He had to take that in, letting the idea settle, and not liking it at all. “You think they might follow us? Through that jump point?”
“Admiral, it’s possible that they will follow us as long as they possibly can, trying to destroy us so that we cannot return and threaten the herd again. These herbivores gained control of their world. They built those fortresses. They must be persistent, able to focus for long periods on issues of security, and willing to devote whatever it takes to eliminating threats.”
“Thank you. That’s an . . . interesting interpretation, though I hope you’re wrong.” After the images of the doctors vanished, Geary turned to Desjani and passed on the theory.
“Oh, great.” Desjani flexed her hands as if preparing for physical combat. “I wonder if they’ve got legs enough to follow us all the way back to Alliance space?”
“Without auxiliaries to transport and produce more fuel cells or whatever else they use?” Geary asked.
“Those superbattleships are big enough to have auxiliary capabilities,” she pointed out. “Big storage capacity, manufacturing shops, that kind of thing. You know, they make more sense now that I thought of that. Maybe they even grow food on some of the decks. A self-contained warship that can make everything it needs, that has essentially unlimited endurance as long as it can pick up new raw materials occasionally as it passes through star systems.”
He looked at the depictions of the bear-cow superbattleships with new eyes. “You’re right. They may not be that big just for immediate combat capability. One more thing to worry about.”
“We can take them as far as Syndic territory and lose them there so they can run amuck,” Desjani suggested. “I’m joking, by the way.”
“Thanks for clarifying that.” He was only half-joking in his reply. When he had first encountered Tanya, she had carried many of the ugly legacies of a century of war within her. There were few things she would not have done to the hated Syndicate Worlds enemies, military or civilian. She still carried many scars of war inside her though she rarely let him see external signs of those. “But if they do follow us, we’re going to have to take them out once we have them somewhere they don’t have these fortresses and all of the other resources of this star system backing them up.”
She nodded, smiling crookedly. “I notice you haven’t been talking much about what might be at the star we’ll be jumping to.”
“Whatever is there is there. We’ll deal with it.”
“Admiral?” the comm watch-stander said. “Captain Smythe on Tanuki is trying to get through to you. He says he’s getting a block notification.”
“Captain Smythe?” Geary looked at Desjani. “I know my comm settings don’t block him.”
Her face grim, Desjani hit her internal comm controls. “Systems maintenance, this is the Captain. Something is wrong with the fleet commander’s comm software. Find out what, find it now, and get it fixed five minutes ago. Understood?”
“Yes, Captain!” The systems maintenance personnel sounded worried, as well they should be when Desjani used that tone of voice.
“Forward Captain Smythe’s call,” Geary ordered the comm watch.
Smythe appeared, looking puzzled. “Comm problems, Admiral? I’m guessing, but then I don’t see how else I would have ended up unable to reach you directly.”
“Apparently,” Geary replied. “The systems people here on Dauntless are checking it.”
“It’s probably—Is it an isolated problem? Have you seen others?”
“At least one other recent problem with my comm settings,” Geary said.
“Admiral, I don’t wish to alarm you,” Smythe said, though his expression betrayed a worrisome amount of unease despite his words. “This may not be a software problem. That is, the operating systems may be working fine. But if the comm system processors and memory tacks are developing physical flaws, it will cause erratic behavior in the software.”
Everything else in the fleet was breaking as it reached the end of a short design life, but this particular problem hadn’t occurred to Geary. If he started having comm problems now, as they were heading for an encounter with the alien armada . . . “Captain Desjani, Captain Smythe informs me that it would be a good idea for your systems people to check the hardware in the comm system. Processors and memory tacks.”
As aware as he of the implications, Desjani stared at Geary for only an instant before reacting. “Systems! Check the hardware! Chief engineer! I want an immediate and full check of all comm and comm-associated processors and other gear.”
Smythe, unaware of Desjani’s words, was speaking to Geary again. “I was actually calling about Orion. Kupua completed her repairs on the damaged main propulsion unit and the fleet’s readiness system will tell you that Orion is at one hundred percent again, but Kupua’s commanding officer, Commander Miskovic, told me that she is worried.”
“Worried?” She’s worried? Try wondering whether or not your comms will work as you race to an encounter with an alien fleet. “Worried about what?”
“The systems test fine,” Smythe said, groping for words. “But . . . Miskovic told me they don’t feel fine to her.”
“What does that mean?” Geary demanded.
“It means there’s nothing quantifiably wrong with Orion’s propulsion right now, Admiral, but a talented and experienced engineer has a bad feeling about it.” Smythe gestured in frustration. “I don’t have to remind you that Orion has taken a lot of damage in the last year and received a lot of repairs, sometimes very hasty ones. That sort of thing can add up in sometimes indefinable ways.”
“I don’t understand.”
Smythe looked startled, then his expression cleared. “Of course. You didn’t spend your career in combat, not until after the fight at Grendel. Your pardon, Admiral, but everyone today tends to assume that any officer they know has been in the fight all their lives. But that means you don’t have extensive experience with combat-damaged systems that have undergone repeated repair. I’ll be the first to admit that hasn’t happened as much as it should have, because too many ships were lost completely or had to be scuttled. But it adds up, just like normal stresses add up over time.”
