Jack Campbell - Invincible

Around the battle cruisers ranged the light cruisers, while the destroyers formed up on the outer edges as well as the front and back of the formation. “All units in pursuit force, immediate execute accelerate to point two five light speed.”

The pursuit force began pulling away from the main body while the battleships, heavy cruisers, and destroyers were still getting into position in another oval, this one centered on the captured superbattleship, the assault transports and auxiliaries, and the battleships.

Geary realized that his pursuit force was rapidly gaining on the small spider-wolf formation, which had remained in the lead thus far. “General Charban, Emissary Rione, we need to notify the spider-wolf delegation that this force is heading back to Alliance space at high speed to engage the enigmas.”

Rione answered. “That message may exceed our vocabulary, Admiral, but we’ll do our best.”

What else? Something behind him. Another call. “Admiral Lagemann.”

Lagemann looked more than a little haggard but still cheerful. Given the rough living conditions on the captured ship, Geary was only surprised that the other admiral didn’t look worse. “I’m going ahead. Captain Armus is in charge of the formation around your ship. He won’t let anything through to you.”

“Thank you, Admiral,” Lagemann replied. “If something does get through, I’ve got an impressive force of Marines to defend my ship. I never imagined going into combat in something like this.”

“We’ll try to keep you out of combat.”

“Well,” Lagemann said, waving a hand around to indicate his surroundings, “if worse comes to worst, at least there’s a lot of armor and a lot of mass between us and whoever is attacking. Did I tell you that I’ve christened my ship?”

“No,” Geary said. “You gave it a name?”

“Yes. A fitting name. I’m tired of hearing my ship called BKS or LCCO or RBST or—”

“RBST?” Geary asked.

“Really Big Slow Target. I came up with a much better name.” Lagemann grinned. “This is the latest Invincible , Admiral.”

Lagemann might be pleased by the joke but Geary didn’t think that Desjani or a lot of other sailors would be. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Yes, I do. First, because it’s so damned big and hard to destroy. Second, because it’s already been defeated and captured once. It’s already been proven not to be truly Invincible . Maybe the Kicks thought of it that way, but we showed them wrong.” Lagemann smiled again. “So you see, naming it Invincible is our acknowledgment of their error in thinking they could construct a ship too big and too tough to be defeated.”

In a strange way, that almost made sense. “You’re assuming that the living stars appreciate irony.”

“Good heavens, Admiral, look at the universe. If whatever created and oversees it doesn’t appreciate irony, how else do you explain some of the things in the universe? How else do explain us, the human race?”

Admiral Lagemann had a point. “How does your crew feel about the name?” It wasn’t a very big crew, especially compared to the size of the superbattleship, only about a hundred officers and sailors plus the Marines.

“Surprisingly accepting,” Lagemann said. “Some of them are off of the last Invincible , and all of them like the idea of trying to break the curse of that name. And, of course, the Marines are all in favor of being a threat magnet.”

“Really?” Geary asked.

“All right, the Marines aren’t actually all that thrilled, but they still like the thickness of the armor on this thing. Excuse me, on the new Invincible .”

“I’ll say good luck, then, and we’ll see you at Midway.” Geary broke the connection, looking over at Desjani. “Did you hear any of that?”

She had a horrified expression on her face, which gradually shaded into mere disbelief. “He’s willing to do that? He’s crazier than Benan.”

“If he calls that hulk Invincible , then the fleet can’t name any new ships Invincible , right?”

Desjani’s expression shifted to calculation. “Right. I think. And those superbattleships are very hard to kill.” She gestured toward her display. Geary saw that Desjani had opened a large virtual window that showed a view of the bear-cow ship—the Invincible , he corrected himself. Close-up, he saw the same armored hull he had last viewed this way during the Marine assault. The impression of strength was overwhelming in that surface of metal and composites, in some places pitted and scored by hits and in most others smooth and bright so that the stars themselves seemed to reflect in the dark surface.

“How do you make armor that thick?” Geary wondered.

“I imagine that’s one of the things our own engineers and scientists will try to learn,” Desjani said. “It’s not my thing. I like speed and agility as well as power. But even I look at that hull, the size of that ship, and think, ‘Wow, that is cool.’”

“But it’s not really invincible.”

“No, of course not. But that Admiral Lagemann may be right. It’s a way of saying, ‘We get it, living stars. We know this name doesn’t fit even this ship because we’ve proven that it doesn’t.’”

They were interrupted by a call. Geary gazed into the solemn face of Dr. Nasr. “Two more of the bear-cows died during our transit here from Hua,” the chief medical officer said. “As nearly as we can tell, they were oversedated, but that’s not a certainty.”

That left three living Kick prisoners. Geary looked away, feeling sick inside. “Why won’t they let us save them?”

“We’ve discussed this, Admiral. To them, we’re only saving them for a future meal with fresh meat.”

“Doctor, I’d like your honest opinion. What’s the right thing to do here?”

Nasr sighed. “Admiral, the guiding rule of my profession is not to harm. That sounds like a simple rule, but any doctor with any experience will tell you that it can lead to severe dilemmas if you take the rule seriously. We tried to do the right thing as we saw it, to treat the injuries of the wounded bear-cows and save their lives. And we did that not just out of self-interest but because we truly wanted a chance to establish communications with their species. But you know the saying about the road to hell. Our best intentions have created a situation where every option is bad.

“They’re going to die, Admiral. We don’t know enough about their metabolism, about their bodies. Either we will oversedate them, or we will undersedate them. A moment of consciousness, of awareness, and the bear cows will end their own lives. Enough oversedation, and they’ll die anyway.”

Geary stared at the doctor. “You’re telling me I should let them die?”

“No. I can’t do that. What I am telling you is that they will die, the only question being when and where. You can order me to reduce sedation, or order me to increase it. Or tell me that we should continue to try to tread the narrow line to keep them going as long as possible.”

“Doctor, I can’t tell you to kill them. Will they suffer if we keep trying to do our best?”

“Suffer? No. They’ll simply go from sedated to dead, or from sedated to aware to dead. I don’t know if the dying process hurts, but from the readings we got on the one who killed himself and the autopsy, it doesn’t seem to cause trauma. Instead, the body floods itself with chemicals and hormones that block pain and might well create delusions while they cause metabolic functions to very quickly shut down.”

It sounded almost pleasant. No pain. Perhaps visions of whatever the dying creature most wanted to see. Comfort. But to deliberately cause even that to happen… “Maintain your efforts to keep them alive. Those are our rules. I admit that. But those are the only rules I can use.”