Jack Campbell - Invincible

Though, Geary thought, no matter whom else he consulted, responsibility ultimately lay with him.

“You have three thousand Marines with this fleet?” Charban asked. “How many are being utilized in this operation?”

“The first waves will use two thousand,” Geary replied. “A thousand on each side. General Carabali is holding five hundred in reserve, and we’ve got a final five hundred available on the major warships to reinforce the attack if that proves necessary.”

“Two thousand,” Charban repeated. “Against how many alien warriors? We will soon learn the answer to the age-old question of how many bear-cows a single Marine is equal to.”

Geary fought down a laugh, recognizing a ground-forces soldier’s crack at the legendary pride of Fleet Marines, who considered themselves the equal of any number of any other kind of combatant.

Desjani did laugh, turning to smile at Charban. She hadn’t liked him, hadn’t cared for his reluctance to use force when she thought it obviously necessary, but she did like people who could joke in the face of apprehension.

Flocks of landing shuttles burst from the assault transports, lining up and heading for the superbattleship like eagles swooping to a strike.

Here and there, shots from particle beams or lasers suddenly erupted from the battleship, weapons that had ceased fire before being destroyed or which had lain dormant until now, trying to tear up the oncoming ranks of shuttles.

A few shuttles staggered under blows, but the battleships had been watching, and now their own hell-lance batteries opened up again, silencing within seconds the defensive fire in an avalanche of counterfire.

Eight shuttles had taken hits, two seriously damaged, the ranks of shuttles wavering and disrupted by the defensive fire. Geary heard orders going out from the assault coordinators. “Shuttles 1210 and 4236, abort runs and return to base. All other shuttles continue approach.”

Shuttle 1210 replied, her pilot sounding puzzled. “Say again. I didn’t copy.”

“Abort run. Return to base.”

“Sorry. Can’t copy,” the shuttle pilot repeated. “Continuing run.”

“This is 4236,” another voice broke in. “I’ve still got control. Request permission to continue run. It’s safer than trying to push back to base.”

Everyone else had heard 1210 and 4236, and now the other shuttles steadied out, no one wishing to break formation while their more heavily damaged comrades hung on.

Even though the enemy fire had once again ceased, Dreadnaught ’s main propulsion units lit off for a moment, pushing the battleship closer to the enemy superbattleship.

Geary activated a special circuit that allowed private communications with any ship’s commanding officer. “Captain Jane Geary, this is Admiral Geary,” he said. “There is nothing else you need to prove to anyone, not after your actions during the battle at this star. Pull back to your assigned position with your comrades.”

He didn’t wait for a reply, ending the message and sitting back.

Desjani made a sidelong glance in his direction. The special circuit had automatically activated a privacy field around Geary’s seat, preventing anyone else from hearing what he had said, and she was surely curious as to what he had told Jane Geary.

Dreadnaught ’s bow thrusters fired, countering her forward motion and nudging the battleship back toward her assigned position.

“All right,” Desjani said. “I’ll give in. What did you tell her?”

“I told her that she didn’t need to worry about proving to anyone anymore that she was a Geary.”

“Let’s hope she listens. Admiral, I can keep an eye on the external situation if you want to concentrate on following the Marine attack.”

“I shouldn’t—” As a rule, he shouldn’t concentrate on one area, ignoring what was happening elsewhere. Especially he shouldn’t get down in the weeds of a Marine operation, losing track of events in the space around his ships. But there was no battle under way elsewhere, no other hostile force in this star system. Anyone arriving via a jump point would be at least several light-hours away, and the spider-wolves were far enough off that even they couldn’t stage a surprise attack if they suddenly and inexplicably became hostile.

“You need to learn more about how the Marines operate,” Desjani pointed out. “You are an admiral now. And there’s no better way to learn than by watching them.”

“You’re right,” Geary conceded.

“I’m always right,” she murmured in reply, then in a louder voice that others besides Geary could hear added, “I’ll keep an eye on things while you overwatch the Marine action, Admiral.”

No fleet officer would question that. As much as fleet officers respected the Marines, they also didn’t entirely trust them around ships. The Marines were different, with different training and experience. They would sometimes push buttons they shouldn’t, without knowing what those buttons would do. Everyone would be happy to know that the admiral was watching the Marines.

Of course, Marines felt the same way about sailors, and doubtless wished that General Carabali could supervise the actions of fleet officers.

Geary called up the windows that offered views from Marine combat armor and was surprised at first by the depth of the layers offered this time. But he had never overseen an operation this big, with this many Marines and this many squads, platoons, companies, and battalions to which they were assigned. He could touch a battalion commander’s image and be offered access to the images of the company commanders below that, and below them the platoon commanders, then the squad commanders, and finally individual Marines. He could activate a huge window that contained thumbnails of the views from hundreds of Marines at once in a dizzying range of activity. And, of course, he could talk to General Carabali directly.

He didn’t intend talking to her, distracting her when she needed to be commanding her troops. He didn’t intend talking to any of the Marines and carefully moved his other hand away from the comm controls so he wouldn’t accidentally do so. He needed to know what was happening. He needed to learn more about Marine operations. He didn’t need to micromanage people who knew their jobs far better than he ever would.

A smaller window to one side briefly puzzled Geary, then he realized it offered views from the shuttles rapidly closing in on the hull of the superbattleship. He tapped one, getting a large view of the alien ship, its newly pitted armor looming on all sides as if the shuttle were flying toward a massive, slightly curving wall. Was that a large hatch sealed tight? It looked like a cargo hatch. Nearby was what seemed to be a personnel access, far smaller and not even as big as one intended for humans. Could a Marine in combat armor get through something that size?

The shuttle glided to a halt as its bow thrusters fired, hovering just short of the superbattleship. So close Geary could see the scars of impacts, could spot the place where what had probably been a shield generator had been before it had been blasted to ruin by fire from the battleships.

It all lay silent, as if the superbattleship were lifeless inside as well as out, a derelict crewed only by the dead.

That was possible. The defensive fire they had seen could have been the work of weapons set to fire automatically under control of computerized systems.

Geary didn’t believe that, though. Neither, obviously, did the Marines.

He wondered how it would look, how it would feel, if the superbattleship self-destructed, while he was viewing it virtually from so close-up. The thought put a chill through him, and Geary looked for something to distract him from a possibility that he could do nothing about now.