary asked.
“At least thirty billion, Admiral. That’s the lowest possible estimate.” Iger heard the gasps of astonishment and looked around defiantly. “They’re packed in. Shoulder to shoulder. Everywhere.”
“Herd animals.” This time everyone looked at Professor Shwartz, one of the civilian experts. “Herd animals,” she repeated. “Herbivores. In the videos Lieutenant Iger has been able to access, we always see them in crowds, even when there is extra space in a room. They cluster together by choice. They are comfortable being in a tight group and uncomfortable being separate.”
Badaya shook his head. “That may be, but cows? Attacking us?”
“You think herbivores pose no threat?” Shwartz asked. “They can be very dangerous. One of the deadliest animals on Old Earth was the hippopotamus. Others were . . . elephants. And . . . rhinoceros . . . es. Rhinoceri? The point is, all herbivores. But if they thought they or their herds were threatened, they attacked. Fast, determined, and deadly. Weaponry with sufficient hitting power could stop them. Nothing else could.”
“That does sound like the engagement we just fought,” Duellos admitted.
“And it fits the lack of communication,” Shwartz added. “They aren’t interested in talking. They don’t negotiate because to them, any foe wants to kill them. Predators. You don’t negotiate with predators! You either kill them, or they kill you.”
“But they would negotiate among themselves,” Neeson suggested. “Or would they? Herd animals. They just do what the leader says, don’t they?”
“At least thirty billion,” Charban murmured, his voice getting picked up by the software and broadcast clearly. “What happens when the herd animals kill off all of the predators? The herds just get bigger and bigger.”
“Why didn’t they starve?” Badaya demanded.
“Why didn’t humans starve when their population on Old Earth went from thousands to millions to billions? We were intelligent. We learned how to produce more food. A lot more food. And these are intelligent herbivores.”
“We’re a threat,” Professor Shwartz said. “We’ve shown them images of ourselves when we tried to communicate. They can tell from what they could see of our teeth that we are at best omnivores, possibly just carnivores. They didn’t become masters of their world by being meek or passive. They must have the ability to be aggressive when they feel threatened. That means they will keep trying to destroy us, before we kill and eat them.”
“And they won’t listen when we tell them that we don’t want to eat them?” Duellos asked.
“No. Of course not. If you were a sheep, would you trust the reassurances of a wolf?”
“I don’t think I would get the opportunity to do so more than once,” Duellos replied.
“They’re like the enigmas,” Badaya said with obvious distaste. “They want to kill us, and they don’t care about the lives of their own . . . people. They’re willing to launch suicide attacks without hesitating.”
The moment of quiet agreement that followed was broken by General Charban. “Captain, if you were a member of an intelligent alien species, and you had observed the behavior of humanity for the past hundred years as we fought the Syndicate Worlds, would you conclude that humans cared much for the life of other humans? Or would you decide that we were willing to spend countless human lives without visible signs of hesitation or remorse?”
Badaya reddened, searching for a reply.
“It’s not the same thing,” Captain Vitali objected sharply.
Tulev spoke, his words coming out slowly. “We know this, or we think we know this, but some of the actions of humans do not do us credit. We know this ourselves as well. To an outside observer, those actions might seem even worse.”
The quiet lasted for several seconds this time. Everyone knew that Tulev’s home world had been destroyed by the Syndics. The planet was still there, but the only humans left in that star system were a pitifully few die-hard survivors who had been occupying defenses in case the Syndics ever came back. Nothing else remained but craters and wreckage on a world that no longer held other life.
“I won’t argue that,” Badaya finally said, his voice stiff. “But the fact remains that we didn’t immediately attack them when we arrived in this star system. We haven’t refused to communicate. We have to treat these creatures as enemies because they give us no choice.”
“If these are herd animals,” Captain Jane Geary of Dreadnaught remarked, “and we’re predators, then let’s act our role and make them respect us.”
“Absolutely!” Badaya agreed.
Wonderful. Now his grandniece was goading Badaya, who never needed a push to start being a loose cannon. Before Geary could reply, Desjani did, her tone dryly ironic. “These cows have guns. Big guns.”
“I never liked cows,” General Carabali added. “I like heavily armed cows even less. And I like at least thirty billion heavily armed cows least of all.”
Duellos nodded. “It would take a long time to kill thirty billion of them. They have no lack of cannon fodder, and they’re plainly willing to sacrifice members of the herd to protect the herd as a whole.”
“All right,” Geary said. “We’re still mostly speculating as to the nature of these creatures. What we do know is that they possess a defense we don’t against kinetic weapons, and they have a lot of very large warships as well as a lot of smaller attack craft. Since there are a tremendous number of them, we have to assume they have a lot of resources to throw at us. Right now we’re cutting across the outer edge of the star system toward one of the other jump points in this star system. At our current velocity, which we have to maintain in any event while repairing battle damage, it will be forty-one hours before we reach that jump point. We’ll remain on our current vector while I consider options and how to get us through that or another jump point without losing half of the fleet by going head-to-head with these bear-cows.”