Another headache was starting. Geary tried to relax himself. Letting stress impact him could lead to errors and misjudgments that he and this fleet could not afford. “What exactly does that mean in this case?”
“It means that while every test shows Orion’s propulsion systems working fine, the engineer who helped run those tests is of the opinion that Orion could suffer a significant propulsion problem at any time, with little or no warning. I thought you should know.”
“Is there anything I can do about it?” Geary asked.
“Not apart from full rework, replacement, and rebuild of Orion’s systems,” Smythe said. “Which is scheduled though that schedule keeps slipping.”
Geary nodded, absorbing the information. “Thank you, Captain Smythe. At least if something does happen unexpectedly to Orion’s propulsion systems I’ll be mentally prepared to deal with it.” Please, ancestors, ask the living stars to make sure that doesn’t happen during a battle. “Was Commander Shen informed of this?”
“Yes, Admiral. He didn’t seem happy with the assessment, but then Commander Shen never looks happy.”
Desjani leaned closer. “It was in the main comm coordination processors. Several of the memory tacks there aren’t retaining updates.”
Smythe heard this time and nodded in satisfaction. “That’s it. They’re losing memory-save capability. That’s causing your comm system to keep falling back into default settings. Nothing anyone would notice at first, but the save problems will keep cascading through your systems.”
“My system engineers are swapping out the tacks,” Desjani said. “Should they be doing anything else?”
“Replacing the rest of the system,” Smythe said with a sigh. “The tack failures are the canary in the coal mine for your comm system. Don’t depend on normal physical
equipment diagnostics and self-test schedules. Treat the system as sick until we can get everything replaced.”
“Captain Smythe,” Geary said with what he considered a great deal of restraint, “we’re heading into battle. Are you telling me that I can’t depend upon Dauntless’s comm system?”
He felt Desjani tense. She had always taken pride in Dauntless’s status as flagship, as well as her own reputation for keeping everything and everyone on Dauntless in top readiness. If he had to transfer his flag on the eve of a fight because he couldn’t count on critical equipment on Dauntless working, Tanya and her crew would be humiliated.
Smythe simply viewed the question from an engineer’s perspective, though. “I’d need to see a full inspection and test run before I could answer that question, Admiral. Obviously, there are already problems on Dauntless, though.”
Desjani’s face had darkened, and she appeared ready for a hot retort.
Should he let loyalty to Tanya, and his familiarity with and liking of Dauntless and her crew, override his responsibility to have a flagship with reliable communications? The consequences of letting sentiment decide the issue, rather than cold logic, could be extremely serious.
But there were other factors in war that had nothing to do with cold logic. Intangibles that could decide the outcomes of battles. What would be the impact in the fleet if everyone saw him making a last-minute shift of his flag to another warship when Dauntless was outwardly undamaged? How many reasons for such an action would fly around the fleet within moments, and how much damage could those rumors cause to the fighting spirit and discipline of this fleet?
Unaware of the emotional byplay, Smythe had continued speaking, his face intent and eyes focused elsewhere as he thought through the problem. “Obviously, too, Dauntless has already identified the problem and begun corrective work. Any other ship could develop the same issues at any time. But there’s no telling how long or complex the repairs might be—”
“Thank you, Captain Smythe,” Geary broke in, feeling the tension now not only in Desjani but within everyone on the bridge. For better or worse, he believed that this time the intangibles had to take priority. “Dauntless is working to correct the problem. I’ll place my trust in the ability of her crew to get the job done. They’ve never let me down.”
“All right, Admiral. It’s your fleet. Oh, don’t forget the bit about Orion.”
“Trust me, Captain Smythe, I will remember that.” He sat back, blowing out a breath he hadn’t known was inside him. Glancing at Desjani, he saw her speaking on her internal comms, with brisk efficiency but no outward tension now. Around him, the rest of Dauntless’s bridge crew were at work with a sort of steady determination. “How’s it look?” he asked Desjani.
She finished her conversation, turning toward him. “Another ten minutes, and the swap out of components and system checks will be done. A full inspection of the physical components will take a lot longer, but we’re on it, Admiral.”
“Thank you.”
“No, sir. Thank you.” She smiled. “You publicly expressed confidence in my ship and my crew.”
He shrugged, uncomfortable with knowing his words meant so much to her and the rest of the crew. “I just told the truth. Dauntless has never let me down. If there is a ship in this fleet that is truly invincible, it’s Dauntless.”
Desjani’s smile slipped. “And now you’re trying to jinx my ship.”
“I only meant—”
“Quit while you’re ahead, Admiral. I’m sure you will apologize to the living stars later for the presumption, but for now let’s pretend you didn’t say that and just focus on the fact that Black Jack wouldn’t have any other ship carry his flag.”
HE almost hesitated before sending the next maneuver orders, wondering if they would go out to the rest of the fleet as they should or if the comm system would suffer more problems. But Desjani’s comm personnel had reported that the system was working properly for now at least. “All units, come port six five degrees down three degrees at time one five.”
