Jack Campbell - Invincible

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 drama 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.”