The Lost Fleet Beyond the Frontier Invincible

“We don’t have either the time or the repair facilities,” Geary said, his eyes going to the part of his display showing considerable numbers of other alien warships, some of them massive but, fortunately, none of them close. After the fleet’s dash away from the orbital fortress guarding the jump point, that menace was now about seven light-minutes distant and getting farther away with every moment. Some of the alien warships were about three light-hours from the human fleet, but the main armada of alien warships had been identified at nearly four light-hours away, near the primary inhabited world in this star system. That armada wouldn’t even see the light from the human fleet’s arrival for another three hours; and then, even if they immediately accelerated on intercepts with the human force, would require days to get within range unless Geary decided to turn and race toward contact. But Invincible couldn’t maneuver, making her a sitting duck even if the aliens had been a week’s travel time distant. Looking at the huge warships that made up the center of the alien armada, superbattleships massing three times as large as the biggest human battleships, Geary had no intention of coming any closer to that armada than he had to. “Exactly what choices do I have, then?”

“Blow up Invincible or leave her for the, uh, whatever it is that lives here.” Smythe looked and sounded unhappy at having to lay out those options.

Geary knew that his frustration was showing, but he tried to keep it out of his voice. No one liked delivering bad news, but he had learned long ago how easily a commander could discourage anyone from passing on important information by reacting harshly to the bearers of unpleasant truths. “We can’t leave her. Not when the occupants of this star system have demonstrated such reflexive aggression toward us. I’ll order Invincible’s surviving crew members evacuated immediately. Have your engineers prepare her for scuttling, and make sure it’s complete. I don’t want anything left intact.”

Smythe nodded. “Invincible’s power core is still online. We can goose the output when we overload it to ensure nothing much is left but dust. However, I would very much appreciate the opportunity to take everything that I can off Invincible before then. She has a lot of equipment we can use instead of manufacturing new components for ships that need them.”

It should have been an easy decision. To an engineer like Smythe, it simply made sense to recover equipment from Invincible to use as spare parts for other ships. But . . . “Tanya?”

“Sir?”

“How would you feel about having parts from Invincible used for repair or replacement on Dauntless?”

She shook her head. “We don’t need that kind of bad-luck burden, Admiral.”

He had expected that answer. Sailors hadn’t changed for thousands of years. Why would they have changed in the hundred years that Geary had been locked in survival sleep? But he still tried to argue the point. “During the war with the Syndics, it must have been common to use salvaged parts.”

“Cannibalized parts,” Desjani corrected. “No. There wasn’t much opportunity, and just as well. When I was aboard Tulwar, we had some components off of the wreck of Buckler installed over our objections during an emergency refit between engagements. The stuff all failed as soon as we went into action.”

“Hasty work during an emergency refit—”

“It tested fine, but it was from a dead ship. We lost Tulwar when that gear went bad on us. No one in this fleet will want any pieces of Invincible aboard. Especially nothing from an Invincible.”

He wanted to order the equipment salvaged anyway, but Geary knew that Tanya’s attitude would be reflected on every ship in his fleet. Particularly given that the ship involved was the latest Invincible. Disbelieving popular superstition that ships named Invincible tended to be destroyed in action faster than other ships, Geary had looked up the statistics. And found in those statistics some grounds for supporting the superstition. Warships had come to have expected life spans measured in a couple of years at the most because of the bloody stalemate the war with the Syndicate Worlds had devolved into before Geary assumed command, but any warship named Invincible tended to have a significantly shorter existence than average. Maybe the living stars did find the name Invincible on a human warship to be too proud and provoking.

Turning back to Smythe, Geary shook his head. “No. Empty the spare-parts lockers on Invincible, but don’t tear out any installed equipment. I can’t afford the impact on morale of using anything that had been part of Invincible.”

Smythe assumed the expression of an engineer having to deal with lesser and irrational mortals. “It’s just equipment, Admiral. It’s not alive. It’s not haunted.”