The Lost Fleet Beyond the Frontier Invincible

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?”