Jack Campbell - Invincible

Geary sent out the announcement, half-wishing he could just fight the aliens again instead, and half-fearing that all of his options from here on would be bad ones.

The conference room could really hold only a dozen people or so, but the meeting software allowed it to “expand” to fit the number of individuals attending meetings virtually. Geary looked down the long length of the table, which had apparently expanded in size to match the numbers of officers present. The commanding officers of every ship in the fleet looked back at him, along with other individuals such as Lieutenant Iger, the fleet’s chief medical officer Captain Nasr, both General Charban and Emissary Rione, and some of the civilian experts on intelligent aliens.

A few others were hidden from sight and hearing by the rest of the participants except for Geary and Desjani. Those few, picked representatives from the former prisoners of war now berthed on Mistral and Typhoon , were being allowed to watch and listen to the proceedings. If their many high-ranking and self-important peers on those same assault transports knew, they would all clamor for seats (and voices) in the meeting as well, and that simply wasn’t going to happen.

Far too many of the meetings held in here since Geary had assumed command of the fleet had involved far too much drama for Geary’s taste. During the century he had been in survival sleep, fleet conferences had degenerated into political free-for-alls in which fleet commanders vied for support from their subordinates. When he was found and awakened, it was to discover that he, Captain Geary, was by far the most senior captain in the Alliance fleet, with a date of rank nearly a century before. That hadn’t mattered to him, but it had meant that when Admiral Bloch died, Geary had been the next in line to command the fleet by seniority, by Bloch’s own last command, and by the requirements of what Geary saw as his duty. Enough of the then-commanders of the fleet’s ships had been swayed by one or more of those factors to agree to Geary’s assuming command. The entire process, of not just soliciting advice from subordinates but of cultivating their support for his own position in command, had struck Geary as outrageously wrong. Back then, he had only dimly grasped how badly a century of bloody war had battered the structure of the fleet and the nature of its officers.

He was fixing that. Slowly and all-too-often painfully, but meetings now tended to be much more professional. “My first order of business,” Geary said, “is to express my appreciation for the skill with which the fleet fought our last engagement. Well done.”

He would have had a great deal of trouble saying that if Captain Vente of what had been the latest Invincible (but was now a rapidly expanding ball of dust following the controlled detonation of its power core) had been present. However, as Vente was no longer a ship’s commanding officer, he had no right to attend this meeting. Right now Vente was sitting in a spare stateroom on Tanuki oblivious to this conference. “We took some losses, too,” Geary continued. “May the ancestors of the dead welcome them with the honor they deserve.”

Captain Badaya scowled, his eyes on the table’s surface. “We’ll avenge Invincible . Perhaps the Alliance will finally stop giving that ill-omened name to new battle cruisers.”

“It shouldn’t happen again,” Captain Vitali of Daring pointed out. “They’ve stopped building new ships since the war ended. There are no new battle cruisers under construction to give that name.”

Geary’s eyes went to meet the gaze of Captain Smythe, who made no gesture or expression but nonetheless conveyed his understanding of the same thing that Geary was thinking. There were new warships being constructed by the Alliance government if what Smythe and his staff had uncovered was true, but that fact was being kept secret from Geary and everyone else in this fleet. Why that was so was just one of the questions Geary had to resolve.

For now, it was best to get the conversation onto other tracks. “I want to make special note of the performance of Orion in the recent engagement.”

Commander Shen nodded gruffly in acknowledgment of Geary’s words as the other officers offered approving words and gestures. Most of the other officers, anyway. A few, perhaps out of lingering loyalty to the disgraced Captain Numos, kept their expressions neutral. And Captain Jane Geary seemed to be trying to suppress unhappiness at seeing Shen singled out.

“My crew deserves the credit,” Shen said, his habitually dissatisfied expression in full force. Shen was no diplomat and seemed oblivious to the idea of currying favor with his superiors, but Orion had fought well in the recent engagement, fought well for the first time in Geary’s experience with this fleet. Perhaps Desjani was right and, despite his rough edges, Shen would be the commander to finally turn Orion around.

“The second item,” Geary continued, “is what we know about how the aliens diverted that rock we fired at their orbital fortress. The answer at this point is nothing. You’ve all been given full access to the sensor readings. I’d like to hear your thoughts.”

Commander Neeson of Implacable spoke up first. “I thought initially that it might be magnetics. That is, a very powerful, highly focused magnetic field projected to divert anything fired at that fortress as long as it was the right kind of metal. But our sensors should have spotted a magnetic field that strong.”

Captain Hiyen of Reprisal nodded judiciously. “Yet the activity matched what we would have seen if that were the case. Which means it was something that acted like such a magnetic field. Perhaps it would be equally effective against nonmagnetic substances.”

“And this something would be… ?” Captain Duellos of Inspire asked.

“I have no idea,” Hiyen replied. “All I can say with confidence is that whatever it is must require an immense amount of power to generate.”

“I agree. More power than any ship could produce,” Neeson said.

Captain Tulev nodded, his voice somber. “So now we know why that fortress is so large. It must be to carry the power generators necessary to produce its defensive mechanism.”

Since the death of Captain Cresida, Neeson and Hiyen were two of the best surviving scientific theorists among the fleet’s officers. Having heard from the theorists, Geary looked to Captain Smythe. “What do the engineers think?”

Smythe spread his hands in a gesture of ignorance. “The consensus among my engineers is that the aliens can’t do that without, as the commander remarked, projecting very strong and localized magnetic fields. Which they did not. Therefore, in a practical sense, we have no idea how they did it.”

General Carabali, commander of the Marines embarked with the fleet, suddenly hit the table with her fist. “However they do it, their primary planet must have the same defense.”

Everyone looked at her, then Desjani nodded back. “It must. Good thing we didn’t waste any kinetic projectiles on a retaliatory bombardment.”

General Charban was still staring at Carabali. “That kind of defensive system would be invaluable to us. To render our planets invulnerable to bombardment from space…”

He didn’t have to finish the thought. During the century-long war with the Syndicate Worlds, uncounted numbers of human beings had died in such bombardments, and entire worlds had been devastated.

“How do we get it?” Rione asked, her voice harsh in the silence that had followed Charban’s statement. “I agree. It would be of incalculable value to us. But how do we get it? They won’t even talk to us. There’s been no response to any of our messages.”