The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Invincible

by Campbell, Jack

  “Good thing there weren’t more of them,” one of his companions agreed.

  “There are more of them,” their sergeant barked. “Keep your weapons ready, your mouths shut, and your eyes sharp.”

  As the Marines moved farther into the ship, they encountered scattered pockets of Kicks, who hurled themselves forward in hopeless, desperate attacks that ended only when the last of them was dead. Geary watched the symbols of the Marine units spread back through the superbattleship, then onward past the points where the crew had counterattacked.

  “What the hell?” a lieutenant asked as her unit entered a very large area near the center of the ship, a vast compartment whose ceiling soared six meters high. But the deck of the compartment wasn’t a deck, it was vegetation, row upon row of crops set into growing containers, the tops of multiple stems on each plant heavy with seeds or fruit or maybe something that was both seed and fruit.

  “Food and oxygen resupply combined in one,” a sergeant remarked, pulling himself down to examine a long line of growing containers. “My father worked on a farm like this in a sealed city before Huldera Star System was abandoned. And, unless I miss my guess, this is how those bear-cows recycled at least some of their waste products, as fertilizer. Good things these troughs are sealed so stuff couldn’t float away when the gravity went off.”

  The sergeant’s squad made noises of revulsion, suddenly taking great care where they put their hands and feet.

  More units stumbled across similar compartments, then one platoon sounded an alert that drew Geary’s attention. “Lieutenant, I think we found a control station. It doesn’t look big enough for a full power core.”

  “How would you know, Winski?”

  “I helped take a Syndic battleship at Welfrida, that’s how. That was a lot smaller ship than this thing, and it had a bigger control station than this one.”

  “Tanya,” Geary said, “take a look at this.” He also forwarded the image to Captain Smythe. “What do you think?”

  Desjani sounded doubtful. “A secondary control station, maybe. That’s not big enough even for the power core of a ship the size of Dauntless.”

  Smythe agreed but added something else. “It may be that what we find will all look like secondary control stations. I’ve been watching as the Marines fill in the deck plan on that superbattleship, and I am ever more convinced that the bear-cows avoided using one or two major power sources, instead choosing to use multiple lesser power sources. Maybe that was for backup. Redundancy. Or maybe in a ship of that size it made sense to distribute the power sources rather than run lines all over from one or two sources located in one area.”

  “Why didn’t they blow it up?” Geary asked the question again.

  “Maybe it didn’t occur to them. Maybe they beat the predators on their world by refusing to give up, instead fighting to the last breath and the last Kick to kill their opponents.” Smythe blinked, his expression twisting. “When you showed me the images of that control room, I saw some of the passageways on that ship. What they’re like now, filled with so many dead. Why would they keep fighting? Why die in a hopeless struggle?”

  “I guess they thought they’d die anyway and wanted to go down swinging.” Geary had disliked the bear-cows. No, he had hated them for forcing the fights in the Pandora Star System and here, but he had to feel grudging respect for them as well, just as Desjani did. It was easy to see why they had overrun their world, wiping out all competition.

  But that was just one more reason why they couldn’t be allowed to follow this fleet back to human space.

  The Marines spread through the superbattleship, breaking down into smaller and smaller forces, wiping out smaller and smaller gatherings of remaining Kicks, who still refused to surrender and attacked until they were killed. Occasionally, a tiny group of bear-cows stampeded away from the Marines, but the moment the aliens hit a dead end, they turned and charged their pursuers.

  The human invaders found vast barracks, subdivided by airtight hatches but otherwise sprawling for long distances. Everywhere, there were compartments set up for eating, as if the bear-cows grazed nearly constantly. The Marines found what could only be hospitals, the operating equipment undersized so that the complexes seemed oddly and disturbingly like children’s playrooms. Armories empty of weapons. More control rooms.

  Finally, a squad came across the bridge of the superbattleship, a compartment where command seats were backed up by what seemed like stadium seating, as if dozens of spectators routinely watched events there.

  “That is so weird,” Desjani said. “What is that about?”

  “Beats the hell out of me,” Geary replied.

  General Carabali called in, professionally deadpan as she made her report. “Organized resistance has ceased aboard the superbattleship, Admiral, but I can’t say it’s safe yet. Not until we’ve gone over it much more carefully. My Marines aboard that ship will remain in a combat footing, and any fleet personnel coming aboard will require Marine escorts.”

  “Thank you, General,” Geary said. “Damned good job. My congratulations on your success and my condolences on your losses.”

  “Thank you, Admiral.”

  “Are there any bear-cows still alive?”

  “The Kicks fought until they were killed, or if we started to physically overcome them they died. We don’t know if there’s a suicide device on them or in their armor, or if it’s some mental thing. They also slaughtered their unconscious wounded if there seemed a chance of their being captured.”

  “Ancestors preserve us.”

  Carabali made a face. “If you think about it, Admiral, if you were a cow, and you knew the fate awaiting any of your fellow cows who were captured, then the Kick actions make sense. They were protecting their injured from a fate worse than death. My Marines are searching through the enemy dead for any Kicks who were injured so badly they were rendered unconscious but weren’t subsequently killed by their own comrades to ‘save’ them from us.”

