Jack Campbell - Invincible

“The BKS?” Geary asked, squinting as he tried to recall what such an acronym could stand for.

“The Big Kick Ship,” Smythe explained.

I have to come up with an official name for that thing, Geary thought. “Very well, Captain Smythe. Thank you for the good news.”

Once Smythe’s image had gone, Geary cast a longing look at his bunk. But the last conversation had brought up other matters that he had to check on. He called Admiral Lagemann on the captured bear-cow superbattleship.

Lagemann answered fairly quickly, grinning at Geary. The other admiral gestured around him. “Greetings from the bridge of my command, Admiral Geary.”

“Have we confirmed that’s the bridge?”

“We’re pretty sure it is,” Lagemann said. “The Kicks have some interesting variations in design philosophy from normal human practice.” He ran one hand just above his head. “They also don’t build their overheads as high as we do. My prize crew is suffering an inordinate number of blows to the head whenever we move around. We’re all developing posture problems.”

“How much space have you got?” Geary asked.

“This bridge. Some adjoining compartments. The engineers rigged temporary portable life support for these areas. If we go outside those areas, we need to be suited up because the atmosphere in the rest of the ship has become as foul as the air in a port-side bar.” Lagemann indicated some panels propped before him. “They’ve also run some sensor and comm cables and linked up a basic network for us so we can see what’s going on outside.”

“Does any of the bear-cow stuff still work?”

“We don’t know.” Lagemann reached toward one of ship’s control consoles but stopped short of touching anything. “The engineers got everything shut down and have strongly advised against trying to power up any of the Kick systems again. They’re worried that some self-destruct routine might have been triggered by the Kicks but hung up or locked up before activating. If we restarted a system, that might clear such a glitch, with very unfortunate consequences.”

Geary breathed a silent prayer of thanks that someone had thought of that. “How is everything else over there?”

“We have Marine sleeping gear and Marine rations,” Lagemann said. “The sleeping gear isn’t bad at all.”

“What about the rations?”

“They’re better than fleet battle rations, though that doesn’t mean much.”

“No. It doesn’t.”

Lagemann grinned. “We’re a bit cramped and a bit uncomfortable, but we’ve all seen worse conditions. As for me, I am in command of by far the largest warship to ever be part of the Alliance fleet. I’m good.”

“Let me know if conditions aboard deteriorate or if you run into anything or discover anything that you think I should know about.”

“Have you talked to Angela Meloch or Bran Ezeigwe on Mistral ?” Lagemann asked.

“Very briefly. Admiral Meloch and General Ezeigwe have been told that they have a clear channel to call me with anything they think I need to know.”

“Then you’re in good hands.” Lagemann reached out again, this time gently running his fingers across the edge of a bear-cow control console. “The malcontents on Mistral and Typhoon won’t let go of the past. They want to be who they once were, they want to fulfill the roles they once dreamed of living during the war. I told them before I left, ‘That’s all gone. You can’t rewrite what has happened. But you can find new dreams, and those are all around us.’ Many of them seemed chastised by that, and by events in the past few months. Had you taken us home right after we were liberated, the homecoming would have been very interesting and very lively. But now that things have had time to soak in, now that we’ve all had time to absorb the changes, you have a lot less to worry about from that quarter.” Lagemann smiled with simple joy. “An alien spacecraft, Admiral Geary. Something built by an intelligence different than our own. It’s simply awesome.”

“It is,” Geary agreed. “With everything that’s going on, I can lose sight of that. When we get that ship home, and the spider-wolf delegation with it, we’re going to learn answers to things we’ve been wondering about ever since our first ancestor gazed up at the stars for the first time.”

“Will we like those answers? I have to wonder.”

“Like them or not, we’ll have to deal with them.”

As they finally approached the jump point nearly two days later, Geary found his gaze straying repeatedly to the other jump point from which they had arrived in this star system. He kept wondering if more bear-cows would appear, a second wave of attackers intent on wiping out the new predators who had appeared on the Kick’s doorstep.

Then his eyes would go to hundreds of small markers on his display, each with its own vector aimed inward toward the star. Hundreds of dead from this fleet, on their final journey toward the fires of the star, to be consumed there and eventually reborn as another part of the universe. “Light, then dark, then light,” he murmured the words. “The dark is just an interval.”

Desjani heard, turning a somber gaze his way. “The dark does not last,” she said, the proper response from the ritual. Then her voice changed. “Are we certain that the spider-wolves won’t desecrate any of our dead? It will be months before they reach the star.”

“Our emissaries and our experts are all positive that the spider-wolves understand how important we consider the safe journeys of our dead to be,” Geary answered. “Just as insurance, we provided the spider-wolves with full scans and biological information about our species. There’s nothing the spider-wolves could learn from those bodies that we haven’t already given them.”

“Have the spider-wolves given us all that stuff about them?”

“Not yet.”

“Politicians and civilians,” Desjani grumbled disdainfully.

“Coming up on jump point in five minutes,” Lieutenant Castries said.

Geary activated his comms. “All units, this is Admiral Geary. We are not expecting hostilities at the next star and must not act in a threatening manner inside space controlled by the spider-wolves. No evasive maneuver will be preplanned for execution upon exit from jump, and no weapons are to be powered up when we leave jump. However, all shields are to be at maximum and all personnel are to be prepared for anything. All units jump as scheduled.”

The moment of jump came, the stars vanishing and human bodies and minds twisting at the shift from somewhere to somewhere else.

There would be some time for rest in jump space, but not a great deal. While in jump space, the engineers on the auxiliaries could no longer travel to and perform work on other ships, but they could spend that time manufacturing new spare parts and replacement equipment, both of which were in very high demand, as well as new fuel cells and new missiles to replace those expended. The crews of the other ships would, in most cases, be busy with extra internal maintenance and repairs.

Geary sat looking at a display showing the outside view. The dull gray of jump space spread on all sides, an infinity of nothing. It was possible to go outside on a ship’s hull while in jump space. It was possible to do work on the exterior of a ship in jump space. But if anything, human or equipment, lost physical contact with the ship for even an instant, it was gone. It was still in jump space, but somewhere else. Just like the ships that made up this fleet, which were all in jump space together, all traveling from one jump point to the same new jump point, but which could not see or interact with each other except for some very simple and basic messages that could be exchanged.