“What is our goal?” Jane Geary asked.
“Our goal is to exit this star system and proceed toward another star heading back toward Alliance space.”
“That’s a final goal, Admiral. As an interim goal, we need to eliminate the threat to us.”
“Our mission is to explore and evaluate,” Geary replied in what he hoped was a level voice. “These creatures don’t seem to get on well with the enigmas, either, so I see no benefit for us in weakening them. The threat they posed may have kept the enigmas from turning all of their force and attention on humanity. Nor do I know how we can defeat them without taking serious losses. If necessary, we’ll fight our way ou
t of here and destroy anything that tries to stop us. But I would prefer not to lose any more ships or personnel.”
Captain Bradamont of Dragon tapped a control before her, and a representation of one of the alien superbattleships appeared floating in front of her, clearly visible to everyone. Bradamont said nothing, letting the image of the alien behemoth speak for itself.
Badaya stared at the image, then nodded with visible reluctance. “Those superbattleships of theirs are very impressive.”
“They look impressive,” Jane Geary countered.
“Looks are all we have to go on. We know too little about what these creatures can do.” Badaya turned a twisted smile on General Carabali. “The Marines have no enthusiasm for learning about an enemy’s unknown combat capabilities the hard way, and I feel the same way about going up against one of those alien ships. Perhaps we can learn more, learn about vulnerabilities, but until we find those, Admiral Geary is right in choosing not to charge blindly into battle with them.”
Desjani covered up a startled sound by coughing, then gave Geary a wondering look that he understood. Badaya is saying we should avoid a blind charge into battle? Maybe he’s becoming a bit less of a loose cannon.
Captain Jane Geary, seeing that Badaya wasn’t backing her, subsided, but only for a moment. “What about the enigmas, Admiral? Are we still worrying about them?”
“I’m still worried about them,” Geary said, though in truth he hadn’t spent much effort on that recently, with so many more immediate issues to deal with. “General Charban has suggested that the presence of defenses facing the enigmas indicates this species does not have good relations with the enigmas.” He turned to where the virtual presences of two of the civilian “experts” sat. “What do you think?” he asked.
Professor Shwartz and Dr. Setin exchanged glances, then Setin spoke carefully. “The enigmas pursued us through space controlled by them, but this is not their space. Maintaining their privacy seems to have been a powerful motivation for them, but of course if they are not here, there is no danger of us violating their privacy in this star system.”
“The species here was certainly ready for immediate action against anyone coming through that jump point,” Professor Shwartz added. “As far as we know, only enigmas would be expected to be using that jump point, so as the general said, the defenses there must be against the enigmas.”
“Which means we can focus for now on dealing with this species and the threat they pose,” Geary concluded. “Anything else?”
Commander Neeson spoke up again. “A suggestion, Admiral. These aliens easily diverted the standard kinetic round we fired at their nearest fortress. Captain Smythe’s engineers can fabricate some new kinetic rounds loaded with sensors. We can fire those at the nearest orbital fortress, too, one by one, and perhaps learn more about how that defensive system works by getting more readings about whatever field or force is generated by it.”
“Good idea,” Geary agreed. “Captain Smythe?”
Smythe glanced at the auxiliaries commanders. “I think we would enjoy the challenge, Admiral. We can also construct the new projectiles using a variety of casings. Different alloys, composites, and so on, to see how the defensive system handles them. I must add, however, that this will divert some of my resources from other assigned tasks.”
“Understood.” Other assigned tasks. Mainly the ongoing effort to replace equipment on every ship of the fleet that was reaching the end of its planned life span. It seemed that every time the fleet was catching up on that major problem, some other item demanded attention from the auxiliary force. “Get to it. Get my authorization before each launch, just in case we’ve seen some sort of advance in our attempts to communicate with the, uh . . .”
“Teddy bear-cows,” Desjani said.
“Can we just call them bear-cows?” Captain Vitali asked. “I feel ridiculous talking about fighting teddy bear-cows.”
“They are cute,” Duellos said. “Not that it matters.”
“It doesn’t,” Desjani agreed. “I can kill cute if it tries to kill me.”
“We’ll call them bear-cows,” Geary said. He wished figuring out how to escape this star system intact was as easy as deciding what to call the species that was intent on wiping out his fleet.
“I have another question,” Captain Hiyen said.
“Yes?” Geary prompted when Hiyen didn’t continue.
“Why are we even here, Admiral? Why are we scores of light-years from Syndic space and much farther from our homes? Why are we facing this situation?”
A different level of tension came to life around the table. As Geary looked from face to face, the software automatically zooming in on anyone he looked at, he saw expressions range from unhappiness to stubbornness, with all too many clearly showing sympathy for the question.