  Now Carabali hesitated. “Speaking of the enemy dead . . . Admiral, after any battle there is the matter of enemy remains to address. Our policy on that varied during the war, as you know, even though our opponents were fellow humans. But since you assumed command, we have dealt with remains with all due dignity and respect. But now . . . Admiral, there are so many dead crowding that ship. Long stretches of some passageways are impossible to get through, and there’s a tremendous amount of blood floating around so we don’t dare restart ventilation even if we knew the right controls. What should we do with them?”

  How could they give decent burials to that many enemy dead, especially when many of the bodies weren’t intact but blown into pieces?

  But they had to get them out of the ship, or, within a few days, it would turn into an unlivable hell.

  “General, we’ll treat them as best we know how. Working parties will have to collect the enemy dead. Fleet medical will want to retain some specimens; but otherwise, they are to be gathered at one of the cargo docks. A service will be said each time the dock is full, then the bodies will be ejected en masse on a trajectory aimed at the star, and we’ll start filling the dock again.”

  “Yes, sir. It would help if we could get sailors to assist in those working parties. It’s not a pleasant job, and there’s a lot to collect.”

  Geary shook his head, looking at the fleet status readouts. “General, every sailor I’ve got is working almost around the clock either repairing their own ship or on tiger teams assisting other ships. I have to give priority to getting my ships as combat-ready as possible as soon as possible.” What other resources did he have? The senior officers rescued from the Syndic labor camp on Dunai. The Syndic citizens rescued from the enigma race. There weren’t that many of either, but it was something. “I will ask for volunteers among our two groups of passengers to assist in the cleanup and will see if the auxiliaries have any equipment that can handle the task on its own.”

  Carabali let her disappointment show bu
t nodded. “I do understand. No one is taking it easy right now. But even a few personnel besides Marines assisting in the task would be welcome.”

  “I’ll have someone there, General.”

  It took nearly two days of careful exploring, using Marines assisted by small, robotic probes that could get into any area of the ship before it was declared officially taken by General Carabali. Long before that, human engineers who were desperately needed to help conduct repairs on Geary’s ships had been hauled off those jobs to try to figure out the controls on the superbattleship and render everything safe.

  The engineers on the auxiliaries had offered up a half dozen decontamination units, mobile devices designed to enter ships and remove any sort of contagion or pollution. They vacuumed up blood from the air, scrubbed it from bulkheads, decks, and overheads, collected pieces of what the engineers called random biological remains, and scooped up relatively intact dead bear-cows in large numbers to deliver to the designated cargo dock, giving relief to tired and resentful Marines. Midgrade fleet and Marine officers rotated at the dock, each reciting the words of the standard burial service over each mass of dead Kicks before they were sent on their final journey to the star here.

  The Marines had found amid the bear-cow dead six who were still alive but too badly injured to arouse to consciousness. The six were transferred to medical quarantine on Mistral while the fleet doctors tried to figure out how to keep them alive.

  “What the hell are we going to do with that thing?” Desjani grumbled on the third day. She was exhausted, they were all exhausted. “We are taking it with us, right?”

  “Yes. We have to.” Geary knew that she knew the answer as well as he did.

  “How?”

  That question was a lot harder. “I’ll ask Captain Smythe.” Geary rubbed his eyes, realizing how woolly his mind was after so many days with too little sleep as he supervised so much repair work and everything else. “All units, this is Admiral Geary. Tomorrow is rope yarn. All hands are to relax, sleep, eat, and recharge. To the honor of our ancestors, Geary, out.”

  Desjani frowned at him in disbelief. “We can’t afford a day off. And why do they call it rope yarn anyway?”

  “I know we can’t, and I don’t know.”

  “What?”

  “My point exactly,” he said. “We’re all running on empty, our minds fuzzy from fatigue. We need rest, we need a reset, so our efforts can be a lot more effective.”

  Captain Smythe protested as well. “My engineers don’t need a rest, Admiral. It will blunt their momentum. They can easily go two or three more days without a break.”

  “Are you saying your engineers are fully effective and will remain so if they keep working without a break for two or three more days?” Geary asked.

  “Absolutely. Of course, the frequency of hallucinations and erratic behaviors will go up a bit more on an accelerating curve—”

  “Give them a rest, Captain Smythe. That’s a firm order. I will be checking to see that the stand-down is enforced.”

  Of course, even though Geary made an effort to sleep in, he couldn’t avoid all work that day.

  “I request a personal conference,” Captain Badaya said, his image standing in Geary’s stateroom.

  Badaya looked as subdued as Geary had ever seen him. “Granted. Sit down, Captain.”

  “Thank you, Admiral.” Badaya took a seat in his own stateroom, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees. “You already have my formal report of the recent action.”

  “Yes. You didn’t spare yourself.”

  “Nor should I have!” Badaya sat back. “I blew it. I could not have anticipated that Titan would lose some of her propulsion when she did, or that Incredible would take damage to one of her main propulsion units at the same time as the shields on Illustrious collapsed, but I should have reacted better and faster when that did happen. If not for Captain Geary, the majority of the ships under my direct control would probably have been destroyed and the rest severely damaged.”