Every ship turned as ordered, the box formation once again pivoting its heading without changing its shape, the fleet curving around away from both the star here and the oncoming bear-cow armada, now only twenty light-minutes distant.
“The bear-cows are going to be unhappy,” Desjani commented.
“As long as they do what we want,” Geary replied.
“And what,” Victoria Rione asked from the back of the bridge, “are we doing?”
He pivoted his seat to look back at her. “Trying to get them to do what we want them to do. I take it we still haven’t heard from them?”
“No,” Rione said. “Not even a bloodcurdling ‘moo’ of defiance. I believe your experts are right. These creatures do not speak with their enemies. They get rid of them.”
General Charban came on the bridge as well as Rione finished. “And too bad for anyone or anything that wasn’t actually an enemy, though I suspect their definition of enemy might be very broad. I just had a fascinating discussion with Dr. Shwartz.”
“Any new insights?” Geary asked. It would be about forty minutes before they spotted the bear-cow reaction to their latest maneuver, so he might as well see if he could learn anything new during the wait.
“Nothing good,” Charban said.
“Why is it that Dr. Shwartz’s insights rarely bring comfort?”
Charban smiled. “That’s a question I can’t address. But I can tell you what our experts have concluded from more analysis of the surface of that inhabited planet here. You already know it is almost covered with buildings.”
“Right. Buildings with crops on the roofs.”
“The same crops, Admiral. There is very little if any variation in vegetation in all of the areas we have been able to view of that planet.”
“Everywhere?”
Desjani got it, making a noise of disbelief. “They’ve wiped out everything else? That planet is covered with them and what they grow to eat?”
“Pretty much,” Charban said. “They not only took out all of the predators, they’ve also apparently taken out everything else that might compete with them or be in the way. In the videos we’ve intercepted, we’ve seen birdlike creatures occasionally, and some small beasts that appear to be pets, but aside from that, it’s just bear-cows. Oh, except for some shows that must be historical. The bear-cows in them wear primitive armor and engage in battles with other creatures, clearly digital special effects rather than real, probably the predators who are now extinct.”
“Battles?” That might be another opportunity to confirm how the bear-cows fought. “Can you forward me one of those right now?”
“Certainly, Admiral.” Charban tapped his comm unit, then nodded to Geary.
Desjani leaned in close to Geary to watch as well, pointedly ignoring the arch look that Rione sent their way at the physical proximity.
In the new virtual window that popped up before him, Geary saw serried ranks of bear-cows bearing shields and long spears, advancing steadily against foes that battered vainly against the shield wall. Occasionally, one of the maddened predators would leap high enough to clear the shields, only to be impaled on the bristling field of spears behind that.
“It’s an impressive display of discipline,” Charban commented. “The bear-cows all stay in position in the formation, all stay in step, all respond immediately to orders.”
“I’m not seeing much drama,” Desjani commented. “They’re just using the weight of numbers to push back those predators, encircle them, and spear them.”
“That’s all that happens,” Charban said. “All of these historical videos are the same. We haven’t seen a single case where a lone bear-cow plays the hero. Apparently, the bear-cows get their pleasure from watching the mass movements of their own armies. I checked, and there are rough analogues to that in human history. One ancient society on Old Earth, for example, who fought in similar tight formations with locked shields, and found heroism and d
rama in the simple question of whether or not each soldier could hold their place in formation as two forces clashed.”
“They’re not totally different from us,” Rione said. “There are ways in which we could find common ground if they would talk to us. But our earlier estimate that these herbivores attacked us solely because we appeared to be predators was incomplete.”
“There’s another reason?” Geary asked.
She waved in the direction where the distant bear-cow planet lay. “We would be competition, Admiral. They don’t allow competition of any kind. They’ve wiped out the competition on their home world, and if they had not been pinned here by the presence of the enigmas, they might have expanded to human-controlled space by now, plowing under every other life-form they encountered.”
“What about in the other directions? Do we have to assume that the bear-cows are surrounded by enigma-controlled space?”
“We can hope,” Rione said. “And, yes, I know none of us would have hoped for that before coming to this star, but now the enigmas do seem to be the lesser of two evils.”
“Pandora,” Desjani said.
“What?” Geary spoke for everyone else on the bridge.
“One of those old legends,” Desjani explained. “The type that blamed everything that was wrong on women. Pandora opened some box and found all kinds of bad things in it. I think Pandora might be a good name for this particular star.”
“Those old legends didn’t blame all women for everything that was wrong,” Charban said. “They only blamed women who . . . didn’t do as they were told.”
“A critical distinction,” Rione said in dry tones. “It is, after all, hard to overemphasize the importance of obedience in women.”
Desjani grinned at Charban’s discomfort, then suddenly realized that she had allied with Rione in this matter and shifted her attention back to Geary. “Five minutes until we see their reaction.”
Not wanting to get involved in the discussion of historical views on “appropriate” female behavior that Charban had unwittingly opened, Geary simply nodded, focusing back on his display. The bear-cows should react to his last maneuver by coming to port, heading down very slightly, and accelerating again to set up another intercept with the human fleet.
The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Invincible Page 8