He had dreaded that question’s being asked openly because the answers were not simple ones. Not when a good portion of this fleet believed that Black Jack Geary was ruling the Alliance behind the scenes, and not when that belief was all that had prevented outright rebellion on the part of those military forces, which had suffered apparently endless casualties in an apparently endless war and blamed the civilian government for most of that. This fleet, for all its power and strength, had a hollow core born of war weariness, of too many demands for too long, of too many friends and family dead, of equipment being pushed past its designed limits, of an Alliance fraying at the seams from the strains of a century of all-out war only recently won, and of an officer corps that had been badly corrupted by internal politics while scorning the politics of the civilian government.
All Geary had to do was hold it all together despite everything that threatened to break it apart. And if he didn’t hold this fleet together now, if portions like the warships from the Callas Republic, which included Captain Hiyen and the battleship Reprisal, broke away, then none of them might make it home.
Before Geary could answer Hiyen, Victoria Rione rose to her feet. “Captain Hiyen,” she said, “if you wish to know why the ships of the Callas Republic are still with the Alliance fleet and still under the command of Admiral Geary, I am best suited to reply. I brought the orders from the Callas Republic, which set forth those commands.”
“Why?” Hiyen demanded. “We have never been told why. And now we face death again, so far from the republic? Is it too much for those who have risked their lives and seen too many friends die to ask why we cannot return to our homes?”
Rione spread her hands in a helpless gesture, everything about her conveying an impression of sympathy. “I do not know, Captain Hiyen. You know that I was voted out of the government before those orders were issued, before those decisions were made. Because I was asked by the Alliance to serve in another role with this fleet, I was tasked to bring the orders from the Callas Republic with me. But I was not asked, and I was not consulted about the orders you were given. The new Callas government made the decision.”
Captain Hiyen hesitated, then looked to Geary.
“The orders for your ships came as a surprise to me,” Geary said. True enough. He had been planning on seeing those warships head for home along with those of the Rift Federation. “As I have told you before, I did not request them. I would be a liar if I said I wasn’t happy to have your ships and your crews along with me when facing the challenges we have faced, but the Callas Republic, and the Rift Federation, are independent groupings of stars, which have only by choice aligned themselves with the Alliance. I can’t tell them what to do. I don’t want to tell them what to do. They and their people are free.”
Badaya looked upward with a resigned expression. He had suggested using force to keep the republic and the federation with the Alliance, until Geary had pointed out how similar that would have been to the actions of the despised Syndics.
“Admiral.” Commander Sinicrope of the light cruiser Florentine waved to indicate the officers near her. “This isn’t merely a matter for the allied warships. All of us from the A
lliance joined to fight the Syndics. We fought to beat them. And we did. I understand the need to learn more about distant threats before they become near threats, but this is far from the Alliance, Admiral, and we are facing foes who have nothing to do with the Syndicate Worlds.”
Desjani was about to speak, but Duellos jumped in first. “Yes, we beat the Syndics. Under the command of Admiral Geary.”
“No one disputes that, Captain Duellos. I would not have followed any other commander out here.”
“And Admiral Geary had already announced that after this star, we would turn back for home.”
“Yes,” Commander Sinicrope agreed reluctantly.
Rione had remained standing and now spoke again, acting as if oblivious to the looks of barely veiled, or not-veiled-at-all, anger and contempt with which many of the officers regarded her. But her first words caused those expressions to shift to embarrassment. “I know I’m one of the enemy as far as you are concerned. Even though I have shared the dangers you have faced, even though I share them now, even though my own husband, a fleet officer, was thought dead and, though now alive and with us, has suffered greatly at the hands of the Syndics. Distrust me as you will. Think of me as you will. But think also of what we have seen in the space once controlled by the Syndicate Worlds. Think of the collapse of central authority, of spreading disorder, of worlds burdened by the human and material costs of the war and now facing the future without allies or friends.
“I want to go home, too,” Rione said in saddened tones that echoed in the silence otherwise filling the room. Hearing how well she spoke, the emotion appealing to everyone here who shared those feelings, Geary finally realized how Rione had been able to reach the high political offices she had won.
“But I can’t,” Rione continued. “Because I need to continue working to ensure that the Alliance does not go the way of the Syndicate Worlds. This fleet is a mighty symbol of the Alliance. You represent the Alliance. You are in many ways the best of the Alliance. And if you go your own ways, if you declare that the time for sacrifice for others is done, what will become of the Alliance that has looked to you, that still looks to you, not just for protection but also for examples of the virtues our ancestors held dear? You will someday go home. All of you. Except Admiral Geary.” She pointed to him so suddenly that he had no time to react and could only stand there as Rione went on. “His home is a century in the past, sacrificed in the first battle of the war, sacrificed for the Alliance. He saved this fleet, he saved the Alliance, and he will not betray you or the Alliance. I do not ask you to trust me. But trust him. Listen to him. Black Jack Geary will get you home, but if he asks you to leave that home, he has good reason. For the Alliance, and for our homes.”
The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Invincible Page 4