  “That decision of Captain Jane Geary’s should not have worked out as well as it did,” Geary pointed out.

  “It was still the right decision,” Badaya insisted. “I was busy trying to figure out how to save my entire formation, which I couldn’t do, but she recognized that some sacrifice would be necessary. Now, I realize you don’t publicly humiliate officers, even those who deserve it, and you and I both know some of those I speak of in that regard. But I wanted to tell you that I will not contest any other officer being put in command of a subformation in which my battle cruiser is a part. I understand that everyone will see that as a demotion, but I understand that I failed in a higher command position. Perhaps with time, I’ll figure out how to handle things better. If you feel it is appropriate, I will also not object to giving command of the Sixth Battle Cruiser Division to Captain Parr of the Incredible. He is not as experienced as I am, but he is a fine and skilled officer.”

  Geary watched Badaya for a few moments before answering. “It could have been done better. It could have been done a lot worse.”

  “Thank you, Admiral.”

  “I was remembering my first commanding officer on my first ship,” Geary said. “I was still a new officer, only about a month after reporting aboard, when I made a big mistake. My department head almost took my skin off. The executive officer almost popped my eardrums. That took most of the morning. Then the captain called me in.”

  “That must have been one hell of a mistake,” Badaya observed.

  “Oh, yeah. Big enough that I won’t say what it was. But my captain called me in, junior officer me all quivering after the dressing-downs I had already gotten, and he said to me in a calm voice, ‘Mistakes are how we learn.’ He let me stare at him in amazement for a long moment, then he added in a voice like frozen nitrogen, ‘Don’t ever make that mistake again.’ Then he dismissed me.”

  Badaya laughed. “The hell you say.”

  “The point is, I learned more from those two sentences from him than I did from the screaming directed at great length at me by my department head and the executive officer. That captain managed to chew me out and convey continued confidence in me with those two sentences. After that, I never let him down. I wanted to be certain I never let him down.” Geary leaned back, deliberately relaxing his posture. “Yes, you screwed up. You know you screwed up. I will make further decisions on subformation commanders taking that into account, and you know I have to, but I will also take into account what you did right and have done right. There will be no changes in command of the Sixth Battle Cruiser Division. I have no problems with Captain Parr, who as you say has proven himself a fine officer, but you still have my confidence as commander of that division.”

  It took perhaps half a minute for Badaya to answer, his voice rough with emotion. “You really are him, you know. I’ve heard people say no one could actually be Black Jack, but—”

  “I’ve made my share of mistakes.” Geary paused, realizing this was a moment he could use for other reasons. “Especially in areas I’m not trained in. Captain Badaya, the fact that many of the politicians running the Alliance aren’t doing a very good job of it and haven’t done a very good job of it doesn’t mean you or I would do better than they have.”

  Badaya looked back at Geary steadily, thoughts moving behind his eyes. “That’s a point,” Badaya finally conceded. “Do you ever feel overwhelmed during a battle, Admiral? Like too much is happening, and you don’t know what the right thing to do is?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “As you were saying that last, about the politicians, I imagined myself making political decisions in a crisis. It was all too easy to imagine feeling overwhelmed.” He paused. “That’s why you’re still letting them do most things, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” A partial lie, which made Geary cringe internally. Badaya thought Geary was actually directing the government now, behind the scenes. That had been necessary to avoid the chance of a coup in Geary’s n
ame though without his approval, but Geary had been wanting to work his way out of that perception ever since he had been forced to adopt it. “As bad as they may be at it, most of them anyway, they’re still better at it than I am. There are some who are terrible by any standard, but there are also some who are good by any standard. And, most important, they derive their power from having been chosen by the people of the Alliance.”

  Badaya bent an arch look at Geary. “The people of the Alliance would choose you if you asked for that openly.”

  “I know.” Give him the full truth now. “That scares the hell out of me.”

  “Understandably.” Badaya stood up, saluting. “Thank you, sir.”

  His comm panel chimed the moment Badaya’s image vanished. “What did he want?” Desjani asked.

  “He apologized,” Geary said.

  “He apologized? Foot-in-mouth Badaya? Damn.” Desjani had never taken well Badaya’s often clumsy comments about her and Geary. “You are a miracle worker, aren’t you?”

  “Very funny. Are you resting?”

  “Resting? Me? Oh, yes, sir. I’m resting so hard that I’m sleeping in my sleep.”

  “Tanya, set a good example for your crew.”

  She offered him a rigidly proper salute. “Yes, Admiral. I hear and obey.”

  With both Captain Badaya and Captain Desjani gone, Geary rubbed his eyes, thinking about trying to sleep . . .

  Six bells chimed in spaced pairs across the ship’s general announcing system, followed by a voice saying “Admiral, Alliance fleet, arriving.”

  An admiral. There were only two other sources of Alliance fleet admirals in this star system, among the liberated prisoners of war aboard Mistral and Typhoon. But none of them should be coming to Dauntless.

  Geary was reaching toward his comm panel when it came to life, Desjani once again gazing out at him. “Admiral Lagemann has arrived on a shuttle and requests a meeting with you, Admiral.”